23 thoughts on “Redefining America”

  1. Re: “The U.S. Outage” –
    I realize you’re on a totally different plane than lil’ ol’ me sitting at my computer but back when I was doing it for pay I had a school board member ask me about Cloud Computing while my boss, who was as much an Open Source devotee as Pelosi is to self-aggrandized power grabbing, was standing right next to me extolling the virtues of OSCC. I did my best to plant my butt on the fence line but it was plain to the board that I didn’t trust it from both a reliability standpoint as well as privacy. My boss didn’t have much to say to me after that all the way to the day I had to quit and work elsewhere due to travel costs. He was a “bleeding edge” kind of guy while I was a “stick with what works more often than not” kind of guy. Especially when an entire school depends on your judgement.

    My wife and I were talking yesterday about her W10 PC going down this week, first with the Office installation’s update, then the OS for the umpteenth time. In a mental search for more reliability I asked about Office 360 but she said it required you to store everything on The Cloud if she remembered correctly. Given M$’s close relation to TPTB’s obsessive tendency to spy on everyone there’s no doubt in my mind THEY have your backup in a very, very safe place that you can’t get to – but it’s there.

    I know you’re on a budget but I take the stance that data in hand is like PMs in hand rather than in some “safe” storage somewhere. That way the only person to blame for a loss is you … or the guy that pushes the button on an EMP.

    • I have a client who, 12 months ago, was faced with spending $100k on new server hardware or going to a cloud-based model where the server and all the workstations are “in the cloud” and the hardware on the desk is nothing more than an internet connection and screens.

      I advised them to not go to the cloud.

      You see, “the cloud” does not exist. It is a make-believe. All that data lives on a hardware box somewhere, on a rack, in a building, in a neighborhood, in a city. Who owns that box? Who maintains that box? Who has access to that box? Who owns the building where the box resides? Who pays the electric bill on that building? When the owner of the building doesn’t pay the mortgage, and the bank locks the doors and turns off the utilities, what happens to your data on that box? What happens if the fire protection of that box fails? What if a pipe leaks on that box? Sure, they have a backup, somewhere, maybe (are you CERTAIN?) but you know not where. If the company that owns and maintains the box with your data, goes out of business, how do you get your data back? See: George Ure.

      In the cloud, you have lost control of your data. No, that’s not correct. You didn’t “lose” control.

      You intentionally gave up control of your data.

      Now one year later the client has determined that their main software platform simply is not compatible with cloud based computing. My guess is that there is too much database input/output between the desktops and the cloud server and that the various internet connections required are not capable of speedily handling that much traffic, bringing the entire system to its knees. Maybe the cloud virtual server hardware is insufficient. Whatever the reason, the solution is out of their hands.

      So now they want out of the cloud. But guess what? The provider doesn’t want to break the contract and my client CANNOT GET THEIR DATA BACK. They no longer have control.

      Everything. EVERYTHING has been “financialized.” And as it has been, we have all given up control over many of the things that make up our standard of living.

      When half of everything you consume comes from China, you have less control. When your bank is borderline financially insolvent, you have less control. When you have so much personal debt that you are living paycheck to paycheck (you have financialized the purchase of too many “toys”) you have less control. When the entire nation is so far in debt that the FED has lost control, you have lost control of your future.

      And this lack of control over your life and your future will soon, I am afraid, become self-evident.

      Prepare accordingly.

      • In the past four months I have bought a Sparc III, a quad, quad-core Xeon, a quad Opteron 3380, and a RAID-0, 1, 5, 01/10 box with eight 1tb WD drives within. I have less than $500 in all this kit, counting petrol to drive hundreds of miles, to pick it up.

        There is NO EXCUSE to not have an in-house and onsite backup. PAs do not HAVE to buy new kit to do backups. Any one of these ‘puters would run daily backups for a medium-sized business, for many years. The only bits likely to ever fail, in a proper environment, are the power supplies and the hard drives, and they’re rated for a minimum of 60,000hrs MTBF…

      • “wait – you got 16 cores for under 500?”

