Battle of Lepanto post, R.I.P.

In case you  missed it, I made a post yesterday about the Battle of Lepanto, October 7, 1571. It had a link to the Wikipedia page (that link) and another to G.K. Chesterton's poem "Lepanto" with some excerpts from the latter. 

There was also a meme making a joke about putting your feet up on an ottoman while saying your rosary. (Link. It might work.)

Now I had a devil of a time with stray code showing up in that blog post, screwing up the formatting but I thought I finally had the stray code stripped out. However, when I checked this morning I saw that I had a couple big white bars there indicating there were some stray "div" references, so I went to edit them out.

And somehow screwed up the layout of the entire blog so that my let sidebar was just gone, and only some of the right sidebar was there; what there was, was at the bottom of the page.

I tried several things, but finally deleted that post, and viola! Sidebars are back. So for the eight or nine people that even know this blog exists, that's the story of how I lost a really entertaining, informative post, but also how I came to have a new theme on the page.

I'm glad that week is over. EDITS

At least, I sure hope it is...

A rare glimpse into Why Drang Drinks.

M-F, 0800-1200, FEMA Instructor Development Workshop via Zoom, two presentations evaluated by other students and instructors. Followed on Monday and Thursday by an additional 8 hour shift, starting at noon. (Fortunately, I was authorized to telework...)

And Mrs. Drang had an online class Tuesday and today. Except she didn't know that it was a two-parter when she signed up for it. Remember this, it will be significant...

Monday morning she discovered that the compressor had gone out on the fridge. So while I was slaving away over a hot internet connection, she was searching for dry ice and on the phone trying to get a repair technician to come out.

He did, finally, at 6 PM. And the replacement part he had didn't work. 

Expecting him to come out Tuesday morning, she got a text that he had been rescheduled to Thursday. A couple of angry phone calls later, she got hold of them and him and he showed up shortly after her class was done, and had the fridge running right away. It had finally cooled off to the point we could take food out of coolers nd put them in the freezer and fridge compartments at about 9 PM.

Somewhere in there I was informed that a package had been delivered to the office for me, and from the return address I deduced that it was course material. I managed OK with .pdfs, but I decided that rather than have it take up space on a (shared) desk, I would pop in quickly and pick it up...

...and discovered upon arrival that the the personnel scheduled to be in-office had 1) requested and been approved to telework due to illness  -- OK -- and 2) overslept and decided to telework to avoid being late. Without running it by anyone. Resulting on me making several phone calls, tracking down my boss -- who was speaking to the director -- and suggesting we needed to talk, being told to spit it out, and, of course, embarrassing my boss...

Also, one employee from first shift doing an hour of overtime, and me sitting in the office working the phones, in jeans and a t-shirt, when I was supposed to be off...

Then, last night (after I had gone to bed), the intert00bz died. 

I had already planned to get up early and put some finishing touches on my final presentation, but spent most of that time trying to get connected. My laptop with LTE connectivity wasn't getting a strong enough signal to connect, so I finally used my brand new (less than a week old!) cell phone as a mobile hotspot...

Which was about the time I learned about Part 2 of Mrs. Drang's class. So I told her how I had gotten online, thinking that would work for her...

And then she told me she needed my laptop AND hers to have two screens... 

(Fortunately I was using the desktop, with dual monitors. Which, BTW, can lead to odd behavior from Zoom...)

...And just as I was about to start my presentation she informed me (by screaming) that she was unable to connect...

I finished and talked the rest of the small group to give me a five minute break so I could try and get her online.

Which I did, by logging her into MY cell phone. So for the rest of the mornings Samsung's finest was providing internet for THREE computers. I am told that my audio signal garbled a couple of times, but was readable. 

So with that over with we called customer service to see if they could trouble shoot the "Home WiFi Gateway", the results of which effort was to suggest we take it to the local store and exchange it, "Or we can ship you one for delivery next week."  

Went to store, store said they couldn't just swap it after we had been in possession for over 30 days, but they can have one delivered to us "Next Day", which, this being Friday, probably means Monday. Which means she should be back online in time for Tuesday's class.

But I need a drink or three...

Edit 1, originally a comment: First World Problems all, of course, but the cumulative effect of multiple First World Problems within a short period can be just as detrimental.

