Category: Questions to Readers

How does the “Ferrari for sale” scam work?

by philg

Here’s a recent text message:

How does the scam then work? I respond with “Sorry, but we ran out of SF90s last Wednesday” and… then what? How does this person (or robot?) end up with my not-very-hard-earned-and-certainly-undeserved Bidies?

Or maybe this SF90 shopper is legit. I took some pictures of a Ferrari SF90 (fewer than 2,000 produced?) in Fort Worth, Texas back in May 2024:

I can’t remember if I posted any on Twitter or Facebook.

Perhaps the sender assumed that because I’m committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion that, naturally, I would own a car made by a company that is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. (But, then, why would I want to sell a car that will remind me of DEI with every trip to Publix?)

From the Ferrari web site:

The photo of an all-white team seems to have been purged from the Ferrari site, but it was up long enough for X to capture when Ferrari proudly posted about their plan to discriminate by race, gender ID, etc.:

Meanwhile, let’s check on the rare collectible vehicle that we actually do own. Its value seems to be increasing. Received November 24, 2024:

Speaking of scams, here’s a recent invitation for me to become friends on Facebook. The account is owned by someone with the Arabic male name “Kareem” and the pictures are of a blonde:

And a Facebook comment exchange (original post is about San Francisco)….

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Meet for coffee in Milwaukee? Or at Oshkosh? iPhone Camera Not Recognized theories?

by philg

I’ve decided to travel to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and see if the Biden administration’s Secret Service is making efforts to protect Donald Trump from local armed teenagers. To avoid crowds, though, I will arrive on Friday, July 19 and my inspection will last through the morning of Sunday, July 21. If anyone wants to get together for coffee in Milwaukee, or between July 21 and July 27 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin (EAA AirVenture!), please email philg@mit.edu. Thanks in advance!

Here’s a 2002 digital SLR photo from the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Calatrava-designed wing that I took. I’m 99% sure that a smartphone today provides higher image quality:

Well, maybe not my iPhone 14, which I had hoped would last at least through the glorious release of the iPhone 16. Here’s what it is doing as of today:

Screenshot
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The phone wasn’t dropped or, as far as I know, recently updated. It’s running iOS 17.5.1, which I think is a month old. The camera actually seems to work reasonably well. What seems to have gone wrong is Apple’s system for monopolizing parts and service. The phone isn’t recognized as “genuine” and that triggers a limit on what the software will do with it. I called Apple Support and was connected to a woman with a heavy Indian accent. She asked where I’d bought the phone and I responded “Verizon”. She had never heard of Verizon so she came up with a theory for how the fly-by-night vendor might have installed a third-party camera into the phone 1.5 years ago (this treacherous act not having been discovered by iOS until today).

[Update: Despite being kind of an Apple hater, I must admit that the repair was convenient. 12-minute drive, meet the genius at 6:50 pm, leave phone at 7:00 pm with a diagnosis of “needs new camera module”, hit Shake Shack in the mall food court, return just before 8:00 pm, receive phone and pay $219 (to the virtuous rainbow flag-waving (except in Muslim countries) Apple) plus tax (to the hated dictator Ron DeSantis) at 8:15 pm. How does it work when a Samsung or Google Pixel phone needs service?]

A 2019 picture taken from the EAA Bell 47 helicopter ride:

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Ideas for fun family activities in Wisconsin before or after EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”)?

by philg

The plan for this year is to fly commercial into ORD (nonstop from PBI), rent a car, and do some stuff before or after EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”). We have some constraints…

  • one family member is 8 years old and, therefore, lacks an adult level of patience
  • one family member lacks a Democrat adult level of tolerance for crime and disorder and, therefore, refuses to set foot in Chicago (my default choice, e.g., Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium)
  • one family member objects to long drives so we don’t want to go too far off route (it’s about 2.5 hours from ORD to Oshkosh if one proceeds direct (through Milwaukee) and 3.25 hours through Madison, WI)
  • everyone in the family likes the outdoors
  • the before/after time will be on weekends, when some things might be closed

One of my early ideas was Devil’s Lake State Park, SW of Oshkosh. However, the same government that informs us that we’re doomed without population growth via open borders also tells us that one must get to this park at dawn in order to be allowed in:

Are the Wisconsin Dells and Baraboo plausible outdoor destinations that are also practical on weekends given the rapidly growing population of our country and constant number of nice places to visit?

