Fox News was discussing this on Sunday. Obamacare is driving insurance companies out of the health care business. Even with $2500 premium increases and $4000 copays, insurance companies are still loosing wads of money on policies sold thru the Obamacare exchanges. As a result, the companies are pulling out of the Obamacare business, leaving vast tracts of America without ANY Obamacare health insurance.
Who takes the blame was the subject of discussion on Fox. In actual fact, the MSM will write long tear stained stories about how it's all the Republicans fault. They will do their best to blame all bad things on the Trump administration.
The Republicans NEED to get a health care bill thru Congress and to the president's desk. If they don't, then the coming Obamacare crash will sink the Republicans, come 2018 elections. Rule in American politics, when bad things happen, the incumbent president, and his party, take the blame. Especially when the MSM hates them. Bad things are happening to Obamacare. The Republicans must get their act together and pass something, now.
Sunday, June 11, 2017
Friday, June 9, 2017
Paper Ballots Antidote to hacking, Russian or other contenders
We have a leak, from Reality Winner, that the Russians hacked into a voting machine software company. Apparently they didn't go further and hack the voting machines, but who knows what might be possible next year, or after the next release of Windows.
Vote on paper ballots. Keep the ballots after election day in case you need to do a recount. And we can do a recount by hand, even after all the fancy digital voting machine stuff dies.
Modern digital voting machines are merely desktop computers running a "I-pretend-to-be-a-ballot" program. They mostly run Windows, world's most vulnerable operating system. Hack into the software provider, which the Russians did, and modify the "I-pretend-to-be-a-ballot" program to elect who ever you like. The software company distributes the hacked program to all it's customers, and presto, the Russians favorite candidate wins the election.
This cannot happen with paper ballots, marked with pen or # 2 pencil. And paper ballots a gotta be cheaper for the towns and cities than fancy electronic voting machines.
Vote on paper ballots. Keep the ballots after election day in case you need to do a recount. And we can do a recount by hand, even after all the fancy digital voting machine stuff dies.
Modern digital voting machines are merely desktop computers running a "I-pretend-to-be-a-ballot" program. They mostly run Windows, world's most vulnerable operating system. Hack into the software provider, which the Russians did, and modify the "I-pretend-to-be-a-ballot" program to elect who ever you like. The software company distributes the hacked program to all it's customers, and presto, the Russians favorite candidate wins the election.
This cannot happen with paper ballots, marked with pen or # 2 pencil. And paper ballots a gotta be cheaper for the towns and cities than fancy electronic voting machines.
Saw Wonder Woman in the Jax Jr last night
Pretty good. It's a comic book super hero (super heroine) movie. I haven't paid much attention to Wonder Woman since I stopped reading comic books around age 14 or so. Gal Godot plays a great Wonder Woman. She has the looks, she has the figure. She gets a great part and a lot of good lines. A lot of good costumes too. The flick opens on the Amazon's magic island (I missed the name) inhabited by lots of really hot Amazon women, and ONE really cute Amazon child, Diana. They don't talk about it, but I assume the lack of men on the island accounts for the very low birthrate. We see Diana at age 8 and then at age 14 or so, (younger actors) and as grown up (Gal Godot) The movie opens when handsome American pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crashlands a WWI monoplane just offshore (would have been cooler if it were a biplane). Diana rescues him from his sinking aircraft. There is a cool fight when WWI German infantry land from boats to capture Steve Trevor. The Amazons show up in surprising numbers and slay the Hun with swords, arrows and spears.
Shortly Steve and Diana set off for Europe to stop WWI. They leave the magic island by sailboat. Actually the prop guys should have done a little more work on that sailboat, its sails never set well, and were always luffing and it's speed thru the water was much too high. After reaching Europe we see a great set of period automobiles, all polished and shiny. Period British trains. Great period costumes. The guys are all wearing hats (fedoras for civilians). We see inside of Whitehall offices (lots of hardwood paneling and Army uniforms). We go clothes shopping in London with Diana which has some very funny bits. We see the inside of a British pub, full of ugly tough Brits who even manage to impress Diana with their toughness. We meet war weary British politicians who are ready to sign a really wimpy armistice with the Germans. And we heard what Diana thinks about wimping out.
