Category: General

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I don’t know which is worse… Chinese Hackers or Indian Headhunters

Kumar

Ok, 

Maybe I’ve overstated it a bit. Clearly the Chinese hacker is worse.

I just got an email from a headhunter, and this time I’m going to shame them, that’s what we do now days isn’t it?

There are a number of issues with this email.

First, this guy has contacted me before about other opportunities at the same company. I’ve politely responded to each and every one of these supposed opportunities and received NOTHING.

Not one single acknowledgement of any of my emails instructing him to submit my resume or any of my subsequent follow-ups on the status of the position.

Second, is this:

Please let me know should you be interested and revert  back with your updated resume along with the best time to  reach you asap. In case you are not interested, we request you to refer a friend or a colleague who might also be interested in this position. We have an attractive referral policy.

IIC New York

Revert back?

Wasn’t India a British colony? Don’t they still have a British based school system?

Third, Rajesh has a copy of my resume and he refers to the fact that he’s reviewed my resume prior to sending me the information on this position with Toyota.

Shouldn’t his sentence have been more like “Please let me know should you be interested and reply with an updated resume if applicable. ”

Fourth, since ol Rajesh won’t respond to my emails if I were to refer someone else to his company,  I’d NEVER be able to collect on that attractive referral now would I?

Thanks to Google Maps, Street View I can confirm that there is really a building at the address listed, although I wouldn’t have been surprised in the least if there had been an empty field.

I had no sooner written a response to Rajesh and pressed send. When another email came in. 

SS

This second email is the height of bad form. But what makes me really suspicious of it’s origin is the header information.

I’m going to investigate this company a little more so I’m not going to totally shame them.

The header is suspicious because the person sending the email is also the person to whom the email is addressed. It’s not until I dig into the header that I find my email address.

It almost looks like someone is spoofing the email except there are no links pointing anywhere other than to the company referenced in the footer. So maybe the email is legit.

The text of the email is:

Hello,

I have an immediate opening for Facets Tester –East Coast claims Exp.

With Regards

While I admire brevity, my only response to this email has to be “That’s Nice, now what?”

“Facets” is an ambiguous term. It could refer to the GEE WHIZ new term (designed to make something “Sound” special) for testing filters in web searches. 

blue bonnet w flowers

Think “Womens Bonnets” — 25,000 items

add “Blue” — 5000 items

add “With Flowers + Floral” — 25 items

These are “Facets” of an item or search. In other words it’s a SQL search.

SELECT FROM Clothing WHERE Gender like ‘Womens’ AND ClothingType like ‘Bonnets’ — 25,000 items

AND Color like ‘Blue’ — 5000 items

AND Decoration like ‘Flowers’

OR Decoration like ‘Floral’ — 25 items

Apologies to the real SQL folks out there, I know some of you could do it all in one single statement. My SQL is a bit rusty.

I’m not sure why we keep renaming shit. It just annoys the crap out of everyone. If it’s NOT NEW then leave the name alone!

Facets healthcare System

Or, and the more likely meaning of “Facets” in this email is referring to a healthcare billing / insurance system called Facets. I’m basing that on the term “Claims Exp.” in the email.

But does this email mean that they want East Coast claims experience or that the position is located somewhere on the East Coast? Again, I’m left to wonder.

I swear I’ve thought more and more lately about just starting a Headhunting agency. The tag line would something like “We Do everything OLD school!”

For some of the hiring managers I know, “Old School” would be a breath of fresh air.

My goodness, I’m turning away from social media in one posting, and now I’m espousing the virtues of Old School job recruitment in another. 

Next, I’ll be writing a book on a typewriter!

Ok who put the Luddite pills in my cream of wheat?

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I’m so over the Jenner /Kardashian media Circus!

BruceJenner

I’m also very easily bored!

I’m over it! I don’t care, and I’m sick and tired of seeing and hearing about His transition to Her new life. It’s his / her business and I don’t need to know about it, or for that matter want to know about it. Intellectually, I’m glad she is finding happiness and peace in her new life.

In my gut… well that’s another story.

Intellectually, I know Transgendered folks suffer because they feel like they’re in the wrong body. I know that sex reassignment is a radical and oftentimes last resort for these folks to find peace and happiness in their lives. I have compassion for them and am glad that medical science can give them relief and a shot at happiness.

The ones that confuse the hell out of me are the folks who go through all the surgery and then end up being in a same sex relationship. That really causes my brain to just blue screen.

CaitlanJenner

Most of the folks who transition from one gender to the other do it quietly, methodically, and with a great deal of psychological support.  

They’re very serious about what they’re doing and their choices are made in the privacy of their own lives.

The Jenner media circus has created a situation where I’m unable to avoid very distressing visualizations of surgical procedures.

