Ponderings and Musings

Age.

 

Maude and walter 1973

Doing some quick math in my head earlier today I came to the realization that on my next birthday in July I will be 48 years old. 48. I’m not having an aging crisis because quite frankly, I don’t really feel like I’m 48 years old. People that are 48 years old are adults doing adult things, and honestly, I’m still a kid at heart.

When we are growing up we think that anyone in their mid to late 40s is ancient. I remember watching the old sitcom “Maude” and thinking they were old people. In reality, Maude and Walter were 47 and 49 during the first season the show. Conrad Bain, playing Arthur, was 48. I certainly don’t feel like I’m their age. I don’t even wear flowing caftan things over a pant suit. I currently do have a mustache like Bill Macy did when we played Walter and upon further examination of the show, I have more gray in my mustache that he had in his when he was depicting a 49 year old (in real life he was 50 at the time). I feel like I’ve accomplished many things in my life and am at a comfortable place, but I certainly don’t feel like I’ve “grown up”. Heck, my parents were my age when they met my husband! Where has the time gone?

I wonder if Bea Arthur and William Macy felt like kids at heart when they played their famous roles. In reality, I suppose that is what’s most important in the long run, how we feel on the inside. As long as I continue to be who I am, try to stay reasonably fit and enjoy life to the fullest, I suppose I’ll always be a kid at heart.

Pretend Time.

I just tweeted about the beginning of “Daylight Saving Time” here in the United States. Our clocks around the house are now in sync with the annual lie of the government telling the populace that they’ll get an extra hour of sunlight if they just set their clocks forward an hour. We’ve all heard the benefits: energy savings (false), the farmers want it (really false), people are more productive (still false).

When Indiana started using Daylight Saving Time in 2005, energy use went up.

The farmers don’t really enjoy Daylight Saving Time because they’d rather be milking Bessie in the morning daylight, not in the lingering darkness of the preceding night.

The thing is, time is an erred human application to nature. Before 1883, noon represented when the sun was at its highest point in the sky on a particular day. That measurement is a pretty close representation to what our bodies are trying achieve – stay in sync with the natural rhythm of the planet and the solar system. But humans, American humans in particular, are hell bent on bending nature to their whims and trying very hard to fight the system all in the name of having “more” sunlight. There isn’t more sunlight. We are going to get the same amount of sunlight whether we state that solar noon is 11 a.m., 12 noon or 6 p.m. It’s how we use our time that matters. Perhaps if we all just slowed down a little bit, didn’t try to cram 30 hours of activities into 24 hours and stopped dinking around with the clocks, we’d be less hostile and cranky.

We need to stop pretending (thank you Séan for calling it what it is, Pretend Time).

Outside.

 Earl and I went for a walk along the Barge Canal yesterday. Even though it is still technically winter, spring is in the process of springing in these parts. It’s the first time in a long while that I can remember being able to walk along the canal trail at this time of year without having to walk on snow. It was a nice change of pace.
 
 Even though we had a very mild winter this year, I’ve still been feeling the winter blahs and cabin fever. I attribute this to my home office being in the basement. I have a small window that affords me a little bit of outside light, but for the most part it’s artificial lighting and a space heater for me while I work. I can’t complain, I’m a lucky man to be able to work from home, but working from home full-time can be a little tricky if you don’t remember to get outside once in a while. It’s not easy to get fresh air during the winter months in these parts; when snowbanks line the road, there’s not much room for the casual pedestrian. And honestly, as I get older I don’t enjoy bundling up in multiple layers in an attempt to keep warm like I used to do when I was a kid.
 
 As Earl and I walked along the canal yesterday, I was admiring the wooded area that flanked the paved pathway. As a youngster I really enjoyed spending time outside after school. We were lucky to live on ten acres of land, mostly covered with woods and I would spend a lot of time out there hiking and exploring and letting my imagination run wild with all sorts of adventurous scenarios. I had a road network mapped out in my head. I built bridges across several marshy areas. I’d watch the trains come through on the tracks that dissected the land. I’d see how far away I could detect the rumble of an oncoming train. Those woods were my playground and I think playing around in the woods as a teenager helped my maintain my sanity.
 