They miss a few cool shots. Although bayonets were standard issue in all armies back then, we never see soldiers (allied or enemy) with bayonets on their rifles. We miss an opportunity to watch Diana with a sword duel with a bayonet wielding infantryman. One of Steve's buddies carries a good sniper rifle with a big telescopic sight all thru the latter half of the movie. We never see him draw a bead, center the crosshairs, and blow a bad guy away at 1000 yards.
This flick is over two hours, gets a little tedious toward the end. Really young kids won't have the patience to sit still thru out. Other than that, it's fine for kids, everyone keeps their clothes on and doesn't sleep together on screen. Lots of explosions, acrobatic fighting styles, and exciting stuff, not much blood.
Shortly Steve and Diana set off for Europe to stop WWI. They leave the magic island by sailboat. Actually the prop guys should have done a little more work on that sailboat, its sails never set well, and were always luffing and it's speed thru the water was much too high. After reaching Europe we see a great set of period automobiles, all polished and shiny. Period British trains. Great period costumes. The guys are all wearing hats (fedoras for civilians). We see inside of Whitehall offices (lots of hardwood paneling and Army uniforms). We go clothes shopping in London with Diana which has some very funny bits. We see the inside of a British pub, full of ugly tough Brits who even manage to impress Diana with their toughness. We meet war weary British politicians who are ready to sign a really wimpy armistice with the Germans. And we heard what Diana thinks about wimping out.
They miss a few cool shots. Although bayonets were standard issue in all armies back then, we never see soldiers (allied or enemy) with bayonets on their rifles. We miss an opportunity to watch Diana with a sword duel with a bayonet wielding infantryman. One of Steve's buddies carries a good sniper rifle with a big telescopic sight all thru the latter half of the movie. We never see him draw a bead, center the crosshairs, and blow a bad guy away at 1000 yards.
This flick is over two hours, gets a little tedious toward the end. Really young kids won't have the patience to sit still thru out. Other than that, it's fine for kids, everyone keeps their clothes on and doesn't sleep together on screen. Lots of explosions, acrobatic fighting styles, and exciting stuff, not much blood.
Thursday, June 8, 2017
Islamic terrorist videos on Utube cause big advertisers to pull ads
Wall St Journal had this story today. I don't cruise Utube myself so I don't really know what gets posted there. But the stuff must be pretty bad if advertisers are pulling their ads off Utube. Was I Utube, I'd think real hard about throwing extremist video clips off the site, just to maintain good relations with my advertisers, who put up the money.
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Nextgen and Privatizing Air Traffic Control
Trump was pushing these two ideas on TV yesterday. Right now air traffic control (ATC) has been run by the FAA and paid for thru appropriations of federal tax money. Trump (and others) want to set up a private or semi private company to run ATC and be funded by levying fees on the airlines who use ATC. The airline industry is in favor, as is the ATC union. The issue really comes down to funding. Right now, every time Congress gets its panties in a twist, the FAA funding bill doesn't get passed, and when it finally does pass, it leaves out funding for capital improvements, new radars, new control towers, new computers, Next Gen and such. With a private company funded from fees, the cash flow is steady and predictable, every one's paycheck comes thru on time, and capital improvements can be made, especially long term multi year projects. The down side is the private company can hire more people, buy more equipment and just raise the fees to pay for it all. They have a monopoly, and they will exploit it to grow.
The capital improvement under consideration is "Next Gen" an expensive plan to force every airplane in the country (and out of the country) to buy an pricey GPS receiver/transponder. This gadget uses the GPS part to find the plane's location, speed and course, and when interrogated by a ground transponder would transmit the plane's ID and location back to the ground to update the ATC displays in control towers. Transponders start at a couple of K for a light plane model, and a lot more for an airliner grade model. The advantage of Next Gen is greater accuracy, say 10 feet of so, as compared to 5 miles or so for today's ground radar. Which is said to allow controllers to fly planes closer together, allowing more air traffic in the same amount of airspace.
Maybe. But it relies on vulnerable technology. The GPS signal from satellites is quite weak and could be jammed in wartime. The NextGen GPS/transponder is complicated and should it fail the aircraft disappears off ATC display screens. And there is plenty of airspace for flying from place to place. The congestion occurs around airports. We only have 50 odd airports in the whole country and each one can only handle one operation (takeoff or landing) a minute. There is plenty of airspace inbetween airports for all the planes now flying and all the planes that will be flying in the future.
