Cool to start but then warming to hot later. Fall in Houston. We are solidly in Fall, with the 75-76F mornings. It’s still early though, which is why we get the 90F afternoons. Which describes yesterday, despite overcast skies.
I did a few things yesterday, but got off to a slow start. I sat down after breakfast and fell asleep. I slept in my chair at my desk for almost 3 hours. That is crazy. Normally that would only happen if I’d had a bunch of carbs or sugar for breakfast. The dog sat on my lap that whole time too. He never does that. If he wants up, he wants back down in just a few minutes. I must have really been tired after the weekend.
If I had a headache, I’d have checked the CO2 monitors… or a butt ache, I’d have peed in a cup looking for rufies… that’s how strange it was.
I felt good when I woke up though.
So I went to my client’s house, did the changeover to xfinity fiber, did some other network maintenance (updating firmware on network devices), and came home to run the kids around and cook dinner. I even got my remote connection sorted out, with DDNS and the VPN set up and working. Felt almost like a real IT pro…
Dinner was a ribeye roast, bone on, frozen in Dec. 2013. Delicious. Tender and full of flavor. Vac seal with all the air removed, and keep frozen at 0F or thereabouts, and you can store food a lot longer than “people” say. This isn’t necessarily true for frost free freezers as they have a warming cycle to melt the frost, so you are cycling the temps and periodically warming the frozen food. But a chest freezer or old school upright will keep your food healthful and delicious for a decade or more.
I’m not recommending you plan to have food frozen for a decade, btw. You should be doing a better job of rotating food in and out. BUT. If you have the space, meat in the freezer is like money in the bank, especially when you buy on sale.
After dinner I re-baited the live traps in the attic, but didn’t see my possum invader last night. I’ll get him if he comes back. Meanwhile, I need to block his ingress route, which I’ll do if it’s a bit cooler. I need to clean up his mess too. I dislike working in attics when it is hot out though so I’m putting that off as long as I can.
Today is auction pickups, and running around, and all the typical stuff on the list that got pushed back by my client’s needs, and possum adventures. And a sudden and unusual need for some more sleep.
Stack something, fix something, learn something, or meet someone. And try to keep up. Catching up is twice as hard.
nick
(and so is being a badass. I realized that in the same way that happy people don’t make art, badasses are made by hardship and pain. I don’t want the backstory that comes with the badass present.)
Hopefully, the tips were flowing to the piano players as well.
Promos for the Billy Joel/Sting concert were everywhere when we hit San Antonio for Labor Day weekend.
“My Way” is forever linked with “Westworld” in my head, but that piano is better known for playing the Nirvana song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uam90khMxoI
The first season of “Westworld” is still awesome even if the show eventually descended into being DEI-driven garbage like Jar Jar’s other projects.
Don’t be so negative. One doesn’t say that anymore, one says “when I win the lottery”. 🙂
Apple is close to rolling out its AI servers for various OS’s. Be prepared for rolling brownouts around the country. Those servers aren’t powered by solar/wind nor unicorn farts.
Had a sample lesson for kids in middle school today: algorithms for 13 year olds. Good group, interactive, all of them willing to toss in ideas and opinions. Honestly, it was nice – and unusual nowadays – that all of them were Western. All were cooperative, all participated actively – really a great group of kids.
If any student is going to be confrontational and uncooperative, it is almost always someone from the Middle East. They are right, everyone else is wrong. This semester, in one class, I have one: he didn’t understand what I was explaining, so I must be explaining it badly. He hadn’t done the required reading, but it’s not his fault, it’s my fault. Classic, and he will be PITA all semester. The challenge will be to keep his disruptions from affecting the other students.
@brad, do the other students recognize where the problem lies?
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75F and mostly clear today. Felt nice at the bus stop. I’m sure that will change.
—————-
No possums in the traps this am, perhaps he met his end somewhere else.
n
I have a situation. I was photographing a volleyball game at the high school. One of the players was stretching and lunging for a ball, stretching the shorts. From the photographs (there were 3 in sequence) it was obvious the girl was going commando. When I saw the images (not real clear, but clear enough) I immediately erased the images from my computer and formatted the camera memory card. I cleared out every possible location where the images could reside.
Now, do I tell the coach without pointing out a specific person? I most certainly do not want to tell the girl. Or do I just leave it alone and move on with life? My gut says just move on with life.