Edit 2: Yep, Mrs. Drang picked it up Monday while I was at work, Mrs. Drang realized that we had left the old box and its power supply in my car, so we plugged it in when I got home. Connected to it, and... Nothing.

She had ANOTHER online class yesterday morning, which I didn't want to interrupt by calling customer service. She got done about the time I was leaving for work, so she called CS. She and the tech went back and forth, wound up Mrs. Drang reading stuff off the label, while the tech looked stuff up in "the manual". Eventually Mrs. Drang got to "SIM" and the tech says "A-ha!! What's the number?" and then "OK, don't hang up or mess with the box, I'll be back in ten minutes."

Apparently the sim card listed on our account had to be reset by them, before we could use it. Which was fine, but it should have been mentioned on some documentation in the box...

Cue the hysteria! -- Edit

CodeIsFreeSpeech.com

OK, I'm actually a few days late with the "Cue the hysteria!" title, still...

You may be aware that the US Government has lifted the restriction on the sharing online of files with instructions to 3D print firearms components.

This, of course, is merely the latest in a series of events which are going to kill us all.

The thing is...

There are many inherent issues with manufacturing a firearm, or firearm parts, using a 3D printer. For instance, the plastic used isn't exactly up to withstanding the pressures of a modern firearm cartridge being fired, which limits which parts of the firearm they are suitable for. In order for the firing pin to detonate the primer on a cartridge, it has to be made of metal, or possibly, I suppose, some other hard material, which would probably be so exotic as to be impractical.

But.

A fact which escapes those convinced that the availability of these files online mean the end of civilization is that it has always been legal to manufacture a firearm in your garage workshop, as long as you did not attempt to sell it.

Here, for example, is a thread about building a glorious revolutionary AK47 from a people's shovel, purchased for a whole 2 kopeks I mean rubles I mean capitalist pig dollars at an antique barn in Vermont: DIY: Shovel AK - photo tsunami warning! | Northeastshooters.com Forums

So, why (one might ask) was the distribution of files with instructions on how to 3D print firearms components banned? Well, the US State Department takes its responsibility (not to say authority) to control export of firearms and weapons technology seriously.

Now, this authority does extend to some information technology, namely, computer security/anti-virus files. (In an earlier job I had to help some sales reps for a local aviation firm process requests to Uncle Sam to let them take their laptops, with anti-virus software installed, overseas.)

But these are 3D printer files are hardly innovative in and of themselves, and cannot be seriously be considered a threat to national security.

What made the US State Department lift the ban on Internet distribution of 3D printer files is that the US State Department does not have a broad legal authority to ban the distribution of information.

That's right: The ability to download these files is a First Amendment issue, as well as a Second Amendment one. (Some would even argue that it is not a Second Amendment one at all.)

CodeIsFreeSpeech.com

Elsewhere, Roberta X addresses the issue in her post The Adventures of Roberta X: That's Not How This Works.

There is also an excellent Twitter thread that starts with this one:

Ok, on this, the eve of one of my favorite things ever - the #democratization of technology - let's have a serious, sober-ish conversation about this whole #StopDownloadableGuns / #Stop3DPrintedGuns hysteria by starting at the beginning and working forward (1/?)

— Jonathan (@CorrelA_B) August 1, 2018

(There is a Thread Reader version of the full thread here: Thread by @CorrelA_B: "Ok, on this, the eve of one of my favorite things ever - the of technology - let's have a serious, sober-ish conversation a […]" #democratization #StopDownloadableGuns #Stop3DPrintedGuns #guncontrol

EDIT: Meanwhile, a commie judge here in Western Washington has ordered Defense Distributed to shut down their site again: DEFCAD

Fortunately, the files are available elsewhere: CodeIsFreeSpeech.com

I have a new plan

Whenever someone asks me (which they don't) why my blog is not more popular, I will tell them it's because of shadow-banning!

 Twitter: Setting the record straight on shadow banning

tl;dr version: "Twitter totally doesn't shadow-ban accounts, we just make up reasons why tweets from those accounts don't belong in your timeline. And those reasons totally have nothing to do with politics or ideology, it's all based on relevance. Because we totally know better than you what is relevant to you."

