Author: sean

I’ve been looking around, applying for work, and so on. It’s Sunday, I’m by myself. And maybe that’s why I’m mildly amused that my CMS tells me, “howdy.” (It’s a bit like it sent me a smiley. I LOVE smileys.)

Part of what I’m working through in figuring out what I want work-wise, is health care. Part of my frustration recently has been dealing with having to change insurers as I involuntarily change employers. Because I was sick of paying an incredible amount for COBRA from the last company’s plan, I bought private insurance. So far, I’m happy with it. I don’t have to go on whatever “employer-sponsored” program whenever I do find a gig.

I also looked at private plans on the individual market, and ones offered through my auto and property insurance company. I ended up choosing something else due to local ubiquity, and, ultimately, cost. (To speak to that, the plans I ultimately ended up choosing for health, dental, and vision were cheaper than just health and dental from my auto and property insurance company.)

I’ve long speculated that the PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) aka “Obamacare” (what a terrible abbreviation, and nickname, by the way) would ultimately result in the death of “employer-sponsored” coverage. This implies that’s already happening. So, my calculation is to find a company paying into a private exchange that offers my insurer, or pay out-of-pocket until I can choose a plan offered in an exchange whoever I’m working for that week pays in to.

In the meantime, if I land on with a company that doesn’t pay into an exchange that offers my plan, or retains an old-school setup, I’ll have to try to see if I can get some sort of salary increase to support my decision not to use their benefits.

Also, if there’s something where I don’t need to work full-time, the employer can pay in proportionally based upon how much I’m working. (If I’m only working half-time, the employer only contributes half of what they’d normally contribute….)

Decisions, decisions.

What else have I been doing? Learning about Linux KVM, and trying to decide how to address this site, and HR Geeks.

Speaking of which, I should go put up the meeting info on 757.org.

It’s pretty rare when you run across a sekurity mastar who gets it. But, this is one of the best things I’ve read in a long time.

(Hattip to Drew, who told me about the FD reboot.)

I guess my sense of amazement at the pitiful state of the industry should wane over time. It hasn’t. The mastars keep getting more letters after their names, and bigger salaries. (I’ll set aside the fact that I have met CISSPs who are unable to parse, much less write, a script to manually patch and secure a Windows box….) Meanwhile, various vendors’ products render many solutions nearly unusable.

This one is along the lines of what I’d planned to speak on at Shmoocon 2013. I was writing my CFP response, and got to counter arguments I didn’t think I could easily refute. Are you really securing things if you have to increase the attack vector to use a tool? Are things more secure if you have to install Java and Flash for a tool to work? How about .NET?

It’s wrong of me to think such things; I should just shuttup, and improve my Minesweeper skills.

This thing about Firefox’s CEO and OK Cupid came up on a friend’s Facebook feed. Longer, testier, description of the nontroversy here.

Most of my searching shows that Firefox is somewhere shy of 20% market share.

“If a tree falls in the woods, and there’s nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?”

(Setting aside for a moment that unless you’re in a vacuum, it always makes a sound. I had a slickieboy BD guy look at me quizzically when I refuted his “perception is reality” assertion by asking if that tree ever failed to make a sound… “PERCEPTION IS REALITY!!!1!”)

So, of those eighteen percent of people browsing with Firefox, how many will visit OK Cupid? Of that fraction of a fraction (Sup, dawg?), how many will be outraged by what this guy gave money to?

I’m reminded of William & Mary’s most famous alumnus (since Darren Sharper figured out that, unlike Spanish Fly, roofies actually work….) on Crossfire years ago. In a country with more than 300,000,000 people, how can a show with average viewership of less than 500,000 be hurting America? Nobody’s watching.

LMGTFY for those of you who don’t know……

I said snidely this morning that for some, your LinkedIn connections are the second most important factor in determining your competence (after the number of store-bought Minesweeper certification initials following your name).

This evening I got a message from a recruiter saying that based on my LinkedIn profile, I’d be a perfect match for an open position she’s trying to fill.

What’s the position?
1. It’s a four-to-six month contract, and;
2. It’s in Saudi Arabia, and;
3. It’s a JANITOR job.

What. The. Actual. Fuck?

