Sunday Coffee

by

Rambling around the ranch this morning.  Been far busier this weekend that I’d been planning on.

S/W Update or Hack-Attack?

Those who visit Urban frequently (our dynamite comments section makes that a useful pursuit) may have noticed a 2 1/2-hour hole in our up-time Saturday.  Turns out, a key directory on our web server had been deleted.  Not necessarily a hack.  Likely a software update that ate the server director.  Although we were being pings by Russians like crazy at the time.

I got lucky, though.  After the server team gave up on simple repairs and suggested the Big One (rebuild the site from the ground up!) I figured a shortcut and  (knocking on wood here) it’s holding.

Password changes and the usual defensive measures.  But, the one thing I’m pretty-much ticked about is that such accidents or attacks are functionally same as commercial burglary.  People attempting such ought to  be punished to the same levels.

None of our data was accessed, though.   Peoplenomics is on an  even more secure server that wasn’t bothered.

A Word About Cyber Exposure

That hackers are getting bolder is not surprising.  There’s big money to be made – if you can get around the prison time.

Noticed this week how New Zealand Deploys Spy Agency as Hackers Hit Stock Market.  Here, we just call those people The Fed, lol.

Even so, hackers are “in it to win it” – Fortnite Hackers Earn $1 Million A Year—Stealing Your Skins, reported Forbes.

Sheesh.  Fores showed restraint not mentioning “for skins” directly.  We’re way too deep in puns around here to have missed that one.

Late Labor Day

We are more than slightly disappointed that Labor Day is coming so late this year.  We were all set for a three-day weekend this weekend.  But, no such luck.  Another week to go.

Weather in this part of Texas seems to know when Labor Day is.  The first forecast day with a high of less than 90F isn’t expected this year until Labor Day itself – a week from Monday.  That’s when East Texians will emerge from hell with a chilly high of 87 and a low of 68 with is just about ideal after you’ve become acclimated to sweat all summer.

Unless you happen to have DNA like mine.  Then, a high of 72 and a low of 55  would be closer to right.

Done enough sweating for the year.  Which (blissfully) gets to the point: People don’t keep track of their “first sweat day” of the year, or last one, either.  Instead, we “pin a number on it” (in degrees F) and run with that.  An oddity of human behavior.

Sweat Days here tend to a window from May 15 to September 7-10.  Genuine suffering days run from mid June to… well, we have a heat warning out again today.

Scoping the Week Ahead

There’s not much other than a minor Dallas Fed number due out Monday.  Hardly worth going to work.  Tuesday sees a PMI (purchasing managers) number.  Equally non-riveting. Wednesday, though excitement as the ADP job numbers show up.  The Challenger job cuts Thursday and the “officious”  employment numbers Friday.

We wouldn’t be surprised to see a short, sharp drop in the markets Monday or Tuesday.  You’ll often see a “squaring up day” at month end, though I’ve never figured how to pick it in advance.  We’ll check in the morning when the futures light up.

When the fever of all this paper-stuffing is over, the break to the downside could be tremendous.  If it doesn’t happen, it’s more points on  the board for Trump.

Winter Garden

While it’s cool this morning (like 79 is cool?)  we’ll be getting seed set for the winter garden. 

The summer garden went in too late this year.  And if we had to survive on what actually came out of the garden, we’d have gone Donner Party, for sure.

Picking the day to get the seeds started is difficult, at best.  The idea is things germinate well at an average temp around 85F, or so, but when you stick the young plants in dirt, the ideal is about 10-degrees cooler than best germination rate temps.

My thinking is if we set the seeds this morning, we should have something to set out the week after Labor Day and that’s when we’re back into the cooler weather.  (Plans are always perfect.  Results are not.)

Damn “summer squash” plants set all kinds of flowers, but too hot to fruit.  Got plans to put out a good-sized field (100X200?) of wild flowers next spring.  Can’t have too many bees, after all.

Article in the Seattle Times this weekend was well-timed: Plant a garden to attract bees and butterflies, and save the Earth while you’re at it.

Seed Reading

Our attempt last year to get sunflowers to come up in abundance was a train wreck, too.  The germination rate was zero.  Even though planted in late winter.

This time, the seeds will be going in next month.  Like the experienced growers suggest.

Working Mail Box

The garbage truck smashing the mailboxes  Thursday turns out may be the Universe helping with the gardening.

Since the old mailbox is black – and the new one arriving in a week from Amazoon is white – we should be able to keep arriving seeds from being fresh-roasted.