 One of the very few things I miss about the house that Earl and I lived in before we moved in 2003 was the 38 acres of former farmland that we had surrounding the house. We had trees and ponds and open meadows; plenty of space to roam around in if I wanted to, which I did on occasion. I mowed some paths to walk along. Like the area where I grew up, there was a railroad track that went along our old piece of property and on a couple of occasions I watched the train go by, waving to the passengers headed up into the Adirondacks.
 
 While Earl and I were out about this past weekend, I mentioned that I wanted to build a bridge across the creek the runs behind our house. I’ve been wanting to do this for a decade but never really got around to it. I’ve put it on my priority list for this year. It won’t be anything extravagant; just a couple of supporting beams with pallets put in place to provide a walking surface, but it’ll be easier to get across the stream to the other half of our property, which is a small patch of wooded area bordered by farmland.
 
 I think getting out there once in a while will help me maintain my sanity. The fresh air will do me some good.

Encryption.

The FBI has asked Apple for the ability to bypass security features on an iPhone that was used as part of the San Bernadino shooting last year. This is not the first time a government agency has asked for what is essentially a “back door” into Apple’s operating systems. This functionality is not available yet, a judge has ordered Apple to create this back door feature. Apple is refusing to comply, as described in a customer letter from Apple CEO Tim Cook.

February 16, 2016 

A Message to Our Customers

The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers. We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand. 

This moment calls for public discussion, and we want our customers and people around the country to understand what is at stake.

The Need for Encryption

Smartphones, led by iPhone, have become an essential part of our lives. People use them to store an incredible amount of personal information, from our private conversations to our photos, our music, our notes, our calendars and contacts, our financial information and health data, even where we have been and where we are going.

All that information needs to be protected from hackers and criminals who want to access it, steal it, and use it without our knowledge or permission. Customers expect Apple and other technology companies to do everything in our power to protect their personal information, and at Apple we are deeply committed to safeguarding their data.

Compromising the security of our personal information can ultimately put our personal safety at risk. That is why encryption has become so important to all of us.

For many years, we have used encryption to protect our customers’ personal data because we believe it’s the only way to keep their information safe. We have even put that data out of our own reach, because we believe the contents of your iPhone are none of our business.

The San Bernardino Case

We were shocked and outraged by the deadly act of terrorism in San Bernardino last December. We mourn the loss of life and want justice for all those whose lives were affected. The FBI asked us for help in the days following the attack, and we have worked hard to support the government’s efforts to solve this horrible crime. We have no sympathy for terrorists.

When the FBI has requested data that’s in our possession, we have provided it. Apple complies with valid subpoenas and search warrants, as we have in the San Bernardino case. We have also made Apple engineers available to advise the FBI, and we’ve offered our best ideas on a number of investigative options at their disposal.

We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good. Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.

Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession.

The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.

The Threat to Data Security

Some would argue that building a backdoor for just one iPhone is a simple, clean-cut solution. But it ignores both the basics of digital security and the significance of what the government is demanding in this case.

In today’s digital world, the “key” to an encrypted system is a piece of information that unlocks the data, and it is only as secure as the protections around it. Once the information is known, or a way to bypass the code is revealed, the encryption can be defeated by anyone with that knowledge.

The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But that’s simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable.

The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers — including tens of millions of American citizens — from sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals. The same engineers who built strong encryption into the iPhone to protect our users would, ironically, be ordered to weaken those protections and make our users less safe.

We can find no precedent for an American company being forced to expose its customers to a greater risk of attack. For years, cryptologists and national security experts have been warning against weakening encryption. Doing so would hurt only the well-meaning and law-abiding citizens who rely on companies like Apple to protect their data. Criminals and bad actors will still encrypt, using tools that are readily available to them.

A Dangerous Precedent

Rather than asking for legislative action through Congress, the FBI is proposing an unprecedented use of the All Writs Act of 1789 to justify an expansion of its authority.

