53F and 35%RH NOPE, 35F at 6am here in Houston. At least according to my weather station [time for new batteries in the station]. I haven’t stuck my head out the door to confirm. [just did, frost on roofs]
Daughter got back from her school trip without incident. She figured out how to get connected to WiFi on the bus, and then later on one of the mom’s hotspots. We don’t have phone service on her iPhone, and she can’t carry it normally, but we let her take it ‘as a camera’. Good thing she’s not sneaky as she sent us multiple text messages revealing her ability. Clearly gonna have to have some more conversations with her about device usage.
The lawyer that was instrumental in the ongoing harrasment of President Trump was accused of beating his girlfriend. He claims it’s “bullshit.” Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…………………….. Schadenfreude, it’s what’s for breakfast! Can’t wait to see how he feels with the shoe on his foot.
The story about the cabal within the German military is gaining traction.
Brexit is causing issues.
Russia may have jammed the GPS system during the wargames, ya know, just to let people know they can…. I guess the FAA won’t be approving GenNext air traffic or whatever it’s called this week….
Outright criminal conduct by .gov in Florida, and where’s the outrage? They’ll try to steal another one. Pretty soon, this is just “normal” behaviour and the butt of jokes… instead of the shot heard round the world.
Gun registration and confiscation is back on the table too. GO BUY GUNS. GO BUY AMMO. GO BUY MAGS AND PARTS KITS. Get ahead of the next panic. Even better if you can do so legally person to person, without paperwork or credit cards. Estate sales are good for that BTW.
Relaxation time is over. Get back to work.
n
From Bruce Schneier’s Crypto-Gram newsletter, a reminder–
“IoT devices are surveillance devices, and manufacturers generally use them to collect data on their customers. Surveillance is still the business model of the Internet, and this data is used against the customers’ interests: either by the device manufacturer or by some third party the manufacturer sells the data to. Of course, this data can be used by the police as well; the purpose depends on the country.”
n
[emph added]
But, but, but…. They’re enhancing our experience.
I use Echo devices to control light, occasionally listen to music and sometimes as timers.
Oh and letting Amazon listen in. I’m enhanced.
30º and cloudy in the place where they’ll cancel yoga classes if we get more than 48″ of snow. Maybe.
Alexa in the kitchen. Kids (and wife, and her mother) don’t understand why I won’t have it in the living areas of the house. It’s not that I have anything to hide, mind. It’s that I don’t care to share the number of times I fart during Backyardigans marathon for the kids.
That’s the only IOT device in our house besides our phones. Phones are “nominally” not listening, as I turn off the voice commands before they get to the user. No illusions, though. My fridge, lights, furnace, etc., are all “dumb” devices and work just fine.
Looks like the Saudis have picked their winners…..and the crown prince is exonerated, imagine that….
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6392951/Jamal-Khashoggis-accused-killers-face-death-penalty-Saudi-prosecutor-says.html
n
(so if you execute people for killing someone, aren’t you admitting that the someone was IN FACT killed?)
Personal computers (hobby computers) are old enough that the founders are OLD….
RIP
I remember many magazine issues with the s-100 on the cover, or articles. I had no idea what you would do with one, but it captured my interest. When the TRS-80 came out, I was primed and I bought one. The rest is history.
Um, NEVER??? How is that even possible anymore?
n
Plausible deniability. (also known as lying to cover your ass)
Personal computers (hobby computers) are old enough that the founders are OLD….
I remember reading that Ed Roberts died at some point in the last few years.
For a lot of those guys, personal computers stopped being fun around the mid-80s and they moved on. Roberts went to med school.
Um, NEVER??? How is that even possible anymore?
I nearly got kicked out of grad school for ripping into another Masters student who didn’t know the difference between a Word file and a plain text file.
This was a Masters in *CS* student. The department liked the foreign tuition money. A semi-secret class “Programming Practicum” taught the necessary minimum programming skills to make the students believable, but cheating and grade curves were rampant.