Back to our endlessly repeated advice:  If you order seeds, make sure they travel only when the weather is 80F or under.  Because even at 80F when placed in a mailbox, you’re dancing with disaster.  (Or salt and consider them roasted…)

We’ll be ordering seeds for next spring about November or December.

Fool me twice…you know.

OK, enough avoiding sweating again.  Up a ladder for a quick project and then up to the garden.  Knock on wood the auto-updates and hackers take Sundays off.  We working folks don’t…

Write when you get rich,

George@Ure.net

18 thoughts on “Sunday Coffee”

  1. Best to order the seeds and stuff Early Jeffe..beat the rush/stock outs.

    Plus U insure you get the highly sought after, first to run out items like German Gold Potatoes.

    ECD orders medicinal plants from Richters/Canada, and Seeds of Change/US.

    Note on Sunflowers – they are favorites here at ECD Acres, we plant primarily Mexican variety.

    Smaller, multicolored – make great Cut flowers/arrangements, and the Gold Finches spend all day picking seeds, making a glorious racket in the afternoons.

    Also keep a feeder nearby stocked with Meal Worms – Blue Birds are the primary customers, very nice birds and easy to tame. So ECD has his NAVY Blue and Gold Bird garden.

    Also use Blue & Gold Paintballs on the Corn thieving Squirrels – shooting/hitting wood pile as they run along the top – easy to recognize a Squirrel from our backyard area – they be the ones with the Blue and/or Gold Tinted fur..lil bastards!

  2. George
    I am telling you that even with summer crops, once they flower, they seem to need nights at 75 or slightly lower to get fruit. Been experimenting with this(here in central coastal Florida) for about 10 years now. And I have found that without coolish temps at night. Great flowers….no fruit, and that is even with paintbush pollenization. Tried a 3 night span using Ice bags, a car battery and a couple 12 volt fans to attempt to cool the ambient temp around the plants in a more enclosed part of garden with decent results. Granted, might have been a fluke, but next summer gonna try with a more controlled situation.

  3. Hackers and ransomware are just one possible threat scenario. Physical threats to your server subcontractor, and God forbid, to the trailer are possibilities to consider.

    As I have suggested in the past, periodically burn back-ups of your website and keep it off site.

    A laptop loaded with a back-up of the website and all the software you need to work from can be kept in an improvised Faraday, for grab and go capability.

    • I’ll second the thing about backups! It can save you from the occasional overwritten file too. I do it but I should do more. We probably all should. I just ordered another 16 Terrabytes worth of drives, for when I get some spare moments.

      Good luck! This site along with PN are invaluable resources!

  4. Well if if you got chickens, coat the eggs in thin film of vasseline, put them back in the carton and they will keep for 6 months out of the fridge. Put all your cheese in a zip lock bag and put a single drop of viniger in the bag and it will keep for 8 months without getting moldy. Seeds? I read that 1850’s book about root cellaring about 10 years ago. It said, store your seeds in a dark dry place and they will keep forever. What activates their expiration is exposure to light not heat. But you probably know more about it than that. The Arizona planes Indians farm year round and it gets hotter then the devils ass crack out there. Most of them don’t have running water or indoor plumbing.

    Speaking of books. Some really drunk old Jewish fella told me to read Sefer yetzirah. I had never heard of it before. Sefer is the Arabic root word for the Greek word Cypher which later became zero. I was pondering how in tablet VII titled The Seven Lords from The Emerald Tablets of Thoth, it mentions the NINE (all caps) and how that all lines up with The aeons mentioned in The Pistus of Sophia last night before bed while flirting with a Croatian Super Model online. Lol

    Witches. The whole lot of them. Lol.

    Thanks George. Im going back to living in the Answer.

    • Egypt and Thebes to be specific. All roads lead out of Egypt and how all that all lines up with The Myan PapaVul accross the great Atlantic. Seen alot of references to Kennedy getting shot. While riding in Lincoln. That is why i drive a Chrysler not a Lincoln. Lol. Words are things. Things are words.

      Jack had 3 magic beans. I wonder what temp he stored them at? Lol I grew up fighting giants.

      • Planted magic pole beans for the first time. One has grown and grown so it is now a foot away from the upstairs window. Might be picking green beans out the window. Weird!

  5. All things being green. I will review the 49 laws of power again today as well.

    Most people don’t ever realize that Kennedy was shot in a Lincoln. The name of a president who was shot.