Probably Azure servers.
Apple does not have hardware of its own running the large AI models. At least, nothing publicly acknowledged.
Say nothing. Physically destroy the memory card. Depending on how paranoid, get a new drive for the computer and physically destroy the old one.
I would move on. If you say anything to anybody you’ll probably be banned from photography at school. There is always a Karen who will complain and the Admin will crumble with a zero tolerance policy of impropriety.
The commies took over public school without firing a shot.
In Memory of David Hardy.
My gut says just move on with life.
Listen to your gut.
My gut says just move on with life.
Listen to your gut.
What he said.
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2024/09/24/cornell-international-student-may-have-to-leave-the-country-after-second-suspension-n3794974
Second suspension, his student visa is no longer good, now we’re waiting to see if the university caves and reinstates him.
No other cases have made the headlines, but there are dozens of those Jew haters that should have been sent home.
The unequal application of university rules to students and faculty (Amy Wax) is going to result in some epic lawsuits. The Trump administration needs to announce sanction process on universities. How about simply dialing back federal loan guarantees by 10-20% for the colleges violating the rules? Then the STEM colleges could decide if they want to join their lefty colleagues down the rathole.
Engelbert Humperdinck begged to get “My Way” from the songwriter, but was told it was promised to Sinatra.
That was sort of my thinking. I got called on the carpet by some Karen because I photographed cheerleaders doing jumps with their legs spread. She said I was pervert and was going to report me to the police. I never heard anything back on that.
The information on the drives have been overwritten by other files. I doubt there is a shred of any of the images left. I may be wrong. One drive is an SSD and information writing is spread over the drive. I currently have a fully format done on the drive which is supposed to overwrite everything.
I ain’t destroying the memory card. That sucker is a high speed, high capacity, card and quite expensive, $100+. That card gets used a lot and I suspect that any of the images have long been overwritten.
Fixed it for you.
Just a note on SSD drives: According to DoD guidance, SSD drives can’t be sufficiently wiped to clear old data. Any SSD used in a classified system that is either retired, or had a spill, must be destroyed. How likely is it that a non 3-letter agency can retrieve something? Who knows, but those are the rules. It’s why I still use only spinning metal drives on my big data storage. Well, that and cost.
Hard to say, but…probably. As anywhere, saying anything is non-PC.
However, it is also essential to take people as individuals. Problem cases are usually Middle Eastern, but most people from that area are not problem cases.
The danger in the class is contagion. Usually, I let a troublemaker run his mouth a time or two, to let him show everyone he is an idiot, and then stomp on him hard.
@Ray Thompson
suggest that RickH edit today’s thread ASAP to remove delicate topic of discussion
Well, that was a nasty surprise. According the Spongey administration maximum out-of-pocket expenses for prescription medicines is supposed to be $2500.00 per year. I am well over that for the year with the wife’s prescriptions. I just got a letter from Centerwell Pharmacy, an extension of Humana, that most of her expensive drugs are no longer going to be covered under the plan I currently have. The drugs are being moved to the exclusion category.
No additional plan was offered. I will get a reduced rate over commercial, but the money will not count toward the yearly maximum. And the monthly premiums will surely rise.
So Humana skirted the rules and shafted everyone again. There was probably loop holes in the legislation that the clueless and stupid legislators never saw coming. Or had their hands tied because of collusion with the drug companies and insurance companies.
Spongey’s plan to reduce drug costs, have actually increased drug costs. How quaint. Higher premiums, higher out-of pocket. Well done Spongey.
The Unaffordable Care Act. If you like your provider, you can’t keep your provider. Everything is the opposite of what Obola promised. The Kamel Humper will only make it worse to get us to full commie, cradle to death, goobermint rule.
Obamacare was designed to fail and be replaced with Medicaid For All.
@ray, let me know if you want an edit here. My first thought was that being on record with what you did is a CYA, but I’ll leave it up to you.
BTW, formatting is not enough if you really want to be sure. I’ve un-formatted drives I picked up at yardsales and goodwill. It’s especially easy if you just format and get rid of the drive, as nothing new is overwritten on the old.
Secure delete with multiple passes of overwriting is the only recognized way, and you have to include slack space.
FWIW, I don’t think accidental images count but they could still be problematic if someone pushed the issue.
—————
Lots of people have tried to let the world know that Diddy, sean combs, was a pervert. My youtube shorts last night was full of different celebs and insiders making comments over the years.
