Category: technology

Salazin – Six

Salazin didn’t let me ponder his comment, “And maybe further.”

That was probably good, because I was about to ask him where he thought his ship could go. The Moon? Mars?

Winking again, Salazin said, “I have prepared a model for you. Just a concept.”

He gestured toward the door. As it opened, Salazin said, “Behold the Nautilaus.”

As Salazin said, “I had this prepared to scale to help you visual it,” a young woman led in a cart. What looked like an upside-down ship was on it. Two young men pushed and guided the cart from either side. The upside-down ship’s bottom was glossy black. The top was charcoal gray. A red band divided the top and bottom. Nautilaus was in script in that band.

Salazin said, “I know that you’re a visual person but that you struggle to imagine things. I hope this helps you.”

After parking the cart, the three people left. When the door closed, Salazin said, “What do you think, Dylan? Is it not amazing?”

I’d been wondering what I thought. “It doesn’t look inviting,” I said. “It looks sinister.”

I was thinking that his model looked ten feet long and half a foot wide. Before Salazin could reply, I said, “How tall would this thing be?”

“Twenty-four stories.”

“Twenty-four stories?” I grappled again with his planned vehicle’s size. “Ten miles long, a half mile wide, and twenty-four stories high?”

“No, from the red band,” Salazin said. “Sorry, it’s twenty-four stories from the red band. It would be a total of twenty-seven stories tall, but three of those stories are below the ground level.”

“Jesus,” I said.

Salazin was walking and talking, and pointing what I took to be a remote. Tuning out of my bewilderment to his words, I caught, “The top is dark now so that I can have the pleasure of revealing the interior to you.”

The gray top turned lighter, growing translucent and then transparent. When that happened, it displayed a delicate framework on the upper part. It also displayed rolling green hills, a blue lake or sea, and multiple roadways, paths, forests, fields, and buildings. Some of the buildings were clustered like small villages. I saw a golf course, swimming pools, a needle-like building, like Seattle’s Space Needle, and what looked like vineyards, orchards, a ranch with horses and cows….

There was so much to see and assimilate, I felt like my mind was fusing into numbness. Without realizing it, I’d stood and walked over to the model.

Ten miles long, twenty plus stories high, and half a mile wide.

I didn’t see anything that looked like it could be an engine.

I saw Salazin slip to a stop beside me. I could see his face. A grin split it.

“What do you think?” he said.

“I think you’re crazy,” I said.

0

Salazin – Five

“Start again,” I said. “Let’s start again.”

Salazin was posed to listen.

I composed myself to think and speak. “Ten miles is a very long vessel.”

“Yes.”

“Why does it have to be so long?”

“Don’t think of it as just a vessel.”

I waited.

“Think of it as a destination, Dylan,” Salazin said. “Think of it as an exclusive island floating in the sky. Think of it as an exclusive destination. We will grow organic food and raised organic animals. We’ll serve them in our exclusive restaurants.”

“We’ll have more than one restaurant?”

“Yes, yes, why not? We will have an inland sea and luxury villas. And vineyards, wineries, and breweries. We will sell Nautilaus wine. Imagine it.”

“I’m trying to. Why call it Nautilaus?”

“Nautilaus is the perfect name. Nautilaus is associated with adventure and technology.”

“Maybe for you, but I think of exercise equipment.”

“No, no, not exercise equipment. Think of Jules Verne and Robert Fulton.”

“Robert Fulton?”

“Yes, yes, he named his steamboat the Nautilaus, and Jules Verne named his submarine after Fulton’s steamboat.”

“That’s another thing,” I said. “The Nautilaus is a submarine.”

“It is a masterpiece, Dylan. It is a luxury jewel, a vessel to fire imagination, inspire adventure, and embrace luxury. It’s mysterious and unique.”

“Fine.” I’d drop it for now. Salazin was smarter than me, and he’d thought about this more, so I was behind. I knew I’d probably give in soon, but it’s my custom not to be graceful about these things. Actually, it’s not my custom, but my nature. I think I get it from my parents, or maybe the whole damn clan. None of us surrender with grace. We fit to the bitter damn end. Come see us at the holidays, and you’ll understand.

“But ten miles seems extremely long,” I said.

“It needs to be so long for what it will have and be.”

“It won’t be able to land anywhere.”

“Yes, it will. It can land on the ocean. It can land in many other places.”

