Re: If the Naked Truth be Told .. Is it an Uphill Task of Sisyphusian Dimension? ... Revised Version
"where are cyber criminals based and highly prized as much valued most valuable residents?"
Lagos? St. Petersburg?
26680 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2007
Ah. yes, "it happens in the cloud", meaning the speaker has absolutely zero idea how computers and networking actually work. Just eyeball any introduction level textbook on networking theory from the 1980s. Almost all of them have many drawings with a cloud-shaped squiggle to indicate where the "too difficult for management to understand" bits hang out and work their magic. Many advanced level texts from the era also have the cloud squiggle.
The name "cloud computing" was already a fairly common meme by the time Y2K rolled around. Most of us with some experience in the field tried to stop it, because we could see where it was heading ... marketing-driven beancounters running the centralized computer service bureau again, just like in the mainframe days.
And here we are. Everybody has a super-computer on their phone (with matching local storage!), and yet the sheeple GreatUnwashed have been brainwashed into thinking that somehow "the cloud" is better/safer/faster than local. The mind absolutely boggles.
My job title at Bigger Blue was "Boffin at Large"; it was even on my business cards (only because they wouldn't let me use my preferred "Chief Cook & Bottle Washer"). My actual position? Floating Senior Member of the Technical Staff. I wandered from department to department, putting out fires.
"even if the original spec is NO WATER PIPES IN THIS AREA WHATSOEVER"
... That's when The Boss decides she needs an Executive Powder Room, and the only place the lowest bidder can figure out to run the fresh, grey and black water pipes is through the ceiling of the data center. Naturally, they all leaked at various times in the ensuing decade. Fortunately, my warranty was made null and void by this bone-headed mistake.
"Lesson three: Someone will ALWAYS go "what does this button do?" whilst pressing it, especially if it is under a protective cover of some sort that can't be broken by simply walking into it (see #1) very clearly labelled what it does, how much pressing it will cost and that there's a camera monitoring it."
FTFY
I usually have a kill switch and fire suppression within arms reach, too. Prudent. The switch itself isn't protected by a molly-guard, but the arming switch for the fire suppression is.
Yes, just like the aircraft emergency power button, but often to the point of destroying the motor just as you cross the finish line. It can activate another level of nitrous (dry or wet), increase the redline (if you normally run a rev limiter), tell the wastegate to increase the boost, adjust the timing, or more usually some combination. It is normally only used in the semi finals or the finals because of the chances of doing internal damage to the engine.
As a side note to my fellow IT techs ... If you ever come across a drag racing advocate in your travels, don't assume that the "scram" button, often on the steering wheel, means "power down all systems". In fact, it means quite the opposite, and usually adds between 10 and 15% more power to the motor for a last-second improvement in ET and MPH. It's basically a press to pass button, and can activate one or more of several different methods of pushing a motor past it's normal limits for a second or two.
It's short for "scramble", which some racers call it.
The "All systems off" switch is located at the rear of the car where track personnel can access it in an emergency, and is usually well marked.
My daughter just sent me this link:
https://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov/2011/05/17/putting-the-axe-to-the-scram-myth/
And now you know.
Here's an old post of mine from 2009, originally titled "That's just the switch, they do that!" ...
The scene: Old house in Mountain View, converted to Vet clinic.
The time: Late 1999.
The job: Convert the Vet's database from non-Y2K compliant PSI/Idexx on HP/UX to Cornerstone on Win98 (I know, I know, but that was what the Vet wanted).
Considering that Cornerstone included the database conversion in the cost of the 8 hour staff training session, my job was basically setting up the Windows boxes, installing software, and pulling wire. Easy. In fact, I did the complete network setup back in my lab, so all I had to do was make space for the computers, printers, label makers etc., plug it all in, and turn it on.
Unfortunately, the house was built in the post-war building boom, and originally had 2 prong plugs for mains power. Some had been converted to three prong, but not all. I had to convert the six locations where the Vet wanted the computers installed. Three new breakers, pull some wire ... Again, pretty easy.
Day of install, the Saturday afternoon before the Sunday the Cornerstone rep was to hold the staff training session. The Vet wanted me to plug a scanner into her personal machine. The floppies that came with the scanner didn't come with Win98 compatible drivers, so I used the new-fangled V.92 modem to dial into my ISP ... But the connection speed reported as 2400 baud instead of the expected 56K (or so). I broke the connection, redialed, same result. And again. Now, I had already used the modem from my lab, just to verify it worked, so I knew it wasn't my hardware ... I picked up the phone. Line noise. 60hz line noise, to be precise.
