PICTURES OF THE WEEK
I lost my notebook! So I bought some leather and sewed myself a new one. Think I got a leather thicker than I meant it to be, but it does have a nice heft!
I was looking through sewing notions, and saw this. It’s a knit picker! I had NO IDEA it was a real thing.
You use it to fix snags on knits and wovens!
Ever feel like you’re at the start of a sci-fi story?
Or, my run in with digital mugging, and the sewing project it inspired.
Living in certain places, you acquire unique experiences and skills. Live in a cold climate, and you know a thing or two about shoveling snow. Live in hot climate, and you learn to favor standing in shade. I’ve mostly lived in big cities, and one of the things I’ve learned a thing or two about is scams and con artists.
My first brush with this sort of thing was working in a retail store when I was in college, and I was hit with what was later describes to me as neuro linguistic programming - a bunch of statements and questions during a stressful moment that basically knocked me off my guard. Think of it as a real life denial of service attack with an SQL injection. To this day, its still hard to think about it. But, luckily, no one was harmed, and the amount of money they got away with was pretty small…
The next time I got hit by a scam was walking in Manhattan, by myself in the early evening just after dark. Again, it was that sam hypnotic stream of questions and statements that was knocking me off my guard. Something about how he was working in film. Luckily, I was working in the film at that time, and was able to regain my footing for a second, and ask a question back to him. Seeing I “broke the spell”, he turned on his heal and just walked off. I was a bit baffled for a moment, but then realized what happened. .
The most recent happened this weekend. I was out watching a parade and this guy was very intent on talking to me, and putting his arm around me. I thought he may be trying to pickpocket me, so I kept up my guard, but thinking he was just a tipsy guy who wanted to talk to someone, I didn’t leave. A minute later someone else came over and started talking to us. She was VERY interested in where I lived, which I didn’t reveal. At some point, it just all seemed too weird, and I left. It wasn’t until afterwards I put it together: they were trying to get my credit card RFID info by getting close, as well as get my zip code so they could use my cards! (Luckily, I don’t have any sort of “tap and pay” set up.)
While that wasn’t so great, it did make me think about digital security so I did a little tidying up of my security settings. It also was impetus to work on a craft project I’ve been meaning to do: making a faraday bag for my phone. I bought the right fabric, and sewed it up! It’s been sort of great: now I have one more thing between me and my digital twitch. I’ve already figure out improvements to the design, and the next one will have a an outer case of leather! Like it? Maybe we can work out a trade for one?
