Roads are empty something like 90% of the time. 8% of the time, they’re rightly-sized. 1.5% of time, they’re a little tight 1.5% of time, they’re a little tight.But that .5%? Holy CRAP But that .5%? Holy CRAP are they ever too small when they’re too small. Imagine if the “*-as-a-Service” model could be applied …
Continue reading raas – the failure of “-as-a-service” in the physical world
the jetsons used cash
They had flying cars. That would fold-up into a briefcase. They had magic bubbles that’d pop out from their fingers to shroud themselves on their floaty-seats that delivered them to school or the mall. But they used cash. Really? With all the crazy futuristic stuff they tried to wedge into that program, the creators thought we’d …
Continue reading the jetsons used cash
it’s not a better apple tv
But the HomePod is an interesting take on my suggestion of making the Apple TV better.
what is happening with news publishers?
I think, closer to the lines of thought that Ben Thompson of Stratechery has laid-out, that news publishing is about to undergo a major nichification – the days of everyone trying to report everything is over. “Local” (whether by geography, interest, or some other grouping mechanism) publishing in narrowly-defined niches is basically going to finish gobbling …
Continue reading what is happening with news publishers?
firewalld
Last week, for the better part of 4.5 days, this site was offline. Along with, of course, every other domain hosted hereon . Here’s the timeline of my actions Tuesday, reboot to update kernel revs system did not come back online over the next several days, tried all kinds of diagnostic attempts, including verified host was pingable, …
Continue reading firewalld
circus
“Ladies and Gentlemen. Boys and Girls. Children of ALL ages. Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey’s Circus is proud to present … GUNTHER .. GABLE .. WILLIAMS!!!” Is about all I recall in vivid detail from when I went to see the RB&B&B circus as a kid with my parents, aunt, and friends. (And, as …
Continue reading circus
somewhere over the buffet
From the late, great John Pinnete (to the tune of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”) Somewhere over the buffet: Food piled high. There’s a meal I must get to, Stop me and you will die. Somewhere over the buffet: Watch me fly. Eating up all of the profits, Making the owner cry. Someday I’ll have my …
Continue reading somewhere over the buffet
vw to start driving into the cloud
VW is planning to put cameras and sensors on new cars sold after 2018 to aid self-driving vehicles, create better maps, and more. Ford announced concept vehicles back in 2010 that could Tweet while they drove. Pretty sure I don’t like this move on the part of VW – technologically, it’s super cool. But from …
Continue reading vw to start driving into the cloud
Obadiah (RSV)
The vision of Obadi′ah. Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom: We have heard tidings from the Lord, and a messenger has been sent among the nations: “Rise up! let us rise against her for battle!” Behold, I will make you small among the nations, you shall be utterly despised. The pride of your heart …
Continue reading Obadiah (RSV)
modularity is great – if you commoditize the right complements
Google bought Android and made great things with it. They also had an interesting audacity to announce an “open, modular” phone that ‘anyone’ could design from, and make components that would play nicely together (like IBM did with their initial ISA architecture releases back in the 80s). (Microsoft then flipped the tables on IBM and …
Continue reading modularity is great – if you commoditize the right complements
the fishing’s great!
Several years ago, we lost my great-uncle Don. This is a story from him, as handed-down by my dad. We had been fishing all day. Rowed north and south across the pond. Rowed east and west across the pond. Saw turtles sunning themselves on low tree branches. It was hot. It was muggy. It was …
Continue reading the fishing’s great!
