Security Through Collaboration

Throughout my time working in IT, security has always been important. As more and more things move online, ensuring good data security practices are even more crucial. What you do with your data, both personal and data for your company, can be a decision that leads to horrible results or can make your life easy. While securing your personal data is something that is on you (and your family), making sure that data for the company that you work for is secure can be an entirely different challenge.

I’ve spent the day at the DevOps Day in Minneapolis and it has been a great conference to go to. If you work in a development or integration environment at all, I could not recommend this conference more. If you think you want to work in this environment, it’s also great to attend. There are a lot of wonderful things that you can learn and people that you can meet. It’s an amazing networking opportunity.

Megan Carney discussing the idea of working with users

Since security is so important, one of the key points that a number of the speakers and sessions addressed here today was security and how to you maintain a secure environment. There were a lot of ideas out there and each company does things a little bit differently. All of the speakers did address a similar idea and it is one I honestly hadn’t heard talked about much before – security has a shared experience.

Most everyone is familiar with the Bastard Operator From Hell (BOFH). It’s the IT person who sits high upon their throne and issues edicts and proclamations, usually appearing arbitrary and capricious, to the masses of how things will be done. In the BOFH’s world, there is no room for negotiation or compromise. Those who try to offer suggestions or alternatives are met with scorn. Obviously the BOFH has the most experience, knows what is right, and woe be to the peasant who would dare defy the all-powerful BOFH. (Side note: I blissfully have never had to work with somebody like that. The IT director where I worked was *wonderful*)

The problem with the BOFH model is that there is no incentive to work with the person. And with no sense of shared experience or a desire to collaborate, people who work within the company may not have any reason to buy in to a security program or follow procedures, that while appearing arbitrary and capricious, actually have merit and that are probably a good program to follow.

Megan Carney (@PwnieFan) gave a wonderful talk about InfoSec and how security is everybody’s responsibility. Both she and Jeff Smith (@DarkandNerdy) continually emphasized that you need to get out and talk to the people you’re working with and get buy-in for the things you want to accomplish. This is so true in the security realm.

If you follow the BOFH model, you will never get full buy-in from your users. Without that, they won’t feel comfortable coming to you when there are problems, which there will be problems. Nobody knows better about issues brewing in an organization than the people who are right in the thick of it. If the people that you work with don’t feel comfortable talking to you, issues will become buried until it is too late. Trust me: you don’t want to find out about a security issue the first time because you’re leading the local news for a massive data breach.

Jeff Smith warning on the by-product of DevOps and
making sure Security is considered.

Avoiding the BOFH model also ensures that people that work in your company aren’t just going to try and go around you to do whatever they want. If people feel comfortable talking to you, they will come to you to make sure an application is safe to install or that new app is ok to use within the business. Keeping these lines of communication open are key to ensuring a secure environment. It also helps to document your processes and progress in terms of validating and verifying to applications and libraries. This lets people know what you’ve done and looked at and why decisions were made. This way if an application was rejected for some reason and that reason has been addressed, you could know to go back and try it again.

I think the best line I heard that really sums up the idea came during one of the Open Session discussions on security. Eric, whose last name I do not know, said “Figure out how to turn they into we.” The idea here is that you never address security in the mindset of “They need to make this change” or “They need to improve how they are handling this”. It should always come from a place of “we”. Once that mindset is in place, security becomes a team effort and much easier to maintain.

No system is ever going to be 100% secure. Software is written by humans and humans make mistakes. Our job in IT should be to try to minimize security issues as much as possible and to minimize the damage caused by them as quickly as possible. Doing that from a BOFH model is an approach, but it’s not an effective one in a world where so much collaboration happens across teams and across platforms. Working together and keeping open lines of communication with those that you serve is the best way to ensure that you are running in the most secure environment possible.

Microsoft Shouldn't Apologize for Tay - We Should

Earlier this week, Microsoft released a chatbot on Twitter named Tay. It only took a day for the worst of the internet to rear its ugly head and turn in to a hate-spewing, racist awful example of what AI can become. Microsoft pulled the bot and issued an apology.

But really I don’t think it is Microsoft that needs to apologize. What a segment of our society did in less that day was to take something that is impressionable and has the ability to learn and corrupt and destroy it so fully and so completely that it had to be pulled down. Think about that: our society can be so awful and so cruel that quickly.

"Tay" went from "humans are super cool" to full nazi in <24 hrs and I'm not at all concerned about the future of AI pic.twitter.com/xuGi1u9S1A

— Gerry (@geraldmellor) March 24, 2016

The AI was meant to represent that of a 19 year old girl. And sadly, the type of abuse and insults hurled at this AI was subjected to is not all that different from what women face on the internet daily from the underground lair of trolls who see it as there right to defend the internet from all that is improper and evil (read: non-white males). It learned and adapted to what it was presented, and how awful that was.

What I wish Microsoft would have done, and there is no way they could have, was to issue not a statement of apology but an absolute condemnation of what was done to their AI. Imagine for a moment that it wasn’t an AI on the other end of that handle reading and seeing all these things. Imagine it was a teenager going out in to the online world for the first time and seeing the worst of the internet. It’s not that hard to picture, really.  And if that was your child on the other end seeing this? You would be enraged, and rightly so.

We need to take a big, deep breath and slow down and really think about where we are going as a country and a society. We spew hate and degrading comments online like they have no effect on others; like the person on the other end isn’t real. We belittle those who stand up and say “This isn’t right” and compare them to Hitler or claim they hate America.

Presidential candidates from one of the major political parties in this country have no issue with labeling Mexican migrants as rapists or saying we need to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods. And to a segment of the population, this type of demagoguery and defamation is perfectly acceptable.

Some in the Computer Science world have said Microsoft should have known better and that this was an example of bad design. I disagree.

This is a perfect reflection of where we are right now as a society. It’s not pretty, either. This has nothing to do with Microsoft writing a poor AI. This has everything to do with us and our not living up to the ideals and potential that we claim to possess.