What about Milwaukee? I know the art museum (good for 1.5 hours max with our kids). There is a Harley-Davidson museum (do they sell “Better Your Sister in a Whorehouse than Your Brother on a Honda” T-shirts? If not, I question the authenticity). The city will be somewhat jammed on the weekend after Oshkosh due to an airshow(!) so we’d see Milwaukee on the way in. Perhaps the Pabst Mansion as well as the museums? How is the “Historic Third Ward”?

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Meet in Lisbon this coming week?

by philg

As part of quest for Portuguese (EU) citizenship and because public school ended last week here in Florida, we’re all headed to Lisbon tomorrow and should be there through June 13 (after that we head to the north for a couple of weeks of exploration). Would anyone like to meet? If so, please email philg@mit.edu.

What are we escaping? Here’s life this morning at the Juno Beach Pier (adjacent to Jupiter):

Air and water temp both about 80 degrees (reaches what the New York Times says is a lethal heat index in the afternoon, though, at 91 degrees).

Related:

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Meet in Bozeman, Montana on Sunday? Or June 16 in Salt Lake City?

by philg

Folks: Although there is no place better to spend the summer than South Florida, I’m heading to the Mountain West on Saturday. For altitude adjustment, the first two nights will be spent in Bozeman, Montana. If anyone lives out there and wants to meet, please email (philg@mit.edu). I should also be available on the way out, June 16 in Salt Lake City. (In between there will be stops at all of the usual places: Big Sky, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Bryce, Grand Canyon (North Rim), Lake Powell, Moab.)

I had to make some last-minute changes to wardrobe, packing, and itinerary as a result of “Montana first to ban drag performers from reading to children in schools, libraries” (NBC):

Montana has become the first state to specifically ban people dressed in drag from reading books to children at public schools and libraries, part of a host of legislation aimed at the rights the LGBTQ community in Montana and other states.

Related:

  • Travels with Samantha, a 1993 trip through some of these same places in which there was no need to make reservations! (photos below)
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Who wants to join me on a cruise to the Southern Caribbean? (about $1000 per person)

by philg

I’m going with a work colleague on a Royal Caribbean trip (on-board Internet is pretty good) departing February 6 from Fort Lauderdale. Who wants to join us?

You’ll get to visit a lot of interesting places, albeit briefly, and a basic room with all food included will cost less than if you ate three restaurant meals per day for the period covered (more like $1,500 per person for a room with a window). We can hang out at meals and talk about how to solve all of the world’s problems (like Davos, but with higher humidity). We’ll see the latest Panama Canal locks (read Path Between the Seas first!). Maybe in Colombia we’ll meet Hunter Biden. Like progressive Californians, we’ll demonstrate our commitment to bodily autonomy and human rights by boycotting Texas and visiting a country where abortion care for pregnant people is almost completely illegal.

(The rooms are usually shown with the two twin-ish beds pushed together to form a queen-ish-sized bed, but if you’re traveling with a friend and refusing to adhere to the 2SLGBTQQIA+ religion the cabin stewards will rearrange the room to separate the beds with a night table.)

Send me a private email if you’re interested in joining and we can coordinate!

Related:

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What are we thankful for this year?

by philg

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

What are we thankful for this year? Let’s leave out the obvious “family and friends being healthy” (partly because it is obvious and partly because our media assures us that family and friends were mostly killed in 2020 due to a combination of Covid-19 and Donald Trump).

