‘Whatever’ Category
The Blizzard of 2010
The Bane of Basenjis
We usually work late into the night, but rarely shovel snow at 3:00 AM.
This morning is an exception.
The snow has been accumulating for the past eleven hours, and we’re not sure of the official measurement – we’d guess at least a foot so far – but when we threw our Basenji bitch into the night, she splayed her legs and her paws didn’t hit the ground. (Don’t worry, other dog lovers, we quickly retrieved her and found our boots and coat and began shoveling. Also, being Western Pennsylvania, nothing is flat, and there is immediately two steps down so the depth was difficult to estimate.)
Our other Boots, Our Poster Boy for the Credit Crisis, didn’t make it outside the first time. When we opened the door, they both stood there staring at the vast, cold whiteness, and when we grabbed her, he made a run for it – in the opposite direction.
They (and we) hadn’t been outside since the snow began to accumulate, and we figured that there would be about six inches on the ground – not easy for a Basenji, but not worth shoveling until the morning.
Boy, were we wrong!
So, while everyone slept, we shoveled the walkway from their exit door to their entrance door and a bit of the patio. With drifting, it is already 18 — 24 inches in places, and according to the weather radar there is no let up in sight.
Fortunately, we live on the top of a hill and even when the temperature is in the high twenties, the snow is light and fluffy – well, as light as two feet of show can be. (For some reason, a few hundred feet of elevation makes a HUGE difference in the consistency of it.)
If you live near the East Coast, good luck and be careful on Saturday.
‘Dick’ and ‘John’ are Homographs!
And So Is ‘Gay’
In fact, students of historical linguistics could tell you that many other words are homographs, too, and those students could also explain semantic change, including the pejoration and reclamation of words. (Don’t be a fool, you know where this is heading.)
We doubt that we have much in common with President Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, but we do sympathize with him for the grief he is taking for using ‘retarded’ as a pejorative.
Was it poor judgment? Sure. Should he have known better? Of course. Are we italicizing homographs? You know it. (Actually, because we are lazy and didn’t major in linguistics, only the homographs that are easy to identify and only the first time, but we’ll stop now.)
So, while politically we tend to agree with his critics like Sarah Palin, in this case we think that she and all the other cynical or pious grievance-mongers should grow-up, shut-up and go away.
If you are aggrieved by something that a stranger said about someone else in a place where you weren’t approximately six months ago, then you, dear reader, are either a cynical, politically-motivated d.b. or you are a humorless scold – possibly a bit too sensitive and possibly with deep emotional problems.
In fact, it would do everyone – individually and collectively – much good to remember that on occasion, everyone behaves like a butthead, but there is a huge difference between malicious behavior and simply making a mistake in the heat of the moment.
In our mind, that difference is nearly analogous to Saint Francis de Sales’ distinction between sin and imperfection; however, in this case we have a different ‘Francis’ quote in mind. That would be one spoken by Sargeant Hulka in the 1981 movie, Stripes. When one of the recruits states, “… Any of you guys call me Francis, and I’ll kill you,” the good sergeant replies, Lighten Up, Francis.”
So, lighten up, Sarah and posse. There are too many important issues where he is on the wrong side to worry about a silly one like this one.
What ‘Miranda’ Rights?
For the past few weeks, it seems that every day we hear at least one news presenter or commentator complain that would-be bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, stopped talking after he was “read his Miranda rights.”
We find that very irritating because as a foreign national and enemy combatant, he has no such rights; so, they could not be “read to him.”
The fact that an FBI agent read or explained the Miranda warning to him does not confer those rights upon him.
The largest error was not or is not that he was given a warning that did not then and does not now apply to him. Instead, the largest error is that he continues to be treated as a criminal rather than as an enemy combatant.
So, the initial FBI error (of attempting to confer rights upon someone who does not have them) is correctable. Instead of complaining about the actions of FBI agents on Christmas Day, critics should continue to focus on the wimpiness and stupidity of the Obama administration for continuing to treat an enemy-of-the-state like a shoplifter.
