asher553: (Default)
I was in one of the very last classes that took typing on real typewriters. I actually thought to myself, "In the future, everybody will have computers and we'll need to know how to type." (Did I call it?)

I got pretty good at touch-typing, and to this very day I amaze my younger colleagues with my ability to touch-type numerals on a QWERTY keyboard without using a number pad. I can enter a 48-digit Bitlocker recovery in seconds with no errors.
asher553: (Default)
For some reason I've had two songs about shipwrecks in my head.

Why my brain picked 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' and 'The Gilligan's Island Theme' to torment me with, I do not know.
asher553: (Default)
There hasn't been anything like this in my lifetime.

I came into the world just after the polio vaccine had been introduced. Polio was something we heard about from our parents, who had vivid memories of being kept indoors as children because of polio outbreaks. There was a man in my school, a counselor named Mr. Nichols, who was crippled in one arm - it was small, like a child's, and he could not use it - from having had polio as a boy.

Before polio, there was the Spanish Flu. It got its name because it broke out near the end of the Great War, and most of the belligerents in WWI had imposed wartime censorship on their presses. Only in neutral Spain could news of the influenza epidemic be read. We still call it the Spanish flu for convenience, not because anybody hates Spain, but because "Spanish flu" is a lot easier to say than "nineteen eighteen influenza epidemic".

And there was dysentery, familiar to us only from the Oregon Trail video game. And cholera, smallpox, and (farther back in history) bubonic plague. And it's amazing to me that, growing up in the 1960s and 70s, I lived a childhood blessedly unscathed by outbreaks of serious infectious diseases.

Something to ponder, while sheltering in place and practicing social distancing.
asher553: (Default)
Astronaut Jessica Meir celebrates Chanuka in space.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/22/world/jessica-meir-hanukkah-international-space-station-trnd/index.html

Religious woman of West African roots graduates IAF pilot course.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/lone-female-grad-of-latest-iaf-pilot-course-says-judging-skin-gender-wont-fly/
Tav, who was only identified by her rank and first initial of her name, grew up in Jerusalem with immigrant parents. Her father moved to Israel from the Ivory Coast, her mother from France. ...

Buzz Aldrin celebrates 90th birthday ...
https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-missions/buzz-aldrin-interview-apollo-11-astronaut/
When Buzz Aldrin talks to you, it is most often about spaceflight. And the discussion will not be primarily the reminisces of an aging moonwalker: no, this discussion will be about the future. The future of spaceflight, the future of America’s role in it, the future of internationalism, and the future of humanity. ...

... and so does Vern Estes.
https://boingboing.net/2020/01/06/model-rocket-pioneer-vern-est.html
This weekend, Vern Estes, model rocket god and founder of Estes Industries, celebrated his 90th birthday. People are sharing their memories of Estes and Vern on the company's website.

Frum New Yorker Chani (Anne) Neuberger tapped to lead NSA Cybersecurity.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/orthodox-jewish-woman-named-cybersecurity-chief-for-us-spy-agency/
An Orthodox Jewish woman whose parents were among the hostages rescued by Israeli commandos from Entebbe Airport has been tapped to head the United States National Security Agency’s new Cybersecurity Directorate.

Hila Schlakman, 17, youngest woman to complete Talmud in daily study.
https://www.jewishpress.com/news/jewish-news/17-year-old-hila-schlakman-of-efrat-completes-daf-yomi-youngest-woman-so-far/2020/01/07/
As hundreds of thousands of Jews worldwide celebrate the completion of the seven-and-a-half-year-long cycle of daily Talmud study—and as women for the first time in history held their own celebration in Jerusalem—one 17-year-old is believed to be the youngest woman to ever mark this achievement.
asher553: (Default)
Russia and China are after your internet (with the help of the United Nations).
http://thedailychrenk.com/2019/12/30/russia-china-internet/
'It would be nice to think that countries like Russia and China genuinely care about online crime, as corruption and crime ridden as they themselves are, but one does not have to be too paranoid to suspect that the cybercrime they are most concerned about combating is cybercrime against the state. As the article mentions, China is world-infamous for its “Great Firewall” and a tight grip on what goes on online within its borders (often, hypocritically, assisted by the Western tech giants). Russia, on the other hand, has been conducting tests of its own internal internet, Runet, which could be used to cut the county off from the rest of the world. It’s not hard to guess what sort of websites and online activity could be banned by the Kremlin on its national intranet. ...'

Warshipping: the Unabomber, high-tech version.
https://boingboing.net/2019/08/07/warchakalakaboom.html
'The device scans for visible wifi networks; once it senses a network associated with its target (indicating that it has arrived on the target company's premises), it alerts its controllers over the cellular radio, and then scans the local wifi for instance in which users' devices are initiating new connections to the network. It captures the handshake data from these connections, transmits them over the cellular network to its controllers, and they can then crack the password offline, send login credentials to the warshipping device, login to the target network, and attack the network from within. ...'

Apparently, "drinking like a fish" isn't all it's cracked up to be.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/jim-beam-bourbon-spill-killed-fish-kentucky-ohio-rivers-a9262921.html
Happy new year, and please celebrate responsibly.
asher553: (Default)
The fitness center in my apartment complex is maybe 100 or 200 yards from my door. It's a short and usually uneventful walk across the manicured grounds - though a bit dark at night, as one of the lamps is out. I made this trek a few minutes ago, dressed comfortably and with my customary black beret perched atop my head.

About halfway across the green, out of nowhere, I felt a sudden swoosh, and my hat was suddenly gone. I looked around in the dark to see if a freak gust of wind had somehow knocked it to the ground - implausible, since the weather was calm - and then peered around warily for some human prankster. But there wasn't a soul in sight.

I went back to my apartment, put a knit cap on my head, and proceeded to the gym for a little exercise. This time I brought a flashlight with me. On the way back - again without warning - whoosh! and my cap was gone.

With the aid of the flashlight, I identified the likely culprit as a big owl, now sitting defiantly in the tree and staring back at me with a distinct look of "Yeah, it was me. What ya gonna do about it?"

So that is my obligatory Halloween story. I was relieved of my hat, not once but twice, by an audacious owl, and I guess I'm lucky that's all the critter took, or I might be wandering the trails of Hillsdale like the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
asher553: (asher63)
Via the indispensable Friends-of-Friends page, a 1971 whiskey ad. Words fail me.
WhiteHorse

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