The Russians are hacking, the Russians are hacking!!

Yeah right.  We know someone hacked the democrats, 'cause their stuff turned up on Wikileaks.  That's about all we know.  We have no way of knowing who dunnit.  The hacker causes disk files to be copied out to somewhere on the internet.  For looking at the disk files afterward, you cannot tell if they were copied or not.  The only way we know the hack occurred is that stuff turned up on Wikileaks.  Even if we can find the Internet address (URL)  to which stuff was sent, that could be anyone.  Any hacker will sent hot stuff thru an internet anonymizer site that  keeps no records and forwards stuff tracelessly. 
   No matter what the MSM or CIA or FBI or other pundits say, we cannot know who did the hack.  We can have suspicions, but we cannot know.  The world has plenty of individuals, small groups, large groups, and countries capable of doing the DNC and Podesta hacks.  Especially as it didn't take much to do the hack.  From what I hear Podesta was clueless enough to fall for a phishing email.   Which is incredibly clueless of him.  
   The folks we hear saying the Russians did it don't know that.  They are saying so because they think it will help their political position.   Which is hard to understand actually.   Getting hacked shows the victims (hackees) as sloppy, ignorant, and clueless. 

Black Viper seems to be off the air

Black Viper, most useful and knowledgble  computer geek, the goto web source for taming Windows, seems to be off the air.  I get that "Sorry cannot find" message when I try his URL. 
   Anyone know anything? 

Tchaikovsky's Nut Cracker Suite

They put it on in Littleton NH last night.   It was the local dance school doing it.  The venue was the old Littleton Opera House, a groovy old building from the 1880's, newly restored to it's original glory, period woodwork,  nice paint, and at the insistence of the state building department, structurally beefed up to prevent it from sliding into the Ammonusuc River.   The real reason I, and youngest son, got out on a cold dark night was  that my grand niece Amelie, age 7, had a part in it.  It was a big hit.  At least 300 people in the audience, a lot of small children, undoubtedly younger siblings of cast kids.    The audience completely parked up the Opera House lot and the town lot behind the Jax Jr movie theater.  A bid deal for a smallish up country town.
    And it was a nice show for an amateur cast.  Fair number of grown up cast members, who had the bigger parts.  There were tutus and point shoes, and most of 'em could dance en pointe.  Costumes were colorful. All the kids got parts.  Music was recorded but they had a pair of very decent speakers that nicely filled the house.  Minor drawback, the portable dance floor wasn't very solid, and the grownup dancers made really loud thumping noises dancing upon it.  Kinda spoiled the lightness and bounciness of the dance when you could hear the floor complaining of the weight.
   Classical music isn't dead yet.

Trump picks military officers for cabinet

Because only the best go into the military.  I did a six year tour in the Air Force.  The airmen I served with were absolutely top notch people, intelligent, motivated, loyal, hard working, dependable.  After my Air Force tour, I worked in civilian industry for forty years.   Working in the high tech companies out on Rte 128,  I never had a workforce as good as I had enjoyed in the Air Force.  I had a lot of good people in industry, but the Air Force had better.
   I see Trump picking the best people he can find.  Of course many of them are military people, because only the best go into the military.