We should not do Next Gen. Too expensive, too vulnerable, and we don't get anything for spending all that money.
The capital improvement under consideration is "Next Gen" an expensive plan to force every airplane in the country (and out of the country) to buy an pricey GPS receiver/transponder. This gadget uses the GPS part to find the plane's location, speed and course, and when interrogated by a ground transponder would transmit the plane's ID and location back to the ground to update the ATC displays in control towers. Transponders start at a couple of K for a light plane model, and a lot more for an airliner grade model. The advantage of Next Gen is greater accuracy, say 10 feet of so, as compared to 5 miles or so for today's ground radar. Which is said to allow controllers to fly planes closer together, allowing more air traffic in the same amount of airspace.
Maybe. But it relies on vulnerable technology. The GPS signal from satellites is quite weak and could be jammed in wartime. The NextGen GPS/transponder is complicated and should it fail the aircraft disappears off ATC display screens. And there is plenty of airspace for flying from place to place. The congestion occurs around airports. We only have 50 odd airports in the whole country and each one can only handle one operation (takeoff or landing) a minute. There is plenty of airspace inbetween airports for all the planes now flying and all the planes that will be flying in the future.
We should not do Next Gen. Too expensive, too vulnerable, and we don't get anything for spending all that money.
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
Reality Winner??
Unlikely name. NSA contractor arrested Saturday for leaking classified information. She had a history of flakiness, including a posting about whiteness is racism, or some such malarkey. She was an Air Force veteran. The newsies haven't said what kind of discharge she had.
Question: How did somebody so flaky ever get a security clearance? Did who ever granted her clearance talk to her former Air Force commander? And how did she keep her clearance?
Another Question: Why was a contractor given access to this classified? What was their need to know.
Seems to me, NSA has lost it's grip. Back when I was a NSA contractor they gave us polygraph tests as part of gaining a clearance. NSA was the only place I was ever at where they inspected your briefcase on the way in and out of secured areas. Letting "Reality Winner" (is that really a name?) in and giving her the run of the files makes me think NSA is getting sloppy.
Question: How did somebody so flaky ever get a security clearance? Did who ever granted her clearance talk to her former Air Force commander? And how did she keep her clearance?
Another Question: Why was a contractor given access to this classified? What was their need to know.
Seems to me, NSA has lost it's grip. Back when I was a NSA contractor they gave us polygraph tests as part of gaining a clearance. NSA was the only place I was ever at where they inspected your briefcase on the way in and out of secured areas. Letting "Reality Winner" (is that really a name?) in and giving her the run of the files makes me think NSA is getting sloppy.
Monday, June 5, 2017
Cortana: What can it do and do I care?
According to net rumor, Cortana does some searching and accepts voice commands and gives voice responses and does snooping for Microsoft. It used to suck up better than 100 Mbytes of RAM and a smidgen of CPU time. Since putting in Creator's update big patch the other day it is down to 66.6 Mbytes of RAM and zip for CPU time.
After go rounds with Dragon Dictate and the average robocaller, I am not impressed with voice recognition. I haven't gone thru a training session with Cortana. I don't think I'm using it at all. I think I want to blow it away to save RAM and speed up things.
So far, net searching only say you can use Regedit to add a key to the registry (AllowCortana = 0) that inhibits Cortana from doing something while searching. No directions for blowing Cortana clean off the hard drive. The only searching I ever do is with a web browser and Google, or on my harddrive with Windows Explorer.
Question: Is it worth adding the magic key to the registry? Will it recover that 66.6 Mbytes of RAM, or does it leave Cortana sucking up RAM and doing nothing?
After go rounds with Dragon Dictate and the average robocaller, I am not impressed with voice recognition. I haven't gone thru a training session with Cortana. I don't think I'm using it at all. I think I want to blow it away to save RAM and speed up things.
So far, net searching only say you can use Regedit to add a key to the registry (AllowCortana = 0) that inhibits Cortana from doing something while searching. No directions for blowing Cortana clean off the hard drive. The only searching I ever do is with a web browser and Google, or on my harddrive with Windows Explorer.
Question: Is it worth adding the magic key to the registry? Will it recover that 66.6 Mbytes of RAM, or does it leave Cortana sucking up RAM and doing nothing?
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