    • Oh dont worry Mark. I will “go see about a girl” when I get to it. I dont need no bossy 5’2 redhead Irish girl picking on me about the mustard stain on my T-shirt and running my life. Hahaha

      A good book and a couple female German Shepards seems the better atm. I am going to a BBQ later today. Maybe she will be there. I can see her life path inertia on course with mine. So we hook up when we hook up.

      I may be back in California in a week or so for a week or so. but i ain’t staying there. I always keep my eye on the exit and have way out. Have a wonder full day.

      Off to turn a page.

    • …Or that Kennedy had a Lincoln on his staff, that Lincoln had a Kennedy on his staff, that Abe’s son was in near proximity to three Presidential assassinations, or that Franklin Pierce has two grandkids, still living (as of last summer…)

      The world is full of anomalies.
      Some “anomalies” are the norm.
      Part of our journey through life is to figure out which is which…

      From one old man to another: Greetings, Andy

  6. so with the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn lining up.

    We have Hebrew letters of Bet for “Saturn”, (Saturday, life and death, the Mouth) meaning ‘between the teeth’

    Gimel for “Jupiter” (Sunday, the right eye of the soul) meaning ‘on the palet’

    Tav for “moon” (Friday, left ear of the soul) ‘meaning speaking or Voice’

    We got the crown, the Aether and the root chakras online i think. All things being related.

    Tav bet gimel. According to their position in the heavens in relational linear sequence. And according to days of the week sequentially and how they they form in the mouth.

    Im in spokane. Or “spoken” Ohhhh. Hahaha. Manifestation! Hahahaha! Alephabet!

    Walah!

    Whoooaaaa the first two of the 7 doubles and the last of the 7 doubles. Astrology is kinda cool.

    The language of creation is a cylical. Its like a combo lock. Because each letter is a number!

    Hebrew mysticism. Huh. Trippy stuff.

    Much to ponder. Have a wonderful day. Off to turn the page. Ahh a new chapter. :)

  7. Hi George, did you see this (fox8.com)?

    “ATLANTA, Ga. (WJW) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data last week that depicts how many Americans who have died from COVID-19 also had other contributing conditions.

    According to the report, only 6% of deaths have COVID-19 as the only cause mentioned, revealing that 94% of patients who died from coronavirus also had other ‘health conditions and contributing causes.’”

    So we’ve been put into an artificial depression, people have lost their businesses, their income for what?

  8. Yo G, did you see that 6.5 quake off the coast of Brazil? I think i wrote that in my psychic cypher of the future, I posted in your comment section a while ago.

    Pre-echos. Fore shocks.

    “Big quake and tsunami in Brazil.”

    Be lookin forward (directionally) to new Jerusalem. Saw that reading a book yesterday. Had to do a double take. It wasn’t in the book I was reading but I read it like It was in the book I was reading. Trippy.

    • Andy, this comment is in the wrong place because I can’t comment on your comment to a comment, though I’m really glad I reread these comments again. Regarding sciatica, I had it many years ago in my 20’s when I pushed a 400 lb wheelbarrow up a hill and slung the load over the edge. I walked like a crab back into the house and a neighbor hooked me up with an excellent chiropractor. The sciatica resolved over a few weeks and I learned to mentally isolate the spinalis muscles along the sides of the spine and contract the ones near L4-L5 to straighten out my own spine. If I ever feel a twinge, I do that consciously – often laying down on a bed, but I can do it sitting too. It works for me and might for you and others. I’ve been graced to be mostly free from back problems since then.

      Thanks for the advice on finding a 25 year old! She might actually be closer to my mental age. I knew one 15 years ago and she was the second best influence in my whole life. Now, at George’s age, I’m still looking for my soulmate, but I’d be happy with someone that I’d be compatible with for the next 15 years – plus or minus. Your ritual is worth working through. I wonder how effective “Farmers only” really is for finding a girl with daddy issues. The tricky part is to find someone that’s as reclusive as I am!

  9. Australia being the greatest sewer in the world . Yes overtaken the Chinese sewer and ussa has the most spied expensive non working internet in the world.

  10. George about your “pings” from Russia, if your servers are linux, you can set up some automation to automatically block IP space from some of these trouble maker countries. Sure they could use VPN to just jump from US IP space, but at least it makes it a bit harder and might keep some of your access logs a bit cleaner.

    Some tips here.
    https://serverfault.com/questions/389830/how-do-i-allow-only-us-ip-addresses-using-iptables

    If you have some firewall (software or hardware) from some of the large vendors, with your provider, they probably have pre-built country/region address groups that can be denied access to your hosts.

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