Author Archive: bfwebster

Webster is Principal and Founder at Bruce F. Webster & Associates, as well as an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at Brigham Young University. He works with organizations to help them with troubled or failed information technology (IT) projects. He has also worked in several dozen legal cases as a consultant and as a testifying expert, both in the United States and Japan. He can be reached at bwebster@bfwa.com, or you can follow him on Twitter as @bfwebster.

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Things that can’t go on forever, won’t.

Things that can’t go on forever, won’t.

| August 5, 2013 | Reply

George Mellon over at the New York Sun writes: How does an investor react to the news that a propped-up and thus over-priced asset may lose its props? His natural urge is to sell, of course, and that urge will soon be reflected in a decline in the asset’s price. So it is with Treasury […]

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Why you should never talk to the police

Why you should never talk to the police

| July 18, 2013 | Reply

When Sandra first had me listen to the DEA scam voicemail message last night, and before I went online to verify that it was in fact a scam, my immediate response was: we are not calling this person back; we will retain an attorney, who will do all the talking. The video below — taken […]

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Warning: very active “DEA Special Agent” phone scam going on

Warning: very active “DEA Special Agent” phone scam going on

| July 17, 2013 | 3 Replies

  My wife was checking voicemail messages on our home phone tonight and found the following message, received on our home phone at 1431 pm MDT: Hello, this message is for Sandra Webster. This is Special Agent William Rice[?] from the US DEA office in Washington DC. Please contact me as soon as possible at […]

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“Peak Oil” website goes into archive mode

“Peak Oil” website goes into archive mode

| July 17, 2013 | Reply

  Mark Mills over at Real Clear Energy reports that The Oil Drum, a website devoted to the concept of ‘peak oil’ has stopped updating itself and will serve hereafter as an archive of old posts. As Mills notes: But what peaked instead was the ability to argue that the era of oil, and hydrocarbons, […]

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The Atlantic: How Sharknado Explains the Federal Reserve

The Atlantic: How Sharknado Explains the Federal Reserve

| July 16, 2013 | Reply

  Matthew O’Brien over at The Atlantic has a post explaining the conundrum that the Fed has created for itself with quantitative easing (QE): For the last five years, the Fed has been in the business of persuading investors that it can be irresponsible. Now, in normal times, the Fed is anything but; it’s boring. […]

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Paul Krugman: “Bad jobs are better than no jobs at all”

Paul Krugman: “Bad jobs are better than no jobs at all”

| July 15, 2013 | Reply

No, really, he did make that argument — at least, back in 1997: Workers in those shirt and sneaker factories are, inevitably, paid very little and expected to endure terrible working conditions. I say “inevitably” because their employers are not in business for their (or their workers’) health; they pay as little as possible, and that […]

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FEC: the next rogue agency?

FEC: the next rogue agency?

| July 11, 2013 | Reply

John O’Sullivan — whom I’ve had the pleasure of dining with more than once — once enunciated what’s become known as O’Sullivan’s Law: “All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.” Kimberley Strassel’s article in the Wall Street Journal about the Federal Election Commission illustrates O’Sullivan’s Law all too well: …over […]

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“Four dead in Benghazi”

“Four dead in Benghazi”

| May 9, 2013 | 1 Reply

Benghazi (to the tune of “Ohio” as performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) The compound is under fire No place for them to flee No answer to their wire Four dead in Benghazi Gotta get weapons Gotta get boots on the ground Should have been done long ago Why were we sent here With […]

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Reliving Apollo 11

Reliving Apollo 11

| May 1, 2013 | Reply

As I wrote here years ago, I was a child of the space age and later ended up working (as a contractor) at NASA/Johnson Space Center on the Space Shuttle flight simulators, then next door at the Lunar and Planetary Institute. And so with interest, I found over at What’s Up With That this link to a […]

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“Dishonored DLC: The Knife of Dunwall” — a brief review w/spoilers

“Dishonored DLC: The Knife of Dunwall” — a brief review w/spoilers

| April 21, 2013 | Reply

“Dishonored” (2012) is one of my favorite games in quite some time. I haven’t put as many hours into it as I have into, say, “Endless Space” or “XCOM: Enemy Unknown”, but it has a moral resonance, stealth flavor, and a multipath openness that’s refreshing, particularly when compared to “Tomb Raider” (2013). I’ve played the […]

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