Cop Car's Beat

Veterans Day 2020

More from News for Nerds - Who is being heedless?

This item is no longer as timely as usually are my postings from News for Nerds . It got postponed/lost when overcome by other happenings; but, I still think that spying activities in Germany and the US are of interest.

How a Chinese Agent Used LinkedIn to 'Lure' American Targets (bbc.com) 53

Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday July 26, 2020 @10:01PM from the network-effects dept.

Today the BBC told the story of Jun Wei Yeo, "an ambitious and freshly enrolled Singaporean PhD student" who was gradually recruited by Chinese intelligence.

Yeo "would end up using the professional networking website LinkedIn, a fake consulting company and cover as a curious academic to lure in American targets." Some of the targets that Yeo found by trawling through LinkedIn were commissioned to write reports for his "consultancy", which had the same name as an already prominent firm. These were then sent to his Chinese contacts. One of the individuals he contacted worked on the U.S. Air Force's F-35 fighter jet programme and admitted he had money problems. Another was a U.S. army officer assigned to the Pentagon, who was paid at least $2,000 (£1,500) to write a report on how the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan would impact China... According to the court documents, his handlers advised him to ask targets if they "were dissatisfied with work" or "were having financial troubles"...

In 2018, Yeo also posted fake online job ads for his consulting company. He told investigators he received more than 400 CVs with 90% of them coming from "US military and government personnel with security clearances". Some were passed to his Chinese handlers... Dickson Yeo does not appear to have got as far with his contacts as his handlers would have liked. But in November 2019, he travelled to the U.S. with instructions to turn the army officer into a "permanent conduit of information", his signed statement says.

He was arrested before he could ask.
The 39-year-old now faces up to 10 years in prison for being an "illegal agent of a foreign power" — but the article notes he was "aided by an invisible ally — the LinkedIn algorithm.

"Each time Yeo looked at someone's profile it would suggest a new slate of contacts with similar experience that he might be interested in..."

Week in Review - 7/11/2020

I got a laugh at HH's expense - 7/9/2020

Hunky Husband casually mentioned, about an hour ago (11:00am) that he needed a plastic bag into which to place his pocket stuff and that he had to "be there" at 7:45am, tomorrow. "Where?" asked I. "For my MRI." said he. It seems that the medical scheduler had called HH, yesterday, to give him the information on his appointment. Today, he thought that he had told me; however, the last thing he had told me was that they would call him back with his final schedule, that they had five patients to fit into three slots. "Where is the MRI?" asked I. "Behind the pharmacy." "Here in Derby?" "Yes." "In the same building as the pharmacy or in the building behind the pharmacy where you had your hernia surgery?" "My hernia surgery was in Wichita. I don't know what building it's in." Then we discussed whether he needed me to drive him or not (perhaps they would dose him with anti-anxiety stuff, I thought - he is, after all, slightly claustrophobic), which he was sure was not the case. Thus, HH ran up to the medical offices (a 5-minute drive) to get more information. It seems they had told him nothing except the time and that he was to go behind the pharmacy, into the green doors (which I remember from when I took him for his hernia surgery.) UPDATE: The MRI suite was in the same building with the normal physical exam offices and pharmacy.

HH came back from the medical offices, in a panic. He couldn't wear his jeans to the MRI - or anything with metal. They told him to wear sweats - which he thought he didn't have; but, I dug out a pair of fleece sweats that I had bought him 20 years ago. he hadn't worn them more than once or twice; but, they had metal zippered pockets. Bummer! So, I gave HH a pair of my pull-on knit pants. This is the point at which I got to giggle. He tried putting on the pants without removing his socks. His socks snagged on the knit pants causing HH to dance about. However...that option turns out much more viable than my taking the metal zips out of his sweats. The sweats are so old that the elastic in the waistband has totally given up. In a pinch, I could have picked him up a pair of pants from one of the stores; but, I don't really want to take that risk in the middle of the day. Although, in the past, I have borrowed HH's jeans (and shirts) to wear, this will have been the first time that he has borrowed clothing from me. He's good with it.