To give the devil xhir's¹ due, by their definition of "shadow banning" it's probably true; if you define shadow-banning as "making so that no one see's an account but the account owner", setting it so that an account never show in a timeline, but is still visible by clicking the account link, is not shadow banning.

But it completely subverts the point of a timeline, and is (I would argue), antithetical to the point of Twitter: A medium designed for short, (hopefully) pithy posts would seem to call for an automatic "loading" of posts, in chronological order. That self-righteous screed I linked above makes the claim that Twitter is interested in "conversation", yet they allow co-adherents of their leftist ideology to spew lies, hate, and calls for violence against their perceived opposition (and members of the oppositions family and social circle), while shutting down the accounts of those that criticize such behavior, and deciding for me what is relevant to my interests.

Which is, of course, par for the course on the left today; criticize, for example, Maxine Waters for calling on the left to attack members of President Trump's administration, down to anyone wearing a "MAGA" cap, and you are guilty of hate speech.

Now, Twitter is a private concern, and they make the rules whatever they want.

But this whole business of micturating on our extremities and alleging that it is precipitation² is bullshit.


1. No, that's not a typo, I'm mocking the modern predilection of the left to make up words to avoid using the common English-language pronouns that identify gender.
2. Stolen, appropriately enough, from a tweet. I forget who's tweet it was, but I think it was Dana Loesch. Or Molly Hemingway. Maybe it was Mary Katherine Ham. Pretty sure...

PSA, Cybersecurity Edition

Generating a Bunch Of "Internet Noise" Isn't Going to Hide Your Browsing Habits

I thought that was obvious, but maybe that's because traffic analysis is what I do did.

Note that the guy who wrote the "Internet Noise" app actually says in his write up of the thing that it's "protest-ware", not an actual privacy/security app.

Which seems pointless, but what do I know? If it makes you happy to clog system resources in a gesture the people you're protesting at won't even notice, go for it.

If I had the buck$ to spend...

...on fellow bloggers, including those I haven't actually met...

I'd buy Bobbi one of these keyboards.

Of course, I don't know how good of a keyboard it would be, so she'll probably need a spare computer, too, so maybe it's just as well I don't have the buck$ to spend on fellow bloggers...

(Although for a mere $100+ they will sell you a set of keycaps that work with other keyboards if they use certain switches. I'm ignernt about that switchology, though, so I'll hold off...)

I think I also need to buy a cup of coffee for whoever at Blogger added an "Emoticon" drop down menu to the tool bar. It can easily get out of hand, but I've never been able to figure out how to use ASCII codes to make © or ¢ or ≠ symbols.  Plus, typing in an ampersand usually gets all jacked up, but this automagically fixes it.

JM having more fun than is probably allowed...

Jerry Miculek takes a look at the new Nintendo Zapper-style Glock:

I never did Nintendo or any of the other gaming consoles, but this stuff is still so much a part of pop culture it's pretty hard not to snicker when you see these.

(Seen here, with much more discussion.)

Well,that's annoying

Desktop was upgrading to Windows 10 as I left for work today.

Apparently, the upgrade went fine, except that, when we open Outlook now, any emails that had been left in an inbox (instead of being moved to a folder) have disappeared.

I can see the folders for the individual accounts in Windows Explorer, but Outlook says there are no emails for any of the .MSN accounts.(GMail, yes; MSN, no.)

Grr.

ATTENTION, EURO-WEENIES!

After hitting "Publish" on my previous post, I noticed on the "Dashboard" that Google has the following advisory:

European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent.

As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to explain Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies, including use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies.

You are responsible for confirming this notice actually works for your blog, and that it displays. If you employ other cookies, for example by adding third party features, this notice may not work for you. Learn more about this notice and your responsibilities.

The only cookies I know anything about are the ones my wife bakes, or, under extreme duress, we purchase at the store.

If any cookies end up on your computer (or whatever you call it in Euro-speak) they were put there without my knowledge.

Especially since that apparently means you're too stupid to block cookies and the like. Sheesh, it's the Twenty-First Century, people! 

I deny any responsibility for anything that may happen to you or your devices while visiting my subversive, pro-liberty, anti-authoritarian blog.

