Intellectual Poison

There are many times when I'm very happy to not be working in PR anymore. So much of the business is busy work that drains the soul to do, pisses off the editors and analysts you're trying to cultivate and really just blows chunks.

One of the very worst parts of the job are the call downs. A call down is, basically, war dialing editors from a huge list of contacts that have already been emailed to request an interview to try and garner some client coverage or interest.

Why do call downs suck? Because you know the editor (most editors) absolutely hates the interuption of a ringing phone. And jeebus do they hate, hate, hate a call to ask them if they got your email. Rest assured, they did and if they didn't respond immediately its because they are a) busy with a deadline, b) busy with other interviews, c) uninterested or d) it isn't their beat.

I can't tell you how many times I've had to make the call down only to find out that the editor no longer covers the security space or the insurance technology space. Most editors are pretty nice about it but I have had some really lay into me for the off target contact. I've had one who went one step further and, when he ran into my client at a show, told them what a terrible job of PR my team had done for them. Yes, I know exactly who he is and no, I will not out him here. He knows he's a dick and he doesn't care in the least. And no, I never contacted him for anything again. I wouldn't stop to piss on him if he was on fire. And its been seven years or more. Not that I'm one to hold a grudge or anything.

I know enough editors well enough to have a tiny idea of how inundated they get with emails, phone calls, interview requests, conference briefings, product reviews and, now, Twitter and other new media networking tools.

No job is perfect and no job is a perfect fit but I could feel myself increasingly becoming a worse and worse fit for the grunt work side of the PR game. I loathed the call downs and it probably came through in my pitches. Suffice it to say that I rather enjoy the work I do now even if the pay is quite a bit less, I don't have an integral part of my work that entails pestering and interrupting busy editors and analysts.

Labels: public relations

Its time to get some input from readers about how to make Intellectual Poison a better, more entertaining, more informative, less annoying, less whatever or more whatever else.

If you were me, how would you improve this site?

Labels: blog

Exxon Mobil posts biggest US quarterly profit ever and yet John McCain wants to give the oil industry another $4 billion in the misguided lie that some of that money will trickle down to the middle class.

Um yeah.

How about cutting out the middleman and just cutting a check to each and every American? A good portion of that money will still go to Big Oil because we have to put gas in our cars.

But giving tax breaks to a company that keeps breaking its own record for record profit quarters is pretty despicable.

I just posted Comparing Apples and Lemons over on IP Politik, its a short comparison of the educational backgrounds of the four candidates. It came from an email posted over on The Nutsy Fagan Diaries and it rocks.

Labels: education, politics

The more astute readers of this blog may have noticed a rather unusual lack of posts these days. I've been trying to put most of my politics on IP Politik and that's been one of my main things right now.

But even so, my blogging batteries have run down a bit and I'm occasionally asking myself just what the whole friggin' point of this thing is.

And then I get given a link to hot women with painted on Halloween costumes, like this one and it all makes sense again.

And yeah, the link is NSFW but oh so good on the eyes.

Enjoy, I'm going back downstairs to watch the end of the World Series and have some pizza. Regularly scheduled ranting and madness will resume soon, I'm sure.

Labels: awesome, costume

Parrotard - somebody who's obviously pretty stupid and exists for no reason but to parrot (repeat) talking points written by someone else. See Hasselbeck, Elizabeth.

More words here.

Labels: nwotd

And not in the bad is good kind of way.

I arrived at my afternoon school site to a rather aggravated and worried teacher pal. He explained that he came back to his classroom to find his laptop sitting in a puddle of spilled water.

One of his students had accidentally knocked over a bottle of water near the machine and didn't bother to tell him or try to clean it up. So the laptop sat in the water for a little while.

Needless to say (but I'm saying it anyway), the teacher was deeply peeved and worried that the years of work in his machine were gone. I let him know that, even if the machine was fried, he stood a pretty good chance of recovering his data off the hard drive. Plus, since the liquid was water and not a sticky soda or something, he stood a decent chance of not having even destroyed his machine.

But we won't know for a couple of day as the laptop is now on its side in front of a fan with paper towels underneath it.

What's the lesson? Keep food and liquids as far away from your electronics as possible. Or keep the bottle tops screwed on tight.

Labels: destruction, laptop, water

Submitted for your review, a list of political groups with honest names along with suggested spokespeople.

