HeidiAllen.com

Having to create a new username and password every time I bless an online store with a purchase is becoming a nightmare. Between the stores and other online services, I now have 1,055 username and password combinations.

I repeat… 1,055!!!

Obviously, I can’t use the same login over and over. That would create potential security problems. It would also be unsafe to create so many different login combinations that I needed to write them all down somewhere. (Whoever found my cheatsheet would hit the jackpot. Well, ok. Not the jackpot. …the pathetically tiny amount of money that I usually have in my account.)

I finally settled on a spreadsheet that uses code words for 10 usernames and 10 passwords, which gives me 100 potential combinations. Of course, that means I have to memorize 40 pieces of data. (10 usernames + 10 passwords + 20 code words). And if I forget what a code word means, I’m screwed.

To deal with that possibility, I created a second spreadsheet that provides further clues to help me remember what everything means. Of course, I’m not writing down the actual data anywhere. I’m way too paranoid for that. My system seems to work pretty well, except that the sheer volumn of unnecessary logins makes the HTML version of the spreadsheet a pain to access on my iPod.

(Yes, I have an iPod Touch, not an iPhone. I hhhhhhate AT&T!)

My mother deals with her logins by writing everything down in a little book. Of course, if anyone finds the little book, she’s in big trouble, but that’s not really an issue, since she can never find it herself. That has led to the creation of more than one little book.

Some data is in one. Some is in another. And often, she’s not even sure where in the book each little piece of data was recorded. Is it under “B” for bank, or “W” for the first letter of the bank’s name? Or perhaps something more arcane? (Yes, she goes there.)

In the end, the ridiculous number of logins makes us less secure and wastes more of our time, making the whole concept of a customer logins pointless. Oh sure, we can log in to track our orders, but shouldn’t stores be sending an email when an item ships anyway? And we waste way more time keeping track of all those logins than we save should we ever return to the store and have to input our information again. (Which has probably changed in the interim.)

And why are these online stores insisting on saving our sensitive information anyway? If they’re really interested in our security, shouldn’t they wipe that data from their systems and all their backups after the return period has expired? And whatever happened to the concept of privacy?

Finally, after you’ve completed your order, does the store provide a “Logout” link? Not usually. So much for security. If you’re on a public or shared computer, and forget to empty your history and cache, the next person could order as much as they wanted on your dime.

So… are you ready for a world where online stores don’t require logins (but you can create one if you want)? Maybe I’ve missed something here. Feel free to educate me.

(sent today)

To Whom It May Concern:

AIG has claimed that bonuses are necessary to retain good employees. However, making employees dependent upon guaranteed bonuses provides no incentive for them to perform quality work.

Bonuses tied solely to revenue generation provide an incentive for corruption and/or a reliance on short-term thinking at the expense of long-term stability. This approach also devalues other important employee skills and contributions. All these things ultimately weaken a company.

Meanwhile, unemployment remains high. There are many educated, motivated individuals looking for work. Wouldn’t a better business model be to end bonuses and to spend some of that money on training new employees in case some current employees quit?

Sincerely,
Heidi Allen

CBS will be running an anti-abortion ad from far-right group ‘Focus on the Family‘ during the Super Bowl. This is after they made a big stink on more than one occassion over their policy of not running “controversial” ads from other, more moderate groups.

Here’s what I wrote to them. If you feel the same way, please chime in.

I don’t have a problem with Focus on the Family exercising their right to free speech during the Super Bowl SO LONG AS that same courtesy is extended to other advocacy groups. Since CBS made a big issue of not running more moderate advocacy ads, you clearly have a bias. It’s this that I strongly object to.

If you open the flood gates to one group, you must open the flood gates to all. CBS may be powerful, but never forget that it’s the American people who own the airwaves, not you.

Another Martin Luther King Jr Day has come, and again, news outlets phone in their headlines about the “Slain Civil Rights Leader”. They take the safe, easy way out, disrespecting King by painting him merely as a black leader while ignoring important and still-controversial components of his great legacy. While King was undoubtedly the most important figure of the civil rights era, he was also much, much more.

