Word of the Day - Security

Word of the Day

Security

noun
1.
freedom from danger, risk, etc.; safety.
2.
freedom from care, anxiety, or doubt; well-founded confidence.


Tim and I walked out of Walmart this evening with a handful of purchased goods and the security alarm went off. I was like, "Screw it. I'm running to the car." And I did.

I know this seems childish, but I'm tired of those things going off because some lazy cashier didn't swipe to deactivate the magnetic strip on my new PC game. That's right, it's mine. I paid for it. As definition number one states, I have the freedom from danger, risk, etc. Why? Because I have a receipt that says the product is mine. I am free from the danger of going to jail for shoplifting.

Last I checked, running is not a crime.

Walmart folks probably know they have a loose policy because human error almost always accounts for 99.9% of false alarms. So when these devices go off, nobody cares. And you know what? Nobody came after us either, and then I wondered why.

What if they had come after us? They would have checked our receipt and discovered, yet again, their security system is flawed.

Staff policy enforcer asks, "So, if you were innocent, why were you running?" 

"Because your fat ass was chasing me!"

Um, yeah. I think I did.

So why even bother to have this system in place if you're not going to run after us and check our receipts, or only do so discriminately? Sure it would be embarrassing to cause such a ruckus in the parking lot, but if you're using the alarm system as a deterrent, then you have to police a little better than this, right?

The funnier matter is watching the alarm go off on other folks who haven't gotten fed up just yet. They look around all astonished, turn back toward the store workers, hands and bags in the air hoping for assistance, and all the while, they have shock and disgrace written all over their faces.

WTF!? I paid for this shit!

A worker then walks toward the victim, who has now attracted the attention of every single person in the store, and says, "Oh, that's okay. Someone probably just forgot to swipe the security strip on a product you bought." They wave at the customer and motion for her to go ahead and leave, as if that customer had been officially detained somehow.

This is an example of the second definition of security. The store worker has the freedom from care, anxiety, or doubt; well-founded confidence. She's confident that something didn't get swiped. How so? Because, SHE forgets to do that shit all the time!

I wonder if you can sue major businesses when their security policies cause undue embarrassment and emotional duress like these stupid false alarms, because if you don't enforce properly, this becomes a bullying mechanism at best.


What security systems baffle you due to their uselessness?




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A Kitten Makes Her Escape (video)

In the name of making progress, my daughter brought home this poor kitten who'd been abandoned. The little critter had such a spirit about her, I couldn't give up this opportunity to share my video. Oblivious to her surroundings, she finished off her food and planned for an escape.

Granted, my video production skills suck, but you get the idea. Hopefully, you will agree that this is indeed making progress. Next time, this will not be the mission impossible. It will be the mission accomplished as so eloquently stated by our beloved President George W. Bush.

Enjoy!

P.S. No animal was hurt in the production of this video (maybe a few increased patterns of heart palpitations, but that's okay).

Cheats, Hacks, and Walkthroughs

Ever wonder how some people seem to breeze through a game with little to no frustrations? One day the gaming industry will wise up and stop creating difficult games and then providing solutions to "get around" the difficult obstacles. I mean, what's the point, right?

I work all day long analyzing, creating, problem solving, and debugging technical glitches. My mind is literally exhausted when I get off work. The last thing I want to do is sit down and play an online RPG and struggle with the logic of the story and the technical mechanics of the game play. Forget that it sucks when you die. It’s worse when some kid reaches level 100, dons a cape of invisibility and kills you with one thrust of his triple action bullwhip all the while screaming, "Die old lady!" This is the society we've created.

Well, I'm fighting back! I'm going to educate all those people like me who want to get back at these little cheaters, fight them at their own game. We need to take back our pride, show them we can do it too! Grab your walking canes, ladies and gents. So here goes.

First, you need to know the difference between 3 universal terms you'll find almost everywhere in the gaming world. Do not use them lightly. They are each very specific.

Cheats

Cheats are special instruction codes shared amongst an elite group of players who, by way of leaks, receive them from those designers "in the know".

