I finally plugged the charger into the new phone after two weeks and it still had two of five bars left on the battery indicator. Now I’m going to have to leave myself reminders, because I will start forgetting to check it, at this rate.
This is the first battery powered device I have ever owned that actually exceeded its published stand-by duration.
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49 comments
LOL Yeah… That’s a nice problem to have! 😉 😀
I have a problem. Symantec!! I *REALLY* Hate those SOB’s!
They’ve taken over yet another good company with great products and are killing them! And I just renewed annual licenses about 4 month’s ago, but Symantec just sent me an eMail thet they are EOLing them in Dec (and NO refunds of course! It is Symantec after all!! Crooked, greedy bastards!) Jeez!
Obviously, to the bastards at symantec, loyalty is strictly a one-way street! Also, they say I’ll have non-expiring license, but will still be bound to the original EULA! According to that EULA, I can’t use the products beyond my paid subscription period! Seriously??!
What their EULA should state if they were even slightly honest is:
“Hey! Thanks for your stupidity for buying product from companies we have decided to destroy. We are gong to give you a lifetime license. However, if you use it, we will sue you into oblivion dumb-ass!”
Any you can translate this part:
The decision was made because we are streamlining our product range to provide fewer, but more integrated solutions to our customers.
To:
“The decision was made because we like to create products that don’t work, and you will have to pay a fortune in maintenance to get them to work, partly anyway, eventually… unless we decide to just EOL it. But primarily because we like to take over our customers PC’s and control your life and make you miserable. Don’t take it personally. It just Business. Bwaaahahahaaaaaaa 👿 ”
I’ve always known that anyone who buys anything from symantic is a fool. Now you have to apparently be psychic or be able too see the future so you can avoid products from any company symantec will decide to acquire and rape in the future.
Bah!!
Yes, it is always nice to be pleasantly surprised by the actual performance of anything you buy today, as most things can’t make their advertised specs going downhill with a tailwind.
Symantec is a blight on the world. They have lots of money from business clients who don’t know any better. Toshiba included one of their ‘utilities’ on this laptop, and it annoys me once a month by asking to be installed, which I refuse. They are another mainframe relic who wants to force people into the lease arrangement used on the big iron. They keep acquiring their competitors and killing their products. This is just standard monopolistic practice by people who have no interest in anything other than pushing their own inferior products. They don’t even bother to incorporate the features of the products that made them popular.
If you felt like suing them you would win in US court because you had a 1-year contract and Symantec is still bound to honor it, but it would take years and cost a lot of money to do it.
Peter Norton can’t be very happen with what they did with his reputation after they bought him out, but he got to retire early. Shame, because he wrote decent code and addressed a lot of small annoying things that MS-DOS did. The so-called Norton Security Suite is a disaster and a PITA to get rid of.
Yeah, Norton’s s/w was good before he sold out (not that I blame him). *shrug*
There’s no point in trying to sue Symantec, and they know it. You’d have to get a decent class action to even bother.
OT:
Well, I’ve had a lot of medical stuff taking up my time the past few Months. But in between, I’ve been doing what I can. One thing that annoyed me was that my hoster, Prometeus, didn’t have their own DNS service which complicates things (for what I need, and as it turn out, many others also!) I started a couple threads about it on their customer forum, and had a big response. I must say, to their true credit, Prometeus is THE BEST hoster I have ever used (and I have used several). They didn’t mess around for a year trying to talk us out of it or piss us around… They worked out a way to provide the services their various clients needed. This is the eMail I received last week:
Amazing. I have the IWStack plan, so I signed up for the free (for life) Rage4 DNS plan. Been having a good look, and it has some very nice features. 🙂 I can have up to 10 million (!) DNS lookup’s per domain, per GEO location, per month! I think it will be quite some (like, never) before I will use that up! LOL The good thing for me is they have two nodes in Aus, one here in Vic, and one in NSW.
Truly excellent company! Their support is second to none. I had a hairy problem a few Months ago, and by the end there were 5 people (including two owners) working on it and it was resolved very quickly. 😀
Best decision I’ve made so far.
I wish I needed the service so I could use them, because finding someone who actually cares about their business is so rare these days. You get really tired of paying Rolls Royce prices for Yugo service.
Yes,it’s difficult. You know the trouble I went through looking for a decent hoster, even so, I think I just got lucky. 🙂
Their new IWSstack Cloud service is dirt cheap and very scalable. For example, a KVM based node with 384 MiB ram, one vCPU, 10 GiB SAN storage and 31 GiB secondary storage capable of holding 3 snapshots (automated back-ups or even manual) and one troubleshooting ISO, 1TiB traffic/mth (out only, traffic in is free) costs about 3.64 Eur a month IF you decide to run it all the time. If you shut it down when you don’t need it, it costs even less. You can even have a 2nd identical instance that you only run when you need to make changes or updates you can test before updating your live system, then shut it down when finished for the next update/ mod or whatever. It costs next to nothing, less than 1 EUR/mth (and is what I’m doing, just on a bigger scale). Also, these are fully HA (High Availability). Even if a hardware server fails that is running your instance, another will automatically run it within a few seconds. 🙂
That’s a pretty decent system for peanuts (and great support!) But I don’t know when IWStack will be available at their Dallas (or India) data-centers. And how complex you get is up to you. If you want high-security, you can setup complex firewalls with IPSec VPNs, granular holes, port forwarding, DMZs, etc, etc. 🙂
Alternatively, you can get an OVZ VPS in Dallas for 2.21 EUR/mth for 384MiB RAM + 384 MiB vSwap, 12GB SSD, 2 TB/mth. Cheap as chips! LOL
BTW, the do have a shared hosting service similar to what you have now. It’s called IperWeb (since 1997). Costs from 9 EUR / year. These are what are called LEB (Low End Box) plans. Cheap and no frills (but the same great service).