I am constantly trying to explain the difference between a Word file and a PDF to some people. Have you ever tried to explain the difference between the number zero and the character zero?
Have you ever tried to explain the difference between the number zero and the character zero?
You must be referring to spreadsheets. For us old farts, they are the same in ASCII 🙂
Added, I remember when hams used surplus teletype machines for RTTY. That should be enough old acronyms for me today.
@Greg: I hear you. Thankfully, my school allows us to apply the same standards to everyone, even though they do earn more money on foreign students.
I haven’t ever run the stats, but at a guess I fail about half of the domestic students in the first semester, and about 60% of the foreign students. So it’s not a huge difference. What is striking is that the extra 10% consists of students whose education is fundamentally deficient: they are missing basic math and computer skills, and really never have a hint of a chance. Attending a foreign university is expensive – you’d think they’d find out if they are at the right level, before spending that kind of money.
You mention Masters programs: somehow those are a different situation. I’m barely involved in our Masters programs, intentionally, because they really are run for the money, and the standards are (imho) too low. Since I have trouble keeping my mouth shut, it’s best I just stay out of it…
My wife wants an Alexa, and doesn’t really understand why I won’t get one.
This reminds me, I really need to remember to disconnect the upstairs and downstairs tv network connections. No need to use the apps in them anymore since we have Roku’s on both now.
I have purposely avoided any smart home devices, with the exception being the house thermostats. What I really want is a bunch of smart home devices that can be controlled locally without the need to connect to a remote server. Does such an animal exist?
ASCII character “0” is decimal 48. The number 0 is, ya know, 0.
Some years back I needed an RS-232 cable for an old piece of equipment in the lab. I went to a Radio Shack and asked the sales guy. He said “RS-232? Is that a Samsung model?” It was at that point I knew Radio Shack was doomed.
I used to have a good time at Radio Shack. Sales weenies in general didn’t know much, but there were a few that would give me a look, then walk to the exact spot to pull out the part I needed.
My first printer was a 9-pin that emulated an IBM Proprinter. The salesguy took the time to explain the 25-pin and the centronics connectors. No reason “why”, but what all those pins were for sure helped me grasp when I knew nothing.
I miss Radio Shack. Now I buy my stuff online from one of the Cable Warehouse type places. (CableWholesale.com, I believe.)
I love the instant gratification of buying it locally, but there are no local places to buy these things anymore.
I used to have a good time at Radio Shack. Sales weenies in general didn’t know much, but there were a few that would give me a look, then walk to the exact spot to pull out the part I needed.
Working for the Egghead Software ponzi in the late 80s, I learned about Radio Shack hiring practices from my management, former RS managers. Generally, highly technical/educated individuals were not hired because the company was concerned about salespeople spending too much time on customer problems.
I sometimes wondered if they applied the same principle at Egghead. We had one employee rise to manager in the Tampa district who literally could not read.
Alexa can be downright creepy. We have one (a Show), actually 2 with the Fire TV, in the dining room, shuffling our favorite music during all waking hours. At least once a day, when we are having a conversation, Alexa will chime in with some relevant or irrelevant point, or she might say “you might like this song”. Damn creepy. And sometimes she gets an attitude and will not play what we request. A handy thing though is is she connects to my various brands of surveillance cameras and I can easily ask her to view any one of them. Very handy when I hear an unrecognized noise outside.
I used to use the Octal to Decimal table. Never messed with Hexadecimal conversions.
I applied at a local Radio Shack for a part time position, a few hours at night during the week and a few hours on Saturday and Sunday. I was not hired because I was told I was not a salesperson but a technician. They did not want a technical person beyond just knowing where a product was on the shelf.
The TRS-80 had just been launched and I was already using one for a client, auto parts store and auto repair to do invoicing and track inventory. Actually worked quite well. Thus I was fairly fluent in TRS and the Basic language that was used on those computers.
Showed the manager during the interview and even pointed out a problem with a system running in the store. Should not have done that. Apparently it went over his head and made him look less than competent in computers.
