Ohmu-Rice – The best Ghibli/Japanese Food Mashup

Ohmu-Rice! Two great things, mashed together!

I'd been thinking about this pun for a while – mixing the giant Ohmu from Nausicaä with Omu-rice (egg and rice omelets from Japan). I set to work designing it and think it turned out really well!

Check it out on Teepublic.com! The default link goes to the tan color, but I like the soft-green best.

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A former NSA employee review of Permanent Record (the Snowden story)

A former NSA employee review of Permanent Record (the Snowden story) – The Geek Professor
Permanent Record: Edward Snowden
(See online!)

I wish I could share what it was like being an NSA employee when the Snowden story broke, but I won’t compromise any rules or laws and have to submit everything I write to the NSA for pre-pub review. What I have written is working through the process and, if you’re interested, please click here to sign up for updates.

For now, I want to talk about is Edward Snowden’s book, Permanent Record. Summed up:

Snowden’s releases showed the NSA and intelligence community engaged in proven illegal and perversion of their charter and authorizations that, after public exposure, led to a national review from Congress and the Whitehouse.

I never expected to learn much new about the leaks nor did I, but that wasn’t what I was looking for. What I wanted was to resolve a decade-old incongruity.

On one hand, I knew that Snowden never reported issues to NSA oversight, the DoD, Congress, or any other official channel that would have kept him out of jail. And, to hear the NSA tell it, he was an unhinged narcissist who leaked for pride reasons more than any real sense of civic duty (that’s the gist anyway). Together, it gives a very clear image of a leaker – someone who simply thought they knew better than everyone else and didn’t care who got hurt so long as they got their 15 minutes of fame.

On the other hand – in every interview, every soundbite, every public post – I can’t recall a single thing Snowden has said that I disagreed with. I find him to be extremely well-spoken and a consistent champion of non-techs who are assaulted constantly with government and business overreach. Most importantly, time proved him right – the NSA was illegally collecting information on average Americans.

Ultimately, saying that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different from saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say. --Edward Snowden, Permanent Record, pg 162

So which was it? Was Snowden a hero? A whistleblower? A pride-filled leaker? After reading his version of the story, here are my impressions:

Early life and career

The first 50 pages or so cover his childhood which I skimmed, but did learn that Snowden’s background was similar in many ways to my own. Not in terms of family drama (of which he had more than most deserve), but in terms of hobbies, love of computers, and falling asleep with our heads on the keyboard after late nights of computing. He’s also a fan of Japanese animations and took language classes as a result (and we both noticed a weirdly high rate of art and design majors in our classes).

Snowden, the man, the legend, the myth

Early in his computing life, he had a neat accomplishment where he caught a national laboratory using poor web server security, though I feel like making minor changes to a web address doesn’t really count as “hacking". Eventually he started his career in the Intelligence Community (IC); something he referred to as being a “spy" despite working jobs that, like mine, were far less world-changing and far more like attacking water with a spoon to keep the Titanic afloat.

I honestly was put off by the way he presented himself as something akin to the Forrest Gump of the IC – always somehow part of the elite and responsible for most major and notable events during his career. I suppose it’s possible (I wasn’t there), but it seemed consistently overstated. What wasn’t overstated was… pretty much everything else. For example:

  • How the government/corporations have perversely conditioned most people to beg for privacy, hat in hand, rather than justifying their worsening violations of our innate rights.
  • How disgusting it was watching DNI Clapper lie to Congress and how Congress was derelict in their duty when they didn’t call him out on it.
  • That, even if Snowden didn’t report issues through proper channels, those “proper channels" aren’t how anything gets resolved – it’s where issues go to die.
  • That the NSA has a bad habit of hiring people only to have them sitting around doing nothing of value – sometimes for months – even years – at a time.
  • The way they use federal contractors (at great cost to both budget and national security risk) to bypass hiring limitations.
  • The deep vanity of some upper managers who think org chart height equals “rank" and complain about “breaking the chain of command" if you escalate issues past them (even if you properly went to them first).
  • And finally (and most importantly), the hostility to whistleblowers – something I experienced first-hand when my clearance was revoked on a custom blend of information that was skewed, desperate, and invented.
It’s easier for an institution to tarnish a reputation than to substantively engage with principled dissent – for the IC, it’s just a matter of consulting the files, amplifying the available evidence, and, where no evidence exists, simply fabricating it. --Edward Snowden, Permanent Record, pg 295

About Leaking

Following Snowdengate, the NSA responded poorly with one exception: they created a presentation for the workforce outlining rebuttals to Snowden’s claims. Among those were:

  1. He was clinically narcissistic and did what he did for personal pride, not national pride.
  2. He never reported the issues to the NSA and never gave them a chance to handle it.
  3. He flew to our two greatest adversaries with the data which is not something an innocent person does.
  4. He exfiltrated data far beyond the scope of the programs in dispute – stuff that seemed intended to harm US interests and the NSA more than help the public.