PS. I singed up to be a reseller (you can tell, right? And I’d be crazy not to! They sell themselves.) You could be one also… Share you good fortune with your poor American friends in hosting hell! Just sayin! 😉 😆
OK. Off my soapbox. 😀
I’m having a good day for a change. Just getting my place renovated by the owner. It REALLY needed it! Just finished plastering my apartment, and new doors (the old ones were not the correct spec, about a foot too low and a bit narrow), A/C unit, and a new kitchen should be done by tomorrow (YES!! I can finally cook some decent meals!! Watch for more recipe’s!) This place is over 100 years old! The Electrician had to rewire the entire place since the wiring was over 50 years old and not even close to code today! That old black rubber insulated wiring that was notorious for catching fire! We are both amazed this place is still standing. So we get a new power board with proper circuit breakers and extra circuits. They started last Tuesday, and should be done tomorrow, then the painters start. 🙂 Hate to think what it’s costing.
I’ve also finally got around to updating the content for the AdaptiveWWW site (still have the prototype @ Wix). Been working mostly on the WP blog. 🙂
And now… I’m off to get Pizza for dinner! 😀 (They have 50% off on Tuesday!) Pizza, Coke and coding! Just like my younger days as a coder! 😉 😆
Ah, yes, the pizza and Coke diet that makes you look like the food pyramid 😉
I’m trying to extract myself from the business, which is certainly being helped by NSA. There are a lot of US companies who are being extracted whether they want to or not.
One of my current crusades is to see if I can get someone in government interested in fixing the IT procurement system that almost mandates that only a limited number of contractors will ever get a government job. The best people just don’t have the resources to waste wading through the current process which takes entirely too long and requires too much paperwork. It would be a real benefit if the people who were actually going to do the work were employees before the contract was signed. Currently they don’t start hiring to do the work until after there is a contract, so there are no teams in place. You end up with a cattle call in an auditorium, and the people doing the hiring have no idea what the people who are being hired will actually do.
The way the system currently works, none of the people making the final decision have any idea what is actually required to accomplish the job and the current healthcare.gov site is just the latest of dozens of examples of projects that were doomed to failure by the procurement process that will only get about three corporations willing to bid on it.
You have a quality product to sell, now you need to locate your market.
That isn’t just happening in the USA Bryan, it’s Global. And it’s been happening over a decade (here anyway). I decided to quit being a Consultant/Contractor/Project manager when I saw the writing burning bright on the last Gov *proposal* I saw in 2003. I was invited to consider the PM position for a major project for the ATO (Aus Tax Office – our IRS). When I went to discuss it, I asked to see the project scope & project summary. I was given two pages. It was a system spec that could have been created by a teen, and I had a strong suspicion the teen worked for M$ since their name was used over and over again. I asked if this was a joke, and was asked why I would think that. I stated that I wanted $200k up front, tax paid with no strings attached. And when the project fails, I have zero liability or responsibility, signed by the Finance Minister and witnessed by the PM (Prime Minister). They thought I was joking. I told them that was the best deal they would get. I walked out. So, three years later I read that they spent over $480m on the project, and it failed. One of the reason’s they had wanted me was that I had worked, successfully, on a major project for the SSBV (State Superannuation Board, Victoria; before Super was essentially privatized. Super back then was managed by each State Gov). The SSBV handled over $15 million per day in transactions. A fraction of the ATO transactions! When I and my team finished the Exec summary, scope and 5 year plan then, it was 3 volumes + appendix. It took a year to create, before anything was started! So I knew as soon as I saw the two page *plan* it was time to get out.
As soon as *HR* (and HR specialists) became the norm for all hiring decisions in any organization, any hope of getting the *right* people for the job was screwed. Most HR decisions are more concerned with politics (in whatever form). I have never met an HR consultant that actually knew anything about the actual job they were hiring for. All they have is a list of *attributes* that need to be met.
So, good luck with that Bryan. Truly! If you can figure out how to get HR (as it is today) out of the process, or at least shifted to minor role (as it should be, and once was), nothing will change. It used to be that HR vetted applicant’s and submitted a list to management to look at and for Management to create a short-list (or say nay to all and start again with a better requirements spec.) Now, HR makes all the decisions and management only sees what HR wants them to see, assuming Management can even be bothered that is. It’s all ass-backwards now!