Mr. Obama, take your inaugural pledge seriously, and send him to Gitmo.
Idle Speculation about Spam and Terrorists
This post is apropos of nothing and merely idle speculation on our part.
Since the start of the new year, we have written several times about intelligence failures and bad information designs.
With the recent news and those recent posts percolating in our head, we watched the television show, NCIS, last night. In the episode, the intelligence network/community intercepts an e-mail in real-time from DiNozzo’s father – the perfectly-cast Robert Wagner – because he mentions a combination of keywords related to the case under investigation.
When asked how they came by the information (about the e-mail and from where it was sent), Gibbs, the team leader, replies, “Echelon,” which according to Wikipedia, is supposed to be a monitoring system for various types of communications.
Now, it’s likely that the government monitors some (or possibly many) types of internet traffic, including e-mails and web sites of suspected terrorists and enemies of the United States.
There’s a lot of traffic and a lot to monitor (and a lot to block if you are so inclined – just ask the Chinese government).
That made us wonder how such agencies would eliminate categories to search. In particular, if they do monitor e-mail, we wonder if they monitor spam or unsolicited bulk e-mail. We wonder because those widely-broadcast messages would to be a category that is very easy one to eliminate. In other words, we could hear some analyst say, “it’s just some spam; don’t bother with it.”
In that case, it would seem to be an excellent way to send coded messages. Like BBC radio broadcasts during World War II, a seemingly innocuous – albeit, in this case, offensive and annoying – email message could be sent to thousands or millions with only one intended recipient capable of decoding its true message. No need to encrypt it and draw suspicion. In fact, many of the other recipients would never open the message and, depending on their spam filter settings may never even know they received it.
Presuming our intelligence agencies do monitor certain types of e-mail, we wonder if they do completely ignore spam, and if so, whether anyone takes advantage of that fact?
Good for Google!
We applaud Google and its threat to leave China as a response to recent hacking attempts.
Last month, we wrote about A Rise in Internet Hacking Attempts at this site, and all of those hits seemed to originate from within China. (Whether they were spoofed or not, we can’t tell.)
The number per day peaked over the Christmas break and has since decreased.
We have no idea if there is a relationship between what Google discovered and what we noticed here. We doubt it because we’re tiny and have almost no following and in two years have written only four or five posts criticizing China. However, we have not seen similar attacks at any of the other sites that we maintain.
We would like Google to publish a list of offending IP addresses to shine further light on the issue and so that folks like us can see if there are any matches.
Pizza Shop Pet Peeve
Once upon a time, many years ago, our queen and chairman worked with someone who asked, “how big is an eight-inch cake?” More than twenty years later, we still laugh about it, and when we’re together and hear a stupid question, we’ll look at each other and ask, “now, exactly how big is an eight-inch cake?”
This evening, while she is recovering from a cold, we went to a local pizza shop to fetch dinner. While we were waiting for our order to bake, we overheard the cashier who was on the telephone. Presumably, she was answering that very common question, “what sizes are your pizzas?” because she said, “a large has twelve cuts, a medium has eight cuts, and a small has six cuts.” She almost seemed annoyed that she had to explain it.
We laugh when we ask the same question and get an answer denominated in slices. Now, we don’t need the answer to be expressed in square inches (or even something foreign like square centimeters), but we would like to know the diameter. That tells us a bit more about the size than the number of slices.
We think that if we ever open a pizza shop, we’ll make only twelve-inch pizzas. So, when people ask “how large is a twelve inch pizza,” we’ll answer that there are three sizes: six, eight, and twelve cuts, and that our twelve-cut pies cost twice as much as six-cut pies because, you know, there are twice as many slices.
Happy New Year, 2010!
We wish you a happy, healthy, prosperous, and peaceful new year.
In particular, we make that wish for two groups of especially brave individuals: (1) our fellow citizens of the United States, who defend our nation, especially those in harm’s way in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other locations throughout the world, and (2) the brave Iranian freedom-fighters who only want what we enjoy and often take for granted: freedom from tyranny and oppression.
