Things that scare the !@#%!# out of me.

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(Edited)


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Several years ago I wrote a couple of posts about things that scare the crap out of me. I remember during that time there had been a large number of "wrong way" drivers on the expressways in the United States. If you're not sure what that means, just imagine traffic heading towards each other in the same lane at 75 MPH and you probably get the idea.

Growing up, there were any number of things that scared me. I used to be terrified of tornadoes. I was afraid that one was going to come and take away all my toys. We didn't have a basement, just a pretty nasty crawlspace, so the thought of having to go into that wasn't very appealing either.

Speaking of basements, I was also pretty terrified of radon gas back in the day. My hats off to whoever made the commercials for radon gas back in the day. Like I said, we didn't even have a basement and you had me fully convinced I was going to die from radon.

I remember pretty clearly I was a bit of a wimp about paranormal stuff too. Don't get me wrong, it still freaks me out, but I remember when those Mysteries of the unknown commercials for the Time/Life book set would come on. I would turn the channel right away. You have to remember, back then there were no remotes, so I had to physically get up and change the channel. For a kid/young teen, that was kind of a big deal.

These days, I find paranormal stuff more fascinating than anything. I have to admit, there are still some aspects that scrap the crap out of me though.


As an adult, the things that keep us up at night definitely shift. With the banks on the verge of collapse, civil wars all over the place, and the fact that my wife and I work in a public school district where a mass shooting could happen at any given time, it's clear there is a lot to be worried about.

Take the photo above for example. As the Technology Director for a public school district it is pretty easy to understand why flash drives might scare me. With viruses, malware, spyware, and mostly ransomware being so rampant these days, it is a wonder I allow these devices into my environment at all.

As scary as all of those things are, now there is another aspect that I have to be worried about. I was reading an article on ARS Technica the other day talking about how one of five journalists in Ecuador received a USB drive in the mail. They plugged the device into their computer and it promptly exploded.

Thankfully, the user only suffered mild hand and face injuries, but it is still a pretty scary event. I am sure they are going to think twice about plugging any USB device into their computer in the future. Let alone an unsolicited one from an unknown source.

Authorities are saying that only half of the RDX (T4) in the device detonated and that likely saved their life.

Another one used an adapter to plug the device in and because the voltage was too low it didn't detonate.

It's pretty clear these attacks are politically motivated and an attempt to silence a specific group of journalists. That being said, with explosives becoming more compact and more powerful, it isn't unbelievable that we might see other incidents like this happen.

Now, I really don't think one of these devices is going to end up in the hands of one of my students or teachers. At least not in my neck of the woods, but then again, you never know...

What scares the !@#$!@#$ out of you? Let's talk about it in the comments?



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39 comments
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Lot's of things do scare me! But what probably scares me the most is trying to be a parent!

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I can only imagine how rough that is. I have a feeling you are one of the good ones, despite what you might feel sometimes.

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Love the thought provoking post @bozz - my fear is always rooted in health and why I take my health and fitness journey seriously, especially that I'm about six years away in age from what my mother was when she passed away from cancer.

So it's safe to say, cancer may be my biggest fear.

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I can totally understand and respect that. Cancer sucks. I already fought it once and I hope I don't have to deal with it again. I know the odds are probably stacked against me though.

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That's nasty shit! Always be warry of drives with of unknown sources... Thanks for sharing!
!CTP

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No problem. I was a bit shocked when I saw the headline myself. It crazy how inventive they are getting!

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Marriage does. I don't know how it feels like to be in a marriage. I know my mum had a good one but I am afraid of the unkown

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It's pretty decent as far as I can tell. Going on 15 years now. Not much I can complain about.

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Oh wow. Congratulations. I am glad you are enjoying it and you know the interesting thing is I will one day have to put the fear aside and venture into one.

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Best of luck to you!

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Isn't it really suspicious, when someone you don't know, sends you a flash drive via the post? It's lucky that the journalist wasn't injured badly!!! And I get your worry about shootings at school. Everytime we hear about them on this side of the pond, it sends a shiver down my spine.

