Bill Ryan's Other Blog

The new Cuckoo 1 was delivered last night and Kim and I headed over to pick it up.  The Cuckooette was very enthused by this particular model but didn’t accompany us b/c she was at a sleep over with one of her very cool friends.  (So tonight, she and I will be driving around minus Kim, doing what people do in cars that like to go really fast).  The process was quick and painless and within an hour – we were off:

I wanted a sports car and so did the Cuckooette. Kim wanted anything but a sports car.  My mother seldom inserts herself into family decisions but when she saw the 370z I was originally looking at, she said the following:

Do me a favor would you?  On your way to pick it up, can you stop by the store and buy a really big butcher knife, then stop by and plunge it into my heart.  B/c that’s what buying that stupid car will do to me anyway, but at least it’ll be quick and painless

Mom isn’t above throwing out a bitchin guilt trip here and there when it comes to something she views as life-death. And she was pretty convinced that the 370z would be a continuation of the last Cuckoo 1, and that I’d inevitably get myself killed. Kim’s sentiment was pretty much the same, although she was a little more clever about hiding it

You’re a few years away from being 40, you’re married, with a wife and daughter that need you.  2 Seat cars are for non-married men, or inconsiderate men, and you’re neither.  So you can get whatever car you want, as long as it’s not a 2 seater and as long as it’s not some ridiculous sports car. And yes, a RX-8 is off the list of acceptable vehicles

Then one day, my wife called and said she found the perfect car for me, it was an Infinit G something or other.  I thought, God not only answers prayers, he’s quick to hook a brotha like me up.  My swagga already included:

• Da Dough
• Da Paypah
• Da Hoes (Kim, dear, if you’re reading this and I hope you’re not, I only pluralized Hoes for grammatical consistency, and don’t believe what all those people tell you, Ho is an abbreviated form of ‘Honey’, honest)
• Da Gats (Da feds ain’t the only ones that can Pimp Sigs and Glocks, I pimp a Sig P250 and a Glock 23 and trying to figure out how the hell I can mack around a H&K MP5 like evil movie villains do)
• Da threads (who other than OJ has more Bruno Magli’s then me. Who other than has more Ferragamo’s then me? If Imelda Marcos was a silly fuzzy teddy bear with a touch of gangsta swagga, her name would be Bill)

So now I can add

• Da Whips – as of November 24.  You simply can’t pimp in a Malibu. Period.

You see, for all of her objecting, Kim called one day and had the ‘Perfect’ car for me.  She was pulling up next to it and would let me know what it was.  ‘Oh, it’s a Porsche Cayman, never mind’.  What a bummer that was. So I was bumming, thinking I was about to head straight into dorkville for a while (at least they weren’t demanding a Minivan. So no matter how lame it was, I could at least still have my manhood.  Yes, there’s no such thing as a man that drives a minivan – that’s right.  In fact, if you’ve ever even thought about driving a minivan, then you get kicked out of the club)

A few days later I got the same call, but this time she said “It’s an Infiniti something or other”

Me:  “You mean, the G35 or G37? “

Kim:  “I think so but I’m not sure, its really cool though, I know you’d like it”

Me:  “2 doors?”

Kim:  “Yes, its sporty but looked mature and professional not like something some teenaged hotrodder would drive around. HINT HINT HINT”

Me: “So I can get one?”

Kim: “If you like it and want one, yes, I think that’d be ok.”

Me: “Will you tell my mom that you approve so I can get her off my back?”
Kim: “Well, yes.  Like I said, it looks refined, it’s not a hotrod but it’s still sport”

Me: [Thinking to myself – Will I burn in hell for not pointing out to her that this is the same damned car she and my mom hate, but with 4 seats?  Maybe I should tell her. No, that would be patronizing. She’s a big girl and a hell of a lot smarter than me. She knows what she approves of or not. I don’t need to say a damned word about it mwuahahahahahahahahaha. Behold my Patrick Duffy Leg dammit!”

Me: “Can we go look at them tonight”

Kim: “Well I look for some online but yes, we need to get this taken care of”

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Three days later I was driving home in it.  I wanted to hurry up and buy the thing before she realized it was just a  4 seated version of the 370 because I was renting a car and the period that the insurance company covered it had just run out. So I didn’t check it out very much.  I knew I’d like it so if she was cool with it, I’d be cool with it too.  Upon getting it though – I realized how unbelievably high tech it is.  And I was fully intent on adding to the list.  There’s a little more cabin space and a ton more dashboard space than the previous Cuckoo1 so my dreams could be realized. The following is being as we speak or tonight:

1. Kyocera KR1 – Mobile Travel Router
2. T-Mobile webConnect ™ usb 3G Travel Router
3. Vehicular AC Power Supply
4. Gateway Netbook (and yes little Cuckooette, unless you change your mind and want to go on another super trip to Hollister, I’m sure CuckooClaus will have one of these for you)
5. U2500 Vehicle Laptop Stand

So when Kim and I drive to Fripp Island tomorrow to see Mom and the family, Kim will be able to surf the net in 3G, on a Netbook instead of her Android. Since the Netbook has Windows 7 instead of Vista, it’ll actually be a good experience for her).

But the picture is bigger than this.  We’ve got a few extra notebooks at the house and some tablets too.  The back seats are really small and fitted specifically for function as opposed to space.  The router and webConnect™ enables the car to be a Wi-Fi hotspot and if I understood correctly a full T-Mobile hotspot as well.  Between now and Christmas, the Cuckooette and Kim along with anyone else we may be taking with us can surf the net in relative comfort while driving around town or on trips.  Sure, longer trips may have some down spots but on the whole, the trips we usually take have solid connectivity for most of it.  The Cuckooette's finally coming of age and I’m sure would jump on an opportunity to shed her DS in favor of browsing YouTube with her cumpys.

Two more Zune HD’s have been requested for the remaining members of the household (in the interim, they’ll have to suffer through using their current Zune’s, or borrowing my Zune HD) which can be used to surf the net while driving as well.

At the end of the day, watching YouTube clips is no more value added than watching Hannah Montana or whatever else but I feel  a lot cooler/better about having computer access for the wife and daughter than DVD or movie access. Maybe that’s just my mind trying to rationalize buying more computers and more gadgets but since I’m not the one who’ll be using the stuff primarily (not the computers anyway), I think I can still try to pass off the altruism routine, right?

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If you’re interested in vehicle computer systems, the best place to start is probably Geek My Ride. The book provides several links to a companion site and enthusiast sites as well as vendors who sell the various components.  There is also a lot of other coolness you’ll find in the book (I mean, what’s cooler than a computer geek who drives a RX-8, and a black one no less. Not sure but I know that a computer geek that drives a techhed out G35 has to be right up there). And if you want to check the book out before buying it, It’s available on Google Books.

There are several computers specifically made for cars, most of which are just the case and stuff inside.  Depending on your car and what you’re trying to accomplish, this may or may not be desirable.  Netbooks are so cheap now though – that I highly recommend them for such projects(just make sure you install Windows 7 instead of Vista). You can get Netbooks in all shapes and sizes so from small to large, you’re covered.  What’s more, you don’t have to deal with having a monitor and a computer (although you’ll probably have to work out some sort of fastener for the Netbook including a seatbelt equivalent – unless of course you don’t mind leaving heavy projectiles sitting around your car).  There’s a lot of simplicity here and consider this – I’m about as unskilled when it comes to drilling and installing stuff as a man can be yet I pulled it off without a glitch – I promise you, you can too. Think about this too – what are Netbooks targeted to do?  Browse the web, check email and light editing of office documents (You don’t want to write multiple best selling computer books on a Netbook unless you get yourself a much better keyboard).  That’s exactly the sorts of things you’d primarily due as a passenger in a car – or need in a pinch when you’re driving.  So b/c of price, weight, battery life etc, a Netbook is probably a great choice.