Whiplash have we - 7/8/2020

Last Thursday, the Governor of Kansas issued an executive order that included the requirement that people wear masks when out in public. (There are some exceptions; but, go with me here.) The order went in to effect the next day - 7/3/2020. On Thursday, the County Commission of Sedgwick met and voted 3-2 to have people in our county consider the governor's order as "recommendations" rather than "requirements". Under the "Home Rule" laws of Kansas, lower divisions of government are allowed to do such things. Well...on Friday, the City Council of Wichita met and overturned the Sedgwick County Commissioners so that the governor's executive order would apply within the City of Wichita. Again...allowed under "Home Rule" laws of Kansas. The Wichita vote applies to Hunky Husband and me only if we venture north for several miles.

Today, on the 5 o'clock TV news (that we do not normally watch, but just happened to see), we learned the following (excerpted from the County of Sedgwick website):

(Sedgwick County, Kan.) – Dr. Garold Minns, Local Health Officer for Sedgwick County this afternoon signed an Emergency Public Health Order that will require any person within Sedgwick County to cover his or her mouth and nose with a mask or other face covering in situations such as:

• inside any indoor or outdoor public space where social distancing of six feet at all times is not possible
• in line and waiting to enter an indoor public space

This order will take effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday morning, July 10, 2020 and to be in place until at least midnight Sunday night, August 9, 2020.

Since Kansas is doing so poorly with COVID-19 these days (see yesterday's excerpt from the US News website, below), it only makes sense that we have the Emergency Public Health Order in place.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas is among the top 14 states in the country for the most rapid spread of coronavirus, and in the top 14 states for having the least restrictions on activities, the state's top health official said Tuesday.

Poor little dead tree - 7/8/2020

For the past few years we've been nursing along (not very well) the little sugar maple that was planted in our front yard in 2000. Hunky Husband really liked that tree and didn't want it taken out - hoping against hope (but not willing to spend a small fortune on the treatments the expert wanted to give it for a few years). Finally, I guess COVID-19 killed it off. At least, it was pushing out leaves and seeds this spring. I am happy that it finally died so that I can get it out of there. I've sent an email to "my" tree people to please come take it out. One can tell by the small size of the tree that it had failed to thrive.

Mid-week Laugh  - 7/7/2020

From All Hat No Cattle, today:

Hunky Husband's Car, today:

My car, today:

I hasten to add that 1) the masks are removed before we drive and 2) never, before, has either of us ever had anything hang from our rear view mirrors (I know this because neither of us had a car when we married - not until three or four weeks before Dudette was born). Hanging the masks this way allows us to doff a mask when we arrive home and hang it by an earpiece without touching the cloth portion. Since neither of us drives much, our ventures out are of short duration, and it is a few days (at least) between ventures, hanging the masks allow them to naturally let any virus disassemble.

I should go to Vegas - 7/6/2020

To beat the heat, I started my lawn work at 6:15am, this morning. The first thing I did was to rake the detritus out of the edge of the grass along our 120 feet of curbing, scoop it up, and add it to the compost pile. When I had finished, one could see the rake scrapings along the curb. Instead of immediately sweeping up the leavings (and you can imagine that I did not wish to overwork that particular set of muscles lest I develop aching), I cleaned out the cover of the curb-side drain, pulled creepers out of the woods, and wound up the hose that I had left strung out when watering the trees, yesterday. I had every good intention of doing the leavings sweeping tomorrow morning, but I had reached my heat/humidity/exertion limit for the time being.

Imagine my pleased surprise when, 30 minutes after I came inside, the city motorized street sweeper came along our curb. Yay! Just think how frustrated I would have been had I exerted myself in sweeping up what it took the motorized street sweeper but seconds to remove. This would be my day for gambling! (The above photo shows the motorized street sweeper on its return trip down our street - sweeping the gutter that is across the street from us.

