Oh noes! The webcams saw my pee-pee!

Another lame scam email…

From: “Cailyn_Demott” order@tonyromo.com
Organization: rdoewnwl
To: [redacted] markturner.net
Subject: [redacted] Read_this_carefully
Details: LEU-755-[redated]
Email: [redacted] markturner.net
Camera ready,Notification: 21.06.2018 01:00:33
Status: Waiting for Reply 96xuKaOy1A8htbnNmUkD4kn4qDy96Iu3_Priority: Normal

–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*
Good day.

If you were more careful while caress yourself, I wouldn\’t write dis message. I don\’t think that playing with yourself is very terrible, but when all colleagues, relatives and friends receive video of it- it is terrible news.

I seized malisious soft on a porn web-site which was visited by you. When the object tap on a play button, device starts recording the screen and all cameras on ur device begins working.

Moreover, soft makes a dedicated desktop supplied with key logger function from ur system , so I was able to save all contacts from ur e-mail, messengers and other social networks. I\’m writing on this e-mail because It\’s your working address, so you should check it.

I think that 490 usd is pretty enough for this little false. I made a split screen vid(records from screen (interesting category ) and camera ooooooh… its awful AF)

So its your choice, if u want me to destroy ur disgrace use my bit?oin w?llet ?ddr?ss: 17Q… [redacted]
You have one day after opening my message, I put the special tracking pixel in it, so when you will open it I will see.If ya want me to show u the proofs, reply on this message and I will send my creation to five contacts that I\’ve got from ur contacts.

P.S.. U are able to complain to cops, but I don\’t think that they can help, the investigation will last for several months- I\’m from Ukraine – so I dgf lmao

Accelerating the throw-away society

Massive insulated bag for a bag of candy

Watched as a UPS driver wrestled with a heavy “meal delivery” box last week. Then today this bag of candy got delivered to the office. I was aghast. In both cases, 99% is wasteful packaging, ice packs and insulation blankets that go in the trash so here’s what I suggest:

1. Want a fancy meal? Cook it or eat out.
2. Want candy? Buy it at your local store.

Convenience is killing us, y’all.

Was Josh Schulte compromised by the Russians?

Remember when I wondered why CIA leaker Josh Schulte was found with kiddie porn on his computers? A tweet by the US district attorney’s office in New York spawned a comment that makes it all make sense:

Of course this is what happened. Even so, I’m surprised Schulte’s dirty little secret didn’t derail his intel career much sooner than it did.

Skier’s disappearance, return may stay a mystery – Times Union

More than 100 days after Constantinos “Danny” Filippidis went missing from Whiteface Mountain, State Police and Filippidis’ family are no closer to understanding what led the skier to end up in a rental car section of the Sacramento Airport.

State Police said Thursday they considered the case still open but had no new information on Filippidis’ disappearance.

Filippidis was on a ski trip with some fellow Toronto firefighters. At around 2 p.m. Feb. 7, he decided to go on one last ski run while his friends returned to the lodge. When he still hadn’t returned by 4 p.m., they began to look for him.

Searchers eventually found his identification in his car but no sign of him. The disappearance sparked a massive search effort, involving more than 130 members.

Six days later, Filippidis’ wife received a call from a number she didn’t know. On the other line was Filippidis. He called her by a nickname he used for her but sounded lost and confused. After calling him back, she was able to convince him to call 911.

Source: Skier’s disappearance, return may stay a mystery – Times Union

Pompeo says China incident is ‘entirely consistent’ with Cuba ‘sonic attacks’ – CNN

Sonic attacks on American diplomats continue, this time in China.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that an incident involving a US government employee stationed in China who reported “abnormal sensations of sound and pressure” suggesting a mild brain injury has medical indications that are “very similar” and “entirely consistent” to those experienced by American diplomats posted in Havana.

US officials have issued a health alert in China following the incident. Additionally, the US State Department is looking into whether the incident is similar to what happened in Cuba in 2016 and 2017, a US diplomatic official told CNN, which the US government characterized as a “sonic attack.” That incident led to a reduction in staffing at the US Embassy in Havana.

Source: Pompeo says China incident is ‘entirely consistent’ with Cuba ‘sonic attacks’ – CNN

The Oak City Dairy Farm

Oak City Dairy Farm auction notice in the Raleigh’s Evening Visitor newspaper

Today I learned my home sits on what was once the Oak City Dairy Farm, owned by Thomas B. Bridgers. The dairy cows and equipment were sold at auction in July 1883 following Mr. Bridgers death. The farm sold in 1899 to Lewis T. Christmas, a pastor from Charleston, West Virginia.