If you’re on a low budget, you can do away with some of this stuff too.

You can do away with the Notebook mount for one thing.  You could build your own or get a small lap based laptop desk. You can also do away with the router. If you don’t have two lovely ladies driving around with you that you want to keep entertained, then you can just Roll Fo Dolo and skip the router.  Save roughly $150.00 on the project

If you don’t need/want to power multiple machines you can do away with the power supply (although you still want a surge protector) as well.  I always have devices that need powered (and now that my wife turned into an Android junkie, she does too) so I got a power supply that could charge multiple items at once. My thinking is that with multiple people actively surfing, I was pretty sure battery life would die more quickly. Save roughly $100.00 on the project

Or you could be completely lame and just skip the internet connection, but I can’t think of much fun in that case. Save roughly $50.00 on the project up front, and then monthly costs of the plan

I’m going to ask Kim to post a review of the experience after we get home this weekend.  The Cuckooette will likely want to provide a review of her experience as well – with a little luck I may be able to provide that this evening. Sure, I’m going to write about how cool the stuff is, b/c I’m a gadget geek and I went through all the trouble of setting it up (which honestly, wasn’t much trouble at all – I was shocked at how easy it was). However the end users (Kim and the Cuckooette and maybe some of her friends once they’ve had a chance to see it in action) are going to be less tolerant of things that don’t go well and will have a different perspective altogether.  I think their reviews will be particularly insightful.

[tags] Geek my ride, Car Computing, Mobile Computing, Android, T-Mobile Hot Spot, Netbook, Kyocera KR1, Mobile Router, Gateway Netbook, Netbook, Bill Ryan, Kim Ryan, Cuckooette, Windows 7, Windows 7 vs Vista, Infiniti G37 [/tags]

One of my favorite sites is on fire today… While WoW is probably the douchiest thing to ever hit Earth since the Popped Collar, Second Life is a very close second.  Makes this evil stop!

I was going through my new logs and boy, what a gold mine.  If I was a little more paranoid, I’d think someone was out to get me.  All along I figured, if someone would be out to get me, it’d be some unstable nutcase like Charles.  As lovable as I am, i have managed to make 3 enemies in my life – well, so I thought. Little did I know that I would have some serious people who were out to get me.  Although maybe I’m not who they think I am. See below:

Get it?  Ever see the X-Files? remember the cigarette smoking man?  Remember the people out to get him?  Remember what happened to him in the movie?  Remember why Art Bell quit CoastToCoastam ?  Well, now I know what it feels like – you see, ‘they’ are after me now too.  So to all of the New World Order, Trilateralist, CFR one world govt types – all I can say is this… Ryan is a really common Irish surname. In fact it’s one of the most common.  William is very common too. I mean, in college there were 4 different William Ryan’s.  I’m the 4th William G in my family.  So guys, you don’t have to suffer through reading my blog – I’m not the one trying to out you – I’m not anyone to worry about.  Whew!  Now that I have that resolved…

I’m thinking it might be really funny to start posting stuff from the Stats mod. You know, like Search engine terms people searched on to get to my blog.  Anyone familiar with blogging knows quite well how interesting such stuff is – and all I can say is there are some very sick puppies out there.  When I get home tonight, I’ll try to clean some of the results up and post them – they’re great for a laugh.

When I was a high schooler, I remember the constant drumbeat of the GenXers are (fill in negative) meme.  Lazy, apathetic, substance abusing, promiscuous blah blah blah.  I vividly remember many vehemently criticizing modern music and Gangsta Rap in particular.  This new music wasn’t music at all – it was cacophonous at best and no real music had been produced since the Beatles (which speaks volumes about the people making the criticisms). 

The funny thing about it was that my mom had always told me about her teenage years and it sounded like the exact same stuff they said to her.  And pretty much the same stuff was said to my grandparents (Considering they came straight off a boat from Czechoslovakia it would appear that such criticisms transcended both time and geographic borders).

So today when I hear people talking about what bad shape the kids are in, I just roll my eyes. Same sh** different generation.  Well, there are some things I am not  thrilled about  with SubXers, GenYers, Millenials and the like but on the whole, I think the kids are not just OK but doing quite well.  About 6 months ago, my wife and I were heading out for our weekly trip to P.F. Changs and could barely find a parking spot b/c Barnes and Noble customers had taken them all.  The new Harry Potter book had just come out and Barnes and Noble, along with all the other book chains in town were slammed.  Harry Potter books are hardly high brow literature but they aren’t small easy reads either. From what I’ve seen, they are typically about 1/2 the size of War and Peace.  Sorry, but when i see bookstore after bookstore jammed pack with kids competing to be the first to get a new 500+ page book – it’s hard for me to think anything but “Wow – Good for them”. Sure, the news loves telling us bad news and they love portraying every generation in America as self-absorbed idiots, but the news these days is one area that’s truly deserving of criticism.

I challenge anyone (unless your so blinded by political bias that you can’t be objective) to look at someone like Jackie Seal  and say she’s a disappointment. I know, I know, there’s a lot of Palin Haters who are saying just that – but she clearly has a sense of humor , has a brain, has a lot of courage and handled herself quite well against Norah O’Donnell and her Blackberry.

To top things off, Jackie has a blog and a twitter account .  Imagine that

[tags] Jackie Seals, Norah O’Donnell [/tags]

I just upgraded this version of WordPress to 2.8 like I had been planning to do for a while.  I also added several plugins to the install including Stats – just so I can keep easier track of who’s coming to my site.  Parsing web server logs isn’t all that hard, but it gets old after a while. Then again, knowing EVERY SINGLE visitor to my site is kinda cool.  I mean, you have a pretty good idea of who your readers are and who hits your site, but until you start looking at your logs, you don’t really know EVERYONE.  Once you do, small unexplained things start to make a lot more sense.  You can detect patterns.  You can see how frequently the same visitors come and when they come back to the same pages, you really get to understand their behavior.  The only downside to all of this is that it’s creepy. When you have visitors that come to look at the same pages over and over again, more than the Google and Bing spiders do – you think , someone must really have a crush on me.  Or be some crazy stalker.  Or, well, you know, Or.

So have fun watching me, watching you, watching me. I think I”m going to start a new page (which is like a post but a little more permanent ) with my visitor list – you can see who’s coming here – their IP addresses, machine/browser info and domain registration information.  WordPress is definitely da bomb.

Tonight started out like any other night.  My car is being delivered to Greenville so I am sharing Kim’s car until it arrives.  I had a lot of work to catch up on so I was home most of the day and suffering from a little cabin fever.  The daughter and wife came home and decided to give All American Pie Factory a try since we’ve never been there before. (For the record, we went to Sahara Mediterranean Grille last night having noticed it finally opened.  I lack to words to describe how awesome Sahara Mediterranean Grille was).

Anyway, we were doing the typical weekend family night thing… dinner, a trips to Books-A-Million and then we headed home.  That’s when I learned my oldest son is homosexual – sort of.  I have to say, the circumstances around me finding out weren’t exactly the most comfortable ones – but I did not get all butthurt over it.  I guess you could say I found out the really hard way, but that might sound like an inappropriate pun at this time especially after the butthurt comment in the last sentence.

So after finding out (literally, i caught him and his lover in the act in the back yard, in plain view of the rest of the family and neighbors), I wanted to make sure I handled things right.  Caught off guard, my first reaction was to think that he was being raped (for what it’s worth, it appears he’s a bottom).  I realized how distasteful such a sentiment was. I mean, how many bigotted white fathers start claiming rape just b/c they find out their daughters are involved with a Black man?  Such behavior is patently wrong and without realizing it, I was inadvertently acting the same way. 

