Inky Breaks Free; Aloha Uber Alles:It's a short drop, hacking the hotel thermostat, rich-entitled s***-bags, Sex toys by aliens, Abilene Paradox

Inky the octopus didn’t even try to cover his tracks.

By the time the staff at New Zealand’s National Aquarium noticed that he was missing, telltale suction cup prints were the main clue to an easily solved mystery. Inky had said see ya to his tank-mate, slipped through a gap left by maintenance workers at the top of his enclosure and, as evidenced by the tracks, made his way across the floor to a six-inch-wide drain. 

The wife-on-the-way pointedly corrected my misunderstanding of how logic is applied, when I attempted to use her reasoning back on her.

"Logic only applies when I use it."

Thank you for clarifying that dear.

We're at a resort in Kauai for a few days before her maid-of-honor appearance at our friends wedding in Waikiki next weekend - when I play: "Kevin Smith films Prince."

Quick stop at Costco on the way in from airport to get Hawaiian coconut vodka. Made from sugar cane and filtered through lava rock - of course.

POG +Vodka

A funny moment came when we walking around the site getting acquainted with the grounds and we realized we had to return to the car to put a parking pass in it.

It was overly warm and humid as we hadn't changed out of our travel clothes yet and the wife-to-be was whining more than usual about melting.

Oh c'mon it's not *that* hot!

The W2B suggested, rather than walking all the way through the open-air resort, that we go through one of the guest rooms that was open while it was being cleaned by the maid and jump out the window and just go run out to the parking lot. 

So what? It's a short drop. 

Glad to say saner heads prevaled.

We were almost amused by the entitled matron who, when I pointed out to her that this a no cell phone area said: "I know the rules!! I live here!"  and proceeded to continue her cell phone conversation.

The sign says "please" so I don't have to comply.

I'm seeing signs around the resort they use local sourced food as well as fruits/veges grown on the resort's on-site hydroponic farm. Resort also has a huge solar array over the employees parking facility.

There are also two separate huge 12 Megawatt solar farms providing almost 10% of the electricity on the island and save over 2 million gallons of gas a year. Nice to hear as 4 years ago the locals said Kauai could be almost 100% self-sufficient but at the time was less than 3%. 

We had lunch at one of our fav local places, Tip Top in Lihue. Good local food &  experience. All the waitresses service the restaurant pushing carts around with food and setups. 

Pancakes, Wing dings and fried rice. Superb!

Tried a new place for lunch:Makai Sushi inside a local grocery store.

The Gorilla Poke bowl was excellent. As was talking with the chef who was full-bred Burmese, born and raised in Thailand and now here cutting fish for the locals and Haoles - us white folk. He correctly nailed D as Hapa - 1/2 breed.

Gorilla Bowl

Tired and hungry after a hard day ziplining

We like it COLD when we sleep (probably related to the whole melting thing), and since all hotel thermostats use IR motion sensors to disable the thermostat during the night, I reprogrammed it to maintain the temperature. Good reference should you need this in the future. W and Hyatt hotels all use this.

Her preferred 65 degrees should be cold enough for anyone.

The hotel had a space-age toilet system. One I never figured out completely.

Not quite *that* space-age

I get the whole electronic bidet thing (mostly)... 

The electric seat was the oddest part. I think the flash of light that emanated from it whenever anyone approached was a UV light to sanitize the toilet bowl. I think.

And of course the seat was heated.

We made new friends in the form of the local birds that hang around the hotel looking for handouts. 

Tab in the foreground, Ekolu in the back

At first D thought they were Hawaiian Robins, but since there is no such thing, we asked a friend familiar with the area, who said they were Hawaiian loons. The birds, not the friend, though I had my doubts.

Anyway, they're actually Kauai'n Thrushes.

They hit me up right away for snacks and told me the many "Do Not Feed The Birds" signs I see posted everywhere were only for the touristas-Hoales and I looked so much like a local that I didn't have to heed the signs. Indeed. So I told them that my fiance would never permit it. They totally understood and told me how it works here:

I'm to leave just a little food on a plate and put it on the cart to be collected and then when my fiance turns away he and his friend can eat all the food without anyone being the wiser. Win-Win - the Hawaiian way - lots of Aloha-spirit. Mahalo!

