Are You You?

Not a day goes by that you are not asked to prove that you are you. Turn on your phone, and you likely had to key in the 4-digit code that you set when you first purchased it. Or maybe you've shifted to the increasingly common facial recognition approach, wherein you have to stare into your camera for a few seconds so it can match the file picture it has of you with your real-life mug. Or if it's a web site to which you are trying to gain access they might send you a 6 or 8 digit key, the so called 2-factor verification system, which connects something you have (the phone) with something you know (the key).

In most cases those approaches are all that's needed to open the gates to your phone, your bank account or your Instagram feed. But as hackers employ more sophisticated tools, it's not uncommon to be challenged in more empirical ways. And so you may be prompted to respond to security questions to which you've formerly provided answers. The idea is that only you and your elementary school pals know that your nickname used to be "Itchy."  And let's face it: if one of them is trying to impersonate you all these years later and remembers that forgettable item, they deserve access to your Netflix account.

So what constitutes a good challenge question? Experts say there are five characteristics that mark secure authentication. The first is confidentiality: no one else should be able to guess, research or obtain the answer. Next is memorability: users need to be able to recall something quickly and after a long time. It has to be consistent: opinions and favorites are likely to change over time, while facts do not. Simple is also good: if it's all about the exact shade of green it will cause confusion. And there have to be multiple possible responses, the more the better: a hacker shouldn't be able to guess with a one-in-three chance of success.

I saw this in action when I called to link my new credit card's reward account with another from the same bank. Because one was a business account and the other a personal version, the surface data didn't line up perfectly, and so I was shunted to a specialist. They explained the issue, and said they could connect the two, but they had to go deeper to confirm my identity. Agreeing that that my financial underwear should be protected at all costs, I told him to have at it.

The first queries were routine: mother's maiden name, last four digits of my social. Then it got deeper into me: please tell us a former address. Well, we've lived in our home for more than 30 years, so it took a few moments to plumb the memory banks for that one. And another: what was the color of the Buick Skylark once registered in your name? If memory serves it was an old clunker that my parents gave to our kids as a starter car, so old it was retro. Yes, it sat in our driveway for a few years, but that was 2 decades ago. Again, it took some serious recall to dredge that up. And lastly, he asked, what is your age? To be fair, that's a number I try and forget, not remember. Socially I pretend I'm 24, emotionally I'm closer to 11. But he wanted physical age, and so I muttered that, albeit with a deep sigh accompanying my response.

And with that I was in. He and his deep mind accomplices decided that I was indeed me, and that all my accounts could be linked and accessed. It's not that those facts couldn't be ascertained elsewhere with some digging, but how I responded as well as the answers themselves convinced him I was me. After all, an AI clone would have had the answers instantly with no hesitation. My tentativeness helped marked me as the imperfect human I am, with a high statistical probability that I wasn't faking it. 

In the future that might not be enough. There is discussion in certain circles of establishing "personhood credentials" to establishment not only that you are you, but that you are a real being. After all, an AI generated personality can't show up and stand in line at the DMV. Perhaps going forward we may move to three-factor ID system that will include that human component: something you know, something you have, and something sweaty.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford is pretty sure he knows who he is most times, but not all. His column appears weekly via email and online on Blogspot and Substack as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.

Globally Local

There are many reasons to travel. Top of that list is to see new places and things that you don't see in your own neighborhood. Depending on where you call home, it might take days to get there, be it the fjords of Bergen, Norway, or the ruins in Ephesus, Turkey. But you don't have to go that far: from our locale it's just a few short hours by car to the Berkshire Hills Sculpture Garden, 5 hilly acres of farmland with a dozen large-scale sculptures in Hillsdale NY, or the gorge at Watkins Glenn, NY with its cliff walks and 19 waterfalls.

Harder, though, is to find shops and restaurants that are truly local and different from your usual haunts. The globalization of our consumer culture has meant that while there are still small family-run and independent establishments, many have been crowded out by goods and cuisines that cater to a worldwide mass market. It hit me many years ago on one of my first visits to Hong Kong, when the residents I was working with offered to meet up after work to take me out to dinner at their favorite local place. Where should we rendezvous, I asked? They took a look a map and mentioned a halfway point between me and them: the Disney store, they suggested. It was hardly the local landmark I was expecting.

That was at least 25 years ago, and the trend has continued and accelerated. As you walk down the street in the center of Berlin or San Francisco, Chicago or Paris, you come across the same stores. On one corner is a Nike store, on the other an H&M, opposite that a Microsoft store, all squared off with a North Face. The same can be said of coffee shops: it's difficult to list a city that doesn't have a smattering of Starbucks or other similar outposts. Even stores that were formerly associated with a single place have jumped oceans, so you see Joe and the Juice in Amsterdam, and Pret a Manger in Los Angeles. It also means that much cultural cross-breeding takes place. In London I walked past the Great Portland Street Deli with a sign out front featuring their New York's Famous Bacon Egg N' Cheese sandwich.

