Renewed my Project Management Professional (PMP) certification with the Project Management Institute (PMI).
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
We love our coffee at the Bach Seat. Despite the nay-sayers, coffee is the go-to way to start the day. And now there is even more evidence that not only is coffee good, but it is also good for you. New research has linked our morning coffee to many health benefits.
A study found that four cups of coffee a day is the best amount of coffee to drink each day. A study published in PLOS Biology argues that four cups of coffee help maintain a healthy heart. Study co-authors Joachim Altschmied, Ph.D., and Judith Haendeler, Ph.D., both at the University of Dusseldorf biologists studied coffee intake. They observed that four cups a day can actually help heart cells function more efficiently. The caffeine in four cups of coffee will “push” a protein called p27 into the mitochondria of heart cells.
Not only does coffee boost heart cell activity. Researchers at Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea found that regular coffee drinkers have less risk of heart disease. The study, led by Dr. Yuni Choi, screened over people and found those who consumed three to five cups of coffee a day. Dr. Choi found they were less likely to see a prevalence of coronary artery calcium or early signs of heart disease. Another study looking at coffee consumption and death from chronic diseases found a link between moderate coffee consumption (3 cups per day) and a 21% lower risk of cardiovascular disease deaths compared with non-drinkers.
A study at the University of Southern California, coffee can reduce the odds of developing colorectal cancer by 26%. And that’s just if you’re the casual coffee drinker. For those who drink more than 2.5 servings of coffee a day, the risk of cancer decreases up to 50 percent. Stephen Gruber, MD, Ph.D., MPH, director of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center is the senior author of the study. He said, “We found that drinking coffee is associated with a lower risk of colorectal cancer, and the more coffee consumed, the lower the risk.“
This was true even when participants drank decaf, meaning there’s more goodness to coffee than just the caffeine. Dr. Bruner explained, “We were somewhat surprised to see that caffeine did not seem to matter … caffeine alone is not responsible for coffee’s protective properties.”
There are several studies that suggest coffee drinkers may have a reduced risk for developing Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). In a study published in Neurological Research, researchers reported that coffee consumption is inversely associated with risk for Alzheimer’s disease. Coffee drinkers experienced a 30% reduction in risk for developing AD compared to those who didn’t drink coffee. In the CAIDE (Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Aging, and Dementia) study, drinking 3-5 cups of coffee a day was associated with a significantly decreased risk of Alzheimer’s disease later in life compared with low coffee drinkers
The liver is essential for digesting food and ridding your body of toxic substances. There are many diseases that affect the liver. Diseases like hepatitis, fatty liver disease, or chronic alcoholism, can lead to cirrhosis, or scarring of the liver.
In one study, the researchers found the mechanism of action of caffeine found in coffee on the lipids (fat) in the liver. Their findings suggest that drinking equivalent amounts of caffeine in four cups of coffee a day may help prevent and protect against fatty liver in humans. These results support other studies that coffee consumption can help reduce the progression of liver damage associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
There are other studies conducted in the United States and Italy found that people who drank four or more cups a day had up to an 80 percent lower risk of cirrhosis, especially the type brought on from alcohol consumption.
Antioxidants are “cleaners” and oxidizes free radicals in the body. They form harmless substances that can then be flushed out of the bloodstream and body, naturally. Coffee has more antioxidants than green and black teas and red wine. For people who eat a standard Western diet, coffee may be one of the healthiest aspects of their diet. That’s because coffee is quite high in antioxidants.
Studies show that many people get more antioxidants from coffee than from fruits and vegetables combined. Some of the antioxidants found in Coffee are:
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Coffee has many benefits. Not does coffee make your feel better – it can make you better. Coffee can prevent diseases, making it more than just your morning ritual.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Who can forget the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and the phenomenon of Zoomboming? Many people cannot forget and they responded with lawsuits. The suits claimed that Zoom (ZM) enabled Zoombombing and was sharing personally identifiable information (PII) without proper notice.
TechCrunch defines Zoombombing as the disruption of Zoom calls by unapproved attendees. They would join a Zoom call and disrupt it by sharing offensive content. The content included using backgrounds to spread hateful messages, spouting slurs, anti-Semitism profanities, and pornography. Users of Zoom suffered these events during the first half of the COVID-19 lockdowns.
The frequency of Zoombombing prompted the FBI to issue a public warning about the cyber harassment. I wrote about the problems people were encountering with Zoom on the Bach Seat. Zoom was slow to respond to these threats. But eventually, they put additional security in place to reduce the frequency of Zoombmombing.
Zoom shared users personal data
Lawsuits in Florida and California accused the firm of sharing personal user data with third parties. Personal user data was sent to Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn. Motherboard reported that Zoom’s ‘Company Directory,’ feature was leaking leak personal information including email addresses and photos.