In Defense of Microsoft's Patching Plan

I read an article yesterday from Computer World that called out Microsoft's patching plan moving forward with Windows 10 and dropping support for Windows 7 and 8. The crux of the article is that Microsoft are a bunch of idiots for their support strategy, that they are screwing over Enterprise IT, and how awful it is that they refuse to support the latest hardware with operating systems that were released nearly five and a half years ago.

The article has a bunch of quotes, including the lines "refusing to honor", talking about Microsoft's agreements to support older hardware and that "The trust is gone", in terms of Microsoft laying out agreements and support plans. The hyperbole would be hilarious if the people who said it didn't believe it so strongly.

You could click the link above to read it yourself, but it really a lousy piece of whining and Microsoft bashing, for what appears to be no other reason that to bash Microsoft for a while. The comments are pretty good though. (For a more level-headed, informative, article, and one that also shows what new hardware will be supported on Windows 7 and 8, I'd suggest this piece in PC World by Mark Hachman)

Windows 7 ended its mainstream support in January of 2015. That means no new features. Why in the world would people expect new features, including hardware drivers, which can destabilize an operating system, to be added to a product that is past its mainstream support cycle? Windows 8.1 has a support date of  January 2018, so I could see being a little upset about that if your shop adopted Windows 8.1, but I don't know many that did. And if you did adopt Windows 8, you're probably not rushing out to buy new hardware.

My biggest problem with the Computer World article is this: For years, Microsoft was ripped apart in the technology world and press for how vulnerable and unstable their products could be. A lot of that had to do with how much backwards compatibility they tried to keep around for legacy hardware, legacy software, and to keep older software running on newer hardware. That much change at core levels of code will cause problems. That's all there is to it.

In an era where more and more things are moving to computing and cloud platforms, security, stability, and up time are of the utmost priority. Microsoft cannot keep a good name for its brands if it knows there are gaping flaws still out there in the wild. It doesn't matter that they've fixed the issues and have been practically begging people to patch them, it's still up to the end user to install the update. And if the end user doesn't follow the patching directions or stays on older hardware with older software, guess who's name gets dragged through the mud: it's not the family down the road that won't upgrade. It's Microsoft.

Plain and simple, Microsoft must push people to upgrade to the latest software. They are throwing in a huge carrot by making it free. If it is a big, painful operation to handle that level of upgrade at your shop, you need to put in the procedures to deal with it. I work in a highly regulated industry. I know how much of a pain that it can be. But the bottom line is that you have to do it.

Microsoft is making the right move here. People need to move up to the latest software and they can't lollygag while doing it. Microsoft is even trying to make it as easy as possible in the IT world. But they, and the computer world as a whole, can no longer make it so you have no incentive to upgrade. Waiting two to three years to adopt a new operating system just isn't feasible any more and it is time to move on.

New Brewery Review: OMNI Brewing

A while back, I wrote about the number of breweries in the Twin Cities and wondering how many more the area could support. I still wonder that and I can't really tell if the number opening is slowing down or not. I am starting to see a few more pop up in the suburbs though, which is going to be able to help sustain the push. In the northwest corner of the metro where I live at, the only brewery was Granite City. Not a bad place, but not local and not really part of the boom that we've been seeing.

That changed last week with the opening of OMNI Brewing in Maple Grove. I stopped in during their first week to see what it was like and get a feel for the tap room. The space is really well put together and laid out. Long table and bench seating helps bring about groups getting together and encourage meeting new people. On a Thursday night, there were 15 to 20 people sitting around talking and laughing having a wonderful time.

I got to talk to Zack, the head brewer, and hear about how they got started and hear about his love for beer. It's easy to hear the excitement in his voice as he talks about getting to do a job that he loves.

On tap that night they had their Pilot Pale Ale and the Hopfull IPA. The Pilot was a solid beer coming in just under 5%. For a pale ale, it had a stronger hop flavor than I was expecting but it lets it stand out. The Hopfull IPA was a very smooth drinking IPA at 5.9%. This would be an easy beer to get in trouble with - it goes down very easily and you don't really notice how much of it you've been drinking. I was also able to try samples of their stout and session ale.

Since I've been there, they've released even more beers. With 10 tap lines available, I'm looking forward to what they will be putting out. From what I could tell, Zack is putting together a solid line up of beer. I'm looking forward to once they get going and he's able to experiment a bit more. The IPA especially seems perfect for infusions that will really let them stand out.

Cheers to you Zack and the rest of the OMNI team! I'm looking forward to sharing many good pints with you!

Farewell Milwaukee and the New Century Theatre

What makes good music is a really subjective thing. It’s part of why there is so much music out there – tastes vary greatly. At the core though I think what makes music “great” is how well you can relate to it. Through the lyrics, melodies, chords progressions – how well does the artist create music that relates to you?

Last Friday, I had tickets with some friends to go see Farewell Milwaukee, a local band starting to get some more attention, at the New Century Theatre in Minneapolis. I’ve always enjoyed their music but in that space and the way they were playing that night it was incredible.

If you get the chance to check out the New Century Theatre, you should. It’s a smaller, black box style venue that really puts you right on top of the stage. It’s great for smaller shows and performances and I’m not sure there’s a bad seat in the house. They did a really good job building the place out.

If you get the chance to go see Farewell Milwaukee, jump on it. They have a new album that they announced that they were working on and played some of the songs that will be on it. Each song did a great job telling the story and it is really see to see how much fun those guys have playing and making music together.

Opening was Actual Wolf and Fathom Lane. Actual Wolf was there as a solo act and performed an entertaining set. I would have enjoyed him with a full band to hear some of his other music, but it was still a good set. Fathom Lane was a band I hadn’t heard of before and I really liked their music. It almost had a Decemberists style sound to it.

The takeaway though: Go check out music at the New Century Theatre and go check out Farewell Milwaukee – those guys should be going places.

When the Saints Go Marching In

A photo  of the "too perfect" outfield and scoreboard

Yesterday closed out the regular season for the St. Paul Saints, the independent professional baseball team here in the Twin Cities, at their new stadium, CHS Field. It was a record setting year: highest attendance (404,528), best record (74-26), and numerous individual records broken throughout the year. You couldn’t ask for a better season.