That doesn't mean that you shouldn't travel, that everything is so homogenized as to be the same. It does mean that you have to work harder when you do venture out, and get away from the centers of town to where the locals are, the better to be, well, local. Yes, that means that you have to take a chance on a place that doesn't have a web site, much less a 5-star Yelp rating, or buy something from a store to which you have no chance of returning the goods once you go back home. 

I have first-hand experience in both. In London years ago I bought a hat for gift, one which stuck my fancy and I hadn't seen elsewhere. But while the recipient appreciated the effort it took to pick it out and carry it back across the ocean, it was not to their taste and never worn, and there was no Amazon it return it to. And more recently there was the little restaurant we stumbled onto in Kyoto for lunch. It wasn't in any guidebook and likely hadn't hosted someone outside the neighborhood in years. Certainly the plasticine food displays the proprietress took us to see in the window hadn't been dusted in at least that long. But we managed to make ourselves understood, and got a couple of delicious bowls of soup with no spoken words between us. Well, that's not strictly true. When she brought us our food, she gestured at the two of us and used the one word of English she knew. "Honeymoon?" she asked. We assured her it was not.

The key is to roam off the beaten path. Nothing wrong with seeing the sites downtown, or taking the highways to get there quicker. But some of the most memorable meals or keepsakes or experiences we've had or bought have been when we zig-zagged off the main route to simply wander. One time it meant stumbling onto a local square in Tokyo that had a bunch of food trucks and a small stage. We ambled about, seemingly the only westerners in the place. We found seats as a succession of J Pop groups came on and performed. At one point a scruffy looking guy came over out of nowhere and put two beers in front of us, said something in Japanese, smiled, bowed and left. We had no idea why. Being a little early to drink and not wanting to insult him by just leaving them, I carried them back to him and a pal. I placed them in front of them, patted my heart and said thanks in Japanese. He nodded and said I halting English, "Where from?" I said "New York," and he smiled back. "Ah, Canada!" His geographic mistake was easy to forgive.

It may be trite, and we're talking real journeys, not metaphysical ones, but Robert Frost said to take the road less traveled. That route can indeed be a little harder to follow, but it also won't have a Cheesecake Factory on it. And that will make all the difference.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford loves to explore new and old places. His column appears weekly via email and online on Blogspot and Substack as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.

POSTSCRIPT

This space always ends with the line "Critiques, Comments, Rants & Raves welcome." In the "be careful what you ask for" department, my last column "Now I Lay Me Down" began with this line: "While my wife may dispute this..." Well, she did. Following is that first paragraph with her annotations in bold: 

While my wife may dispute this, I like to think I'm fairly low maintenance. I eat just about anything she cooks excluding tofu, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. I have enough socks and underwear to see me through a good number of days, and I'm happy to go for a walk or to a movie if asked though you typically reply "I don't care if I ever see another movie but sure, let's go to one." I don't hog the TV (the one you bought for me as a present??), I clean up after myself in the kitchen and the bathroom though what you do in the kitchen is basically a "pre-clean" before it's done correctly, and you seem to have a water fight whenever you brush your teeth and get everything wet, and make the bed if I'm the last one out. I do my share of cooking and yes, you do all the baking, always offer to help clean and empty the dishwasher and am quite willing to do the laundry, though I have been 1000% banned from that task after forgetting to not put more than one thing I shouldn't have in the dryer and for not sorting colors for the wash.

And with that I will chalk one up to transparency in journalism.

MW

Now I Lay Me Down

While my wife may dispute this, I like to think I'm fairly low maintenance. I eat just about anything she cooks. I have enough socks and underwear to see me through a good number of days, and I'm happy to go for a walk or to a movie if asked. I don't hog the TV, I clean up after myself in the kitchen and bathroom, and make the bed if I'm the last one out. I do my share of cooking, always offer to help clean, and am quite willing to do the laundry, though I have been banned from that task after forgetting to not to put more than one thing I shouldn't have in the dryer. 

That said, I do have a hit list when it comes to hotel rooms. It's pretty small and manageable, but if these are not met when I'm on the road I'm not a happy person. The room has to be clean. It has to be quiet, preferably away from both the ice maker and elevator. I'd like a chair to sit in and desk to work at. And it has to, has to, has to have hot water for a shower in the morning, however early that may be.

