Welcome
- February 15, 2018
- ENIAC Day
-
I remember reading about the first computers early on in life. I was always a fan of Grace Hopper, who experienced the first computer "bug" — and her pursuit of code and the operating system as well as her naval career in which she was a high ranking senior officer ... while I was starting out.
The technology which she saw through it's infancy has seen me through my entire life and one of those machines used in her work was the UNIVAC.
Preceeding UNIVACs was the first model called the ENIAC.
Today is ENIAC Day or the World’s First Computer Day.
Each February 15 the City of Philadelphia officially declared on February 15, 2011 as ENIAC Day.
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the world's first general purpose electronic computer, developed at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering.
It was programmed by six ladies who were not given credit for their contributions to ENIAC nor recognition for their integral roles until well after the program.
• Jean Jennings
• Betty Snyder
• Marlyn Wescoff
• Frances Bilas
• Ruth Lichterman
• Kay McNulty
- Comments (0)
- February 14, 2018
- Valentines Day 2018
-
- Comments (0)
- February 13, 2018
- Resisting Amazon Hating on Walmart
-
Some time back I decided that Amazon was an evil monopoly and I wasn't going to do business with them. I've pretty much stuck to my guns ... even through those times which something I wanted to buy was only to be had on their site.
I simply did without.
That resulting vendor requirement was channeled to Walmart who likewise hasn't proven to be worthy of my business. They have this propensity for telling you that you qualify for "free shipping" when they have raised the price on the products to cover that shipping cost in what amounts to a bait and switch on pricing when you hit their site.
I'm feeling as though integrity is to be totally lacking in the world of retail in general. Not only do they screw their low paid workers and feeble partners; but they go out of their way to sodomize the customer as well.
I keep wishing for some type of karma to befall them from the ecommerce gods resulting in their being struck from the heavens with some ray of death. Likely, I'll simply be forced to suffer the slings and arrows of those vendors without scruples I've come to loathe so much.
- Comments (0)
- February 12, 2018
- Lincoln's Birthday
-
Today is Lincoln's Birthday.
Some states observe it as a public holiday.
Other states celebrate the birthdays of Lincoln and Washington on one of the two anniversaries ...
Or a separate observance called "President's Day" on the third Monday this month.
Abraham Lincoln was our 16th President and is remembered for that public office, his personal integrity when interacting with others, and the heinous murder which ended his life.
Regardless, I try to honor his memory as a person who typified that to which people should aspire as well as all he attained during his lifetime — and I have remembered him for that set of characteristics noted in the literature toward that end.
- Comments (0)
- February 11, 2018
- The New Deal
-
So ... I am now doing the multiplier thingie on the lottery plays.
Since 2002 I have been playing the lottery without doing the powerplay on powerball and the megaplier on megamillions.
Now I am running the multiplier on all numbers.
I came to this decision from watching my mother play and on the advisement of the lady at the vendor where I buy my tickets.
She had noticed that I would win but those winning were limited by the lack of a multiplier in the game.
I must admit that one of those big deterents to the new deal was the powerball organization which doesn't do the powerplay option correctly.
If you win non jackpot winnings your winnings are supposed to be multiplied by whatever the powerplay value drawn happens to be.
They fabricated a rule right about the time they increased the price of the tickets as well as the odds of winning whereby a match 5 is ineligible for powerplay and simply is a two million dollar winner.
I suppose when you make up the rules as you go along you can cheat however you wish.
This is what's happening with the powerball people anyway.
- Comments (0)
- February 10, 2018
- celebrating trangender youth in the mainstream media
-
I've been reading about mainstream media and their celebration of a growing youth transgender population.
This is merely that manifestation of "I am only who I think I am" and nothing else matters. WRONG.
Too many of us are always so quick to celebrate abnormality. The human genome recognizes three gender states:
A configuration of sex chromosomes which is XX means you're female.
A configuration of sex chromosomes which is XY means you're male.
There is another natural state called 'mosaic' whereby you are known as 'intersex' with nonstandard genetic configurations and this is a foundation for self determination in gender identity.
The GENOTYPE refers to your genetic makeup and determines your gender ... not "how you feel".
The PHENOTYPE refers to your outward appearance and is a function of cosmetics, dress, and even surgery. Gender reassignment surgery simply alters the genotypical equipment to appear and function otherwise.
The logical problem with all this "trans" mess is that it lacks genotypical validity, i.e., if you are XY traipsing around as a female you remain male regardless.