Thanks to the NSA/GCHQ, Snowden and others, finding clients won’t be too difficult. The timing couldn’t be better. I guess there really is a silver lining! 😉
Check out the AdaptiveWWW site on WIX (ignore the CSS bug on the front page. I have changed the style a lot on my dev system here & IWStack. It’s been a PITA to change some things on WIX.) WIX was just a convenient prototyping platform to play with concepts (and I have created a dozen or so). I am still working on the *about* page, and some samples and a FAQ. I have also created styles for portable devices (different screen sizes, mobile browsers etc.) Should have them up soon.
Note that the WIX system is really only the *marketing* part of the site. The final will have a complete secure CMS/eCommerce system for two-way client interaction and management. I’m working on both Drupal 7 (may look at 8) & Joomla! 3 based systems currently, with two-way authentication (which I am also currently working on, to get the best security for the least pain!) For various reasons, it’s looking like J3 will be the winner, sadly. *shrug* These are up on my IWStack, but only accessible via VPN with two-way auth. 🙂 It’s working better than I anticipated actually. 🙂
Do you still have my WIX URI? I’ll eMail if not. 🙂
Sorry, but the URL is on my big box which I haven’t had time to fix, so I’m on the laptop. Please resend it.
[Note: if you sign on with an altered name and e-mail address it goes to moderation and isn’t public.]
Yeah, two pages is about right these days, and they expect you to bid on it. That’s how you end up with a database with a primary key of first name, last name only. Florida did that and tried to complain, but it was in their specifications that way, so that’s what the vendor did, knowing it would be a disaster. The cost tripled before they sort of got something working, but hiring the people they should have hired in the first place – system analysts to design the damn thing so the coders would know what in hell was expected of the program.
HR has created its own empire within the corporate world and they hire technical people without even knowing the basic vocabulary. I remember an interview where I was asked if I could use a 4GL. I looked at the person when I stood up and told him that if he could read and understand my resume he would know that I could write a 4GL. I left at that point. Life is too short and I’m not going to waste it with stupid games or people.
Yes, security will definitely sell if you can keep the resources out of the range of NSA’s gigantic Hoover. The ‘Net will be better for it as people begin to take security seriously. If the people at the top paid any attention they would know that even out in public people get annoyed if they think someone is listening to their conversation. People have their own concept of personal space, and if you intrude, they will react negatively. Of course that would require the people at the top not to be sociopaths, which isn’t likely any more.
No worries m8. 😀 eMail sent.
You should have asked them what color they’d like the 4GL in! (They probably thought it was a car!) – Dilbert reference. 😉
I’ve always taken security seriously. With my background, I can do nothing else. 🙂 I will ensure that people realize that, and understand what it means, and why it’s important. Have no fear on that point! There are many legitimate reasons to ensure one’s privacy and security (in all forms). One of the primary ones being to ensure that the *Bad Guy’s(tm)* don’t take advantage of most people naivety and ignorance in these areas. Even your forefathers understood that concept. 🙂
Maybe I’ll buy the USA in a decade and sell it to Iran or Russia for $10! LMAO
Cheers my friend, and thanks! 😀
I have the e-mail [I don’t leave e-mail on a server, download and delete is the way I have always done it because (a) ISPs used to charge for storage, and (b) it can’t be read if it isn’t there.]
The biggest reason for security in business is to protect trade secrets. That is followed by your client list and your pricing [buying and selling]. That’s why I get ballistic about NSA using contractors. In the system they have, you don’t know if the contractors are hoovering up things for NSA or themselves.
Things are cold here at moment. It’s hard to type in gloves. I’ll check the site out as soon as I get a chance.
An example of the speed with which government operates today: Back in late April, I was looking through Google for recent mentions of my late employer. I found a bid for some new equipment from said late employer. Six months later, the bid has actually been awarded to a security integrator in that county. The company we licensed to manufacture the equipment after we bought the assets of our former employer has the order in hand and our royalties shall arrive within 30 days (assuming the security integrator pays its bills, never a good assumption, but that’s another story).
Seven months to buy six computer servers and ten workstations. Now *that* is moving at the speed of government.
Yeah, and it will probably be a couple of months before the government pays for the equipment, so you waste most of a year in limbo. Cash flow is the biggest problem small businesses have in dealing with governments, you wait forever for a decision, and then you wait for your money. You have to be really big to be able to do that.
On the other side you have the people who needed the equipment dead in the water until it finally shows up, which is no way to run anything.
No problem Bryan. Take your time m8, there is no rush. I have plenty to keep me busy (in fact, I’m back to working on my blog again!) 😆 One advantage of working on several things at a time is that if I get bored or stuck on one part, I can move on to another until I feel like going back. 🙂
Agree about the emails, I’m the same. Even though my Gmail accounts each have 15GB storage, they all read 0 used! I use a Gmail webmail app here to send/receime eMail from Gmail, and it stores what I want locally, and deletes them from the Google Gmail system. I don’t trust any provider either. Nobody sane would. 🙂 Once I have my system up, I’ll have my own secure eMail/WebMail/Groupmail system for clients etc. It’s actually a ‘Virtual Mail System’ I began designing around 2010, based on ‘Virtual Mail System’ with Exim, MySQL (Percona Sever), SpamAssassin, AV (F-Prot, ClamAV or both chained) and Dovecot, Horde, Roundcube.