I turned to the Vet and asked how long the phones had been buzzing ... she brightly answered that "That's just the switch, they do that!" ... WTF? After further questioning, it turned out that instead of having six phone lines coming in, she had a small switch with six extensions. It was installed when she took over the practice about a decade earlier. (You can probably see where this is going ...).
She lead me to a storage and washing machine room in the back, and pointed at the wall. Hanging there was a dusty, cobweb covered, slightly sad looking $TELCO supplied switch. It had a three-prong cord ... plugged into a two prong socket. The $TELCO tech who did the install had cut the ground pin off the power cord to fit the availabe mains power. I asked her to go get me a cordless 'phone and grabbed a wire coathanger. With phone to ear, I grounded the case of the switch to the cold water pipe with the coathanger ... No more AC hum.
I explained the situation to her, and she went ballistic. After she calmed down a little, I asked if she wanted me to call $TELCO for her. (I could have put a new cord on it myself, and put in another 3-prong socket, but if you touch $TELCO gear, they will refuse to fix it if anything goes wrong in the future.) On further questioning, she allowed as to how in the last decade she had had techs out half a dozen times or so to service her telephones, including what sounded like a firmware upgrade to the switch itself.
Long and short of it, we had a $TELCO tech out 45 minutes after I hung up the phone.
On the other hand, the wiring on those cars is so easy that ripping it all out and re-wiring from scratch isn't really all that difficult. My 1963 Ford Consul Capri GT is now 12V-ve, from 6V+ve. Only took a couple days to build a new wiring harness. Probably didn't hurt that while I was at it, I swapped in a Mazda 13B engine & 5-speed from an RX4 ... That bit took a trifle longer.
... we got a small shipment of Pilot build IBM 5150s. With them came some dot matrix printers (Epson MX-80? I can't remember ... but they were not IBM labeled). My job was to hook them up and to verify that they worked ... somehow my Boss had found out I was into the then fledgling world of micros, and was a member of the Homebrew Computer Club, and he needed them up and running for a class/demonstration by IBM over the following weekend.
Naturally, they came without the necessary printer cables. I read the (very minimal) documentation, and figured out that they needed standard serial cables. So I filled out a stores request, had my Boss sign it, and went back to my office, cables in hand.
The cables didn't work. I walked back to Stores and swapped them for 6 others. Still nothing. I figured it must be a problem with the 5150s (remember, they were Pilot Build), and carried on checking out the software that came with them. About then, a Mentor of mine stopped by to eyeball the new kit. I explained the problem with the printers. He said nothing but grabbed a test light and a cable. A couple pokes, and he dropped the stuff back on my desk.
"Null Modem" he said. "Now lef's go get lunch."
Turned out the entire box of supposed straight serial cables was wired null modem ... Seems that they went into Stores untested when received from the manufacturer. And this was at the Satellite division of Ford, in Palo Alto. I haven't trusted wire at face value ever since.
In a nutshell, a comet is made of various ices and small bits of sand and dust. They always follow the same path around the Sun (unless perturbed by getting too close to one of the planets). As it enters the inner Solar System, it heats up and starts outgassing and also releasing some of the sand and dust. Over time, the orbit of the comet collects many of these particles. When the Earth happens to intersect the orbit, we see the meteor shower. Note that the Earth's orbit does not intersect the vast majority of comet orbits because space is big. Really big ...
Here's a handy Web page that goes into it in a lot more detail: https://geology.com/articles/meteor-shower.shtml
Those numbers are from a flawed study in 2014. The numbers today are well over 50% from outside SF ... and the folks who are from SF aren't the folks causing the problems (for the most part, there are bad apples in every barrel).
Look up Cockaigne, I believe even Wiki has an article on it.
In a free society, there will always be a few who choose to live the life of a Hobo, Tramp or Bum (three completely different groups of people, BTW). In my opinion, as long as they aren't doing anything illegal they should be allowed to carry on doing what they are doing. It's none of my business to tell you how to live your life, period. All things being equal, this very small percentage of people is spread out over the entire population, and there is no major overload on the resources that they need in any one community.
San Francisco throwing huge amounts of money to "help" all these people who choose the lifestyle is doing more harm than good, in the sense that it concentrates these people in one place, placing the burden on a very small percentage of the space our society has available. Worse, it drags in all the people who think that life owes them a handout, and otherwise deserve to be taken care of, to the detriment of the vast majority who choose not to live that lifestyle. If SF's money could be spread out to programs across the country, so there was no competition for space among these folks, we wouldn't have the issues we have today.
