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- March 10, 2017
- Mein Straßenwut
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Road Rage. Said to be violent behavior exhibited by drivers while negotiating traffic. It is also supposedly a manifestation of stress in conjunction with failed anger managment skills in real time behind the wheel of a personal conveyance.
Now me, I grit my teeth and yell at people but that's pretty much it with the road rage thing. I fear hurting someone else more than I care to be angry. Yeah, I might call you names or glower at you from behind the wheel.
I'm afraid that overt confrontations don't go beyond that because the bulk of those I encounter with varying degrees of failed driving ability also get the "stupid" connotation ... and along with that goes my consideration for "special needs" cases.
So when you read of some violent ending to a road rage incident, rest assured that it was not me. For I am simply going to grit my teeth at you and get on down the road because I ABSOLUTELY don't have adequate time to be messing with some moron doing 20 in a 45 texting at the wheel as happened yesterday morning on the way to work.
It's "life" and we're just playing the game.
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- March 9, 2017
- WikiLeaks hits the CIA Again
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Tuesday, WikiLeaks dumped a massive collection of classified CIA hacking documents stolen from from the CIA Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley.
I don't know about you, but given the repeat nature of this and the impotence of the CIA to do anything about it I wouldn't hardly be using the word "intelligence" anywhere in the facility.
Said documents describe an international hacking program repleat with malware collection and zero-day weaponized items designed as exploits against a range of international product lines in the area of personal communications.
The source of the leak indicates that the reason behind the betrayal is to raise policy questions about the CIA hacking program, ostensibly to open communications regarding the agency's power and lack of government oversight.
Seeing how we are no longer a constitutional government but an oligarchy run by the military industrial complex may I please point out that NOBODY is doing their job effectively anywhere in the government by any of those directing this pitiful show or in any of it's security branches.
Boo!
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- March 8, 2017
- Life before Obamacare
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When I was unemployed or underemployed or the prisoner of a tyrant I simply went without health insurance of any kind.
No job. No premium money. No group plan.
Marginal job. Crappy coverage. No need to participate.
$10,000 deductable. Might as well not have insurance. What's the use.
I did not take to the streets whining about how "unfair" life was and how I thought that coverage was some divine right like the people are now.
I sucked it up and took my medicine in the capitalist economy in which I found myself and obtained health insurance at the first viable opportunity.
I remember the smile of the evil persian when I opted out of his ten thousand dollar deductable coverage ... then departed a scant 90 days later.
You see, some problems are not everyone's problem. We are a Republic, not a socialist welfare state. In the 21st century you get in there and "get it" or you do without.
I grow weary of what too many feel are "owed" them. Get a grip and do what I did which was the best I could in the prevailing economy. Taxing everyone to cover the masses of those who choose to lay around and breed and draw some entitlement check just won't work anymore.
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- March 7, 2017
- Another alleged black cube UFO in Texas
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Well, how about the giant black cube ufo above the White Sands military base in Texas ...
Witnesses said that the skys became abruptly stormy appearing in the area of the sighting. The cube was said to appear to drop through what was characterized as a 'black hole portal' and this is the second such appearance in recent history. The first occurrence shook me up too.
Forgive me if I forego the unqualified rambling regarding it. Now ... is it one of OURS or one of THEIRS ??
Only time will tell.
The bulk of the comments I have read in the threads appear amused at it all making references to elements of science fiction theatrics. Perhaps I've seen one too many episodes of Unsealed: Alien Files to find it laughable myself.
Spookage.
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- March 6, 2017
- National Security is NOT Paranoia
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I'm seeing a lot in the news threads regarding town meetings and the boos received by Republicans defending the Trump administration.
This contempt is directed by the administration's attempt at adequate national security and the protection of the United States from elements in countries with adequate numbers sworn to annihilate us.
I had similar contempt for the Obama administration but I did not force it upon the entirety of the population as these narrow focus supporters of the enemy do.
Indeed, I feel they should be exposed to the threat more "up close and personal" that they might see exactly from what they're being protected.