Like pretty much all of my heroes, Dr. King was driven by Love.. Love with a capital “L”. Love led him to active compassion. Compassion naturally extended into a committment to non-violence, social justice and human rights. His civil rights work, condemnation of the Vietnam War, of nuclear proliferation and of colonialism were just some of the ways in which Dr. King acted as a humble servant of Love.

The King Center, founded by his wife, Coretta Scott King, quotes him thus:

“Life’s most persistent and nagging question, he said, is `what are you doing for others?’.”

This is why they call MLK Day ‘A Day of Service’ and ‘A Day On, Not A Day Off‘. Put aside some time to serve others, even if it’s just for an hour or two. By honoring King’s legacy, you’ll also honor the best within yourself.

The watered down King tributes try to make Dr. King’s vision something small and non-threatening… some anachronism tied to a single, supposedly resolved issue and time. The real Martin Luther King, Jr presented us… all of us… with a challenge that is as critically important today as the day he uttered these quotes:

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

“They are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. All of this is saying that, in the final analysis, means and ends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction….The chain reaction of evil–hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars–must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”

“…we are challenged to achieve a world perspective. Anyone who feels that we can live in isolation today, anyone who feels that we can live without being concerned about other individuals and other nations is sleeping through a revolution. The world in which we live is geographically one. The great challenge now is to make it one in terms of brotherhood.”

“We must all learn to live together as brothers – or we will all perish together as fools. This is the great issue facing us today. No individual can live alone; no nation can live alone. We are tied together.”

“All I’m saying is simply this: that all mankind is tied together; all life is interrelated, and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be – this is the interrelated structure of reality.”

“We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late.”

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

I used to be an independent IT contractor, and one of the things that I disliked about the job was the difficulty in getting behemoth companies to react to changing technology. There seemed to be three primary reasons for this:

1. The opinions of high level managers trumped the advice from experts. No effort was made to weigh differing opinions against the facts.
2. Pre-existing contracts with fellow behemoth companies made upgrading to current technology legally impossible and/or financially prohibitive.
3. Employees comfortable with the existing technology were so fearful of change that they would impede or even sabotage attempts to bring software and hardware up to date.

This last phenomenon appeared to happen primarily on a subconscious, rather than conscious level. However, there were contractors whose continued lucrative employment depended on the ongoing use of outdated technology. On at least one occassion, a contractor bragged to me that he had so “personalized” his code that the company would have to continue renewing his contract forever if they wanted their technology to work.

Bottom line: The customers of these companies suffered, whether they were aware of it or not. Their data was harder to obtain. Customer Service reps had access to fewer tools, which slowed them down. Websites were designed by third parties with no understanding of specific customer needs and expectations. Lastly, updates rarely happened.

Surfing around the web, I see these problems played out repeatedly. Today, I came across the International Finance Corporation’s page, ‘How To Report Fraud and Corruption‘. The IFC is a member of the World Bank, and is the world’s largest lender for privately financed projects in “developing” nations. Billions of dollars and millions of lives ride of its ability to operate efficiently and effectively. Yet this short, but important webpage features not a form, but a clickable email address.

Why  is that a problem? First of all, users should have some sort of guidance as to the specific information they need to provide when it comes to something this important. Web forms are commonplace these days. A business entity of IFC’s size shouldn’t be using a method that’s at least a decade old.

Of greater concern, spammers have software that “crawls” the web, much like search engines do. This software looks for email addresses. Congratulations, IFC! You’ll receive so much spam that it will be nearly impossible to sort the junk from legitimate fraud complaints.

But my post isn’t intended to target the IFC. Rather, I’m presenting a problem in search of a solution. How do you change entrenched corporate culture? How do you get an elephant to move with the speed of a gazelle? Google does it, so clearly, such a thing is possible. Now the new paradigm needs to propagate… faster.

I sent this letter to President Obama, House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid just now. If you see this in time and agree, please do the same. Feel free to use my letter as a template.

Dear __________:

When reconciling the Senate and House health bills, please favor the House bill.

As you know, the Senate bill:

* Has no public option, a critical component of any real healthcare reform.

