In 1992 or 3-- memory is a little fuzzy -- I was part of the Model United Nations and the country we were representing was Syria. I remember thinking "I know nothing about Syria" and having to cram as much information as I could to prepare. There was a delegation of us, I think... 8? 12? I just remember probably six of us crammed into a hotel room in New York, where the final event is held, toward the end of the school year. It was my first trip to New York, and I learned a lot.

Working on the premise that during these holidays you find yourself in situations where you are "the explainer" and/or see the need to be one, here's a guide on what you can do about data. Specifically, your data. Or encourage people to do with their data. The very first part of this is a bummer so you may want to pull up a glass of eggnog while choking this down (if you aren't already choking on the eggnog): your data is not 100% private no matter what you do. Not ever.

As we sit in meetings and hear "yeah, so let's circle back to that in the new year", as we receive out of office emails, as we get quite literally bombarded with solicitations (to go buy things or donate money), we find ourselves yet again at the end of a calendar year, heading into "the holidays". It is "the holidays" because it incorporates a selection of them with a variety of observances and customs, and I can get behind any seasonality that involves getting together with the ones you love and eating things.

One of the things I do to relax - particularly when I need the hands to be doing something (e.g., knitting project, cross stitch project, etc.) is "watch" YouTube. I have a handful of subscriptions but the ones I've enjoyed most of late are History Hit and the "Tech Support" series from Wired. The most recent one I watched was with a polar explorer, and I listened as he answered questions from a wide selection of forums. In answering one of the questions, he started talking about a time he was on day 4 or 5 of a 50-day solo expedition - this guy legit goes out there with a tent and a stove and assorted gear and no one else -- and he lost his iPod.

I have told you to Do Your Updates, twice. A good example of why is the recent news about supply chain attacks in popular npm packages, which may mean nothing to you, and I figured I'd break it down. Firstly, most folks understand that a supply chain is... a chain... of supplies. Tautology aside, it specifically means the chain of manufacturers, people, places, and companies through which various stuff flows through to an endpoint. Let's take my fake coffee shop, Bobbucks, as an example. Bobbucks sells fancy coffee and (of course) pastries.

Firstly: a new Apple iOS update is out for phones/pads/Macs, and you want to take it *as soon as possible*. Not only does it have a zero day in it, that zero day is under active exploit. This means that a problem is/was identified before a fix was identified (zero days to fix) and professionals are already abusing it (under active exploit). Granted, the typical target of these things are journalists, government officials, etc., but also folks working at corporate offices. Maybe even you. One of the questions I have fielded since…

I recently had the opportunity to travel internationally, and to test a few things. Namely, using a "burner" phone. To be super clear: it is very hard to do this perfectly and I did not do it perfectly. We'll discuss some hypotheticals further down, but I felt the need to start with that. This was a test, it was only a test, and it went pretty much how one could expect it to. Why There's a lot of discourse in the media about phone confiscation, personal privacy, etc.; this shows up in articles hearing about journalists being issued "burner phones" or the advice to acquire one yourself before international travel.

They say history does not repeat itself but boy howdy does it rhyme. Another quarter, and another batch of layoffs. This builds on previous guidance. If you are Leaving Firstly, I am sorry. I really am. Go check out Now What, and Now What II, for some initial guidance (especially about that RIF package you may or may not have gotten). Resume In addition to everything else in those other pages, you will want to use modern tools for modern solutions. While I do not believe AI is a golden hammer, it *can* help you brush up that resume.

Ask any sewist or person who works with fabric what their feelings are about their seam ripper, and they will either tell you it's complicated or that it's their favorite. Most of us think it's complicated. A seam ripper is a little tool with a sharpish-hooked edge that you use to rip seams ("it's that easy!"). "Ripping" sounds more violent than it is -- it cuts through the threads that hold the seam together whilst (mostly) preserving the fabric on either side and is used for either letting you take something that wasn't right for you and make it right for you, or for tearing out a mistake.

Usually I try to figure out a pithy title as a draw, but for the love of whichever entities you respect and/or follow, please do your software updates. Specifically do your platform updates: on your iPhones/Pads/Macs, on your Windows machines. Update your apps. When the little red notification comes on, do not ignore it, just do it. How to Update Updating on Apple (iPhone/iPad): and includes how to set this up to do it automatically. Updating on a Mac: Updating on an Android phone: Updating on a Samsung Galaxy phone or tablet: …

I'm tired. It's mostly a good tired, like the tired you get after a long but positive (either in productivity or just vibes) day. It has the same quality as the soreness you get from working out really hard, not the soreness you get from twisting an ankle or (as time marches on) that appears to show up from nowhere. (My brother and I once had a conversation on "aging" as he is junior and so I try to keep him abreast of what is up next. I told him that after 45, it's not so much "what's going to hurt today", as "what all is going to hurt today, and for how long".)

Firstly, and this is super depressing to write, understand that you will never be 100% private, and that privacy is also a never ending game. Everything we do online has an electronic trail that leads back to us and relies on the infrastructure of the entities we interact with to keep us private. In most cases – and especially when we are using “free” services – *we* are the product. DeleteMe Deleteme is a service you pay for that identifies how much of your personal information is out there for use/abuse, and helps you remove it: search engine results, data brokers (these are the companies that purchase from like Facebook and Amazon all kinds of data about you, and then they marry it up with other data they’ve gathered), and things like public records (e.g., why you can search someone’s name and see them on White Pages, Spokeo, etc.).  

It's important to understand that the personal security space - that is, how you lock down your stuff - is a constant game of whack a mole. "For each fine cat, a fine rat" - as you close down some things, enterprising bad actors will find new ways in. Your very best option is to approach it as defense in depth by using multiple interventions to make it harder for them. Think of it like Swiss cheese slices: a single slice of Swiss cheese has many holes. Putting one slice of Swiss cheese on another limits the visibility of some holes but not others.

I want you to imagine a color, a very specific color, that I think most US-based folks would recognize and it may have an international bent (I haven't been to the motor vehicle licensing offices in other countries). This color is that sad, slightly icky beige color reminiscent of the transitional period of the 70's to the 80's where not everything was yet Duran Duran and you still had smokey glass tumblers and "non-smoking" sections in restaurants were new. It's the kind of beige with no redeeming qualities- it's not Indiana Jones Adventuring Beige, it's not Tasteful Coat Beige, it's not even Mid-Century Modern Influencer Revival Beige.

We've discussed before of what to do when you're facing a layoff/Reduction In Force (RIF). It would appear that "the market" has decided the latest vogue is to do straight firing, based on "performance". I put those in scare quotes because there is no small amount of evidence that some folks being let go for "performance" were under the impression-- with receipts -- that they were not under any form of performance improvement plan and/or had stellar reviews.