People preferred to ignore it, join in, or pretend it didn’t happen.
Truth comes out eventually.
n
“Secure delete with multiple passes of overwriting is the only recognized way, and you have to include slack space.”
My understanding has been that data is recoverable after multiple overwrites using techniques based on SEM.
Multiple is probably a receding target that was more than four last I informally heard.
A round through the drive is not enough. Should I ever have the need, I would randomize by chipping to -¼” followed by heating above the Curie point and a bath in chromic acid. Losing the remnants in a body of water wouldn’t hurt, either.
Nope, I am fine. What I did was not intentional, it was accidental, a matter of timing, position, etc. I did my best to discard and eliminate what happened. My first thought, after deleting everything, was should I inform the coach, or not. I was not the only one taking pictures although no one was at my position. I did the only thing any reasonable, and responsible, person would do. If I was a pervert one of the images would be the wallpaper for my watch.
I did the math correctly for SS. With “survivor benefits”. Medicare is about $176 a month. So, take what he was getting, add that $176, divide by two, and add that to what I get. Got it! Down to the 20¢. 🙂
It looks like Fall is here. Not yet cold. Just not mid-nineties pushing 100f. Today is all of 83f and 54% humidity. Nice.
I need to bring in the saucers for the house plants. Depending on the weather, they will be inside until Spring in a few weeks. Some years as early as mid-October. I’ll bring in a few bags of pellets for the wood stove, too. Why wait until it is sleeting rain?
I finished Firefly. I like it enough to watch again. Weird show. Fun to watch. Cowboys with spaceships. I made the mistake of trying to watch some of the “special features”. The set design stuff was cool Joss Weadon gives me the creeps. Then I pulled Serenity from the set of “10 Film Sci-Fi Movies” and watched it again. They did a pretty good job of tying up the loose ends. Serenity is now in a paper sleeve and in the Firefly package.
If anyone wants to go through that amount of effort to try and take me down, more power to them. It would mean that I something really special, worth the, what has to be, exceptional cost. I doubt a fuzzy, blurry image caught by accident is really that significant in the scheme of things.
It has been raining part of the night, and most of today, at the park. Friday when we are supposed to leave it is supposed to be raining hard in the morning. I am contemplating leaving on Thursday afternoon when there is supposed to be a break in the weather. If one can believe the weather liars.
Lots of people have tried to let the world know that Diddy, sean combs, was a pervert. My youtube shorts last night was full of different celebs and insiders making comments over the years.
But is he a criminal ? I have not heard of any underage partipants. And if you go to a party and take your clothes off, do you have an expectation of privacy ?
I even saw a quote from one of the Kardashians saying she had a good time.
I finished Firefly. I like it enough to watch again. Weird show. Fun to watch. Cowboys with spaceships. I made the mistake of trying to watch some of the “special features”. The set design stuff was cool Joss Weadon gives me the creeps. Then I pulled Serenity from the set of “10 Film Sci-Fi Movies” and watched it again. They did a pretty good job of tying up the loose ends. Serenity is now in a paper sleeve and in the Firefly package.
I agree. I have found Firefly to be watchable many times. Not much supension of disbelief either. At least not by my standards.
When I worked for Digital Equipment Corp., I wrote a disk erasing program for McDonnell Douglas. They had a whole bunch of (spinning rust) drives on a secret Navy project that got cancelled, and they wanted to shift them over to other projects. RA81 drives, if I remember correctly.
The Navy said no. But they persuaded the Navy I could write a “pretty good” disk wiper, and promised they’d only use them on other classified projects. So they got the go-ahead.
I wrote a program that wrote every available cylinder, track, and sector with several passes. Zeroes, then ones, then odd bits, then even bits, then random patterns. Repeat the whole thing at least once.
When I gave them the program, I explained about modern (1995) disk technology, and how there may be tracks that were once written, but were no longer available to be read or written, because of revectoring of “bad” tracks. Basically, all the disks were larger than advertised, and when the hardware detected a problem, the track would be put on a “do not use” list, and a spare track substituted, automatically and transparently.
“Do not use” meant I couldn’t override and read or write it. So the potential for secret information surviving my disk wiper existed.
I’ve been told that to read those tracks, you’d have to disassemble the drive, remove the sealed platters, and examine the surface with an electron microscope. After mapping out where they were.
