A Hacked Instagram Account

I woke up this morning and started the day with my usual routine. Shortly after I got out of bed, my wife received a phone call. I initially thought it to be a work associate but then I discovered her sister called. My wife's Instagram account got hacked and her sister wanted to warn her to update her password. My wife immediately went into her office and changed her Instagram password. My son also sent my wife a text message letting her know her account had been hacked.

Now I will confess that I don't even own an Instagram account so I am not sure how my son and wife's sister knew the account had been hacked. When I talked to my wife she said they both received "Follow" requests and incoherent messages. I assume that meant the hacker tried to contact all of my wife's Instagram connections. If I hacked my wife's account I assure you I would have been much more intelligent in my actions. I probably would have promoted my YouTube channel or something equally beneficial to me.

After changing Instagram credentials my wife logged into her Facebook account and changed her password there. Facebook owns Instagram and the two services are tightly linked and a breach in one account could lead to a breach in the other. Unfortunately my wife's Facebook account initially wouldn't let her change the password. She had to force a security code to be sent her and then she could change it. My guess is that the IP address associated with our Google Fiber account recently updated and it looks to Facebook like my wife is using an unknown computer to access the service. Ultimately my wife updated both Facebook and Instagram login credentials.

Now the question I have is how someone hacked my wife's account in the first place. Unfortunately all I can do is guess. Perhaps they discovered her password that is common with another account. That would be my first guess and underscores the importance of using separate passwords for all of your different logins. Other additional security measures include 2-factor or multi-factor authentication and passphrases that rely on face recognition or fingerprints. Unfortunately we live in a time when passwords may not be enough.

Time For New Skis

Recently I have been in the market for a new pair of skis. Knowing this, I have been keeping my eyes open for a good deal on a new pair. This is the time of the year when you can usually find the best deals and so I expected to find something soon. I am not too picky as I really am focused on getting the best deal possible. That means I want a high-quality ski for a low price. I'm sure ski manufacturers hate me.

Since Labor Day I have been visiting local ski shops and looking at all of my online sources to see what kind of deals I can get. Yesterday I got an e-mail from a company that caters to outdoor enthusiasts and provides severely discounted products should you qualify to receive their rock-bottom deals. This is the same site where I got my Suunto watch back in June.

Now this is an important point that I hope all online marketers understand: When a person is interested in purchasing something, a timely e-mail is appreciated. When a person has already purchased that thing, your e-mail is annoying. The trick is to be able to accurately figure out when your product is wanted and when it is no longer needed.

I logged into the site and could look at new skis from a number of top manufacturers. As I mentioned above, I am not that picky about skis. Then I saw the list of manufacturers and realized I might be a bit more picky than I originally thought. I am not that picky about skis as long as they come from a short list of companies. Fortunately several of those ski brands appeared on the list and so I narrowed the skis down to those that interested me. One pair stood out at a 65% discount, which put it in the sub $300 category. Anything below $300 is a great price for new skis.

Last night I wanted to get the approval from my wife before buying the skis and so I showed them to her. Her response was, "Can I get a pair of new skis?" The agreement with the website indicated I could pick up a pair for friends and family and so we looked. Normally the website restricts buyers to just the person meeting the correct criteria and so it would be a violation of the terms of use without the published exception. We found a pair of skis for her that met her criteria and happened to come in at $10 less than my new skis. They are also a specific women's ski, meaning it is lighter than the men's version. My wife and I ordered both pairs last night and they will arrive on Tuesday next week.

When the skis arrive I will get bindings mounted on them and will almost be ready for the upcoming ski season. I will be honest and confess I am looking for a new ski jacket too. My current one is faded and all of my family keeps telling me I need to replace it. For online marketers that want to sell me something, I am probably a bit picky as the jacket needs to be red, waterproof, breathable, and windproof. Let the e-mails begin. 

Fat Bear Week 2025

We are getting to the end of September and that means it is time to start voting for those bears up at Katmai National Park. The event is known as Fat Bear Week and I look forward to it each year. Today I logged into the site and could vote for 2 different contests. At the bottom of the page it shows how many more contests there are through the week.

In years past there has been a food scarcity issue. This year the salmon run has been plentiful with fish to go around for all the bears. That means they are a little chubbier than usual. That makes the carnivores more photogenic and less scary. Who doesn't like a round bear?