I really liked the store for their parts and other items that could be purchased. No where else to buy the stuff unless you wanted 100 of each item. There was no online ordering as Al Gore had yet to invent the internet.
I have mine close to the TV. Every once in awhile the Echo will activate based on something on the TV. I seem to remember a couple of years ago a commercial for Amazon showing how easy it is to order from Amazon, triggered many people’s devices and placed the order. Amazon commercials are now very careful to not phrase anything that Alexa might recognize as a command.
Thus I know that Alexa is listening all the time. Is Alexa sending the stuff to Amazon all the time? Or only after a command has been recognized?
Have you ever tried to explain the difference between the number zero and the character zero?
Just put a slash through the zero. That makes them different. “snicker”.
Seriously, all of the big iron used to do that.
Breaking Cat News: “free massages”
https://www.gocomics.com/breaking-cat-news/2018/11/15
Heh.
Well, I tried the intertubes trick, “The Pesky PWDIS Feature In Newer SATA Specs”, of trying to get my shucked 8 TB hard drive to replace my backup 4 TB hard drive last night. The 8 TB hard drive spun right up but my office PC locked up during the BIOS boot. Looks like I need a new motherboard, cpu, and ram to address that 8 TB hard drive. To be fair, when I bought my motherboard and cpu, the largest hard drive available was 3 TB.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/hdd-sata-power-disable-feature,36146.html
“To sum up, for products supporting the optional SATA 3.3 power disable (PWDIS) function, the third pin (P3) of the SATA connector is now assigned as the Power Disable Control pin. If P3 is driven HIGH (2.1V-3.6V), the power to the drive circuitry will be cut. All drives with this optional feature will not power up if a legacy SATA connector is used. This is because P3 driven HIGH will prevent the drive from powering up. The easy, and not so elegant, solution is to use a 4-pin Molex to SATA connector or a power supply equipped with SATA connectors that follow the SATA 3.3 specification.”
“A look at group homes in Houston-area neighborhoods”
https://www.click2houston.com/news/a-look-at-group-homes-in-houston-area-neighborhoods
“Boarding houses typically offer individual beds for rent along with a shared bathroom.”
“But other types of group homes, known as community homes, cannot be independently governed by local municipalities because of federal housing laws that relate to discrimination.”
“Community homes are specifically designed for tenants with physical and mental disabilities.”
My neighbors on http://www.nextdoor.com are talking about this today. Apparently we have several group homes out here in the sticks. Interesting.
“How to Protect Your Front Door Deliveries”
https://www.pcmag.com/feature/363825/how-to-protect-your-front-door-deliveries
“Don’t let those pesky porch pirates take your Amazon deliveries. Prevent package theft and improve your outdoor security with these tech gadgets and services”
Tis the season.
Thanks for the links Lynn…
n
I use hexadecimal for my age. I am only 0x42.
0x34
https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/article/Which-Houston-suburbs-are-the-safest-in-Texas-13392855.php?ipid=hpctp
—these are most of the suburbs and small towns that surround Houston, in almost any direction. Several bracket my neighborhood.
Ordinary people don’t need trauma kits and tourniquets in their vehicle…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6394053/Daddy-Im-hurt-Girl-6-struck-Houston-security-guards-bullet-shot-iPhone-thief.html
—this is within a couple of blocks of someplace I’m very familiar with. Also not a place I go after dark (incident was just after 4 p.m. on Monday), and only a few blocks from where the guy used an AR-15 to successfully fight off a driveby shooting some months ago… This neighborhood is BETTER than it was, as the percentage of hispanics grows and displaces the blacks who used to live there. It’s also home to one of the most frequently robbed walmarts in the US.
https://www.chron.com/news/us-world/border-mexico/article/13-gangs-and-cartels-that-are-working-together-in-13384458.php?ipid=hpctp
— just can’t get enough of that vibrant diversity….
n
and DON’T answer the door at 3am!
From yesterday: fedgov essentially bought iridium out of bankruptcy so they’d be able to continue using it. . .