The Company Directory feature would automatically add other people to a user’s list of contacts if they sign up with an email address that shares the same domain. However, according to the report, multiple Zoom users say they signed up with personal email addresses, and Zoom pooled them together with thousands of other people as if they all worked for the same company. This exposed their personal information to unknown others.
In May 2021 the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California consolidated the many complaints into a single class-action suit. On 08/03/2021 Zoom agreed to settle the court case. It has proposed an $85 million settlement.
In the settlement, Zoom denied it violated any laws. They also questioned if users actually suffered injury or damages. The settlement would see customers receive a refund. Payment amounts are expected to average $34 or $35 for those who subscribed to Zoom’s paid version. Those who used the free version could get $11 or $12 based on estimates in court documents.
Zoom collected approximately $1.3 billion in subscriptions from paid subscribers according to the documents. Zooms’ lawyers called the $85 million settlement reasonable given the litigation risks. Zoom’s annual revenue quadrupled during the pandemic to nearly $2.7 billion. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, CA is expected to finalize the settlement in October 2021.
CNet offers a FAQ on the Zoom settlement.
If you registered, used, opened, or downloaded the Zoom app for personal use (not through an enterprise or government account) between March 30, 2016, and July 30, 2021, you are potentially eligible for the refund from Zoom. This also includes people who signed up for Zoom’s free tier.
How much money could I get?
If you are eligible based on the date ranges above and you paid for a Zoom account, you could receive 15% of the money paid to Zoom for your subscription during that time or $25 (whichever is greater). If you are eligible but had a free Zoom account, you can claim $15. However, these rates may change depending on how many people file a claim.
If the settlement is approved at the October hearing, Zoom will provide available names, emails, addresses, and account numbers to the settlement administrator. Those that are eligible for a refund, will be notified by email or mailed postcard and asked to provide your name, mailing address, email, and claim number. If you’re not notified but think you are qualified, you can still file a claim by providing either an email associated with your Zoom account, a Zoom account number, or documentation showing that you were impacted. A new website (ZoomMeetingsClassAction.com) will have more information, but at the time of this writing was not yet live.
As part of the settlement, Zoom also said it would continue to take new measures to prevent Zoombombing, such as alerting people when hosts or meeting participants use third-party apps in meetings. They will offer (rb- but not mandate) specialized training to employees on privacy and data handling.
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Of course, you could also delete your zoom account. There is no way to use Zoom and not agree to their privacy terms. If you do use Zoom, you’re giving up a lot of your personal information. By deleting your Zoom account and no longer using the application, you’re stopping it from collecting your data.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Friday, July 30, 2021, is the 22nd annual System Administrator Appreciation Day. to commemorate this special international day of thanks for System Administrators – here are 7 signs you have been in IT for too long. Apologies to Jeff Foxworthy.
Have you burned critical files to a CD (or DVD) as a backup? There was always the risk of an unreadable disk, especially if you used rewritable (CD/R+) media or cheap media. Writing in one device and reading in another could be tricky too. Good luck getting a new computer with a CD reader in it to read those disks if you still have any.
Floppy disks were called that because they were floppy. You could bend them. They come in different sizes. In my first tech job, I spent a lot of time with 8-inch floppies IML-ing (rebooting) IBM equipment. Image the amazement when the 3.5-inch rigid floppy disk that held 1.44 MB came along. A full Windows 95 install required 21 1.44 MB floppy disks (and several hours).
Before the days of cable modems and 5G we had to connect to the Internet with phone lines. The modem would convert the computer’s digital signals to some analog noise, that would be transmitted through the wires and reconverted to digital again on the other side. A typical connection speed was 9.6 kbps.
If you ever had to use *70,,xxx-xxxx to disable call waiting (rb- Yes- only seven digits too). You had to add these special characters to your modem dial string to prevent call-waiting from dropping your glorious 9.6 kbps connection in the middle of an AOL session.
Before COVID killed tradeshows – you could always score a few coffee mugs for SWAG at trade shows. Now I am going to have washout my coffee mugs.
Before personal computers were a thing, companies used mainframes. In order to program the mainframe, people had to use punch cards that could hold 80 columns of data. They would need to punch a deck of cards, keep them in order and feed them to a reader.
I never had to deal with punch cards in the workplace. I did take a Business Computing class and did have to write a “hello world” COBOL program. That was enough.
I remember going to Sears and getting Pong. We came home and attached the splitter thing to the antenna terminals on the back of the TV, turned the dial to Channel 3 (rb- No remote controls in those days) and presto we were playing PONG for hours. Sure looking back at the low-resolution images (sometimes a ball would look more like a square), the 3 monotones of the blob moving back and forth, and controllers with just one button, pale to what an Xbox puts out. But it was a lot of fun for an 8-year-old.
