The Nth Degree

Stupidity knows no bounds, but in my experience is especially prevalent in people who always feel the need to prove their intelligence. If the first thing someone does to defend their position  is to point at their license or degree, chances are  very good they’re completely inept.  Recently I had a discussion with someone who reminded me just how offensive it is to even try to communicate with these idiots.

Techno GripeMy very first experience with someone who had a master’s degree in computer science was my first duty station supervisor in the military. This LT (JG)  was in charge of the base computer systems, and I was his first and only enlisted staff member. I had never touched a conventional computer before, knew absolutely nothing about them, and was, of course, immediately tasked with building hundreds of computers from parts and then shortly thereafter tasked with being the security point of contact for all the military users of  tens of thousands of computers across every military base on the entire West coast of the US.

The  problem is that the LT  was a degreed idiot. He may have passed a few tests and had a pretty piece of paper with his  name on it,  but he had no clue how technology actually worked, he didn’t understand the very basic concept of Boolean values and could not even comprehend what a batch file was.

Seeing that I’d get no help or answers from him, I took the  manuals home and  read them cover to  cover, read the entire IETF RFC library and many technical books on the subject  over the course of my first few weeks at that assignment. Then  I spent eight months trying to gracefully educate him on these basics…and in his gratitude he took every opportunity to treat me like crap for having a better understanding of technology than he did after years and years of his “education.”

Fast forward a few years. When my son was a toddler we spent a lot of time with his friends’ parents. One lady in particular (Maria, a college professor) drove me quite batty. Most of her family were MD’s and many in my family were DC’s, so,  knowing only this,  she treated me like a pariah. Maria would take her son to urgent care if he slept in late, had a headache or dared to talk back to her. In her mind, these were all major defects and something just had to be wrong with him.  As you can expect, this poor child was one of those kids who was branded ADHD before he could talk.

Maria stepped on my every nerve, but one specific incident stands out. She was in the middle of telling me how chiropractors frequently paralyze their patients (a flat-out lie), and I pointed out that MD’s are far more lethal than guns. In point of fact, your MD is  about 300x more likely to kill you than a gun. Not wanting to make it personal by suggesting that Maria’s family were incompetent or homicidal psychopaths, I followed that up with this simple  statement: “but you have to remember that 50% of all doctors graduate in the bottom half of their class.”

She stood there glaring at me, aghast, her jaw dropped to the floor, for what felt like a full minute. The other parents and even the children in the room were completely silent while  we  waited, watching intently  for  her response.  The only sound was the air conditioner chugging away.

Finally, she screamed, “no they don’t!” The other parents and some of the children couldn’t even contain their laughter. This woman was so high-and-mighty, perpetually attacking everything and everyone she disagreed with,  but couldn’t do fifth-grade math?  Apparently, the reason 7,500 people die each year from pharmaceutical errors is that simple mathematics are beyond the scope of medical school.

But this all pales in comparison to what happened with my latest experience with another degreed idiot. A client’s site had both an email account and an ftp account hijacked within 24 hours. The passwords  had both been randomly generated, were not brute-forced,  and only this one person, Jane,  had access to both of them.  I asked the client to talk to her and have her scan her computer for malware so we could ensure the machine wouldn’t be compromised again after a password reset. The client forwarded me a message from Jane where Jane clearly stated that she had not been infected and that it couldn’t have been related to her.

I took the time to be sure and again reviewed the logs. The only tie for these two accounts was definitely Jane, but, she was quite adamant that she had not been infected. I wrote a very civil and respectful message to her asking her to scan again, along with my regular advice for security, and the common compromise mechanisms for the specific hijack I suspected. I even offered to login and verify that the machine was actually clean and safe.

Jane wrote back absolutely livid that I would dare suggest security changes or that she might have ever been infected. After all, and I quote, “My husband and I both have Master’s degrees in computer science…” The most compelling proof of this was that she didn’t use a single carriage return in her 350+ word message. Apparently she obtained her degree before keyboards included a return or enter key.

She also went into greater detail about how she had actually been infected, and it was none of my business, but even though neither of the antivirus programs on her computer could remove it, she was just sure it was gone now. Not interested in keeping it civil, she took several swipes at my character, my skill level and my education – including a statement about how my message to her was a perfect example of why IT workers  were justifiably hated.

I wrote her again, maintaining my civil and respectful tone (my professional policy is to “kill ’em with kindness”). I reassured her that it was not a personal  attack, and that she was the only one with access to both accounts.

As expected, her response was absurd, and only proved her level of incompetence. Remember: master’s degree in computer science, okay? She explained how there was never an “infection,” though there actually were files detected by both her antivirus programs whenever she opened her browser that  both antivirus programs  were each  incapable of removing…but just because there were infected files detected by both her antivirus programs doesn’t mean she was ever actually “infected.” And because I clearly needed the reminder, “you don’t know who you’re dealing with or what you’re talking about.” Topping it off, her firewall is “locked down tight.” As if firewalls had anything to do with normal browsing behavior. I’ll bet she regularly deletes her browser cookies for her “security,” too. Sigh.

Out of curiosity, and because I “didn’t know who I was dealing with”, I googled her name and location to see just how bad the state of the world was. Not surprisingly, this woman teaches computer science at a university. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t even feign surprise. Abrasive, defensive, ignorant and technologically incompetent. Yep, that sounds about right. She simply must be teaching computer science at a university somewhere. What’s more: her husband manages the campus IT network. It finally makes sense that about 30% of all hacking attempts against our servers are from college and university IP addresses.