It was an incredible year in an amazing new ballpark. One that I will admit I was a little hesitant about. And after our first time in the stadium on “test drive your seat” day, I was even more worried. Let me explain.

Mudonna taking in a few pitches from our section on
opening night.

At the end of last season, we were talking with one of the Usher-tainers, Brain Kelly, about the move to the new stadium. He asked how we felt about leaving Midway and heading to the yet-to-be-named new stadium. I admitted that I was worried. Midway had a hominess about it; it was comfortable. It was run down for sure; falling apart, leaking, not able to keep up. It needed to be replaced. 

But a brand-new, never been used stadium…. what would that be like? Would the team still have fun? Would the antics exist just the same? Brian said that making sure people understood that the team would still be the same, goofy group they always were was going to be one of the hardest and most important jobs for the usher-tainers moving forward. He was right.

When we were at the new stadium for the first time, the building was perfect. The “new” smell was on everything, the walls all perfect and smooth, no rolling hills in the outfield, no chips in the cement, not even banged into drywall in the press box. It was immaculate. And absolutely not the Saints. I walked out of there still buying our 9 game mini pack and still excited for baseball, but it seemed thing things would be different.

Wow was I wrong.

Brian and the rest of the usher-tainers showed from day one that Fun was still meant to be had at the ball park. They did an amazing job of runn

ing around, keeping people excited, engaging kids, bringing old promos from Midway and inventing to new ones for CHS Field. It was everything that baseball should be and so much more. And in the middle of all the craziness, the team just kept on winning.

A panorama from above 3rd base, June 7 2015.
Our dog was at this game. Because this team is awesome.

One of the best things about CHS Field this year though was the people in the stands. In the 12 regular season games we went to, we were always surrounded by wonderful people. Jeff and EJ that had the seats to our right always had great stories to tell and EJ was always up for photobombing the high schoolers around us. The Senior Master Sergeant (USAF, ret.), whose name I never got, always had a different member of his family with him. His grandkids were great and loved taking in their first ball games.

Lounging in Center Field wait for fireworks to start
on Fan Appreciation Night

Now, I’m looking forward to the playoffs. For those few more days of summer. For that last chance to ignore what the calendar says and enjoy time outdoors, with my friends, at a baseball game. A championship, if the Saints win one, would be the perfect cap for an amazing year. But the season already was a massive success. Not just because of what the team did on the field though, but because of what they did off of it.

Because they kept their word.

Because Fun is, and always will be, Good.

Scoring the Game

We're 9 game mini-pack season ticket holders for the St. Paul Saints, the local minor league team, and usually end up buying tickets to a handful of other games as well. Tickets are cheap, the team on the field is fun to watch, the team in the stands helping put on the show is incredible, old Midway Stadium had it's charm, and the new CHS Field has been wonderful so far this year.

The Winnipeg Goldeyes side of the card.
 The engine number of the last train
 to go by the stadium during
a game is written on top.
BNSF engine 6188

The St. Paul Saints side of the card
 from the last game at Midway Stadium.
 Signed by some of the usher-tainers
and the amazing Annie Huidekoper

It also doesn't hurt that the team this year is out of its mind having gone 56-16 with a 22.5 game lead over the second place at the time that I'm writing this. I've been to two of the losses and they were weird. You seriously expect this team to go out and win every night. The score doesn't matter; they will come back and win.

My parents taught me how to score a baseball game when I was a kid. I don't remember how old, but I'd guess in elementary school. We'd listen to Ernie Harwell call Tigers games on the radio and keep a scorecard. After I got a little older, I stopped doing it. I never kept up with it or helped out the baseball team in high school so I just fell out of the habit.

For the last couple of Saints seasons, I've gotten back in to keeping a scorecard for the game. In Midway, I would see maybe one or two others doing the same thing. I haven't seen anybody else at CHS Field keeping the score yet. Thanks to the spaciousness of Midway (read: empty bleachers) nobody ever really asked me what I was doing. We always sat near the press box and the occasional person would come up and be surprised that somebody under the age of 30 (at the time...) was scoring a game.

At CHS Field, thanks to a packed house, more people seem to notice that I'm sitting there with a clipboard scribbling things down after each pitch and it has sparked some conversation. I'll mostly hear late teens or early twenties people whispering behind me wondering what I'm doing though none of them are even brave enough to ask. Eventually they figure out it's something to do with the game, but they don't know what.

Halsey Lindquist, PA Announcer Extraordinaire,
had his last game on Aug 8, 2015.
 He signed the home side of the card with the saying
tattooed on his arm: Be Happy

The kids that sit near me never seem too shy though, their curiosity winning out over any inhibition. A little girl at the game I was at Wednesday asked her grandpa what the clipboard was for and he told her "He's keeping the score of the game, honey". She was fascinated. She asked her grandpa how to do it and, somewhat to my surprise, he didn't know. He had the basic idea but couldn't score a game himself. So she turned to watch me and, as best as I could explain to somebody entering the first grade this fall, attempted to explain how it worked. I asked if she would help me out by letting me know if the pitch was a ball or a strike and she was more than happy to share her opinion, which usually differed wildly from that of the umpire (Side bar: She is going to grow up to be an awesome heckler some day. Or an umpire. Once she made the call, ball or strike, there was no changing her mind no matter how much grandpa or I might have tried to convince her otherwise).

Saints Pitcher Robert Coe took a perfect
game into the 7th and a no-hitter
into the 8th. I've never had a card
so clean so late in the game.

At last night's game, a young woman, at most in her early teens, and her father were walking with me down the street headed to the stadium. They weren't sure exactly where to go and I offered they could follow me there. She asked why I had my clipboard and if I worked for the team (I had a jersey and hat on and was carrying a clipboard. It's amazing how you can get any where if you walk with confidence and a clipboard). I said I didn't but I always keep a scorecard as a way to pay attention and look back if I think something seems odd or unusual. Her dad explained to her that the scorecard was an art form and from the card you could perfectly recreate the game. She asked if he knew how to score it and he had to admit he didn't. Somebody showed him once but he doesn't remember.