* The users are ‘Virtual’ (only exist in a secure encrypted database and have no real system-level accounts for added security, all mail & data is also encrypted).
* All mail (smaller than 32 MB – configurable) will be virus-scanned. Virus-suspected emails are rejected during the initial SMTP-session (before the mail server can accept it). This way, the sender gets to know (as the mail will be bounced back with a virus warning) and we aren’t responsible for bounces.
* All mail (smaller than 1 MB – configurable) is SPAM-scored. Mail is tagged in headers only. Users may define a personal SPAM-score-threshold and how to rewrite the subject (if at all). Very-highscore-mails are rejected during SMTP-session (as for AV scanning).
* Selective GreyListing support for mail that is likely to be SPAM, but not enough to be rejected.
* Sending mail to foreign domains is only permitted after successful SMTP-authentification (if it fails, the sender will be notified of the reason and can notify the receiver that they need to fix their mail system).
* The Connection has to be encrypted using SSL/TLS.
* All the correct RFI’s must be followed, including Aliases (including plussed addresses), CatchAll, AllUsers and Conditional email-addresses.
* Passwords are stored as base64-encoded SHA2 (SHA-256) hashes.
* Passwords must be at least 10 characters, contain at least 2 numerals, contain at least 2 legal non-alphanumeric characters (such as: _ – ! ~ *), and be mixed-case.
* Every daemon is run under an own user to seperate privilleges and minimise security risks to the system.
* Reject archive attachments for files containing executeable double extensions (to reject unknown worms that embedds itself as *.pdf.exe in a zip-file).
* Integrate Dovecot Antispam Plugin with sa-learn to improve SPAM/HAM learning.
* Sieve support for server-side filtering. This is dependent on mail-clients that support it. Currently only usefull if implemented in SMAD (sieve-php), Squirrelmail (avelsieve), or Thunderbird (add-on).
* Keep track of Message-IDs of mails sent by users to reduce SPAM-score, if they appeared in ‘In-Reply-To:’-header
* Auto-responder
* Disable account with hint for new address (and silently forward mails).
* Use ‘no_more’ in mail routers.
* Quotas may be enabled, disabled and configured by Admin’s and user’s designated as ‘Mail Managers’
* Exim config grouped by features to be enabled through config file (using .ifdef)
* Admin (SMAD) may write mails to all users on system.
As you can see, I’ve been working on this also. 😉
One thing I found was that using the “plussed addressing scheme” had an unintended benefit! I noticed that most mail-address harvesters used to gather email-addresses from web-pages choke on these plussed addresses. I’ve setup a page with fake addresses that is only visible to crawlers/harvesters and was *disappointed* (not really) that this spamtrap didn’t receive any mail for 6 months! LOL
I saw your Friday Cat pic Bryan! Sure looks cold m8! Brrrrrrr! Maybe you need a little heater under your chair m8! 😉 😀
@ Badtux: Yeah, that’s about par for the course these days. *shrug*
Bryan, we learned our lesson long ago, we do *not* sell direct to government. We sell to security integrators, who *then* sell to government. So the security integrator is on the hook for the 60 days or whatever that it takes the housing authority to pay, but we have our money — or the next time that integrator wants to talk to us for technical support or anything else, he’ll have to fork over his credit card number before we give him the time of day because he’s on a cash-only basis after that. Since this is a gravy business for us (we’re not in the hardware business and really don’t care if it slowly dies out), we get to be mean about late receivables :twisted:.
Kryten, it puzzles me as to why so few people seem to use Exim. I am using Exim both for my personal SMTP server and for our mail relay at work (the one outside the firewall at a hosting provider that we shunt our emails to via port 465 because port 25 outgoing is blocked at our firewall to deal with spammer viruses). It seems to be more flexible than Postfix and much easier to configure than Sendmail, so WTF? Meanwhile I am also using Dovecot for imap and pop3. That’s how Debian comes set up to begin with, and I’ve gone through Debian’s configuration of these services and it’s quite secure. I’m impressed to tell you the truth, because most distributions come by default so insecurely configured that any script kiddie could breach it within seconds, nevermind enduring a real attack.
And yes, my emails are spam-scored. Sad to say, while it blocks a huge amount of spam, I find that Spamassassin simply isn’t as good as Google or Microsoft’s spam filters on their respective webmail services, even with a half dozen users tossing things into their spam folders to help “train” Spamassassin (I have a daemon that runs once per night harvesting the spam folders to feed sa-learn). A million users throwing spam in their spam folders just is more effective, sigh. I’m also using a couple of block lists, and again they’re diverting huge amounts of spam, but the spammers are always virusing new systems to send out more spam, sigh. But at least I can write some rules to eliminate some of the most egregious spammers by automatically giving them a score of 100 :twisted:.
Weather here in the Silly Cone Valley has been gorgeous. Mid 50’s at night, sunny and mid 70’s during the daytime. Which is a problem. We’re supposed to be starting our rainy season, like, last month. It was the first October on record that we didn’t have a drop of rain. Not a drop. Wow. Things are really fscked up, weather-wise.
