don’t panic

You can hardly exist on the net these days without a secret combination of letters and numbers that acts as a gatekeeper into your online presence. We all have them.  We have them for our email, our bank, our Netflix account, our doctor, car insurance, cable tv account, phone… and on and on. We have passwords that, in theory, protect our privacy and secure our private information from “those that would seek to abuse us”.

But lately, I have begun to feel a little overwhelmed mentally when it comes to my passwords. Like most people, I have a set of passwords that I use, because having just ONE password is pretty dangerous should that single password be compromised somehow. And some are more “secure” than others, for example the ones I use for my bank, are NOT going to be the same ones that I use to log into World of Warcraft or my Gmail account. But as I age, I find that my memory just isn’t what it used to be. And to make matters worse, more and more of my life is either digital, or literally on the net. I do everything there, whether it’s paying bills, or just staying on top of the latest news headlines, everything requires a login and password. And that wouldn’t be so bad, accept that I have to remember them all, and they are almost all different.

“That’s good!” you say.  ”It’s secure!” Well, yes and no. You see, at some point, your brain (or at least MY brain) just can’t keep that much exact information at the ready.  I have a hard enough time remembering a few phone numbers any more, let alone the login name and password for three dozen different websites.  And to make matters worse, companies, who are increasingly getting sued over breaches in security, are implementing more and more strict rules regarding what exactly you can use as a login name or password. In some cases it’s getting downright ridiculous.

Take Gmail for example. This is my “not so secure” email address. Sure, I want it to be private, but it’s the one I give out to those sites that “require” a valid email address, but aren’t trustworthy enough to get my more private one linked to my private domain. No way. And in the past, I have used one of my generic passwords and it’s been fine.  But suddenly, gmail decided that I wasn’t secure enough and basically made it a requirement that I change my password. My old one was six characters long, which was actually more than some of my passwords which were only five. Google wanted at least eight.

Frak. This is like another whole phone number to remember. But, it’s made with letters, so I can find a way to remember it easier, right… NO, you can’t use anything from a list of known words. Okay… NO, it has to have at least 2 numbers as well. Okay then… NO, you can’t have any running strings of numbers or letters (1234… ABCD). Well how about… NO, it can’t contain any portion of your previous password. “Would you like us to generate one for you?”…. Yes…

Q7g6H3k#D7*21H

Ah, yes.  Much easier to remember.

I exaggerate, but not by much. On most sites, the new “minimum length” is six characters, and most of the rules mentioned above are real. It gets so bad that we start considering writing them down somewhere… which any security guy will tell you in a deep and stern voice that you must NEVER EVER DO. And they would be right of course. But what choice do we have? The rules to make passwords more secure are purposely designed to make them hard to guess. Unfortunately, those same rules make them equally hard to remember. And here’s the thing, having a secure password no more safeguards your personal information than a weak one if your computer is already compromised. Yup, all those viruses you’ve been fighting… Many of them are there to do nothing more than harvest your password, even if it’s, “Q7g6H3k#D7*21H”. And frankly, if someone is seriously out to hack your bank account or hijack your identity, there are far far easier methods than brute-force cracking your password. It’s a lot more likely they would just start by rifling through your trash. Then it’s just a matter of doing a little social engineering to take over your life.

And it’s happened to all of us… you forget one. No matter how hard you try, you just can’t seem to log on to a certain account and you finally relent and hit the “I forgot my password” link. And you go through the process of either an email reset (provided it’s not your email password you have forgotten) or you answer the dreaded “personal question”.  These are those special questions that only you are supposed to know. Things like, “what is your favorite sports team?”… the answer to which is probably plastered all over the back of your car, or known by a mere 50 of your closest friends. I really hate these questions because, for whatever twisted reason, I just don’t hold on to the kind of information that most people do I guess. For example, as one of your question choices, they might have, “What is your favorite rock band?” Would that be now, at this very moment, or two years ago when I set up my account? Or how about, “What was the name of your first pet?” Okay… “Mac” I enter. “Sorry, your answer must be five characters in length or more.”  GAH!! Pet names are short! “Sid, Spot, Rex”, etc… What dunderhead is writing these filters?! And is it any more secure for a potential thief to guess my pet’s name (which could very easily be found in five minutes on Google) than to hack my actual password?