I figured it was a load of bird shit...one carelessly strewn morsel and we'd be up to our ass in feathers and beaks. Which did indeed prove to be the case.

I was telling this humorous story to some friends over drinks for entertainment value and one of them asked me - seriously - if I thought the bird was really talking to me.

What? You didn't grow up in a Disney cartoon 

where all things talk and are anthropomorphic? 

How sad for you.

Three weeks ago I wrote about furry-porn and how it was possibly the weirdest thing I've seen on the web. Well, it has been surpassed: 10 Sex Toys Designed by Aliens.

Definitely NSFW

I'll leave you to it.

Have you heard of the Abilene Paradox? It's a real thing. Even if you haven't heard of it, you have most likely participated in it.

On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene [53 miles north] for dinner. The wife says, "Sounds like a great idea." The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, "Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go." The mother-in-law then says, "Of course I want to go. I haven't been to Abilene in a long time."
The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.
One of them dishonestly says, "It was a great trip, wasn't it?" The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, "I wasn't delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you." The wife says, "I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that." The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.
The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.

I find social interactions to be odd - at least - to begin with. This kind of shit makes me completely crazy. A group of more than 3 adults can't agree on anything. When a group gets together and no one is willing to tell the truth about what they really want to do in an effort to please the person next to them, who is trying to please the person next to them, etc., etc., etc. I begin to feel like a space alien. Or more likely wish I was beamed up by a space alien.

Who knew?

Where's Inky when I need him?

All for now, off to be staff videographer at our friend's wedding in Waikiki. More on that later.

Take care.

Aloha.

Will UBI "work"? All music and art and writing is free right, cuz it's on the Net; End of Rock; Revolution in the Air; Script progresses, HB 91

A friend recently observed I've been more prolific 

Anybody up for a game of William Tell? No? Why not?

I've got dead aim.

and wondered if it has to do with sitting a lot in airports last three weeks. Apparently so.
But I do have a few tidbits this week, and will be on vacation next week, so we'll see.

First, A whopping Giant Happy Birthday to my dear Uncle Stuart, who turned 91 this week. 91. Wow. And Prince checked out at 57. Sorry Uncle. not being a rock and roll star means you live past the train's departure date. Hope to see you this summer.

I hear more and more about a Universal Basic Income. Like you, I have an initial hesitation at the idea. But in actuality, given how f******  up the Powers That Be have made things, 

Good Movie. 

Do not go see your banker right after watching this.

it might be a viable solution. And it can work. While we will always have to earn our daily bread - hunger is built in - it doesn't have to be "work" and there are many ways to contribute.

 More discussion here.
Sometimes by not contributing at all.

Fav quote of the day: I reckon 10% of employees don't even contribute to their employers, let alone society. If they did absolutely nothing, it would be a bonus - other people could do something useful rather than fixing their fucked-up shit.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I have generally thought that after startup mode,  around 10-15% of the company keeps the rest afloat. 80/20 rule I think. IBM seems to be implementing that wrong.
Certainly was the case for me this week.

Uhm, no names - you know who you are. 

Back to the value of work. 

We devalue content and products by refusing to pay for the work it takes to create and maintain them. 

Think about that. Do you pay for online content? I do for some things. Years ago a friend and I agreed to stop bootlegging software, and also to never pay more than $99 for a piece of software (this was 1984). I found the stuff I paid for had more value than the stuff I took for free. And I've pretty much kept to that since.

I know, you're shocked, Shocked! to hear that. 

But it's true.

Paying an artist for their work is one thing. Payola is another.

"The system’s set up so almost nobody gets paid."

If you don't, how do you expect to continue to get it. Oh, right, see above. Hmmm.

Bob Dylan was asked what killed Rock and Roll in a recent interview in AARP of all places.  He's 74 for F***'s sake.

“Racial prejudice has been around awhile, so, yeah. And that was extremely threatening for the city fathers, I would think. When they finally recognized what it was, they had to dismantle it, which they did, starting with payola scandals. The black element was turned into soul music, and the white element was turned into English pop. They separated it […] Well, it was apart of my DNA, so it never disappeared from me. I just incorporated it into other aspects of what I was doing. I don’t know if this answers the question. [Laughs.] I can’t remember what the question was.”