The trouble with all low earth orbiting satellites is cost. The trouble with all geosynchronous satellites is latency. Other options for remote areas, including vessels at sea, are balloons in the stratosphere, solar powered planes, and Airborne Wireless. That last one would be especially good, as the flights are already up there, so it has a cost advantage. I hope it succeeds. Another one, wide area PTP wireless, has been tried in urban areas, but failed due to competition and monopolies. I think it could succeed in remote areas for several reasons, but it will never be big enough to generate a lot of revenue, and needs a champion. Google, are you listening? Cellular data would be great if the price would come down, and if the network could support lots more traffic.
RIP Roy Clark. Hee! Haw!
0x3A
The trouble with all low earth orbiting satellites is cost. The trouble with all geosynchronous satellites is latency. Other options for remote areas, including vessels at sea, are balloons in the stratosphere, solar powered planes, and Airborne Wireless. That last one would be especially good, as the flights are already up there, so it has a cost advantage. I hope it succeeds. Another one, wide area PTP wireless, has been tried in urban areas, but failed due to competition and monopolies. I think it could succeed in remote areas for several reasons, but it will never be big enough to generate a lot of revenue, and needs a champion. Google, are you listening? Cellular data would be great if the price would come down, and if the network could support lots more traffic.
SpaceX is planning on building a LEO mesh network of 600 mbps satellites called Starlink. The satellites are designed to last two years then burn up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellation)
“The Internet communication satellites are expected to be in the smallsat-class of 100-to-500 kg (220-to-1,100 lb)-mass, which were intended to be in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at an altitude of approximately 1,100 kilometers (680 mi). However, SpaceX ultimately decided to keep the satellites at a relatively low 550 kilometers (340 mi), due to concerns about the space environment.[37] Initial plans as of January 2015 were for the constellation to be made up of approximately 4000 cross-linked[32] satellites, more than twice as many operational satellites as were in orbit in January 2015.”
“Internet traffic via a geostationary satellite has a minimum theoretical round-trip latency of at least 477 ms (between user and ground gateway), but in practice, current satellites offer latencies of 600 ms or more. Starlink satellites would orbit at 1/30 to 1/105 of geostationary orbits, and thus offer more practical latencies of around 7 to 30 ms, comparable to or exceeding existing cable or fiber networks.”
Sounds freaking awesome. The BFR spaceship is supposed to carry many of the Starlink satellites up to LEO with its regular cargo trips.
There are lots of areas in TX served by WISP or wireless point to point. Most of them are rural actually. Minimal infrastructure cost, if you can get the backhaul to a suitable central antenna. One of my acquaintances is partnered to do it for a smaller community north of here. They’ve already got over 150 homes signed up, but nothing except proof of concept actually running.
n
SpaceX has the advantage of being their own launch service. Even so, they are talking about needing more than 11,000 satellites. If Lynn is right, and they have a 2 year life, they will be launching 5000+ satellites per year, every year. That’s crazy expensive, even if your launches are relatively cheap.
Musk&Co have some brilliant ideas, but they are not always down to earth. Pun intended…
SpaceX has the advantage of being their own launch service. Even so, they are talking about needing more than 11,000 satellites. If Lynn is right, and they have a 2 year life, they will be launching 5000+ satellites per year, every year. That’s crazy expensive, even if your launches are relatively cheap.
SpaceX is planning on capturing 10% of the internet clients in the USA rather quickly. They will get the remote stuff quickly that is now served by DSL or slower. And 600 mbps will be amazing. The receivers apparently will have to be outside. That is quite a few bucks.
If the BFR has a 220,000 lb (100,000 kg) lifting capability and the new satellites weigh 1,100 lb (500 kg) each, that means that they can launch 200 satellites per single launch if they want to. So that is 25 BFR trips per year. Plus they can mass produce the satellites without the expensive clean room requirements since they are throw away.
Remember, the BFR is designed for air freight duty. That means up to 12 trips per day every freaking day of the year. Boeing is starting to panic since they sell more airliners for air freight duty than people carrier duty now.
There are lots of areas in TX served by WISP or wireless point to point.