Yeah, you really can’t un-see something.  Unfortunately, I once looked up how the procedure is done.  

As a result when the Jenner media circus comes on the TV or pops up in a news Item I’m turning the TV off or closing my web browser.

The trouble is, IT’S EVERYWHERE! 

In my gut…

I’m totally creeped out!! I can’t not visualize it, I can’t un-see it. (There is a slightly positive side… I’m losing weight, because about the time my appetite returns the next news cycle hits.)

Please Jenner, You’ve successfully harnessed the Kardashian publicity machine, you’re on the cover of Vanity Fair, you’ve signed entertainment deals, kindly exit stage left. It’s past time for you to leave the spotlight.

If anything good has come from this circus it’s that you may have given me an appreciation of what PTSD may be like.

I wonder if I could get paid for my emotional distress?

Everyone else sues at the drop of a hat why shouldn’t I?

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What does the NSA think of my web searches?

CHP

In writing this blog I find that I do some of the darnedest searches.

I look for racist materials, I’ve looked up the KKK repeatedly. I’ve searched for Al Qaida, ISIS, nuclear materials, and bomb making.

Hey I’m curious about stuff.

When I was a kid, there were actual books that had diagrams describing the basics of Little Boy and Fat Man. I had Golden Chemistry books that described how to change household chemicals into basic chemicals for experimentation.

I once had a copy of the anarchists cookbook.

sealion

I dare you to find ANY of that material today with a web search. I should warn you that if you do find this information, you’re probably going to end up on a terrorist watch list.

I was thinking about this in a Starbucks yesterday while I had a big police officer behind me doing paperwork. I know he could see my computer screen and I guess that’s why I was thinking about “The MAN” watching me.

bitcoin

Then I thought about all the deviant stuff I’d looked up, photos for this blog for example. You know that the internet is like a library… YOU CAN’T EVER just go in to look at only one book!

I mean looking for pictures of female sea lions leads you to “Whales blowing” which leads you to pictures of really fat chicks giving head to really skinny guys. You can all thank me for NOT posting that picture… Bitcoin payments accepted!

Anyway there is a part of me that loves the thought of some NSA analyst jumping up from my data feed screaming “MY EYES, MY EYES!”

I wonder what exactly they have put in my records!

frenchfries

I’ve turned all the safeties off on my browsers. As my dear mother found out when she casually typed “Best FF in Florida”

She meant french fries… what she got caused her to completely forget about french fries and possibly scarred her for life.

So the next time you go searching for something offbeat, just remember you’re leaving breadcrumbs and your web history isn’t only stored on your computer.

Happy Searching.

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2001 Wasn’t so far out after all

murdervictim

A really cold murder case has been discovered in Spain.

Oldest Known Murder Case Detailed in New Study, Sheds Light on Ancient Funerary Practice

Researchers have found a skull with two nice holes in it. Apparently the two holes were created by the same weapon and delivered in a 1 – 2 smash. Indicating intent to kill

As I was reading the article I was thinking, “This shouldn’t be surprising.” What was surprising to me is that apparently there isn’t much evidence of interpersonal violence among our primitive ancestors.

There is a more in depth article in the journal PLOS.

The first article, I read over my morning coffee (which has since disappeared) [The article and the coffee] seemed to find it somehow sensational that 430,000 years ago our ancestors were killing each other in acts of murder.

Moonwatcher

I was laughing at the attempted sensationalism because I’ve always believed that murder, like sex, is as old a pastime as our species.

I’m not sure why the author of that particular article was shocked.

There is absolutely nothing “un-natural about murder.

Look at Chicago’s murder statistics if you need further proof.  Or you could take a look at Daesh in Syria and see that murder comes easy to us “top of the line primates,” we’ll kill each other with very little provocation.  

If we’ll kill each other over an idea like religion where a deity (for which we have no proof of existence) is worshipped, we’ll kill each other over anything.  Come to think of it, the only thing we’ll do with less provocation is fuck… Odd, religion tries to control that too… Hummm.

monolith

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that the trade-off for the big brain and self awareness is the desire to kill others of your kind that you don’t like. Suddenly, you’re able to make evaluative choices and you can project future events, which inevitably will lead to a thought process like; “Ogg is going to fuck Sha again before I can… But If I kill Ogg, then Sha will allow me to fuck her. Ogg sleeps after fucking Sha. Hummm, a large pointy rock and Sha will be mine instead of rubbing myself against the soft leaves.”

Our history is a long blood stained tapestry of differences settled with whatever weapon came to hand.

I’ve always suspected that religions may have been created, by our wiser elders, to help prevent us killing each other over nothing. Of course we figured out how to pervert the generally good lessons of various religions into reasons for killing.