On the first one, I definitely got a sense of narcissism when he talked about himself, but hardly to the degree the NSA proposed. The vast majority of the book is simply a tale of his exposure to the dysfunction (and illegal activity) of the IC mixed with the immense pressure and emotional damage of his decision to leak. Most importantly, even if he’s narcissistic, that doesn’t make him wrong.

What does make him wrong was bypassing any of the reporting and oversight offices. I can say with near 100% certainty, that nothing at all would have come of it if he had, but if you want to avoid jail and earn the label of “whistleblower", that’s the process.

But even in the best possible case, the whistleblower process of today is not where you go to get attention and change, it’s where issues go to die silently and unnoticed. For actual impact, Snowden wasn’t wrong that he’d have to come in like a meteor. Sure, he’d burn up on entry, but he’d light up the IC on the way down.

One might argue that his accomplishment in bringing this program public and the advances in freedom and accountability that followed make a strong case for a pardon and retroactive whistleblower status, but I had two key reasons I couldn’t agree.

The first is his choice to fly to China-controlled territory and Russia. However, the book outlines very plausible reasons why Hong Kong was the best choice at first. As for Russia, that was supposed to be a pit stop, but his notoriety made getting through Russia without incident impossible (as we clearly saw). I also think that his claim of destroyed the encryption key for the data after giving it to journalists is plausible as well. So, for now, I consider those points generally resolved.

My one remaining hesitation is this: to my knowledge, Snowden left with data far beyond the scope of the problematic programs at hand. It’s suspicious and it’s strange (if true)… but… I’ve faced the NSA exaggerating and fabricating information several times in my career – the most recent resulting in revocation of my security clearance and subsequent job loss.

Maybe the agency was honest in their summary of the data he leaked and maybe it was overblown. Until we have strong leaders in Congress or the Whitehouse to dig into this issue and get a real answer, there’s really no way to know for sure.

Final Impressions

It was pretty wild reading about someone who’s IC journey matched mine in so many ways.

I worked in the same building he had █████. I walked the long tunnel under the pineapples in Hawaii. I’d been forced to read nearly 1000 pages of pre-access documents when I was a system admin. And I saw how clearly apathetic the agency was if you actually read or learned anything before getting that access.

I’ve felt the frustration of working for an agency that should do better and be better than it was. I’ve faced retaliation and security investigation for speaking out. While it may be nothing close to the harassment that his poor girlfriend (now wife, hooray!) faced after Snowden ended up on the news, I’ve had my life put on hold for months and held in purgatory while expenses, fear, and depression wrestled for dominance. And, like Snowden, I am determined not to let all of that stop me from exposing the abuse and dysfunction of the NSA.

We swore and oath to the constitution – one that states that “We the people…" should be sure in our right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures". That means calling the NSA out when they go too far.

Despite that, I noticed that Snowden never calls for the NSA to be torn down or disbanded. He never argues they don’t serve an important function. He simply believes (as do I) that, whatever the NSA does, it should be legal and limited in scope as much as practically possible. That means they shouldn’t possess massive and permanent databases of information on non-threats. They shouldn’t be able to hide the details of these programs from their overseers. And, most important of all, they should protect and streamline the vital oversight function of whistleblowing, not retaliate and penalize those that try.

Whistleblowers can be elected by circumstance at any working level of an institution. But digital technology has brought us to an age in which, for the first time in recorded history, the most effective will come up from the bottom, from the ranks traditionally least incentivized to maintain the status quo. --Edward Snowden, Permanent Record, pg 184
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SIIG KVM and USB C hub – Managing remote work is so much easier now!

SIIG USB-C 2-Port KVM Switch MST Docking Station with PD 65W
(See online!)

So I put some effort into getting my home office put together. I have dual monitors nicely raised to the right eye height. I have a motorized standing desk, nice keyboard, mouse… the works! But the main issue was switching between my home computing and my work. I had one laptop for each (clean separation between the two), but moving all those cables is a non-starter.

