The TV is talkng about UFOs again.

 

I have seen a UFO.  It was at least 50 years ago.  I was driving north thru Franconia Notch NH. It popped into view thru the car windshield, zipped across the Notch and disappeared behind Mt. Lafayette.  It was perfectly round, about the size of the sun or the moon and shining white brightly.  It was only in view for a matter of seconds.

   Some years later I was on active duty in USAF.  I was on the flight line the night we scrambled the alert birds, nuclear armed alert birds, after a UFO that showed up on SAGE (Semi Automatic Ground Environment) radar.  We were pretty sure it was a UFO; it was going supersonic at fairly low altitude going right over Duluth.  Had it been a real solid object it would have generated a sonic boom right over town and the base switch board would have lit up with outraged calls from citizens.  We didn’t get a single call that night.  Our F106 fighters could do mach 2 which should have been enough to catch it.  The pilots didn’t catch sight of anything, either by eye or by radar. 

   Next day, checking up on things, we found that a new radar had been wired into SAGE the day before.  Checking found that some wires had been crossed, causing the data from the new radar to be 180 degrees off.  That was fixed, and we never saw another UFO on SAGE

Battery powered cars.

I am about to drive down to see my daughter in Maryland.  It’s 400 miles.  My gasoline powered 2005 Buick can make this trip on one full tank of gasoline. 

We have the lefty-greenies pushing battery powered cars for all.  I got some questions for the greenies

1. How far can I drive on one battery charge?  And how far on a three year old battery?
2. How long does it take to recharge the battery from flat?
3. How long does the battery last?  4 winters?  More?
4. How much does a replacement battery cost? Labor costs to replace?
5. If I want to buy a used battery car is there anyway to see how much battery life is left?

Quiet Diplomacy. AKA Doing Nothing

Biden is promising to do "quiet diplomacy" other wise known as doing nothing in the current Israel Hamas almost war.

Good luck to Israel

I hope they have plenty of those Iron Dome missiles.  I see Israel firing lots of them on TV .  It would be a shame if they ran out.  

Israel took out a building in Gaza that had an ABC news office.  ABC has bitched about this on TV.  Tough cookies.  Why does ABC have an office on Palestinian soil?  Plenty of places in Israel, which is safer.  The reporters can drive to Gaza to get stories, it isn't all that far. 

1619 Claims that the Revolution was fought...

To preserve slavery in America.  1619 says that King George was planning to free all the slaves in America.  This is malarkey.  The Revolution was fought over taxes.  The Boston Tea Party was about a British tax on tea.  "No taxation without representation".  Following the French and Indian Wars, the crown made several attempts to raise money in America thru taxation to pay off their war debts.  The Stamp act was one attempt.  There were others all totally unpopular in America. Attempts to negotiate with the crown were unsuccessful, leading to Lexington and Concord in 1775 and the Declaration of Independence in 1776.  There were black soldiers in the Continental Army.

Leaf day

 At last, the tree leaves are out in the Notch.  Spring is here! 

Taking care of business. Keeping the hackers out.

Colonial Pipeline has just shown us all how bad things can get for a company that doesn’t take care of its computer security.  Colonial has just admitted to paying the hacker[s] $5 mil to get their files back.  They didn’t say if they had recovered their files, the hackers may have just kept the $5 mil and split.

This is aimed at suits, those fairly clueless senior business people. 

   First off, your company has valuable information on its computers.  Information that will do you great harm if it falls into the hands of competitors.  Things like your payroll, your sales contacts, the plans, schematics, parts lists, and source code for your product[s].   If you don’t believe me, have a chat with the Colonial Pipeline people.  They will tell you.

   Know that Windows computers are totally insecure.  High school kids can break into them.  Windows is like Swiss cheese, hole of holes.  Connect a Windows computer to the public internet, and you have exposed every thing on that computer to every passing internet hacker.  You should not use Windows computers to monitor or control generators, pumps, pipelines, or anything that controls physical product.  Use Apple, use Linux, use a workstation, anything but Windows. 

   Important and confidential paperwork can be kept on Windows machines if and only if, that machine is not connected to the public internet.  Keep these machines in a locked room.  Snip off all their USB ports.  Windows computers will silently load and execute any code, malware, they find on flash drives inserted in the USB ports.  That is how we spread Stuxnet on the Iranian uranium enrichment centrifuges.  Back them up weekly to DVD disks.  Store the backup disks off site, in case of fire or flood in your office.  In 40 years in the business I never had a fire.  I did have a flood once, right in the computer room, made an awful mess. 

   Separate the stuff that makes the business run, the generators spin, the pipelines pump, the trucks get dispatched, the product to come off your production line, from your paper work.  If the hackers get to your paper work it should not shut down your business.  You ought to be able to operate with out your paper work for a few days.  Billing may be delayed a bit but you can survive that.

   Make sure every computer in the company needs a password to access.  Use strong passwords, some upper case, some lower case, some numbers, and some punctuation.  Change the passwords every 90 days.  Take care to close out the computer accounts of departing employees.  Do it on the day they leave.