As to what scares me... the economy, the illegal immigrants and the strikes in UK are all worrying, but these are things out of my control. I'll just have to cocoon myself from them. I guess what scares me are things within my control, health mainly, since I get to the stage I really need to be more careful and look after myself. Finances, since I don't work, making sure I don't end up on the streets in 30 years time when I'm about to drop dead.

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Yeah, those are definitely things we need to keep track of as we get older. My health is always in the back of my mind as I get older but I don't think it scares the crap out of me. Medicine these days is pretty amazing. Stuff we can't control is tough too. I get what you are saying. The school shootings are pretty bad. We've already had a couple near scares here and we are in the middle of nowhere, not like inner city or big city or anything.

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Gosh this is awful and the first I've heard of it, but not the first time it's come across my thoughts. People really are horrible and knowing this, I certainly wouldn't plug in a USB that came in the mail if I were a journalist, I would have taken it straight to the police.

Scary shit indeed!

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I honestly am smack in the middle of terrified and impressed that someone would come up with this.

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We are indeed a crazy species! I replicate your sentiment to the T.

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My kids being adults' is what scare me. I know we raised them well, they are smart, and have the tools they need to do well. However, it still scares the hell out of me that they are out in this world by themselves sometimes. At least my oldest is married now and has a partner in this madness.

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I can appreciate that!

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As a small child I had an irrational fear of driving over bridges. I never met my maternal grandmother but, strangely, my Mom said she had the same fear. Thankfully I got over that by the time I got into kindergarten.

These days the instability of the financial markets, political divisiveness/extremism, and war (especially nuclear) frighten me. These are tumultuous/polarizing times and I'm not entirely sure how we can steer ourselves back to the middle of the road.

That's scary about those flash drives. That reminds me, cold storage wallets scare the @#$*! out of me now too. I experienced a glitch recently with my Ledger Nano X where the password just stopped working. I didn't change it, as far as I know no one has hacked it, it just stopped allowing me access to the device. Ledger's support was zero help but I finally figured out that the mobile app still worked and allowed me to transfer everything off of it. The Ledger used to be my favorite wallet because of its versatility but now I will never trust it again and use only Trezor.

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I went with a Ledger Nano X when I bought one. I don't have much on there, but I have it tied to my laptop. I am not a fan of the interface at all and I think if I had to do it over again I would definitely buy a Trezor. I think if I had more I might put more of a priority on it. Did you not have your seed phrase? Can't you still recover if you have that too? We were riding over the Mackinac bridge at a really young age, so you had to get over bridges pretty quick. My wife still doesn't like going over it too much!

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That was the very scary part, the seed phrase didn't work either. I don't know what happened but I have zero trust in that product now.

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Oh crap wow, yeah, that is not cool at all. Scary!

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With viruses, malware, spyware, and mostly ransomware being so rampant these days, it is a wonder I allow these devices into my environment at all.

Get a cheap laptop and put a Linux distro that is easy to use like Mint on it. Then you can intentionally put viruses on it and nothing will happen. The interaction between the virus and Mint is like a Japanese guy shouting obscenities at you: You know it isn't very nice, but you can't process the information.

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Yeah, good point. I have sandbox set up on my computer at work so I can test software out that way. Viruses really don't scare me these days. It's been decades since I actually saw one. They have far easier methods of getting what they want now.

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oh and to address what scares the crap out of me that is unreasonable I would say balloons. I developed a fear of them as a child and it became an adult fear as well. I won't go into birthday parties or bar celebrations that have balloons and if you want to get punched in the face, a good way to do that is to rub a balloon in front of me.

I don't understand the fear entirely, but it has to do with the explosion factor and how unpredictable balloons are.

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Wow, that is interesting! I don't care for the shiny balloons. I think that has to do with losing one as a kid. We got home and I was so excited. Accidentally let go of it and it was long gone. Pretty sure I cried a lot over that pacman balloon.

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awwwww. your reasoning is a lot more cute than mine. I just don't like explosions happening randomly.

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I can respect that!

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