The Christian Coalition of Conservative Dumbfuckery
Spokesidiot: Elizabeth "I'll say any GOP talking point you want even if I have no idea what it means" Hasselbeck

Western Hemisphere Homophobic Knobgobblers
Spokesbottom: Larry "Toe-tapper in the crapper" Craig

Bible Thumping Ass Blaster Meth Master Pastors
Spokespastor: Ted "Gay is bad but feels so good, especially when you're high on meth" Haggard

Single Issue White Haters
Spokesdouche: Rudy "Grinning Goblin of 9/11 Repeatance" Guiliani

Rich White Fat Greedy Assholes
Spokesrectum: Dick "Go Fuck Yourself" Cheney

The Alliance to Gang Rape Mother Earth
Spokestwit: Sarah "Drill, baby, Drill" Palin

Patriots for Censorship, Intolerance and Bigotry
Spokescensor: Newt Gingrich

Little Old White Ladies Who Fear Everything Including Black People and Change
Spokestrembler: Cindy "Where's my pills?" McCain

Chinless Warhawk Senator Flip Floppers
Spokestraitor: "Chinless" Joe Lieberman

And there we go. Have you come up with any honestly named groups? Yes, you may have noticed that these are all Republican groups. The reason for that is because the Republican party has, far, far more regularly, than the Democrats, engaged in negative, untruthful smear style campaigning that lowers the debate for all.

I hope this list of groups is marginally humorous. I chuckled a couple of times while writing it, mostly at the first one which I wrote while watching that Parrotard (yes, new word) Hasselbeck become Sarah Palin's only adviser she'll listen to. Plus, I just like saying the word dumbfuckery.

Labels: dumbfuckery, politics, satire

Because Ryan's been changing the name of his blog about as often as he changes his underwear, I thought I'd have a little fun with some blogans (that's blog slogan).

Anyway, here we go, better ones closer to the top:
Read my pucker!
If only sexist were the same as sexy. (Edit: thanks, Amy)
I'm smiling because I just farted.
Monkey see, monkey do, monkey write, monkey poo.
I can shout louder than you so that makes me right.
I'm thinking the turnip truck stopped, backed up and ran over you after you fell off.
Just a beautiful assortment of letters in a pretty format.
Two and two may equal four but you're still wrong and I'm still right.
I don't like you. Or me, for that matter.
Flicking digital boogers at the internet.
This is what I do when I'm not masturbating.
Making out with lipsticked pigs.
Quiet down and bask in the glory of my intellect.
Like the back of the hand for all the internet's backtalk.
If I were any pithier, I'd be a cherry.
You can't even begin to understand my rage.

Got other blogans that you like? Leave a comment and let me know.
Want to use one of these? That's totally cool, leave a comment and I'll come visit.

Labels: blog, blogan

Maybe it was going to bed a little late. Maybe it was the nap I had yesterday. Maybe its the early morning wake up when Sully got into our bed in the middle of the night. Maybe it was Sully having a conversation with himself at 6:30 this morning in our bed. Maybe its the fog. Maybe its the chilly overcast day. Maybe its all of it.

But it doesn't really matter because I'm just not really feeling it today.

Maybe I should just try and work through it. Let's see what's on the list for this week?
- Keep sanding the bunk beds.
- Keep repairing the fence/digging out the trench.
- Pick up and repair my son's pre-school computer.
- Stop by and fix a pal's munged up Wifi settings.
- Work my regular hours above and beyond my regularly scheduled hours at my 4th school.
- Decorate the house for Halloween.
- Break out the scary music and sounds effects playlist on my old iPod.
- Try to get my bike in for a badly, badly needed tune up.
- Various Craigslist postings to be written and posted.
- Put together a tentative racing calendar for late 2008 and 2009.
- Finish editing my last biking video with Nande and Brady.
- Work on invention prototype.

I'm sure I'll remember more as the day wears on.

Plus, I don't know if I slept funny or if my hip is giving out for good now but my left hip joint has been aching most of the day. So much that I decided to drive to work rather than chance it on the motorcycle because a hip cramp while moving can be damned difficult to cope with.

Labels: tasklist

Halloweek - because a single day for costume play dress up fun is just nowhere near enough to a four year old, we have come up with Halloweek, a week long celebration of Halloween.

More new words here

Labels: nwotd

Report: Kids less likely to graduate than parents. Think about this for a second. My children are less likely to graduate from high school than I am

Did you know New Mexico graduates a whopping 67% of its students from high school? That means one in three doesn't get a diploma. Shocking.