The first thing I tried was a Thinkpad USBC hub. It's pretty straightforward – just plug everything into the hub, then plug the hub into the computer. The only problem is that I have to move the one cable between the computers when I want to switch (technically two because it was too slow to run both monitors so I had one HDMI cable I plugged directly into the computer for speed reasons). But the next thing I tried was the combo Hub/KVM. What an improvement!

So basically, the KVM works just like the hub, but it's faster so I haven't had HDMI problems even when playing games. And because it's plugged into both machines at the same time, all I have to do is click a single button to swap between the two computers. All my devices and monitors swap semi-instantly and it's just such a better process that it makes my workday so much better! If I remember something I need to do on my home computer (or on an account that I don't want to log into on my work laptop), it's a button press, get the work done, button press again to go back to the work machine.

If you have two computers for your home office and want to be able to rapidly switch between them while using the same peripherals for both, this is a pretty sweet way to do that!

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Finally Found a Comfortable Pillow Solution – Shredded Memory Foam Chimera!

When you can put enough aside to afford it, a key purchase is your pillow. It's something you use every night and affects how sore and damaged you become during the weirdly dangerous act of sleeping (being over 40, yay!)

So I put my money to the test and, after research, bought each option in the "Cervical Pillow" series:

A cervical pillow. It definitely had support!
(See online!)

Though the pillows have a removable strip in the center in case they're too high for you, none of them (queen, queen soft, or standard soft) were low enough. I felt like my chin was scraping my ribcage the entire time and returned them all. It was disappointing, but the foam did seem comfortable – if only too high/stiff.

With a little more looking around, SHREDDED memory foam seemed a good option so that was my next buy:

This isn't the exact one I bought (that one's gone for some reason), but it's close
(See online!)

The first one I bought was MAJORLY comfortable. The kind of pillow you lay down on and can't get back up again because your body deactivates like a deflated pudgy robot. The two problems were that it was STILL too full AND it deflates very soon after buying (as it warns in the comments and reviews).

The first problem was easy to solve because all of the shredded foam pillows I found came with zipper-cases so you could pull out as much foam as you like. In one case, I had so much fluff, I was able to make two pillows out of it (I had another zipping pillow case lying around).

The second problem is based on them shredding too thoroughly. The foam was randomly sized even down to "cotton candy" shreds in some cases which meant that it compressed too much in a short time. They tell you to low-heat dry the pillows when they arrive to get rid of the chemical smell and to fluff them and also tell you to re-fluff them now and then the same way, but I lost structural integrity after only a night or two. Luckily, there's a simple solution:

Pillow #3!
(See online!)

I did not return the first shredded pillow because it was crazy comfortable; I bought the third pillow for one reason: cubes. The foam was evenly cut and not likely to compress easily which is exactly what I'd need if I was going to make an unholy meld of SOFT and SUPPORT. And that's exactly what I did… I grabbed a 32 gallon garbage bag and dumped the contents of both pillows together. I mixed them vigerously by hand and then started filling every zipping pillow case I had. Because they give you enough foam in these things you'd be licking your toes if you left them alone, I was able to fill probably 5 pillows to a degree that made everyone in the family happy (and I have some left over).

My final ratio didn't mix the cubes and other foam evenly so I ended up with a lot of the cubes left over. I'll just hang onto them for now or I could use them to fill other pillows for guests or something. Either way, much better than normal pillow

So it takes a little more effort, but basically:

  1. Buy an overly shredded memory foam pillow
  2. Buy an almost obnoxiously uniform shredded foam pillow as well. I looked for cubes
  3. Mix them together in a big bag
  4. Refill your pillowcases to whatever degree is comfortable for you
  5. .
I've been so comfortable recently that my pain is lower, my sleep is better, and I have to adjust my rear-view mirror every morning because of how decompressed I've been.
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Idiocracy

Idiocracy : Luke Wilson
(See online!)

What would happen if an ordinary man traveled to the far future where the average intelligence has fallen to ridiculous levels.

Spoilers below! You've been warned!

This movie is a fairly raunchy in parts, but is a fascinating take on what the future could become if we didn't guide science and limit the reach and influence of corporation creep into goverment. It's a often-referenced movie when discussing government stupidity and dirty marketing of major corporations. Just remember, "it's what plants crave!"

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The Island

The Island : Ewan McGregor
(See online!)

The best movies in my view are the ones that make you think and expand your mind. This one is about what it means to be human and what you can do to people who "don't count". There's little I can say without giving it away so:

Spoilers below! You've been warned!