I told him that this changed nothing as far as I was concerned.   I love him and always will and as long as he’s happy – I’m happy for him.  In fact, i feel guilty even saying this b/c it sounds way too much like ‘some of my best friends are Black’ type arguments.

Kim heard me talking to him and walked outside.  As it were, they were still in the heat of the moment so she learned about it the same way and roughly the same time I did.  She didn’t talk to him about it yet but our kids know we love them unconditionally and equally importantly – something like this isn’t a wrong or right issue. There’s nothing to be ashamed of (I mean, going at it in the back yard in plain view of everyone is a little shame worthy – but the gay aspect certainly isn’t) and I’m sure all of the kids understand that.

Like I said, he’s my son and this changes nothing.  I’m as proud of him as ever.  I may not be particularly fond of the specific person he’s chosen to get involved with but that’s due to the person’s character, not his sexuality.  This caught me a little off guard so I’m sure I sound a little awkward – fortunately, we’ve filmed the whole incident and I’m sure that it explains things much better than I ever could.

To my son’s new boyfriend I say this:

Having to serve a parent to a gay child is already difficult enough, but how do you as a parent with a gay child deal with pressures that are unnecessarily created by a zoophiliac rabbit, that wants to destroy your available garden vegetables, and will continue to do so until one way or another they break you? 

And Mr Rabbit (not sure if you prefer Mr. or Mrs in this case so I went with my best guess being that you’re the Top), please quit mocking my writing skillz – there’s nothing funny about the tone of my writing or my sentence structures.  Silly Rabbit, trix are for kids, and Pimps, but not rabbits, so remember that!

Did a quick inventory trying to plan out some networking issues – I decided to lock down the network. To do that, I needed to first do an accurate inventory of everything in the house that connects to the internet.

• Notebooks | Netbooks – 7 total
•      Windows XP Pro – 2
•      Windows XP Media Center – 2
•      Windows Vista – 2
•      Windows 7 – 1
• Desktops – 3 Total
•      Windows XP Pro – 3
• Servers – 1
•      Windows Home Server – 1
• Routers | Switches – 3
•      Wireless N – 1
•      Wireless G – 1
•      Gigabyte Switch – 1
• Video Game Systems – 2
•      XBox 360 – 1
•      Wii – 1
• VOIP Adapter – 1
• Misc Devices – 3
•      Wireless Printer – 1
•      Zune HD – 1
•      Tablet PC – 1

Doing a nice clean inventory (Mrs. Ryan dear, I can make LISTS TOO – W00T!!!!!!) sure puts things in perspective.  B/c when I look at the networking area – All I see is some glowing neon and a bunch of cables that look like they’re trying to strangle the dogs or anything that comes near them.

(Great, I just heard the Router complaining about me again Having to serve a secondary router is already difficult enough, but how do you as a primary router deal with pressures that are unnecessarily created by secondary devices, obnoxious humans and doom spreading canines who don’t understand that Cisco/Linksys/Netgear != Dog Toy, that wants to destroy your available bandwidth, and will continue to do so until one way or another they break you? (When we just had the Netgear Router everything was fine – but once the Linksys moved in – it’s been nothing but headaches, whining and a whole lotta butthurt)

I’ve been having a  ton of problems recently with dropped connections. There’s a wall separating the kitchen and living room (where the routers are located) so using the microwave usually causes some problems.  But things are much bigger than just this.  The Netbook drops the connection constantly  and is the one usually located closest to the routers.  If I am on it for an hour – it will drop at least once.  Kim’s Mrs. Ryan’s media center and work notebook seem to be the most robust and seldom drop irrespective of where they are.  There’s a desktop that connected over BPL and whenever that was used, we’d have immediate problems with other computers.  The problem was in part that the assigned IP Address would often be one already in use – so that was easy to correct.

Frustrated (b/c I can’t download anything new like Office 10 without a trillion attempts), I decided to fix it this evening.   Brilliant idea on my part.

No matter how hard I try, no matter what I buy to help alleviate the problem, my network cables gain self-awareness and decide that all carbon based life forms inhabiting our house need destroyed.  I’d like to be a man about it and blame my wife but no one would believe that.  But we use velcro wraps, plastic ties, a special octopus power strip and UPS that has fasteners to hold each incoming power chord.  Even with all of this, it looks like I hosted a beer funnel and Graphix Bong contest at my house before attempting to install everything. Then I realized something really disturbing – I have this complete mayhem of a situation and every one of our computers (as well as the video game systems) are wireless. I can only imagine what kind of clusterf*** would be in place if we were wired.

Anyway, I changed things around a bit though and basically had the configuration go from the modem to the switch where I plugged in each of the routers and BPL Adapter.  I plugged the Tablet directly into the N Router and did the same for the VOIP Adapter.  Since the Home Server is sitting next to the routers and I couldn’t possibly make things any more convoluted, I decided to plug the Windows Home Server box directly into the switch.

I turned on several of the computers and hit the internet on each of the ones I turned on.  I’ve been sitting here for about 2 hours and all is good.  Sure, it’s not *really* long enough to say for sure that I fixed the problem, but I fixed the problem. If I get 45 minutes of net time on the Netbook without dropping a connection I’m shocked. It’s been two hours.  And each time I used the power line networking – I always had problems with the other computers.  I fixed it temporarily by assigning an IP address but I undid that for the test – just to see if things were really fixed.  So far, so good.

Then I thought about it and maybe I shouldn’t be so happy yet.  You see, earlier tonight I upgraded the Netbook to Windows 7.  It’s like I stuck another 2GBs of RAM in it and fixed everything else that was wrong with it (it’s a high end Netbook so should have decent performance but froze all the time, had driver problems constantly and just overall worked like crap – all of that went Bye Bye 1 second after Windows 7 Showed up.

Either way – I should know soon what’s driving what but first thing tomorrow – all the Vista machines are going to be Windows 7 machines and unless my wife and daughter say otherwise, the XP machines are going to Windows 7 as well.  The wife and daughter both want Santa to bring them new laptops and Santa  couldn’t possibly say “No” to such charming gals.  Hopefully Santa has gotten with the program and is ensuring Windows 7 is running on any laptops he’s delivering

[tags] Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Bill Ryan, William Ryan  [/tags]

I had an interesting conversation with a friend that made me realize that email privacy isn’t nearly as well understood as I would have thought.  The person was sending emails to a girl he was dating. In the email was a bunch of stuff that I thought he was crazy for including.  He of course asked me why I responded how I did.  And I replied simply – If it’s not something you’d be ok having put on the front page of your local newspaper, you shouldn’t be sending it via email.  He was amazed and asked why.  And I told him that in general, email is analagous to a post card.  The operative notion here is that a Post Card is readable by anyone that touches it.

Well, unless precautions are taken that’s exactly the case with email.  So let’s examine my friend’s situation.  He sent it from a va.gov email address to her corporate email.  So essentially, just about anyone on the I.T. Staff at his company could read the information, anyone on her company’s IT staff could read the stuff, and pretty much every member of every IT staff along the way could read the info (if you want to get all pedantic and point out that all members of the IT staff probably don’t have Admin level access I’ll agree with you.  But it’s impossible to know who has what access so from a privacy perspective, I’d assume the worst case scneario.  At a minimum, there’s at least one person at each place that could read the stuff).