May each of you have a blessed new year.
Why Must NBC Degrade Its Viewers?
(The Other Networks Are No Better)
Our younger princess wanted to watch the Rose Parade this morning; so, we tuned into NBC’s broadcast and half-dozed next to her while she watched.
That’s when we heard the promo for an upcoming episode of a show that we’ve never watched. Some guy asks, “How was the sex?” Some girl answers, “It was like making love to America.” At least, that’s what we think we heard.
Now, we’re not sure what her answer means. She didn’t say anything about receiving payments from the country; so, presumably she is not a prostitute – just a slut. Taking her at her word, presumably, she has some type of addiction or compulsion, and we’d infer that she very likely carries a multitude of STDs.
Now that’s must-see TV!
No one has ever mistaken us for a prude, but really, what elementary-school-aged child needs to be exposed to that?
… And the networks wonder why they continue to hemorrhage viewers.
It’s difficult enough to command the “Mute” button on the remote during sporting events when we’re fully awake. We do that because we see no reason why we need to explain to someone in a primary grade about the use or need of Viagra, Cialis, or dual, cast-iron tubs in outdoor settings.1
So, we ask: why should it be necessary to maintain such vigilance or pre-screen what should have been a “G-rated” broadcast of a “G-rated” parade?
It shouldn’t be necessary. We suspect that someone who (1) hates families or young children and (2) has extremely poor judgment chose to run the spot. Perhaps the grownups are on vacation during the holidays. Perhaps, not. Regardless, it makes us wonder: what’s wrong with those people?
Perhaps, subsequently, one of the parade announcers apologized for the inappropriate promotion. We doubt it, and didn’t get the chance to see; our lovely, quick-fingered wife switched off the set before we could.
We doubt that she is the only mom that did.
- We couldn’t explain the tubs even if we wanted. ↩
A Rise in Internet Hacking Attempts
For the last six weeks or so, we’ve seen a huge increase in the number of internet hacking attempts of our site.
We don’t take it personally, and we doubt those attempts are related to anything that we do or say, but we have very nice ways to track both “eyeballs” and robot visits to this site; so, we notice such things. We’re surprised that the trend at our site, which we first observed in the beginning of November, seems to be accelerating in recent weeks. (If we did take it personally, we’d be a bit flattered.)
Here’s a sample from one of our statistics packages from early this morning:

While there are a few legitimate queries on the list, notice the attempts to access databases and upload files.
The best that we can determine, and we’re no expert on the subject, most of those attempts come from bots in China. (If they are not from China, then someone is spoofing Chinese addresses and hosting services because when we click on the blue numbers shown above, we get “whois” reports, and they all specify Chinese locations.)
To us, it is a reminder to keep strong passwords, run server and application exploit scanners, and deal with a quality hosting firm that’s looking out for us, in our case that’s Fused Network.
Updated Theme
We have been experimenting with new graphics software and filters and decided to up-date our template/theme at Spero Consulting’s web site.
The theme is mostly blue on 80% of the PCs at world headquarters but has a strange, purplish cast on our other screens.
We will make changes as we find items that annoy us, and we ask regular visitors and friends for feedback and to report any problems. Thanks.
Sherlock Holmes?
So, we’ve seen the previews for the new “Sherlock Holmes” movie. (Note that we are not using the quotation marks in the previous sentence just to denote a movie title. No, we’re using them doubly in an ironic way, too, as “scare quotes.”)
For many years, we have thoroughly enjoyed reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short stories and novels (novellas, whatever) regarding the remarkable detective, his powers of inference and deduction, and his faithful and observant sidekick, Dr. Watson. (Remember, it is the doctor who relays the occurrences, events, and facts of the cases.)
We also enjoyed various movies and shows featuring the detective, particular the PBS series starring the late, great Jeremy Brett. That series was extremely – though not completely – loyal to the original stories. That fidelity, along with the excellent cast, made many of those episodes some of the best in the history of television.
