Tag: Computers

A Bit in the System

I was reflecting on my Air Force command and control past today. 

We’d begun moving into the small computer age back in the early 1980s. The Air Force — and the Defense Department — were being cautious. Locally, we realized that much of the repetitive, manual entries we did on logs, messages, and grease boards, along with the phone calls used to relay information, could be done via computers. We began visualizing and flow-charting the entire process. Military Airlift Command (MAC), which had operational control over us, said, no. Don’t. Stop.

At my next assignment, with Tactical Air Command (TAC), a young major had begun computerizing the mission flows. He was manually doing it himself. Watching him, I began asking questions about why he wasn’t doing this and that, which led to me taking over what he was doing. He and I had a lot of fun working on that. Five years and two assignments later, I was in Europe with a small flying unit. They had begun using computers to do some of the stuff I’d wanted to do. As soon as I saw it, I maneuvered to get involved.

They were happy as hell to let me. Controlled by the J-4 and J-5 Directorates of JCS, with input and oversight from the National Reconnaissance Organization (NRO) and NSA, USAFE didn’t care what I did. Locally, several officers were being advised that small computers were the future and were starting to take computer programming classes, but most weren’t familiar with them, so the commander and DO told me, “Go for it.”

So I did. By the time that I left four years later, other offices in my unit had enlisted my help, as did other units on base, asking me to share all the stuff I’d done with my small computers to automate and correlate information. My trend to incorporate computers continued with my next assignments with Space Command.

This all came to mind via “60 Minutes” and Crucible last night. “60 Minutes” featured a segment on Artificial Intelligent (AI). Crucible, a James Rollins thriller that I’m reading, features Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) as part of the plot. I ended up thinking back to the MAC days and how and what robots could do. With scenes from WarGames flashing through my head, I visualized all those messages, reports, and phone calls associated with mission profiles, aircraft configurations and repairs, and mission execution, and how computers and robots could augment or replace humans.

It’s intriguing to think about. After a twenty years-plus career, I’ve been out of the military for over twenty years. They may have come to grips with many of the ideas I considered and the inherent obstacles.

Somehow, I doubt it. The military has always lagged behind for much of that, preferring to spend their annual funds to modernize weapon systems, if possible. You never know, though; those in charge have now grown up with computers as part of the digital age. My thinking would probably amuse them because they’ve gone so far past that. Oh, to be a bit in the system and overhear what’s going on.

Well, actually, I guess that’s what I was: a bit in the system.

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A Little Interruption

I received an email from my wife that her computer had been hacked. It made her a little nervous.

She’d sent the email two hours before. (As an aside, she sent it on one of our other computers. How many do we have? Yes, too many.) I’d been busy writing and didn’t have my email open, so I didn’t see the email. When I saw it, I wrote, “Okay, I’m coming home.” I was almost done with writing like crazy for the day, although I’d wanted to walk to think more about the concept and plot.

Her computer is an Apple Mac. She hadn’t been hacked but was being scammed by a Mad Defender variant, a little surprising. It’s pretend ransom-ware. The Mac Defender scam is about blocking the user from changing tabs and pages in Safari while a warning that spyware has been detected is shown. It then tells you to call a number for Apple support.

From there, several things can happen. One, they can urge the gullible to share computer access. Two, they can be conned into buying a security program that’s not a security program but gives them access to your computer and its files and information. Or, most enticing for them, they get your credit card info and go to town.

It took me about seventy minutes to research her particulars and find and delete the malware app, along with the offending processes. As Mac Defender and the other names it goes by has been around since 2011, they’d changed details to make it more difficult to find and remove. I was surprised that they were using the MS Azurewebsites for this, as MS has been burned by this in the past. That was a big, immediate clue when I opened her computer and saw the message.

Anyone, it was a disruption to writing and posting blog thingies, along with walking and a few other things, but all’s well, and that’s the bottom line in all of this.

Back to our normal programming.