That’s what I have. Rise Broadband. Formerly Skybeam. Formerly Pegasus. Formerly PGRB. Etc. They have managed to buy up most of the local wISPs like TStar and Momentum. Zeecon is still around and I’m not sure about 281.com.
My other choices are sat, mobile hotspot, or doing without because dial-up is history.
Sounds freaking awesome. The BFR spaceship is supposed to carry many of the Starlink satellites up to LEO with its regular cargo trips.
There is hope! Regarding WISP, we actually have two in our valley. One is great (but expensive) but doesn’t reach me… yet. No idea when, but I lobby. The other has been in operation for several years, and is putting out a whopping 0.5 Mb and has no plans to upgrade. Usual reason: they are more expensive than cable, which is what most people use, so they can’t capture much market share.
Then there is backhaul. We do have fiber to the valley, but it is intended for commercial use and resellers, such as ISPs. Most of them have their own providers, none of which is available to us unwashed masses. Jealous? not me!
But, Lynn just gave me more hope.
Youse guys with four character hex ages sure sound old to me. I am still two digits decimal 😛
600 mbps would be great.
I’m on the 5 mbs plan. It’s good enough to stream Prime and Sling. I’m assuming I’m getting bits and not bytes.
They offer a 15 mbs plan for an extra $10 or $15 a month. The tech guy’s laptop connects at 37 or so… but their billing software doesn’t support selling 15 mbs service from that tower. I’m like “wtf?”, the tech guy says the Yankees running the company are crazy. But hey, y’all don’t want an extra $15 a month from me? Ok….
“Florida orders first ever statewide hand-recounts as legal fights continue”
http://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2018/11/15/florida-orders-first-ever-statewide-hand-recounts-as-legal-fights-continue/
“Following a five-day machine recount of the more than 8.3 million votes cast in the Nov. 6 elections, Secretary of State Ken Detzner ordered hand recounts Thursday afternoon in the race between U.S. Sen Bill Nelson and Gov. Rick Scott, and also the race for agriculture commissioner between Nicole “Nikki” Fried and Matt Caldwell.”
“DeSantis’ lead held Thursday as the counties reported their tallies, keeping him above the quarter-point threshold and making him Florida’s governor-elect barring a legal challenge from Andrew Gillum. But, as expected, the margins in the U.S. Senate and agriculture commissioner races remained under the threshold, requiring hand recounts of overvotes and undervotes.”
Since we know that there are no republicans in Broward County, my prediction is that the intent of the Broward County supervisors is to convert all Scott (R) votes to Nelson (D) votes.
I further predict that Nelson will retain his senate seat by 2 to 5% of the vote. Either Broward County or Palm Beach County will find a railroad car full of misplaced ballots.
“In California, gun control fails once again”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/11/08/gun-control-failed-thousand-oaks-california-debates-editorials/1932461002/
“Once again, we see the failure of gun control in preventing a horrible tragedy.”
“Wednesday’s California bar shooting was in a gun-free zone, where good guys cannot legally carry firearms.”
“Gun-free zones are magnets for killers. Consider that almost 98 percent of public mass shootings in this country occur in these mandatory victim zones.”
“But where citizens can protect themselves, the situation is much different. Within the past month, two potential mass shootings were averted by law-abiding citizens who used their concealed firearms.”
I do not like gun free zones.
My brother-in-law lives in one in Nebraska. He’s high functioning Down syndrome. He lives in a house with one of the social workers at the workshop where he spends days. there is one other resident from the workshop also. She is paid a per diem to transport, house, and feed them. It’s not a great amount of money, but with that and the pay from the workshop she has a middle class life. The workshop is where he makes his spending money and they make sure he doesn’t make so much as to lose his SSDI and Medicaid. He lived in a home that had 4 men in it with staff provided by a non-profit that hired students from the University of Nebraska and a full time pro. It was well run and he liked living there.
The one’s I looked at on the links from the Chron were for drug users and referrals from the TxCriminaljustice system….