Scenario #1

I'm a software developer and I create a game called Diane's Dungeon, and I decide I'm going to create a special command or a group of commands which do special things. It could be anything from creating a crap load of gold or doubling your experience points so you can level up faster. On release day, I whisper to my friends who are aching to exact revenge on the kid down the road for kicking their asses in Diablanco III, a game created by my arch nemesis (who also made cheats for his game).

My friends tell their friends, who in turn tell their friends. Before you know it, everyone is a millionaire level 100 who beat the game already. It's not the end for the designer though, no worries. The gamers who really enjoy figuring things out on their own will take a leisurely stroll through the game world and request some assistance along the way until they are about 90 years old and still haven't beat the game, but we'll learn about walkthroughs shortly. I want to talk a little about hacks.

Hacks

Hacks are designed by third party people who are not responsible for the game itself. These persons may have an awareness of unique features of a game and they utilize those features to enhance the user experience (I like the sound of that).

This is all client side stuff, so if you connect to a multi-user server and expect to keep your new enhancements, think again. Not all is lost though. You can seek out any number of hacker havens, places where you and other "enhancement seeking" players can log in and duke it out with your new hacked uber powers.

Scenario #2

If I’m lucky, I might get to level 100 by the time I'm 90 years old. Gaming is unbelievably time-consuming! But being the true hacker that I am, I want to see just how skilled I would be using my magic at level 100. I log into one of my hacker havens, perform the hack steps and increase my levels, TA DA! Uber fighter dude does the same thing.

Now we battle it out, a level 100 mage and a level 100 fighter. The fighter wins because he took additional steps in hacking room C, which got him unlimited amounts of healing potion. Silly me! I'll be ready next time. Just have to remember the healing hack.

Neither one of those scenarios ever got me too excited. I got bored too easily. Once you hit the maximum level, there’s nothing left to do! Cheat codes to get the most powerful weapons are no good when you’re in the newbie area. What are you going to do? Maul a tiny rat with a 3-skull, flaming flail? When you get to be my age, all that desire for the fancy stuff sort of dies, but you don’t want to stop discovering the fun, cool things by doing it the right way, the way game experience is intended. That’s why when I get stuck anymore, I use a walkthrough, or better yet, the Universal Hint System.

Walkthroughs

A walkthrough is the simplest form of cheating which does not harm the integrity of the game code or your PC. It is nothing more than a step by step instruction on what actions to take in order to beat a foe, clear an area, find a stone, or enter a secret passage. You name it and it will be covered in a walkthrough.

Scenario #3

Up until a point in the game, everything had been easy. You’re a level 10 warrior, but every time you try to enter the “Cave of Untouchables” a giant tarantula comes crushing through the wall and eats you. You’re at your wit’s end, it’s 2:00 a.m. and you have to go to work in the morning.

Google: Planet of Aros Cave of Untouchables tarantula walkthrough

Voilà! The step by step instructions lead you to the entrance, but before you enter the cave, you must click on the ninth point of the chandelier hanging above a pile of stones. Really. Isn’t it enough to make you want to strangle the programmer who came up with that logic? I’m not making this up either. No wonder kids need cheats and hacks!

And there you have it, in simplest terms and no techie talk, just good old fashioned English. Now, let’s go find us a game to play.  My favorite of all time was Baldur’s Gate. Do you have a favorite game? Multiplayer or single player?

The Triple B Caption Contest

I took this photograph while visiting the Butterfly House at Brookgreen Gardens in Myrtle Beach, SC. It sort of reminded me about a book which I'm currently reading called Bullies, Bastards and Bitches by Jessica Morrell.

When I snapped the photo, I didn't realize there was this little fella sharing the leaf with the object of my camera lens. Imagine my surprise when I uploaded my digital files to my computer for editing.

Inspired by my new discovery, I decided to hold a caption contest. The winner will receive a $25.00 Barnes & Noble gift certificate and I will update this photograph with the winning caption the first week of July and repost it.