        I got 52 cores for under $500!

        The Opteron is 32 cores, and 256Gb of memory, and I actually paid $221 for it (counting the local sales tax and a 10% auction fee), which is more than I paid for BOTH the Sun and Intel servers, combined.

        Schools and municipalities seem to be dumping this stuff every two. The kiddies don’t know what to do with it and small/medium business can’t afford a staff geek, so they don’t know about, nor jump on these, either.

        These suckers are built to a quality standard the basic Dell or H-P workstation will never come close to, not even Dell’s Alienware gamer boxes. They possess an insane amount of computing horsepower, and in a home or small business environment will probably function reliably for 30 years or longer. They also each have more computing power than a Cray, IBM, Silicon Graphics, or Sun “supercomputer,” from that period in time when “Big Blue” was as much a marketing ploy as it was, a chess champion…

        All three of these computers are 2U rackmount servers with onboard power supplies and OS hard drives. The Sparc ran an EDACS control node for a big city in Kentucky, the Xeon ran a k-12 school system and administration in Indiana, the AMD did the same for a community college & trade school in Eastern Ohio. I passed on about eight others of these ballsy servers, over this same period of time.

        Also, because of spastic COVID rules I’ve seriously curtailed my searches, abandoning completely a number of target-rich forums, until the world regains a measure of sanity. I figure between Rochester, Minnesota and Rochester, New York there have probably been at least a hundred go under the auctioneer’s gavel this year…

        I don’t regret that.

        I DO regret passing on the 20kw solar system which sold a couple weeks ago for ~$4000. I had no place to store 88 Panasonic PV panels or their mounting racks, until I could make use of them. Those 10kW 3-phase inverters and the grid-tie stuff were some sexy kit, though…

      • George, I’ll second your request to Ray! There are too many smart retired engineers in my state, but worthy solar and computer deals would justify a long trip in the van. Perhaps even with a trailer. There’s such a thing as too much, but three phase 10kw inverters and 20kw of collectors……

        That stuff would power my old machine tools AND heat the house!

      • That solar system was at High Point, outside Bellefontaine, Ohio. High Point is (I believe) the highest point in Ohio — used to be an AAC or Air Force (or maybe SAC) facility but was decommissioned and is now a member school of whatever Ohio calls their tech/trade schools. Nice people, but they have a strict “no-help” policy, and using my largest trailer, it’d have taken three trips…

        George, I will E-Mail you when I see something like this again, although I’ll tell you, I don’t follow salvage auctions or sales south of Ten’see or west of Missery any more. Texas and Aridzona are always target-rich, OkieDokie and Colorado are getting there, but I can’t do those thousand mile per day drives like I used to…

      • “Schools and municipalities seem to be dumping this stuff ”

        Because school districts are all going to cloud based computing. It’s cheaper.

        I have heard, but cannot confirm, that the recent hacked and ransomed oil company system was cloud based.

      • @CPA Prepper

        “Because school districts are all going to cloud based computing. It’s cheaper.”

        ‘Thing is, I don’t understand how it could be, when these places already have the kit. Now, I understand how much of a PITA it is, giving teachers, kids, and parents access to a slice of the server (and getting all the rules and permissions right) but Apache is a lot easier than it used to be, and every school has at least one geek on-staff who either can do the setup, or shouldn’t be teaching. I also understand how spendy it gets, quickly, when you’re starting at ground level and forking out 14-40k for a server or two, and still have to do the cabling and switches, but these places already have all their hardware in place.