Sherlock Who?
Based upon the previews that we’ve seen it seems that other than (1) the names of the two main characters, (2) the late Victorian time period, and (3) the London location, there is little in the movie that was in Conan Doyle’s stories.
- Holmes handcuffed naked to a bed? No, we don’t remember that.
- Holmes in a version of late 19th century fight club? No, we don’t remember that, either.
- How about Watson punching Holmes in the nose while they sit in a coach because Holmes insults him? No, maybe its our bad memory, but we don’t remember that, either.
Perhaps the movie’s director(s) and producer(s) rewrote the stories because they believe that they are far more clever and entertaining than Conan Doyle.
If that’s the case, then based upon the evidence that we’ve seen, their theory doesn’t fit the facts. That bad taste isn’t criminal, but it is egregious.
P.S. We wonder if the sequel will be named Sherlock and Hooch or maybe Holmes and Scooby Doo Investigate the Haunted House?
Hermaphroditic Fish Tunes
What’s Up with the Wuss Music in So Many TV Commercials Nowadays?
Since we’ve returned to Western Pennsylvania, we’ve seen numerous reports in the local news about high levels of estrogen in rivers and streams along with the coincident discovery of many hermaphroditic fish by folks who are interested in fish genitals. (Given that the study of fish genitals has little-to-no practical value, these folks seem to be employed by universities and state governments, which we further suppose keeps them off of the street and safely away from the general public.)
Supposedly, the high levels of estrogen are due to the widespread use of birth control pills, and from that we surmise that estrogen isn’t extracted from waste water at sewage treatment plants; so, it remains in the water at highly-concentrated levels.
We suspect the visitor could read all about it on the web – well, not at our site – but we’re really not that interested in the effect on fish. Moreover, we don’t know if there were a lot of hermaphroditic fish in Western PA before there were birth control pills.
Instead, we wish to offer evidence that the estrogen is being recirculated into the drinking water supply (or at least the bottled water supply) and is having a detrimental effect on society. What evidence? We cite the music in many of the new television commercials this Fall.
We don’t mean the Cat Stevens song for the Google cell phone. He makes Raffi seem like a silverback gorilla, but we suspect that song was written before there was much estrogen in the general water supply, and we have no information about what the former Mr. Stevens drank when he wrote that nonsense. (Actually, if you want to sing out, shut up – unless you have a good voice or something useful to say. Otherwise, you’re just being a nuisance.)
We mean the song in one of the new Subaru commercials – the one where the dorky husband loses his sunglasses in his hoodie – and we think in a Jeep commercial, and a few others products, too. We can’t remember the other ads that have the wuss music, because we tend not to pay much attention to commercials. It’s more that we’ve noticed (and been bothered by) the bad background music despite not really paying attention to the set.
Last month, we wrote about another annoying Subaru – the mean-spirited one – in We Really Dislike the Latest Subaru Ad. Yes, we really don’t like Subaru ads. Most of them remind us of the old Saturn ads where Saturn owners would go to Tennessee to hang out with each other: very, very dorky. If one has an overwhelming need to affiliate with other folks who bought the same economy car, then one has deep, deep, problems.
The songs are all from the same genre, which we’d describe as wimpy, folksy, hippyish, almost whiny, and very annoying. Yeah, kind of like Cat Stevens, but even more feminine. (We’re not sure if they are popular songs, and, in fact, we take pride in not knowing.) Actually, the song we mentioned in the above-reference post as being very evocative of the typical Subaru ad, is a canonical example of the genre: “I Gave My Love A Cherry,” which as the reader may recall, was the song being sung by the folkie in Animal House before Blutto (John Belushi) grabbed his guitar and smashed it against the wall.
On second thought, we’re wondering if, in fact, the fish researchers don’t have it wrong. They seem to imply a causation that perhaps does not exist. Perhaps, the fish became hermaphroditic by listening to the music, and the increase in estrogen levels in the water is just a coincidence. (Unless, it is coming from the fish.)
