Germany is looking at the provision of free wi-fi hotspots in public spaces. Their most prevalent snag in the process has to do with existing antipiracy guidelines and after all ... the law is the law.

I am frequently asked about providing free wi-fi here in the hood. My data connection is well beyond those of most in my midst and the presence of the two installer trucks parked in my yard for several hours the morning it was installed has made me somewhat of an oddity in these parts.

I get attempts to log into my network via one of the three nodes available —

Less now that my would-be "guests" have a feel for the security implementation and now the requests have gone from hijack attempt to stopping me and asking me why I won't provide the SSID to my fellow denizens of the 300 foot radius supplied by the bodacious router I use. Well, the answer is simple. It's ALMOST like the German conundrum in that it involves the law.

My preventative has more to to do with pervs and less to do with pirates. I'm more afraid of some idiot kiddie porn fool getting traced back to one of my IPs — the long term maintenance of logs ... the possibility for court and bad publicity; and it's just too much trouble to fathom. So I keep the bandwidth and those network access codes strictly private.

There are worse things than being stingy with abundant resources ... Whereas in my younger day I was a fool for others, these days finds me minding my own business and keeping my own counsel regarding what's happening in my technological arena.

There just is no room for some dummy involving themselves illegally over my internet connection in the manner I keep reading about too frequently anymore in the local newspaper. I don't do it. Why should I let them.

I had toyed with giving wifi access to one of my friends who comes over intermittently but decided against that too because the new software in use will make those SSIDs legible to the user and therefore subject to sharing. Heck, windows 10 still has a feature to share those access codes in peer to peer provisioning only recently SAID to be removed via windows update. I'm afraid I'm somewhat brazen in my opposition to even inadvertent advertisement of access credentials.

Nope. No peer to peer. No TOR coming or going. No botnets. No spambots. No suspicious spiders. I'm simply not going to jail because somebody thinks they're sneakier than I am. It's simply not where I want to be. I don't begrudge the access so much as the possibility for going to prison and subsequently becoming some bad man's boyfriend.

Tain't happening.

machu picchu from afar

I've really been having a ramp up getting from the older version of my server cluster to the new.

It has involved a little research, a lot of package work, and several middleware setup failures to get to this point.

I'd like to say it was a walk in the park ... HOWEVER it was more like trudging through a briar patch.

Luckily few tasks remain and the destination appears to now be in sight !

In the sweet by and by we will meet on that beautiful shore called COMPLETION.

Abby Sciuto on NCIS portrayed by Pauley Perrette

I was reading a rather pointed piece on cnet regarding women in my industry. It surrounded ideas like too few, less pay, less say, gender disparity and so forth and so on.

All I could gather from this is the obvious disparity in that definition of "tech" as it relates to where you are and what you're doing.

Silicon valley may indeed have all the gender disparity it can dish out. I, however, work in an incorporated municipality and the distribution of XX to XY workforce is I dare say more XX ...

In the end it may be that we have a national problem but it simply is not evident where I work. Indeed, there is no gender bias nor racial bias and about the only thing that will get you fired remains a demonstrated and consistent lack of technical competence.

Our primary focus is management of a city. Information technology is a single aspect of that. We work to support the employees. We require office automation as a support function of our daily operations. That's where we come in.

I suppose the 'silicon vallley' reference is to those large scale enterprises concerned only with producing technology as consumables.

I produce IT product for the workplace but it's specific to our needs and not for general consumption. The public often interacts with my work but the staff utilizes it's output in their work and they are the reason it exists.

Though diversity is quite prevalent I don't really view it as a gauge of success because if you have a competent staff therein lay all you need to see you through.

The piece must be speaking primarily of averages and that realm within the real world technology consisting of the googles, the microsofts, and their ilk. The places with overpaid boards of directors, and other bastions of so-called "preferred gigs". I'd just as soon stay where I am, thank you very much.

No toxic frat boy culture in my workaday world. The preponderance of workers are indeed female as far as I can tell. The only discrimination is against those who cannot do the job. I view discriminating against the incompetent dragging the workplace down as proper ... regardless of your gender.
 

Walter Scott
Michael Slager

Slager Indictment in Shooting Death of Walter Scott

A North Charleston federal grand jury has indicted Michael Slager, former North Charleston police officer, on three counts in the fatal shooting of Walter Scott, who was unarmed.

The over riding feature of the coverage of this event from day one has been the race of the individuals involved. The ex officer was white. The victim was black.

The charges are severe in that a law enforcement officer executing his duties was found to both kill a man and obstruct the facts surrounding the shooting.

It is alleged that Mr Slager intentionally misled state investigators regarding key aspects of the facts surrounding the incident — which was recorded on a cell phone by a third party witness.

Now then ... having seen much of the evidence myswlf I certainly did get the feeling that the officer drew down on a many fleeing because he was afraid.

I also saw what I thought was suspicious activity surounding the follow up of the crime scene.

While I am one to take the side of law enforcement it is apparent that these considerations made it trial worthy and I am sorry for the man who lost his life over what was a trivial encounter otherwise.