Unless you start agitating for your country to ditch the EU and EC, and start organizing on libertarian principles.  I'm all over taking credit for that.

And Google can go take a flying leap, too. Paying Word Press is looking better every day.

About that... OPM Data Breach Edition

Insty has a link to an ABC report: Instapundit » Blog Archive » MASSIVE OPM HACK EVEN WORSE THAN THOUGHT: OPM Hack Far Deeper Than Publicly Acknowledged, Went Undetected For More Than A Year, Sources Say...

The massive hack into federal systems announced last week was far deeper and potentially more problematic than publicly acknowledged, with hackers believed to be from China moving through government databases undetected for more than a year, sources briefed on the matter told ABC News.

"If [only] they knew the full extent of it," one U.S. official said about those affected by the intrusion into the Office of Personnel Management's information systems.

It all started with an initial intrusion into OPM's systems more than a year ago, and after gaining that initial access the hackers were able to work their way through four different "segments" of OPM's systems, according to sources.

By some accounts, the data exposed goes back 20 or 30 years.

And may have been stored unencrypted.

It inspired this: Rick Wilson's rant on OPM breach (with tweets) · faceattack · Storify

Which came out BEFORE this: Daily Pundit: OPM Got Hacked Because It Handed Root to the People’s Republic of China Three Years Ago
Quoting Ars Technica:

A consultant who did some work with a company contracted by OPM to manage personnel records for a number of agencies told Ars that he found the Unix systems administrator for the project “was in Argentina and his co-worker was physically located in the [People’s Republic of China]. Both had direct access to every row of data in every database: they were root. (!!!) Another team that worked with these databases had at its head two team members with PRC passports. I know that because I challenged them personally and revoked their privileges. From my perspective, OPM compromised this information more than three years ago and my take on the current breach is ‘so what’s new?'”

(Emphasis added)

But good news! Now it will get traction: Instapundit » Blog Archive » A DEBACLE OF THE FIRST ORDER: OPM tells lawmakers their information was likely stolen….

Networking

An update to my bleg post Need networking advice, from back in June:
Century Link says that bridging is only available for commercial accounts using their modems, which is why the external switch didn't work.
Also, they use VDSL, not ADSL, and (quoting the Customer Service email) "unlikely you'll find a VDSL modem in a store."

Apparently, only Century Link uses VDSL; the brave may find such a modem on eBay, they are also on Amazon, sold there by CenturyLink, or directly from CenturyLink...

...Or at Best Buy.

BTW, I went to Fry's Electronics looking to see if they had one, and the salesman looked around furtively and said quietly, "We don't yet, but Best Buy has just started carrying them..."  So, points for CS there.

Anyway.  Modem (Actiontec C1000A, if anyone cares) is functional, wireless router (Linksys EA3500) ditto. Western Digital USB drive is hooked to the USB port on the router, and the network see it.

Getting the printer to work is taking a little longer.

Need networking advice

I have the following devices connected to the ethernet ports on the modem/wireless router:

• Desktop Computer
• TV
• Satellite Box

I want to add the following devices to the network:

• Printer
• Blue-Ray Player
• Networked Attached Storage

Simply adding an 8 port switch didn't work.  I couldn't find anything in the modem/router's software that addressed adding a switch. The plan is to purchase a modem, and a router, and return the modem we got from the Internet provider.  (Renting the thing is a pittance, monthly, but it adds up.  The upside is, if it doesn't work they'll replace it.)

Before we switched to Windows 7 I had a freeware networking app that handled all this, but 7 wasn't supported, and since then it is hit or miss whether the laptop will see the printer on the wifi, even if the desktop is "awake." However, if the printer is attached to the router via ethernet,the laptops won't print at all, even if the "see" the printer.  Same thing if the printer is plugged into the switch, which is plugged into the modem/router.

It would be really nice if I could configure it so that the Android devices could print, and access files stored on the NAS, as well.

Any advice?

Thanks!

UPDATE:  Modem is an Actiontec Q1000.  Provider says bridging is only supported for commercial accounts.  Sounds like I need a new modem and wireless route,r which was the plan anyway.

Happy birthday...

... Amazing Grace.

Success!