Here are a few from me…

  • the mostly intact general aviation infrastructure in the U.S. We may not have anywhere to go (and various governors’ travel orders may actually make it illegal or impractical to go anywhere), but very likely there will be an awesome airport near our destination with a helpful FBO
  • the Swedes, for showing the world that a society of humans can have priorities other than avoiding Covid-19 (a bit of credit in this category as well to Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, who also deserves credit for telling people that politicians and bureaucrats cannot protect them from a virus)
  • service industry workers, coming into work despite coronapanic and for wages that are often about the same as collecting welfare (and always lower than collecting child support, with proper planning)
  • dogs, whose value to humanity has gone way up now that humans have given up on most purely human goals and activities

Readers: Now it is your turn! (via the comments)

Related:

  • “Is There a TERF at Your Thanksgiving Gathering?”: Toxic relatives come in many forms: the Trump supporter, the devil’s advocate, the COVID-19 denier. There’s also the TERF: the trans-exclusionary radical feminist. TERFs are transphobes who wrongly believe transgender women are not women … But the reality is that trans women are women…
  • Best Facebook sentiment: “Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends and family! Fewer people to cook for this year but no fewer to be thankful for!” (from a Swiss immigrant who now does every American thing better than most Americans)
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Meet in Bermuda or Turkmenistan?

by philg

I’m going to Bermuda January 10-13. Weather supposedly typically involves a high temp of around 70 degrees, perfect for walking around the downtown area. Who wants to join? I don’t have a schedule there, just making an exploratory foray to decide if we should organize a trip there with the kids (requires military-style planning).

The other option is a Silk Road trip organized by the MIT Alumni folks (but you don’t need an MIT connection to sign up). It is April 27-May 14, 2020. It is a soft and easy way to see five “Stan” countries that are challenging to visit independently. I think that there are still a few spots left (max group size: 21). From the web site:

Explore four different UNESCO World Heritage sites, including the fabled Uzbek oases of Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva, and Turkmenistan’s Parthian Kingdom of Nisa. In Penjikent, Tajikistan, explore the ruins of the 5th century AD trade center, Shakristan. Wander through colorful bazaars and step into the past on the streets of Silk Road trade centers crowned with complex Persian architecture. Along the way, meet with local experts and artisans, attend an engaging performance of the Kyrgyz Epic of Manas, and visit a traditional Kazakh falcon farm.

Overnights:

2 nights Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
2 nights Khiva, Uzbekistan
3 nights Bukhara, Uzbekistan
3 nights Samarkand, Uzbekistan
2 nights Tashkent, Uzbekistan
2 nights Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
2 nights Almaty, Kazakhstan

I’m going solo since (a) our kids will be in school, (b) senior management will not abandon our children for that long, and (c) most of my friends are stuck working or teaching. (Our ground school class at MIT is over in January and I’m done with the data science class at Harvard Medical School by the end of March.)

One of our pilot friends spent a whole year in Turkmenistan teaching mathematics at an American high school. She loved it! During a trip to Moscow, I learned that Uzbeki food is a staple for Muscovites, in the same way that Mexican food is popular among Americans.

It is easy and inexpensive to get to these places on Turkish Airlines (even from Silicon Valley) or Emirates.

Send me a note (philg@mit.edu) if interested!

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Meet at Din Tai Fung in Seattle, 5:15 pm on Wednesday

by philg

Seattle readers: in case you’re not following the comments on a previous thread, we will meet at Din Tai Fung, 600 Pine St (Pacific Place), at the unfashionable hour of 5:15 pm (latest reservation available; alternative is to wait for an hour) on Wednesday, August 7. We all have to be there to be seated, so please show up on time!

Looking forward to discussing the big issues and the small dumplings.

(For anyone who can’t make the above, I am also happy to meet at Top Pot Doughnuts on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday mornings! Staying at the Hyatt Regency.)

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