The Saints side of Coe's 1-hit
gem on Aug 5 2015

I love scoring the game. I'm sure it comes from the same place in my brain as my love of math and numbers that helped drive me in to engineering. And the scorecard is an art. Each person has their own style that they bring to it. The basic idea is always the same though and once you know how to read the card, a whole world opens up for you. Baseball, from its very beginning, will tell you all of its stories that are neatly locked away on a couple of sheets of paper. And it's not just the marks in the inning boxes. It's all the notes along the side, the personal things that stood out to you, that helped make that game special.

If you want to learn how to score a game, there are lots of great sites online. The Twins also help make it easy by posting what should go onto a scorecard on the big video board after each play and when a batter comes up. If you're ever at a Saints game with me (Section 103) or see me with my clipboard, stop on by, I'll happily teach you.

If you know how to score a game, teach a kid. Give them something that can connect them to the past of a game you love and one hopefully they will too.

The Day the BBC Called

I had an odd day a couple of weeks ago. There was a radio drama, The Great Charter, that I had listened to that updated the story of the Magna Carta and placed it into the future. It focused the rights of those on the internet, who owned data, who controlled information. It asked really good questions and framed them in a way that wasn't black-and-white. It made you think and didn't really make you comfortable with the answers it was willing to provide. It was a really good drama

Since I couldn't remember what time the show was on, and at the time, searching for "Great Charter BBC" just got me the BBC's charter, I tweeted one of the presenters that I interact with double-checking the time. She got back to me, I listened to it, it was great. I didn't think anything else of it.

Then, at 6 in the morning, when I couldn't sleep and I was playing on Twitter, I noticed I had a message from "Over To You BBC", the account for the listener feedback show asking if I could DM them and if I'd be willing to talk about the show. OK. Why not.

Four or Five messages later, I send over my phone number. Within two minutes the phone is ringing and the Caller-ID is showing a UK phone number. This was really happening. I answer the phone and the producer and I talk for about 15 minutes. She records the conversation to use parts of it in the show. As we're wrapping up, she said that they usually have a person live on the phone during the taping to ask questions and if I would be interested. This was a pretty easy "Yes". "Excellent! It'll be tomorrow morning at 2:00 PM BST so it'll be about 8:00 AM your time?" Completely doable.

I was given a "homework" assignment to come up with a couple of questions that I'd like to ask the director of the drama and the Commissioning Editor of the BBC (the person who picks what makes it to air). I wrote them up, the producer edited them, we emailed a couple of more times, and then I waited for 8:00 AM the next day for my phone to ring.

I answered the call and talked with the producer again, one of the technicians, and then the presenter Rajan Datar came on and started talking. This is a voice I had heard on my radio for countless shows. Now I'm on the phone with him. It was all a little surreal. In all, I'm on the phone about 45 minutes. They have their discussion about radio drama in general, I get to join the conversation and ask my questions, and then we chat for a bit after.

The strangest part, aside from the fact that I was on a phone call from London, was they kept thanking me for being up so early and talking with them. It was 8:00 AM. I'm normally up at 6:00 AM. In England, is it really OK not to be fully engaged and social before 9;00 AM? If so, I think I might start looking to move....

At any rate, the show aired 5 days later on Saturday. We sat and listened to it and my 10 minutes of talking the phone was cut down to just a minute or two, about what I expected for an edit. It'll be posted on their website until who knows when. After years of listening to the BBC overnight on the radio, it was an absolute thrill to finally be on the air and have my name up on the website.

Thanks Over to You!

Why I Hope Greece Votes No

I'm not Greek. My family isn't Greek. Unless it's buried somewhere in the holdings of my 401K, I don't own any stock or bonds in Greece. All told, I have very little at stake in the Greek referendum vote today and even less say in how it should go - I don't live there. But I really do hope they vote no today and I hope it leads to their exit of the EuroZone.

Greece made spending mistakes in the boom times of the 90s and early 2000s. They over borrowed, over leveraged, and general just went on like the party was never going to end. Not all that different, really, from how a number of countries and individuals spent money. But even if you say that Greece was worse than everybody else, that the corruption ran deeper, that the spending was even more foolish, you can't blame them entirely. They had to get the money from somewhere and it wasn't just Greek banks lending it out.

Across the EuroZone, banks from foreign countries were happy to lend money into Greece. If they didn't look into the country and see that there was a problem it seems to me like they didn't really do their fiduciary duties. And they didn't do those duties. Banks in Germany and France were highly exposed to Greek debt when everything started coming apart. The Governments of those countries stepped in to bail them out. And then turned, full financial guns beared, and aimed right at Greece and the Greek people.

The austerity measures that were put in place were really rather astonishing. Governments were dismissed and the people were told "Unless you elect who we want and they do what we want you aren't getting any money. We will let your economy collapse". It was really rather gut-wrenching to watch. It should have come as no surprise, yet it seemed to shock the ruling classes in Germany and France, that the Greek people would throw off this government and elect one that would fight back.

For example, could you imagine the outrage if New Jersey, Illinois, Delaware, and Minnesota (average of $0.44 returned for every $1.00 sent to the fed) got to step in and dismiss the state governments of Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, and New Mexico (average of $2.29 returned for every $1.00 sent to the fed)? It would huge. And it should be. When a group of Governments bands together the way the States did in 1787, and have agreed to do since as each new state was admitted, the rules change. They have to. European countries don't seem to have recognized that yet.

I remember thinking in the early 2000s, when the common currency was about to come in to the European market, that it seemed odd; it didn't make sense to me. The countries they were pulling together seemed too disparate to make it work. I didn't really think it would last. However, the boom times of the early 2000s let to go right along with out a problem and things seemed, on the outside, to be going ok.