One near me has 16 beds in a normal house. That isn’t good.
n
My brother in law has his own room. It’s not a flophouse type situation. Also, social workers do regular inspections.
I further predict that Nelson will retain his senate seat by 2 to 5% of the vote. Either Broward County or Palm Beach County will find a railroad car full of misplaced ballots.
Perkins Coie has the paralegals working overtime in Miami tonight.
Other counties in FL have *great* Democrat election supervisors whom no one in either party would ever doubt. It is always Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach which are train wrecks.
On yesterday’s topic regarding broadband options and their availability:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/11/spacex-gets-fcc-approval-for-7500-more-broadband-satellites/
This should be coming sooner than you think. 🙂
“DeSantis’ lead held Thursday as the counties reported their tallies, keeping him above the quarter-point threshold and making him Florida’s governor-elect barring a legal challenge from Andrew Gillum. But, as expected, the margins in the U.S. Senate and agriculture commissioner races remained under the threshold, requiring hand recounts of overvotes and undervotes.”
DeSantis winning is now important to the Republicans.
They’ll concede the Ag Commissioner race even though that office runs CCW in Florida.
I’m going to bed. Still not quite over the cold/cough/crud I got in Fla…
n
What is it about Florida and elections? I would have assumed, by now, that the Repubs have people watching the whole process. There shouldn’t be any room for shenanigans like magically-appearing ballot boxes. WTF?
Still having an online debate on the political issues with the Pirate Party here. It’s great practice for my written German. While I am “fluent”, I still learned the language as an adult, so I’m a long ways from the level of a native speaker.
I like to think I can argue either side of an issue – which requires me to understand both sides. Meanwhile, the progs within the party are almost incapable of understanding that other points of view even exist, and they certainly don’t grant anyone the right to actually hold those other points of view.
Election observers who weren’t on board with the fraud were thrown out, threatened with arrest, and told to stop recording incidents of obvious fraud. A few incidents have been reported in local papers and the grapevine says it happened a lot. (With the usual caveat that the word of the grapevine is not the most reliable. On the other hand, it’s more reliable than the MSM, a sad state of affairs.)
I have to agree. I have yet to meet a liberal/progressive that will even acknowledge that others might have views or opinions that disagree with theirs. Whatever the progressive view is must be shared by all or it is R-O-N-G Wrong.
What is it about Florida and elections? I would have assumed, by now, that the Repubs have people watching the whole process. There shouldn’t be any room for shenanigans like magically-appearing ballot boxes. WTF?
FL establishment Republicans are not huge fans of Scott or DeSantis. Now that DeSantis has won and put control of the Governor’s Mansion and state’s Supreme Court within their reach, they will support him with the recount. Having all three branches of state government will give the party another redistricting without judicial meddling.
I wouldn’t count on that. In PA, the state supreme court ruled that the districts were unconstitutional and ordered them redrawn. By a liberal who claimed he wanted to make it more “fair”.
My fanny.
I wouldn’t count on that. In PA, the state supreme court ruled that the districts were unconstitutional and ordered them redrawn. By a liberal who claimed he wanted to make it more “fair”.
Assuming Ron DeSantis prevails, at midnight on January 1, the balance of the state Supreme Court shifts from Democrat to Republican with either the immediate appointment of three new justices by the outgoing Governor (Rick Scott) or appointments later that day by new Governor DeSantis after his swearing in.
I’m guessing that DeSantis and Scott are working together on the appointments. Regardless of who makes the selection, the justices will come from the same pool of candidates vetted by the state’s Bar, and neither man is well liked by the party.
Since Florida has a long proven track record of not knowing how to vote, I say it is about time we revoke their Statehood and reclassify them as something less than a Territory (at best on par with Puerto Rico).
Maybe the problem is caused by all the Bengay vapors in the air (senior citizen pollution).
Florida is the State of Dementia.
Thank you, thank you. I’ll be all week. Try the chicken fried steak.
Florida is the State of Dementia.
My friend who lives in Jacksonville notes that Florida is pronounced “Floriduh”.