On this day

September 24th

Words left unsaid

September 24

Every time I talk about this subject caring people ask if I am okay. I am right now, thanks for asking. Someday, sooner or later, I won’t be; that’s the way the disease works. When that happens, I’ll ask for help. Please join me in that promise.

~ Ken White from, https://popehat.substack.com/p/the-weight-of-the-unspoken-word

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Every time I talk about this subject caring people ask if I am okay. I am right now, thanks for asking. Someday, sooner or later, I won’t be; that’s the way the disease works. When that happens, I’ll ask for help. Please join me in that promise.

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Endless dreams

September 24, 2022

While others may find beauty in endless dreams, warriors find it in reality, in awareness of limits, in making the most of what they have. […] Their awareness that their days are numbered—that they could die at any time—grounds them in reality. There are things they can never do, talents they will never have, lofty goals they will never reach; that hardly bothers them. Warriors focus on what they do have, the strengths that they do possess and that they must use creatively. Knowing when to slow down, to renew, to retrench, they outlast their opponents. They play for the long term.

~ Robert Greene

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This is how you eulogize someone

September 24, 2022

People who came here from my old blog, http://www.popehat.com, will remember my long-time co-blogger and friend Patrick. Patrick, another irascible trial lawyer, wrote at Popehat for more than a decade. He shared our Twitter account for years, and went on to co-author the wickedly satirical @dprknews account and his own Twitter account @PresidentDawg. He died yesterday.

~ Ken White from, https://popehat.substack.com/p/a-farewell-to-a-friend

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Dang! That’s a eulogy. You should read the whole thing. And you should follow all of White’s links from therein. I’ve been following White and Patrick and “Popehat” from the beginning and it’s everything bit as awesome as White suggests in retrospect.

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What did he trust in?

September 24, 2021

When Odysseus was shipwrecked and cast ashore … what did he trust in? Not in reputation, or riches, or office, but in his own strength, that is to say, in his judgements about what things are in our power and what are not. For these judgements alone are what make us free, make us immune from hinderance, raise the head of the humiliated, and make them look into the faces of the rich with unaverted eyes, and into the faces of tyrants.

~ Epictetus

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Elevation

September 24, 2021

But it was the problem that mattered. It was the customer’s problem that needed fixing, not Charlie’s spiritual state. He took an ordinary thing and elevated it. That’s all. That’s all… In the real world, this is how it’s done.

~ David Essman from, https://www.gapingvoid.com/blog/2021/06/09/take-something-ordinary-and-elevate-it/

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Suppose I wanted to elevate the art of conversation. What don’t I know about conversations? (That’s not snark, but an actual question for myself.) Who is good at conversations? Who do the masses think is good, and who is objectively good? Actually, what if the art of conversation is just fine— fully elevated so to speak? What if I wanted to elevate others’ conversations to the highest level of the art? How would I do that? Would it be enough to sit in a tower and learn everything there is to know about the art? No, I think I would have to learn as much as possible and go out into the marketplace, (that’s a Diogenes reference,) and have as many conversations as possible. What if I tried to make each conversation intentional— pay attention to it, and try to learn something from each one? What would happen if you intentionally did that thousands of times?

I don’t know. Let’s find out.

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Gaming the system

September 24, 2020

Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

~ Shane Parrish from, https://fs.blog/2013/02/gaming-the-system/

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A long time ago, a social studies teacher had been giving the same multiple-choice, high school, final exam, every year, for [as I recall the story] decades. The catch was two-fold: First, each year he cut the exam into strips separating each question. Yes, by hand, with scissors. He then shuffled the strips, scotch taped them onto a new sheet which did have sequential numbers on it already, and then ran it through the mimeograph machine. There was no way to create a “cheat sheet” for this exam based on previous years (even if we could have gotten a previous test.) Second, the test was insanely long; hundreds and hundreds of questions long. In fact, it was—intentionally—impossibly long.

When he graded the exams, he noted the total number of questions each student attempted. To be clear: He’d note the number of the last question you answered. So if one skipped around, you’re doomed since you definitely get wrong, the ones you didn’t even try to answer. So the incentive is to start at the beginning and just work straight through; recall, they’re totally shuffled. He then computed the average number attempted, and that average was used as the total possible points on the test. If you scored above the possible points (unlikely, but possible,) the points got added to your semester’s total points. (So if you score +2 on the final, the first extra point, brought up your 9/10 quiz score to 10/10. That second extra point brought a homework up from 5/7 to 6/7.)

Have you spotted how you game this system?

Bonus question: I regret what we did, (there were 3 of us.) But, can you tell me why I regret it?

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Don’t turn on two-factor authentication

September 24, 2018

Before you require a second factor to login to your accounts, you should understand the risks, have a recovery plan for when you lose your second factor(s), and know the tricks attackers may use to defeat two-factor authentication.

~ Stuart Schechter from, https://medium.com/@stuartschechter/before-you-turn-on-two-factor-authentication-27148cc5b9a1

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I repeat: Do not enable two-factor authentication until you understand how it works and what you are doing. You know who is usually locked out of your car, house, etc. right? You are!

This is a great article surveying a myriad of things you should consider before enabling two-factor security. Yes, it is more secure, but that means it is also more likely that you’ll lock yourself out, permanently.

So…

Are you currently really good at keeping track of passwords and security questions?
Do you use a unique password for every service and web site?
…are the answers to your security questions completely random things you made up and stored in your security system, or did you really use your easily-learned mother’s maiden name?
…and is your “security system” not post-it’s on your monitor, but rather a real, secure, system?

And how about…

Do you have a system in place to give your beneficiaries access to your stuff—and ways to permanently lock-and-destroy things you don’t want passed along?

…if not, then turning on two-factor is not a good idea. You’re about to make things even more complicated when you are currently not doing the basic things well. Instead of blindly enabling two-factor authentication, you should move off of the bell curve and stop being an easy traget.

Step one: Learn how to use a password manager like 1Password or LastPass, and start using unique passwords.

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Middle gorge

September 24, 2016

It’s hard to convey the sheer scale of the rock faces in Red River Gorge. These photos are from the walk into the Middle Gorge. About 20 minutes of steep hiking, and suddenly these ~200 feet tall rock faces appear overhead through the trees.

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