In fact, the United States is now the only industrialized country where young people are less likely than their parents to earn a diploma, the report said, citing data compiled by the international Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

What this really does is sell our future out. If we have an ignorant and uneducated population then we are far less able to compete globally. We are unable to innovate as well, we are unable to develop new industries and we go more and more from being a producer to being a consumer.

There have been studies that show a direct relationship between funding for early education and incarceration rates. More money spent on early childhood education saves $16 for each dollar spent. That's a sixteen times return on investment irregardless of the fact that we'd be creating a better workforce, reducing the number of people in prisons and the quality of life for all Americans would rise.

But no, instead we build more prisons to house people we've failed to educate and the cycle feeds itself. We have to break the cycle, we need to fully fund education, we need to get class sizes down to below 30 kids per room, we need to invest in our future by investing in our children now or we'll be forced to pay for them to sit in cement lined cages during their productive years.

And that is just stupid. I suppose I should get used to Teh Stoopid because it doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon.

Labels: education, funding, investment, prison

Cameltopia - the belief that the world would be a better place if there were more cameltoes.

Go here for more new words.

----------------
Now playing: Steriogram - Walkie-Talkie Man
via FoxyTunes

Labels: nwotd

Retart - mashed up from retarded art, coined by Nutsy in response to the idiot who slapped some wagon wheels on a Hummer H3 and called it an art piece.

Nice!

It will, of course, also find its way over to the Fictionarium for posterity.

Labels: nwotd

Because my thoughts are so disjointed, I thought I'd just regurgitate things that are bouncing around inside my head.

- Whatever happened to Fiona Apple? Did she get taken back to her planet of hot little crazy waifs or what?

- Is there going to be an October Surprise from the McCain camp?

- I'm not sure which way to bet on whether Sarah Palin goes back to Alaska or whether she takes a position as a talking head/GOP parrot for Fox News.

- The turn signal replacement switch out on my motorcycle took longer than I'd hoped but it came out pretty darned well, they look good and I'm legal again, which is the important part!

- I'm pretty sick and tired of trying to parse out the stupid serial number for Apple Remote Desktop to complete the migration to my new workstation computer. Its been an incredibly annoying process and its not even close to being resolved.

- Like a teabag left in the water too long, I've become stained by all the politics lately. I'm looking forward to scrubbing it all off soon.

- Its too damned hot in my computer lab right now. I'm going home.

Labels: random

One of side projects over the last few months has been to try and gain remote access to my home computer network from behind my school district's firewall. This was complicated by the use of a wireless router at the house which required a substantial amount of investigation in how to get through it and to my computer's IP.

And I did it.

Last night I finally found the final missing piece of the remote access puzzle and was able to take control of my other computer through my router. All was good and happy in the kingdom of Geekistan.

Until today when I actually go to test it out in real world conditions. And by real world conditions I mean my own particular working environment which includes a rather robust firewall and an active site filter.

One of which has broken the connection I so laboriously developed and created. I know it still works because I'm at my site where I know there's unsecured wifi on the corner of the campus and I checked it from there and had zero problems in remoting in.

So yeah, several hurdles cleared but a few more left to go.

Labels: technical difficulties

This is funny and wrong and goofy and still kind of appealing to my inner ten year old all at once.

Labels: bad marketing

I know that I'm one of the first to abuse whatever meager soapbox Intellectual Poison has become over the years since we started up back in 2002. Yes, Virginia, this next May will mark 7 years of blogging. No, I have not solved all the problems in the world but that's mostly because the right people aren't paying attention yet.

Pay attention, right people! Damn! Do you want me to repeat myself? Again?

Anyway, this post isn't about me.

This post is specifically to wish my big sister a Happy Birthday! I won't say how old she is but she's my big sis and I don't know when the last time I took a moment to recognize truly what an awesome, inspiring, strong and cool woman she is.

Skootchy Su, I hope you are having an epically (spell check says that's right but it doesn't look right or sound right to me) fun day with your studly stud boys. We out here on the left coast will raise a glass and toast to you this evening!

Labels: family, happy birthday, sister

Today's new word is another mash up, actually its a mash up of a mash up.

Blogan - blog (mashed up from web log) slogan, the cute and supposed to be witty saying that goes underneath your cute and supposed to be witty blog title.

Mine currently is One non-aggression pact from nirvana but it isn't really working for me anymore so I'm going to come up with some new ones. That post should be going live later today unless the computers revolt again.

And yes, Blogan is also being posted at the Fictionarium too.

Labels: nwotd

Report: Pro Elite and Elite XC ’shutting its doors effective immediately' which has to be part of the fallout from promoting Kimbo Slice as the second coming of Ninja Christ.