I'll try to keep the examples brief, but here are some quick takes from the movie (and the concepts they raise):

Surveillance society

A smart-toilet analyzes a man's morning pee and determines he has been eating too much salt. Later in the lunchroom, he's denied his beloved bacon for breakfast. Another man gets angry and hits a wall and security instantly appears to have a "chat" with him about his outburst. A man and women start to get close, but security steps in to remind them to keep a "proper" distance.

Racial Superiority

The hundreds of employees that run the facility know about the abuse of the residents, but do nothing (supposedly having bought into the "they're not real people" pitch). Trigger warning: there is a scene where they birth a baby then kill the mother because they were just using her for the birth and didn't care about the "lessor human".

In summary

Anyway, it's a good movie with plenty of action and it accurately portrays the horror that could occur if we increase our technology and forget humanity along the way.

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Minority Report

Minority Report : Tom Cruise
(See online!)

Summary

In the not-too-distant future, technology has progressed to the point that we can predict murders and convict people before the crime is committed. When the name of the officer running the program comes up as a murderer one day, he has to find a way to prove his innocence… assuming he doesn't actually do the crime.

Spoilers ahead!

You can see that people have a lot of trust in the police. They accept the incarceration of people who the police say would have committed murder even though the crime never happened. At one point, a horde of spider-like machines is released into a building to scan people's retinas to prove their identity. A couple in the middle of arguing heavily stop to allow the machines to crawl onto their face, point light into their eyes, and then resume the argument immediately after. Every time they walk into a store, the automated displays greet them by name and ask them about prior purchase before making customized recommendations on something else they might like.

One that most people miss is the scene where Tom Cruise's character is eating a bowl of cereal and because he put the box down on the counter next to his TV, a quiet advertisement for the cereal begins to play. Cruise, annoyed, throws the box across the room.

There are some great lessons about government trust and accountability plus it's a great action flick. I definitely recommend it! To learn more, click the movie thumbnail above.

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The Total Money Makeover

The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness: Ramsey
(See online!)

I have heard of the philosophy of not needing a credit history or credit cards, but never really believed it could work for me until I read this book. Ramsey describes many carefully planted myths about money and money management that hurt normal people and benefit companies and how our ignorance of this is killing us financially. We are trained by meticulous marketing techniques to live a lifestyle that will keep us in debt forever (a lesson I've lived personally).

Read this book to get a practical and easy-to-implement plan that will get your personal finances under control. Stop wasting money, stop worrying about the future, stop being a slave to your debts. And, yes, I'm debt free and have been for more than four years now. Never again.

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The Five Love Languages

The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts: Chapman
(See online!)

Does this sound familiar? Married person X comes home to Spouse X and hands them a gift with a grin. Spouse X looks in disgust at the gift, and says "What is this? How much did it cost? You know we can't afford to waste money!" Sad isn't it? This is a love language problem where one expresses affection through gifts and the other very obviously doesn't.

If that didn't sound familiar, what about these phrases:

A: You never spend any time with me!
B: I work hard to provide for you and the family, but all you do is complain!

A: Will you cuddle with me?
B: Why do you always have to be so clingy?

A: I made your favorite dinner tonight!
B: That's great, now let me finish this last e-mail.

Reading this book was quite literally life-changing for me. It's one of those things that divides your life into before and after:

  • Before, I didn't know my brother is a "Physical Touch" person and needs to hug me when we first see each other after a long parting. Now that I know this, I can let him do it without feeling uncomfortable or making him feel uncomfortable. It's really improved a situation that used to be very awkward for us.
  • My mother-in-law had a problem with a co-worker who would always buy her small trinkets (kind of like how a cat brings dead animals to your doorstep when they like you). She didn't know how to handle it so I told her about the book. I explained what it meant to be a "Gifts" person and some tips for handling it and the awkward situation cleared up.
  • Now, when someone is trying to express love or affection (romantic or not), I can more easily recognize it and react/reciprocate appropriately.

The key is that without this knowledge, you may feel you've done everything in the world to make someone feel special and appreciated, but they don't because you're just speaking the wrong language! To learn more, click the book's pic above.

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The Definitive Book of Body Language

The Definitive Book of Body Language: The Hidden Meaning Behind People's Gestures and Expressions: 9780553804720: Pease
(See online!)

I suppose some people are naturally good at reading others, but that's definitely not me. I bought this book to learn what people might be telling me without words and it was a huge help! Since reading it, I've been paying a lot more attention to the signs and signals given off by my co-workers and it's amazing what I can read without them even knowing.


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