Includes some tips…

8 of the most important data breaches of 2021 (so far)

…on how you can be safer on today's increasingly unruly internet.

Reopening

Five days work for four days pay is more like it

KILL THE 5-DAY WORKWEEK

Still, four days’ work for five days’ pay is a rarity in the landscape of American business

Godwin's law strikes again

 Godwin's law, formulated in the old pre-internet days of Usenet, holds that as any discussion/disagreement/argument progresses it becomes more and more inevitable that somebody will mention Hitler or the Nazis. Here's the formal definition from the Oxford English Dictionary.

And here it is applied to…you guessed it…the COVID vaccination:

Unvaccinated Houston Methodist employees appeal judge's ruling on COVID vaccine mandate

Over the weekend, U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes tossed the lawsuit, calling it “reprehensible” to compare the vaccine requirement to Nazi Germany’s medical experiments.

Of course, Texas. 

So they asked me at the clinic this morning…

 …are you having any trouble with your memory?

No, I say. Nothing unusual.

Where I live, conversations go like this:

"Who was that guy in that movie? The one with the other guy?"

And the scary thing is, somebody knows the answer.

And then somebody else says, "Wasn't he in that other movie…?

Nothing unusual.

Well, this is embarassing (and infuriating)

 AP: Some stolen US military guns used in violent crimes

“It’s incredibly alarming,” said Albany County District Attorney David Soares. “It raises the other question as to what else is seeping into a community that could pose a clear and present danger.”

Before Instagram

Medieval people suffered for fashion with their extremely pointy shoes

This may have increased the risk of suffering fractures from falls.

Tops

The lower level

The problem with getting old…

…is that finding interesting new books, movies, music, and other contemporary cultural artifacts gets much more difficult.

A case in point: I’m currently reading a recently best-selling novel called Ready Player One that starts out, promisingly, with a sort of sci-fi Holden Caulfield vibe (and if you’re too young to recognize that name you already know what I’m talking about here, but you don’t know it yet) and quickly devolves into a bunch of references to 1980’s teenage video game pop culture—a mash-up, is the modern term—that leave me totally bewildered. Lost.

Here’s where the library comes in. Borrowing a book from the library makes it easier (for me, at least) to drop it in the middle, turn it back in, and start a new one. Which is what I’m about to do. Alas.

Maybe it’s time to re-read Catcher in the Rye,

Or Huckleberry Finn.

Like a well-behaved citizen…

 …I punched the button for the walk signal (it's a busy corner) and waited patiently until it started flashing, whereupon a fire engine appeared, siren wailing, and blasted through my walking time, leaving me standing, unrequited, waiting for the next walk cycle in the rain.

If you’re thinking about continuing your past year’s experience with working from home…

 …a couple of thoughts. 

• One year is not enough time to arrive at your own best level of productivity.
• It’s not enough time for your boss to do so either.

It’ll take more like 3-5 years to find your own best grooves.

I worked at home with some success for 20 years, in the 70’s, 80’s, and early 90’s. My biggest challenges were…

• Finding the best way to manage my time—over time.
• Finding the best way to manage my social interactions—both in and outside work.

Both of these solutions are very individual—certainly much more individual than they would be working daily in an office environment. And although it was already emerging during my own ancient century, ubiquitous 24/7 connectivity no doubt makes these solutions more difficult today.

Certainly, no one way is right for everybody (which may be the most important lesson of the past year). Some have failed, some thrive. If you can’t wait to get back to an everyday office environment then by all means do. But if you think working at home holds promise for you, personally, and if you have the opportunity, stay with it for a while. 

For me, it was worth the effort.

How lucky is this?

"Russian law, according to the Kremlin, according to Vladimir Putin himself, does not have a provision for prosecuting individuals for carrying out ransom attacks against American companies."

Fom:

Inner Workings Of DarkSide Cybergang Reveal It's Run Like Any Other Business

–Terry Gross, NPR

[The article at the link is a pretty clear description of how the whole thing works.]