They would have fared better if they'd focused on Gina Carano and the other excellent female fighters they had in their stable. But instead they opted to promote and hype and talk up a YouTube star without the skills to back it up.

Not to say that they don't have other good male fighters but they seemed to have a special niche with female fighters. Shame Gina has such a hard time making weight though as that will hold her back.

Anyway, an MMA start up is going to bleed money for years before it starts to even see a profit margin on the horizon and right now isn't the right time for a long tail possibility given the economic climate.

I hope the UFC signs some of these now unaffiliated fighters because there are some solid martial artists in there.

The lesson here is don't hitch your company to a false martial arts superstar. Kimbo isn't anywhere near a top flight fighter, he's a freakshow from Teh Intarnets who fought unskilled rubes in backyard ass whoopings. If he had even moderate mma skills then UFC-cast-off Petruzelli wouldn't have been able to kick his ass so easily.

And don't even get my started on Goldenboy getting involved in mma, Goldenboy is a boxing promotion by Oscar de la Hoya and has about as much to do with mma as dodgeball has with football.

Labels: fail, mixed martial arts, mma

Hairstylust - hots for your hairstylist.

Appropriate since I'm married to a hairstylist.

Go here for more new words.

Labels: nwotd

If Jesse James drove a Hummer... then you can bet he wouldn't have been retarded enough to put old wooden wagon wheels on it and call it "Art".

It would have been more art-like (or is that art-esque?) to make its tires out of little green Army Men. At least that would have been a statement that made the slightest bit of sense.

Actually, it would have been more of a statement to put the Hummer's wheels on an actual horse drawn wagon. Maybe even some spinners for the bling-bling-I'm-an-idiot effect.

Labels: stupid

Cartoonist depicts Colin Powell as Benedict Arnold in blackface despite Colin Powell's well thought out reasoning and justification for his endorsement (that is, that Obama is a uniter, hasn't been running a negative campaign about "character issues" and that Obama has the experience and charisma to bring the country back together).

Yes, its far, far easier and more inflammatory to say Colin Powell endorsed Obama solely based on the color of his skin.

Which is to say, Gordon Campbell, the cartoonist, is a simpleton racist.

Colin Powell gave alot of thought to his endorsement and to be branded a traitor because he chose Obama over McCain smacks of desperation, hatred and racism. And that sums up the Grand Old Party's "contributions" this election season. Smear, fear and steer clear of any association with the last 8 years.

It will not work, McCain will not win.

The week has gotten off to a slightly rough, slightly late start thus far. Between the boys getting their sleep patterns all mashed up last night with late naps and later bedtimes and the generalized stress of the start of the workweek and then toss my wife's birthday in on top of everything and you've got a recipe for meltdown mania.

I hope things start to smooth out sooner rather than later since I'm now at work and unable to provide assistance.

Some thoughts on the weekend:
Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live was lame and SNL should be ashamed for helping to promote her. I've heard she's already been offered a position with Fox News once the election is over and her ticket gets crushed.

The Red Sox just didn't quite have enough in the tank to get by the Devil Rays. They put up a good show, came from far, far behind to tie it up but just couldn't quite get over the top. A Phillies and Devil Rays World Series isn't the worst thing that could have happened though and it'll be interesting at the very least. Besides, the distinct lack of Yankees in the post season has already made winners of us all.

The latest UFC Fight Night had some good fights, I haven't gotten through the whole show yet but the Paul Kelly/Marcus Davis fight was good action and the Lytle/Taylor match was very good. I think Brandon Vera's just about done in the UFC, he can't keep putting up pretty mediocre fights and expect to stay in the big leagues.

The slowly dying freezer at home just adds to the general chaos of our life and not really in a good way. It complicates things tremendously and is forcing us to spend time on it when we don't really have time to spare.

We did have a good time at a lumberjack party up above Scotts Valley yesterday. It always amazes me at just how totally different someone else's home environment is like. Their house couldn't be any more different than mine if it were on the moon. While Sully and I were hanging out on the deck, two deer came up from the mostly dried up stream below, they circled the house and then made their way up the street to the next house. There haven't been deer near my house in probably twenty years. The house was Santa Cruz old-school hippy funky which meant that it had lots of interesting spaces, a sunken living room, a big deck, lots of sun, privacy and it was really quiet.

Plus they had a 26 ton log splitter available to help grind through the rather large pile of wood that had accumulated. And nothing says fun like a gas-powered log splitter!

