JDPFu.com 2025

Today the roofers are here putting up a new roof. I had a leak, but only when it rained REALLY hard – perhaps once a year. The old roof was 16+ yrs old, so it was about time. About half the neighborhood homes already have new roofs.

The guys were all here before 7:30a and ready to go. The weather today is going to be a perfect day for this – clear, sunny, highs in the lower 80s. No rain expected until after midnight. Perfect.

I’ll try to take a few photos during the day to capture some of the progress. As the day goes on, I’m learning about more leaks and bad design than I already knew. The leader is explaining how and why they happened. I trust him. I’ll explain below.

I came across another Top 12 List today. This one is about Live System Monitoring Tools# for Linux.

We use most of them almost daily.

Here’s the list from the article.

Let’s assume you are middle class and would like to retire as middle class. How much money do you need to support that lifestyle? What is the annual amount of that lifestyle today? $40K, $60K, $80K per year? Let’s assume $60K/yr buys you the middle class retired life. You won’t be jetting around the world every year, but you can afford to eat out and have a few hobbies.

I hope the tables turn out readable.

If you have more than a few accounts, you should be using a password manager. I didn’t use one for years and years, then I tried one about a year ago and became addicted. I bet you’ll like it too after you try it.

I have a TiVo connected to a digital box from the company and a Windows7 Media Center PC with a Hauppauge ClearQAM tuner. Today I planned on catching up on a little TV that should have been recorded last night, but wasn’t.

See, now that my VCRs are worthless since Comcast went 95% digital and requires a tuner box to get all but 5 network channels (ok, they also give 15 shopping channels and 8 community access channels too – great huh?), I use the 7MC PC to record programs when there’s a conflict with another or when I really don’t want to miss a specific show due to a screw up with the channel changing on TiVo or QAM tuner.

Be certain to check the comments for updates as I learn them.

In a prior article here, I outlined some important things to ensure when you’re looking for a new laptop. With the release of Windows7, some of those things aren’t necessarily as important as they were under Vista and I’ve learned some new things in my shopping for a new laptop myself.

If you work in media or IT, you’ve probably already heard about ACTA, Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

If not, here’s a summary to get you up to speed on it. Hopefully, you’ll contact your Senator, Congress-person and President and let them know you don’t like attempts to bypass your existing methods to pass laws.

I read lots of news every day. This morning, this story was found and after reading the headline, my first thought was …

If you use a portable device, like a smart phone or if you use a computer at all, then you’ve come across the URL shorteners like bit.ly, goo.gl, etc. The title of this entry is URL Shorteners are Dangerous, but why?

The main reason I consider them dangerous is when you click on a shortened URL, you have no idea where it will really take you. None whatsoever. It could be a simple redirector or to download a file or embed javascript or download anything. Javascript is still dangerous.

We’ve all heard not to click on any links in an email, yet most of us still do. I know some people who won’t click on any link from anyone in an email, period. There’s a trade off.

I’m not suggesting there isn’t any place where a shortened URL isn’t more convenient or easier to type. I am just saying that without more information about the final link location, I’ll not be clicking on any of those … ever.

There are tools to preview the final location of the shortened URL. I’ve never used any, but suspect they make money just like free DNS services and URL shorteners make money – that is by selling our use data .

Call me paranoid, but also call me unhacked and aware of internet privacy. I surf without javascript enabled, BTW.

I don’t claim to understand how US government agencies determine what a reasonable fine is for companies found of wrong doing or impeding solutions, but is $53 per incident enough? Serious? I’ve never been impressed with fines from the government. They aren’t even enough to remove profits from the infraction, IMHO.

According to this BBC article, Toyota is fined $16.4M for something that impacted at least 2.3 million vehicles. So, $16.4/2.3 = $53. Nice. I don’t think that is much of a deterrent to prevent the behavior for Toyota OR any other manufacturer in the future. Is my math wrong?

I’d think somewhere between $500 and $1500 per vehicle would be a more appropriate penalty to correct future behavior. It needs to hurt a little. I’ve worked in large corporations and know that while $16M is a bunch of money, it isn’t really that much. Heck, I’ve worked a laptop replacement project that was $25M.

I also understand that Toyota is an excellent automobile company and we don’t want to unjustly penalize them, their workers, or future customers. Like many of us, the managers involved didn’t know how serious the problem was and down played it for as long as they could. Being completely open concerning any issue with a consumer product isn’t part of any corporate culture that I’m aware. I’m reasonably certain if more than a few actual incidents happened and anyone were hurt, then Toyota would have been up front. When I worked on public impacting systems, I always pictured how my family would be impacted if there were any issue with the work. I believe the Toyota engineers do the same with their issues and fixes. Doing the right thing is easiest when you are close to the issue. The spin team is what concerns me – both the government AND the company spinners.

We all know that companies don’t pay any taxes OR fines with internal money, right? The fine paid will probably become part of the cost of every vehicle going forward when pricing is determined. I would add that to my checklist if I were on the accounting team and marketing team setting prices.

Another way to choose the fine amount may be to base it off the CEO + President complete annual pay packages including bonuses. Just a thought, I dunno. I read that the Toyota CEO earns less than $1M annually, while the GM CEO earned over $14M, so perhaps that isn’t a good idea for underpaid CEOs. Of course, my data was just found with a google search, so it could be wrong.