Or, if SF pulled back all resources and only helped their own home-grown homeless, or perhaps only the homeless from the Bay Area, SF would no longer have the problem because the rest of the people would dissipate all by themselves.
With that said, there are certain members of society who do NOT choose the lifestyle. For example, the folks who have recently been made homeless by the wildfires here in California. These folks need all the help they can get. I have eight families living in RVs here at the ranch. They have water, power, propane, Internet, we dug a septic system for them, and found a couple of washers and dryers to turn an old barn into a laundry. They will be here as long as they need to be, rent free and utilities paid, no questions asked, until they can go home again. Four from the Tubbs fire of a couple years ago have gone home, one other is about to. They have been replaced by four more families. It's the least I can do.
The public toilets exist. And a bunch of portapotties, too. Unfortunately, a number of the "street people" refuse to use them. It would appear that a percentage of these folks are a suit or two shy of a full deck ... but in ultra politically correct San Francisco, it's not expedient to one's career to point out the painfully obvious.
There are laws on the books against public urination and defecation, but if a cop tries to ticket an offender, they are shouted down by loudmouthed howlers screaming about "human rights" ... These people are so warped that they think that homeless people have a god given right to crap on the sidewalk, but the taxpayers who actually pay for those sidewalks don't have a right to use them without stepping in, or at the very least gagging on the smell of human shit.
Similar for hard-core drug use. I've seen a junkie shooting up right in front of a cop. When queried, the cop told me that they have a hands-off policy for such things. It would be funny if it weren't true.
It's been getting worse with each passing year for decades now. But the high-tech millennials and hipsters fight each other to move to this human-sty of a City. And then they vote to keep the people who allow the mess to stay in power. And they vote to increase the amount of money the City is paying to react to the problem, thus attracting more homeless. What the fuck is THAT all about, anyway? Are they really as brain dead as they appear? Seems they actually LIKE the status quo.
The mind absolutely boggles.
No. As much as I dislike the companies mentioned, they have absolutely nothing to do with San Francisco's homeless population. Consider that SF has apparently had zero issues coming up with a quarter billion dollars per year to throw at the problem these last several years without corporate support.
Keep in mind that almost all of the homeless in SF flocked to SF from other counties and states to get a free handout. Very few are actually homegrown. SF has created an aura of being The Big Rock Candy Mountain[0], and the bums are responding to the tall tales. You can't blame Corporate America on this one, SF has brought it on itself.
[0] "Cockaigne" to you Euro types.
... that the only thing that throwing billions of dollars at the homeless population does is attract more homeless, thus compounding the problem? I doubt that losing this trade show will do it, but the tipping point is getting close ... Maybe. Unfortunately, it would seem that the voters in SF actually enjoy their homeless population. Why else would they continue to vote the people into power who pledge to throw vast amounts of homeless attractant money at the problem?
On the other hand, from my perspective (approximately 58 miles due North), San Francisco is only good for attracting tourists to the State, thus increasing our coffers. Other than that, SF is pretty much useless ... Mostly thanks to the Board of Supervisors kowtowing to the vocal clueless these last 70 years or so, all in the Holy Name of Getting Reelected.
1) Getting there is the easy part.
2) What is your proposed energy source to perturb the ice?
3) How do you propose that the ice actually hits Mars, given that as it enters the inner Solar System for the first time in umpteen aeons it'll start to warm up and begin to violently out-gas in random directions?
4) When all is said & done, you'll have earned those $$$ if your plan succeeds, but probably for your Great*30 grandchildren. I suspect that investing in property here on Earth will yield a better return for you, your kids, and their kids. Unless some nutter starts lobbing chunks of ice at the inner system from out around Saturn and gets in a lucky hit on your condos in Hawai'i, that is.
Depends on the soil conditions where you are trying to dig. If it's primarily dry dust & sand with nothing cementing them together, shoveling should be no problem. If it's alluvial with multiple sizes of grains from dust to bowling ball (or larger), it'll be rough even here on Earth ... and the larger the largest particle size, the harder it'll be. If it's sandstone bedrock, you'll have major issues with just a shovel.
"Have any of the projects advanced?"
Advanced? Yes, of course. To the point of actual usability in that 'orrible place known as the Real World? Nope. Not that I'm aware of, anyway. Something about stability, reliability, power to weight ratio and range.
Reality isn't really the same thing as negativity.
Damn that physics, anyway!