Salazin leaned in toward me. “Dylan, Dylan. Listen. I know that you must think about things before you say okay. I love that about you. I do.

“But, let me give you more to think about so we can hasten the moment when you say okay. Imagine a floating island that can travel anywhere in the world and be there in a matter of hours. Imagine living in a place isolated from war, disease, and pollution. Imagine being able to dine in a fine restaurant while watching a volcano in Hawaii explode, or floating over Antarctica or the North Pole, watching the glaciers break off and float away. Imagine being able to go to the best place to see meteor showers, eclipses, and the Northern Lights. Imagine the greatness of such a vessel. This is why it’ll be more than a vessel, but will be enshrined as the ultimate destination. As a destination, it can be anywhere.”

“On Earth.”

Salazin winked. “And maybe further.”

0

The Take

Our utility bill arrived the other day. Coming from the city, this bill includes electricity, water, sewage, and a few other things.

Although there’s a total, of course – this is what I’ll pay – it’s categorized and subtotaled. The top part is about electricity. That part pleased me; it showed that thanks to the time of year and our solar panels, the city was paying us three dollars for our electricity. We owed nothing. That was sweet.

Next down was the water. We’d used less water than last year, but it came out to $45 due the city for water. The rest of the $89 bill due was for sewage, drains, street use, and street lights. That’s sobering, because there’s nothing I can do about any of that, except move to somewhere else.

Overall, I was pleased. To put this take in complete context, we have an eighteen hundred square foot single level stand-alone residence built in 2005. It’s located in Ashland, in southern Oregon. Two humans and four cats live there. All humans are over fifty. Our solar panels are rated at two thousand watts, but due to a number of circumstances, they usually won’t generate that much. I was impressed to see them putting out over two thousand when I checked on them the other day, and reflected on the perfect angle of the sun, ambient temperature, and humidity that coincided to create that miracle.

We depend on natural gas for heating, cooking, and the clothes dryer. That bill is $51 per month. That’s our comfort bill; they usually refund us a few dollars each year.

I post all of this because finding comparisons with others help put it all in context. When I complained to a friend about my water bill late last summer, they revealed that their bill that month was three times as much. Their house is larger by a thousand square feet, but it also has two occupants (and a smaller yard). They did have company stay with them that month.

Overall, my gas, water, and electric bills are not not bad. Hell, on reflection, I spend more on coffee in a month than I do on water or electricity. Food, though…

Well, that’s another post.

4

Without A Net

I was without a net last night. For about two and a half hours (nine twenty to eleven fifty), I couldn’t jump on the net to look up information, check on the Zuckerberg Machine (trademarked by J.R. Handley), or find the weather. More, I don’t have cable or satellite T.V. All my television is either O.T.A. or streaming. Without the net, streaming wasn’t available.

To the O.T.A.! That was an interesting experience. Infomercials, religious information centering around Jesus Christ, and old movies and television series saturate commercial airwaves that I can receive (about twenty). Circling through them, I found an episode of the original Star Trek series. It was “The Enterprise Incident”, and involved the Romulans.

The Roumlan commander was a female. I didn’t recall seeing the episode before, but I expected her and Kirk to start a romance. That’s how it used to go, wasn’t it? I was surprised that it was Spock who became intimate with her.

The opening credits said the episode was written by D.C. Fontana. Chances are, if you watched a popular television series between 1960 and 1999, you probably know her work. More important to Star Trek, I recalled that Fontana is credited as a strong early influence on fleshing out the Vulcan culture. A clever writer, she’d probably already seen the trend toward Kirk romancing women and had deliberately thrown this twist. I’m just guessing.

It was fun throwback viewing. The ST franchise has come a long way from those early Romulan costumes.

3

Salazin – Four

Mouth agape, I stared at Salazin, looking for a sense of humor. He had one but it didn’t seem present at this time.

“What did you say?” I said.

“I said your ship will be ten miles long.”

“Miles.”

“Yes.”

“Ten miles.”

“Yes, ten miles.” Looking serious, Salazin picked up his beer and watched me.

He didn’t drink much alcohol. I never saw him actually finish beer. I always thought he pretended to drink to put me at ease.

Well, not always. At first, I thought he drank like I did. About a week into our friendship, I began to realize that he didn’t.

“Ten miles long?” I said. The words began to gain substance. “Ten miles long?” I was searching for references. I ran two miles a day. This ship would be five times as long as my daily run. “How wide will it be?”

“One half of a mile wide.”