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All of these things on the list were disruptive in their day. But they were all solving problems, helping us move forward and get to the point we are today.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
For many Americans, the Fourth of July is a day of vacation and a time to picnic and barbecue with family and friends — but many people don’t know the facts behind some of the Fourth of July’s biggest traditions.
Fireworks are an American tradition dating back to 1777. Today, there are around 16,000 Independence Day firework celebrations every year. John Adams, 2nd President of the United States, wrote to his wife, Abigail, that Independence Day should be celebrated with
… Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other.”
Taking a cue from John Adams’ call for “Bonfires and Illuminations,” Congress in Philadelphia, adjourned to light up the night with fireworks. The Philadelphia Evening Post reported that on July 4th, 1777,
… at night there was a grand exhibition of fireworks (which began and concluded with thirteen rockets) on the Commons, and the city was beautifully illuminated…
Boston saw its own Fourth of July fireworks display in 1777. Colonel Thomas Crafts of the Sons of Liberty reportedly
…illuminated his park on the commons, threw several shells, and exhibited a number of fireworks.
In 1783, Boston was the first city to designate July 4 as an official holiday. The tradition of Fourth of July fireworks to celebrate Independence day spread as the country grew.
The American Pyrotechnics Association (APA) says that today, Americans spend almost $1.4 billion on fireworks each year for displays and backyard use. In 2019, people used 273 million pounds of fireworks on the Fourth of July! 99% of Independence day fireworks are imported from China.
The APA estimates that small towns spend between $8,000–$15,000 for a fireworks display. Larger displays can cost millions of dollars.
Firework displays cause Ohh’s, Ahh’s, and injuries. They accounted for 7,300 firework-related emergency room visits in 2019. The CPSC also reports that:
Men are far more likely (66%) than women (34%) to suffer a fireworks-related injury.Barbecue is the most famous 4th of July food tradition is the all-American barbecue, which brings many American families and friends together around a grill. The 4th of July is the country’s most popular grilling day. This year, the National Retail Federation (NRF) predicts Americans will spend around $6.5 billion on food to celebrate the Fourth of July. This included food and other cookout expenses, averaging out to about $77.00 per person participating in a barbecue, outdoor cookout, or picnic. Spending peaked in 2017, at $7.15.
European colonists barbecued large animals over a pit. A style they adapted from native Americans. The tradition of grilling out didn’t get going in earnest until the early 1800s. Barbeque’s popularity spread as political leaders began staging rallies to mark Independence Day and drew crowds by staging massive feasts featuring whole pigs and oxen.
By the 19th century, America was a little more established and politics started going full swing. Political leaders would host rallies, gathering people to hear their opinions by hosting massive barbecues. This move was especially popular with the Democrats in the southern states where these rallies would be held on Independence Day, which was not yet a National Holiday. Local farmers donated meat and simple food was served; sliced cucumbers, watermelon, early harvest vegetables, and fresh bread.
The Salt Lake Herald, September 20, 1888, described one such event.
CINCINNATI September 19
There were 600 people at the Erlanger barbeque eight miles south
of here to see Speaker Carlisle and Senator Blackburn and hear
them speak ... The barbeque consisted of four carcasses of
oxen twenty four carcasses of sheep and no end of chickens also
of 100 gallons of soup that had been cooking three days and
2000 baskets of bread ...
The Maysville KY Evening Bulletin, September 03, 1892, describes another event.
Herndon, Ky. Sept. 3.
General Adlai Stevenson was welcomed to the scene of his
birthplace yesterday by 6,000 people who had ... and in order
that the Democratic gathering should not suffer from hunger,
an enormous barbeque was prepared. Fifteen sheep aim one
hundred hogs were sacrificed...
The political barbecue tradition continues to this day.
You can’t have a barbecue without the classic hot dog. On the Fourth of July each year, Americans eat an estimated 150 million hot dogs. 150 million hot dogs laid out horizontally, would stretch from Washington, DC, to LA more than five times.
The sausage has been around for a long time. Even Homer’s Odyssey makes mention of sausage. How sausages become hot dogs in the U.S. is open for debate immigrants brought sausages to America. However what is know is that in 1916, Polish immigrant Nathan Handwerker opened Nathan’s Famous hot stand in Coney Island NY.
The Coney Island location is home to the annual Fourth of July hot dog eating contest. According to legend, the contest started in 1916, when a group of recent U.S. immigrants settled a bet about who was the most patriotic by seeing who could eat the most hot dogs.
The contest results weren’t officially recorded until 1972. Since 1972. The event is now so big that it’s broadcast on ESPN. The reigning champ, Joey Chestnut set the world record for most hot dogs eaten in 2020 when he scarfed down 75 hot dogs (and buns!) in 10 minutes. To win the mustard belt for the thirteenth time.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
