More on Green Tech...
Getting back to it...
Blogging has taken a back seat for the last few months as life has kept me quite occupied. Now that the winter rainy season has set in, I have a bit more time to penning some thoughts.
Taking a Step Back from the Ubiquitous Smart Phone
I admit it, I am somewhat of a techno ascetic and now that I have bored the reader thoroughly with my prattle on the sliderule, let's turn the dial on the wayback machine forward a couple of decades and talk about the predecessor to the smart phone, of course I'm referring to the Palm Pilot. The little pda may or may not have faded into obscurity.
The Slide Rule and the Neighborhood
I am going to venture to subject the reader to yet another post about slide rules. So let us launch into another problem involving height and distance, but this time with an added twist. Then I'll discuss what is to be gained by going through this exercise rather than punching the numbers in on the calculator.
Old Time Mathematics
The latest acquisition is a brand new, never opened Sterling brand 10" Senior Mannheim sliderule. The date on the sticker is 1972, so it has been sitting unused for 47 years. American plastic at its best.
Rodent invasion aftermath
*Warning*, This post is a bit of a ramble, but my hope is that it provides some measure of assistance (and perhaps entertainment) to the many homeowners who invariably suffer from similar issues. That said, on to the blabber.
More fun with images
WARNING, If you are on a slow connection, go enjoy a cup of coffee because it will take a few minutes for the animated images to load.
Reflections on living out in the sticks
Five years of living in the remote regions of Mendocino county has, like anything else in life, been a mixed bag. I can definitively say that this place has become our sanctuary from the bustle of the world. Being the slow learner that I am, it has taken some time to adjust to a slower pace and learn some of the skills required to live in some semblance of harmony with the location.
Security Breaches Galore
It has come to the point now that data security breaches have become an almost daily event. A quick perusal here reveals how serious the issue has become. Also see here:
source:https://www.statista.com/statistics/273550/data-breaches-recorded-in-the-united-states-by-number-of-breaches-and-records-exposed/
And, of course not included in the trend line is the latest Marriot breach...*sigh*
So, what to do? I have given serious thought to abandoning the idea of conducting any transactions online and going retro with writing a check and sticking it in an envelope and mailing it. Even that is risky since the check would have my name and account number, which means that I have to purchase money orders instead of using checks. Either way, that would require some measure of up front work to turn off autopay with the various institutions I do business with and have them send monthly statements which goes totally contrary to the nudging that most of these institutions have been performing with their customers. The harsh reality is data security as well as data privacy is a pipe dream. I'm still on the fence as to how to proceed, but in the mean time, I have taken extra measures to strengthen my passwords and employ two factor authorization when available. I installed Password-Gorilla password manager and reset the passwords on critical sites with (hopefully) very strong randomly generated passwords. Along with that, I performed a fresh install of Lubuntu 16.04. Not a permanent solution, but until I can come a decision on how to proceed, it should at least help. My credit reports have been frozen since the Equifax debacle.
Circling back to the internet and it's corresponding energy footprint, in light of the increasing frequency of security breaches, it seems that data security measures most likely will be taking an increasingly larger piece of the energy pie.
source:https://aceee.org/files/proceedings/2012/data/papers/0193-000409.pdf
Here is an interesting read regarding energy use of the internet. Although not reflected in the pie chart, I suspect energy consumption in every slice of chart is going to have some energy usage percentage of data security. What is not taken into account in the energy footprint of the internet is the energy inputs required to manufacture components and maintain the infrastructure. After all the smoke clears what we have is a colossal amount of energy consumption. For the moment, most of these costs are being footed by cheap debt and venture capital investors. Energy consumption aside, the internet (as we know it currently) is not economically viable even though some of the big guns are cutting their energy footprint by using renewable sources. John Michael Greer's article: The Death of the Internet: A Pre-Mortem is worth the read. His argument about the economic unsustainability of the internet is sound and the latest onslaught of data breaches may be the proverbial straw. He makes an interesting point that may signal what is yet to come:
Now of course the world of the future isn’t going to consist of a single community surrounded by desolate wasteland. That’s one of the reasons why the demise of the internet won’t happen all at once. Telecommunications companies serving some of the more impoverished parts of rural America are already letting their networks in those areas degrade, since income from customers doesn’t cover the costs of maintenance. To my mind, that’s a harbinger of the internet’s future -- a future of uneven decline punctuated by local and regional breakdowns, some of which will be fixed for a while.
Hmm...I think I'll put envelopes on my shopping list.
Tags: computing, energy, data-security
Taking the Plunge
Yes, I still maintain that Gopher is the simplest and most efficient protocol when it comes to the learning curve and power consumption, however I did find a very simple blogging tool called Bashblog which is just a 500 line bash script. It's elegant simplicity convinced me it might be worth the effort. The learning curve was relatively shallow in that I had to learn a little Markdown:
Markdown is a lightweight markup language with plain text formatting syntax. It is designed so that it can be converted to HTML and many other formats using a tool by the same name. Markdown is often used to format readme files, for writing messages in online discussion forums, and to create rich text using a plain text editor.
I'm glad someone came up with a simple text processing language for the mere mortals. Being a boring person myself, I don't mind reading plain text, but I suspect many readers would like some visual elements and not have to copy and paste urls to just look at an image. Alright, enough blabber.
Meanwhile back at the ranch
The smoke from the fire over in Butte county was so thick, we were not able to do any work in the garden. As I am writing this, 23 are dead and the fire has grown to 109,000 acres. A horrific fire by any measure. We have just stayed indoors and kept the air filter going. Although Butte county is way over on the other side of the central valley, a high pressure system has been bringing the smoke into the north Bay counties. Ask any fire fighter and they will tell you in no uncertain terms that this is climate change at work. Just a few weeks saw the largest fire in California history just on the other side of the county from us. The Guardian has a grim piece about the fires and what the future holds. I have learned to pay attention to the surroundings and keep a close eye on the Cal Fire news updates. I'm sure everyone will breath a sigh of relief when the long awaited rains finally come.
Unfortunately, there is no rain in sight and the forecast is not promising. The persistent smoke has obscured the sunlight which has resulted in cooler than normal temperatures . The last few mornings have seen a layer of frost on the deck which, for our part of the country, is a bit unusual for November.
Stay tuned...
Tags: climate-change, computing