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Seventeen

The way I did the entry pre-selection has proven to be off. Again. More.

It’s like I’m following my doctors’ suggestions or something, and breaking free the writing compulsion.

Looking back at previous stuff, I wrote this in 2016:

I’m trying to keep an open mind about the electoral results. This, really, could be real change in Washington. Notsomuch due to the Trump surrogates’ bigotry, but because at least it’s a completely new crowd.

Regardless of what happens, it’s not going to be an administration full of recycled Ford and Clinton folks (which is what we saw with the last two administrations). If an opportunity presented itself to get me to DC to work in the Administration, I don’t know that I’d turn it down. (Though they probably would want nothing to do with me after I didn’t vote for them…..)

Kind of correct on the recycled Ford and Bush 41 folks. Instead, Trump was largely recycled Reagan folks. Some were better than others, certainly, and I’m still very angry about what happened to KT McFarland.
I’ve still continued to glance at Federal jobs throughout. On my very short do-do list, I would consider again. But I’m hoping hte disability appeal gets finished up, so I can just retire; I’m exhausted.
there’s also a bunch of stuff about my lack of excitement about what I experienced with my trip to Georgetown. I have to admit that when I came up her, I sought to do something different, but reached back out to the neurologist who’d seen me when I came up.

But it does speak, I think, to my willingness to give second chances.

I can, though, shut things off completely. It might take a long time for me to get there, but I will do it.

Time to go figure out what else is going to go on today.

Sixteen

Medical Update(s)

This is really fitting as I’m going to spend part of my Sunday getting shorts at the drug store. Picking back through things from 2016, and saw the prompt about my first trip to Georgetown to see if they might have an MS study that might be appropriate for me.

No, the doctor I saw was pretty-well convinced that what I was on, Tysabri, was probably the best choice for me.

I ended up being on Tysabri until a positive JCV antibody test made me go to Keysimpta.

You know, I think the Keysimpta has opened up many parts of life that’d been sealed-off while I was on Tysabri. Though the energy crash coming towards the end of the Tysabri dose had largely abated, I did notice that things would still get a little weirder when I was due a dose.

I will say that I don’t miss the weirdness surrounding infusion sessions. Some of the other more-common treatments are even longer infusions. It actually looked, however, that some of the insurance companies were getting to the point where they’d send a nurse out to give the infusions at home; I actually could probably have worked through my infusions.

My MRI results have basically been steady for a few years. My vision is a bit worse, as is my concentration. There are things from the list of cognitive changes related to the disease.

Process incoming information

This is something that I’ve had trouble with for a while. It’s not gotten significantly worse, but I just miss things. Oh! How the heck did I miss that?

Focus, maintain, and shift attention

This is a real problem if I’m in a situation where I need to move around a lot. Am I going to be able to make it to the bathroom quickly enough that I don’t have an accident?

Act on information

Very much related to the first point. If I don’t notice something coming in, my reaction to it is delayed. I think if I hear something important, I can still react correctly, but the speed is retarded due to my other physical maladies.

Find words

I don’t know? I’ve always spoken slowly, and really try to be courteous when having a conversation. I know that there’s thoughts that’ll come across my mind in conversation that I never say. This has both positives and negatives; is it disease-related? Maybe.

I do take notes. This has previously gotten me in trouble when I wrote down something that wasn’t supposed to be recorded. I’m sure the automatic transcription of meetings is really something that’s come back to bite people. I’ve heard that there’s managers who are explicitly directing that those features be turned off in tools like MS Teams and Slack.

What have you said you don’t want anyone to know, boss? (And that response shows part of why my responses are delayed. I probably think that immediately, but wouldn’t say it aloud.)

Relate visual information to others

Real problem since I just miss things.

Perform calculations

I don’t know how much of this is MS, or just age. Quickly figure out how to calculate a tip? Um. Let me pull up the calculator on my phone. But that, too, is a part of the out-of-control tipping you might see in many retail locations, now. No, I bought a bottle of Coke. It already costs a lot more than it did just a couple of years ago. You don’t get 25% for running it over the scanner, and asking if I want a receipt.

Though, physically, I’m trying to improve my day-to-day life through diet and exercise, I am declining. Again, I’m not sure how much of that is MS or age. But I do recognize that things aren’t going to get better. There is no cure for this damned disease. Hell, they don’t even know what causes it.

