Category: Modern problems

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They Said this would never happen.

The SAID it couldn’t happen.

They said that they weren’t making a database. They said the information was safe. They said anyone who questioned them was a child hating, war mongering, insanely violent, racist, monster.

Yet here we are.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting a California DOJ breach of every single Concealed Carry permit holder in the state. Initial reports said the breach was limited, but subsequent reports now state the breach was all the records.

Other news outlets report that the data exposed not only those who had concealed carry permits, but all those who applied for permits, granted or not.

Breaking news… It appears now that even the information about people who’d obtained a California Gun Safety Certificate had their data exposed. FYI a California Gun Safety Certificate does not mean you own a gun, it only provides proof that you’re aware of pretty basic gun safety rules and some of the California laws surrounding gun ownership.

The California Gun Safety Certificate is a quick and easy way for California to collect $20 every 4 or 5 years and have you pay the California DOJ for the privilege of having your name, address, and other personal information put into their database. The safety certificate is a big nothing burger, but it’s required before you can purchase a gun.

All the better to identify law abiding citizens who may, possibly, need to have their homes raided by a SWAT team at 2AM, if California decides that person might, possibly, just maybe, need to have red flag search and seizure of property contained in their home.

Back in Oct of 2016, The California DOJ had another “oopsie” and released the names and addresses of 3500 firearms instructors.

I haven’t checked, but I seem to recall there was some kind of gun control law moving through the California Legislature which was encountering a lot of opposition. I don’t remember if the firearms instructors were being vocal about opposing the legislation at the time. It would be an interesting coincidence if they were.

California wants a complete gun registry. The California DOJ wants to know about every single gun in the state. Even if those guns were legally owned by a citizen prior to them moving into the state.

California lawmakers claim this is to provide better safety to the people of California. They often use the safety of California children as their justification.

Really? Using Children? How about lawmakers actually address the problem of crime in the state? That would be a refreshing change.

Lest I forget… the California DOJ approves of guns via a very expensive testing procedure that gun manufacturers must pay for, and must also provide every variation (even if the variation is color,) of gun for testing.

If a manufacturer chooses not to provide a weapon and pay a fee, then the California DOJ will say that gun can’t be sold in California. The funny thing is that the California DOJ will drop guns from the approved list after that gun may have been approved for several years. Does that mean anyone owning such a gun is now in possession of an illegal firearm? Is that otherwise law abiding citizen committing a felony?

The fact is, there are some guns which are family heirlooms (think grandpa’s gun). Others that were gifts. All legally owned, and handed down father to son, or brother to brother. California, wants all of these guns to be subject to registration and investigation. How does California deal with these guns, many of which were likely never approved for sale by the California DOJ ?

While California dilly dallies around investigating, those weapons are supposed to be handed to a licensed gun dealer for a fee until California “approves”. Which means, that those guns are now not under the physical control of the owners. Should the gun go missing, and be used in a crime… The owner of record is still responsible even though the gun in question, wasn’t in their possession due to California’s regulations.

It doesn’t matter to the California legislature, that the guns may have been sitting in a law abiding citizen’s safe for a decade or more and haven’t been used in some horrendous mass shooting.

Various gun owners associations have repeatedly pointed out that such a gun registry doesn’t help Law Enforcement, nor does it make law abiding citizens safer. Law abiding citizens aren’t the folks engaging in the rampant gun violence plaguing California. Criminals are responsible for the gun violence. Guess what? They’re probably not buying their guns legally!

What such a registry does, is allow weaponization of various police agencies. It provides unscrupulous politicians an avenue of retaliation against those who might speak in opposition to them.

Or, as in this latest data breach…

The California DOJ has exposed the names, addresses, driver’s license numbers, home phone, and other personal data to anyone who might wish to engage in identity theft, target certain judges, citizens, or law enforcement personnel, or who might be looking for a target of opportunity to steal guns.