We promise to update this post with the names of the other products when we see those commercials, but there seems to be a fad starting, and we want to help crush it early on. Here’s one: the Radio Shack ad where someone is singing something about icicles falling. Here’s another one: an Amazon Kindle commercial. Here’s another: the Chrysler Town and Country ad where the women go to the beach. In that one, the camera fixates on the lower back of one of the bikini-clad women. To be clear, despite the insipid tune we have no problem with that part of the commercial.
A not-yet-pithy Aphorism
Or, It’s Hard to Win an Argument against Fools!
For a variety of reasons, we haven’t posted much lately. That is partially due to the fact that we have been extremely busy with both revenue-generating activities and non-profit, volunteer activities.
One of those activities involves mitigating the effects of a decent-sized mess created by others. (What other kind of mess is there, we joke?)
While pondering the effects of that effort, we thought of an interesting aphorism; however, as yet, we’re not sure if our current phrasing is as pithy as we’d like. This one’s along the lines that “nothing is foolproof because fools are so ingenuous.” (We first felt the sting of that one many years ago when writing Lotus 1−2−3 macros for commercial bankers. “How could they do that to my beautiful program!” we would frequently whine – with just cause.)
Now, our recent efforts made us realize that: ignoring good luck, it takes less wit (and guile and cleverness) to defeat the efforts of a worthy opponents than it does to defeat the concerted efforts of (a group of) unworthy ones.
Of course, we’re using the word ‘opponent’ to signify someone with an different preferred outcomes (than one’s own) but not necessarily a sworn enemy for life. We have in mind colleagues or co-workers or co-volunteers. One is most likely to observe such an outcome in a civil situation, but for what we have in mind, the phrase “civil discourse” gives too much credit to the other side.
We think it’s true because it is easier to argue against a reasonable or thoughtful person’s position than it is to rebut the impulses and non sequiturs of shallow, inconsiderate folks. The latter are no-win situations. How does one argue against impulses, non sequiturs, or well-known fallacies held dear as truth? Ah, if we knew that we’d attempt to share it with like-minded Senators and Congressman as they try to prevent nationalization of health care. Given that, maybe one corollary should be: it takes less wit (and guile and cleverness) to defeat the efforts of a worthy, intelligent opponent than it does to defeat a government bureaucracy.
Epilogue: by the way, we started thinking along these lines when we were explaining a situation to a reasonable friend. We’re were relaying to him a conversation with another person, in which we attempted to persuade that party to change their decision, which had quite messy implications. As we explained to our friend, our position was well-reasoned, and our adversary’s position was not. If the discussion were about the best defense to use in a particular basketball game, the other person’s position would be equivalent to, “we’re going to play zone defense today because it’s going to rain tomorrow.”
Our friend, being a bright, reasonable person – if a bit naïve – agreed with us and remarked that, “Well, what you said makes sense. So, they listened to you and changed their mind, right?” We remarked that, sadly, no. Our friend’s conclusion that we were successful was wrong, and our explanation to him was depressingly simple: without our help, the third party had made a decision based upon irrelevant facts and had ignored relevant implications; so, why would they bend to reason when it was explained to them? They wouldn’t and they didn’t. Yeah, as the subtitle reads, it’s hard to win an argument against fools.
P.S. We’re not writing about folks with a deep understanding of game theory or whatever, who are trying to act stupid or behave irrationally as a strategy. Sometimes it’s useful and wealth-maximizing to play dumb, but that’s a different story for another day.
If Only Chevrolets* Ran Like Honda Mowers
*Make that all GMs.
For several months, Chevrolet has been running a commercial that compares it automobiles with similar ones from Honda.
In it, Howie Long, the former NFL star, compares three types of vehicles. Near the end of the ad, Mr. Long mentions that Honda does make something with which Chevy just can’t compete.…and the cameras pans to a Honda lawn mower. The viewer is supposed to laugh.
