Reading El Reg while working from home? Here's a pleasant thought: Kaspersky says 1 in 10 of you are naked right now One in ten employees forced to work from home like to do so in the buff while some 8 per cent say they are showering less during lockdown – meaning those sweaty office chairs are positively teeming with microbial life. Kaspersky's research of more than 8,000 bods from 18 countries including the UK, US, China, and Luxembourg …
This - all stories that begin with a vendor and some pointless research is to drum up free marketing for the vendor - everything from a pointless biased statistic to some problem that conveniently the vendor can solve if you buy their stuff... yay security vendors.
I tried jumping out of bed into my day clothes and starting work, it didn't cut it. I need that hot shower to open\clear my sinus' (sp?) and kickstart my morning. Since my office is casual anyway, I put on my usual clothes and begin my WFH day. I do wear sandals at home! That is about the only difference.
Different people are different. When I was in my teens and 20s, I found getting up early was a real chore, and looked to that morning shower, coffee, and in the winters the brisk1 Boston weather to get me going.
These days, I wake up between 6:00 and 6:30 with no assistance from an alarm, dress,2 start the coffee maker, build the fire in the wood stove, and start working. At some point I remember to get up and get my first cup of coffee. If I'm going to feel tired during the day, it will likely be mid-day; I'm most productive in the mornings and evenings.
1For which read "agonizingly cold, wet, and windy".
2I suppose I could work in the nude - the only person likely to see me is my wife, and she's seen all that before. But we have pets, so I'm not going to skip footwear, at least, and wearing nothing but shoes seems silly.
Yet another reason to live in Sonoma ... 75F (24C) here yesterday. Still picking summer squash, chilis and tomatoes. Went surfing the other day. Decided to have a look at Maverick's, but the break was MASSIVE ... I'm too old for that shit ... Went and pissed off Khosla by picnicking at Martin's Beach instead. Lovely day out :-)
I'm in northern Oregon, currently a brisk 48°, but it doesn't bother me. SWMBO - who insists on keeping the house heated to a level that makes the wax flow out of my ears - is wintering in Palm Springs CA and is very comfortable. Not sure if that's cheaper for me than keeping the house heating at heart-of-the-sun levels all winter, but it's certainly a lot less stressful.
It's almost like the northern hemisphere is a large place with a variety of climates.
Here at the Mountain Fastness it's still t-shirt weather most days. Sure, there's snow on the ground a few dozen feet away, on the north side of the fence where it's shaded from the sun. But if you're sitting somewhere the sun can shine on you, you definitely don't want any sort of jacket. And in the house by midday we have the door open, and sometimes the windows. Passive-aggressive solar heating.
Mind you, we had a foot of snow on the ground in October, and there's a good chance of a White Christmas. But it's not uncommon, particularly in the spring, to have a snowstorm one day and be mowing the grass a couple of days later.
I'm not completely nude, I've got a mask on!
It's a great way to make all those video conferencing calls go away - the caller either shuts off the video feed or drops the call entirely.
"Are you na- ARGH! My eyes! My eyes! They burn! What has been seen cannot be unseen! AAAIEEEEE!"
Oh darn, they hung up. I wonder if I should send a bouquet of mindbleach? Nahhh hahahahaha!
*Turns cartwheels past the camera to disrupt the meeting entirely*
Well I'm now working from home for a company which makes video conferencing systems, and we use them all the time, so being in the buff isn't an option, not even below the waist as you never know when you are going to have to get up to answer the door to an Amazon delivery.
I've got enough equipment warming the home office not to have to have the heating on, but gawd is it cold in the rest of the house. At least it removes the temptation to go and have a break in the living room.
Not sure I'd ever be tempted to go au natural when coding; it's one thing to go pottering around the house while wearing minimal levels of clothing, but another entirely to sit stationary in front of a computer, especially during the colder part of the years.
Not least since these days, laptops and LCD monitors don't put out anywhere near the same amount of heat as older desktops and CRTs did.
And given that I'm in Yorkshire, it's pretty much a legal requirement to not turn the heating on unless you've woken up with icicles hanging off your nose and ears...
And given that I'm in Yorkshire, it's pretty much a legal requirement to not turn the heating on unless you've woken up with icicles hanging off your nose and ears...
Having been born and brought up in Edinburgh I have to ask what is this "heating" of which you speak?
Never turning on the heat is a false savings ...
Proper insulation and a solar powered GSHP cost almost nothing to run, maintenance is nearly nil, and the entire house is a constant 70F (21C) 24/7/365.25 (bedrooms cooler at night) ... with no fuel or electricity costs whatsoever. The thing paid for itself in about fifteen years, and has been essentially free to operate ever since. (I do my own maintenance, not that there has been much. Filter changing and duct cleaning, mostly, and I had to replace a wire that a squirrel had gnawed through once.)
"That the definition of a Yorkshire man, is a Scotsman with the spending potential removed!"
Over here we sometimes muse about who the first Dutchperson was. Two suggestions:
- Somebody kicked out of Yorkshire for being too blunt
- A Scot who learned to swim because they were disgusted with the free-spending ways of their compatriots
Growing up in a Yorkshire mining town:
1 - snow on the roofs of all the terraces, even with the assistance of free issue coal
2 - snow on most of the roofs, but ooh, look, no snow, they've got new central heating
3 - no snow on the roofs, everybody's got central heating
4 - no snow on the roofs, except, ooh look, they've got snow, must have got insulation
5 - no snow on the roofs, must be global warming...