Great job California DOJ! Well Done! Instead of insuring the safety of law abiding citizens… You’ve painted a target on their backs!

On the plus side… You’ve destroyed any credibility of a gun registry!

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Calendar Cleaning! That’s better!

Where did all these observances come from?

A while ago, I subscribed to an online Calendar that neatly stuck all the US holidays into my digital Calendar.

It was nice at first. Everything that I wanted to know was there. I could plan long weekends and knew when it was likely to be a bad day to go to the bank or post office.

As is usual for me with these things, I simply forgot about it and was content that I wouldn’t have to enter holidays that moved around from year to year depending on Fridays or Mondays closest to the actual date if the holiday fell on a Saturday or Sunday.

Years go by. There was small additions to the observances, but they were pretty mundane. One here, one there, in a month. No big deal.

A few more years go by.

Today I opened my calendar to full month view for the first time in I don’t know when.

WTF?!?!

My once simple calendar was now loaded with all kinds of observances and holidays that mean nothing to me. There were literally hundreds of Civil Servants days. Obama Day? Librarians Day? 4 different wordings of Juneteenth? Columbus Day, Indigenous Peoples Day, National Indigenous Peoples Day?

In some cases there were so many observances on a single day that the “All Day” section of the calendar was saying +9 more because it couldn’t display them all in the space provided.

There were also duplicates… So Many duplicates! (I hate duplicate data.)

Come on…

Unless it’s a national holiday and therefore a day off from work, or the banks are closed. I don’t care.

There was a time when it was nice to see “National Secretaries Day” but now, it’s become easier to find a day without some observance or another than to pay attention to all the observances.

It’s all become noise, a distraction. Is my calendar free for that day? Who can tell at a glance anymore?

After spending a few minutes trying to figure out the best way to flush all the random crap that had become meaningless. I decided instead to simply unsubscribe from what had once been a very useful service.

My calendar took 2 minutes to reconcile itself.

When it was done…

AHHHHH! Once again at a glance, I can see my schedule without having to open the day to specifically check.

My appointments, and mine alone show up. Their little green tags clearly show how much of my day they occupy. They’re not being overwritten by events and observances that don’t matter.

My historical calendar is visible again. This is a calendar that I created years ago with neat facts about the day in history. Amelia Earharts take off, the first man in space, the first woman in space, the date of the Norman invasion, that kind of thing. In each of these entries notes section I’d put detailed information about the event.

Suddenly Anniversaries, Birthdays, and my stuff is all there, with the original color coding I’d selected, instead of a muddy mess.

You know, it’s not so hard to enter “Real” Holidays into my calendar. There are some that require special treatment, but it’s a small price to pay for a clean readable schedule.

This is what happens when you pander to everyone.

Maybe we should pick just a few biggies and leave the rest to be observed by those who care?

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A short PSA

Technology does exactly what you tell it to!

I was recently reminded of this by my email filters.

A while ago, I was being inundated by messages claiming to be from FedEx. There were sometimes 10 a day demanding immediate action, my package was missing, payment was due, Your package has been found, etc. etc. etc.

The problem was, at the time I hadn’t ordered anything. I hadn’t ordered anything to be delivered via FedEx for years.

So, rather than having my phone beeping incessantly while I was at work, I created a filter. At first the filter was specific to the one or two offending email addresses.

But the scammers kept changing their email addresses and so in a short time, my phone was beeping and booping again telling me that I had some business with FedEx.

Being clever, I changed the filter to simply look for FedEx, FEDEX, FedEX and several other variations in the From or Subject fields.

Blissful silence!

Then like most of us, I forgot those filters were still active. Even if I’d recalled that little detail, I’d have probably left them in place because as a rule I don’t use FedEx.

Flash forward to yesterday and, well, I was hoisted by my own petard.

Unfortunately, I am having to deal with FedEx over the computer that they’ve lost. Yesterday I filed the claim to have them pay for the unit.