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The Destination Dream

I was moving again in last night’s dream. My home that I was selling was a large white house. Built circa the 1950s – hey, that’s when I was born – the home featured a large front porch, two sprawling sugar maple trees, and a large green yard with squared off sidewalks.

The dream’s beginning found me doing yard work. I was busy and happy. In a brief aside, I then go to work and tell a woman how to use a specific computer program to conduct a search. She’s mute during the entire exchange, leaving me doubtful about whether she understood what the search could do to save her time, or if she understand what I told her. I would check back on her.

As I returned to yard work, my wife accosted me. She needed to go to an organizing event for some activity that she was involved with, and wanted me to drive her. We argued briefly, but I resigned myself. We would take our truck, I told her, leading her to a small Ford Courier or Chevy LUV sized vehicle, in other words, a small truck. A white tarp covered the truck. When I pulled the tarp aside, I had to dump water off the tarp, and worried about the trunk having water damage. But it seemed fine. Weirdly, the trunk had no top.

I got in one side, and was awaiting my wife. Two other women got in as well. I asked them who they were, and they said that my wife told them that they could get a ride with us. I had not problem with that, but then realized I didn’t have a steering wheel because I was on the wrong side of the truck. After getting out and circling the truck, I told the woman behind the steering wheel that she needed to move. She wanted to know why. I told her that I needed the steering wheel, which made her laugh.

As I waited for her to move, I looked at my sidewalks under the sugar maples. They all ha a green hue. I worried about what caused that and then noticed that my yard needed edging.

My wife arrived, so I jumped in the truck and took off. She didn’t know where the event was, so we started aimlessly driving around. As we did, she got angry, which made me angry. She was angry because we were lost, and I was angry because she didn’t know where we were supposed to go. Eventually, I saw another woman. Pulling over, I asked her if she knew where the event was.

She showed me on a cell phone. She and I then discussed where I was. Her phone showed where I’d driven, depicting my path as a fat red line. I saw how I’d circled around the same area several times. I wasn’t far from my destination but unsure how to get there. I thought I needed to go one way, but the woman corrected me, showing me a quick, direct path on her phone. Meanwhile, my wife and the other two women had left the truck and were walking around. I called out to them that I knew where we needed to go. They finally came over.

Then I paused to go back to the woman that I’d shown how to use the search engine. She still wasn’t using it, so I showed her again. Then she seemed to understand. Feeling pleased that progress was being made, I got into the truck with my wife and the other two women and drove them to their destination.

Lot of women in this dream. I see all sorts of things percolating through my mind in this dream, and it’s very positive. It makes me smile.

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The Wait

I write on a laptop, typing and editing as I go. It has its bennies and shortcomings. For instance, you ever become so excited to write and edit, so looking forward to getting started that the muses are singing in your head and their energy is coursing in your blood vessels? But then you must turn…on…the…computer….

Then…open…the…program…

Then…open…the…document…

And…it…seems…to…take…about…two…million…years..?

Exasperating.

I am exaggerating. It doesn’t take two million years, but rather about three minutes, what with the things that are done automatically on startup, like Internet connections and security software updates. It just feels like a looonnnggg three minutes.

But it’s all open now. I have fresh coffee at hand. Time to write and edit like crazy, at least one more time.

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Whine #7,635,499,117,006

Sometimes I think, TGFC. Yes, thank God for coffee, a.k.a., thank God for caffeine. Coffee helps me cope when the friggin’ world seems determined to be the pebble in my shoe.

First, the wildfire smoke has returned. Grrr. Yes, the smoke isn’t as bad as the actual fire, nor the many accidents, disasters and true nightmares that others are enduring, you know, like being a refugee without a home — or country, any longer — or being torn away from your family and sent to another place, or raped or shot. I’m far from starving or being financially insecure. That’s why this is a whine.

Second, the bloody Internet connection is sooo…damnnn…slooowww…tooo…day….

I was at home first experiencing this. What the hell? Who knows, at that point. But now, in the coffee shop, it’s OMG time. Task Manager and all the security apps said there’s nothing wrong here. I tend to blame Google Chrome. Hasn’t been working right since that update.