Let’s say that  in the email, my friend was bragging about his sexual prowess and was totally fine with all his coworkers seeing it.   (What I mean is, assume that the sender is fine with all the information being seen by their coworkers – whatever that info may be).  Would that be ok?  Of course not.  B/c the recipient didn’t ask for the email to be sent to her and in it, there’s a ton of private stuff that all of *her* coworkers can see.  If she solicited the email and ok’d the content, then yes, everything would be fine.

But think about this for a second.  You could recieve an email from someone completely unsolicited that contained private/embarassing/confidential etc information. And unless it was encrypted, all that information was just disclosed to anyone that wanted to look at it.  After explaining this to my friend he said “I’m soooo sure that I.T. people sit around and read people’s emails or whatever”.  Josh – let me absolutely positively assure you that there are a LOT of I.T. people that love reading other people’s emails.  You think that a horny geek with crush on the Lady Gaga lookalike in accounting would never think of reading what she likes, where she’s going this weekend or what have you?  You really think some screw up on the verge of being fired never reads emails his supervisor sends to HR?  You really think the guy who hasn’t gotten a raise in 5 yhears would never look at an email message containing an offer letter to some new hotshot they’re hiring?  I’m not saying this happens everywhere – but I am saying it can happen anywhere and it does happen at many places.  Many people don’t even see it as wrong b/c the company has a “Your email is my email” policy.  Email monitoring in fact is part of the job – THAT IS – MANDATORY – at many places.

The answer of course, is simple – if you don’t want everyone and their mother to know about something – don’t send a plaintext email and think long and hard about including it in an email at all. If you do  and it’s encrypted, chances are it’ll never be read (unless your sleeping with the lady some former KGB agent is in love with).

Wired has a great introduction on how to start encrypting your emails (Yes, encrypting and decrypting is a slight inconvenience.  Trading keys is a slight inconvenience.  Locking your front door is a slight inconvenience too, as is closing your curtains before you walk around nude while making coffee).  Once an email is sent, you can’t recall it (well, there are some services that have  Undo functionality but currently most are lame at best).  Many companies (especially publicly traded ones compying with Sarbanes-Oxley) are actually compelled to save all of their emails. Everything.  That includes letters to the boss about manipulating the energy market the whole way to emails discussing which Korean girls you’re going to ****)

I highly encourage you to read the last two links (Enron and Peter Chung).  Just pick a few.  Do you think that the writers ever thought those emails would be read?  Do you really think they realized their emails weren’t private?  Do you really think they would have written about crimes, infidelity and all sorts of other vices if they KNEW how many people could read those emails? Do you really think Chung wanted the entire world to hear him say stuff like “Why do I need 3 bedrooms?  Good question,  the main bedroom is for my queen size bed, where CHUNG is going to f**k every hot chick in Korea over the next 2 years (5 down, 1,000,000,000 left to go) the second bedroom is for my harem of chickies, and the third bedroom is for all of you f****s when you come out to visit my ass in Korea.”

As icing on the cake, Chung decided that he’d include this little tidbit in the bottom of his email – look familiar?

Peter Chung
The Carlyle Group
Suite 1009, CCMM Bldg.
12, Yoido-dong, Youngdeungpo-ku
Seoul 150-010, Korea
Tel: (822) 2004-8412
Fax: (822) 2004-8440
email: pchung@thecarlylegroup.co.kr

Yep, a signature complete with address, email and phone numbers.  Sure, the Carlisle Group is well known and they don’t hide their offices. But imagine if Chung was a woman who had someone stalking her. What if Chung was a Green Beret or Special Forces who’d been deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq.  Something as silly (and useless ) as an autosig could quickly reveal enough information to get him killed (would you want an enemy to know your office address and direct phone line?) Of course a Green Beret or Special Forces member would be way to smart to send unencrypted emails with autosigs, but I’m just trying to illustrate the potential downside here. Can anyone show me an example where an Autosig is really necessary?  Even if you think the person you’re sending the email too needs it – you have no control over who sees it or who it’s forwarded to so it pays to be careful.

 I myself learned the hardway abou the evils of AutoSignatures when I sent out the warnings in the db.singles.org incident. I was in a hurry to warn people to change their passwords.  I wasn’t trying to ruin the Lulz mind you – I’m all about them, but stuff was getting ugly and money was getting stolen.  So I sent out warnings for the people to change their passwords. Problem was, most of the accounts were already breached. So guess what?  People who don’t much like White Knights, let alone /b/rothers that part-time as White Knights, now had my full contact information.  I was in a hurry and used a work account.  I was warned to back down and shut my mouth or face the consequences and call me a coward if you want – but I wasn’t about to go sticking my p3nis in that hornet’s nest.  (While we’re on the subject, reread the Singles.org post and think long and hard about  your own personal use/reuse of passwords – do you really want to put all your online accounts at risk like that?)

No one thinks an email they send is going to be intercepted but the truth is, it’s too easy for it not to happen. If you use email regularly, I can guarantee you that someone has read some of your emails (in all likelihood, you’ve had several of them read).  Not mixing work and business is one way to protect yourself but that’s sometimes easier said than done.  Encryption is one of the easiest ways to get some privacy and offers a big bang for the buck.  PGP and GPG are excellent mechanism to get up and running with encryption quickly, easily and inexpensively.

You may read all of this and decide – who cares, I never write anything I’d be embarassed of.  If that’s true, good for you.  Most regular email users however are in a different situation. A little forethought on things like Password reuse, encryption and auto-sigs can save you a whole lot of embarassment and the little bit of effort can save your career and maybe even life depending on what it was.

[tags] PGP, GPG, Email, Email Privacy, Encryption, Cryptography, Internet Privacy, Bill Ryan, William Ryan  [/tags]

You’ll find the definition says "Chris Tacke and everyone else at OpenNetCF”.  I consider myself a pretty creative guy and am more than willing to step out of the traditional bounds of doing things when they don’t fit my needs.  If a tool doesn’t work, I’m more than willing to toss it out and either build my own or find something else that does work… Most of the time anyway.

Unit tests are an interesting issue.  People are often complete dumbasses really passionate about it one way or the other.  There are many (typically developers who hate writing code and love the thought of having Manager on their business cards) who completely disavow the utility of unit testing. Advocates on the other hand usually evolve into zealots and can’t imagine coding without unit tests.  Personally, I had a little trouble getting my head around unit testing at first (well, using mocks specifically) but quickly became a true believer (although I don’t get all butthurt get bothered if I see someone else writing code without having written the test for it first).  At first I pretty much stuck to only unit testing stuff I got paid for.  Then little by little, I started doing it in personal projects.  The CuckooBot, StripperBot and the bot who’s name can not be used in public would never have been the successes they were had I not made such liberal use of unit testing.  Actually that’s not totally true – I should say I started doing it for most of my personal projects.  Because when I’m doing Smart Device Programming – I avoid it like the plague.

Why?  I’ll let someone a lot smarter and much more eloquent than myself answer that.

And while your reading up on things, I encourage you to take a look at Project Resistance and the IoC Framework as well. 

Chris links to it in his post but I’d like to draw attention to it as well.  This is the official solution to the problem according to Microsoft.  I realize everyone is very busy with important stuff like Silverlight and Windows Mobile 7, but if you’re going to publish a solution that inadequate, it’s probably better to just publish nothing at all. To me, this would be like a car company finding out Model X had a problem that kept it from starting up when it got below X degrees or above Y degrees and offering the following solution:

1. Wake up 20 minutes earlier than you normally do on work days.
2. Get dressed and eat breakfast 20 minutes earlier as well
3. Put on some comfortable shoes and walk to work

I understand it’s very easy to be a critic and no one on the Windows Mobile team is dumb, lazy, apathetic or uncaring (they are all exactly the opposite), especially when it comes to things that inconvenience end users.  But the proposed solution is so bad you have to wonder if it wasn’t just ‘thrown out there” so someone could check it off of a TODO list or something

Bill's new G37

The charge that I can only drive an RX-8 are bull. I have mad skillz and if it’s hot, I can pimp it.  Yes, the RX-8 was my car of choice. Yes, my RX-8 is totalled.  Yes, I’m not getting another one b/c my wife hates sports cars and really hates ones like my RX-8.  The torque is going to take some getting used to but somehow, I’m thinking I’m going to adjust.  Seriously.