If you're XX in jeans, a tee shirt, and short haircut you are female despite these outward apperances which are merely cosmetic at best.
An XY and Trans XY pair constitutes a homosexual relatioship.
An XX and Trans XX pair constitutes a homosexual relationship as well.
No amount of makeup or surgical intervention which in actuality is mutiliation is going to change what you are at the chromosomal level and THAT in essence is who you are case closed.
Gender begins in the chromosomes. They are that fundamental control structure and element of which the rest of human beings are comprised.
A lot of this mess originates in the public education system where we have entirely too many liberal weirdos seeking to indoctrinate school children in their own twisted image by telling little girls that it's okay to be a boy and feel and behave thusly ... or touting "it's okay to assume female roles" to little boys and it's okay to feel and act like you're a little girl.
No wonder there is this preponderance of confusion when those sissies providing the guidance are so totally unqualified and without the proper character to nurture children.
These individuals are precisely the reason home schooling remains on the rise.
- Comments (0)
- February 9, 2018
- Samples exploiting Meltdown and Spectre Found
-
So, it begins. Low functionality snips and samples which utilize Meltdown and Spectre have been found.
It seems that google's publication of findings for both CPU vulnerabilities ended up being roadmaps for this malware creation.
Stressing that the 139 samples can't do much ... yet; the potential for improvement and subsequent impact on the existing servers and workstations of the world is quite likely.
Proof of concept code such as the bulk of these new findings aren't designed to deliver a payload or really "do" anything other than reveal what may be done.
Linus Torvalds has excoriated Intel as a producer of "garbage" fixes in this infant stage of the malware. His tirade was both specific and very entertaining had it not been a spooky view into the future as well.
Torvalds has been criticized for his handling of the issues he has with Meltdown in particular. However, I for one don't pull any punches, either and feel that severity he communicated was not only appropriate, but well deserved.
- Comments (0)
- February 8, 2018
- Anna Nicole Smith
-
Vickie Lynn Hogan worked under the stage name Anna Nicole Smith. She was an American model turned television personality and actress who began with Playboy winning 1993 Playmate of the Year.
Vickie Lynn Hogan
aka Anna Nicole Smith
November 28, 1967 – February 8, 2007
This opened up the modeling opportunities culminating with the television and acting she enjoyed prior to that steep decline she suffered as the result of multiple prescription drug dependencies.
She had a son who she lost too soon. Thus began that downward spiral which ended with her being discovered on a hotel floor in Hollywood, Florida by familiars she kept close.
Her contemporary paramour one Howard K Stern who can only be described as the would-be father of her daughter only to be ruled out by DNA testing during paternity suit proceedings a good while after her own death.
Suffice it to say that her childhood was very rough edged and that remainder of her life carried with it a variety of stressors which included a late husband old enough to be her great grandfather and the paparazzi who certainly couldn't have helped.
When I look back on that to which she aspired and that which she attained all I can say is her daughter wound up in the correct place with the right parent.
It is lucky for the poor child that justice prevailed in the presence of those with ulterior motives contrary to her best interests. The sum total of the life of Vickie Lynn Hogan may be described as totally tragic in the best classic Shakespearean traditions to be the modern day mess that it was.
- Comments (0)
- February 7, 2018
- Cloud Computing to Replace "Traditional" Data Centers
-
I was reading a piece on one of my usual local tech sites regarding the fact that "cloud computing" is going to replace "traditional data centers" in the next thousand days or so.
They follow it up with some stats that indicate stupdenous data reliance on "the cloud" and this will be the result of data repositories required for enterprise assets and the Internet of Things.
Now then, this brings me to what I view as flawed definitions.
A data center is a networked group of computers upon which the remote IT requirements of various enterprises are met.
A cloud computing installation is a networked group of computers upon which the remote IT requirements of various enterprises are met as well.
The data center is your data on some one else's computer.
The cloud is your data on some one elses's computer.
Any questions ?
Duh !
- Comments (0)
- February 6, 2018
- Professor Irwin Corey
-
Back in the day there was a recurring act on teevee which caught my attention for it's orbital schtick and refreshing spin on nonsense at a time when all else in my life appeared to be total BS.
"Professor" Irwin Corey would appear on various talk shows and film cameos and to look at him he was the apparent intellectual and knower of all things, much like Lonnie J McCall — whom I sometimes THOUGHT knew all things.