UPDATE: Well, sorta. Lost internet again. Not sure if it was the Pi, though, as I lost it on the desktop, as well... I may have to resort to a wifi connection. C'est la ordinateur...

Busy, busy, busy

Buncha errands today.  Ran Mrs. Drang over to Renton to renew her membership in the Washington Arms Collectors.

On the way back I had to stop at the Verizon store, my Droid Razr Maxx had stopped working; naturally, when they did a reboot it worked fine, unlike the five or six times I had tried.  *sigh*

BevMo is across the street, and I was out of Dry Fly Wheat Whiskey.  They have several new styles out:

"Pure Triticale Whiskey", "Port Wine Finished Wheat Whiskey" (aged in huckleberry port casks), "Cask Strength Wheat Whiskey", and Bourbon 101.

What I got:

Having a bit of the Port Finished right now.  Yum!  Smoky like a nice single malt Scotch!

Stopped at Federal Way Discount Guns to get membership in their range.  It's close enough to home that I felt it was worth buying a year's membership--ammo supplies permitting--but Mrs. Drang doesn't think she'll be doing enough shooting that the family membership would be worth it, so she went for a "pay as you go" membership.

With a full membership (individual or family) you can shoot shotgun (slugs only) and rifles from .223-7.62x39, so I can get some time in with the AR, the SKS, and the 12 gauge.

I was planning on getting a new Ethernet cable and seeing if I could get the Raspberry Pi (hooked to bag  screen yesterday) on the Internet again, but my back feels like Sammy Sosa took a Louisville Slugger to me, so... pass.

Geekery

Raspberry Pi computer on the flatscreen.

I'm doing something wrong, no internet. I'll try a new Ethernet cable tomorrow.

Bet they claim it's the most advanced technology in the world...

I mean, we're talking a country where peasants don't know man has walked on the moon, and the "educated" think it was "A Glorious People's Accomplishment of Our Allies, the Soviets Chinese."  ("Pssst!  What is today's GoodThink, comrade?")

Mysterious Android tablet shows up in North Korea | Android Central
I'm also betting it's actually ChiCom, with a north Korean interface--programmed by Chinese. (Or maybe stolen from the Republic of Korea.)

And, yes Android Central, you are correct when you note the "irony in a closed nation like North Korea being able to develop its own tablet because of an open-source OS like Android."

Comments are amusing, except for the ones that are sad.

Nifty Addons for Firefox

Print-Edit

Allows editing of the web page content while in Print Preview mode. Editing the web page prior to printing can compact the layout and remove unwanted content such as adverts, sidebars and blank pages. Any element can be formatted, hidden or deleted.

I just used it to print out some recipes, without all the web ads, etc. Turns a 10 page print out of a web site into a 3 or 4 page item.

 AddThis.

AddThis for Firefox is the best add-on to make sharing and bookmarking simple. Have all your favorite web 2.0 social networking, bookmarking, blogging, and e-mail services at your fingertips. Share any page, anytime, with anyone.

Makes it easy to send a link to your blog, facespace, email, etc.  I use it a lot.

 CoLT

CoLT (short for "Copy Link Text") makes it easy to copy either a link's text, or both the link text and its URL in a format you specify. This non-invasive extension simply appears as context menu items when you right-click a link. Fully customizable!

I use CoLT All. The. Time. Especially handy for copying in either HTML format--for posting in blogs, or blog comments--or BB Code, for posting to bulletin boards or other sites that use it, such as Emergency-Preps.com or Shooters Northwest.

Well, this is an interesting development...

For years I have resisted all urges to play computer games besides your basic solitaire/puzzle type games.  And not even many of those.

Then I got the latest Baen Publishing Newsletter, and now Mrs. Drang and I are both hooked on the Planet Baen game.

Haven't won any ebooks yet. 

Send bliss and food! 

Interesting

If you go into Blogger Help to see what the heck they did to make word verification for comments so much more irritating than it used--and needs--to be, you get "Page Not Found."

Are they getting so much heat that they had to take it down?  Maybe it's overwhelmed by bloggers wanting to go back that it crashed?

I suppose the change may have been prompted by the recent rash of spam commenting, but... Hey, Google!  The new system sucks, let us use the old one.