I asked Barbie, as obsequiously as possible, to let me know what in my profile made me a fit for her slot. So I don’t show up like that in any other search. Perhaps there’s some disjointed phrase I could use to make people think i’m an empty-suit no-talent suck up.

But I really don’t look that sharp in a tie.

Instead, I’ll keep busy messing with my embedded Linux stuff to replace the wheezing PCs I have, and lower my electric bills.

*sigh*

In technology, perhaps, certainly not with me.

I’ve been plunking around with some old hardware and software as of late. I have absolutely no idea where the Pentium D board I had is. I can’t remember if I gave it away. Maybe I’ve just misplaced it.

So I’m messing with QEMU/KVM stuff on this other incredibly old setup. It’s not working as well as I’d like, but if I can get it close enough to do what I came to do…

I think I unsubscribed from all the NetBSD mailing lists I’d been tracking. With the decision to use something else for users, there’s no need, I guess. I still do like NetBSD an awful lot. As I’ve said many times, when I first used it, my response was, “Is this all there is?” Yeah, that’s all there is. And it’s everything you need. It behaves exactly the same way, regardless of the hardware you’re using.

I also find myself missing Usenet today. Don’t know why I have a hankering to mess with INN. Bleh.

In technology, perhaps, certainly not with me.
I’ve been plunking around with some old hardware and software as of late. I have absolutely no idea where the Pentium D board I had is. I can’t remember if I gave it away. Maybe I’ve just misplaced it.
So I’m messing with QEMU/KVM stuff on this other incredibly old setup. It’s not working as well as I’d like, but if I can get it close enough to do what I came to do…
I think I unsubscribed from all the NetBSD mailing lists I’d been tracking. With the decision to use something else for users, there’s no need, I guess. I still do like NetBSD an awful lot. As I’ve said many times, when I first used it, my response was, “Is this all there is?” Yeah, that’s all there is. And it’s everything you need. It behaves exactly the same way, regardless of the hardware you’re using.
I also find myself missing Usenet today. Don’t know why I have a hankering to mess with INN. Bleh.

I saw somebody on FB upset the other day about how New Jersey is taking on Preston Tucker “Elon” Musk for wanting to own its dealerships in The Garden State.

*cluestick time*

There’s a reason why most Exxon and BP stations aren’t owned by the parent companies. There’s a reason places like Wawa don’t have any drilling or refining businesses. Wawa, 7-Eleven (since the last sell-off of Southland Corp; to the Japanese, now, I think), and many of the other places selling cheap fuel buy from whichever refinery is cheapest that week. Consequently, their gas prices fluctuate a lot more than the places that only sell a single brand of gasoline.

Here! Be Educated.

Around the same time, I read this about how Paul Fraim is going to be recoronation.

Then today, I read this despairing about the “new” Waterside….

Vertical Integration happens in politics, too. You live in a one-party locality. You faithfully support that party at the higher levels of government (state and Federal), then are surprised when the same misguided cronies who’ve propagated bad ideas for years and years and years continue getting funded and elected?

Don’t like City Council and Paul Fraim? Don’t sell yourself out as a solid supporter of Ralph Northam, Mark Herring, et. al..

The principle works in both places. Really.

On advisement from family and friends, when I was searching for a job last year, I seriously curtailed some of my social media stuff.

Where did it get me? A job I ended up hating, making barely enough money to survive, while my health continued to deteriorate.

To put it another way, I spent the better part of a year hiding who I am, getting barely anything in return.

So, the company I just applied with asked to look at Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Sure. I don’t have the time or energy to try and hide who I am, and it didn’t benefit me the last time I did.

View away. If you have a question, ask. If you see something that concerns you, ask me about it. Or don’t hire me.

All the long-lasting things in my life have been gained when I can just be me, not when I’m putting on an act.

A couple of days ago, I thought about putting up some letters I’d written to people but never sent. Maybe the things I said don’t really need to be said, so I’ll keep them to myself.

(It’s ironic that there seems to be an Alanis song that fits…..)

More things left to bitrot.

Much like my music library, I have a lot of stuff that I can probably get rid of, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.

The same applies to spare hardware; anybody looking for something?