I'll be following the trial ... but can't hold out much hope for the exhoneration of Mr Slager; who has been incarcerated as "the criminal" instead of the officer of the law.

When you serve the public trust you have to hold yourself to a higher standard. Drawing down on a person running away simply doesn't illustrate that for me.

The rest of it is just more of the same sordid story. I wonder just what this guy was thinking.

There are several conundrums apparent here. We have a dead citizen who should still be alive, an officer up to his neck in trouble and a departmental debacle under scrutiny for failure to serve the public trust. In the end we can only hope for justice which is swift and fair ... aspects frequently lacking in the pursuit of legal remedy.

Doom Cover Art

One of my first tech loves in this world was the game Doom. I played it on PC and indeed, bought every version of it through Doom 3 whereby I somehow "outgrew" gaming in favor of coding as a serious endeavor.

Be all of this as it may, the game instilled in me a love of first person shooter games; particularly IPX network "death match" configurations and the genre still intrigues me though these days I admire from afar.

I'm very glad there is a new installment in this franchise. I only wish my schedule made for sufficient availablility to pursue it — and I am sorry to report that in Doom 3 I never could extracate myself from the initial teleport into the base.

My brother in law could, but I couldn't.

Oh, the shame of it all !

So I've blown away and reinstalled my new cluster servers several times now. Each successive install is an improvement over the previous iteration. Then I discover some new approach and decide to go for it.

It's amazing just how much things can change ... not only between OS distros but the configuration of existing packages (of the same version, no less) contained therein.

Yesterday was a good day for learning the subtle nuances of the new distro and I'm at home with a lot more than just the application configuration issues.
 

I got my Mom a Fitbit Alta for Mother's Day.

I just want her to have a little monitoring of things in case she wants to share information with her doctor.

It's wireless and records both activity and sleep cycles from what I've read. I will know more once we get her using it a while.

I'm going to install the management apps on her phone and computer to see which she prefers.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY !
 

When I was a kid in Virginia Beach I lived on Lavender Lane next to John Hall and we were pretty good friends during that time. I was a silly youngster preoccupied with cartoons and other aspects of childhood fantasy and The Three Stooges were a constant in my existence.

My frequent impersonations of Curly got me tagged with "retard" and other derogatory labels because the kids there were as cruel as other kids anywhere and it was something which was done ... but John never participated though he did think it all was funny.

The names never did bother me and I really was oblivious to most everything else as well for the childhood fantasy world in my mind held me in it's tight grip and nothing much could retrieve my attention from it for more than a scant few minutes.

I recall him referring to his father as being an "engineer" and his mother seemed to be in and out the house and I knew of his siblings but was not acquainted with them otherwise.

We would camp out in the front yard in our tent constructed of blankets and clothespins against the chain link fence separating us and attended Aragona Elementary School in the heyday of my childhood. We would watch cartoons and talk about the things which interested us and he tolerated my lack of sophistication well.

He had a little chihuahua named "Cocoa" (I suspect due to it's coloration) which was female and very territorial. I usually got growled at when I encountered her ... and she had her first litter of puppies after I had departed for parts South and the continuation of that which existed only in my imagination for years to come.

All of this not withstanding I have a lot of fond memories of halloween and the snow and listening to his big brother play in the band where they practiced next door. These were the days of home made skateboards, playing army, various tag games, Batman and Robin, the AM radio, with Jan and Dean and the popular music featured the beach, cars, and racing as I remember.

One of the biggest enticements I recall was John's aquarium at which I marveled upon each and every visit ... and there were many visits over the course of the years we were neighbors. I think I may have irritated his mother with my incessant presence sometimes. Other times she was more at ease and seemed really glad to see me. I'm sure I was likely a handful with which to contend at that period of my life.

Like so many others, I had entertained looking him up for a visit only to find that he has passed away shortly after I took my present job, just like my dear friend Nancy ... and the sadness of hopes which will be unfulfilled revisited me only last week when I made this discovery.

From what I can determine he seems to have had an enjoyable life doing those things he spoke of often as a child — namely automobiles — and I'm sorry we never had the opportunity to visit again as I had hoped.

John K Hall

John Kevin Hall

February 17, 1954 - March 10, 2009

VIRGINIA BEACH- John Kevin Hall, 55, passed away on March 10, 2009 at a local hospital.

Born in Lynchburg, VA, Mr. Hall was in the automobile business for over thirty-two years. He was a loving father, brother and a friend to everyone he met.

Survivors include his daughter, Natalie Hall Richardson and husband, Justin; a brother, Harry “Eddie” Hall, Jr. and wife, Roberta M. all of Norfolk, VA; a sister, Priscilla M. Howe and husband, Mark of Clinton, MS; a granddaughter, Blaire Nicole Richardson and his best friend, Brooks Powell.

The family will receive friends on Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. at Rosewood Kellum Funeral Home where a funeral service will be held Saturday, 11:30 a.m. by The Rev. Lynn Sparrow Christy. Interment will follow at Rosewood Memorial Park.

Rosewood-Kellum Funeral Home
601 N Witchduck Rd
Virginia Beach, VA 23462-1916
(757) 340-1717