Beyond that I'm pretty amenable. I get that various establishments try and distinguish themselves by having something a little different, the better to stand out in a look-alike field. Some have modern bathrooms with unique fixtures, others have rolling tables, others have unique art work and decorations. Then there are the extra amenities, like a refrigerator, a coffee maker and such, the better to feel "homier." However, since I make it a point to never eat in my room unless it's the absolutely only possibility, none of that matters to me. Some add a couch or a lounger, but I'm either sitting at the desk or laying on the bed so ditto to that. And a view is nice, but I generally leave before it gets light and am back well after dark.

But I get it: I'm not who they are targeting and I understand why. Most of my hotel stays are for work as opposed to play. And that is the flip of the profile of those who book the most nights. Industry wide, business travel typically accounts for around 30-35% of hotel room usage, while 65-70% is for leisure purposes. So by a two to one ratio they are catering to others as opposed to me in my guise as a road warrior.

Still, while business travelers might prize solid Wi-Fi and vacation visitors want over fluffy robes, our bottom lines are not that dissimilar. We all want a stress-free experience that makes any stay as effortless as possible. So regardless of why I am spending the night, why oh why did the last crash pad I checked into have 4 different light switches on the wall when I walked into the room? One was sideways above the others, and didn't seem to control anything. Of the other three, one turned on a light on the other side of the room, one controlled something in the bathroom, and the last turned on a light outside the door asking for service. And nothing seemed to control the one directly over my head, meaning that I had to prop the door open with my foot when I came or left until my eyes adjusted to the dim. 

Let's move to the bed, where another rack of four greeted me. One did some baseboard glow around the bottom, illumination for which I have little use unless I drop something small. One controlled a bathroom light, one a light over the desk, and yes, one did control as pin-spot directly over the pillow. However that was so bright and so straight down that it was better for interrogation as opposed to reading.

And then there was the bed itself. King sized, so fine. Clean, so no issue in that area. Lots of pillows, hard and soft, a nice touch. But it was on the ground. More accurately, it was set onto a platform that was built on the ground. Stylish, perhaps, but to aging knees, a long way down. And getting back on it in the middle of the night after a trip to the bathroom in the dark meant shuffling forward until my ankles hit the platform and I belly flopped into it. Thankfully it was a soft landing.

If you want to go to a spa or a resort or a place to chill for a few days, perhaps your requirements are different. But if you work on the road, a hotel room is there to answer the simple question "I can't get home tonight, where am I gonna sleep?" And in that case, as with most things in life, the Occam's razor approach is usually the best: simple, simple, simple.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford has spent too many nights in beds not his own. His column appears weekly via email and online on Blogspot and Substack as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.

Fish Story

You missed your chance.

For one week at the end of October, the fish were running. Had you dipped your rod in before they swam past, you would have had the chance to catch a Patagonian toothfish, a cold-water species well-loved in the kitchen. While you have likely had that fish at a restaurant at one time or another, you might not know it by that name. That's because back in 1977 wholesaler Lee Lantz rechristened it to make it more attractive to the American market, and the US Food and Drug Administration bought into the change in 1994 when they allowed it to be known as the Chilean seabass.

If it worked once, maybe it will work again. In a bit of viral marketing, that name was reappropriated at the end of last month. That's when the Campbell's Company (itself a rebranded Campbell's Soup Company since April of this year) slapped that moniker on a different type of fish, the orange kind. And so had you been fast enough to cast your line over to their web site, you could have snagged a bag of cheddar flavored Goldfish Crackers that had been rechristened as Chilean Sea Bass Crackers.

The goal was to help goose the snacking market after a pandemic peak. Partly due to inflation at home (less buying power per dollar) and shrinkflation at the store (less snacks per bag), people have been buying less chips, crackers and other salty snacks. According to research from Bank of America, that has meant a 0.5% decline in sales during the third quarter of 2024, with volume down 1.1% over a year ago. 

Manufacturers are trying a variety of strategies to gain back that lost ground. They are reversing course and packing more chips into a bag without increasing the price, marking them as "bonus bags" to make sure consumers notice. They are adding new, healthier snacks to try and jump on the wellness bandwagon. And they are adding different form factors and flavors to try and appeal to jaded shoppers. Chicken and Waffle Protein Chips, anyone? (And no, I'm not making that up.)

Or you can try what Campbell's did. Take an old existing favorite and give it a new name, even if only for a little while. Manufactured originally by Swiss biscuit manufacturer Kambly in 1958, Goldfish Crackers were created by company founder Oscar Kambly to celebrate his wife, who was a Pisces. Pepperidge Farm founder Margaret Rudkin tried them on vacation, and liked them enough to bring them to this country in 1962. It took until 1977 for the company to add a smile to the cracker's face, which today appears on about 40% of the school swimming in your bag.