It’s maddening, and frankly only going to get worse as more and more of our lives are done online. Someone needs to seriously come up with a better way of securing our data… like maybe an individualized global number that every person has invisibly tattooed on their right hand or forehead… I’M KIDDING!… kinda…

It seems that part of the problem with arresting illegal immigrants coming up from Mexico is that the Department of Homeland Security has mandated that illegal immigrants charged with minor offenses and without criminal history should be released on recognizance, so they can show up at a court before an immigration judge. And, big surprise, almost none do. Aside from the fact that they (probably rightfully so) fear they are gong to be deported if they show up, many have difficulty even getting to the courthouse, which at times can be hundreds of miles away.

So what do you do? Keeping them in jail is not an option. Our jails are already overcrowded. Simply letting them go isn’t working, and merely dropping them off just inside the Mexican border is like saying, “thank you for playing, care to try again?”

So here’s an idea. If we’re going to spend the money to process them anyway, why not put them on a nice boat and ship them someplace else in Mexico… like maybe Salina Cruz, which is all the way down by Guatemala. This way, there will at least be a delay in them coming back into the U.S., and they might be a little more hesitant to make the jump if they know getting caught means a lengthy and possibly expensive trip up from the South.

There’s this really interesting article from a local California news site that talks about how dolphins were seen killing porpoises for what the scientists called “no known reason.” It seems it wasn’t just accidental kinds of stuff, but active organized mobs of dolphins that would go out, pick a target, then basically beat them to death or drown them. The really scary part of all this was a mention that the dolphins were bringing these dead cousins to the researchers watching them. And they were killing a LOT of porpoises, like 74 in the last year that we even know of.

The scientists in the article talk about sexual frustration as a possible reason for this behavior.  Uh huh. Well, I don’t have a doctorate in marine biology, but remembering that this is an animal with a brain capacity that has been compared to that of man, this sounds just a little too much like a bunch of thugs saying, “See this? Stop crapping up our home or the next one will be human…”

… we all foam for iPhone.

With the release of the Droid on Verizon’s network, there have been a new batch of rants on all the tech boards about whether or not this is the legendary “iPhone killer” that everyone seems to want… well, everyone who doesn’t own an iPhone that is.

The fanboys will rage on both sides, comparing every minute detail of the hardware and the network speeds, lies will be spoken, debunked, and denied. Marketing will silently slip in the raving reviews that are about as useful as secondhand toilet paper, and those loyal to their respective operating systems will finally smirk at their counterparts, knowing that they have put the other in their place at last.

And the rest of us mere mortals are no better informed than when we began wasting our time reading the reviews.

I don’t own an iPhone. I wish I could afford an iPhone, but the reality is that until Apple and AT&T allow people to separate the expensive data plan from simply being able to to make phone calls, many many people like myself, are just not going to be able to afford it.  Sure the hardware has come way down in price, and it’s very competitive with the rest of the smart phone market. But the initial cost of a device that I use on a nearly daily basis has never really concerned me. However, paying a thousand dollars a year or more just to have the option to check my email while I’m out of wi-fi range, is just plain out of my league.

The interesting thing is that I do have an iPod Touch. I picked one up when my Palm finally died, and simply put, I LOVE IT.  Do I miss the fact that it can’t make calls? Absolutely. Is it a real bummer that it doesn’t have a camera or a microphone built in? Yup.  And all those things could be solved if I could only step up and afford the full monty, the iPhone itself. But then, my handy LG enV makes nice phone calls, and has a pretty decent camera and even does reasonably good video, with audio. I picked up a cheap mini-sd card at CostCo and I can literally put HOURS of video on that sucker. The catch is that I have to carry around two devices, neither of which does everything I want them to. Meh. I’m a geek, I’ve been doing that for decades.

But it got me thinking about what it is that I would really like in a phone, because let’s face it, we use our phones for more than simply making calls while were driving (did I just say that out loud?). Obviously, people are going to have radically different needs, but for the sake of arguement, here’s mine:

1. I would like to be able to make a phone call. It IS a phone after all, and at first glance, this seems simple enough. But it’s not. I have a lousy memory, so, for me at a least, it needs to play well with a “contacts” list.  That means being able to set speed dial, maybe voice calling (where you simply say the name of the person you want to call), and if it’s really on the ball, a way to sync that contact list with my computer. Nice sound quality would be great too, but we all sort of gave that up years ago when cell phones went digital. Forget what marketing would like you to think. Cell phone sound quality sucks. Between delays, breakup, and outright loosing connection, anyone who says their cell phone’s voice quality is as good as a land line is either completely deceiving themselves, or outright lying. But we put up with it because… well, because what else are we going to do, find a pay phone?