* Would restrict access to abortion. (In states like Texas, “abstinence education” is the only sex education available. Rates of infanticide are high. Further limits on abortion access will mean the deaths of more children who have already been born.)

* Tax a worker’s health coverage to pay for reform. (Give to the right hand and take from the left hand?)

* Allow insurance companies to remain exempt from anti-trust laws.

In addition, please reconsider the requirement that all Americans would be forced to purchase health insurance. Not only is this a giveaway to the insurance industry, which has already proven itself unable to behave in an ethical manner, but it would cause widespread hardship.

For example, I doubt my household would qualify for subsidies that would help us to purchase insurance, but I can’t imagine how we could handle another bill, especially now that we’re struggling to pay off the obscene hospital charges from a recent accident.

If it’s too late to remove this requirement from the final bill, then please choose the House version over the Senate version.

Thank you in advance for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Heidi Allen

One of the reasons I post so infrequently is that I can’t bring myself to write anything without putting in hours or even days of research, and editing a dozen times or more.

Yes, it’s true. I’m a perfectionist. (Whatta surprise, eh?) Anyway, I’m going to try to relax my OC tendancies a bit in the service of blogging more often. Let’s see if I can bring myself to actually do it.

On a side note, we have an osprey who’s set up shop in a tree along the river in front of our house. It’s an impressive creature, but it’s been screaming non-stop for the past half hour.

Seeing as an osprey’s cry is similar to that of an eagle’s, I keep thinking that the Colbert Report is about to begin. I hope it’s catching some big fish down there!

If anyone is interested, I now have a Flickr account (photos). I’ll work hard to keep it interesting.

Ah! So long since I’ve posted. I always have so much to write about, but never any time to write. But onto the post…

I was sent a link to a video entitled ‘Nerdy Kid Shreds on the Accordion‘. I watched the video and was blown away. I’ve never heard an accordion sound that incredible! It’s like an entire orchestra fired up with passion.

I was immediately reminded of the violin virtuoso Pope in the film ‘The Red Violin’. And I had some questions:

How do THEY know he’s a nerd?
What’s his name?
Shouldn’t a guy this good get some respect?

Being the OCD researcher that I am, I just had to know the answers to my questions. It took less than 10 minutes, with the help of YouTube and a translation tool. The kid’s name is Aleksandr Hrustevich. He seems to be Ukranian, and you can see more videos of his work here.

Based on the number of professional accordionists that subscribe to his channel, it looks like he IS getting some respect, and he should. Check it out. You’ll be glad you did!

The more I hear about James von Brunn, the more I think about Bodean Gazzer.

Gazzer was the main villain in author Carl Hiaasen’s dark comedy ‘Lucky You’, published in 1997. Racism provides Gazzer with both the perfect excuse for his failings and the fuel to propel him forward. Every poor decision and unfortunate event can somehow be blamed upon minorities or the government, alleviating him of any personal responsibility.

The fervor of his hatred gives him strength. The seductiveness of his reasoning sucks in others. After all, they’re being offered a chance to be cleansed of their sins… by making those sins someone else’s fault.

Gazzer and his disciples have found a less painful way to hate themselves. Ironically, by removing the impetus to improve as human beings, their hidden self-loathing will only grow.

This kind of hate engine can ultimately lead to violence. The bitterness builds, along with the derangement of logic. If left unchecked, the self-proclaimed “patriot” may well implode mentally, taking a course of action that’s both self-destructive and harmful to the perceived enemy.

Some readers found the character of Bodean Gazzer to be way over the top. There were hints that Hiaasen himself might be prejudiced against “rednecks” and “white trash”. Having grown up in Florida, I know that Gazzer is neither one of these. These terms refer to those who take their worldview from the culture into which they’re born. People like Gazzer actively build their own paranoid reality… and there are more of them than you might think.

Now we have murderer and white supremacist James von Brunn, a sort of uber-Gazzer whose exploits and ravings far exceed anything Hiaasen has ever concocted. Despite this, the mechanism behind their madness is the same. We owe Hiaasen a debt of gratitude for so starkly revealing it.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.". Seemingly in response, Lord Byron declared, "Truth is stranger than fiction.". And it certainly is.