Thought you might find this interesting. 🙂
Your data isn’t safe here either, though at least here the LE Agencies have to have a valid warrant. 😉 And the USA topps all the lists.
Apple reveals extent of Aust govt requests for user data
And one more small victory step for the EFF, and Yahoo! 🙂
Yahoo! wins court battle in PRISM saga – EFF to sue NSA on behalf of 19 companies.
And some Countries just never learn:
Controversial NZ electronic spying law passed
Hmmmm.
Yeah Badtux, I don’t understand it either. I suspect it has a lot to do with ignorance and laziness. *shrug*
On it’s own, SA is a bit mediocre. But it can be made a lot better with other tools and plugins, such as the Dovecot AntiSpam Plugin + ‘sa-learn’, and others. 🙂
And so it begins…
Cisco, IBM China sales hit by NSA spy scandal
Of course, this is just the excuse China has been looking for.They have wanted to dump *foreign* companies for awhile. The USA have given them the perfect excuse. What’s that about “Shooting yourself in the foot”?
And the backlash grows:
UN draft urges halt to ‘excessive’ spying
And in a truly bizzare LOL moment… It seems the M$ can actually teach the NSA/GCHQ and other agencies how to suck egg’s (or ‘chew tobacco’!
Microsoft’s new Cybercrime Centre fights hackers
And so it goes. So, how long do you suppose it will take for the USA to learn? Based on historical precedence, I certainly won’t be holding my breath. 😉 🙂
Yeah, no one in the English-speaking world is safe from their government feeling the need to monitor them since the War on Terrorism™ provides such a convenient excuse.
What I have never understood is why hosts don’t just set things up properly in the first place. It talks extra time initially, but once it’s done things work better and your costs go down. My current mail host lets almost nothing through, and my e-mail program filters those out based on rules that I wrote.
Those that do get through are often worth a post, or an abuse e-mail to a hosting service – usually an .edu – because they are well enough crafted to avoid the filters.
The ISPs need to start protecting themselves by following the guidelines and keeping their systems patched. If you raise the skill level required to actually pull this crap off, there will be a lot less of it.
If US companies press their case vigorously, and then follow up by targeted spending on candidates who support them, the change could come quicker than people think.
The case can be made that the methods used are expensive and unproductive, while injuring US business.
Some of what China is doing is pay back for the way that Chinese technology companies have been treated by the US and Australia. It is difficult to complain when you have been essentially doing the same thing that the Chinese are beginning to do.
[We were posting at the same time, Kryten.]
Oh, Badtux – no rain in October in the Bay Area? That is definitely not good for the water table. This climate change thing is really messing up life. If it keeps up gardening is going to shift from biology to geology.
San Francisco has had less than four inches of rain for the entire *YEAR* 2013.
The water table was pretty high locally, because we’ve been recharging it for years. But now with all the cutbacks in water delivery due to the drought, it’s going back down again. We have a few years stashed under there, but after that… things will get dry. Just sayin’.
Kryten, I would give up on Spamassassin altogether and tell my users to just get gmail accounts, except for the problem that my users are as paranoid as you and don’t want Google mining their emails. (Hmm, someone in the security industry has relatives and friends who are paranoid, go figure 😉 ). And yes, even if you use pop and fetch your emails and delete them off Google’s pop3 server, Google mines them prior to giving them to you…
Yeah, I’m not a big fan of SA, especially on it’s own. dspam actually works better, but doesn’t scale well at all. It’s great if you have small number of mail accounts. 🙂
The above was written mostly around 2010, I have updated a couple bits (like the PWD security). I’ve just started looking at Mail Avenger
Also looking at amavisd-new
Current test system is as above with:
Amavisd-new with SpamAssassin and AV scanner, F-Prot and/or ClamAV with SaneSecurity rules.
Use enforcing rules in mail server (eg. block hosts with no DNS/rDNS, Enforce SPF), publish SPF with hardfail.
Use DNSBL’s (eg. Spamhaus, Spamcop, Spam.sorbs, etc.)
Milter regex to stop dynamic/suspect hosts.
Use CRM114 for Mailfilter, Mailtrainer, Mailreaver, (“The CRM114 Discriminator – The Controllable Regex Mutilator”) via Sourceforge.
There are several greylist addon’s for Exim, but most are old. Currently looking at:
Bagley: Greylisting for Exim 4 (Sourceforge). “E-mail greylisting system implemented as a freestanding executable suitable for use with Exim 4, using MySQL database back-end.”
milter-greylist – I like this as it supports IPv6, ACL’s, Roaming users, Auto-Whitelisting (including “friendly networks”), Multi-MX sync, SPF records, fully RAM resident with checkpoint saves/restores.
Greylisting with SA-Exim at SMTP Time by Marc Merlin:
marc . merlins . org / linux / exim / sa . html
I’m also looking at using SQLite for Anti-SPAM & Greylisting to speed things up and minimise resource usage.