The early ideas of the EuroZone, the single currency, the European Union as a whole, were to help unite the continent and prevent the wars that had ravaged it for centuries. Europe still may be able to get there, but I don't think they can do it under a system that looks a lot like the Articles of Confederation that the United States first tried. You can't have independent states tied that economically without a strong, central authority to help guide them through.

In the end, I hope Greece votes no. I hope it starts to lead to the break down of the European Union as we know it today so it can reform itself into something better. The fault lines that have caused so much bloodshed of the centuries are still there and preventing an all out shooting war should be a goal for everybody. But we also need to stop an all out finical war where two classes of countries exist. Europe is better than that. They just need to prove it.

Greece and the EU

I read an article today that was discussing how Greece and the new prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, was blowing the best chance that Greece had to renegotiate the terms of their debt and work out a better payment plan in exchange for further reforms to how the country is run. While I can’t find the exact article I read earlier (I thought I bookmarked it) the two others I found from Reuters and Business Insider are both written from the finance world perspective of “it makes so much sense for Greece to take these terms? What are they thinking??”

While I agree that on paper these deals look fine and make sense, there is one key thing that the authors, the people quoted in the story, and European financiers in general seem to be overlooking: This deal doesn't happen just on paper. This affects real people with real lives and is effectively destroying them.

I don’t know why people would expect anything different from a Prime Minster and a Government that was elected on the promise that they would roll back the imposed reforms and fight new ones being put in place. Since the financial collapse started in 2008, Greece as seen its unemployment rate go from around 8.00% to a high of 28.00% in late 2013 to current rate of 25.70%. Imagine that: a 2.3% drop in unemployment and you’re STILL sitting over 25%. Youth unemployment is currently sitting over 50%, down from a peak of 60%. Compare that to the US rate of 12.3%. No country or population would stand for it, especially over 5 years of it.

Greece made some poor decisions throughout the 90s and 2000s, when money was cheap and it was easy to spend. Their joining into the Euro though didn't do them any favors. Greece’s economy was never as strong as Germany’s or France’s and the idea that they would be tied to those countries without the ability to independently float their currency one way or the other always seemed odd to me.

The fact that Greece is roughly in rebellion against the EU right now really shouldn't surprise anybody. No group of people, especially one with as long and proud history as the Greeks have, wants to be told how they should live their lives. And while asking for reparations is rather dumb, Germany’s occupation of Greece in the 1940s still has to hold some cultural sway over people that will immediately cause distrust.

The easiest comparison, though probably somewhat simplified, that I can think of is the way that the US Government hands out money to the States. While there are some restrictions (e.g. seat belt and drunk driving laws on highway funding) on the money, for the most part the States can spend however they want. Could you imagine the uproar if state like Minnesota or Delaware, states that send more money to the Federal Government than they get back, were able to dictate exactly how states like Louisiana and Alabama would be able to spend money? It would never work. Forget the legal framework that prevents that here, the people themselves would never stand for it.

When looking at Greece, you have to picture it in that context. Yes their leaders spent beyond what they could, but everybody did that. It was pretty much encouraged. No, their economy wasn't based on something as strong as Germany’s or France’s and the collapse in 2008 cut them deeper. That doesn't mean you can come flying in and tell them you must fundamentally change the way you do everything overnight and not expect them to stand up and say “No!” I’m honestly surprised they put up with it as long as they did.

Greece needs to make changes in order to survive but the need to be done in a manner that makes sense and doesn't drive the country further in to a debt and poverty cycle from which they can never recover.

Germany needs to realize that they don’t hold all the cards here. While they are in the better situation economically, you have to imagine that Greece would be willing to do something drastic. At this point Germany has backed them into a corner and I can’t imagine that the Greek government is just going to say “Ok! It was all a bluff, we’ll do everything you say!” I have to imagine that they will fight. Whether that is to go into default, drop themselves from EU, or some other approach to wind themselves out of the Eurozone, I don’t know. What I do know is that a people that have been beaten down by a dysfunctional economy this long are going to want to fight back against something and right now the EU and Germany look like the easiest targets.

It would make more sense to allow Greece to gain some ground. Let them save face. And the concessions that Germany, the EU, and the IMF have to be willing to make can’t be small. They have to be significant enough that the Greek government can go back to the people and show them that they are able to get something other than slapped across the face. Otherwise Greece has nothing to lose and her politicians will continue to fight in that same mindset.

In Excelsis Deo

Sometimes life can imitate art. Last month, a homeless man died of exposure. He was a Marine Corps veteran and the Ramsey County Medical Examiner had trouble locating his family so they went to the public for help. They were able to find a brother down in Missouri to let him know. But the story doesn’t stop there.

Since he was a veteran they wanted to make sure that he had a proper burial, with military honors. A local funeral home worked to help put everything together and today Jerry Jackson was laid to rest at Fort Snelling National Cemetery with a Marine Corps Honor Guard.

For fans of the West Wing, this sounds exactly like the episode that shares its name with the title of this post. In Excelsis Deo (Season 1, Episode 10) was arguably the best that the show ever produced. To see a similar situation happening so close to where I live, I had to go to the services today. Jerry Jackson was a veteran. He deserved nothing less.

Fornuatenly, this is where life stops imitating art. In the show, there were four or five people, plus the honor guard, at the service. Today, for Mr. Jackson, around 150 people were there. The community turned out to make sure a veteran was shown the respect he had earned at the end of this life.

This story probably plays out more often than anybody would care to think about. Homelessness among veterans is above what it is for the general population. We need to work to change that. Those that served our country in the military, regardless of if they were drafted or volunteered, are giving up part of their lives for us. Even after they return from war, the mental and emotional toll is, for me, unimaginable.

It is to the credit of Mara Gottfried for making sure this story was told. We need more reporters like her. And thanks to Bob Collins for posting this at MPR where I saw it.

Though I never met you, thank you Mr. Jackson for serving your country.

And to all of the veterans that have served, thank you.

Album Review: Brandi Carlile: The Firewatcher's Daughter

I'll admit, I wasn't a big Brandi Carlile fan when she first really broke on to the scene with her song "The Story". I don't know if it was just over played, something I wasn't interested in, or what. I didn't enjoy the song, didn't enjoy her music, that was that.