2. It needs a camera. I have had to face the fact that no matter how much I love my Canon Digital Rebel, carrying around a bulky 35mm SLR just isn’t practical. Sure, I could get a smaller camera which might fit in my pocket, but I’m a guy… You can only put so much in your pants before you start to look like a squirrel.  I mean, I’m already lugging around my phone, my iPod Touch, my overstuffed wallet, a half pound of steel in the form of various keys (don’t forget the essential mini Leatherman) and a car key (because you can’t put that bulky key remote on your normal ring or the weight will damage your car’s ignition switch).  And that’s if I’m not already carrying my checkbook, change in coins, or anything else in my pockets. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I have a weird (and highly disturbing) nerve condition in my right thigh that prevents me from putting anything in my front pocket on that side. If butt-bags weren’t so gay, or if men were socially allowed to carry a purse, I’d be fine. But we are forced to stay “macho”, which means we constantly look like we meant to wear our much more practical SWAT pants with the multitude of pockets, but only our tight, butt-hugging jeans were clean. So, yes, I need a camera. A 5 mega-pixel monster that could shoot HD video would be great, but frankly If I know I’m going to be taking pictures, I’ll bring a real camera. This is for those times when I DON’T expect to need to record something, and for that, 640 x 480 does just fine. I’m sure in ten years I’ll be asking myself how I ever lived with such a paltry resolution, but such is the life of a geek.

3. Text messages are cool. Yes, you heard me. Text. NOT video messages, not audio messages… plain old ASCII. I can even live with 160 characters. I can twitter, receive news alerts, or even send a quick covert love note to my wife. The best part is that it has a fantastically minimal effect on the overall bandwidth that the cellular network uses… Now if we could just convince the carriers to acknowledge this fact so that they stop charging us .25 cents a pop (without a messaging package, not available on all phones, some restrictions apply). Of course, that means that my “phone” needs a keyboard of some kind.  Sorry, but using 0-9 and multi-tapping just doesn’t do it for me, but frankly, I’m not that picky. It’s not like I’m going to be writing a novel on the thing.

4. Well… there is no 4.  Anything else I can do on my iPod Touch when I’m in wi-fi range. And here is the reason that the Droid is going to fail and fail hard when compared to the iPhone. Whether or not you like like Apple, the sheer momentum of the App Store makes it by FAR the most incredible resource for meeting every and any function a user could possibly need.  And in most cases, you can find that perfect app for free. Talk about how Android and Google are going to change the game all you want, but if your average user can’t find an app to solve their need, it’s just a lot of talk.  A perfect example of this was shown to me recently when I needed a way to keep track of the large number of medications my wife was currently taking.  I went to the App Store, and in five minutes I had located, downloaded and installed the perfect app to do just that. And it was FREE. Do that on a Droid. Forget hardware specs or network coverage. The ONLY thing that matters to the end user is – does it perform the functions that I need it to without having to jump through hoops or pay extra monthly fees? And it seems that Apple is still the only company to have figured this out, because in almost all cases, service providers such as Verizon are clinging for dear life to their desire not to sell you a phone, but a subscription. They are willing to take a loss on the hardware, the one-time payoff, so that they can gouge you each and every month for “specialty” services. But nothing makes a customer feel more ripped off than buying a cell phone and then being told two weeks later that they need to add another $20-a-month charge to their bill so that they can send “unlimited” text messages like all their friends, and then another $20-a-month for the ability to download music. They tell their customer service rep that they want to be able to write email, and are then directed to the “get-it-now” application store, which they boastfully claim is every bit as good as Apple’s. There you CAN get an email application to suit your needs… for another $20-a-month. And God forbid you should EVER upgrade your phone (which they almost guarantee you are going to do at least once every two years) because you will lose all your “apps”, ring tones, and unless you jump through some of those hoops I mentioned earlier-  your contacts, photos, and past text messages that happen to be stored on the phone.

Nope. The Droid has the hype, but Apple still rules when it comes to giving people the functions they want. And just to rub it in the faces of the other manufacturers, they do it in a sleek, well-designed package that’s intuitively easy to use.

The Droid? R2D2 has classier lines, and he had his debut in the 70′s.

A recent and ongoing visit to the hospital has given us a first-hand look at how screwed up our healthcare system is. So sit down, belt in and enjoy the ride as I navigate you through the bowels of our fine medical establishment.