The weekend, as most weekends seem to, went by too quickly and not enough stuff got done although I was able to knock off some minor list items on Saturday with the boys. But it isn't quite enough and we start the week just a little bit further behind than we left last week.

I wish I'd been able to give my wife exactly what she really wants for her birthday, a day off to catch up. But that'll have to wait until I've got a day to give her. Things aren't exactly easy these days but we're getting through it all together as best we can.

I did not get a chance to go riding this weekend but that's only partially because I'm a lazy guy, I torqued up my shoulder towards the end of last week and I'm not quite sure if its going to play nicely right now. Its been pretty sore all weekend but feels a little better this morning, maybe that's just wishful thinking though. We'll see.

Today is going to be a grind from start to finish, whenever that might end up being.

Labels: politics, sports, wrap-up

Wishunderstanding - wishful misunderstanding. When you intentionally don't hear something that you're being asked to or are supposed to do.

More words here.

Labels: nwotd

The old saying "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" holds true when it comes to working with me. I do not respond well at all to demanding, rude and annoying people. More so when they are asking me to do something for them and being rude about it. Even more so when the asker can't be bothered to follow my department's established procedures.

If this is an obtuse post then I apologize as I'm really just venting some frustration in having to deal with people that don't see manners as anything but a waste of their time.

If you are asking me to do something for you and you actually want it to get done then you'd best put on a happy face and use your manners. Otherwise you get nothing from me.

And I should note that I'm not the only one that has a bit of a problem with this particular teacher. Her colleagues stopped trying to help her out years ago because she was so ungrateful, demanding and downright kind of nasty about it. And I have plenty of other things on my plate from teachers that can follow procedure.

Labels: kvetching, work

Tryiring - (tri-a-ring) tired from trying so hard.

More new words here.

Labels: nwotd

The UFC's next big event is UFC 89 and will broadcast for free on Spike TV on Saturday the 18th. There are some decent fights but the overall card is pretty weak with fewer fights than normal and fewer "name" fighters.

But let's do a quick predictions rundown.

Bisping vs Leben - Bisping by TKO strikes. Unless Leben gets another Terry Martin thunder punch to knock Bisping cold, Bisping just has the more complete all around game.
Jardine vs Vera - Jardine by TKO strikes. Jardine punches harder and wants it more.
Sokoudjou vs Cane - Sokoudjou by strikes. I don't know Cane at all but I've seen Sokoudjou a few times and he's explosive and dynamic and this should be a good fight.
Taylor vs Lytle - Taylor by strikes. I watched the Davis/Taylor fight again last night and was very impressed with Taylor's striking. I don't think Lytle can stand with him.
Kelly vs Davis - Davis by strikes. He's explosive, incredibly strong and has superb recovery ability if he does get tagged, yes, you can consider me a fan of "The Irish Hand Grenade".

The other fights on the card involve fighters that I've not seen fight enough to make a prediction one way or the other.

Check back after the fight to see I scored. Also, feel free to leave a comment with your fight predictions as well.

Labels: fight night, mma, UFC

Google's philosophy is to not be evil. But they took a rather large step towards Big Brother Evil today when they decided to rearrange how my information is displayed on my iGoogle home page.

They took the tabs from the top of the screen and made a new column along the side which means everything gets squeezed in a little more. The tabs are not closeable, they are not movable, they are expanded so I can now fill the whole page with Gmail (or, you know GO TO MY FUCKING GMAIL DIRECTLY) or with Betwittered.

This change makes absolutely no sense to me as it takes up screen space unnecessarily, there's no way to turn it off or revert to the old and preferred display format and, if other comments are to be believed, I'm one of many, many, many users who are thoroughly pissed off about this unwanted and worthless change.

You feeling me, Google? Change it back or, at the very fucking least, give me the option to change it back. Your improvements SUCK!

[Update: I did come across a rather easy to use workaround. Change your google.com URL to google.ie or google.uk and you'll log into your Google home page in the United Kingdom or Ireland and everything will be where it's supposed to be again. Until Google jacks their pages up too.]

Labels: evil, forced upgrade, google

The last debate is in the books and now we just have a three week sprint to the finish. I fully expect the McCain campaign to keep mortgaging whatever dignity it might still have to try and eat into Obama's rather huge lead.

McCain needed to crush Obama last night to make a dent in the double digit lead. He baited Obama repeatedly, he insulted him, he called him a liar, a person who consorts with terrorists and he called him naive and inexperienced.