Interviewer: It was jarring how he tossed it into the conversation so casually, a fun little tidbit, like, oh, by the way, real rock barely saw the 60’s before it was hijacked, fractured, and packaged to different demographics (of color).

There's Revolution in the air.

WASHINGTON, D.C—The sustained, daily civil disobedience at the Capitol by demonstrators denouncing the capture of our political system by corporate money is part of one of the largest and most important movements for social justice since the Occupy uprising. Join it.

Six hundred of the protesters have been arrested, and I was among 100 arrested Friday.

The protesters, organized by Democracy Spring, have converged on Washington from across the country. Young. Old. Black. White. Brown. Native American. Asian. Christian. Jew. Muslim. Buddhist. Atheist. From the left. From the right. Some marched for 10 days along a 160-mile route from Philadelphia to Washington.

On Friday, about a dozen protesters who had slipped into a tour group to get into the Capitol used zip ties to bind themselves to each other and to scaffolding inside the rotunda. They remained until they were arrested. In addition, scores of other protesters were taken away by police during the day.

“We the people demand a democracy free from the corrupting influence of big money and voter suppression,” they shouted. “We demand a democracy where every vote is counted and every voice is heard. Democracy Spring!”

The hundreds of arrests this past week have been largely ignored by a corporate media whose lobbyists, along with those of other corporations, are a familiar presence on Capitol Hill. The mass media’s blackout of the largest number of arrests at the Capitol in decades is one of innumerable examples of our corporate coup d’état. And until corporate power is overthrown—and it will be overthrown only from the streets in sustained acts of civil disobedience—the nation will continue to devolve into an authoritarian police state. Corporations will continue to strip us of our remaining rights, carry out the deadly assault on the ecosystem, impoverish workers, make a mockery of our democracy and cannibalize what is left of the country. The system of corporate power is incapable of reform. It must be destroyed.

And the only way I know to change it is to (re)turn to local communities. Period.
Speaking of which:
I finally met with my video client for the local Community DV shelter project. 
Great meeting and we should be moving ahead. Great lady and we organically came up with new ideas and a plan. Loved it. Next up we'll start filming. Mostly done in interview style. Updates in a few weeks.

How convenient

How did he determine that:

Too Obscure?

Off to Kauai for a much needed vacation:

There will be zip-lining - so stay tuned for pictures of D and I upside down.
I'll also be recording a close friend's wedding. THAT should be interesting.

Take care.

Feinstein&Burr double-down on ignorant fear-based leadership, NASA says we'll see aliens; Berlin: "No Airport for you!"

(Fri Apr 8, 6 pm) I'm sitting in Portland Int' Airport (PDX) waiting for my flight. In 2 hours. I've been here for 2 already. I have a class to prep for - a first teach in 2 weeks of stuff I knew solid 15 years ago - so I still need to prep. And I'm only 1/6 done. Maybe 1/5 if I lie. So here I am. 

Ah well, I'll go get a double shot espresso shortly and get it done. 

First teaches are like first dates - you just want to get through it and on to the next.

Then lots of coffee and Bailey's on the plane. Bet they take the drink coupons this week!

PDX to SMF - (That's Sacramento Int'l for those who don't know, although Donna always called it SMurF when she came up) then SAN. 

Breakfast was at Pannikin in Encinitas:

Yes, the pie really is that big.

This weekend I'm home for only a day - again - in late Friday night from Portland. 

Good flight again - exit row aisle, no middle - probably helped that the passenger on the window was a gorilla - so maybe we intimidated people not to sit between us. Nice thing about Southwest, if the plane is not 100% full, intimidation is a viable seat-choosing strategy.

Parking shuttle van waiting for me again and the ride home was quick and easy.

This is worth mentioning.

Driving on the Encinitas Corridor of I-5, excuse me "The" I-5 as they refer to all the freeways South of Monterey, for some reason that still escapes me, 

turns to shit between Via de la Valle and approximately Poinsettia. 