The government would have us remove security features and add new capabilities to the operating system, allowing a passcode to be input electronically. This would make it easier to unlock an iPhone by “brute force,” trying thousands or millions of combinations with the speed of a modern computer.

The implications of the government’s demands are chilling. If the government can use the All Writs Act to make it easier to unlock your iPhone, it would have the power to reach into anyone’s device to capture their data. The government could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone’s microphone or camera without your knowledge.

Opposing this order is not something we take lightly. We feel we must speak up in the face of what we see as an overreach by the U.S. government.

We are challenging the FBI’s demands with the deepest respect for American democracy and a love of our country. We believe it would be in the best interest of everyone to step back and consider the implications.

While we believe the FBI’s intentions are good, it would be wrong for the government to force us to build a backdoor into our products. And ultimately, we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect.

Tim Cook

Reading through the letter, you’ll notice that the government is using a law written in 1789, the All Writs Act, to justify why Apple should be forced to write the software giving anyone the ability to have a back door into an iPhone. Once back door access is written, even if it’s intended for just this single use, the software would be duplicated and eventually anyone, anywhere could theoretically have access to your now encrypted data. In today’s world of growing number of cyberattacks, this would be a very bad thing.

People have wondered why I stay with Apple products, especially because I complain about them from time to time. This is why. I believe that this demonstrates that Apple is truly committed to doing the right thing. And I applaud their efforts.

DL 2003.

    

I’m pretty sure I’ve used this blog title of “DL 2003” before, as I’m pretty sure I’ve flown this flight number before. I mentioned to Earl this morning that I know I’m becoming a seasoned airline traveler when I can pack for a trip in less than five minutes, I roll my eyes at the “gate lice” (zones 2 and 3 crowding the gate before boarding has even started) and I’m starting to repeat flight numbers.

I find it all rather exciting.

I am off to Greenville, South Carolina for the week for work. I’m looking forward to the team meetings that are scheduled for the week; I find them to be energizing and exciting. The hours are going to be rather intense, but I enjoy the challenges, my position and my career in general. I haven’t been able to say that throughout my entire life.

I’m happy that I’m arriving in Greenville the day after the latest Republican Debate. The debate was held at the Peace Center, which is across the street from the hotel I usually stay at whilst in Greenville. Rates there were higher than normal when I was booking this trip so I opted to save the company a little money and decided to stay at another hotel, though I will still be in the downtown area. Winter weather conditions are forecasted for tonight into tomorrow; I’ll get to see firsthand how the folks in the South handle the snow and ice. It should be a hoot.

I’ve been debating folks on my friends list on Facebook since the announcement of the passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Several folks have been saying things like they’re breaking out the champagne or posting lyrics to celebratory songs such as “Celebration” or “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead”. While my ideology is nearly the polar opposite of Justice Scalia, I can’t bring myself to be in a celebratory mood over a man’s death. I’m reminded of the story of when Vivian Vance found out about the death of her television husband William Frawley. The two didn’t like each other in real life and when she found out of Mr. Frawley’s passing she barked out “Champagne for everyone!” with a gleeful tone. Having the same approach to Justice Scalia’s death seems tacky to me. While I think the United States will be better off with him off the Supreme Court, celebrating the fact that death removed him from the bench seems overly ghoulish. While the man said some hateful things and pushed for divisive legislation, I’m sure that his family is still mourning the death of their loved one. Imagine sitting at a Thanksgiving dinner, arguing with your grandfather, who believes in the polar opposite of everything you believe in and then he drops dead in the mashed potatoes. I’m sure you wouldn’t jump up and starting singing and drinking champagne and I’m pretty sure you’d be offended if some stranger walked up to your grandmother and screamed “Good riddance!” at the calling hours. While these scenarios may work in comedic scenes of a sitcom, in reality they’re callous, mean spirited and completely unnecessary. I firmly believe that we should conduct ourselves on the Internet in the same exact manner that we conduct ourselves in real life. And if you would drink champagne in the presence of Justice Scalia’s family and cheer about his death, well, I’m not sure that I want to be associated with you.

