Category: technology

Ambitious? Just Back Off

Daily writing prompt
Describe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on.
View all responses

When it comes to DIY, ‘ambitious’ isn’t in my vocabulary. Honestly, I keep it simple.

I miss the old days, when part of my DIY routines were working on the car. Changing oil, cleaning or replacing the spark plugs, setting the ignition timing, rotating the tires, installing new brakes, bleeding that system, replacing the radiator coolant, etc. Those were fun and rewarding DIY projects. Then, though, cars became complicated. Engine bays became packed so tightly that reaching spark plugs was an ordeal. Getting to the oil filter was a nightmare. I’m reduced to installing a new battery in the car and topping off the windshield wiper fluid.

Around the house, I’ve done multiple small jobs. Replaced the furnace’s control board. Installed new thermostat. Replaced the filters, installed capacitators on the air conditioning, along with some other pieces on it. I’ve installed new light fixtures in various rooms, took the dishwasher apart and fixed it, and did troubleshooting on the microwave, replacing fuses and different parts. Likewise, I’ve done some plumbing work but I keep it simple. I’ve painted all the rooms except two, installed a blower in the gas fireplace, and do all my yard work. Yes, I’ve installed some shelving and assembled furniture.

On my computers, I’ve swapped out hard drives, processors, fans, video cards, and power supplies, and added or changed memory. In many ways, I think of them as the modern equivalent of working on cars back when cars had mechanical systems. I’ve installed and replaced routers and modems, replaced keyboards, added different streaming devices and printers, and did basic troubleshooting on software and security, uninstalling, reinstalling things as necessary, and took apart the keyboards and cleaned them.

Many of these things are driven by being cheap. I don’t want to pay others for what I think I might be able to fix. I’m also driven to understand these things more. I want to know how they work, how the parts interact, etc. These systems are mature and demonstrate ingenious engineering solutions. Finding how they work amazes me, and the Internet is a useful tool for that purpose. Then, to restore them when they’ve died is such a validating process.

That validation process is a big component. In a complex world, where so much seems beyond our control, it’s satisfying to take something broken apart, and make it work again. Just keep it simple.

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Twosda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

My, my, the GOTP and all those MAGAts sure are quiet as some Canadian takes over the U.S. Government and makes himself a shit ton of money. A shit ton, for the uninitiated, is more money than what can be measured.

The Canadian in question is one Elon Reeve Musk. Having effectively conned the simpleton named Donald J. Trump — and I don’t use simpleton lightly, as the average simpleton is much smarter than DJ — by financing Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign, Elon Reeve Musk is now enriching himself through new government contracts.

Musk’s Starlink gets FAA contract, raising new conflict of interest concerns

It’s all such a sick mockery of justice and ethics. Here goes Elon Reeve Musk and DOGE, cutting contracts, terminating employees, ignoring the will of the people except the fucker known as Trump, calling it ‘savings’, and then turns around and gets rewarded with new contracts. Tell me, oh, great MAGAts, how does Musk and his company receiving new government contracts help save money in this period of farcical austerity?

Don’t worry, I’m sure this all legal and ethical. Otherwise, Federal watchdogs such as Inspector Generals, would be raising the alarm.

Oh, wait: Trump Purges Inspectors General Investigating Musk’s Businesses

It’s like sending a killer to investigate the murders he just committed. What could go wrong?

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Frieda’s Wandering Thoughts

I sometimes subscribe to Hulu for streaming content. I’m actually currently a subscriber but I put my account on hold because they’re offering anything that anyone in my household wants to watch.

They sent me a notice that they’re ‘updating our Subscriber Agreement’. Three things were specifically called out. Here is the second point, copied and pasted for your consideration.

• We are clarifying that, as we continue to increase the breadth and depth of the content we make available to you, circumstances may require that certain titles and types of content include ads, even in our ‘no ads’ or ‘ad free’ subscription tiers.

Is that not straight out of 1984? We are offering you ‘no adds’ and ‘ad free’ subscriptions but they’ll have ads.

I can imagine something similar happening at restaurants: ‘We are clarifying that as we continue to offer vegan meals, circumstances may require that certain dishes include meat and animal products.’

‘Certain circumstances’. Guess it’s the god of money forcing them to do this. “We couldn’t help ourselves.” Executives wring their hands. “It was the money. The money made us do it.”

What bullshit. I might need to change my account from ‘hold’ to ‘cancel’.

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A Hybrid Dream

I called this one a hybrid dream. My ‘anxiety dreams’ often circle around my long-ago military career. Now my psyche has folded some of my civilian occupations into the mix.

This one began with me working with programmers. While they were busy on the daily stuff required for the present, I was focused on a transition planned for several years down the road. We were installing a new ‘smart’ support system. I was creating test scenarios. At one point, I stopped for a break and overheard someone say that the implementation date would be 2032.