Also, I’m looking at using CRM 114 for several other parts of my project. It’s insanely versatile! 😀 From the Wiki:
You are correct Bryan, and I think that some large corporates are finally getting the message. They backed the GOP because they promised low taxes, but since their insanity is killing business in several ways, it was a short-sighed and thoughtless decision and they are starting to panic. With luck, it will be too late for some of them. 🙂
The ISPs need to start protecting themselves by following the guidelines and keeping their systems patched. If you raise the skill level required to actually pull this crap off, there will be a lot less of it.
Funny that, ehhh? 😉 Now it will cost them a fortune and some will not survive. Serves them right. 🙂
BTW, even though the World is blaming NSA and now GCHQ, our DSD is also complicit. We are just a bit better at hiding our involvement, though a document leaked by Snowden I think mentioned our Involvement. It’s unsurprising, we are part of the Commonwealth (and have some duty to it), and we are major US Gov ass-kissers since at least the 60’s. Still, the state of US security of it’s systems is more than a bad joke. Whilst our Gov may luv da USA, not so much the People! As this article shows:
US claims Aussies hacked govt computers
And not just a “few” either!
I can think of much better ways of spending $billions other than trying to spy on everyone in the World. What a bunch of morons. If the USA truly want’s to stop Hackers and Terrorists, perhaps they shouldn’t use paper-mache doors leave the key’s under the doormat!
And yes, I am highly amused! *shrug* Sue me. 😉 😀
San Francisco drying up while we are awash down here. I don’t think the irrigation pump has been used more than 4 times all year, and that was usually after the lawn guy spread something.
Yeah, Google has to get its pound of flesh, regardless, because that’s how they make their money which enables them to provide their free products.
While the attention has focused on China, apparently the situation is even worse in India and Russia with sales cratering.
It is an opportunity for another country to enter the market, especially for routers, promising compatibility without back-doors.
Yeah, most of the military sites are not up to the challenge because they tend to be built by interested amateurs within the unit, instead of professionals, and that is seen through out the rest of the government. The contractors are even worse, as many have almost no attempts at security on their servers. The mind set isn’t there, even at some places that require elaborate security to visit one of their offices. Until the get raided they don’t understand that there is a threat.
Go ahead and laugh, because it system security is a joke on government web sites, and no one is addressing the problem.
We’ve had a lot of unusual rainfall here this year. Especially after a decade long drought.
Yeah, though I am primarily laughing at the incredible stupidity of it all. I just don’t get it I guess. *shrug*
Well, it seems things are getting interesting here with a couple former employers. 🙂
Defence appoints new infosec chief – Former DIO deputy director joins as head of intelligence agency.
Yes… Will be very interesting. I know about a couple of people involved in the changes from my time at DIO & ASIS. Oh, I must remember that DSD is now ASD! The huge change recommended after the big review of all the trouble they had. Change the name. That way of course, it was all DSD that screwed up, not ASD! See… we are just as crazy!
I am soooooooooo glad I am out of all that political insanity!
I minimise Google spying on me in several ways. It’s not that hard actually. 🙂
Oh! And have you noticed that the number of security flaws and vulnerabilities in Java have increased since Oracle took it over? Gee… What a surprise!
Further security flaws found in Java Runtime Environment
It’s why, on my new sites, I’m not using Java! I trust Oracle less than M$!
BTW, have you seen this:
US online retailers face sales tax collection – Amazon says yes, eBay says no.
Another reason for Online retailers to move out of the USA. It’s pretty easy to do, and a hell of a lot cheaper than moving retail stores.
Political parties have talked about that stupidity here (even this year), but even the Tax Office said it would be a bad idea (difficult to implement, very difficult to enforce, and wouldn’t result in much extra revenue). But the only argument the Poli’s understood was: “it would be very unpopular in an election year.”
Ignorance and morons are everywhere.
The difference is that Amazon sells things, and eBay doesn’t — eBay just provides a forum for other people to sell things.
And yes, Amazon is collecting sales taxes in California now. They have to. California’s tax board noted that their Kindle division is based in California so unless they want to shut it down and move it elsewhere, they have to pay California taxes. Amazon said “but they’re not *actually* Amazon, they’re an independent company that develops the Kindle for us!” But that didn’t wash with the tax board.
Oracle is interested in making money and Java isn’t a revenue stream that will finance any of Larry’s toys, so no effort is put into it. It came with the Sun purchase, but the people who really knew it were too expensive to keep around, so the project is probably in the hands of unpaid interns. If outsiders weren’t beating on it and finding the problems, nothing would be done.
None of the dominant software companies are worth spit anymore, and all of the innovation has moved to apps for phones and tablets.
The problem with sales tax in the US isn’t the money. Generally the shipping will eat any savings from sales taxes. People buy on-line because the big box retailers have driven all of the local stores out of business, so if you want or need something other than what MalWart or Target want to sell you, you have to buy it on line.
The real problem for on-line retailers is writing software to assign the sales tax. First you have to determine if the item is taxable at the customer’s location, and then what is the rate for the customer’s zip code. Florida has a 6% state sales tax, but local governments can add on more tax. The definition of ‘local’ doesn’t always follow the zip code boundaries. It’s a mess that drives local businesses nuts, so it’s a bigger problem for national retailers.