The thing is, McCain is the liar, McCain is the guy who consorts with terrorists (or did you not know Saddam "Freakin" Hussein's chief lobbyist is on McCain's payroll?), McCain is the one with the overly-simplistic economic plan (cutting all earmarks to nothing will save .5% of the national budget) and McCain's health care plan is a joke, just like his education plan, his energy plan and his campaign cries of Change when his party has been in charge for the last eight years.

McCain offers nothing new and his running mate offers nothing of substance or value at all unless you strongly value a move towards fundamental and extreme religion in this country. Oh what's that? You don't believe in the same God as Sarah Palin? Then you should and you will BURN IN HELL, SINNER!

Oh wait, I don't believe in her God either. What kind of a God gives a mandate to go to war in Iraq when they had nothing at all to do with 9/11? What kind of a God gives a mandate to build a gas pipeline? No God I have any interest in worshiping, that's for damned sure!

Obama spoke to my concerns, he didn't stoop to get into things with McCain when McCain would start bringing up ridiculous "issues" like Obama's relationship with William Ayres and ACORN. Even though he could have gotten into the mud and flung insults at McCain he didn't. He kept talking about the real issues that are a real concern to me and other Americans.

Where McCain keeps wanting to make the election into one of character when we the people want a president who will make the country better and stronger and help restore our national honor and pride (which McCain helped kick into the mud to begin with by supporting every ridiculous thing Bush has done).

McCain didn't come close to winning last night and he won't close the gap in the polls anytime soon and I'm sure his campaign will continue to represent the Dark Side.

I have no respect for John McCain anymore. He sold it all off for soundbites and window dressing while forgetting that the nation needs change, change for the better, not more of the same failed Bush policies.

Joe Biden stepping in as president? No problem at all.
Sarah Palin stepping in as president? I'm running for the damned hills. In Canada or Mexico.

Oh yeah, McCain's "ace" Joe the Plumber? McCain's spotlight on him has created a whole host of headaches for him. Nice work, Johnboy. Plus, his "complaint" about higher taxes under Obama's plan didn't hold water as he wouldn't be making $250,000+. Oops.

Labels: debate, politics

Sandbagger Manny and his brethren in blue have lost their prescribed 4 games and were sent home by the Phillies last night. That just leaves the Rays and Red Sox slightly undecided but there's a strong possibility of the Rays overwhelming the Red Sox Cinderella-style.

I've watched a few games and the Red Sox just look flatter, less dynamic and not quite as capable as the Rays. The Rays, by the way, are a pretty good story and I'd have no problem with them taking on the Phillies for the World Series.

I'm just glad the Dodgers and Manny Ramirez have been sent packing. It took them alot longer to sparkle and then fade but they did indeed.

Have I mentioned what a limp bitch Manny Ramirez is for how he weaseled out of Boston? The dude pretended to be hurt, played at 75% effort and made it clear he wanted out. And when he got traded to LA, he miraculously got better and started crushing the ball again. I hate sandbagging bitches like Manny and I hope he gets too drunk in the off season and his friends shave his lame dreads.

Labels: baseball, World Series

I just had a lesson delivered to me via the internets about trust, cookies and expectations of decent behavior.

In the course of my job, I am at four different school sites on a regular basis. At most of these sites, I take my laptop and do 90% of my work from it.

But at one site, I am fortunate enough to have access to a flat screen Imac with a huge hard drive. The upsides were good, I could leave my laptop at home and travel lighter, I could attach the projector permanently, I could delete all the music files that were inappropriate for an elementary school environment.

But I've just learned that leaving a computer with passwords logged, cookies enabled and, effectively, my entire digital life unlocked, is a very, very dangerous thing to do. Because I'm not in that computer lab all the time and I generally do not log everything out when I leave there, I am exposing myself to greater risk than I should. And, from this day forward, I will not.

That one tweet in my Twitter stream was like a blaring claxon call to arms, to protect my digital identity, to seal off easy avenues of entry and to make it more than passably difficult to infiltrate. Am I pissed off? You fucking bet I am.

And I'm going to make it perfectly clear to the person who posted to my Twitter stream just how fucking pissed off I am. And how much of an invasion he did by broadcasting his message to my audience. I'm actually kind of amazed at really how angry I am about this. Maybe part of that anger should be directed at myself for being too trusting (which isn't usually a problem).

Either way, there's going to be some changes made starting tomorrow morning at 8 am sharp.

Labels: change, id, security

I just posted This is Your Nation on White Privilege written by Tim Wise over on IP Politik.

Labels: politics