Again, not big stuff, first world complaints.

Which took me back to Dr. Dinardo’s post, “Shifting From Anxiety to Excitement”. Her salient point:

Did you know that fear and excitement share the same set of neurotransmitters, including dopamine, glutamate, and acetylcholine.

  • Opposite emotions. Identical neurotransmitters.
  • Same neural activity. Different cognitive appraisal.

And the best way to shift from performance anxiety to excitement is to say one sentence on repeat.

Her information can be applied to multiple situations. It’s about changing your  reactions, right? So, as I walked, I worked on changing from feeling negative toward something on the spectrum’s positive side. While doing that, I thought about how Dr. Dinardo’s point is directed toward the first world. Her focus is on helping her students. The lessons can be applied to others (like me), but imagining myself leaving one of the world’s war-torn, disease-ravaged countries without any idea of where I’m going, it would be difficult for me to try to change my cognitive appraisal to be more upbeat.

It’s not a slam against Dr. Dinardo (although some might think, that sure read like a slam). It’s a slam against the world and the many ways that suffering is forced upon others, how slowly change takes place, and how impermanent it often seems. It’s a slam against people who think, let’s go back twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, one hundred years, to when times were simpler and life was easier. I consider that simplistic, narrow, and short-sighted, perhaps as simplistic, narrow, and short-sighted as my whining about the wildfire smoke and a slow Internet.

Yes, I understand that I’m simplifying cognitive appraisal and its mechanism. Hey, I’m only on my second cuppa. I’d need one or two more cups of coffee to go into it more thoughtfully.

I’ve read — and I’m dubious about projecting these things — that climate change will eventually affect our coffee supply. I’m dubious because projections are based on the known, and there often turns out to be many things that aren’t known that affect the projections. I’m also hopeful that a woman or man will arise, unite us, and say, “Enough with this shit. It’s time for a change,” and manage to rally everyone around them to change the world for the better for all, and save coffee.

It’s probably a naive hope. Meanwhile, I have coffee, time, a secure place, and a working computer. I’ll take advantage of the here and now, at least how it applies to me.

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Six Rules for Getting Along with Your Computer

  1. Remember that you wanted your computer. It didn’t want you.
  2. Shouting at your computer won’t make it do anything faster or better, but it might save you from insanity and keep you from taking more drastic action against your computer.
  3. Shaking a computer until parts come off tends to be counter-productive.
  4. A hammer to the computer might make you feel better, but the computer will probably complain.
  5. A computer connected to the web can probably find more curse words than you can find on your own. Use that to your advantage when cursing your computer.
  6. Remember that words have power. If you curse your computer, it might be taken seriously.

 

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Alphabet Issues

Time for a Sunday rant. I have good reason for it. I know; everyone who rants say they have good reasons for their rant. Let me state my case, and then you can decide.

Alphabet Inc. is trying to gaslight me.

Alphabet Inc. was created as a holding company for Google and its multi-tentacled endeavors. Google wants to be everything for us, substitutes for television, Netflix, Amazon, a dominant world force that we can trust. But the delta between what they promise and what’s delivered grows every day.

The three primary Google products I use are Gmail, Chrome, and the calendar. (I also sometimes use Google search, but it’s so damn commercialized, delivering the same results as different entries, that it’s become better to go with other search engines. They’re not much better, though. *Where have all the good searches gone?*) They’re three products that have been around for enough time for them to stabilize and cross that chasm from being bleeding edge to cash cow. When a product reaches the cash cow stage, it’s expected to be reliable and free from significant bugs.

It ain’t so with Chrome and Gmail.

I use the Inbox app to manage my Gmail. I write “manage” because that’s what they use to describe it. Inbox manages my mail as well as a toddler manages the bath water. Emails that have been read and deleted consistently haunt my inbox as unread, causing the frustration and irritation of wading through the past several days worth of mail along with today’s deliveries.

This is where the gaslighting comes in. Gaslighting is an old expression about conning people and confusing them about reality. “Didn’t I already do that?” they ask in old movies.