Bryan, my current boss is the former boss of Sun’s Java division. He saw the writing on the wall and split before getting canned. Yeah, the people who remained ain’t exactly the strongest of the bunch.
Regarding the software to assign the sales tax, there are now standard packages to do that, either as stand-alone software or as a cloud service that you can either connect to with a sales browser, or have your point of sale system contact via a REST API. So the whole “you can’t calculate sales tax for thousands of jurisdictions!” argument no longer flies.
Shipping-wise, what Amazon has done with their Prime service is basically take shipping out of the equation. I ordered a bracket from them on Wednesday, it arrived at my doorstep on Friday, I paid $0 shipping (2 day shipping *free* with Prime).
Could I have gotten that bracket locally before Mal-Wart put everybody out of business? Nope. There’s only one off road parts store local to me, and it has never had any inventory worth the name other than of tires and wheels (their big money items). Everything else you have to special order. Well, it’s hella easier to do that via the web than to take time and go down there and describe what you want and have them look it up in their catalogs and check their distributors and all that crap. Amazon is putting people like that out of business because it’s a pain in the ass doing business with them, and always has been. Just sayin’.
Dominant software companies doing good work… nope. Can’t think of any. Funny how that goes, eh? But frankly, the culture of the Silicon Valley hasn’t been conducive to good work for some time now. With venture capitalists it’s all about how fast you can do it, not about how good you can do it. The results are predictable — software that’s neither fast *nor* good.
That said, our first round is oversubscribed with way too many people wanting to buy in and get a piece of the pie and we’re not going to turn down the money :).
The *BIG* problem with online retailing is proving that the buyer is in a particular local. It was proven in a court case here that just because an item is shipped to a particular address, doesn’t mean the actual buyer resides there. During Xmas for example, people buy gifts online and ship them all over the World. I’ve bought several gifts online and had them shipped to recipients around the World. And now that millions of people are turning to anon proxies and VPN’s (hence the massive growth on VPN service providers the past couple years), proving they are ordering from anywhere is almost impossible. There is zero chance that I will ever buy online without using a VPN. I’ve bought items from Amazon via US VPN and had it shipped to a friend in the USA (because they won’t ship some things internationally), then had the person mail it to me. I’m not in the USA, so I don’t pay US tax. And my friends shouldn’t pay tax as he’s not the end use of the product. The USA, UK, AUS, and other Nations have nobody to blame but themselves. I have zero sympathy for any of them.
Too many good people have discovered that being *honest* get’s them nothing, and in fact may even cause them more problems than being dishonest! It’s insane. I co-authored a paper some years ago arguing that the Gov policies in various areas were in fact *forcing* people to be dishonest. One reason was that the cost of being honest was too high.
If the USA want’s to increase their tax revenues, the easiest, simplest and most effective way is to tax the top 10% and simplify the insane tax law’s. That way they won’t be able to find loop-holes so easily and pay nada. And it would fix pretty much all of your Social/Financial/Medical problems in one easy solution.
Politicians are short-sighed fools who live in some fantasy land. And most Corp Exec’s are the same or worse.
Kryten, it’s a bit simpler here in the USA. If you are purchasing physical goods, the tax jurisdiction is the tax jurisdiction to which it is delivered. That’s what the UCC (Uniform Commerce Code) says, and every state has adopted the UCC as law.
Note that this doesn’t apply only to mail order. If you walk into a lumber yard and buy lumber to be delivered in the next county, the tax jurisdiction is the county into which it is delivered — *not* the county in which you are conducting the transaction. Counties don’t like it when their revenue is poached, and tend to react angrily and with great legal force, as numerous contractors have found to their dismay.
You are of course correct about the need to fix the national tax code. I have plenty of numbers to spew but you already know most of them. But that has little to do with sales taxes, which are a local government thing here in the USA, not (in general) a state or federal government thing. (Most) states and the federal government have traditionally relied on income taxes or in some cases property taxes for their revenue while counties and municipalities have relied on property and sales taxes for their revenue. Amazon failing to pay local sales taxes when they deliver into a county doesn’t hurt federal tax revenues, but it does hurt the local city and county, which aren’t getting the revenue they would traditionally have received. Which is why it is a Big Deal that Amazon is being forced to collect sales taxes in an increasing number of states…
Another frustrating day trying to buy something locally, and finally giving up. The places I used to get them wanted to order them from their company web site because it was ‘too expensive’ to have slow moving items on their shelves.
They don’t seem to understand that if I buy it on the ‘Net I can not only beat or match their price, but it will be delivered to my door, without making another trip to the store.
Actually, in Florida, it is the place where it is purchased that determines which jurisdiction gets the local portion of the sales tax which is why big box stores get huge tax breaks. The sales tax is a major source of revenue for the state, since we don’t have an income tax. That makes things a bit tricky, because I’m not really on the ‘Net until I get to the node in Orlando, so technically the transaction takes place in Orlando, not Okaloosa County, as I’m sure the city of Orlando will be the first to argue if they get a chance.