2032. My spirit sagged. I’m going to be forced to wait that long for results?

The dream shifted. Now I’m at work in a military command post as I did for years. I’m working alone in the facility, monitoring different systems. While going back to get supplies, I notice a light blue telephone frame room door ajar. After another second, gathering someone is in there, I head back to the console area to call the security police.

The console is a mess. Phones aren’t where I expected them to be. I can’t find a hotline to the SPs. What the hell, there aren’t any hotlines to anywhere. What kind of command post is this? A dream twist causes me to get distracted. I begin cleaning and organizing the command post, cursing it as I do. What the hell is wrong with this organization that they let it get like this?

Going past the blue frame room door, I realized that I’d forgotten about the person in there. Now I see a woman leave that room. Past her is a cot, chair, clothing, and a small camping table. She’s living in there! Now, using a radio, I notify the security police.

They immediately arrive and take her into custody. Then I realize, I’m out of the console area, and I’m locked out. The console area is never supposed to be unmanned. What is wrong with me?

I hasten to get myself back inside. A person who works for me, a female, is just entering, so she let’s me in I hurry to the console. She accompanies me. We’re chatting, and then I remember and tell her, “I’m behind. I didn’t do my shift checklist, inventory the communications security gear, update the log.”

She says, “Wow, you are behind.”

I begin doing those things. Unlocking and opening the communications security safe, house to all the code books and crypto, I find food inside. “What the hell?”

Taking the food out, I stack it neatly. It comes to me that someone else stored the food there but I don’t know their intention. It looks like candy for Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Easter. I organize it and start giving it away.

Dream end.

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Mundaz’s Wandering Political Thoughts

The FAFO tide is rising. Who knows what impact it will have? PINO Trusk is an obtuse and ignorant beast. His (their) decisions and actions keep reinforcing that impression.

Like, under Trusk’s guidance, funding has been cut to research projects at universities. Why, that only affects blue states, elites, and libruls, right? No! Not according to some red state folks like Alabama’s junior senator Katie Britt.

Britt loves her some Trump. “One candidate has already proven he’s more than up for the job – because he’s done the job successfully,” Britt wrote. “There is one candidate I know will secure the border — because he’s done it. There is one candidate I know will achieve peace through strength — because he’s done it. And that’s why President Donald Trump has my endorsement to be our 47th President.” Britt didn’t drink the Kool-aid (yes, a dated reference, so I hope you get it), she opened the package and poured it straight into her mouth, chewed and swallowed. Yum!

But those cuts PINO Trusk has made. Yikes!

Katie Britt vows to work with RFK Jr. after NIH funding cuts cause concern in Alabama. “While the administration works to achieve this goal at NIH, a smart, targeted approach is needed in order to not hinder life-saving, groundbreaking research at high-achieving institutions like those in Alabama,” Britt told AL.com.

So don’t cut funds to her state. Cut it in those blue states. They’re not conducting life-saving, groundbreaking research, no sir, nope. Oh, the idiocy, the selffishness, the myopic views, paint a picture of ignorance personified.

As PINO Trusk attacks clean energy programs, news report after news report shows that red states will lose more. Trump Is Freezing Money for Clean Energy. Red States Have the Most to Lose. “About 80 percent of manufacturing investments spurred by a Biden-era climate law have flowed to Republican districts. Efforts to stop federal payments are already causing pain.”

What? No way. I don’t understand. Trusk ran on the promise to gut these programs. So those red states didn’t vote for him and cuts to the programs running in their states…did they? Well, I’m sure they had good reasons to vote him and his promise to cut those nasty green energy programs.

PINO Trusk’s decision to shut down U.S.A.I.D. is having repercussions among the Trusk faithful, too. How Christian Groups Are Responding to Trump’s Foreign-Aid Freeze. “Among the organizations that lost funding are such Christian behemoths as World Vision, International Justice Mission, Samaritan’s Purse, and Catholic Relief Services, which at $476 million, was the largest USAID recipient in 2024.” Oh, no, who could’ve thunk it? FAFO, right? Sure you’re right.

And surprise, Gutting USAID threatens billions of dollars for U.S. farms, businesses! Well, that can’t be too bad, can it? After all, Trusk is a genius. He would’ve known that farmers and U.S. businesses and workers depend on that U.S.A.I.D. funds, right? Of course! So those businesss, farmers, and workers must all be wasteful, or the genius wouldn’t have cut their funding.

“USAID oversees projects such as food aid, disaster relief and health programs in over 100 countries with a staff of more than 10,000 and a budget of around $40 billion. Billions of those dollars flowed back into the American economy until President Donald Trump ordered a 90-day freeze on foreign-aid spending last month.