Muslims in the country make no attempt to improve the situation with viable plans to stop their numbers from the incursion bragged upon Muammar Qaddafi who was both deposed, sodomized, and executed by the very subjects over whom he once ruled.
The muslims want to emigrate and breed us out of existence as stated in numerous sources of propaganda while the bleeding heart liberal whiners who have no inkling of what awaits them welome them with open arms.
Personally I will not apologize for the Trump administration. There are enough of us who support him and he won the election.
Let the stupidity continue and the photo opportunist kowtowing Republicans like Lindsay Graham go right on trying to appease the dissenting masses as though he will ever succeed. There are too many of us who totally agree with what is happening after 8 years of the Obama abomination.
National security is not paranoia. The fact that the mistake which was the Obama administration is over has residue of those who would hand over everything to the enemy which are the insurgents being thwarted by a strong policy of deportation.
When they are finally able to come here and kill you dumb "disagree" and "resist" morons I hope I am still around to shove your stupid noses in it.
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- March 5, 2017
- Foreign Owned Buildings in the United States and National Security
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Just when I thought some semblance of sanity was returning to government; I read in the Washington Examiner about the DEA, FBI, Social Security Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, and other fed agencies with both classified operations and sensitive data storage in foreign owned buildings making them vulnerable for any manner of intrusion and espionage the likes of which make me shudder to the core.
It seems that the General Services Administration has been placing FBI agents and other officials supposedly with security sensitivity work being handled in buildings owned by China and other governments foreign to The Republic.
These are highly coveted assets for exploit and just what part of STUPID IDIOCY is our government failing to recognize here. We need to rid ourselves of these foreign invaders out to exploit anything and everything in the United States by expelling each and every one of them.
The cybersecurity vulnerabilities that exist in foreign-owned buildings couldn't be ignored to this degree by a government that knows what's going on.
Given the time frame of the announcement this has the appearance of remnants of the Obama administration with his penchant for undermining the security of the country and socialist "foreign nationals first" agenda.
Those responsible for this situation need to be held accountable with consequences that matter for a change. Where is our government's oversight that SHOULD be intercepting such nonsense BEFORE it happens?
I can't believe this has happened and the powers that be simply permitted and supported it.
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- March 4, 2017
- Speaking ill of The Dead
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Yesterday I learned that a former cohort from the state technical college where I taught for 20 years passed away last Monday the 27th from lung cancer.
I encountered this gigantic flowery obituary OBVIOIUSLY written by him over the final five years he gleaned from treatment regimens ... and I am sorry for his children because no child should lose a parent before the usual and customary timeframe.
While I may be dealing with a personal conflict in feelings at the moment I am leaning towards doing something which may cause me personal trouble ... in light of this typical educator self aggrandizement sprinkled with all the bullshit which goes with it.
This guy really comes off as a steller example of humanity and though he might lead you to believe alabaster walls atop ivory towers contained his earthly life; the stark nature of truth simply doesn't ring true for me personally.
Though I certainly was never "all that" either; I did try to do my best at work despite the innumerable intrusions into my premium off time. Of course his story fails to mention all those last minute intrusions into the schedules of others to cover his teaching load so he could leave and pursue high paying consulting work during the paid work day. It doesn't go into the manipulation, the partial truths, the false accusations, the lies — all part and parcel of "the system" by which unreasonable demands were made and under which we operated.
As I have said before a partial truth remains a whole lie and his unfortunate end may well be what little truth was left in his existence. Needless to say, he is gone and I remain ... and NO I shall not be attending the services.
I have researched the social aspects of speaking ill of the dead and found nothing compelling enough to flower up this guy's life as much as his magnum opus obituary did ad nauseum.
MORE than enough said ... Burn in hell.
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- March 3, 2017
- Typos, Server Farms, and You
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Typo
In my profession we have a hallowed concept which goes by a few different names:
Entry of a mistake in typing or printed matter resulting from human or mechanical failures of some kind.
gigo "garbage in garbage out" jijo "junk in junk out"
I'd love to say that these never happen to me, but I find they recur with increasing frequency ... which appears to correspond with my advancing age.