Remember Pearl Harbor

It changed the course of history.  Up until Pearl Harbor, isolationists in America had succeeded in keeping the US out of WWII, despite the unanimous opinion of the American establishment.  In December 1941 the Nazis were well on their way to conquering the world.  They had invaded and occupied Norway Denmark, Holland, Poland, Belgium, and France.  Britain was on the ropes, they had fended off the Nazi air attack in the summer of 1940 by the skin of their teeth, but were in no shape to do much more.  The vast Red army, locked in combat with the Wehrmacht, had suffered defeat after defeat, loosing hundreds of thousands of men in German encirclements.     By Pearl Harbor time the Germans had reached the suburbs of Moscow.  Had Moscow fallen, Russian resistance would have collapsed and Adolf Hitler would rule all of Europe from the Channel to the Urals. Had the isolationists kept America out of the war for another year or two, Hitler might have won.  It was a close run thing.
    Isolationism disappeared in the smoke of Pearl Harbor.  Americans were outraged and to a man demanded their government do something about it.  Which the Roosevelt administration pr0ceeded to do. 
    The Japanese, with the exception of Admiral Yamamoto, totally misread the situation and
American intentions.  The Japanese war aim was to conquer China, plus a few other things, but China mostly.  The Japanese economy was dependent upon American exports of gasoline and crude oil and scrap metal.  The Americans disapproved of the China invasion and embargoed those crucial exports.  The Japanese were faced with collapse of their economy (production of warships, war material, aircraft and all the rest needed to maintain a war), or backing off, with the intolerable loss of face that would entail.  They never thought about going elsewhere for raw materials.  Sumatra, not far away, had enough high quality crude oil production  to run Japan thruout WWII.  They could have just muscled their way into Sumatra, acquired the needed oil.  The Americans would send diplomatic nastygrams to Tokyo, but the US isolationists would not have permitted anything more. 
   Instead, Japan thought that a devastating attack, one that knocked out the US fleet, would cow the Americans into making terms.  Partly this mistake came from a  Japanese leadership had no conception of the resources at America's disposal.  In Japan, things were so tight that building a single new battleship required contributions from school children (lunch money) and years of scrimping and struggle.  In America Roosevelt could pick up the phone and say " We need ten new battleships as soon as possible.   The contract will be cost plus.  Start work now".  And ten new battleships, plus carriers, destroyers, liberty ships, submarines, and everything else would slide down the launching ways and join the US fleet.  Japanese leadership simply did not understand this.  They thought that sinking all the Pacific Fleet battleships would cripple the Americans forever. 
    It didn't.

Replacement for Air Force 1. The Donald weighs in

The United States owns two (just two) operational Air Force 1s.  They are Boeing 747's with a fancy paint job, and every imaginable electronic device and defensive system.  Cost was no object back then.  The primary reason for Air Force 1 is to impress everybody in the world.  We are the only country rich enough to furnish a custom widebody jet liner to fly the president around.  All the other heads of state fly commercial. The current two  aircraft have been flying since the 1970's if memory serves, and you can make a case that it's time to replace them.
   On the other hand, aircraft last forever.  Every thing that wears out gets replaced.  Maintenance (I used to be a maintenance officer) has to fix everything, soon as it breaks.  If it ain't fixed, the crew won't accept the aircraft, causing all sorts of bad things, late departures, late arrivals, nasty phone calls, the works.  Engines and other machinery have to to replaced every so many hours.  So after 25 years of service, the current two Air Force 1s are as sound as when they left the factory, maybe better.
   Somehow during the Obama administration, the Air Force got funding to buy two replacements.  The new birds will be the same Boeing 747s with a sticker price of $352 million, each.   That would accomplish the primary mission of Air Force 1, namely to impress everybody.  Throw in some bucks for the fancy paint job.  Let the passengers communicate with their smart phones.  
   That's not gonna fly in the Air Force I remember.  I'm sure the Air Force contract calls for installing all the fancy electronics that the current models have, plus a bunch of new stuff that's been invented in the last 25 years.   And thousands of hours of flight testing, of a highly reliable airliner that has been flying for nearly 60 years.  Maybe the Air Force will pull the KC-46 tanker cost enhancement trick, demanding all the aircraft wiring be redesigned and rerouted "to meet Air Force standards".  Boeing knows as much or more than the Air Force about the right way to wire an aircraft.  What with one frill or another, the price tag is up to $4 billion for two aircraft.  Which is too damn much. 
   With a bit more pressure from The Donald, they might be able to reduce the fancy electronics load and cost.  I'm sure there is a bunch of stuff that the plane could jolly well do without.  Or, just cancel the whole project and keep on flying the current, very safe, very impressive aircraft.

Taiwan is a real country, no matter what Mainland China says

The NY Times, echoing the lace panty leftie peaceniks from the State Dept,  is bashing Trump for accepting a phone call from the President of Taiwan.  Let's be real about it, Taiwan is a real country that we, the United States, have promised to defend from invasion by the mainland.  That is a serious commitment, to go to war with a whacking big industrialized  country like China.  And Taiwan is a significant economy, well worth our time.  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is one of the largest silicon foundries in the world.  If it disappeared, there would be a serious worldwide shortage of semiconductors.  Analog Devices, with its own foundry in Wilmington MA,  sent their digital designs to TSMC, half a world away.  The Wilmington foundry was at capacity, and it could make higher value analog parts, where as TSMC was a strictly digital house.  And they did good work.
   Anyhow, despite what the mainland Chinese say, Taiwan is a real country, with industry, armed forces, a sizable population, friendly to the United States.   For the NY Times to get its panties in a twist because Trump took a friendly phone call from the president of a friendly country, is outrageous.