The ad in the old Raleigh newspaper, the Evening Visitor, has the auction information as follows:

Sale of Personal Property.

I will, on Tuesday, the 26th of July, 1883, at the Oak City Dairy Farm just north of the city of Raleigh and St. Augustine Normal School, offer for sale to the highest bidder, the personal property belonging to the late Thomas B. Bridgers, deceased, consisting of two brood mares, one colt, six mules, two bales cotton, nineteen cords of pine wood, three cords of oak wood, twelve seasoned cedar posts, farm tools and implements, buggy, wagons, etc., including the entire outfit of Oak City Dairy, consisting of sixteen head of Jersey and Ayeshire in bred milch [sic] cow, in excellent order, with capacity of from three to five gallons per say, and all necessary cars, jars, pans, buckets, horses, wagon, etc., for a first class dairy business. Also one Ayeshire bull, two Jersey bulls and eleven head fine heifers and calves. An itemized inventory of this property or any information can be seen and had by applying to the office of George H. Snow, Esq., attorney.

Sale will commence at 11 o’clock a.m., promptly. Terms of sale cash.

MARY M. CHRISTMAS
Executrix of T.B. Bridgers, dec’d.
june28-tds

It’s Time For A New Maritime Strategy – U.S. Naval Institute Blog

In the current environment, the U.S. military is stretched too thin and lacks the strategic purpose and resources to effectively employ this strategy. There is no guiding principle for the employment of naval force and yet the Navy continues to be used as an active tool of diplomacy in an era without strategic priorities. As globalization continues to take hold but the U.S. begins to focus inward, the role of the Navy must be better defined. In April of 1991, as the U.S. faced a period of unchallenged superiority with the demise of the Soviet Union, then CNO Admiral Frank Kelso made the following statement in Proceedings:

We must shift the objective of our “National Security Strategy” from containing the Soviet Union to maintaining global stability. Our evolving strategy must focus on regional contingencies in trouble spots wherever our national interests are involved.

Source: U.S. Naval Institute Blog

The Last Deployment Hat Toss

The Coronado Bay Bridge, 30 March 2018.

When the family and I toured San Diego this spring we took a harbor cruise around Coronado Bay. Here the Coronado Bay Bridge acts as a prominent landmark for the surface fleet of Naval Base San Diego, tucked just inside the bridge. On your first trip out as a fresh-out-of-bootcamp sailor you’ll inevitably be told to crank down the ship’s mast to avoid hitting the bridge.

On your last pass under the bridge, however, there is a different ceremony. It is a local San Diego navy tradition that on your last trip under the Coronado Bay Bridge you toss your cover (or “Dixie Cup,” as the white enlisted canvas hats are known) into the water. So many times I passed under the bridge that I really, really looked forward adding my cover to the submerged pile beneath the bridge. That day came for me on Monday, 20 January 1992 when I rode the USS Elliot (DD-967) back from my last WestPac deployment. It was the day before my 23rd birthday.
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Jolly Roger Telephone Company, saving the world from bad telemarketing | How Does it Work?

This is brilliant. It’s a service that screens your phone calls and answers with an annoying, delaying robot if the caller is a telemarketer or scammer.

How does it work?
1) You buy a subscription, telling us your phone numbers and your email address.

2) Pick a robot you like from our “Pick a Robot” page. Mark down the robot’s phone number and keep it handy.

3) When you receive a telemarketing call, you transfer it to the robot (see “Use a Robot” page for instructions).

4) After our robot is done talking to the telemarketer, it will send a copy to your email so you can have a laugh.

Source: Jolly Roger Telephone Company, saving the world from bad telemarketing | How Does it Work?

Is Silicon Valley done?

The headline is bombastic, of course, but there is a grain of truth to the idea that Silicon Valley is imploding. By this I don’t mean that business there is dying out; on the contrary business there is booming. The issue is these companies are victims of their own success, boosting Valley wealth so high that they’re pricing themselves out of their own backyards.

Apple is rumored to be inking a real-estate deal in Cary. San Francisco-based Slack is opening a Denver office. Word from folks I know who are working in Bay-area companies tell me there is a push for these companies to expand in other cities because the talent competition on their home turf is intense. I keep reading stories about people escaping from Silicon Valley and these stories seem to keep coming.

Amazon may be Seattle-based but it’s in the same boat with its search for a secondary headquarters. The ever-rising prices in Seattle have made it more attractive for Amazon to invest away from its birthplace.

Of course, it could all be a blip, or nothing at all, but lately there seem to be lots of reasons why not being in the Valley is a competitive advantage.