The Navy was paranoid.
The cancelled project, by the way, was the death of McDonnell Douglas, and bankrupted them, and forced the Boeing takeover. I’ll never forgive Dick Cheney for that whole debacle.
or reproducing.
Ha, we couldn’t re-use the WIRE that classified signals (analog or digital video) passed thru on systems with lower classifications.
We didn’t advertise that the projector DMD devices could freeze in an error state and be read with a microscope if they did, or that there was a frame buffer that might retain data.
We had to cut IR ports out of plasma tvs in secure areas, but the tvs themselves radiated like crazy and could be spied on with van eck phreaking (or Tempest). The brass loved big screens and were gonna have them even if they were a risk.
And really, d!ckhe@ds with thumb drives, and congressmen with chinese spy lovers were a bigger threat in my estimation.
SECSTATE ran her own email server that everyone in the world was reading…
n
Bang Bang!
When we lived in Vantucky, I had to get rid of my tube monitor because my desk was on a line of sight between the Coast Guard Commander’s house across the street and the base at the Portland Airport. Anytime the Commander’s low frequency RF radio ran, my monitor would go nuts.
I hope the communications weren’t confidential. I never put a scope on the signal, but it looked like clear audio to me.
ELF has a VERY low bitrate. I think it’s three letter groups in clear.
n
Why I read DM. They ALWAYS follow up.
Facing life in prison. It should be the death penalty to discourage the others.
Hopefully he’ll get some rough justice meted out.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13891859/Houston-cop-gerald-goines-learns-fate-shooting-dead-couple-no-knock-raid.html
Drawn and quartered on MLK Drive. Watched by the rest of his goon squad, then one month later, they follow him.
n
It wasn’t ELF looking at the frequencies and antenna specs, but the signal was below AM and high powered.
Hurricane Helene.
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/152934.shtml?cone#contents
https://www.cyclocane.com/helene-spaghetti-models/
some folks are gonna get wet and windy.
Take the necessary precautions if you are in the path.
n
FBI Whistleblower Marcus Allen testifies:
https://redstate.com/smoosieq/2024/09/25/powerful-testimony-from-fbi-whistleblower-marcus-allen-at-weaponization-hearing-n2179759
If you don’t read it all, read his final remarks.
Take heed President Trump.
God Bless you, Mr Allen.
I use my Drive eRazer on all my spinning disks before disposal. The price has more than doubled! I set it up on a table and let it run until finished. The Synology NAS is the only device these days that has spinning metal.
I tried the Mac Drive Utility to erase some SSD/flash, but it takes forever to do a security overwrite.
re: Goines
The details of Tuttle’s dying moments are gruesome, and I don’t want to think about it or revisit it.
But based on reporting shortly after the raid, you are completely correct about including all the officers on scene in that punishment.
So was the USAF.
We used cloth ribbons on the impact printers. Any time anything classified was printed on the printers, the ribbon was considered classified at the level of the material printed. Never mind that reading anything from that used ribbon was impossible. There was hardly any ink left and the material was so frazzled it almost fell apart. But into the classified bin it went.
One time the USAF was printing checks. A check for $25.00 went missing. They locked down the computer facility for almost 5 hours, no one in or out while the search was conducted. The check was finally found behind the printer in the enclosure. Almost 80 people with their routine upset. For some it was close to their shift change and the civilians had to be paid overtime. It probably cost the USAF several thousands of dollars.
At one point in the early ‘70’s the USAF was wrapping all their computer rooms in copper mesh. I remember them putting the stuff on the walls and then covering it up with some type of sound deadening material. All the computer rooms in the USAF. It must have cost millions.
Update on the camping trip. We left this afternoon about 3:30 PM (CDT) and just got home. There was a lull in the rain and we took advantage of it to clean the leaves off the slide-out and the awning. Then we hooked up and came home. It was raining when we got home. I got significantly wet unhooking the trailer. The weather forecast for the Spencer area was rain starting tonight and going through Friday. Hooking up in the rain is not fun as the tanks have to be drained and flushed in addition to the normal hookup process.
It is not fun staying in a state park and being confined to the RV with nothing to do but watch movies.
Rainy days stranded away from home?
Isn’t that what the SBR is for? Under an awning, in a hammock, listening to the rain, drinking wine?
I’m pretty sure SBR means Stack of Books to Read, but I think of it as Strategic Book Reserve. Same idea, just sounds more planned than haphazard.