Our life on this planet is a fleeting moment of indeterminate length. To live our life to the fullest is to embrace our wisdom, grow with the Universe, share our experiences and conduct ourselves with compassion. To live to the contrary is detrimental to what I believe is the “master plan” of life.

Grid.

From time to time I look up some of my history on my blog. This usually leads me to spending some time reading old blog entries, giving me a snapshot of my feelings, thoughts and such for a particular time frame in my life. I’ve treated this blog as an online diary and it’s served me well in that purpose. I like the idea of slowing life down enough to take the time to write more than a quick and witty blurb for posting on a social media site; I’ve never cared about the numbers of views or the number of comments I’ve received here. I do enjoy comments and trading thoughts back and forth with those that choose to read what I have written. There’s never anything wrong with a well-intended debate.

One of the things that strikes me when I read the older blog entries is the degradation of what I call my “quality of personal expression” after I joined Twitter. I still had a flip phone when I joined Twitter and I used to text my updates through a text message. Banging out 140 characters back then was a bit of a chore but I circumvented the problem by keeping that first tweet simple. On 9/24/2007 at 11:09 PM I simply tweeted, “Sleeping”. My evolution(?) from a flip phone to an iPhone improved my tweeting habits. Nowadays I share quick spurts of dialog with others by banging out an abbreviated retort or other piece of frivolity with others without giving it a second thought. This, in turn, has made me more outspoken. And that’s not always an entirely good thing.

“Opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got one”, as the saying goes, and sometimes the expression of our opinion turns us into an asshole. I was recently visiting friends down south and as I look back at it, I think I might have been a little more mouthy than usual when it came to discussing politics, the economy and whether or not I, as a gay man, should be eating at Chick-Fil-A. Looking back on the weekend I decided that while I am very firm in my beliefs and I am willing to enjoy a lively debate on a given subject, there’s a certain amount of couth that one can lose when they are expressing themselves, especially when they’re used to belching out their beliefs in 140 characters or less. Sharing my life on social media such as Twitter, and living behind a Twitter handle without the burden of being face to face with whom you are debating, has resulted in me losing a bit of the sophistication that I never really grew up with but that which I long to have as part of my personality.

Perhaps living your life on social media is not as grand as the social media companies would want you to believe it to be. The key to being part of the grid is to find balance in it all. Putting the phone during dinner. Shaking a celebrity’s hand instead of trying to get a selfie. Enjoying a beautiful sunrise without posting a photo of it on Instagram. Enjoy the gift, skill and thrill of flight in an airplane without barraging your Facebook feed with posts about every nuance of the flight.

Lately I’ve been drawn to social media services that are a little more robust in their content. I’m starting to read more and getting away from the “scan for pictures” services. I’m liking Medium and I’m still using RSS feeds to aggregate content from various blogs and such. And as much as I try to step away from the service, I still enjoy Google+ much more than Facebook. With a properly curated contributor’s list on your Google+ feed, the service is wonderful. It’s a shame that it hasn’t caught on more.

The most important thing that I am realizing in 2016 is that while technology is an awesome tool, it’s not the be-all end-all for everything in the 21st century. Perhaps I’m getting a little wiser as I grow older but sometimes I just need to sit down, turn off the bits and bytes and enjoy the moment. And when I am online, I need to find robust, engaging content that feeds me instead of draining me.

I want to be a novel in this tabloid world.

Adele.

I’m not a fan of Adele’s music. I’ve been rather vocal about this (shocker), but honestly, I think part of it stems from the fact that I used to work across the cubicle hallway from a woman that played “Rolling In The Deep” incessantly for two years. She would weep. I didn’t know why and honestly I never asked because I found the whole thing unnerving.