However, I am most careful at CLI (command line interface) entries to attempt to ensure that I understand what I'm doing BEFORE I press the Enter key at a command prompt ... particularly in Unix operations where these errors can devastate the install in no time.
I was reading about a typo bringing down a big piece of the internet yesterday. It seems that an amazon "employee error" resulted in "hundreds of thousands" of web sites being taken offline via the glitch on the S3 platform secondary to an attempt to fix an errant billing server.
It seems that one of the inputs to the command utilized to fix the billing server was entered incorrectly. The S3 farm is said to service some 40 percent of the public cloud market with said snafu resulting in an explanation and apology from Amazon.
In the aftermath all one can really say is that to err is human and as such typos are simply a fact of life.
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- March 2, 2017
- Following Emerging Technologies
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I work hard to keep abreast of emerging technologies ... those new ideas and techniques which arise from the evolution of "where we are" and "where we're headed" to "where we're going".
These new and old and theoretical and applied are difficult to track in great detail due to the controversial perceptions by factions pursuing them and early developmental stages ... unless they hit early with some radical impact that cannot be ignored.
Through it all I look for trends which persist over time and there is where I spot those threads to follow in the literature.
Lately, however I feel the need to track lists in a spreadsheet or give up the notion of following emerging technologies simply because it interferes with the practical work for which I get a paycheck.
Suffice it to say emerging technologies are a bit too developmental for someone like me — a specialized hack of today instead of that renaissance man generalist I was long ago.
Alas, I continue to grow old.
All that remains for me from the vast pool of those emerging technologies I read about is pretty much AI and database elements and even the AI isn't something I pursue to code so much as to model algorithms upon in my quest for an edge in my work.
So I remain on the outside of the vast bulk of emerging technologies looking into what "might be" viz a viz "what is". While I may gain efficiency and methods those innovations pale in comparison to what is happening in the real world.
So much going on, so little time.
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- March 1, 2017
- The Pitfalls of Microblogging with wild Abandon
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Yet another company has fallen prey to the fallout of indiscreet tweeting. One Ryan Holmes, the CEO of Hootsuite a SaaS provider which allows publishers to post their offerings to various social networks out there in the ether ...
It seems that the exchange between the company's chief executive and a member of the press whose financial evaluation fell considerably short of that which he felt was fair became a sticking point in the craw of Mr Holmes. Therefore he took issue with said author on the public forum Twitter and let us just say it was somewhat cryptic and downright nasty.
All in all the moral of the story is twitter is better left to those who wish to spout off and have nothing to lose. I believe that Mr Holmes was left losing something in this particular interaction from a frank business perspective.
I keep hoping that Mr Trump will take heed and stay off twitter as well but I don't really see that happening. Perhaps he may cut down a smidge, however.
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- February 28, 2017
- Bill Paxton is gone
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William "Bill" Paxton
May 17, 1955 – February 25, 2017
One of those character actors I've enjoyed over the years has passed Saturday due to complications from surgery.
William "Bill" Paxton, American actor, director, and all around great guy will not be gracing the big or small screens with anymore of his superb thespian abilities and for this I am truly sorry.
He first caught my eye as the punk thug in The Terminator. His next impact upon me personally was his portrayal of Hudson in Aliens with his hopeless wail of "Game over man !" ... and of course the mouthy cop in Predator 2.
I also watched him in Twister and thought that it was an interesting foray into real science and I was shocked by the entirety of the miniseries Hatfields and McCoys for it's stark realism.
Anyway all of that enjoyment to which I once could be looking forward with each successive piece of new work he would undertake is now yet another of those "what if's" and "if onlys" I'll likely consider later on.
Shucks ya'll. Rest in peace.
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- February 27, 2017
- Political Comfort Zones
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You can tell when people are approaching the end of their run when they try to step out of their comfort zone and go on about things they're really not qualified to cover adequately.
Stephen Hawking is going off on a rant that the election of Donald Trump and Brexit are causing us to "insulate ourself in nationalism" going on to write in a letter published in The Guardian that the backlash of these "recent divisive votes" is growing inequality across the world.