I’ve already got the Alpine components ready to go. I’ve already got the radar detector and laser jammer ready to go.  And in just a short time from now, I’ll have the ride to stick them in.

Money – Check, Cars – Check, Hoes -Check – life is great.

[tags] Infiniti, Infiniti G-37, Passport Radar Detector, Bill Ryan, William Ryan  [/tags]

I first learned of J. J. Luna in his interview with Playboy.  Let’s just say I found him fascinating. Unlike many other ‘How To Disappear” Gurus, this guy was real.  Nothing cheesy about him and nothing that made you feel like you were being scammed. And most importantly, he emphasized over and over that if you were a criminal or trying to skirt the law – he wanted nothing to do with you. He made the case that many people have 10000% legitimate reasons for wanting privacy and that really resonated with me.  So I bought his book How to Be Invisible and fell in love.  For a while, I did everything he recommended and it worked perfectly – although since 9/11 some of it’s been a little harder.   He now sends out a newsletter and has a blog and sent this a while back:

These sites all say, "This product only needs to be installed on your phone."  So, you don’t have to have physical access to the target’s phone.  You just have to know their number.
     A few months ago we saw this one come up on your board: http://www.cellspypro.com. Someone also mentioned Bluetooth hacking. This site sells lots of interesting spying tools for which I cannot think of a legal use —http://www.e-stealth.com —especially their ULTIMATE-BLUETOOTH-MOBILE-PHONE-SPY-SOFTWARE-NEW-EDITION-2008.
    Bent PI’s definitely use these whereas 3-Letter Agencies (usually) have a warrant before doing this.
     I believe these companies are being watched because you can only get their products after paying with a credit card. The customers are therefore known to the watchers. (It would be simple to determine if your stalker was using this. If checked out, his financial documents would show this purchase. Or if not his, then that of a close associate).
     I get exasperated looks from people when I tell them I don’t carry a cell phone.  I stopped carrying one about 3 years ago.

I encourage readers to look at the links.  If there’s more interest – i’ll post the rest of the article.  At first, you’ll no doubt think it’s just marketing hype and BS.  I’d encourage those of you that believe that to did your toe in the water and buy either product.  Then follow the instructions.  Then sit back and be stunned/shocked at the results.  A lot of this stuff is iffy in terms of legality and almost certainly crosses the line in terms of admissibility. However knowing where the bodies are stored is a big benefit – that can lead you to them and you can ‘accidentally’ stumble across them.  At that point, everything you find would be admissible. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how this stuff could be advantageous to pretty much any situation where one has an adversary (especially an adversary that’s abusing their power or that’s inclined to cheat in the first place)

Here’s another link you might find interesting (compliments of Mr Luna as well):

TAPPING YOUR CELL PHONE

From Bruce Schneier:

Interesting

The researchers say they’ve found a vulnerability in U.S. law enforcement wiretaps, if only theoretical, that would allow a surveillance target to thwart the authorities by launching what amounts to a denial-of-service (DoS) attack against the connection between the phone company switches and law enforcement.

[...]

The University of Pennsylvania researchers found the flaw after examining the telecommunication industry standard ANSI Standard J-STD-025, which addresses the transmission of wiretapped data from telecom switches to authorities, according to IDG News Service. Under the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or Calea, telecoms are required to design their network architecture to make it easy for authorities to tap calls transmitted over digitally switched phone networks.

But the researchers, who describe their findings in a paper, found that the standard allows for very little bandwidth for the transmission of data about phone calls, which can be overwhelmed in a DoS attack. When a wiretap is enabled, the phone company’s switch establishes a 64-Kbps Call Data Channel to send data about the call to law enforcement. That paltry channel can be flooded if a target of the wiretap sends dozens of simultaneous SMS messages or makes numerous VOIP phone calls "without significant degradation of service to the targets’ actual traffic."

As a result, the researchers say, law enforcement could lose records of whom a target called and when. The attack could also prevent the content of calls from being accurately monitored or recorded.

I didn’t want to do it, but b/c of all the translation questions, I’m going to go ahead and give you the English version.  The version are slightly different though but not on anything substantial.  I started writing the whole Chupa-Cabron series back as early as 1995 after finding out about the Chupa Cabra on an X-Files episode. I was always kinda fascinated by it – mainly b/c the pictures are so funny looking.  Anyway, I hadn’t thought much about it for a few years until I heard about a Chupa siting on Coast To Coast AM last week.  I had the English version of the 1st story on a old usb drive sitting in the garage (it’s a whopping 40gb & really expensive when I bought it - that’s how old the thing is) which is what I’m providing below.  The subsequent chapters are 100% in Spanglish (BTW, If you don’t believe me about how inadequate most translation services are, look at the translation below and compare it to Google or Babelfish). Also, it’s not hard to see that there’s a lot of inside jokes here.  I’ll just cut to the chase on those  – If we were friends back in Miami/Grad school and you think the joke is about you/us – it is.  Otherwise, it isn’t.  And no, I’m not making fun of Mexicans here – I’m ridiculing a well-known Miami phenomenon wherein members of different Latin American countries condescend to each other and it just so happens, Mexicans catch the most of it.  Don’t blame me – I’m a gringo.

Without further ado…. I introduce The ChubaCabron!

Part 1 – Juan Carlos meets the MS13  Beaners
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Juan Carlos, the ChupaCabra got fed up with Hialeah and moved up to Greenville, SC to hang out with his long lost cumpe and biggest supporter, Bill.  For the 4th time since Bill moved away, Miami-Dade 5.0 arrested Juan Carlos and put his illegal looking a55 in gave him tickets to the  Krome Avenue Detention Center Ritz Carlton. Why, Juan Carlos thought, did Bill have to move away and ruin everything? Why couldn’t things be like they were back when Bill lived here?  “I used to spend many weekends at Bill’s crib, now the raaaaacist cops are stuffing me in the Krome Ritz and Dr. B doesn’t even work there any more to help a brotha out”, he thought. 