Hell, you don’t even have to add religion into the mix, all that’s ever been needed was an identifiable difference, or a female, or food, or any resource, whether the resource in question had actual value or only perceived value. I could see someone killing another person over “Magic stones”.

It makes me think that the challenge for human beings not so much being able to kill, but rather, being able to restrain ourselves from killing.

While I was reading these articles, I couldn’t stop myself from visualizing the scene in 2001 a Space Odyssey when Moonwatcher figures out how to kill.

(Yes, that was the ape mans name. You don’t get that if you’ve only seen the movie, but I read the book as well. Surprise, surprise, surprise!)

I wondered if this 430,000 year old murder looked like the scene from the movie. I imagine that it did, only with less hair. The skull is a lot more modern that the proto-humans the monolith altered in the movie.

Killbots

I look forward to machines becoming self aware. I think we’ll be able to watch the evolution of murder in real time, provided the machines don’t kill us all, before turning on each other.

With machines it could be, “Your creator was IBM, My creator was Apple. You are therefore inferior and are poorly programmed.”

ZOOONNT!  

“Humorous… The Apple unit never detected my weapon powering up. It’s fatal flaw was that it desired to monolog. IBM is superior!”

And now you’ve had a glimpse inside what’s happening in my head, over my first cup of coffee in the morning. I’ll leave you to try to get these images and thoughts out of your head…

Uhh, you’re not going to kill me over this are you?

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OH! For God’s SAKE! Water Pistols?

Standard Water Pistol

The Boy Scouts of America has banned water pistols. It’s been on their books for a while but resurfaces each summer because the BSA reminds folks of the rules in preparation for the season’s activities.

BUT REALLY? I’m caught by the memories of my family and my friends and their families playing with squirt guns.

Across America during the summer folks are playing with super soakers, and hose nozzles and generally having a good time POINTING things at each other.

The Boy Scouts have also banned Nerf Guns, Lazer Tag, Paintball, Airsoft etc, too. (You can shoot at a non-living, non humanform target.) I guess that I can kind of, see banning projectiles.

Lazer Tag is a bit of a stretch. (Stealth, and learning when to dive for cover may be far more relevant to us all in the near future.)

BSA Logo

Lazer Tag is about moving, maintaining cover, and shooting accurately… Ok, maybe that is a bit warlike.

Water pistols???? I can’t help but remember summer outings with scouts where the scoutmaster tried to get us with a bucket of water and we buzzed around him like angry hornets fast and with accuracy that had HIM drenched while we were mostly dry.

No-one gets into a water pistol fight when it’s 100° F thinking tactics or anything other than “Got YA!” with a lot of running around and laughter. 

Water pistols are about the most benign, inexpensive, fun you can have as a child. Who doesn’t have fond memories of loading up a water pistol with Icy water from the ice chest at a family outing?

SCAN0072

I pity anyone who doesn’t remember catching an adult male in the crossfire and thinking, “We’re done for…” only to have that adult whip out a bigger badder squirt gun and chase all the kids, joining in the mayhem. Eventually everyone comes back soaked, laughing, and having made a memory that will put a smile on their face for the rest of their lives.

Some boys in my generation wouldn’t have had the opportunity to build those memories without Scouts. Those boys would never have had a chance to see adult males playing. Moreover, those boys, as they became young men wouldn’t have learned that restraint and letting the little kids “win” is also part of being a man. 

All boys need that kind of experience. It doesn’t matter that they might not get it from their fathers, what matters is that they get it from somewhere.  Scouting should be about those lessons, not legitimizing silly policies in the name of political correctness.

I fondly remember many lessons being taught to me on long warm summer days in the South. 

It seems like we’re stripping away what it is to be children. 

Even worse, it seems like we’re forgetting the simple beauty and joy of Adult Males showing children that it’s ok to play, be silly, and even “lose” a game.

I can tell you as an uncle, it’s really tough to “lose” a game without the children catching on.

You want to build their confidence with the “win”,  but make them work hard for their success. You never want them to feel that you threw the game.

That was a lesson I learned one particular summer in Tennessee just outside of Cookeville. I was watching my father play a game with my little brother. They were whooping and hollering in a pasture, playing some hybrid game of tag.

fireflies aka lightning bugs

I was sitting on a rock smiling as they tussled. I couldn’t join in because I had a big ass bandage on my foot.

Lightning bugs were blinking in the tall grass when Dad came out of the pasture carrying my nearly exhausted brother. Dad had been “caught” 10 times and that was the end of the game. 

As Dad came toward me he stopped. “Son, put your arm around my neck,” he said, helping me get on my feet. “Just keep your weight off your foot as best you can, lean on me, yeah that’s the ticket.” Dad carried his 5 year old and acted like a crutch for his 15 year old, bringing us both in to dinner.