Health Update for Family - 7/3/2020

HH: Hunky Husband had his “annual” physical (first one in who-knows-how-many years; but, he did have his post-hernial-surgery evaluation three years ago), yesterday. I had asked if I might accompany him. He said, “No”, that I tend to take over a conversation if we are together (that is true – I think that I am just making sure other people get correct information, of course); so, he went alone. When he came back, all he knew was that they had drawn some blood, that they had given him some sort of shot, and that he had forgotten to tell Dr N about the fungus under his toenail. I asked if HH had checked with Dr N on any Alzheimer’s studies that might be taking place in our area, as he had mentioned wanting to do. (HH's mother participated in a study at Washington U in St Louis and they did her autopsy, pronouncing that she had died of Alzheimer's - or complications of, maybe, I don't recall.) “No.” Nor had he asked Dr N to look at a spot at the crown of his head that has been worrying him. HH called Dr N’s office to tell them about his toenail and they made him an appointment for the next morning.

Before he left the house for the second appointment, I reminded HH about the spot on his head and he wrote it down on his little card of notes. An hour later, when he returned, he said that Dr N would take off the spot on his crown and a spot between his eyebrows, but didn’t do it, today. HH was prescribed and brought home with him a 90-day supply of anti-fungal horse pills to take (continuing for one year). They gave him a simple test of his ability to do mental addition (did well, he says) and are going to schedule him for an MRI. Well, better everything should be addressed in two visits than to not have anything more to show for his annual physical than he would have had from his first visit! BTW: The shot was pneumonia immunization.

In his records, it was noted that he had a “slight hearing loss”. I don’t know how his hearing loss was evaluated (HH said they did not test his hearing). I do know that I often wear earplugs if in the same room with HH's TV because he sets the volume level at 30-35 whereas I would set it for 11-14. 

CORRECTION OF 7/11/2020 9:48 am

I'm leaving a photo of the physician in the red dress, above; but, I happened to notice, just now, that I posted the wrong photo. That photo is of my primary care physician. A photo of my eye doctor is below. Apologies to both doctors. The only way I can tell them apart is by the fact that my primary care physician is nearly a foot taller than my eye doctor. (I'm serious about the height difference!)

CC: By chance, I had my “annual” eye exam yesterday afternoon. I knew that my sight had degraded within the past 6-8 months which I attributed to more crap floating about in my eyes.  Dr A found a small hemorrhage in the retina of my left eye – near where the large floater (artifact from laser surgery a few years ago) is attached. (I hadn’t known that it was still attached to anything as it floats “all over” my field of vision until she told me.) I’m awaiting a call from a specialist to get his evaluation. Probably nothing to be done, but Dr A wanted to be sure “we” know what’s going on.

EB: He's doing well - no untoward effects from his birding trip of last month.

VE Day

Winston Churchill waving to crowds in Whitehall on 8 May celebrating the end of the war - Wikipedia

Seventy-five years ago buzz bombs stopped falling on English cities, carpet bombing stopped hitting German cities, and most of the various armaments in Europe were silenced. Truthfully, as a second grader, I recall when FDR's death (April 25, 1945) was announced on the intercom system at school, but not the announcement of the cessation of hostilities that occurred not quite two weeks later. Perhaps it was not announced at school. OTOH: I recall the birth of my brother (December 13, 1941), but don't really recall Pearl Harbor. I was too young to understand the enormous consequences.

VE Day preceded the end of our war by a bit over three months. VJ Day didn't come until August 15, 1945 - during my school's summer vacation. Not remembering the event, I can only speculate that I was spending a few weeks at my Grandmother H's farm or with Great-Grandparents S's at the time.

From the National Archives timeline:

May 8, 1945

V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day) Nazi Germany surrenders to the Allies, ending the war in Europe.

 

 

Down but not out

Bogie is the only one of our close family who does not live in Sedgwick County, State of Kansas, USA. Thus, she is the only one of our family who is unaffected by the following announcement. (Sedgwick county comprises about 1000 square miles with a population of somewhat over 500,000 people.)