That being said, whenever I see Adele in an interview or doing some other talk show type thing, she seems to be very down-to-Earth and a genuinely nice person. Over the weekend, I saw her “Carpool Karaoke” segment with talk show host James Cordon (didn’t know he existed until this weekend) and Adele again seemed incredibly down-to-Earth and just so damn friendly. For some reason I enjoy the way she waves her hands and such when she’s singing. She believes what she’s doing and she’s incredibly good at doing it.

And that’s what’s important.

DL 1987.

I am aboard Delta flight 1987 from Syracuse to Atlanta on my way to North Carolina. I am visiting friends in the Raleigh-Durham area this weekend; it’s our annual holiday gathering. 

I’m in seat 3D aboard this MD-88. The mood in the cabin is jovial. As the airplane was loading at Syracuse I noted that no one was wearing sweat pants this evening. The flight is not quite full. I was originally scheduled to fly from Syracuse to JFK and then to Raleigh-Durham, but that flight was delayed and I wouldn’t have made my layover, so I rescheduled with some assistance from the Delta app and then speaking with Todd at Delta Customer Service.

Delta Customer Service always impresses me. It’s a nice change of pace in today’s world.

I can see the very last remnants of the sunset off on the horizon from 35,000 feet. That’s just one of the many awesome things about flying. I always feel bad for folks that don’t feel the thrill for flight the way I do. I can understand being a nervous passenger and the like, some people are just not wired to soar above the earth, but I learned the joys of flight at a very young age and I am a better man for it.  Ten years ago or so I would get nervous on airline flights for the simple reason that I didn’t know the pilot. As a kid I always knew the pilot, it was either my father, my grandfather or a friend of the family. Flying on an airline back then felt weird because I couldn’t observe was the pilot was doing, and that made me hesitant about flying the airlines. I have never, ever been nervous in a single engine airplane, even that summer afternoon in 1985 when the engine in my Dad’s 1940 Piper J-5A suddenly stopped while we were on downwind to land and my dad had to do a dead-stick landing. We pushed the airplane from where we stopped on the runway to the hangar. My dad’s reaction to the event was simple. He said “huh”.  We were back in the air the following weekend. 

I’ve practiced many dead stick landings in the Cherokee. I did several as a student and I’ve practiced them from time to time as a licensed pilot. It’s good to keep one’s skills sharp. I figure that airline pilots have to do the same thing, though they probably don’t dead stick a real, live MD88 very often. That’s what simulators are for.

I look out into the dark sky as we skirt the tops of the haze. It is so awesome. If I was 10 years younger I would definitely be changing my career to become a professional pilot. My plan is to become an instructor so that I have something to do when I retire. I love the idea of sharing my joy of aviation.

There are some bumps here and there on this flight, just enough to keep things interesting. I know some folks think airliners bounce all over the sky in turbulence but it’s rare for the airplane to move more than a few feet in the sky at the very, very most. Airplanes are built to withstand much more than they’re ever subjected to. 

Just sit back, relax and enjoy the flight.

Kick.

In my never-ending quest to be a super smart superhero, or at the very least be as healthy as I can be, I am trying a supplement called CILTEP. A Nootropic, CILTEP is an all natural “smart drug” that should improve focus, long term memory and motivation. It’s goal is to help one reach Optimal Mental Performance.

I tried it for the first time yesterday. tl;dr It really helped me find my “zone” while working yesterday.

I didn’t feel any sort of caffeine rush, the colors around me didn’t get more vivid (like in the television show “Limitless”), but my mind was clearer than it had been in a long while. The noise that my brain usually goes on with was kept at bay. I was able to concentrate and honestly, I wrote some amazing code yesterday. I didn’t feel like I was on a drug or stimulant, I just felt centered and motivated. Interestingly, my tendency to stammer a bit was significantly reduced. I didn’t expect feeling that articulate.