        Is there some slick-talking SOB cruising the Midwest and convincing these schools to punt their expensive systems, to pay Amazon a recurring fee, instead? If so, dats some stupid poop-ed…

  2. Two very Interesting stories in this mornings news that has me in deep sobering thoughts……

    https://warnews247.gr/oi-ipa-antimetopes-me-tin-megalyteri-polemiki-proklisi-orkos-proedrou-kinas-gia-eisvoli-stin-taivan-poly-syntoma-vinteo/

    from one front.. to

    https://warnews247.gr/kolossiaia-kinitopoiisi-katadysi-rosikon-ypovrychion-sta-500-metra-tha-pyrodotisoun-to-aporrito-oplo-poseidon-vinteo/

    Now.. contemplate this for just a few moments…
    https://apnews.com/article/beijing-moscow-foreign-policy-russia-vladimir-putin-1d4b112d2fe8cb66192c5225f4d614c4
    https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/18/op-ed-china-russia-cooperation-could-be-bidens-biggest-challenge.html
    even though the G whatever is getting together and showing Russia and
    China there is a united front..
    Now consider that in previous years there were countries that went to Russia and china to get agreements with them so they would protect them in the event that there are a few people that intended to steal their raw resources and were afraid that the g whatever would be convinced to steal it for them.. https://warnews247.gr/ektakto-xekinoun-oi-amerikanikes-geotriseis-stin-kypriaki-aoz-oliki-rixi-ipa-tourkias/..
    news stories from around the world showed military positioning as a chess player would on a chess board for the poison pawn trap knowing that the few greedy ones would go after the biggest chocolate bunny.. All while they knew well in advance that our new administration was obligated and would go along with what the few wanted him to do because he owes them. ( seriously what does someone expect by giving millions of dollars a year and access to thousands of under aged kids ).. I am afraid that this could be the big one especially for this country we sold out our manufacturing capabilities our whole infrastructure is dependent on those that don’t care about us or our needs and our whole distribution system is in shambles…. we aren’t at home protecting our borders… instead we are everywhere even taunting those by testing their borders.. but here and our borders are opened letting the trojan horse in and even supporting them while trying to undermine our own system with new laws…. Of course this is just my opinion from what I am seeing in the news..
    Personally that scares the hell out of me..

    • Your fear is being based on objectivism and rationality, an ability to check your own plumbing and other no longer vogue concepts. Digital mob rule is a sham but it will be discovered too late by too few to matter.
      Point, set, match.

    • And history will be written that Americans let this all happen, and it will be left out that the globalist new-world order illuminati together with their hench people in government, banking, education, media, medicine, corporations, religious programming via the Johnson Act, and entertainment collectively worked together to undermine and tank the United States of America and bring it down to an easily controlled third-world country.

      • The sad part about that Tank.. is it will all be a legend.. their greed and manipulation will only be some story told around the campfire some place.. Or some future archeologist will be seeking the ruins of an ancient civilization.. curious how it all happened.. the ten commandments come to mind.. though shalt not covet.. (GREED) though shalt not worship graven images..( MONEY , Gold, Silver etc..)
        Libraries are already lost.. to digital.. how long would it take before the rest are found in some jar buried..
        I know. I know.. a very rare thing to find a book on a yale website LOL LOL LOL….
        It has to be a fluke because Yale doesn’t normally have anything worthwhile on their sites LOL.. but it is a great book.. enjoy..
        https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/Intellectual_Life/LTW-Scott.pdf

  3. In your analysis today I’m surprised that you haven’t commented on the curve forming in the aggregate. Could that have an influence on the nature of a correction in the aggregate?

    • Well, its a holiday. And I get confused between a rolling top and a Rolling Rock about. Man needs some down time, markets can follow when ready.

  4. 4th of July Weekend Headliner – Top O the Billboard..

    Ranger George and his big dog, Dick.
    Or is it Ranger George and big dog dick ?
    Hey Moe ! Hey Larry ! I cant see.
    Why Not ?
    my eyes are closed.naaah nyucknyuck nyuck.

    Blew out the boston beer (SAM) puts nice lil profit, took % of winnings and shoveled into SPY index puts = insurance.
    No tell NTLA trading profits…”thar she blows’… most exciting news I have ever seen in the life sciences.buybuybuybuybuybuybuy..