Unscripted and spontaneous he could drag a laugh from my exhausted carcass every time and I grew to appreciate that satire of confusion which was a lot of his material. Some of the seriousness portrayed was likewise totally hilarious.
Anyway he passed last year at 102 years young and was just as funny at the end as he was in the beginning of his 75 year career as a stand up comic, film, and screen actor.
Rest in peace and keep them laughing in Heaven.
- Comments (0)
- February 5, 2018
- Johnny H Pruett laid to rest this day
-
Johnny H Pruett was laid to rest at Fort Jackson National Cemetery on this day 2 years ago.
PRUETT, JOHNNY HENDERSON MSGT US AIR FORCE KOREA, VIETNAM DATE OF BIRTH: 05/30/1933 DATE OF DEATH: 01/27/2016 BURIED AT: SECTION 3 SITE 891 FT. JACKSON NATIONAL CEMETERY 4170 PERCIVAL RD COLUMBIA, SC 29229 (866) 577-5248 National Cemetery Administration US Department of Veteran's Affairs
- Comments (0)
- February 4, 2018
- Adventures in Web Cache
-
Had a very interesting Saturday night resulting in a somewhat tummultuous Sunday morning.
I got a wild hair thinking that all the cache modules I had enabled were unnecessary so I disabled them all. Initially all remained copacetic, and I believe this was due to that necessary marination which transpires between configuration changes.
Upon arising Sunday morning I found a very sluggish web server with page loads averaging some 45 seconds (or longer) easily. Contrast this with the usual one to two seconds and you can see the potential for disturbance in the force.
Well now, this was simply not satisfactory and I decided to do a run down of Saturday evening's festivities to see precisely where I went astray.
After perusing the shell history I determined that my initial thoughts regarding cache were pure folly and set about the task of making things right.
I re-enabled all the cache modules in the reverse order that I disabled them. There was no improvement in performance immediately.
Thinking that I'd really screwed up I did a reboot of the server and tried again. Continued lack of improvement.
Finally I recalled my thoughts regarding the need to marinate between configuration changes and I set about the task of requesting various pages through the blog.
Finally, I noticed improvement with everything returning to it's original performance shortly thereafter. This same scenario was to be repeated later upon my visit to Mom where I discovered pretty much the same issues which were tested repeatedly. Two reboots later and everything is again up to snuff.
The moral of the story is "if it ain't broke, you may not want to try and fix it". Also, "it is far better to retain something you may not need than it is to delete something required in the mix". Things in the background like caching are not line of site nor assets which may be switched on and off on a whim. There are interrelationships between components which must establish pathways after the fact. I obviously removed components which were decidedly performance related resulting in detrimental effects on the web server.
This was quite the valuable lesson as I will be very cautious regarding configuration changes on the fly in the future.
- Comments (0)
- February 3, 2018
- My Problems with Bitcoin
-
Ah cryptocurrency. That unaccountable wealth affixed to a block chain you can't control and others can simply wipe you out with sufficient knowledge of the full node server and/or wallet regardless of what you had or who you are.
Allegedly envisioned as immune from confiscation governments are cashing in on seized bitcoin assets left and right.
I once set up a bitcoin full node server and even operated it on my network for a day as a bandwidth test. It didn't impede those other things going on and as such I was ready if not willing to go there.
The thing I simply can't get past is how much hacking goes down leaving those who are exploited holding nothing but an empty electronic wallet.
There are other germane issues such as taxation, criminal activity, and universal acceptance but that bottom line for me personally is a propensity to lose it all in one fell hack.
So I low level formatted my fully functional full node server and gave the box to my brother, who along with his wife and grandchildren were very appreciative.
Some times that pursuit of personal wealth can hit a brick wall. Such was that between what I had hoped might become a profitable bitcoin sideline and me. I simply don't trust the technology nor those who are presently highly interested in it. Something about relying on the community for verification of it all just ruins it for me. Call me old fashioned, but I like my finances to fall under some type of regulatory control ... but not some global NWO control freak foreigners nor the gd crook ass Fed handing off all of our funds to the Jesuits either.
- Comments (0)
- February 2, 2018
- 6 More Weeks of Winter
-
Today is Groundhog Day ... Punxsutawney Phil that internationally renown prognosticator from Gobbler's Knob in Punxsatawney, Pennsylvania awoke, saw his shadow at around 7:25 a.m. Eastern Time ... and therefore the portends are six more weeks of Winter.
I'm plenty cold already, thank you very much.
- Comments (0)