I had a check-up with my primary physician today so I opted to not take another round of CILTEP this morning. The visit with my doctor was to address my high blood pressure which is controlled by medication. I monitor my blood pressure here at home on a routine basis and I did not see any increase in blood pressure yesterday as a result of taking CILTEP, so that was good, but I didn’t want to mess around with being a science experience during this routine checkup. I did tell him about CILTEP and he didn’t seem too worried about it, but my blood pressure still wasn’t where he wanted it to be. While much lower than it was a month ago, he deemed it to be too high and he increased the dosage of my blood pressure medication. I went with the increased dosage this morning and I’m not noticing any weird side effects, just a very slight headache, which could be expected. I’ll probably hold off on trying CILTEP for a day or two so I can identify if I’m suffering from any side effects from the BP med.

All in all, from what I can discern from one experience with this Nootropic, I think CILTEP gave me the kick for motivation and focus that I was looking for. I hold hope of becoming that super smart superhero.

Dialects. 

Every year we get warm tidings from my inlaws. The card or text or email or whatever will say something like “We hope youses have a wonderful Christmas”. Not only is the sentiment much appreciated and well received, I am also fascinated by the pluralization of a word that is not part of my regular vocabulary, and that’s “youse”, Philly speak for “you guys” or “y’all”. 

When I was first acquainted with my in laws, it was pointed out that I have a very distinct accent that places me well above the New York City limits. The similar sounding words in the sentence “Mary was merry when she got married” all sound the same. Mary, Merry and marry are all the same word as far as I’m concerned. Apparently my face is very wide when I say “dollar” or “collar”. “Wallet” sounds similar to “dollar” not “wall”.  A big wide “ah”. 

Having grown up right on the soda/pop line, as I kid I would hear both, especially if we were getting a treat at Westons Department Store, in Oswego (20 miles to the west) the cashier rang up a “pop”, but in Watertown (30 miles to the north), the cashier rang up a “soda”. Living in the Southwestern corner of the state for several years solidified “pop” in my vocabulary and I never bothered to change it. When I was in California a couple of years ago I asked for a diet pop and there was much discussion amongst the counter staff at Chipotle about what I had just said.  They were amused as they sipped their Evian. 

I lived in the greater Boston area for a few years in the late 1980s but I don’t think it affected my accent all that much.  Earl and I were in New England a few years ago and I was talking with some of the natives. I mentioned that at one time I lived right outside of Worcester, which I pronounced “Wooh-steh” like a native and it caused Earl to give me a second glance. The only holdover I really have is the use of “wicked” for emphasis, but that was common where I grew up as well.  “He was wicked angry about the toll about the Thruway”. Just this week at work I said, “she’s wicked smart”. My manager, originally from Maine, agreed that the woman we were referring to was wicked smart. 

Working with folks based in South Carolina finds its share of “y’all”s but I try not to use that phrase because I think I sound like an ignorant Yankee when it comes out of my mouth. It’s easy to pick up, though. We don’t really have a second person “you” word up here in Central New York unless it’s “you guys”. It perfectly normal to hear “what are you guys doing tonight?”  As I’m typing this I’m saying that sentence out loud with different dialects and “you guys” and the Pittsburghese “yunz” feel the most natural to me, though the Philly “youse” feels quite natural to me as well.  “Y’all” brings up the ignorant Yankee bit. I think some “yunz” might have snuck into Southwestern New York, or at least people I knew, maybe because I used to DJ in the thriving metropolis of Erie, Pa.  And by the way, we never went to Erie, we always went to Erie P-A. 

I find the varying dialects and such in the Northeast and Midwest to be quite fascinating. New York (City) and Philadelphia are just a couple of hours apart but the accents are nowhere close to each other.  Boston is in a league of its own (“use yah blinkah”). And Pittsburgh has its own Pittsburghese, which I’m trying to figure out how it influenced my speech patterns because I say “let it alone” instead of “leave it alone”.  I’ve never lived in Pittsburgh. My friend Matt in Williamsport says “slippy”. When asked by Earl how many beers I had after flying with other pilots, I usually say, “I don’t know, two, tree”.  The “tree” is not a drunken slur.

The one term I have always said that catches people off (though I don’t know why) is when you’re at the office gossiping around “the water bubbler”. I was 19 when I first started working in a corporate environment and I remember a glance or two when I asked where the water bubbler was. 

I was thirsty.