While that sounded more acceptable, it still seemed unbelievable. A half a mile wide would be an impressive length. Ten miles…ten miles was fucking unbelievable.

Ten miles by half a mile. The ship would be long and narrow. “The engines for this,” I said.

Salazin watched me.

“They have to be enormous,” I said.

“No.” Salazin shook his head. “I told you. <TK> has developed new technology.”

Yes, he’d mentioned her before. “Right, I remember. You always said you would introduce me to her.”

“Yes, and I will. Her travel has been delayed.”

Her travel has been delayed. That statement seemed innocuous back then. Now it seemed like it was heavy with weight. Back then, I thought, airlines, flights, cancellations, weather. Now, thinking, her travel has been delayed, I think, from where?

From what planet?

By what means?

0

The Password Is

It was a fascinating read about Passwords, with many intriguing links.

First, it shouldn’t surprise anyone, but people wanting to crack passwords study passwords. They buy up databases of stolen passwords, and when possible, link them to their owners, and then use the information they’ve gained to look up the owner on the Internet and social media to learn what they can. They’re not targeting these people to hack them; they’re targeting them to understand demographic patterns.

Second, people continue to use words or personal information as passwords. Cracker programs and applications have databases that automatically look for words first. Match and done, cracked. Naturally, they also look for names.

from Mark Burnett, xato.net, via https://wpengine.com/unmasked/

Third, more scary, but not surprising, is that password crackers are also including the “Leet” (or 1337) methodology so many employ. It isn’t surprising, because it’s commonly known and used (because it’s been around for a long time), so of course anyone trying to crack passwords will include that information in their processing.

Fourth, the thinking behind websites and applications about how password strength and password entropy is weighed varies. Zxcvbn (recognize the pattern?) in a remarkable post compared multiple sites and gave the results for the same passwords. Intriguing.

Returning to the Unmasked article, they also used Full Contact’s Person’s API to go through seventy eight thousand passwords to find rich and famous people. From that, they selected forty passwords that were matched to see if they could be cracked, and how long it took.

Most were too easily unmasked. That’s one thing to remember: if you’re targeted, your password can probably be cracked, but it’ll take time. Thieves typically aren’t targeting most of us because we’re not notable or wealthy. So taking the time to create challenging passwords can help remove you from the list of low hanging fruit. That’s the same reason for frequently changing passwords. Yes, it is all a pain. It’s also why you shouldn’t use the same password — or easy variations — on multiple accounts.

A Github developer, whose password had an entropy of ninety-six, was hardest to crack.

 

 

0

Late at Night

You ever put something on Facebook or other social media late at night, and have a friend immediately respond to it? Then you think, what are they doing on the Internet so late at night? As a sidebar, do you also sometimes wish you and that person were actually sitting beside each other so you can have an actual conversation?

There are some who remain your friends regardless of how long it was since you last saw them, and the distance between your homes. Good to know such people are out there.

Want to introduce me to a few?

 

0

New Gmail A’comin’

It’s been a while. Are you ready for a rant?

Then you’ve come to the right place.

A new version of Gmail is coming. That has some factions of the net wet with excitement. “Have you noticed some new features in your Gmail?” Their words glow, as if this is really exciting.

I yawn. I spit. I curse.

Google has demonstrated a pattern of leaping out with new things that cause people to go, “Oh! Look what Google has done!” Meanwhile, old products and concepts that they brought out that caused people to go, “Oh! Look what Google has done!”, languish.

The Google publishing effort was one of those things for me. Google apparently desired to be like Amazon and publish! I investigated publishing on there to discover it was already gone.

Google Plus is another wanna be like some other company. In this case, it’s Facebook. I follow people and they follow me, but it’s like we’re walking in a circle in a living room.

Introductory rant over, I encounter issues on Gmail. Slow loading is one aggravation. Another is that the deleted emails return like the ghosts of this morning’s mail. Aggravating, yes. I already read this, did that, went there, deleted this, WTF, Google?

Getting help has proven impossible. Searches and scans deliver no tangible results. Most answers assume I’m on a Droid or smart phone and that it has to do with the mail settings. Fucking not applicable, okay? Other responses found on Google take me to Hotmail and Outlook issues. Everything else suggested has been tested. The problem still exists. Damn exasperating, it is.

So, excited about the new and improved Gmail? Fuck no. Still waiting for them to fix the previous edition.

Rant over. Back to the coffee.

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