I order merchandise from Amazon, and frequently, if I choose a delayed delivery date, I get electronic credits. Then I find book sales and spend the credits before they expire, on kindle books.
I think I’m about a dozen books ahead now, and I have credits expiring soon.
Yes, but it is the hassle of hooking up the trailer, dumping the waste, flushing the tanks, and loading the bikes in the truck, in the rain that is really annoying and uncomfortable.
Pearls Before Swine: The Answer To Your Problems …
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2024/09/22
Is not Rat the Huckster.
Had a lovely dinner with my sibling and the family. Fried seafood. Yum.
Time to start getting to bed earlier. If I’m falling asleep during the day, I’m too tired.
n
Side Quested: Set You On Fire
https://sidequested.com/page/192/
You know, that does not appear to be an idle threat.
Got back from San Antone about 4 pm. I been bingeing “Lost” on Netflix since then amongst odd jobs.
“Monster Hunter Alpha (Monster Hunters International Book 3)” by Larry Correia
https://www.amazon.com/Monster-Hunter-MONSTER-HUNTER-Paperback/dp/B00QO3ZXJK?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number three of an eight book dark fantasy series. There are several other books that are spinoffs from the series, prequels and such. I first read this book in 2011. I reread the well printed and well bound MMPB published by Baen that I bought new on Amazon rather than find the book in my garage stash. I have all of the books in the series and am rereading through them.
Anita Blake meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer and turns into a guy named Owen Pitt. An accountant turns into a Monster Hunter after a close encounter with a werewolf in his office. The accountant even somewhat reminds me of Owen Deathstalker. If you like Urban Fantasy, you will love this hardcore story. If not, oh well.
https://www.amazon.com/Deathstalker-1-Simon-R-Green/dp/1625672071?tag=ttgnet-20/
The story is sound, the concept is good, the good guys are imperfect and the bad guys are real bad. And, I like Skippy. It just works that an Uzbekistan Orc can fly a Hind 24 with the best of them. I also like federal agent Franks, who would not like Frankenstein’s monster ?
But this book is is not about Owen Pitt, Skippy, and Franks. Earl Harbinger, the 100+ year old werewolf in charge of MHI, has been told by an old friend that there are werewolves hanging around a nearby town. So Harbinger takes off to investigate, by himself. After all, he is the meanest and baddest werewolf on the planet. Or so he thinks.
The author has a website. Note, the author does not suffer fools at all and will write a 2,000 word essay on why you suck if you annoy him.
https://monsterhunternation.com/
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (3,324 reviews)
Lynn
>>The information on the drives have been overwritten by other files. I doubt there is a shred of any of the images left. I may be wrong. One drive is an SSD and information writing is spread over the drive. I currently have a fully format done on the drive which is supposed to overwrite everything.
“….supposed to…” hmm.
>>Yes, but it is the hassle of hooking up the trailer, dumping the waste, flushing the tanks, and loading the bikes in the truck, in the rain that is really annoying and uncomfortable.
@ray, strip down to your skivvies and put on a pair of old sneakers. Grab a towel when done and no need for a shower. Outdoor temperature allowable of course.
>>My youtube shorts last night was full of different celebs and insiders making comments over the years.
I prefer Champion athletic shorts…
“It Can’t Be Repaid”
https://areaocho.com/it-cant-be-repaid/
“Ray Dalio says America’s $35,327,646,622,839 national debt will continue to grow no matter who wins the race for the White House. The national debt is bound to be ignored while the government uses inflationary policies to reduce the real burden of its debt, according to the Billionaire.”
We are heading to a federal financial apocalypse.
Some sort of research project going on here. They have a poker video game, one of the consoles you might see in an arcade or (since it’s poker) in a bar. They’re looking for participants, I assume either they want to see how you act under certain circumstances, or maybe what kind of strategy you follow, or – dunno, didn’t ask, and they probably wouldn’t tell me, because that would influence the results.
Anyway, I’ve signed up for two hours of playing video games next week. Apparently, I get paid something for it, dunno if that will really happen, anyway, that’s not important. I’d be here anyway in the evening, killing time in the hotel, so this is entertainment. Life is terrible 😛
The poker machines have payout tables which adjust payouts for winning hands as the machines accumulate money while adhering to local laws. The dopamine hit to keep the players coming back must also get factored into the calculation.