Now then, while Dr Hawking and Bernie Sanders would love to have this socialist Utopia where nations exist as fountains of cash for the underperformers of society the entire notion that summarily this is a step toward inequality is simply ignoratio elenchi in the presence of those who both have and achieve their goals through diligence and perseverence.
I would suggest that Dr Hawking donate the entirety of his fundage to the poor downtrodden individuals of his choice. I'd suggest that for Mr Sanders as well but he has no fundage relying on scavaging entitlements and being a parasite on the taxpayer whose funds he wishes to dole out as he sees fit.
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- February 26, 2017
- Yesterday when I was young
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There was a time when I was a risk taker. A swashbuckler confident in myself and my abilities to the point that I would undertake anything, anytime, anywhere.
I would engage others at any level I chose unrepentent for those I hurt. I lived in the now and the past and the future were of little consequence in that paycheck to paycheck existence that was me.
However, the 40s hit me hard.
I came to realize much of the error which were my ways and I sought to make amends as best I could. Some relationships were to remain. Others were to depart. All I could do was accept that which I was and allow that diffuse distain I earned to remain despite my efforts to the contrary.
Through all the "what ifs" and "if onlys" a resounding theme predominated my recovery. It wasn't religion. It wasn't the pursuit of lofty goals. It wasn't even my failures nor my successes.
I simply wanted my existence to include some modicum of respect for what I could do. So I started doing things I had never embarked upon before. Things like participation. Repayment. Focus on the aspects of business I used to laugh off.
So I tried to get closer to my folks. I tried to repay my dad for helping me fix up the incredible mess my house became due to my entrusting a "friend" ... and I applied myself to that coding which would see me though the hard times. After all, a paycheck may not be everything in life but it sure smooths the rough edges if it's sufficient to meet the bills.
So now I'm old. I went through all the phases of life with wild abandon until late in the game. I made a passel of mistakes and corrected as many as I could along the way leaving those unresolved issues to confront me as they will. I'm satisfied that I was able to move on and improve and that's about all I could really ask for in this lifetime.
Yesterday When I Was Young
Yesterday when I was young,
The taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue,
I teased at life as if it were a foolish game,
The way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame;
The thousand dreams I dreamed,
The splendid things I planned
I always built, alas,
On weak and shifting sand;
I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day
And only now I see how the years ran away
Yesterday, when I was young,
So many happy songs were waiting to be sung,
So many wayward pleasures lay in store for me
And so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see,
I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out,
I never stopped to think what life was all about
And every conversation I can now recall concerned itself with me
And nothing else at all
Yesterday the moon was blue,
And every crazy day brought something new to do,
I used my magic age as if it were a wand,
And never saw the waste and emptiness beyond;
The game of love I played with arrogance and pride
And every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died;
The friends I made all seemed somehow to drift away
And only I am left on stage to end the play
There are so many songs in me that won't be sung,
I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue,
The time has come for me to pay for Yesterday
When I was Young
Yesterday, when I was young,
So many happy songs were waiting to be sung,
So many wayward pleasures lay in store for me
And so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see,
I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out,
I never stopped to think what life was all about
And every conversation I can now recall concerned itself with me
And nothing else at all
written by Herbert Kretzmer & Charles Aznavour
published by T.R.O. Inc. © - Comments (0)
- February 25, 2017
- Fake News Network
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I used to view the news as an objective presentation of the events without commentary unless it was formally stated up front as being so.
Nowadays I am very particular about those sources from which I glean my informaion and I always cross check items between sources in an effort to avoid the "fake" news so prevalent in the mainstream media.
For example, I have always known that my local paper was a yellow journalistic manipulator of public opinion. I have never relied on it for information for that very reason.
I once viewed CNN as this staid uncorruptable source for information until the last election whereby they showed their true liberal colors and vitriol spitting slant on everything with which they do not agree. As one of Hillary Clinton's 'basket of deplorables' it is my honor to call these putrid news sources out to influence first and report second or third exactly what they are. I now decline to even read much of CNN but remain glad for that skepticism it ingrained in my psyche ... though the lost trust I endure is truly lamentable.
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