Sorry to miss you last week, but I was on vacation in the woods of northern Ontario. At the same time, Nancy, our son, and his fiancee and her family were in Portugal, planning their 2027 wedding. I was invited to go along, but figuring that it was the bride, her sister, the mother of the bride, and the mother of the groom, nobody was going to listen to my opinion anyway… So I took the dogs and went fishing! Turned out it was a good thing I did. On Monday night, I started on my next career as a travel agent when a telecom issue shut down many major East Coast airports including Newark.
Nancy, Jimmy, and Ava were half way across the Atlantic from Lisbon to Newark when their plane turned around and went back. That’s when I was enlisted to find other travel plans. I booked all three for two days later (earliest available flight) while communicating with them via airplane wifi (shaky at best). They landed back in Lisbon to find out the airline had already re-booked them, but on three separate flights two days apart, with Nancy and Ava flying Lisbon-San Francisco- New York. Rather than fly cross country, and rather than wait two days, Nancy suggested Toronto as an initial destination. So, I booked that option and then had to find something for TO to CLE. Three hours later, we were all booked (and reasonably happy), but now needing refunds on $7K of refundable flights from Lisbon to NYC. Still working on that one, but everybody is home and I have my next profession.
That said, Thoughts from my Inbox won’t be going away anytime soon. Scroll on down for Lorem Ipsum (on purpose this time), ejection seats, September 9th, and more! Enjoy.
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Lorem Ipsum
In my most recent post two weeks back, a couple of the segments had what looked to be Latin text beneath my content. A few engaged readers took the time to point that out and question me as to what it was. It’s actually referred to as “lorem ipsum” and is used as placeholder text, whether by printers or web designers. In my case, our web designer created a template for me to use when I put this newsletter together each week. To show me where the text goes, she inserted lorem ipsum and for some reason, there were two instances where that placeholder text wasn’t deleted. Now you know…
September 9
Wishing I’d had this one two weeks ago, but it just ended up in my inbox this morning. I have three friends whose birthdays are September 9th (and another on September 13th), which is why this one jumped out at me; It turns out that September is the most common birth month, and September 9th the most common day.
You can probably figure out why September is so popular, but if not, you can read more…
AI Disinformation
I’ve always said that hackers are really smart people and that they should put their efforts to use for something good, like curing cancer. But instead they keep coming up with ways to scam people out of their money. In this case, they’re using search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to drive web traffic to websites full of dis- and misinformation. AI agents then view those sites as legitimate and as having valid information which is then provided to people in search of answers.
By now everybody knows that when you go to AI for answers, you can’t just take those answers as gospel. (That disclaimer should be applied to anything you see on social media, too.) This recent development is all the more reason to “trust but verify”. When AI suggests a website as having answers to your questions, you still need to think before you click. AI is great, but it’s not always correct!
FBI Data Breach
A hacker group claims to have exfiltrated two terabytes worth of FBI data- personally identifiable information on all current agents and many who applied for FBI jobs. As the “expert” who was quoted in this article states “I can’t believe the FBI would leave all that data just sitting there”… Well, it is the government, after all.
WordPress Security Patch
According to AI, approximately 42% of websites on the internet are built on WordPress. And taking my own advice from above, I didn’t just rely on AI for that answer. I then scrolled through numerous search results from valid sources, all of which confirmed anywhere between 41-43% of sites are built on WP.
That means there’s a high likelihood that your website is built on WordPress, and that means you (or your web developer) need to apply the appropriate patches and updates to avoid a significant security threats.
Ejection Seats
Here’s one I’d never heard before… anytime a pilot safely ejects from their plane, they’re automatically initiated into a club of their peers. One ejection seat manufacturer claims to have saved over 7,000 lives with their explosive seats.
That’s all for this week. Indians are in the playoffs, Browns got a win, and the weather is beautiful. What more can we ask for other than another ALC championship and a Buckeyes win???
Have a great weekend!
Abbey