The villian laughs. “No, dear, you said you were going to. Honestly, were is your mind, my precious?”

That’s how it is with Gmail. “Didn’t I already read that?” I ask myself as I peruse the Inbox. “Oh, God, I thought I answered that yesterday.” I certainly meant to answer it. Where is my head?

Well, hell, it’s not my head, it’s Alphabet Inc. and their Gmail product. I have read, answered, and deleted these emails. Alphabet is just putting them back in.

Thinking it might be Inbox instead, I used Gmail without Inbox, as an experiment.

Nope; same results.

Don’t get me started on what’s going on with Chrome. It is very effective for administering my daily dose of first world blues and frustration, and is a wonderful impediment to having a good mood as I surf the net.

I would switch from Gmail, but our email addresses have their tentacles in every aspect of our lives. Extricating ourselves is a long and complicated process. It’s getting as involved as doing taxes in America or determining if it’s a catch in the NFL.

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A Dream in Four Parts

Today’s dream was clear and detailed. This could be attributed to how it was processed.

  1. I dreamed it.
  2. I awoke and thought about it.
  3. I fell asleep again, and dreamed about thinking about it.
  4. I dreamed about writing about it.

That sort of repetition reinforces matters, you know?

The dream’s four parts were interesting. It interested me, at least, because I was the star.

  1. The dream’s first part featured two officers with whom I was assigned at different locations.
  2. In the second part, I was diagramming a layout to provide a place for people to survive.
  3. With the third part, I was teaching another how to use a computer to document the diagram I’d created.
  4. The fourth part of the dream found me exploring deeper levels.

The two officers were Major Andrews and Captain Knot (fake names). I was assigned with one in Japan, and the other in Europe. One was a C141 pilot and the other flew Hercs.

Knot is a foot shorter than Andrews. But in this dream, Knot had instructions. Andrews was supposed to receive them. But Knot, the short one, teased Andrews the tall, holding the instructions up and behind him, preventing Andrews from reaching it, vexing the much taller Andrews.

In my analysis during my dream, this made me laugh. Part of me was keeping another part of me from having something. Here’s the twist. Andrews was an authority figure, the officer-in-charge, and I worked for him. Knot was a buddy.

Yes, lots to ponder there, no?

The diagram involved an enormous bunker. We were pre-positioned personnel, preparing the facilities as a sanctuary for the others who were to come. I was one of many, but an indeterminate number. I was given a space and the mission brief (the instructions that Knot kept from Andrews). Enthusiastically, I plotted how my space was to be used to help others. The results pleased me. I shared them with others, and they began copying my design.

The official coordinator arrived. Her task was to document the diagrams on a computer for them so higher authorities could approve them. But she was unfamiliar with her computer. I knew it, however, so I sat down and explained to her how to use it. The computer depended on touch screen technology and soft buttons. She didn’t know these terms, and had never used equipment like that. I walked her through their use. She picked it up quickly.

Then, I was off, exploring with Knot. The facilities, made of white cement, had multiple levels and doors. I began exploring with Knot reluctantly following. Going deeper, I discovered more subterranean levels. They connected to other places, like malls, airports, and government buildings. Discerning a pattern to the levels, doors, and buildings, I gained rapid familiarity with how to get around. Several places were marked with red doors and warnings not to loiter in the area and to stay away from those doors. That didn’t deter me but Knot was worried, and urged that we leave. I didn’t leave until one red door opened and a large man in a black uniform came out to speak with us.

At that point, I returned to the original level with Knot behind me.

Although I thought about it, and dreamed I wrote about it, I think I’ll need more time to fully process it. The aspect about deeper levels to explore intrigued me. I associated that with my self.

Overall, the dream was a powerful and uplifting experience. In a striking juxtaposition, it matches my feeling the day after winter solstice that a weight had been lifted from me. I’d had a feeling for a while that I was on the precipice of a change. After solstice and this dream, I feel that I’m moving on to something else.

That has me excited and hopeful.

 

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