This morning, in an idle moment I wondered where the emails a nice gentleman at FedEx told me I was supposed to get were.

Suddenly, I remembered email filters. I vaguely remembered something about FedEx scams and decided to check the email filtering system.

Sure enough, the FedEx filter was still there and running.

OOOOPPPSS!

I was fortunate that I hadn’t told the filter to delete the messages entirely. I’d only told it to put them in the trash, and since the trash deletes messages that are greater than 30 days old I was able to recover the claim notification I was looking for.

I’ve deleted the FedEx filter.

This brings me to scammers, hackers, and other miscreants.

They do more damage, than just steal little old ladies retirements. That alone is cause enough for me to believe that scammers should be castrated with a rusty butter knife and an injection of something that enhances the pain response.

Hey, I want them to feel every exquisite bit of agony as that rusty butter knife saws through their scrotum. I also want to make sure that they don’t contaminate the gene pool any further. Hence the castration.

Scammers more far reaching disruptions are subtle. Even for those of us that don’t fall for the scam, we take steps to protect ourselves from the irritation and disruption their ploys inflict on us.

In doing so, we often experience disruption of legitimate business.

So as a PSA, Remember to check your blocked phone lists and your email filters on a regular basis. Usually the scam plays out and the scammers aren’t sending bogus emails after a few months. At that point you can delete your filters and be reasonably sure that the incoming FedEx or UPS email is legitimate.

Just Sayin…

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And FedEx drops the ball!

Big surprise! FedEx used to be so good about deliveries. These days, not so much.

I guess the universe may not hate me, but it sure does enjoy kicking me! I guess I twitch really good or something.

The saga so far.

I ordered a computer. I got the computer. The computer was defective. I make arrangements to return the computer. I drop the computer off at a FedEx location and have the human being scan the label.

I’m told that a receipt will be texted to me, even though I specifically ask for a printed receipt… The text never came, (Big Surprise!) and the person said they didn’t print receipts. Uh Huh…

I saw the person scan the package so Fine! I’m not going to fight about it. It’s been so long since I dealt with FedEx For all I know they’ve changed their rules.

Subsequently, I cancelled the Apple order entirely.

I check on the package via the FedEx website on Wednesday. Its status is unchanged. Hmm…

This is not unusual, FedEx has on more than one occasion in the past 5 years actually delivered something to my door but their site says it’s across the country.

That’s what I mean by FedEx isn’t what it once was.

Thursday I check again. The FedEx web site says that the package is estimated to arrive at its destination by 4PM. But the movement status still hasn’t changed.

I call FedEx to ask them what’s going on. They have no idea… They can’t locate the package.

Great! So I start an escalation. I get a call back from a nice FedEx lady who really does go the extra mile to figure out what is going on. She comes up empty. The package appears to have been scanned, but doesn’t appear in the system.

Wonderful!

SO NOW I have billing for a computer that was defective and that I no longer have possession of, I have no receipt showing that I gave the package to the designated carrier, and no-one seems to know where the package is.

I’m told by FedEx that the package may mysteriously appear at some random time in the future.

Yeah… I believe that, uh huh.

This morning I call Apple.

I explain what’s going on, and tell Apple that FedEx isn’t going to give a crap about me. But FedEx will listen to Apple.

I give the Apple rep all the information. The Tracking Number, The Escalation Number, and the Serial Number of the computer. I suggest that they list that serial number as stolen and should it pop up on the internet or at one of their stores perhaps they can arrest the person in possession of the machine.

I’m beyond pissed off at FedEx!

Apple has created an investigation case as well. I don’t know what’s going to happen from here, but I can say I’ve done due diligence.

A company I worked for stopped using FedEx precisely because of this kind of thing. They got tired of having $4K shipments of medical equipment disappear randomly all over the country. They also got tired of having to make 2 or 3 replacement shipments for those same random orders.