The one thing I like about Fat Bear Week is that millions of people love to join in the voting. They seem seriously interested in Alaska's Grizzly population and root for their survival. Without the Internet, this type of contest wouldn't be possible.

Now they keep people from stuffing the ballot box by allowing only one vote per e-mail address. Do be fair and only vote once per contest. I have multiple e-mail addresses (personal, work, and a few others) but only vote once. It's not like the bears get anything more than recognition. Join in the fun and show your support for those fluffy animals to the north.

Digging Into the Data

I spend my days working with data. Sometimes I do analysis and sometimes I am the guy the analysts go to when they need help solving a problem. While on vacation last week I had one of my coworkers ask me about some of the data in our system. I explained that I didn't really want to dive into the problem until I got back to work but would thoroughly investigate her question.

Yesterday I had way too many pressing tasks and so I couldn't look into the issue until today. This is one of those types of problems I love to solve and so I attacked it first thing this morning. I am going to simplify the problem for multiple reasons, not the least of which relates to my confidentiality agreement. The problem description is that I have a database with a CUSTOMER table without a date indicating when the customer entered the database. It is always nice to know how long someone has been a customer and the analyst wanted to know when that happened.

I figured there might be another table that might have that information and so I dug around a bit and found an EVENT table. I first looked at all possible event types and discovered about a half dozen. Unfortunately none of them indicated when someone became a customer. To help make sense of the EVENT table, I looked up all possible events for a specific customer and then sorted them by the event date column. A trend quickly appeared and it became obvious that all users would have a specific event once they became a customer. That event would occur frequently but all one needs to do is look at the earliest one and you have a rough approximation of when that person became a customer.

I sent my findings to the analyst that asked the question. About an hour later I received word that my technique works for only about a third of the customers. That is fine for some preliminary analysis but if we want to have beginning dates for each customer, we will have to go back to the group sending us the data and have them add an appropriate column.

I had hoped to solve the problem for all of the customers but fell short. I did find a preliminary workaround and that will allow us to test some ideas we have, which will then justify asking for the data from the source which will take a few days. Until then, the workaround will have to suffice. 

Sending Candy Inexpensively

My wife and I just got back from a trip to Disney World where we took part in "Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party" in Magic Kingdom. We had hoped that it wouldn't be crowded and that we would be able to ride a number of attractions without foot-cramp-inducing lines. It turned out to be the most crowded day of our 5-day trip. We did catch a bit of a break though when a giant thunderstorm drenched everyone in the Tron line and we only had a 15-minute wait.

One of the joys of the Halloween party is the trick-or-treating you can do. When you enter the park, they give you a special wrist band and a bag to store your sugary loot. We would find ourselves near a candy stand and quickly filled our bags with candy. The people handing out candy didn't give you one or two pieces, they gave you a huge scoop. When we filled our first bags, they gave us a second one each and we filled those too.

I love candy but can't really eat very much of it. I would estimate that I have about 3 year supply of candy for me. That translates to about a week for your average child. I have 6 grandkids that would love to take all of the treats off my hands. For the 3 that live here in Utah, I can just give the candy to them the next time I see them. For my grandkids in Ohio, I need to get it there somehow. I would love to use the trick that my 8-year-old grandson still thinks works but unfortunately it doesn't. I can create a package and send it in the mail, but postage will cost more than the value of the candy. Ultimately I will bring it to them when I see them next month as that is the most cost-effective way of sharing with them. 

Preparing for the Wasatch 100 Ultra Marathon

Every year my wife and I volunteer to help with the Wasatch 100 Ultra Marathon. We drive our 4x4 up above Brighton and Solitude Ski Resorts where we build a small tent city complete with food, water, computers, and radio equipment. We then help runners as they work their way through a 100-mile running course through very rough terrain. We happen to sit at the 65.3 mile mark, so a lot of the runners are fairly well spent by the time they make it to us.

Our job at the race is to set up a ham radio connected to a computer and transmit the bib number and times as runners come into our aid station. That information is then used by the race organizers to let spectators know where runners are on the course. It is an amazing system but I only use it once a year and so I make sure to practice at home before I am remote and don't have all the tools available to me in my home office. Last night I tested the system and familiarized myself with it yet again.