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) Update 11:15 a.m. Tuesday, March 24, 2020

The Sedgwick County Local Health Officer has signed a "stay at home" order for the county, effective 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, March 25, 2020, through April 23, 2020 (30 days) unless sooner amended, superseded, or rescinded.

 

The listing of types of businesses that may stay open, their being "essential", is extensive. We are allowed to grocery shop, pick up "to go" meals from restaurants, do banking, keep medical appointments (if your medical caretakers are open), etc, so it isn't really a big deal, so far.

 

WichiDude's business is considered essential, so he is still going to work - probably because they make HVAC systems which may be required by many people when summer temperatures arrive. (I think it is in the high 70s, now, so I am suffering already; but, I can always go to the cooler basement. Hunky Husband is sitting in the living room, quilt across his legs and lap, fireplace blazing.)

 

Dudette's business is considered essential - probably because they distribute alcoholic beverages - but all office personnel are working from home. She tells us that WichiDude helped her set up a place to work in the basement, her having until then to work at a kitchen table.

 

The two nurses are working in locked down facilities - skilled nursing homes. They are working incredibly long hours; but, fortunately, Next Generation 1 & Next Generation 2 are staying, for the foreseeable future, full-time with their father, rather than half-time.

 

Spring is cooperating, enabling me to pick Hunky Husband a bouquet of posies. We are doing well, and hope that others are too.

 

Our Eastern phoebes are in!

Kansas closes K-12 schools

Yesterday, Governor Laura Kelly announced the closing of all k-12 schools in Kansas for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year. The video, below, runs just over 2.5 minutes.

 

 

BTW: Happy birthday to Elder Brother. Nineteen thirty-six was a vintage year.

More from Slashdot.org - Grading Tests, Nuking Mars, Using Old Tech

The following item from Slashdot.org is an excellent rehashing of the reason we were always told "show your work" on tests!

How Should Schools Grade Unexpected-But-Correct Answers On Coding Tests? 76

Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday August 18, 2019 @07:34AM from the does-not-compute dept.

 

There can be more than one correct answer for academic tests of programming ability, writes long-time Slashdot reader theodp:

 

Take the first of the Free-Response Questions in this year's AP CS A exam, which asked 70,000 college-bound students to "Write the static method numberOfLeapYears, which returns the number of leap years between year1 and year2." The correct answer, according to the CollegeBoard's 2019 Scoring Guidelines, entails iterating over the range of years and invoking a provided helper method called isLeapYear for each year.

Which does work, of course, but what if a student instead took an Excel-like approach to the same problem that consists of a (hopefully correct!) single formula with no iteration or isLeapYear helper function? Would that be a worse — or better -- example of computational thinking than the endorsed AP CS A Java-based solution? (Here's a 7-minute AP Conference discussion of how to correctly grade this problem)?

So, how have you seen schools and companies deal with unexpected-but-correct approaches to coding test questions?

 

I'm not sure how I should feel about the following item.

Elon Musk Begins Selling $25 'Nuke Mars' T-Shirts (bgr.com) 83

Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday August 17, 2019 @06:34PM from the making-a-statement dept.

 

"Elon Musk tweeted on Thursday evening 'Nuke Mars.' A few hours later he followed it up with 'T-shirt soon'," writes Business Insider.

BGR reports: Musk's tweet is a reference to the theory that by dropping one or more large bombs on Mars' poles, the CO2 locked away in the ice there would be released, giving the Martian atmosphere a much-needed boost... Making the planet's atmosphere denser could help it retain heat and bring it a small step closer to being habitable by human settlers. However, past research has suggested that bombing the planet's poles wouldn't release nearly enough CO2 to be worth the trouble. Elon Musk has publicly disagreed.

It's unclear why the SpaceX boss decided to bring this all up again, but he does have a habit of saying whatever he thinks will get a big reaction on Twitter. Oh, and apparently he's hoping to sell some shirts as well.