It’s very hard for a Chupacabra to be taken seriously by Gringos but Bill was above such biases. Not only that, he was one of the few people that actually enjoyed hanging out with ChupaCabras.  Unlike your standard run of the mill Chupa, Juan Carlos , had it really rough, even when in the company of other Chupacabras.  You see, the Chupacabra community is very traditional and having children out of wedlock is frowned upon.  Sadly, the children are often the ones treated the worst in such situations and that’s exactly what happened here with Juan Carlos.
�
Bill’s ho esposa Genevive was a sweetheart but a little uncomfortable with Juan Carlos’ presence. Juan Carlos attributed it to her nationality – “damn Columbians can’t help but snobbin a Cuban playboy like yourz truly”.  They had 3 dogs in the house and she was scared that Juan Carlos would end up Chupa-ing one of the dogs, plus he was Cuban.  The dogs were terrified of him and even though he was a devout dog lover, it made no difference.  He spent all morning trying to convince the dogs he wasn’t going to hurt them.  “Chupa-CABRA!  CABRA!  CABRA.  I’m a ChupaCABRA – not a ChupaPERRO so you all need to chill out. Ok, Ok, what if I let y’all sh*t all over the rug and chew up a few pairs of Bill’s Bruno Magli’s.”  Juan Carlos thought “Bill’s my homeboy, but I gotta chill these dawgs out and dude has more Magli’s and Ferragamos than Imelda Marcos. Besides, Bill never stays mad for more than 20 minutes, so he’ll chill out“.  Juan Carlos went in Bill’s shoe closet and grabbed a few pairs of shoes. He tossed them to the dogs and said “Ok you guys, this sh*t is fine italian leather not no payless crap, so yall need to chill out, cut me some slack and be cool.”  He was going to throw the dogs some of Bill’s shoes for old times’ sake but decided against it.  And finally the dogs did exactly what he said.  Grateful, Juan Carlos headed off to Walmart to get the dogs some bones and some new leashes.  He hoped to find a store in Greenville that sold Bruno Magli loafers too…
�
He always went to Walmartback in Hialeah and would stop at the Pollo Tropical on the way over.  He was searching high and low for one to no avail.  Standing outside of Walmart were some MS 13 members. This was peculiar b/c they used to hang out INSIDE WalMart.  He asked one of the clerks about it and the clerk said “Yah, they used to be in here but they got kicked out. Members of   La Familia moved in and took over there offices and everything.  Apparently La Familia found out how to use Leveraged Buyouts to their advantage and thanks to Junk Bonds, they were able to raise enough capital to buy the MS 13 office inside of WalMart.�
�
As Juan Carlos walked by them, one of them said “Look, it’s the ChupaCabron.  Wuzzup ChupaCABRON!  Hey, Jose, Say ‘Bronca’ over and over”  Jose said it’ BRONCABRONCABRONCABRONCABRONCABRONCA” and they all started laughing.  Juan Carlos was really mad and as mentioned earlier, jokes about his legitimacy really pissed him off. As the gang members kept making Cabron jokes he said “You’ll pardon me for not laughing, I’m Cuban after all and I find Beaner Humor really lame.  You beaners really laugh at anything where us Cubans are much more sophsiticated.  “  The MS 13 member Jose said “You got a real wise mouth- you’re lucky La Familia Michoacana is running stuff now or you’d be dead”.  Juan Carlos  said “Yah, I bet, and I’m terrified.  I mean, a 5’1 BEANER that smells like a combination of feet and ass is scary. But what’s really scary is the same beaner wearing an old Michael Bolton T-Shirt with Grass Stains. What’s up with your Look? You look like that dude from the Rico Suave video, but dirtier.  Didn’t they have anything less, uhhh, Gay at the Salvation Army?  If I give you $5.00 in lottery tickets, will you say Riiiiiccccooo Suaaavvveeee for me like that Gerardo dude sang? By the way, I need my grass cut, can you stop by and cut it and have your mom clean my toilets.”  Jose said “you got a real smart mouth for a ChupaCabron.  A Cabron and a Commamierda all at once? Sucks to be you.” 

Juan Carlos  replied, “You know, that puta de mierda mom of yours wasn’t minding me being a CommaMierda while she was Chupa-ing my cojones last night.  Your standard issue puta sister didn’t mind either and your deluxe puta wife, she loved it.  I guess you beaners have such small Pinga’s that getting a Cuban Sausage put them over the edge.” Jose said “My mom’s a puta? At least I have a mom, how about that Cabron?”   Afterward he said “Well, Riiiccccooo, a Cabron isn’t someone without a mom, it’s someone without a dad, if you were born in a 1st world country, you’d know that.  Besdies, Don’t you beaners have anything better to do than follow people around the Walmart parking lot? And what’s up with your look? I should call the cops on you. Hey there’s on.  Hey, Mister, Officer, come here, there’s illegal Beaners hassling customers” 

The officer came over but sadly, there was a big surprise… The officer was a Pre-Op Transexual.  So no one could tell if it was a He becoming a She, or a She becoming a He.  She said “You called me Mister?  You got a really smart mouth on you boy”  The MS 13  members said “Yah, he sure does”. She said “You need to watch your mouth, unles you’re looking for trouble”.  Juan Carlos  said “How can I look at my mouth without a mirror, and no, I don’t know ANYONE named ‘Trouble’”  So she said “All of you , get out of here - La Familia runs this joint now – they have an office inside and they OWN this parking lot too. So you, the ChupaCabra and you guys, the Michael Bolton/Gerrardo wannabe, Beat it already ok?”
�
Juan Carlos  asked “Wait a second, you’re a dude who’s 1/2 way to becomming a chick or the other way around and you’re busting my balls for getting it wrong?  I don’t need some Barney Fife looking cop telling me what to do”.  At that, the officer said “I’m not a barney fife type cop, I’m the real deal.  I just attended da Police Academy training, have you?  I thought so. And you think you’re hot sh*t because you live with that CommaMierda  Bill, well just because he has  a Top Secret clearance doesn’t mean he’s anything, just because he can sit around and look people up in the NCIC database, whoopdidooo, that’s gay, and not gay like me but gay gay. And true to form, his gay self gays around town in his stupid Faguar  Just because his wife is hotttt and has a real college degree, that doesn’t mean anything either. And just because he has written a bunch of stupid books, went to grad school - he must have been at home with all those thugs and criminals at Miami , earned every honor you can earn in his profession , it means nothing.  He’s a worm, worse, he’s a book worm, AND a Math Geek. He plays Beavis and Butthead’s virtual stupidity all day but calls World of Warcraft afficianados Loosers?  You tell Bill this, I got his Looser right here (pointing to his/her a55), if he was here now, I’d looser the hot steamy remnants of my bowels on his chest.  Let’s see how tough he sounds with a Cleveland Steamer under his chin!”

Juan Carlos thought “What’s a LOOSER?  There’s only one ‘o’ in loser isn’t there?  What a crazy bitch.  Someone didn’t get enough affection as a kid or something but this chick is crazy”.  He wanted to chill her out so he said “Listen, Bill is a great friend and the only person to believe in me since i got here, but I’m sure you have a much bigger Pinga then he does”.  At which point the officer beamed with pride.  She said “Really, cuz you live with him so you’d know. I always heard he was hung like a  horse”. Juan Carlos seeing the change in her demeanor said “Oh yah, much much bigger, he packs his pants with a sock so don’t worry about it.”  At that point, Officer TripleFea said”Well, let me at least give you a ride home buddy”. So Juan Carlos got in the car, she drove him home ,and everyone was happy – But Serious trouble loomed around the corner, trouble that neither Juan Carlos, his friend Bill or Bill’s wife Genevive could ever imagine.
�
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this Saga – Interview with the Chupa Cabron

[tags] ChupaCabra, Chupa-Cabron, ChupaCabron, Wal-Mart, MS13, MS-13, La familia, Chingo Bling, Immigration Reform, Krome Avenue Detention Center, Bill Ryan, William Ryan  [/tags]

I was going through older posts for a meeting today and I re-read a few things I wrote a while back.  Some of them are Quite Funny.  Just for the record (I just have a feeling I probably need to reiterate this for the trillionth time), Spanish isn’t my first language. Moreover, I don’t speak”Spanish” as much as I speak “Cuban”. Yep, that’s a big difference. 

Spanish speakers will have no problem reading this but translating sites in general aren’t up to par.  Sticking ANY full page post in a translating engine probably will result in something that is very different from the original.  There’s a lost lost in translation and it’s just too hard for a translating engine to guess every single connotation of a word or phrase you’re using.  Throw in dialects you have a mess.  If you don’t believe me – just read through this. (There’s a few thousand more examples if that doesn’t convince you).