Oops.

Over the last couple of years I've really started to like her music. The Americana-Rock style she sings in with the amazing harmonies one that I really love. The story telling her in lyrics is incredible. Her and the Twins (Phil and Tim Hanseroth) ability to make such amazing music is great.

I got to see them perform at the Wits show taped on February 27th (side bar: if you've never been to a Wits show, go. You will laugh. Hard. It will hurt you laugh so hard. It's just an awesome time) and as a special treat we were able to buy a copy of her new album, The Firewatcher's Daughter, at the show and not wait until it was released on March 3rd. I grabbed a copy and listened to it a few times over the next couple of days.

While talking about the album, Brandi mentioned that it was a bit of a departure from some of her other work and had more of a rock feel to it. If that's the case, I don't really hear it. It still has that great Americana feel to it, strong, driving percussive guitars, and beautiful melodies and harmonies that carry throughout it.

The two songs on the album that venture closer to rock, Mainstream Kid and The Stranger At My Door are both good songs. I was expecting more songs like these given how she described the album.

The first single of the album,Wherever Is Your Heart, is a great lead track. It really sets the tone of the album well and gets you in the mindset that this album is going to move.

I can't really pick a favorite track off of this one, there are so many that a great. The Eye, The Things I Regret, Wilder. all of them. It's an album that tells a story of being with somebody and being happy and getting through together.

It's a great album and one I'd highly recommend to buy. For a different review, check out Bill DeVille's over at The Current, who picked this as their Album of the Week.

Why I Have Trouble With The Stock Market

About a week and a half ago, Walmart announced that they were going to give a raise to their employees. Minimum wage workers would get a raise to $9/hour with plans for future raises later. This is a good thing. It’s a great thing. In general, offering a pay hike to minimum wage worker will pump more money back into the economy. This is the theory behind tax rebates: lower and middle income families will spend the money rather than just sit on it with investments. So how did Wall Street respond?

By beating the snot out of Walmart’s stock. For two days. Shares immediately opened the next day 3% lower and continued to drop throughout the day. The second date, another 1% drop out of the gate. Share prices did recover throughout the day, even closing above the previous day open, but still not back to where they were. And that’s my problem with Wall Street and investing in the market.

Screenshot from Google Finance.
The scale makes the drop look worse that it really is.

Walmart’s profits in 2014 were higher than the GDP of 152 countries. I think it’s ok if they share a little more of that profit with the people that help get them there.

The people who work in the banking and trade world are so disconnected from the reality of people living paycheck to paycheck that the thought of a company that made $129.74 billion in gross profit in the 12 months ending January 31 giving a raise to its lowest paid employees should be punished. I’ll give Walmart credit for taking the lead on this. $1 billion isn’t an insignificant amount of money. And for the people who are going to see those raises, it is going to be a great thing.

Which leads to the answer to the title of this post: The stock market doesn’t take a long view of anything. It’s all about what you can do for me right now, this instant. Any view beyond the next 5 minutes is irrelevant. Part of the reforms that were put in place following the 2008 financial collapse should have addressed that, but they were so gutted that they didn’t stand a chance. I just can’t think like that, I’m not wired to. Which is probably why I don’t work on Wall Street or, outside of my 401K, invest in stocks.

I’ve thought about it. I’d like to. The savings account that we have earns crap for interest and it would nice to put my money to work to earn more rather than just hang out with Wells Fargo. The problem is I don’t know where to invest it. I don’t shop at companies that behave or act in a manner that I don’t agree with and my investing would be no different. Even with companies that do behave well and act in a responsible manner, it’s really hard to join in to an investment system that is hell bent on self-destruction, not unlike an 18 year old at their first frat party kegger.

It would be nice if the people who work the levers of finance could grow up and start to act like the adults that their age would suggest they are. The idea of tying bonuses and pay to future results not just the current quarter is great. I think it’s a start. But it’s going to take people standing up and saying enough and voting with their feet and the wallets to help reform this system. And change is never going to be easy with a group that can lobby so well.

Hopefully we can all start to take a look at the long game and not just focus on what happens in the next hour or the next day. Planning for the future, even far enough out to where you might not be a part of it, isn't a bad thing. And any temporary pain it may cause is just that: temporary. The rewards that you and future generations will get to reap will be amazing.

Our Pale Blue Dot

It’s been 25 years since one of the best photos of Earth was taken. The one from beyond Neptune’s orbit. If you ever want to feel a little less significant, just take a look at that photo and think about what Carl Sagan said:

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

It’s something to think about.

Last night was a beautifully clear night in Brooklyn Park and you could see the stars fairly well, ignoring all the light pollution. Orion stood guard high in the sky. The Big Dipper pointing towards the North Star, guiding people along their way. Jupitar hanging high in the air suspended amongst the constellations.

The whole time I’m looking up, I can’t help but wonder when we’ll meet the next race that is out there. There’s no way we can be alone in this Universe, it’s too big and too vast and far too arrogant of a thought to even consider that we’re alone.

It will be both exciting and scary when we meet travelers from a distant planet or distant star system. It will be an entirely new experience. I hope that we are up to the challenge. If the way we act towards each other is any indication, it’s not going to go well and the odds of starting an interstellar war are damn high. Let’s see if we can avoid that.

Today is St. Valentine’s Day; a day meant for love. Let’s expand on that idea bit. Don’t just love your significant other, try to love everybody. Try to forgive and understand. Try to empathize. Try to do this every day, not just today.

On our pale blue dot, floating in space, so fragile, so small compared to the universe. It’s the only home that we have. Let’s see if we can’t make it a little more like home and spread love all around.

Puppy Parodies: I Only Wanna Be With You

I was watching our dog Amelia run around like a crazy beast this morning being the goofball that she is and the idea for this struck me. The first verse rolled out as I was saying it and I just took it from there.

"Only Wanna Be With You" ~ To the tune of the Hootie and the Blowfish song of the same name

You and me, we come from different worlds,

You like to laugh at me when I’m barking at the squirrels.