The technology we use for the race is actually quite ancient. Sure we use nice laptops but we could get by with a 1985-era one. The modem I use to connect the computer to the radio has an old serial cable interface and so I had to get a USB-to-Serial adapter. Then we just use Telnet to connect to the server on the other end. Telnet is a fairly old program and when you do an Internet search the first thing that pops up is how it is no longer considered "secure" and should be avoided. That is fine for our application as we actually want people to know the data we are sharing and not trying to keep it secret.

This year I have to leave the race a bit early as I have another event I have to get to. While the race organizers prefer us to use ham radio to transmit times, there is also an Internet portal where we can get to the master server and interface with it. All we need is a telnet client such as PuTTY. Today I have been testing it out from my Chromebook and working with my buddy who will be able to stick around after I leave. Our aid station sits right underneath a mobile-phone tower and we get great Internet service. I imagine it is only a matter of time before the entire race course has Internet coverage and we lose the ham-radio part of the infrastructure.

Actually the more I think about it, the more I want to ditch the ham radio now. I could leave my extra car battery at home. I also wouldn't have to pack up my antenna nor set it up at our aid station. That could save a lot of time. Maybe I should bring all the radio equipment but not worry about setting it up unless it is needed. I'm seriously thinking about it. 

More Comments Equals More Views

Monday I posted another skiing YouTube video listing my top 5 favorite sidecountry ski areas. One thing about throwing out a term like "sidecountry" is that if you ask 10 different people, you may get 11 different responses on what it means. I provided a definition in the video and it is getting several comments. Some people don't agree with my definition and are asking questions.

At first glance, it seems like all of these comments are causing YouTube's algorithm that shares videos to push this new one to the front. I published another video on Saturday about preparing for the upcoming ski season and it doesn't have nearly the traffic even though it came out 2 days before this latest one. My hypothesis is that comments indicate engagement and so they think others will also like the video so YouTube is sharing it more.

All of this traffic for my video suggests I can get more traffic by creating controversial content. That does have a downside though. If people don't like your content, they might disengage from the channel. I also don't like controversy. While it is fine to disagree with an undefined word, there is also the chance people could be offended and I make an extra effort not to offend people.

I plan to watch video views over the next few weeks and see if the trend hold true. I may need to solicit a few of my friends to submit comments and see how that effects outside views. Currently I have a number of new viewers but not any new subscribers. If the number of subscribers increases, that will strengthen my hypothesis. I'll be sure to keep you posted.  

My Latest YouTube Releases

One advantage of working for Sony is that we get 4-day weekends for both Memorial and Labor Day. I like it because we get the Friday off before the Monday holidays and that gives me a bit of extra time to get stuff done. One year I used the that time to go visit Alaska and do some ocean kayaking. This year I did something different: I released 2 YouTube videos.

I woke up on Friday and decided I would try and put out a video in a single day. There is a lot of work that goes into each video and I wasn't sure I could do it but wanted to give it a try. I sat down at my computer and put together a compelling script. Then I recorded the narration. The subject of the video is preparing for the 2025/26 ski season. I came close but didn't quite finish the video in a single day. I had to roll over onto Saturday but got it released that evening.

In order to put out the video quickly, I had to interrupt another video I started creating over a year ago. I liked the topic but just didn't feel the need to get the video out and so it languished on my computer in a half-done state for months. Getting a video put out early in the weekend ignited a desire to finish an update on my second most popular video on the Top 5 Sidecountry Ski Areas of North America. My wife had to do some sewing and so she gave me permission yesterday to sit in front of my computer and finish the video. I completed everything last night and immediately released it.

Of the 2 videos, the Sidecountry one is my favorite. I can't really pinpoint why I didn't finish it earlier. I know one thing that slowed me down was not having enough photo and video content for one of the ski areas. I had to go back through an old photo album and scan pictures from back in the 1980's. I have a really good scanner and once I digitized the images, the video sat uncompleted for months. Perhaps laziness kept me from working on it or I valued spending my time on other pursuits. Ultimately I got it done and in less than 24 hours it has been viewed close to 100 times.

In the past, the closest I have ever released 2 videos is 5 days. This marks the first time I have done it in 2 days. I will be interested to see how that effects the number of views. My channel has about 650 subscribers and I hope to get more. Unfortunately I have not received any new ones since the first video on Friday. Perhaps there is something else I need to do to increase my popularity. Until then, I hope everyone enjoys the videos.