I did get the bifocals prescription my last visit to the optometrist. Yes, they want to sell me the fancy glasses that have the reading glasses built-in. I’ve not bought those, yet. Again, it’s on account of not having money to spend willy-nilly with the disability situation.

Last roti-rooter was less-concerning than some of the past ones. I don’t have to have another colonoscopy until I’m 50. The ones I had starting before I even turned 40 were enough. This is one of the things that come along with having a parent who died during cancer surgery before 60.

Do I make it to 65? Who knows.

Innovate Despite

I’ve been looking some today into the work that went into the Nobel Prize for Economics award for this year.

Two things crossed my mind with it. The first was a comedy bit, Marc Steyn, maybe?, about cleaning up a broken compact fluorescent bulb. The switch to CF bulbs was something that was bit in the early Obama administration.

I didn’t hate them as much as some people, though I did think the light was a little off. There were some people who really hated them, and I think there was some Tea Party folks who ran on bringing back the regular incandescent bulbs.

Meanwhile, white LED technology progressed to completely obviate the need for the ordered CF bulbs.

Technology progresses. Government can’t stop it.

Will It Work?

Just finished watching a livestream on TheFP about President Trump’s takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department in DC.

Yes, it’s probably legal. DC is an odd beast. Yes, they elect a mayor and legiaslative functions are handled by an elected city council.

But the judicial system is almost entirely dispatched to the Federal Government.

If things aren’t going well, the Federal government can essentially sack all of the elected leaders. Normally, this would be something the Congress handles, but the Legislative Branch has dispatched so much work to the Executive Branch. There’s important fundraising to do, don’t you know? The Executive can act until we decide we can be bothered to get back to DC.

The NBC affiliate in DC last night was very confused.

Clearly it’s awful, because anything Trump does is awful.

But the MPD Union are in favor?

Sent a news crew to somewhere outside rich Northwest, and the residents are in support of the takeover?

Good high-priced reporting education cannot compute. How is this possible? Doesn’t everybody know how evil he is?

Not sure whether to be dismayed or bemused.

Doing The Research

Getting various pushes to participate in one of the boycotts tomorrow.

The “meh” response became even more emphatic after reviewing the organizing group’s website.

They list six core principles, all of which are “positive rights.”

Anything that requires another’s effort is not a right. If I’m being forced to provide those things, I am your slave.

I won’t be participating. If you are, you should read up on some of their really coercive means of accomplishing those goals.

ShmooCon Day 2 Part 2

Bring-It-On. This. Analysis of logs to see what happens when security researchers hit known bad hosts.

They seem to be looking at clients accessing known C2 hosts, then looking to see if they can access those clients. I’m trying to be shocked that these, largely, are coming from places like Iran and China.

Curiosity made me look at IPv6 adoption in Iran. Hmm. Interesting. While I really do think that there should not be government efforts to block traffic, I wholeheartedly support individuals/companies blocking traffic to/from that part of the Intertubes.

Next up is this on deception operations. Interesting, but really not a lot that I have any insight into.

Was kind of in and out on this; mislaid something and was looking for it. Anyway, I understand what they were trying to do and assume abandoned domains. It’s good information to have, but I’m not exactly sure what he’s really trying to do. Okay, it’s abandoned. If you’re worried about things like a dominate, there’s always something you can do with a wildcard, then narrow down from the bucket once you see something you want.

Did see all of this one. I understand, and sympathize with, her motivations and concerns. Yes, you should be able to make it harder to get your personal information. Yes, it should be protected by whomever collects it.

If CFPB is the answer, you asked the wrong question. There are very few things government does well; protecting consumers isn’t one of them. Hell, if you look at what’s going on in LA this week, you could easily extend that to delivering water, and providing fire protection, How about that TSA?

This one is interesting when it comes to things like cheap network cameras. Ubiquity for the hardware is a problem with so many of them sending foreign places, but I think probably a lot of it can be solved by just paying attention to what you purchase. I’m just wondering if you don’t need to do better with blocking outbound traffic. They talk about measures put into the firmwares that are there to circumvent protections, but I have to admit my skepticism. If you have a halfway-decent Layer-3 device, you can shut down traffic. If it’s this type of traffic coming from this device, it’s blocked.