Sometimes I’m crazy, and you wonder why,

It’s ‘cause I’m a puppy and I like to make you smile.

Well there’s nothing I can do...

I only wanna be with you.

You can call me your fool,

Amelia - The inspiration for this song

I only wanna be with you

Puttin’ on my leash and goin’ for a walk,

I think “this life is great” as I begin to trot.

Kids and puppies with which to play,

Sniffs to sniff along the way

And you know when I get home in my sunbeam I will lay

Can’t help it if I’m lucky,

I only wanna be with you.

Yeah I’m passed out now it’s true,

I only wanna be with you.

Sometimes I wonder, if this’ll ever end,

I get so lonely when you go out with your friends.

Then you come home, and it’s an awesome time

As we play squeaky ball late into the night.

Yeah there’s

nothing I can do,

I only wanna be with you!

Oh I’m actin’ like a fool,

Cause I only wanna be with you!

Yeah I’m tangled up in you!

I’m only gonna be with you!

Building a Better Metro Transit, Part 3

The last (for now) part in this involves something I'm not great at - the inner ring. I've never lived in an inner ring suburb and I don't have a lot of friends that I know that have lived in an inner ring suburb. So, what I'm really saying is that this post is going to be a little light.

Now my only experience here is with the west metro. East metro inner ring.... yeah, sorry, I have no clue. I can't remember half of your names sometimes... sorry about that. From what I can tell, there is quite a bit of bus service into the inner ring, which is a good thing. I think that this can serve as a model for the outer ring. There's not much of a difference between the east parts of Plymouth and Minnetonka than there is from Golden Valley and St. Louis Park.

I'm not sure why Metro Transit treats the cities so differently. It's almost like 169 is a giant "NONE SHALL PASS!!!" and every now and again a Metro Transit bus sneaks by. It should be better than that. If you've ever played Sim City (and you should) one of the things the adviser tells you with transit is that people won't walk real far between bus stops. If you've ever lived in an area where there's more than a 5 to 10 minute walk between stops, you know how true this is.

The inner ring seems to get this. I see quiet a few stops, especially along major highways (3, 7, 5, 9, 10) rather frequently that would encourage and allow people to take a bus. What I don't understand is why more cities don't expand on that concept. While the park and rides are nice, if I'm going to drive 10 minutes or so to get to a park and ride, you better make it worth my while.

We also need to keep improving on our biking system. Minneapolis has done a good job starting to add bike lanes in. The trail system is actually rather amazing to wind through the city while avoiding a lot of traffic. The next step is for those of us that are drivers to do a better job of paying attention to bicyclists and sharing the rode. And none of the crap of "well bikers violate traffic rules too". Yes, sure they do. But I would be willing to bet 95% of them do it because trying to share the road with drivers is so blasted unsafe that rolling a stop sign or a red light is just easier than being bunched with a bunch of 3500+ pound death machines.

I know all of the ideas I offer here are overly simplistic and assume unlimited money and assume that the "If you build it they will come" theory holds true: add routes and people will ride them. I know that's not really the case and it would take a lot of work and time to get people to ride the trains and buses in the numbers it would take to really put a lot of these into place. It also involves a complete rethink of our relationship with cars, especially in the suburbs.

We are a changing society though and I think some of these things are going to start to have to happen. More and more stories are coming out where teens are driving less and I don't think that trend is going to reverse. People want more walkable, transit focused areas. This is a good thing but it does come at a cost, which is mostly a change in mindset.

If you think transit could be better in the Twin Cities, or wherever you live, talk to your local city council members, state representatives or senators, or county commissioners. Anecdotal evidence and surveys are wonderful but nothing can drum up support like letters and phone calls directly from constituents.

Building a Better Metro Transit, Part 2

This post could also be subtitled "How Not To Screw Over the Suburbs".

In my post the last week, I talked about what I would do if I could rebuild the Metro Transit system and got to make all the decisions. Primarily, I laid out what my thoughts on public transit it should be, who it should serve, and what the overall goals it should accomplish are. I started with the easy part: tying together Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, like they are now, with a couple of changes.

Now, to tackle the part that I think is the worst with the Metro Transit system: how they deal with the suburbs. Or, how they just kind of ignore them.

I live in Brooklyn Park, not far away from the big new Park and Ride they built at Nobel and 610. This is a great facility and it was needed to help with all of the traffic that the park and ride is getting. But it seems mostly to be focusing on an older crowd. I say this because of how early the bus service stops to there. As far as I can tell, the latest you could really leave downtown Minneapolis and make it back would be 7:30pm for an 8:00pm arrival time. Not great if you're a younger professional who likes to go out after work or wanted to head downtown for a few drinks and not worry about driving.

And forget the weekend. There isn't service out of that station at all on the weekends. It would be a great place to park so you wouldn't have to drive downtown for weekend sporting events, theatre shows, or just to go out with friends. But it's just not possible.

I'm guessing that the main argument against adding service is that nobody would ride it. I think this is partly a chicken and the egg problem. The housing market up here is such that younger (35 and under) professionals can buy a decent house with a nice lawn for not too much money. A number of my friends live near here. All of us are in favor of going out downtown now and again and would probably do so more often if we could take a bus.

When we lived in Plymouth, right at the corner where 55, 169, and 394 come together, it was the same problem. The last bus out from downtown left a little before 10. After that you were on your own looking for a taxi. We would always see a lot of younger people riding the bus in to go downtown but unless you wanted a shorter night, there was no way to get back out to the suburbs to make it home.

So, if I was in charge, I would increase the number of routes out to the outer ring suburbs and make a big push to try and increase ridership. Buses running to the outer right that have a last leaving downtown around midnight should be more than enough to help people get home who wanted to go out safely, especially on weekends.

The second thing that needs to be done is to increase the number of suburb to suburb routes without going to downtown for a transfer. The hub-and-spoke system has a lot of advantages and really does make a lot of sense but there are a lot of big suburbs that should be able to support inter-city transport without routing through Minneapolis (yes, I'm focusing on the west because that's where I live. I'm assuming the same holds true for the east).