There’s a guy who frequents some of the Developer newsgroups who doesn’t speak English. So he writes in Dutch and translates using Google Translate or BabelFish. The result is NOT PRETTY.  And what’s worse, b/c he can’t read English either, he uses a translation engine to read posts. The result is more often than not, that he seriously misunderstands what’s being asked (and occasionally he takes offense to what he reads even though none was meant or written.  I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about what I’m getting at from there)

[tags] ChupaCabra, Chupa-Cabron, ChupaCabron, Wal-Mart, MS13, MS-13, La familia, Chingo Bling, Immigration Reform, Krome Avenue Detention Center, Bill Ryan, William Ryan  [/tags]

The Windows Mobile Race is sinking in on me.  I’m getting into Seattle tomorrow evening at 11:35.  We board the train the following morning at 9:30 and stay on the train through the whole contest.

• Latest Phil Hendrie Show Podcasts downloaded – CHeck
• Zune Synced – Check
• Netbook Packed – Check
• Developer Laptop Packed – Check
• Flip HD Camera Packed – Check

They’re encouraging us to LiveBlog and Tweet the event so I will do my best.  Well, maybe not the part about getting faded off my a55 once I get to LA and kick it with my Big-Big Brother Marcus.  Can’t wait!  And maybe I can slip down South O Da Border and get extra faded at the Wal Mart with my homie Chingo Bling

From Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit – BREAKING THE BOTNET CODE:

BREAKING THE BOTNET CODE. “Networks of compromised computers controlled by a central server, better known as botnets, are a Swiss Army knife of tools for online criminals. Hackers can use these co-opted systems to churn out spam, host malicious code, hide their tracks on the Internet, or flood a corporate network to cut off its access to the Web.”

Wait a second here… you mean studying Bots and Botnets is a Good thing?  Say It Ain’t So.  You mean people actually use Bots to learn how other bots operates in an effort to help defeat them?  You Gotta Be Fing Kidding me.   You mean to tell me studying Bots and BotNets can help make the internet and computing more secure?  Gee Willickers You mean they are free to discuss their findings and write about their bots?  Holy Cow!  Don’t these people realize that someone might COMPLETELY MISINTERPRET what they are doing and writing about?

I don’t know what’s more amazing to me, that they are allowed to study Bots and Botnets or that they are allowed to discuss their findings.  They certainly don’t live in Spartanburg County, SC.  I better stop while I’m ahead

Business lingo is so freaking obnoxious that it is almost always cringeworthy.  In the annals of obnoxious business lingo, Resource is the worst.  Not when it’s used correctly but when it’s used as a substitute for ‘employee’, ‘person’ etc.  It’s like a virus.  You have some insecure coworker (usually a Project Manager or manager wannabe) who tries to advance by copying the boss instead of doing his job better.  And they hear it one day “We have several resources that specialize in X”. They now have the virus.

They’ll dip their toe in the water with a first email.  “I was looking for a resource that can help me on X”.  They think to themselves “HOT D4MN – I SOUND COOL AND IMPORTANT.” And it’s over from there.  Within 24 hours later you’ll be reading about Technical Resources, Non-Technical Resources, Billable Resources, Non-Billable Resources and any other combination their evil minds can concoct.  Well guys, a few things:

• It sounded douchey (and Pathetic) back in 2002 when it first became popular
• Each time an additional person starts using it, it gets douchier (and more Pathetic)
• If you’re using it today, it’s not just douchey but it also tired (and Pathetic)

Let me help you out ok folks?  If you use it, you’re getting laughed at behind your back.  I promise you.  Your coworkers are spending time talking about what a complete and utter douchebag you are. So quit it.  Want proof that it’s douchey?

Use it in any other scenario and see what it sounds like

• When picking the child up from school (“Honey, can you pick up the non-billable resource today, I”m working late?”)  How does that sound?
• When going out on a date. (“Dude, you should see the **** on the non-techincal resource I’m going out with tonight?

Get it?  I challenge you to find any situation where it doesn’t sound completely douchey.  So seriously, grow up and cut it out.  On behalf of all the coworkers of people who use “Resource” in emails – STOP IT ALREADY YOU FREAKING DOUCHEY RESOURCE!

I recently posted a link about an invite I got regarding Jim Stein’s new book, The Right Decision.  There was a contest regarding one of the topics covered in the book and it looks like I won.

I haven’t read the book yet but I already know I’ll love it.  I can’t wait for it to get here.  I’ll be doing a LOT of travelling the next few weeks and that’s when I get a lot of power reading done.  If you have any other suggestions for cool books – i’m game (non-fiction.  Unless the fiction stuff is just that awesome).

The Windows Mobile Race folks got back to me last night and I’m definitely in.  So I’ll be heading to Seattle on Friday and I’ll be back in Greenville Monday. I hope we’re as lucky at this contest as I was with The Right Decision – wish me luck!

I was contacted via Twitter today by Jim Stein about his new book, The Right Decision. He wrote me saying that my name came back in his search along with one other person. He wrote a book on Decision Theory and I had a chance to win.  Any book with a subtitle of A Mathematician Reveals How Anyone Can Use the Secrets of Decision Theory is something I know I’m just going to love.  Starting with A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, followed by Innumeracy all the way through Super Crunchers and Predictably Irrational, I’ve had a 15 year love affair with this genre of books.

The rest of this post is about me, getting a Master’s degree and this genre of books. Whether or not I win, I’ll be buying this book and I’ll review it shortly. So check back around Friday if you want a review of it.  I won’t bore you if that’s what you’re looking for (until Friday, and I’ll bore you then   ) If you’re interested in what someone learns in a MBA program or my thoughts on getting a MBA – read on.

I started to think of  all the books I’ve read in this genre and well, there were too many to link to without wasting all afternoon copying hyperlinks.  There are countless movies and books about Teachers that made a difference for students. They are almost always warm and fuzzy and play out like an episode of Oprah.   But as I was thinking about this all, I tried to remember what got me started.  As best I can remember, it was The Strategy of Conflict by Thomas Schelling.  Dr. Todd Schultz  was teaching Management Information Science 601 (or 602 I forget exactly, but it was the Master’s level course) and struck me as a mad genius.  Schultz was one of those people that after speaking with them for 20 minutes, you could feel your IQ Rise.  Afterward, I read every Schelling book I could find and loved them all.  Then, I came across Coopetition. I had constantly heard people knock Ivory Tower intellectualism and I was determined not to be one of them and this book opened every door I wanted to go in.  It was technical enough you couldn’t fake your way through it, but it was practical in that it had solid applications for real world stuff – with real world examples

One of the cool things of his class is that it was relatively unstructured and should have been called Really Cool Stuff You Ought to Know as a Professional.  We literally covered everything from Deming’s Quality Theories to Relational Database Theory. And as the case would be – Game Theory.  ASU had so many amazing professors I could write at length about many of them but Schultz got me into Game Theory.  He also had a section on computer programming (which was different from the section on database theory). In this class, he wrote a program where a butterfly flew across the screen using Visual Basic. At the same time, I was taking Non-Visual C++ and was stunned at the extreme ease with which he pulled this off.  I went home that evening  after stopping at Books-A-Million on Washington road to pick up a VB5 book and a few years later I was earning a solid living as a software developer.

So Schultz got me into Game Theory and all things related which has been a great hobby to have.  Studying it keeps your thinking sharp  and typically, I’ll follow through on all the math – which keeps lessons from Grad School Fresh.  Dr. Schultz also ignited a real fire for me to learn programming again. I started programming when I was 9 years old and by the time I was 12, I was pretty into it.  My high school didn’t have much in the way of computers so I got a little behind there and by college, I was way behind.  Grad school forced me to become really computer literate really fast. And before long I was way past needing to know things a power user could handle – I had to start writing code. At the time it was largely Lotus 1-2-3 Macros (which believe it or not was a pretty sought after skill once upon a time).  I had decided to take a few programming courses at the undergrad level during my last two quarters in grad school and they had really turned me off.  It was 1996 and Windows was well established as the norm. Writing green screen programs with a really lame C, C++ compiler with an even lamer debugger was not great marketing as far as that goes.  Seeing a butterfly fly across the screen launched from a button on the other hand, was awesome.

