FOG HORN

Holy mackerel what a week! If you’ve been watching the Virtual Democratic National Convention you’re probably one of a handful, and it’s quite likely that you’re thinking about therapy. Stop! You don’t need therapy you need to have a good shoot the shit. Why do I regularly discourage therapy? Very simply because roughly 60% of all psychology students, study psychology in order to understand themselves. There are some very good reasons why insurance companies don’t like covering behavioral services. Although not dissimilar, at least a psychiatrist passed the MCAT exam and made it through a Pre-Med program as an undergraduate student. I respectfully remind you that the highest concentration of licensed psychologists are found in California and New York; that should tell you everything you need to know. Further evidence of that correlation exists in New York City, where you have a group of people who elected Bill de Blasio, Mayor and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez. To further understand psychology, I present the concept of subliminal transference.

Subliminal transference can be described as the nonconscious transference in social perception. More simply, when a new person subliminally triggers a social perception to another person.

Let’s take a look at the 9 second video excerpt below.

Here, we see John Kasich using his hands in a manner that suggests size concurrent with his saying “the measure of the man” So, if you interpret that as a suggestion of V.P. Bidens’ tool size you have experienced subliminal transference. Is he trying to communicate size to V.P. candidate Senator Harris? Could it suggest that John Kasich may have been using the urinal next to V.P. Biden? Certainly all possible, but those differences in perception is what a psychologist loves to analyze. Subliminal messaging was used years ago in the film industry. A production company would set up a scene were there were cases of Coke in the background; subliminally suggesting to an audience the need to have a Coke. Coke would pay for that. It failed!

On the other hand, shoot the shits are far better. A good shoot the shit is a social interaction during which you can talk about anything, you don’t need to know anything about the subject being discussed, you can make unsupported statements, use uncensured profanity, insult anyone you wish or change the subject altogether and as an added benefit, you won’t have to pay a jackass $150+ per hour.

So, let’s shoot the shit…

Let’s talk about the UAS Remote Pilot Certification recurrent exam. Much credit goes to the FAA for producing a fairly good exam, but speaking quite frankly, why do you need to take the exam every two years. The recurrent (renews your certification) is a 40 question exam administered at one of the FAA flight centers. The exam is fairly good, but guys test for knowledge and not to zing. Here’s an example of what I mean.

Here the exam asks in what airspace is Hayward Executive Airport ?

I placed an arrow on the sectional chart to show you where Hayward Executive is located. Now, take a look at the dashed blue line around Hayward Executive, it tells you the airport is in class D airspace. But, guys it is hard to see especially when you have Class B and Class C airspace all above Hayward Executive. So, expect to have questions pointing to airports, towers, etc. located in cluttered Sectional Charts.

To do well on the recurrent exam focus on Part 107 regs, weight and balance and airspace.

Let’s talk about phishing email and basic cyber security

Phishing emails are on the rise and becoming increasingly more sophisticated. You may see and e-mail from someone you know sending you to a link that’s something cool. Trusting the email, you click on the link that takes you to a web page that will install malware or even worse a keyboard logger. Malware can be used to hold your computer hostage and request bitcoin payment, the keyboard logger can collect all of your keyboard strokes.So, if you login at your bank, the keyboard logger will collect the URL and your login details including passwords.

These phishing emails often look like messages from institutions like banks, insurance companies. When you receive these messages, do not use the hyperlinks included in the email, go directly to the company’s web site.

The other characteristic with these malicious emails, when you reply all, you’ll see the message header exposing the originating email address and domain. For example:

BXYTD234567@somewhere.eu

Note that the domain somewhere.eu does not correspond to a legitimate source. Moreover, if you flag it as spam, the flag applies only to BXYTD234567@somewhere.eu because your spam filter is literal. So, the next time you see the same email, you’ll note that the origination email address may be something like XYTD3347@somewhere.eu ; this is done to defeat your Spam filter.

Sadly, you need to be very careful with these emails, scan your computer and smart device for viruses and malware regularly.

Have a great weekend! Be safe, stay healthy and schedule your own shoot the shit, you’ll be glad you did.