At the end of September, my wife, who is having ongoing therapy for depression, is told that she needs ECT treatments again.  For those of you not in the know, that’s Electro-Convulsive-Therapy, or “shock therapy”.  I won’t go into the more sordid details of this procedure, but basically, it involves a number of sessions where they put you out and invoke a grand-mal seizure in order to treat extreme cases of major depression. Rough stuff in any book.  So here’s how things went down:

September 28 –  Therapist recommends ECT treatments as an inpatient, but we can’t afford a normal mental hospital because they don’t take Medi-Cal.  Oh, and Medi-Cal no longer covers psychiatric services… for anyone.  No one is going insane anymore it seems.  The solution as recommended by her therapist, is to admit her to the hospital through the emergency room, and as such, the treatments can be deemed “medically necessary” which ARE then covered.  Don’t ask me why it wasn’t medically necessary walking in the front door to the behavior health ward, but this is how it works.

September 30 – We’re off to the ER. We pre-arranged things with the psych doctor in the behavioral health ward so that he, and the people in the ER could usher us through quickly. At least, that was the plan. I had reservations about doing anything before the first of the month since Medi-Cal resets our “share of cost” on the first of the month. At the time, our share of cost was still set at $1,300 PER MONTH. But we couldn’t wait, as things had reached a tipping point with the depression.  It’s about 3 pm on a FRIDAY when we walk into the ER and check in.

Arrival +1.5 hours – they call us and take stats… triage/blood draw.  Back to the waiting room.

Arrival +2.5 hours – she talks to some psych guy at the hospital. We have no idea who he is, but he is NOT the guy from behavioral health. Back to the waiting room.

Arrival +4 hours – wife takes a bathroom break.  Mind you, we have already told the ER people that she is a suicide risk, so they place me in charge of staying with her at all times to keep her safe.  But I can’t go into the bathroom with her, so we have to get an escort just so she can take a leak. It’s now almost 7 pm.

Arrival +5 hours –  they finally call her in again. They give us a line about how they called us and WE didn’t answer.  Not a chance.  Aside from the fact that we were actually really really listening, the waiting room PA system sucks incredibly and we saw at least two groups that DID miss their call, so we were especially aware.  All this in the shiny new emergency room at the $$brand new high-tech$$ hospital wing. They have been open for months, so it was obviously more important that they have the extra cool facade rather than shelling out $20 for another PA speaker and some wire. In the ER observation room, they take more stats and we sit there for another hour.  My diabetic wife has had nothing to eat for almost eight hours now.  We met two other diabetics while outside in the waiting room, one of whom actually started to pass out because her blood sugar levels crashed.  They had to take her out in a chair. At this point I am asked to leave.

11:30 pm – FINALLY admitted to the behavioral health ward. It only took 8 1/2 hours to put her on a gurney and wheel her about a hundred yards to the other building. Once there, she has her stats taken yet again, and is told that she can’t see the doctor that night.  No doubt, the man has gone home for the evening.

To this point, the people that have seen her are:

-The receptionist at the ER front desk.  This is the Check-In gal.

-A triage nurse, for stats.

-Another triage nurse for a blood draw.

-An escort nurse to the bathroom.

-ER Psyche guy.

-ER Nurse for more stats.

-ER Doc for… who the hell knows.  It’s an “emergency” right?

-Psych nurse for more stats.

… And a partridge in a pear treeeee.

My wife stays in the psych ward through the weekend, because apparently the doctor doesn’t work on the weekend, during which time they try to put her on injected insulin, even though her blood sugar levels are completely under control with medication, and have been for years.  It’s now a new month, and so a new “share of cost”.  Yes, she is safely tucked away in a locked ward, but beyond some group therapy, she is basically just hanging around to see the doctor so we can get on with the ECT treatments.

MONDAY Afternoon October 2 – My wife finally sees the psyche doc who tells her that she will have ECT on WEDNESDAY because… drum roll please… they only do ECT treatments in the morning on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

SO, just so that my wife could start ECT treatments that cost about $1,500 apiece if you pay out of pocket, she needs to stay at the hospital for SIX DAYS at a cost to the tax payers (as well as our share of cost) of about $2,500 PER DAY, or $15,000.  And that’s just the price of admission. It doesn’t include the next two weeks in the hospital, or the three ECT treatments per week that she receives there.

You do the math.

All this, just so that she could have a non-elective procedure (well, she could stay radically suicidal I suppose, and since nothing else, including 11 different medications, was doing the trick…) without literally putting us on the street.  And although I would certainly call her condition “life threatening”, it’s not like she was having open-heart surgery, which can cost in the HUNDREDS of thousands.

Something’s broke here, but you certainly won’t hear the hospital complaining about it.