The computer science guys really looked down on VB back then (I guess that’s never changed) and I couldn’t understand why at the time.  They were writing basic programs to balance a checking book – taking 4 weeks to do it and offering really lame features and I was able to do it in a night using the Excel object library. And I could do all sorts of amazing things they couldn’t dream of. Anyway, I decided to split the difference and learn Java.  Java was/is very cool and it allowed me to land a job using Oracle as the back end and Java as the front end.  Shortly afterward I got to write my first program for a mobile device using Java.  And the rest is history. 

This leads to my inevitable lecture on “Should I get a MBA”?

This matters b/c even back in the early 90s, the market was saturated with MBAs. While most of my class mates were cool, I definitely picked up a vibe of “young punk” from a lot of folks.  I was the youngest person in the program until close to the end when there was one younger person than me.  So the MBA started getting a connotation as being a degree for one of 3 types of people:

• Engineers, Accountants, or similar professionals who were about to move into management
• College kids who majored in subjects with little market value, who couldn’t find a job and weren’t sure what they ultimately wanted to be when they grew up (sound familiar?)
• Disgruntled losers who didn’t play well with others.  Typically very dysfunctional people who couldn’t get coworkers to follow them or listen to their ideas.  So they decided "I’ll get a MBA and then I’ll beat people over the head with my credentials when they don’t take me seriously”

This wasn’t my assessment btw. This is what I heard from several head hunters who I had talked to.  They went so far as to say that a MBA without any work experience was actually a minus. They said the perception was that young MBAs were typically people who wanted to go straight to the top without paying their dues and asked for too much money.

Nepotism got me my first real job and while I’m eternally grateful for it, I knew I was only hired b/c of my mother’s friendships.  Being deeply in debt though and not having many career options was depressing and didn’t do much for one’s self-esteem.  Landing my first programming gig was like dying and going to heaven. Even though I was the only one on the team without a Ph.D or M.S. in computer science, I was still happy. And I hit it off with my team mates that I was treated as a kindred spirit. All of this thanks to Dr. Schultz.

Anyway, I write this b/c so many people ask me about getting a MBA that I’ll have something in writing I can point to. They ask and are always surprised by my answer.  In general, my answer is NO. 

Everyone loves saying how it’s not money or power behind them wanting a MBA but in most cases, when you cut through the BS, it is. Sure, you’ll hear “I just always wanted a Master’s degree” or “I just want to learn more” and sometimes you’ll find it to be true, but very very rarely.  For the record, there’s nothing wrong, IMHO with wanting more money or power and getting more education to get there. I think it’s noble actually so am shocked by people’s seeming embarrassment over it. 

But my main reason for recommending against it is this. Most people think Master’s == More money or Promotion.  It doesn’t in most cases.  Mine hasn’t earned me a single penny, nor has it gotten me hired or promoted.  I’ve heard the counter argument about going to a top tier school for your MBA and well, it’s hard to argue with it to some extent. On the other hand, a top tier school is probably going to run you close to 100k to get your MBA (going up every year) and that’s not including time and opportunity costs.  I’ve met so many people seriously disappointed after getting their MBA b/c they really thought things were going to instantly change – and nothing did change. Or they got a meager raise. Most people got a congratulatory email from the boss – and taken out to lunch. Many have told me though that it backfired. The Boss without a MBA took it as a threat and coworkers viewed it as them trying to cut in line .

On the one hand, my education was priceless to me. It was a lot of work but not having a business undegrad degree but me at a big disadvantage in the marketplace.  I could actually read the Wall Street Journal and understand it. I truly understood why the Fed mattered and what the Fed did.  I now realized that the demonization of Speculators was very pernicious. I understood why Japanese cars were notably better than US cars (although there’s really no such things as a car made in the US and US Made cars have gotten very close to their Japanese counterparts).I can’t even really measure the impact b/c so much of my thinking changed. I mean, it was in 1995 that I started making a point of trying to read each book on the  Business Book Best Sellers (the Top 20).

Reading every single book that makes the top 20 (whichever index you want to use) is hard b/c some books are longer than others by a long shot, so I’ll have them all read and then a few new ones come in and I get behind. I’ve gotten way behind several times but never less than 10.  Over a career of book reading – that’s a lot of Books. The Kindle has really been a huge help in that regard and I’m going to get a Nook as soon as it finally comes out.  The Cuckooette has been wanting a Kindle for a while now and she’ll probably be getting one  as long as she keeps practicing her Cello for at least an hour a night (hint hint hint dear – I really want to buy you one – so make it easy for me!). 

Anyway, on the whole it was something I’m very glad I did and for me, it was something I needed to do. On the other hand, I don’t know if I’d do it again if I was 22 yrs old now.  The main thing though is that I wouldn’t under any circumstances take out student loans to pay for it. And as programs get more accommodating they also get more expensive.  Heck, when I went to University of Miami working on my 2nd Master’s, it was 36k a year for graduate studies.  That’s peanuts compared to what a lot of programs cost and well, I loved University of Miami too – but the ROI on the 100k I spent while I was there wasn’t value added.  Therein is a hint for people seeking an answer to this question.  Assuming the salaries you hear of are 100% legit (they aren’t – many of the people in the population they use already had high paying jobs before getting their MBA – they inflate the salary ranges dramatically), remember that it’s all or nothing. What I mean is – if you stop for ANY REASON and don’t complete the program, you don’t get the degree. You don’t get partial credit for showing your work – so you can end up taking out a lot of money in loans and not having a job to pay them  back.   You don’t want to ever be in this situation – just ask Dave Ramsey!

Without getting into the gory details, the Bot that shall not be named, and all others have been temporarily deactivated. I do apologize for the inconvenience but I kind of have to – have to in the Tony Soprano sense of the phrase   I’m confident however that I’ll have this resolved and will be able to have all the bots up and running within the next month.

• If you have any code updates or contributions, Source Control is still active. I’ve turned off all the statistics so when you go there, you won’t see stats about your contributions for now (I do have them internally and will be glad to give them to you if you desire).
• I can’t accept new contributors until I turn things back on.  Yep, it sucks but my hands are tied.  I wish I was one of those kids with a “Life is going to be fair” guarantee when they were born, but I didn’t get one.  If someone drops out though, I’ll be glad to stick you in their slot if you’re interested.  I’ll do this on a straight first come first serve basis just to be fair/safe/ yada yada
• In the interim, I’ll use the downtime to get some important things accomplished. The small stuff includes the Exchange server and porting the databases to Sql Server 2008.  But I’ll have the new Speech Server up and running to. That means when you come back, you’ll be able to send calls to the Bot that shall not be named, you’ll be able to receive calls and SMS messages from the Bot that shall not be named, you’ll be able to send/receive emails with the Bot that shall not be named, and much more.  I’m even going to get an “As Seen As TV” graphic for the project just b/c that’s how I roll
• Please don’t post any snarky questions or god help me, snarky comments about this on this blog.  You can send them to me privately or post them in the Forum over at CodePlex – make sure you only post in the private forums for now.
• Please feel free to contact Kim and tell her that as wonderful as she is, she’s being cruel.  Keeping a Cuckoo from a fast car is just plain mean. And the Big Cuckoo and Little Cuckooette both want to the 370z!