“Now U.S. businesses that sold goods and services to USAID are in limbo. That includes American farms, which supply about 41 percent of the food aid that the agency, working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, sends around the world each year, according to a 2021 report by the Congressional Research Service. In 2020, the U.S. government bought $2.1 billion in food aid from American farmers.”

I’m sure that none of that will affect the unemployment rate, or other economic factors.

Trump should ‘get rid’ of FEMA, Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem says. Wow, Trusk is really going after that waste! Look how much was wasted by FEMA just last year when they helped states hit by wildfires, hurricanes, tornados, and flooding!

“We still need the resources and the funds and the finances to go to people who have these types of disasters like Hurricane Helene and the fires in California,” Noem told CNN’s Dana Bash. “But you need to let the local officials make the decisions on how that is deployed so it can be deployed much quicker.”

Sure! Because local officials without electricity, water, or resources on hand like temporary housing will just be able to snap their fingers and fix it all!

Somehow, this reminds me of that time when President 45 cut the pandemic response time back in 2020.

That worked out real well, didn’t it?

1

WordPress Blues

I’ve read others’ comments about comments getting rejected by WordPress. Last week, it struck me. I’d type up a comment, click comment, and WP replied, “This comment couldn’t be posted” or words to that effect.

It doesn’t happen with everyone’s blogs. It’s irritatingly random. First time, the poster had written about bowel movements and their poo. I commented and added a facet about menstrual cycles. When my comments were rejected, I wondered if it was about the subject or my word choices. But since then, I’ve had comments rejected about car repairs, animals, food, news, and politics.

Just one of those mysterious afflictions which sometimes strike modern technology, I suppose.

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Get Rid of Them!

Daily writing prompt
Something on your “to-do list” that never gets done.
View all responses

One thing has been hanging on my to-do list for years.

I must get rid of my old computers.

I’ve been using my current laptop for ten years. It replaced a laptop which replaced a laptop which replaced a tower.

I still have all of those computers which I replaced. They’re neatly stacked in a hutch.

Besides those, I have my wife’s MacBooks. She’s on number four since 2001 and numbers one, two, and three are part of the pile. My main thing is that I want to pull all those hard drives before I get rid of the computers. Then I’ll wipe the hard drives and get rid of them. Sure, I can pay people to do that sort of thing for me but I’m a staunch DIYer.

So it hasn’t been done. They’re a permanent part of my “to-do list”. Someday, though someday…

Maybe.

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My First ‘Puter

Daily writing prompt
Write about your first computer.
View all responses

I purchased my first computer when I came back to the United States. I was in the military, and my wife and I were stationed on Okinawa in May of 1981, returning to the U.S. in January of 1985. After settling into our new assignment at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, we went out and dropped about 2 grand on a Kaypro II. That was a huge chunk of cash for us. Looking like a portable sewing machine when it was closed, the heavy blue computer had a small green screen, 64K of ram and two 5 1/4 floppy drives. Running at 4.77 megahertz, the machine’s operating system was CPM 87.

Not my machine.

My primary software was MicroPro Wordstar on a floppy.

In 1987, I replaced the Kaypro with a Zenith 100, which could use PC Dos, MS Dos, and IBM DOS. Still ran at 4.77, but the monitor was a big separate RGB monitor. I later added a 10 Meg hard drive, changed the processors, and added more RAM. 10 Meg, we thought, wow, would I ever use that much?

So much has changed in the decades since.

4

Sunda’s Wandering Thoughts

My wife has a new laptop ‘puter. “How should I keep it clean?” she asked me. “What should I use? I want to keep it clean. I was terrible about that with my last one and I don’t want to be like that this time.”

“I don’t know how to keep it clean,” I replied, although I had some ideas like, don’t eat while you’re using it.

“But I thought you were a tech guy and knows all this stuff.”

“You’ve mistaken me for someone else. Why don’t you research how to keep it clean? You know, search the net.”

“I am researching. I’m asking you.”

I laughed. “Okay, I’ll do a quick search.”

“See?” my wife exclaimed with a grin. “It worked.”

We both laughed.

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The Facebook War

Full transparency. I’m on Facebook. I don’t post to FB. Don’t share things on it, either. Not any longer. I’m there to check on friends and family around the world. As a social media site, FB used to be really good for that. It’s barely marginal for that purpose now.

The enshittification of Facebook is deeply underway. Andy Borowitz reports from the front lines on his skirmishes with them. Just as a final aside, I have also endured the same crap that he and his readers have shared. Things that violated their mythical ‘Community Standards’ when facts were posted. That was before the factcheckers were axed in the name of ‘free speech’.

Sure. We all believe that, Herr Zuckerberg.

Here’s Andy’s report. Enjoy.

My War with Facebook.

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