Meddling

It would’ve worked, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!

There are 614 posts filed in Meddling (this is page 17 of 62).

Text of Brian Dyson’s commencement speech at Georgia Tech, Sept 1991.

This is the full text of the speech given by Brian Dyson, former CEO of Coca-Cola Enterprises, at Georgia Tech’s 172nd commencement on September 6, 1991, as reported in the Georgia Tech Whistle faculty newspaper. See my previous post to learn how I tracked this down.

Coca-Cola CEO’s Secret Formula For Success: Vision, Confidence And Luck

(Brian G. Dyson. president and chief executive officer of Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. was the featured speaker at Georgia Tech’s 172nd commencement on Sept. 6.)

I think the ingredients for success, or as we would say at Coca-Cola. “the secret formula,” is a combination of three things: vision, knowing what you want to be when you grow up; confidence, knowing who you are; and luck, or what I would call being in the right place at the right time.

With those three ingredients and your Georgia Tech diploma, you have the formula for success. You have a first class education from a world class university, and I really congratulate you all on your achievement.
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Yes, Coca-Cola CEO Brian Dyson really did give that “five balls” speech

On social media, a friend forwarded what was called the “Shortest speech by CEO of Coca Cola…”
bryan-dyson-image-quote
It reads:

Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit and you’re keeping all of these in the air.

You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four Balls – Family, Health, Friends and Spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for it.”

Work efficiently during office hours and leave on time. Give the required time to your family, friends & have proper rest

Value has a value only if its value is valued

While I’m not the first to cast doubt on this alleged speech, the quote sounded too cheesy to be true so I decided to study it a bit.
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Former Obama Pilot: TWA Flight 800 was shot down, here’s why – NY Daily News

I’m glad I’m not the only one.

Was TWA Flight 800 shot out of the sky?As a former pilot, that is a question I get asked about all the time.

I’m no conspiracy theorist, but let’s be clear: Yes. I say it was. And I believe the FBI covered it up.

There are many reasons to disbelieve the official explanation of what happened to TWA 800 almost 19 years ago, on July 17, 1996, off the South Shore of Long Island. There’s hardly an airline pilot among the hundreds I know who buys the official explanation — that it was a fuel-tank explosion — offered by the National Transportation Safety Board some four years later.

Lots can go wrong with an airplane. Engines can fail; they can catch fire. Devices can malfunction. Pilots make errors.

But jets do not explode in midair.

via Former Obama Pilot: TWA Flight 800 was shot down, here's why – NY Daily News.

AON Hewitt thinks people are costs

Here’s AON Hewitt’s page describing its Dependent Verification Services. I’d hate to be one of those “costly, ineligible dependents” that naively believe they have some sort of right to healthcare or something.

Bean-counters

Bean-counters

Aon Hewitt’s Plan-Smart® and Plan-Guard® dependent eligibility solutions help companies verify that eligible dependents maintain access to anticipated benefits and costly, ineligible dependents are removed from coverage as quickly as possible. Plan-Smart performs a complete audit of an enrolled dependent population. Plan-Guard’s ongoing dependent verification services preserve the integrity of the benefit plans on an ongoing basis and protect the results of the comprehensive audit.
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Baltimore Police used secret technology to track cellphones in thousands of cases – Baltimore Sun

"In Baltimore, they’ve been using this since 2007, and it’s only been in the last several months that defense attorneys have learned enough to start asking questions," he said. "Our entire judicial system and constitution is set up to avoid a ‘just trust us’ system where the use of invasive surveillance gear is secret."

via Baltimore Police used secret technology to track cellphones in thousands of cases – Baltimore Sun.

Why skeptics think a South Carolina sailor lied about being lost at sea for 66 days – The Washington Post

This guy is a liar and a nutcase to boot.

It’s rare that a man is lost at sea and returns home looking even healthier than before he disappeared.

But that’s exactly what skeptics of Louis Jordan have pointed out as they question the 37-year-old’s miraculous account of surviving 66 days adrift in the Atlantic Ocean.

via Why skeptics think a South Carolina sailor lied about being lost at sea for 66 days – The Washington Post.

NSA and spyware

NSA planting spyware on a Cisco router

NSA planting spyware on a Cisco router

The photo that disturbed Cisco so much, the one showing the NSA tampering with a Cisco router, actually does not concern me as much as previous reports of NSA spying. The photo shows NSA doing what it should be doing, going after the bad guys. They have a specific router going to a specific customer and they’re using good old-fashioned hard work to gain their access. I can only assume that the target of this investigation is worthy of such attention and its targeting has been duly legally authorized.

The other thing this photo shows me is that NSA opted to plant its spyware using physical means rather than network means. If NSA has some sort of super-secret backdoor into Cisco firmware it certainly isn’t apparent from this photograph.

Cisco can of course decide it wants to make it difficult for these NSA operations to succeed and that’s the company’s prerogative. Certainly this photograph can cause the company’s customers to question Cisco’s security and can hurt its business. Even so, if NSA wants to load its firmware on boxes one by one and hands-on in a legally-authorized pursuit of a true intelligence target, I suppose I’m ok with that.

Cisco Shipping Hardware To Bogus Addresses To Throw Off NSA Intercept-And-Implant Efforts | Techdirt

Cisco became an inadvertent (and very unwilling) co-star in the NSA Antics: Snowden Edition when its logo was splashed across the web by a leaked document detailing the agency’s interception of outbound US networking hardware in order to insert surveillance backdoors.

It moved quickly to mitigate the damage, sending a letter to the President asking him and his administration to institute some safeguards and limitations to protect US tech companies from the NSA’s backdoor plans. To date, there has been no direct response. So, Cisco has decided to handle the problem itself.

via Cisco Shipping Hardware To Bogus Addresses To Throw Off NSA Intercept-And-Implant Efforts | Techdirt.

Separate And Unequal: Gen. Petraeus Facing Mild Wrist Slap For Leaking Eight Books Full Of Classified Info To His Mistress

Can’t wait to see Ed Snowden offered the same sweet deal. I’m sure that will happen, right?

The administration still wants to punish whistleblowers and leakers, but only if it can do it with logic borrowed from Animal Farm. When it comes to prosecution, some leakers are more equal than others.

John Kiriakou — who exposed a single CIA operative’s name while exposing its waterboarding tactics — spent more time in jail than former CIA director Leon Panetta, who has spent (at last count) a grand total of 0 days locked up for leaking tons of classified info to Zero Dark Thirty’s screenwriter, Mark Boal.

Of course, some leaks just aren’t leaks, at least not according to the government. Kiriakou’s were wrong. Panetta’s were right. And Kiriakou spent three years in prison for a lesser "crime."

via Techdirt..

Detectives suspect inside job in North Carolina gold heist | abc11.com

Stating the obvious, exhibit 34,532.

Search warrants obtained by ABC11 show that detectives suspect an inside job in the robbery of $4.8 million worth of gold from a truck along I-95 Sunday.It was originally reported that guards working for Transvalue Inc. of Miami said they pulled off to the side of the interstate about 6:30 p.m. after their vehicle began having mechanical problems.

But the warrants made public Wednesday show a passenger in the truck said he was feeling sick and requested the truck pull over so he could vomit.

via Detectives suspect inside job in North Carolina gold heist | abc11.com.