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Thoughts From Abbott’s Inbox August 27th, 2021

Thoughts From My Inbox

August 27th, 2021

Birthdays, Baseball History, and Hurricane Hackers

Today’s update is heavy on cybersecurity and sports- both very important topics.  We’re enjoying one more day of vacation on the beach in North Carolina, but I couldn’t go a week without sharing all the interesting things that made their way to my inbox this week.

 

Something About…

 

Birthdays

Happy birthday to my wife, Nancy! She’s now put up with me for 52 years. Oddly enough, today is also my birthday.  I’m two hours older, and we were delivered by the same doctor at McDonald House (now UH Rainbow).  I grew up with two other kids who were delivered by that same doctor on that same fateful morning in 1969. There’s your bizarre story for the week.

 

Cleveland Indians History

I came across this article about Bob Feller, who 85 years ago this week pitched his first game for the Cleveland Indians, at the ripe old age of 17.  He ended up living in Gates Mills, where I grew up (along with the other two kids I know who share our birthday), and I played Little League baseball on Feller Field. 

While I know a lot about Bob Feller, I’d never even heard of Indians pitcher Ray Caldwell, who on August 24th, 1919 was struck by lightning while standing on the mound during a Tribe game.  He was knocked cold for five minutes, then got up to get the last out of the game!

 

 

 

Hurricanes and Hackers

Just a friendly reminder from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) that hackers are always out there to take advantage of a bad situation.  In this case, hurricanes.  Since we’re in peak hurricane season, there will be plenty of fraudulent emails kicking around asking for donations for hurricane victims.  Many will be scams (as is normally the case). 

 

 

 

 

Smishing

There’s a new round of smishing (phishing via text message, or “SMS”) attacks out there, so this is a good reminder to be careful what text messages you open and click.  

 

NFTs

 

If you haven’t already gotten me a birthday gift, it’s not too late to drop a million on a digitally created picture of a rock.  Or you can just get me a 12 pack of your favorite IPA.

 

Drone Footage

Wow.  Came across this amazing drone footage of the Dallas Cowboys facility.  Seems the operator really knows how to fly these things! (late breaking news; the Miami Dolphins just did the same thing.  The Browns tried, but the drone crashed into a wall.)

 
Real Estate

I got an article this week about a parking space for sale in Toronto for $120K (and since it’s from a Canadian website, I imagine that’s Canadian currency.  So actually, that’s only $95K USD).  I knew I’d seen spaces going for a lot more than that over the years, so I did a quick Google search.  Sure enough, the first result was a website listing spots available in Boston. The highest price parking space currently listed goes for $350,000.

 

 
Military Cybersecurity

 The Mansfield Air National Guard base looks to be the choice for the new USAF cybersecurity wing.  It came down to Mansfield and Minneapolis- St. Paul Intl’l Airport and Mansfield won out.  Assuming all goes through, it’ll bring 175 new jobs to the Mansfield area. 

The State of Cybercrime

The first mention I saw of the Mansfield airbase was behind a Crain’s paywall. That same article referenced the fact that Ohio ranked 3rd in the US in terms of 2020 losses per person due to cybercrime ($12,280).  Kentucky had the lowest losses per person at just over $1,000.  According to FBI data, business email compromise was the most costly type of cybercrime, averaging $96K per incident.  Ohio also ranked highly in in BEC losses, coming in at number two with an average loss of $267,000 per incident. 

College Football and Weddings

This one is behind a paywall (sorry), but The Athletic is well worth the subscription price.  Anyway, due to the slowdown in 2020, there are expected to be 2.8 million weddings this year, compared to 2.2 million in 2019.  Per the article, many of those are on Saturdays and that really conflicts with college football.  And yes, I did once (maybe twice, although that time, I made the reception) miss a wedding for an Ohio State game.  But it was a second marriage and it only lasted for a few years.  

 

I hope you’ve had a great week, and that the weekend will be even better!  Don’t forget that if you have a Thought worthy of publication, you can click that green box below and send it my way.  There’s still lots of Ashton swag to be had!

 

 

Best,

Jim

 

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