I got piteous looks in the shop yesterday because my pyjamas had escaped my socks and were dreeping below my breeks. Mind you, I normally live in an area where people often went shopping in their pyjamas before the pandemic so shame is a choice. I have left my silk thermals where I legally can't retrieve them and it's not warm out, it's not warm in. Mine's the 'audio only' video link.
I do hope they have put some opaque tape over the webcams on their PCs, iMacs etc.
I know you are supposed to be emboldened by imagining your audience naked, but actually, I find it rather off-putting.
Excuse me, I am feeling slightly nauseous at the thought that people are reading this post naked.
@ Jake "Are you also one of those people who feel a need to be offended on behalf of others?"
Not often, I find that most people are quite capable of being offended all by themselves without my help (or even by me, sometimes). I do take offence at blatant racism, homophobia, and sexism, but do not consider myself 'woke' (I believe that is the current lingua franca term a the moment). But then, having experienced the receiving end of violent bigotry* I reckon that may be excused.
Please let me know if you think I am merely 'virtue signalling' in future instead of making a genuine point.
*No broken bones, but a week off work with a very bruised face and arms, fortunately I was wearing a puffer jacket, so when they were kicking me it absorbed some of the impact. Another 'young not gentleman' called me a "qu**r c*^t" and then threatened to stab me, but fortunately was not carrying a knife. The Police reckoned that had he been carrying a knife he would just have stabbed me without speaking. Most gay men my age have been beaten up at leat once, watch the film 'Pride' for some reality. What happens to Andrew Scott's character is still sadly all too common.
The only reason I asked is because there seems to be a disease going around that makes people worry entirely too much about what other people are thinking/doing, even though those thoughts/deeds have absolutely nothing to do with the worrier, and in fact never will.
Your statement "I am feeling slightly nauseous at the thought that people are reading this post naked." seems to fall into this demographic. My diagnosis seems to be (mostly?) incorrect. Mea culpa.
Have a beer :-)
"there seems to be a disease going around that makes people worry entirely too much about what other people are thinking/doing"
It's called "Britishness", and it's been endemic here for generations. Kick me and I'll apologise for getting in the way of your foot. Just don't cut the queue or we will glower at you, mutter under our breath, and some brave soul may even lash you with stern rebuke.
I'm sorry to hear that Eclectic Man. It's not been acceptable here in my lifetime to beat up people for their sexuality - although wearing a puffer jacket is just asking for trouble.
I beat up a gay five year old once and was heavily punished even though I felt justified at the time. He'd burst my balloon in the balloon race at my birthday party. I was sent to my room and never allowed another party.
Weeks later he threw stones at me - like a girl! - so I skimmed his ankle with a stone. He cried, turned his back saying, "I'm not fighting anymore", and threw his stone over his head, hitting me on the bridge of my nose. The angels were with him, but he didn't even realise until I told him decades later. I found out he died a few years ago, not violently but drugs and sex and rock and roll. So a good death.
Another gay pal, in his 40s, started his first fight ever at a Low concert - the bands first ever fight! - because someone wouldn't stop talking. I said, "Violence is fun, isn't it", and he burst out grinning.
Yeah, OP needs a lot of qualifications on that statement.
There are days here where we have several inches of snow on the ground and icicles hanging from the roof, but none of the heating (wood stove, gas heater, or electric radiant floor, depending on which room you're in) is on, and the house is still warm enough that it would be uncomfortable if the air weren't so dry and thin. All thanks to passive solar - and we don't even have that much window area.
Now, the Stately Manor in Michigan - that's another story. I keep the thermostat there at a sensible setting and everyone bundles up in sweaters and the like. With the drafts and humidity, plus force-air heating, that house rarely feels warm in the winter. It's pretty, though, and I enjoy that sort of climate too.
I've kept my morning routine as normal as possible so it's less of a shock to the system when the day comes I have to go back into the office.
Get up, shower, get dressed, breakfast...
I also do a "fake" commute. Go for a 20/30 min walk (depending if it's not chucking it down) round the neighbourhood to clear the cobwebs, varying the route from time to time.
What they might be driving at is suppose you have a dodgy USB port which is at the rear of your desktop pc. So you are in the middle of a Zoom session and you have a device such as your mouse plugged into the dodgy USB socket. To get at said USB port to wiggle it (the cable attached to it, that is), you might normally get up on the desk and lean over to sort it out, but wait... are you wearing trousers?
This important step needs to be inserted into all HelpDesk Troubleshooting Guides.
1. Is the power to the system unit on?
2. What colour is the monitor light?
3. Have you got your trousers on?
4. Is the monitor plugged in at both ends?
etc.
Maybe Kaspersky helpdesk staff have seen too many things that can't be unseen...
(Who remembers the exhibitionist ebayer who put a teapot up for sale? A shiny silvery teapot reflecting a clear image of the seller taking the photo, with no clothes on).
Quite ironic coming from a company that uses a freely available whitelist for its heuristics, instead of using actual heuristics and ognores a user defined exceptions for said test.
Maybe get your own basic functionality fixed, actually start detecting some intrusions, then mm aybe someone will listen to you.
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