I'm paying the bills. The wastebasket is filling up with all the junk advertising that gets packed into bills. I'm pitching it as fast as I open 'em. Til I get to this one that I just gotta share.
"Safely Start you car's dead battery without opening the hood". And they show a special cable that plugs into the cigarette lighter socket. Excuse me, the "DC Power Port". This I gotta see. It takes 500-800 amps to crank a big motor in cold weather. The cigarette lighter circuit has a 20 amp fuse in it. Plug it in, hit the starter and pop, the cigarette lighter stops working.
Only $14.95 plus $5.95 Shipping and handling.
Such a deal.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
Cannon Mt Ski Weather
Not good. Right now it is 40 degrees out. Been that way all day. Radio says it might snow a little tomorrow. Mountain has fairly good cover. If it gets cold tomorrow skiing will be frozen granular. If it stays warm it will be spring skiing.
Would you believe a $275 million blimp?
According to the Wall St Journal the US Army has canceled the Long Endurance Multi Intelligence Vehicle project. This was to be a 300 foot long blimp with an endurance of weeks. It would float above the battlefield and furnish reconnaissance video, wifi, cold beer and everything else to troops below. Apparently the program was planned to cost $517 million, of which $275 million has been spent.
Question 1: How in the name of all that is holy can you spend $275 million on a single blimp? It's not like it is new technology. Count Zeppelin had them flying better than 100 years ago.
Question 2: Can it survive a surface to air missile?
Question 1: How in the name of all that is holy can you spend $275 million on a single blimp? It's not like it is new technology. Count Zeppelin had them flying better than 100 years ago.
Question 2: Can it survive a surface to air missile?
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Pre School
I remember childhood as being really cool, up until I had to start going to school at age six. Before that dread day, life was good, I played in the street with a regular gang of kids every day that it didn't rain. This was before computer games, Sesame Street, or even TV.
And now Obama is proposing to end the good part of childhood at four years old, instead of six. And he is telling us that real learning takes place at age four, learning so valuable that we must take our kids away from good times and toss them into school.
I didn't even do kindergarten myself, and I never missed it. School started with first grade and I did as well as any other kid in the class.
Far as I can see, pre kindergarten schooling is state sponsored day care. The kids don't learn anything, but parents can drop their kids off as they go to work. With so many people out of work, you'd think there would be plenty of unemployed family members to look after kids while parents are out earning a living.
And now Obama is proposing to end the good part of childhood at four years old, instead of six. And he is telling us that real learning takes place at age four, learning so valuable that we must take our kids away from good times and toss them into school.
I didn't even do kindergarten myself, and I never missed it. School started with first grade and I did as well as any other kid in the class.
Far as I can see, pre kindergarten schooling is state sponsored day care. The kids don't learn anything, but parents can drop their kids off as they go to work. With so many people out of work, you'd think there would be plenty of unemployed family members to look after kids while parents are out earning a living.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Cybersecurity
All sorts of companies are getting hacked these days. Latest victims to fess up are newspapers, the NY Times, the Journal, and WashPost. Congress has ignored prodding to pass a cybersecurity law. So Obama is calling a "voluntary" meeting to OK some "voluntary" standards and then promise to implement them. I don't know just what Uncle Sam is gonna propose, so here are my recommendations.
1. Everyone has to use long and strong passwords, and all passwords are changed every couple of months.
2. Signals to control machinery shall never go over the public internet. No remote controlled machine shall ever accept commands from the public internet.
3. Private networks never accept login from off the premises, from the public internet, or from a dial up connection.
4. All laptops must have full disc encryption to protect contents and passwords should the laptop fall into hostile hands..
5. Autorun must be disabled on all computers to prevent malicious programming from automatically uploading and executing off CDs and flashdrives..
6. Use nothing but secure email clients and browsers. Secure means never executing any sort of programming received over the internet or as an attachment. Secure email clients and browsers will only display mail and websites, they will never execute programming of any sort. To my knowledge no commercial email or browser programs are secure, they will all download and execute malicious programming with no assistance on the part of the user, or notification that they are doing so.
Companies need to understand that poor security will give competitors access to their bids, customer lists, their designs and trade secrets, their books, their employee lists, and any other intellectual property they own. No company can win a bid when the competitor knows just how much they bid for a job. The risks ought to be obvious to even the stupidest of suits.
1. Everyone has to use long and strong passwords, and all passwords are changed every couple of months.
2. Signals to control machinery shall never go over the public internet. No remote controlled machine shall ever accept commands from the public internet.
3. Private networks never accept login from off the premises, from the public internet, or from a dial up connection.
4. All laptops must have full disc encryption to protect contents and passwords should the laptop fall into hostile hands..
5. Autorun must be disabled on all computers to prevent malicious programming from automatically uploading and executing off CDs and flashdrives..
6. Use nothing but secure email clients and browsers. Secure means never executing any sort of programming received over the internet or as an attachment. Secure email clients and browsers will only display mail and websites, they will never execute programming of any sort. To my knowledge no commercial email or browser programs are secure, they will all download and execute malicious programming with no assistance on the part of the user, or notification that they are doing so.
Companies need to understand that poor security will give competitors access to their bids, customer lists, their designs and trade secrets, their books, their employee lists, and any other intellectual property they own. No company can win a bid when the competitor knows just how much they bid for a job. The risks ought to be obvious to even the stupidest of suits.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Lithium batteries
Aviation Week came in today. They haven't pinned the lithium battery fires on anything yet. They are now talking about doing the paperwork to change over to some other kind of battery. They haven't committed to this yet, but they are worrying that it might become necessary. If so, they worry that FAA paperwork will take months.
North Korean Nukes
The newsies have been chattering about the North Korean nuclear test all day. Amid the torrent of words on both lefty NPR and righty Fox, the one important number has NOT been given. A further example of innumeracy among the newsies. They can't count, can't add, can't subtract.
The missing number is yield, in kilotons. The first two North Korean tests were fizzles. Their yield was so low (1 kiloton) as to tell us something went wrong and the bomb barely went off. Any decent sort of nuke ought to have a 20 kiloton or better yield.
Question for the world's newsies. Did this North Korean test yield enough to make us think they have it working right? A yield of 20 kilotons makes them a nuclear power. One kiloton makes them wannabes.
The chattering classes have taken the North Korean claim of "miniaturized" to mean the bomb is small enough to put on their ballistic missile. You can believe as much of that as you want to.
The missing number is yield, in kilotons. The first two North Korean tests were fizzles. Their yield was so low (1 kiloton) as to tell us something went wrong and the bomb barely went off. Any decent sort of nuke ought to have a 20 kiloton or better yield.
Question for the world's newsies. Did this North Korean test yield enough to make us think they have it working right? A yield of 20 kilotons makes them a nuclear power. One kiloton makes them wannabes.
The chattering classes have taken the North Korean claim of "miniaturized" to mean the bomb is small enough to put on their ballistic missile. You can believe as much of that as you want to.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)