A perennial favorite, they are produced at multiple plants, including one in Willard, Ohio which churns out about 50 million a day. While they were a solid performer with great name recognition, they were locked for years into a consumer base primarily of little kids. Seeking to broaden that, four years ago the company rolled out a strategy to try and capture more adult hooks. That included more sophisticated flavors (Frank's Red Hot, Old Bay Seasoned), a larger size (Mega Bites, which are 50% bigger) and last December a version based on potato vs. flour (Goldfish Crisps). All of that has made a difference: Goldfish is the fastest-growing cracker brand in the category, with dollar sales up 33% during the past three years.

But in this era of internet buzz, a new flavor and form will only get you so far. You need something different to stand out. And so they hit on the idea of, for a limited time, rebranding of the product with a more adult name. No other changes, just the name. As it says on the bag "If you like these Chilean Sea Bass, you'll love Goldfish. Because that's what these are. They're Goldfish. Somehow the fancy name makes them taste more adult." 

Not really, but consumers took the bait. Sold only online for a week, each day the allotment was sold out by 9AM. Today if you want a bag of tiny orange Chilean Sea Bass, you will have to point your boat to EBay, where a bag goes for about $40.  Or you can just go to Target and get them under the original name for $3.49 for the same thing. 

They're not the first product to change their name to try and better connect with consumers. Datsun became Nissan, Opal Fruits became Starburst, and Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda changed its name to 7 Up. But in each case they stuck with those new appellations. Goldfish became Chilean Sea Bass, then Goldfish again. It remains to be seen if that will make them standout among the rest of the fish in the sea. 

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Marc Wollin of Bedford loves to snack but tries not to. His column appears weekly via email and online on Blogspot and Substack as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.

Pick One

Maybe you've already voted in person at a local establishment as part of the early crowd. Or perhaps you've marked and mailed in your ballot for reasons of ease or access. Maybe you're waiting for the traditional Tuesday trip to the local school gym or church basement to sign in and make your choice. But regardless of the timing or method, as of Tuesday night you will hopefully have participated in the closest thing we have to a national religion.

Ever since the country was created we as a people have differed in multiple arenas on many things, indeed, on almost everything. We have agreed on just one, taken as an article of faith: irrespective of the scale or importance, whether it's local or national, in public settings and private venues, there comes a time when eventually we gather together, ask a question, and stick our hands in the air for or against it. The side with the most hands up wins, the other side loses. Yes, there are a thousand caveats: it has to be fair, it has to be tabulated honestly, no one can be forced to choose a side, and on and on and on. But assuming all that – and admittedly those assumptions are not so easily made anymore - the process ends at that point until it begins again. Doesn't make any difference if the question being posed is who runs the country, or what movie to watch after Thanksgiving dinner. 

The exercise we are going through now is no different. That said, it has been described countless times by both sides as "the most important election ever." There is no doubt from anyone that it is consequential, as is every choice we make at every level. But just as rhetoric these days favors the superlative over any other form of adjective, it joins other instances where the end of the world was forecast if the other side won. Michigan's Secretary of State Orville E. Atwood in 1936: "The issue of the election two weeks from tomorrow is not an ordinary issue, but the question of whether the American form of government is to survive. This is the most important election of our lifetime." The Philadelphia Aurora in 1805: "Today will be held the most important election you have ever been called upon to attend." Strange bedfellows Bernie Sanders and Ralph Reed said it separately, yet almost word for word in 1996: "This is the most important election in our lifetimes and an election in which the choices have never been clearer." Elections, it seems, are like kindergarten soccer players: they are all the bestest.

Yet in each case, and in many others similarly described, someone won, and someone lost, and well, we're still here. Yes, if you were on the losing side perhaps things didn't go the way you wanted in any number of ways. In some cases the outcome was indeed transformational, like the 1860 election of Lincoln which effectively heralded the Civil War. More recently, we have lurched back and forth across some moving center line, with policies of consequence rising and falling, not a swing state, but rather a swing country. And again, we're still here.

Is this time different from all those others? If one side wins will we embark in a direction that is inalterable should the pendulum try and swing back? Will that swing prove so transformational (as both sides are saying) that the laws of physics will be suspended as if someone grabbed that pendulum and tacked it to the wall high on one side or the other? Yes, there may be changes, policies, approaches that are dramatic, and so it does make a difference whom we elect. But it's also probable that that very outcome makes it more likely that in the next iteration things will swing back again, to the despair or delight of each side.

I know what outcome I prefer. But I also know that for every one of me there is someone across the line who feels the same way in the other direction. That's why the race is dead even. My hope is less that I win, but that whatever the outcome, there will be another chance four years hence to make a choice once again. Yes, this is the most important election ever... until the next one.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford wants it to be over and to see what the winners... and losers... will actually do. His column appears weekly via email and online on Blogspot and Substack as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.