Might help if they removed the Big Red Line 

that sits on the freeway. Just sayin'.

And since I live off one of the exits between the two I have to drive it. A lot.

People totally lose their minds here. They go slow when they should go fast, go fast when they should go slow, forget what little consideration they pretend to have most of the rest of the time. The whole "slower traffic keep right" thing goes right out the window and lays moaning by the side of the road.

It's enough of a thing that when I mention it to the locals, they all go: "Yes, you're right....Why is that?" 

I have no idea. 

I suspect that part of the freeway was built over an old indian graveyard:

or is the landing site for the next alien attack:

Uh, no, not that kind

That's it

 - which is soon, according to NASA. 

Or all the hippie-surfer energy in the area bleeds over onto the freeway, Dude, and people think being cool means driving like a fool.

Anyway, last night was fast and easy. Nice.

The encryption mess isn't over, it's just ramping up. Senators Feinstein and Burr have created a genuinely offensive, if not plain stupid, piece of legislation, covered well here and here.

to uphold both the rule of law and protect the interests and security of the United States, all persons receiving an authorized judicial order for information or data must provide, in a timely manner, responsive, intelligible information or data, or appropriate technical assistance to obtain such information or data;

And if that's literally impossible, as is the case with strong encryption or end-to-end encryption? 
Let's be clear, here. This bill makes effective cybersecurity illegal. Think about that for a second. This is insane. 
Then there's this kicker:

Nothing in this Act may be construed to authorize any government officer to require or prohibit any specific design or operating system to be adopted by any covered entity. 

Yeah, except for the entire bill which absolutely prohibits the kind of design that basically all security experts say you need to adequately protect data and communications. 
There are lots of other issues as well. As Jonathan Zdziarski notes, the bill is so ridiculously drafted that it doesn't distinguish between encrypted data and deleted data.

“Burr-Feinstein may be the most insane thing I’ve ever seen seriously offered as a piece of legislation. It is ‘do magic’ in legalese,” tweeted Julian Sanchez, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute studying privacy and technology.“Well, the Feinstein-Burr bill is pretty much as clueless and unworkable as I expected it would be,” tweeted Matthew Green, a cryptography professor at Johns Hopkins University.

It seems Berlin is having difficulties building their new "crowning glory of reunified Germany." 

“No one, unless he is addicted to drugs, 

will give you any fixed guarantees for this airport.”

The airport, known as BER, was originally due to open in 2012. However, it has still not been completed and is now likely to cost at least €6.5bn (£5.2bn), instead of the €1.7bn that was projected in 2004. Having fired most everyone associated with the project, the spokesman for the airport/most recent casualty, had this to say:

“I have no interest to keep under wraps what … [others] have screwed up. Until now it was mostly said: ‘No, everything’s fine’. But that’s bullshit. 

I believe the German word is Entlassen (Sacked).

Where's the edit?

A good end of week and good class. Back home next week for a first teach.

Stay tuned and take care.

Flying like it was meant to be, Stardust=Cat turds, Oregon Drivers, Review: Farce Awakens, Furry Porn

Friday on the trip home from Chicago was Fabulous. Flying like it used to be. Exit row aisle on the plane, seat-mate was not a gorilla, flight attendants refused to accept drink coupons (another coffee and Baileys, then please), lady flight attendant sang a version of Patsy Cline's "Crazy" [to fly another airline] when we pulled into the gate - we all applauded ...30 mins early after leaving 10 minutes late, and the parking shuttle was waiting for me when I walked up. Too cool.

With apologies to Joni Mitchell:

Off to Tualatin OR. this week. I forgot that Oregonians follows the speed limit. EXACTLY. ugh. I feel like Mario Andretti. It can be painful. Most drivers think the whole pass on the left and slower traffic keep right thing was just a fad. and have only a casual acquaintance with their accelerator pedal.

OK, so I finally watched the new Star Wars movie: The Farce Awakens. Uh, Force. Review contains spoilers. 
First let me say I never was a fan of the Original Star Wars. In any way. I liked the what, 3 minutes? at the end of Return of the Jedi, when Luke tries to save his father and Vader tells him: "You already have." I choke up at that. Tweaks my own Father-Son heart strings. (Miss your voice at times, Pop.)