    Serious opportunity for quick strike in Crisper Technologies (CRSP) as another golden cross approaches in the charts – own & buying more for family office accounts. buybuybuybuybuybuy..

    Energy – think black gold might be the key -lynch pin in all these hard asset games of musical chairs – CFTC ..why did J kerPOWell meet w/CEO Coinbase- in person,not zoom, 2 days before crash BTC, and meet with CFTC director in person again! one day prior to BTC crash..I know Co Incident -right?
    tell me it aint so Kemmosabe..

    As Oil stays above $65 – Russia be making bank, when Russkies are making bank on energy – they Buy Gold, lotz of it (best Gold traders in World/historically- imho).
    Sourcing phyz IS problematic now..in next few weeks ???

    Like Crypto, Land, Food – if U dont hold it in Ure hand – Squata U got.

    Safety First – take good care – those roman candles fireworx can ignite cotton clothing(soaked in rum) when hit with a ball of fire -worx.

    ifin when – Dont forget STOP – DROP and Roll..keep rolling till flames are extinguished or U pass out..and that is what friends are 4.

  5. Aaa yes. Death or when the Banshee comes calling and you take the coach ride to the other side while conducting your personal review of positives and negatives.
    Having a will or plan that is understood by family members is essential in my view. Prevents problems and misunderstandings. In order for us to facilitate the transition and dispersal of goods upon our leaving this plane we called a clan meeting in the back yard.
    At the meeting of the clan we dispersed photos, mementos, items that were wanted by the kids and so on. Some valuable items and some not. To us it was about watching the smiles and getting rid of stuff.
    As we now have a much pared down pile of stuff it is easier for the executor to handle and reduced the possible squabbling.
    It was great fun watching the ‘trading’ of items between the kids with lots of laughs and fun. Perhaps this view will be helpful to others.
    All of you continue to enjoy life and stay healthy. Cheers

    • My brother used this fair method for us 5 siblings to divide up our parents’ estate. Like stuff was gathered together into ten categories: kitchen, wall decorations, linens, furniture, etc. A number was drawn for each category and each sibling got 2 selection rounds. If we wanted more, we could buy it at the estate’s farm auction. It was pleasant and I got everything I wanted except two original paintings.

      Mom had already given me her car a year earlier when she moved to a care facility after a stroke. (I paid $2,000 to the estate and took no furniture). Why did I get the car was because when our dad died, I told mom to live it up and go buy a new car because the other was too old. She was so proud that she purchased it all by herself. Mom died (massive stroke) in Minnesota, but showed up in Oregon as a ghost in her car minutes after dying. She told my husband not to be afraid that she just wanted to see her car before she left for heaven.

      • Wonderful story of proof of life after death. My GrandDad born in 1915, told me in 1984, that his own Dad came to him in spirit form to say good bye as he passed from this plane. The proof is there.

  6. The incorporation of Digital Mob rule into local government continues. Locally, the 911 crew appears to be handling serial false call-outs from stooge political criminal wannabes by rotating the agencies called out. The politicos apparently are only dropping dimes on solitary victims, avoiding the possibility of a supporting witness. The local enforcement agencies apparently are taking the call-outs as protection duty, and hang around long enough to allow the intended victim to leave peacefully, but will not discuss the false complaint with the victim, or give an opportunity to the victim to make a counter complaint. Texas lawmen are under no legal obligation to do so. I regard all this as institutionalized politically criminal gaslighting, although the officers at the scene are blameless, and behave professionally. A formal information request to local law enforcement on a related subject netted one victimized individual this official response “Look it up on the Internet”.

    In an unrelated incident, I was told by local law enforcement that unless a Digital Crime was related to national security, there was almost no possibility of them getting support in unmasking perps. Of course, if an incident involving identity compromise of a person who may have national security issues occured, do the local police have a need to know? The political criminals who sponsor the Digital Mob know how to game the system, since most are made men in the Lawyer Gangs running sideline hustles.

Comments are closed.