The most appalling thing to me is that these people each felt so justified in their behavior that they were prepared to scream it from the rooftops. Not knowing that 50% and half mean the same thing, or that an infection is an infection (but especially when your antivirus is incapable of removing it), is a sign of extremely defective reasoning. These are the “experts” for military, medicine  and education, at least in their own heads.  They are so set in their opinions that facts, reason and logic are simply vulgar words to them. These people shape the minds of technology today.

And people still wonder why Windows 8 didn’t have a start button.

What I’ve really learned from these experiences is that my policy of being nice “no matter what” is the real source of this problem. Would the LT have still treated me so poorly had I not tried to help him understand the problems with his decisions? Would Maria have still had her abrasive behavior had I not taken the effort to allow her an out? Would Jane have attacked my character had I not offered to help her? We’ll never know.

Gates Vaccine Crimes

Why haven’t the courts here in this country taken these peddlers of death and disease to task? Read just part of the charges against them…

Gates Foundation, WHO, PATH, GAVI, UNICEF Behind Chad
Vaccine Disaster

English: A Somali boy receives a polio vaccina...

A Somali boy receives a polio vaccination at the Tunisian hospital in Mogadishu. The hospital treats local diseases, malnutrition, and other injuries.

In December 2012, in the small village of Gouro, Chad, Africa, situated on the edge of the Sahara Desert, five hundred children were locked into their school, threatened that if they did not agree to being force-vaccinated with a meningitis A vaccine, they would receive no further education.These children were vaccinated without their parents’ knowledge. This vaccine was an unlicensed product still going through the third and fourth phases of testing.

Within hours, one hundred and six children began to suffer from headaches, vomiting, severe uncontrollable convulsions and paralysis. The children’s wait for a doctor began. They had to wait one full week for a doctor to arrive while the team of vaccinators proceeded to vaccinate others in the village. [Read more…]

Then to add insult to injury…

After being shuttled around like cattle, many of these sick, weak children were finally dumped back in their village without a diagnosis and each family was given an unconfirmed sum of £1000 by the government. No forms were signed and no documentation was seen. They were informed that their children had not suffered a vaccine injury.

They are playing with the lives of our children and Bill Gates, among others, must be stopped before they injure or kill all our children.  Gates has publicly stated he can lower the worlds population by the use of vaccines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TyAJZVARPw

Environment, Parties & People

I used to be a very conservative Republican, until I woke up and realized all the games being played by the politicians, the corporations and those with power and money.  I still can’t believe the way the Republicans behaved during the last election. [Read: Republican National Convention Rules Changes and Dirty Tricks]

The general gist of the idea as it was portrayed by the people who were behind the proposed rules changes was to prevent a hostile takeover of the Republican Party and the National Convention by members of the Ron Paul contingent, the Ron Paul Revolution and the Campaign for Liberty. And without Mr. Blackwell present who is by no means a Ron Paul supporter and the members of the Virginia delegation present, the resistance to the proposed rules changes just faded away.

So what are the rules that were at issue and how were they changed? The two rules that were at stake were Rule #12 and Rule #15. Generally the changes in the rules shift power from the State and County Republican Parties to the National Party and the RNC, and to the Party’s Presidential nominee. That would be Mitt Romney. The changes in the rules are already being referred to as “The Romney Rules.” They effectively disenfranchise conservative activists of all kinds all across America. They disenfranchise TEA Party Activists, and not just Ron Paul supporters! Both the TEA Party Movement and the Ron Paul supporters sprung up as a result of the intransigence of the old school, old paradigm politicians, but instead of listening to the growing cries from the grassroots, the Establishment essentially muted the volume and turned them flat down!

Needless to say, I’m never voting for them again!  It’s just not going to happen. Period.

But I’m curious.  That wasn’t fair, honest and upright.  Where is the law?  You read about all these crimes being committed by government officials but they are not being prosecuted.  Why not?  Are the police so busy busting drug “offenders” that they can’t find the time to bust the ones who are really hurting people?

So, I switched to the Libertarian Party.  I agree with them on most stances, except I am not for gay rights.  The gay rights movement has harmed more people than it’s helped.  As more and more of our children get caught up in the lies, being taught to them beginning as early as Kindergarten about their bodies.  It’s just not normal to educate children on this topic so young and by presenting it as natural or normal we may as well be encouraging it.  Tipping the scales.

Any parent knows that children are easily manipulated.

I’m so fed up because I don’t fit in anywhere.  I hate what Obama has done to our country.  I hate that he’s not being held accountable and his supporters are not being held accountable.  The only thing that gives me hope is the American People. I know have seen them rise to the occasion and turn things around.  And with God all things are possible.  I have not lost faith in this country or it’s people.

MarkBoyle(tea)Cropped

Here is one man who gets it.

The Man Who Lives Without Money

by  Amanda Froelich

Think you couldn’t live without money? Irishman Mark Boyle challenged this notion and here’s how he finds life with no financial income, bank balance, and no spending.

“If someone told me seven years ago, in my final year of a business and economics degree, that I’d now be living without money, I’d have probably choked on my microwaved ready meal.” According to Boyle, the plan back then was to ‘get a good job’, make as much money as possible, and buy the stuff that would show society he was successful.
[Read more]

I think the Democrats have great ideas when it comes to the environment and the foods we eat.  They’ve introduced bills to label GMO’s.  Wonder why no one is talking about banning GMO’s?   This big huge fight over a label?  Get real.  They simply don’t care.  They aren’t serious about protecting us, the people.  The Green Party is just the opposite, they care only about the environment.

We have to live here.  People matter!

We need to do what’s best for wildlife, people and the environment.  Obviously, poisoning our land, the place we live, is not a good idea.  The ocean has been irradiated, ocean life are dead or dying.  What is being done?  Our government isn’t even talking about it.  Nothing.

We must be the change we want to see in the world.  It’s a process but we have to start somewhere.  Look around you.  What can you do?

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