In any case, no space agency is ready to even begin preliminary planning for a crewed Mars mission, much less any long-term efforts to change the climate of the Red Planet. If that ever does happen, bombs may or may not play a role.
The article adds that scientists "aren't fully on board" with Musk's line of thinking, but the t-shirts really are available in the online SpaceX store. Late Friday Musk began promoting them with an optimistic tweet.

"Nuking Mars one T-shirt at a time."

 

The following item makes this oldster chortle.

US Navy Tests WWII-ERA Messaging Tech: Dropping Bean Bags Onto Ships (popularmechanics.com) 70

Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday August 17, 2019 @05:34PM from the cornhole-code dept.

Long-time Slashdot reader davidwr writes: In World War II, pilots would air-drop messages onto ships using bean-bags. Just as with sextants a few years ago, the Navy is bringing back old tech, because it works.

Just as during the Doolittle Raid of Tokyo, the purpose is to prevent eavesdropping. You can read more about the modern bean-bag-drop on Military.com or Popular Mechanics. There's a video about the Doolittle Raid hosted at archive.org with bean-bag-drops at 2:39 and 5:19 into the video. I wonder how many high-density SSD drives fit in a standard Navy bean-bag?
"In a future conflict with a tech-savvy opponent, the U.S. military could discover even its most advanced, secure communications penetrated by the enemy," notes Popular Mechanics. "Secure digital messaging, voice communications, video conferencing, and even chats could be intercepted and decrypted for its intelligence value.

"This could give enemy forces an unimaginable advantage, seemingly predicting the moves and actions of the fleets at sea with uncanny accuracy."

Observing Independence Day

I saw the platoon perform at the Marine Barracks Washington, DC (at 8th & I) on 7/20/1979, during an Evening Parade. It was impressive!

Photos at home

While reading, I heard a large airplane flying over our front yard (northwest side of house). Peeking through the vertical blind slats, I saw a KC-10 at about 500 feet, or so. Usually aircraft from McConnell AFB use a base leg just south of our house.

They seemed to have at least one KC-10 Extender aircraft practicing approaches to McConnell AFB, this afternoon, using Runway 1R (my guess). I did not have my camera set up for fast lens speed and I'm not speedy at setting it up; so, my photo of the second pass, when they made a base leg about 1/2 mile north of us, isn't good. (So, what's new with my photography?) However, they flew the pattern tighter with each pass so that from then on we could barely see them, if at all. We'll probably be seeing KC-10s more frequently, now that McConnell has a few of its KC-46As.

I'll include the following photo, only, because I like it. Don't ask what the aircraft is since I've no idea.

Mementos

In Things we old people must do - progress I wrote about the desirability of us (not including you in that, of course!) old people getting rid of excess "stuff", with which our lives are incumbered, to prevent headaches and stress for those left behind upon our demises. In that posting, I showed the shelves enclosed by one set of doors in some built-in storage in our basement following winnowing of some 45 rpm vinyl records from our collection of nearly 1000. WichiDude and Dudette were asked, by email, to consider taking bunches of records home with them to allow WichiDude to sort them at his leisure. Wonder of wonders, they accepted the idea. While they were here this last Saturday, we boxed up five boxes full of 45 rpm and 33 1/3 rpm vinyl records. Hallelujah! I have two more empty shelves, now (shown in the photo, below). The additional shelves of 33 1/3 rpm vinyl records enclosed by a neighboring set of doors in the storage unit are still full.

Mementos - from my days as a sailor

Today, while taking Elegant Friend out to lunch, I stopped by a military surplus store of which I had learned but a couple of weeks ago. It is up in her neck of the woods - far western Wichita. It got me to thinking that, years ago, when I returned to Kansas, I took my US Navy uniforms and shoes into the local US Naval Reserves facility in which I had drilled in 1980-1981. Those items were still in use by the Navy and could be given out as additions to the normal clothing issued to a new (female) recruit. I kept but a few items which have been gathering dust all of these years. Last spring, knowing that issue styles had changed in the past 30 years, I took the raincoat (a wonderful garment!) into a Disabled American Veterans' thrift store. Today, it occurred to me that I could give the remaining few items to the military surplus store. When I mentioned it to the store manager, he said they would buy the items from me. Well...I wouldn't expect them to pay enough to cover the $15 that I spent there today, but it beats a poke in the eye.