Now, we’ve used the same Honda mower for nearly as long as we’ve owned a Suburban, and we only wish – if only, if only – that the Suburban were half as reliable as the Honda.
So far, the Honda mower has needed to be repaired once: this past summer, after many, many years of service, the main gasket broke and engine leaked oil.
What of the Suburban’s unreliability? Let us count the ways. The Suburban’s folder in the file cabinet is over an inch thick. Here are a few of the breakdowns and repairs that we can remember:
- Automatic transmission? Why, yes, of course!
- Air conditioning compressor(s)? Yes, both the front and rear.
- Electrical system? Yes.
- Catalytic converter? Yep.
- Muffler! Uh huh.
- Rust? Affirmative – in a few spots no less.
- Wheel cylinder? That too.
- Windshield wiper motor and control? Yeah.
- Back door lock? Oui.
- Starter? Si.
We realize that the Suburban does more and has more parts than the Honda lawn mower, but our experience with a Honda Odyssey isn’t very different than the mower: no real problems in nearly three years of use. Moreover, the Suburban did cost about 75 times as much as the mower.
So, while Chevrolet and its pitchman may laugh and smirk at Honda’s mowers, we wish their vehicles could perform as well. In fact, we’d settle for half as well.
The Bartman, R.I.P.
The Smiling Dog
Usually, if we mention a personal experience, we try to link it to a broader point. Today, however, we write for no other reason than to eulogize Bart, Bart, the Basenji part: our loyal non-Basenji for the past fourteen-and-one-half years.
After a brief, but sharp decline, Bart quietly passed-away on Monday.

He did it with the same meekness and gentleness of spirit in which he lived his life with us. He waited for Jill to wake in the mid-afternoon – she has the flu – and carry him into the grass in his beloved backyard. He stood on all fours, fell to his right (near his favorite Alberta Spruce target) and was gone.
Bart was at least fifteen, which is a nice, long life for a dog. So, no tears were shed for what might have been – only for the lost companionship. He had fourteen-and-half years with us, and he was possibly the luckiest dog that ever lived. He wasn’t lucky because he miraculously survived an accidental death or anything dramatic or traumatic. No, he was lucky because he fell into it. Into what? possibly the sweetest dog life there ever was: a large pack to play with, more human admirers than we’ll ever had, and doting owners.
A half-year before the oldest princess was born, Jill was doing breed rescue work in St. Louis with B.R.A.T. or Basenji Rescue and Transport. Our pack stood at five: four sleek Basenjis in the prime of life and one very hairy/furry, half-Chow/half-New Foundland, who was aptly named, “Bear,” and who had an incredibly knack for snatching house flies in mid-air.
Shortly after returning home from my Father’s funeral in the ‘burgh, Jill received a call from the St. Louis city pound that the dog-catcher had captured a Basenji: highly unlikely but possible. She drove to the pound that sits in the shadow of the giant Budweiser plant in south city and decided that he wasn’t quite a Basenji, but might be part Basenji; so, we’d try to find a home for him if no one claimed him.
What Are the Odds?
Apropos of nothing, we note that for each of the past two afternoons we observed a raccoon either standing beside a busy suburban road (yesterday) or slowly crossing the road (today). Presumably, it’s the same coon. At that location, there are no woods on either side of the road; so, the behavior seems a tad bit odd.
So, we wondered: what are the odds that said raccoon is not rabid?
We’d argue that they’re about the same as the government realizing additional tax revenue from employees who received raises from their employers because the employers realized health-care cost saving under Senator Baucus’s bill (and generously gave all of the savings to their workforce). As we understand it, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected billions in new tax revenue exactly for that reason.
Now, we ask: exactly how many firms have committed to increase salaries once absolved of paying health care costs?
We would hazard to guess that the number is no higher than the number of firms managed by rabid raccoons. (In the off chance that we’re describing your firm and your CEO is lost, then you may find him between Treesdale and Pine-Richland High School on Warrendale Road). Our advice: take thick gloves and a cage if you want him at the next staff meeting, but even then, don’t count on a raise.)