As someone who is plugging through all of the Beavis & Butthead , “Silent Push” sounds flatulent.

But this is about FUNNULL, something I’ve never heard about.

Interesting that this is all because of gambling run offshore. These work for money laundering.

People like to gamble. People like to drink, smoke, do other drugs. It’s almost as if these are innately human behaviors.

And the last one. I’m thinking it’s stuff where I’ve completely lost the bubble. Intersting things at the site.

It’s absolutely interesting, but I really don’t have the stuff, or th time.

Shmoo One

I really wasn’t feeling well after trying to breathe through a face diaper again. Oops.

I did have things on in the background. Right now, I’m listening to KRenner talk about finding gigs from an HR perspective.

It’s interesting, but I’m inclined to think that much of this is now OBE. Despite the robust economic latching on with a big company and advancing there is a thing of the past.

Really sour on most things HR after the past few weeks. I saw something on X about Lowe’s killing of its DEI programs. That was right on the heels of the news about FacH^H^HMeta doing the same.

A lot of that stuff is from HR staffs. Will they ever get the message? I

I’m not holding my breath.

There’s still a certitude about where the future is headed.

But they’re wrong. And it becomes quickly apparent that there’s just nothing there at all. Going on in may different places.

Disjointed

I was distracted yesterday with the thoughts that wrought that memory.

Last two days of the year are workout days. My legs are sore.

Fantasy football resulted in two disasters yesterday. So, second place in my league, and seventh in the other Yahoo league.

Obviously, most of the pods are on holiday break, but there’s been a few things I’ve filled back in.

I need to get to the doc to get this weird finger thing I’ve got going on checked.

More later, maybe.

Both Sides Are Bad

That’s a nicer than saying they’re both stupid.

After bailing on Trump’s interview with Sharyl Atkisson after hearing again, nothing worthwhile, I stumbled across Neil Cavuto interviewed Mark Cuban about his support for Kamala

They had a back-and-forth about Trump’s bad monetary policy…..without any mention of how really bad Biden/Harris have been.
Both candidate are relying upon just ungodly amounts of circulating money. Nobody ever expects that the spigot will ever close.

But it will. It has to. The maths don’t work otherwise.

Trump came out either yesterday or the day before with a proposal to limit credit card interest rates to 10%. Much like his pitches for no taxes on tips, and Social Security Income sounds good at initial listening, but they don’t fix anything.

Stop taxing tips? The deficit in Social Security gets worse; the “trust fund.” (That doesn’t exist because no politician has been willing to raise the retirement age even though life expectancy is now probably close to twenty years more than it was they bumped it the last time…) Social Security Retirement is out of money, and there’ll be mandatory cuts very soon, now. Taking off contributions on tips.

Meanwhile, nobody is willing to actually reduce spending, raise taxes, and raise interest rates.

No, NeoHips, the MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX!!1! didn’t have a damned thing to do with every single TSA agent being a Federal employee.

But Kamala, and Alsobrooks are going to make sure grocers don’t soak consumers in pursuit of their 1% margins.

Nobody has a plan. That’s worse than it’s ever been.

Starting Sunday

The NFL came back on Thursday night. Very good game, and my strategy for my primary fantasy team worked very well.

I actually, kind of by accident, ended up drafting bth Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes.

The latter ended up getting traded for a couple of wide receivers who may provide good numbers for the year.

The Ravens-Chiefs game Thursday night was very good. I wrote last time about the situation with the game in Brazil.

I’d considered scribbling down the names of the companies that supported the debacle, but why? I don;’t care about either of the teams, and, probably most of the companies advertising aren’t things I’d typically buy, anyway.

Still, if you think what’s going on in Brazil is a good thing, or any of the stuff they’re doing, I really don’t want anything to do with you.

If you’re a politician who speaks out in favor of ~~penalizing~~ ~~jailing~~ murdering people who disagree with you, there is absolutely zero chance I’ll ever vote for you.

Sorry, Officer Harris.

Sorry WLAF Commissioner Walt.

So. What’s on tap for the week?

Probably a ton of work. No medical stuff, thankfully, though things start again in earnest next week.

~~Com~~Xfinity has an AI app I can use. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to make it work for Fantasy Football.