What do I still have? One short-sleeved shirt for wear with my "blues" and one flight suit - as appear in the next photo, for two. Women's issued clothing were not sized as commercially-sold clothing. For instance, women's short-sleeved shirts were sized similarly to men's dress shirts: neck size and bust size. The flight suit was not issued to me, but was given to me by a young sailor at Naval Air Station Pensacola when I was scheduled to participate in a helicopter checkout. That week, my assignment had been to run the helicopter maintenance shop. Opportunely, we were able to launch all 13 helicopters (mostly HH-46s, with a few Bell UH-1s) on that Friday. They formed up for formation flight out over the Gulf of Mexico and invited the local press out to take photographs. I never saw any of the newspapers that carried news of the rare event; but, I did fly along in one of the HH-46s as a systems monitor (watching for hydraulic leaks, of course!)

In addition, the photo (below) shows, at the rear, my hat box, the "Combination Cap" (with cap device) that came in it (with an extra white cover inside the box), and Garrison Cap with "miniature cap device". In front of the hat box are two neckties and a pair of gloves (never worn by me - they are for formal or dinner dress wear.) There are two rate badges: black-on-white to sew on (left sleeve, only) white shirts and white-on-black to sew on (left sleeve, only) black shirts. While, except for my utility uniform (blue dungarees, medium blue chambray shirt, and dark blue jacket), all uniforms are black and white, the navy calls them "blue" and white - as in, "dress blues". The rating badges show that I was a Petty Officer First Class, that I was in NavAir, and that I was a structures mechanic. The four insignia indicate Petty Officer First Class without denoting assignment.

Note the sticker on the lid of the hatbox that indicates that I carried it aboard a Braniff flight. Most of the airlines of the 1980s no longer exist - at least - not under the names used in those days. My flight was from Wichita to New Orleans (and return trip). I used a pay phone at my layover at DFW airport on my way to NOLA to call BDM, accepting their latest offer of employment. BDM wanted me to call Cessna, giving them two weeks' notice. That would have meant that I would go back to Cessna only to pack up my personal possessions from my desk. I refused to do that. Cessna was good enough to pay me the difference between what the Navy was paying me for my two weeks of active duty in NOLA and what my Cessna salary would have been and I had always been well treated by Cessna. I gave Cessna my notice upon my return, worked two weeks squaring things away, then drove to Florida to report in with BDM. Thirteen months later, Braniff ceased operations.

See how sidetracked mementos can get some of us?

ADDITION OF 1/31/2019 9:45am - Admiral Grace Hopper's Hat

Below is the only photo ever taken of me in uniform. It is cropped from a class photo. It was the first time I had been able to dress in uniform, its having taken nearly one year to get the female uniform parts issued to me. As it turned out, I was actually "out of uniform", as my instructor gently informed me. The rating badge on my sleeve (noticeably large) was the male version of the badge. Fortunately, at NOLA, I was able to get the female version (see the previous photo of mementos.) I was the only one in the Advanced Pay Grade Indoctrination Course who had no previous military service, but was designated as the class leader because I outranked all of the other participants. It was an experience!

_________

There is still an Advanced Pay Grade Indoctrination Course for US Naval Reservists; however, there are several differences in the modern program. I note that the current program does not allow enlistment at the pay grade level I was given, E-6. I did qualify for the permanent E-6 level within the two years that were provided; although, I had quite a scare when my unit at Pensacola notified me that I had failed to take the "final exam" for E-6, their having lost my paperwork. Fortunately, I have an honest face and was able to tell them that I had scored 92 on the test, so they awarded it to me.