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
The slide deck for my recent talk on “Embracing the Change Freeze” – http://byrbyr.ga/w Presented at the January PHPUG / Tech Talks meetup in Lexington KY on 19 Jan.
kvp is a lousy way to teach
Recently on one of the podcasts I listen to, I heard an offhanded comment made about how history is taught not in patterns but as facts. For example, “On the 18th of April in ’75, hardly a man is now alive, who remembers that famous day and year”. Rarely are the “whys” explained – understandably …
Continue reading kvp is a lousy way to teach
apple tv – how apple can beat amazon and google
In e99 of Exponent, Ben Thompson makes a compelling case for his idea that {{Amazon Echo}} (Alexa) is an operating system – and that Amazon has beaten Apple (with {{Siri}}) and {{Google Home}} (with Assistant) at the very game they both try to play. And I think he’s onto the start of something (he goes …
Continue reading apple tv – how apple can beat amazon and google
vampires vs zombies
A few years ago I wrote about why I like good vampire and zombie stories. I had an epiphany this week related to that, that I thought you’d all find interesting. If vampires exist, zombies can not exist [long] in the same universe. Why? Because they’d be eliminating the only source of food for the …
Continue reading vampires vs zombies
results from running pi-hole for several weeks
I came across pi-hole recently – an ad blocker and {{DNS}} service that you can run on a {{Raspberry Pi}} in Raspian (or any {{Debian}} or {{Ubuntu}} (ie Debian-like)) system. Using pi-hole should obviate the need for running ad-blockers in your browser (so long as you’re on a network that is running DNS queries through pi-hole). …
Continue reading results from running pi-hole for several weeks
i’m surprised facebook doesn’t offer something akin to aws, gcp, azure, etc
Given the ridiculous popularity of {{Facebook}}, their huge datacenter investments, super-resilient computing models, etc, I’m very surprised they haven’t gotten into the cloud computing business like Amazon’s {{AWS}}, Google’s Cloud, {{Microsoft Azure}}, Digital Ocean, etc.
a history of hollywood and hacking
As shared in the most recent Crypto-Gram, {{Bruce Schneier}}’s monthly newsletter. 1980s – kid hackers, nerds and Richard Pryor 1990s – Techno, virtual reality and Steven Seagal’s Apple Newton 2000s – Real life hackers, computer punks and Hugh Jackman dancing
watch your mtu size in openstack
For a variety of reasons related to package versions and support contracts, I was unable to use the {{Red Hat}} built {{KVM}} image of {{RHEL}} 7.2 for a recent project. (The saga of that is worthy of its own post – and maybe I’ll write it at some point. But not today.) First thing I …
Continue reading watch your mtu size in openstack
apple finally did what i asked for 6 years ago
Thanks, Apple. About time someone did this! We can now charge a laptop from either side. Like should have been possible for decades. Reference – Do any laptops exist with multiple power connectors?
here seems like it would be perfect for pilots
With Here, you can download maps to use offline. And, via personal experimentation, I can attest to the rapidity with which the screen will update (even in “airplane mode”) on my {{iPhone}} when in a commercial jet if I have Here open. So why don’t they advertise their mapping product(s) to pilots? Or do they, …
Continue reading here seems like it would be perfect for pilots
automating mysql backups
I want to backup all of the {{MySQL}} databases on my server on a routine basis. As I started asking how to get a list of all databases in MySQL on Stack Overflow, I came across this previous SO question, entitled, “Drop All Databases in MySQL” (the best answer for which, in turn, republished the …
Continue reading automating mysql backups
change your default font in windows 10
Starting from a tutorial I found recently, I want to share how to change your default font in Windows 10 – but in a shorter edition than that long one (and in, I think, a less-confusing way). Back in the Good Ole Days™, you could easily change system font preferences by right-clicking on your desktop, …
Continue reading change your default font in windows 10
hov lanes are misnamed
I dislike HOV lanes on principle, but I also dislike them grammatically: "high-occupancy vehicle" states the vehicle can hold many people (ie, it has a "high-occupancy"). They should be labeled "highly-occupied" vehicle lanes – same acronym, but with better grammar.
browsers should have integrated sharing ability
Mobile browsers can all share pages via whatever is available on your tablet, {{iPad}}, {{Android}}, {{iPhone}}, etc. Why do ‘full’ browsers not offer the same thing without goofy extensions?