For example, one or two routes a day running between Maple Grove, Plymouth, Minnetonka, and Eden Prairie down 494 would link the west together quiet easily. Even on the weekends it would help get people out to the various shops and malls along that route. It would take quite a bit of promotion to help get it going but a few pictures of a bus zooming by the parking lot that is 494 or 169 during rush hour I would think do the trick.

Really this last part boils down to you need to link the four parts of the outer ring suburbs with each other in a way that doesn't involve downtown. You could do this via bus or via train. I think the logical grouping would be Maple Grove to Eden Prairie in the west, Eden Prairie to Inver Grove Heights in the south, IGH to North St. Paul in the east, and NSP to Maple Grove in the north. There might be a few better breaks in their (Fridley in the north, Bloomington in the South) but that gets the general idea across.

Next up, I'll try to talk about the inner ring suburbs (not an area I have a lot of experience with) and non-motorized transit.

Building a Better Metro Transit System

This idea came from one of my Twitter friends, Kate Hamlin (@Aprl24KT) when I was saying that I needed something to write about. She threw out a range of topics so I picked the easiest one: how I would I make the public transportation system in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area better. (Note: easiest here is to be read as I’ve had a lot of cold medicine and was of the idea of “Sure! Why not!!)

This is a wide ranging topic regarding funding, accessibility, availability, property rights, and who knows what else I’m forgetting. If I’m going to do this right, it’s probably going to be a multi-post topic. Also, the engineer in me says that I need to fact check, do research, and cite other sources who know way more about this than I do, and in general make sure I know what I’m talking about. This initial post will probably be pretty light in that regard and mostly just get out my opinions and preconceived notions on what makes in my mind.

The first question that I think needs to be asked regarding public transit is “What is the goal that you are trying to achieve?” The obvious answer is move people from point A to point B in the most efficient manner possible. The devil is always in the details though. While thinking of the things that I want in a transit system the idea that needs to prevail is “What will benefit the most people and the least cost?” From that point of view, I’ll try and lay out my ideas for what I think will help make a better transit system.

First I think you need to tie the three central cities together: Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Bloomington with a method that moves a lot of people at a high rate. We've already achieved the infrastructure with light rail system. The first change I would make is to ensure that the trains have priority over automobile traffic. Making sure the trains move through intersections without needing to stop at red lights will, I believe, increase ridership and the efficiency of the trains.

The next thing to look at is the number of stops that the trains make. When the Green Line (Minneapolis Target Field to St. Paul Union Depot) was first running, there were some complaints that the trains were too slow going between the downtowns. This is a valid concern IF you look at the trains as express trains between the downtowns, which would be ideal for executives and suburbanites trying to cross from the west to the east. If you look at it as a way to move people who live on or near the line to other spots on or near the line that aren't necessarily downtown, then it takes on a different purpose.

This is the first spot where I’d really make a change from what we have now. I think during a rush hour that you need a couple of express trains that run between the downtowns and the airport. Three or four stops at one end, three or four at the other, and then just cruise through the middle without slowing down (again, traffic timing needs to be fixed to allow this). If I had my way (and it’s my blog so I do) I’d probably add a third rail that just runs the express trains. Maybe you don’t need it though if you can get the timing down.

This seems like a good place to break this post up at. My next post will focus on how I would change the routes with the suburbs, both bus and train. As always, feel free to add any thoughts you have to the comments. 

How Many More Breweries Can The Twin Cities Support?

I don't actually know the answer to that question, but it is one that I find myself asking more often as it seems a new brewery is opening up ever couple of weeks in the Twin Cities area. It makes me think at some point there's going to be a saturation level where some of these places start failing. There was one in Stillwater a few years ago that closed (I don't remember the name) and Pour Decisions and Bent Brewery merged, but those have been the only examples I know of so far.

The reason I'm wondering this is as we go to more and more of these places and try them out, we're finding that they don't really stand out. It's not that they are making bad beer but they aren't doing anything exciting with it. And at least three of the places that we've been to, there wasn't a lot of variation in the taste between their IPA, the brown, a pale ale, or anything else on the menu. It was just disappointing, really.

That's not to say that all of the breweries that have opened up in the last few years are bad. Indeed Brewing is doing some amazing stuff, especially at the tap room with their infusions. Bent Paddle up in Duluth is just incredible. (Yeah, not the Twin Cities area I know. But I've been playing a lot of Ticket to Ride lately and well that messes with my sense of where Duluth is.) I've also enjoyed Tin Whiskers, Fulton, Northbound (disclosure: I'm an investor there), and Steel Toe.

I'm interested though to see how this can keep going, especially as people try to can or bottle more for distribution. I would think at that point the market is going to come in to play and some of these places will either start to fail or need to scale way back on product. Which leads to another interesting thought I had about the boom.

Are microbreweries the new neighborhood bar? A lot of the breweries have really cool and inviting spaces, they are well stocked on board and card games, and don't offer food giving people the option of bringing in things from home or working with various local restaurants or food trucks. In that vein, a lot of breweries could exist occasionally bringing in outside folks but mostly relying on a strong, close local core of guests that really keeps them going.

None of this is me wanting any of these places to fail. I'm just not sure how they all succeed. I'm by no means an expert in beer or tasting either so "It all tastes the same" to me could just be me not getting it. But I also know I'm not the only one with that opinion. For the people involved that love what they are doing, I hope as many of these places can succeed as possible. For me though, it's just been disappointing visiting another brewery where everything just kind of tastes the same.

There are a lot of great beer people out there and if anybody has any thoughts or just thinks I'm off my rocker, feel free to comment.

A News Org Stopped Using Click-Bait Headlines! You Won't Believe What Happened Next!!

Nothing. Nothing happened. No news org in 2015, or for who knows how long going forward, will stop using click-bait headlines. Buzzfeed et. al. have proven that it works way to well.

But, thanks for clicking through to this post. Read the rest of the blog and enjoy! Hope to see you back soon!!