In some of the cases I worked on, FedEx told me that the shipment had been delivered and then I’d get a call from some completely different individual, sometimes in another town, asking my company to stop delivering stuff to their door.

FedEx investigations rarely located the lost packages. In the case of Medical supplies, even if FedEx found the package a couple of weeks later and returned it to my company. By law, we had to destroy it.

I’m hoping that Apple sees the light and pulls their contracts from FedEx soon. I’m sure I’m not the only one experiencing this kind of thing.

Come to think of it, I haven’t been seeing FedEx deliveries here in town nearly as much as I used to. But the UPS guy is in the neighborhood every single day.

FedEx may end up going the way of DHL… I can’t remember the last time I saw one of those trucks!

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Oh… This is getting So out of hand.

The other half got a haircut yesterday.

You’d think something as mundane as that wouldn’t be fraught with controversy…

You’d be wrong

We live in a mad mad world.

The stylist was talking with another stylist about a customer she’d had the day before.

The customer in question, was apparently transitioning from one gender to the other. “Okay, this is probably going to go off the rails,” I think.

As the story unfolds, apparently the stylist referred to the customer as a “She”. OMG! The horror!

The customer corrected the stylist’s use of pronoun defiantly proclaiming the proper pronoun was “IT”.

At this point in the story I’ve got my “What The Fuck” face on. The other half ignored me and continued the story.

The stylist, of course apologized explaining that she meant no offense. This wasn’t good enough for the mortally aggrieved customer. (He/She/It… whatever) Continued to manufacture outrage over this insignificant incident, turning everyone’s trip to the hair place into a crazed social justice nightmare.

A) How was the stylist to know “It” was the preferred pronoun?
B) The Stylist did the professional thing by apologizing.
C) The aggrieved customer had all the social decorum of a turd in a punchbowl.

The other half was laughing and said to me, “All I could picture as this story was being told was YOU sitting in a chair during the actual incident.”

Good Point!

I wouldn’t have been able to let it pass. I hate shitty behavior and the shitty people exhibiting it.

The first thing that popped into my head was that since “IT” didn’t have their pronoun tattooed on ITS forehead how was anyone to know? I’m sure that my expressing that thought would have added fuel to the fire.

The second thing that popped into my head is that “IT” usually refers to an object. Then I remembered being a boy in the Deep South.

The first word I ever learned to describe a Black person was the “N-Word”. But the context was that one went to get the “N-Word” to clean up a mess.

For Example: “Bill, please go get the broom to sweep up this mess on the floor.”

My childhood memory has the statement from my Grandfather telling me, “Hey boy, go get the “N-word” to clean up that mess.”

In my experience the “N-Word” was used to reduce a kind thoughtful human being, (Eddie would tell me jokes and ride me around on his shoulders and we’d laugh the whole time,) to nothing more than an object on par with a mop or broom. (For the sake of clarity, Eddie was an employee of my Grandfather, and I probably wasn’t more than 5.)

As I thought about the implications of a human being demanding to be called “IT” I couldn’t help but notice the similarity.

What completely astounds me, is that any human being would willingly demean & diminish their own humanity in this way.

People like the aforementioned customer, would loose their shit if I, a white CIS male, were to refer to an African American as “IT”. They’d be saying I was racist or any number of other ugly things. (Then again, most of the ugly words they’d call me have lost much of their former impact and meanings.)

Then they’d turn around and make a spectacle of themselves in a public place demanding to be called “IT”.

All the while annoying the rest of us “normal” people who use pronouns based in history and languages dating back 5 thousand years or more.

The other half is right…

It’s a good thing I wasn’t there for the incident itself.

Depending on how screeching they were, I could easily see myself leading off with,

“Nobody gives a fuck about your pronouns! Now sit the fuck down and shut the hell up. There are actual humans in this business, trust me they do not consider themselves the equivalent of a dildo or pocket pussy. Both of which, by the way, are ITS.”

No, I don’t think it would have ended well at all…