Please leave your captions in the comments below with an email address where you can be reached should your entry become the winner of this challenge. You should disguise your email address like so: diane-carlisle at comcast dot net. I'll know what you mean!

And the winner is...Deb Claxton! Congrats, Deb. Please email me when you receive your gift certificate.

All About My 5th Grade Bully

by Diane Carlisle

I commented about school lunches on April Plummer's blog this past week and it got me thinking about childhood traumas, or what I call childhood dramas today. This led me to thinking about an issue which has become a huge problem today, and not only amongst children either. Bullying is becoming so widespread, or is it just getting more visibility because of social media and technological advances?

I remember the girl who bullied me when we were in 5th grade. I can envision her face as I'm writing this. When I see her, this child who must have been lashing out, but at what I couldn't begin to tell you, she is just that, a small child.

Her name was Ellen Mathews (name changed to protect her in case she’s a changed person today). She always wore a dress. She didn't wear new dresses. They were old and two sizes too big. Her hair wasn't glistening and shiny like the other black girls whose moms had obviously taken care to comb, braid and polish their hair before sending them off to school.

Ellen's hair was scary. I can only imagine that she had to do her own hair. Her braids were loosely twisted together like the hairy legs of a tarantula spider and they looked like they had a fine layer of volcanic ash dusted over them. Her skin wasn't golden, chocolaty or brown, it was an ashy black and her eyes the same. She knew I was afraid of her and I think that made things worse.

Why do I remember her so vividly? Because up until that point, I'd never been bullied in my life. Sure I'd been in arguments and fights with other kids, but being bullied is a whole different issue. I'd never felt so alone as I did when I was bullied, and that face and her demeanor, mannerisms and all, will never go away.

Such little things a person can do to terrify another person and she probably didn't realize it. Maybe someone was doing it to her, I don't know. But, how else does a child learn that kind of behavior? I mean to ball up your fist, bug out your eyes with an angry grimace and silently mouth to someone you barely know, “I’m a get you.” That doesn’t just come from a 5th grade little girl.

I remember once we were on our way to the library and she walked up next to me and started teasing me and so I sped up. Then she sped up so that we were neck and neck again. I slowed down and so did she. I was afraid and she knew it. Then she said, "I'm a beat you up when we get out the library."

I didn't say anything back, I just kept walking. My entire session at the library was spent worrying about being beat up. Ten minutes before the bell rang, she looked over and stared at me. I glanced away, but each time I looked up again, she was still staring at me and her face looked angrier and angrier. It was like the first time I'd watched The Wizard of Oz and Miss Gulch rode by on her bike during the tornado and then turned into the wicked witch of the west. I remember all I wanted to do was go home.

I felt claustrophobic. All the other children at my table seemed to be caught up in their own groups, laughing and whispering with each other, and the librarian was busy cataloguing books. It was the loneliest feeling I'd ever experienced. I should have told a teacher, but I didn't want to bother anyone with my little issue. I didn't want anyone to know I was afraid, that this little girl who was smaller than me was making me afraid.

Anyway, she beat me up like she said she would. I was shoved and pushed against another child, who got mad at me for stumbling into them and thus pushed me back into the bully. Of course, they couldn't get mad at the person responsible for pushing me into them, right? The whole time I wanted to apologize to each person I stumbled into in hopes that they'd forgive me and not join the harassment.

Of course, I didn't tell my parents because I didn't get punched in the eye or mouth, no black eye or fat lip. She didn't hit me, just lots of shoving and pushing which sort of injured my pride a bit. Then a teacher got word that there was a "fight" and Ellen and I both had to write "I will not fight in school" five hundred times each. Sad, isn't it?

The next morning I remember going into my parent's bedroom and whispering to my mother, "I don't feel good. Can I stay home from school?" The dreaded hand to my forehead to check my temperature was an indication that I'd be going to school to face my bully yet again.

This sort of thing didn't happen every day. But you just never knew when it was going to happen. How do you prepare yourself to face such a person? There was always that day when I'd show up at school and Ellen didn't. CHA-CHING!! Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty, free at last! Well, at least for that one day.