But that 's about it. 

I agree with a review that it's a reboot of the franchise for those too young to remember the original. I think they could have gone into more depth about the Force, the politics, the men who go to war and die, leaving the women to grieve; almost anything. Event the toilets  - where and how do the creatures shit in this universe? You telling me Chewy uses the same "facilities" as Han does on the Falcon?
And are wookies effectively immortal?

I was glad to see Harrison Ford killed. About F----- time. And he wanted it to happen like 30 years ago. To watch him doddering around on the screen - he's 74 - was painful.

The look and feel and effects were well done. But of course the crowning monument to CG was their work on Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamil. I actually think she looks more like her mom now. One of her best quotes: Instant gratification takes too long.

I liked Daisy Ridley. A Lot. Enough to watch the sequel. If they can kill off Carrie and Luke and let the 2 old 'droids go back to being phones or whatever I'd be happier.
Start afresh, but make it be about something more than just, well, nasty people want to do nasty things, lets all go stop them! But at least it's true to the original in that respect.
But I did like the last scene - the effective handing off from Luke to Rey. Nicely done. Luke becomes Obi Wan. Now he has his own restaurant: 

While I knew Furry Sex was a Thing, I didn't know furry animated porn is maybe even bigger.

Possibly the weirdest thing I've read in a while and the article is surpassed only by going to the artists' sites and seeing what they draw.
Like this:

Excuse me, I need to go soak my head in a bucket of ice water now.

I'm finding that my students are not eating donuts as much as in previous years. I guess that's a good thing. And then there is this:

Couldn't resist:

That's it for another week. Next week off to Broomfield. 
Take care.

Peeps, 5 Second Rule, Chicago, I Want One, New Math, Initial Script Approval

I fully admit to being a Peep fan. Have been since I remember. I am one of the 25 % who prefer them stale. I should be able to take a peep, tap it on a hard surface and it should make a solid knocking sound. More on Peep history. I believe peeps are safe from the Five second rule.

Off to Chicago for a week teaching. Always a bit weird when I return. Not one of my fav cities. I was born and raised in Chicago...which is why I live in California.

Anyway, there's no denying the salmon-returning-to home kind of feel, though.

Lots of familiar sights and sounds.

I'll be staying near Water Tower Place Across from John Hancock Building -  I remember Chicago without it - and walking up Michigan Ave to get to work. 

Lots of memories.

Fri Update: Class went well, had a good week. Tip of the hat to my Co-instructor - He was great.

I enjoyed the walk up and down Michigan Ave.

Still feels odd to pass the place where O'Connell's Restaurant was - My grandmother would take me there for a hamburger when I was little. She would cut the burger into 1/4s for me.

I still do that some times. (Hi Gram. Miss you. ;-|

We also liked Flukeys' Hotdogs

And the hotdog shaped bubblegum, of course. 

I noticed that the bag of PEANUTS I was served on the flight is labeled "This bag contains peanuts." on the back.

It's labeled that way by law. This law. At first I thought it was dumb. But, I can see their point. And this: 

...the risk of harm times the gravity of the potential harm is weighed against the burden of taking precautions. (Lawrence Solum explains a bit more here.) The “harm” of an unlabeled food allergen is quite grave; it can be, and often is, a dead child, and is at a minimum several dozen emergency room visits every day.

Trying to find a restaurant Monday night. One expensive Italian restaurant, in a hotel, decor like the Godfather's study - funereal - told me I couldn't keep my laptop bag by me at my table in the completely empty restaurant. Why not, I asked. Well, you might be a terrorist with a bomb in the bag. 
This from the cook/owner. I left. 
I found this. I laughed.

I want one.

More people on Earth are overweight than underweight.

I did my part. I ate my weight in Garretts Carmel Corn this week.

Seems fitting:

For the wake, of course.

I have no idea what this means.

I heard from my new client and she "really liked the script!" 

Now we just need to meet and plan next steps.

That's it for the week. Now sitting in Midway waiting to return to SD.

Next week? Off to Lake Oswego/Tualatin area. 

Take care of yourself.