Bryan, you might want to check that again. I believe the UCC has been adopted by Florida too, just as it was the law in Louisiana, North Carolina, Arizona, and here in California. What may be confusing you is that the tax is assessed where the goods are delivered to the purchaser, and if you’re buying at a store, the goods are delivered to the purchaser at point of sale. If you’re in Mal-Wart, the goods are delivered to you at the end of the cash register bagging area from a legal point of view. If you’re buying 2×4’s at Home Cheapo, the goods are delivered to you at the cash register also from a legal point of view. So that’s where they’re taxed.
Basically this isn’t a concern for local businesses because by and large they don’t deliver, or they deliver at the end of their loading dock and it’s up to you past that point. One place it matters is pizza delivery. I know this for a fact because that’s how I worked my way through college. Tax was assessed based on the delivery location, *not* based on the location of our store. There was a significant “tax hole” in our city that was still part of the county and not incorporated as part of the city, and we had to treat addresses in that “tax hole” differently from all our other addresses. It was a major PITA given the technology of the era (late 80’s), which was barely up to the task.
The problem may be that delivery is not taxed, and is almost never done by the place of purchase, but by a separate contractor, so the store is finished with the sale at the store with the goods delivered to the contractor at the store.
With the sovereign oligarchy of Florida, the rules for interstate and intrastate transactions are very probably different, which just confuses the situation, especially for those doing business along the Alabama and Georgia borders.
They may have to change things if this Internet sales tax movement gains real traction. I’m still not being charged taxes.
Dunno if you’ll be interested (especially Badtux) but I just received a report from Gartner:
Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems
The interest for me is that an Open Source based DBMS has made it high into the list for the first time. EnterpriseDB (or Postgres Plus Advanced Server) based upon PostgreSQL, I mentioned buying a license some Months ago as I my research concluded that it was far ahead of any MySQL based DBMS and represented better vale than any of the big Commercial DBMS’s (and I’d never use Oracle if they paid me!) Nice to discover I was right. 😉 😀
EnterpriseDB is the only Open Source based DBMS ever to make it into the “Challengers” quadrant of this report. It’s far ahead of any of the MySQL based offerings (such as Clusterix).
As usual, MS SQL is lagging because many Companies consider it a ‘Commercial’ not ‘Enterprise’ DBMS. IBM is lagging due to it’s usual arrogance and lack of market clarity, complexity and pricing (as usual). Oracle is dropping because… well, it’s Oracle! they tend to ignore public perception (Larry couldn’t give a rat’s about what anyone thinks of Oracle), It’s proprietary (Duh!) and Larry keeps changing his “vision”, so the market is invariably confused about where Oracle is going. I see this as a good thing of course. 😉 😆
The areas where EnterpriseDB are lacking are mostly Marketing related, and a lack of Enterprise tools (though it has a big plus in that it offers support for Oracle DBMS via it’s “Oracle Compatibility Feature”). It wins big points for performance and stability, ahead of Oracle and other market leaders. 🙂
Nice! 😀
Nice to see someone moving ahead.
With Oracle you often felt like you were dealing with a different program every time it was upgraded because they headed off into a new direction.
Kryten, we migrated to Postgres several months back because it simply works better for our tasks than MySQL did. In particular, the fact that it does versioned transaction locking so that pending updates don’t block current queries made it work quite a bit better for our write-heavy database task. With Postgres 9.3 sharding is made simple because it has read-write foreign database capability. Put the shared (non-sharded) tables on one server (and its read replica), then on each shard put foreign table references to the shared table. So if I’m sharding by site, I can still reference the customer database on the shared shard even though Hibernate itself is not very shard-savvy (it allows you to switch the datasource and thus switch to a shard, but it doesn’t allow you to do cross-datasource queries).
As for NoSQL, if you’re mining unstructured data that may be a good thing, but we experimented with Mongo and it just didn’t give us what we needed. Our data is inherently structured.
I have been a Postgres fan for a long time, but clients make their own choices and consultants have to live with them. Things become popular and people assume that popularity and quality are the same thing.
It’s nice to think that in an alternate universe BetaMax beat VHS and CPM beat M$-DOS, but this universe rarely works that way.
Yes, I’ve preferred PostgreSQL for years (even before Oracle took over MySQL, which was the last nail in the MySQL coffin for me).
The only reason why I had to use MySQL was because of Joomla! Now, finally and thankfully) after years of many dev’s asking and begging the Joomla! dev’s to at least provide the option of using PostgreSQL, it’s finally happened! As of Joomla! 3.1, it has support for PostgreSQL!! About time! Not only that, but support for many other 3rd party tools is now available, such as PHP Memcached (why the heck that has never been allowed is a mystery to everyone!) It’s the reason I decided to investigate Joomla! once more rather than Drupal or other CMS’s (And I looked at several). It also finally has better support for jQuery, supports LESS (CSS), Bootstrap, and WebFonts. Again, it’s about time! 😉 😀
However, all that said, I do like Percona Server (based on MySQL). *sigh* Percona have managed to tame MySQL (and it may even be considered somewhat *user friendly*), have an excellent toolkit MySQL has lacked, and for me the biggest feature, it’s been optimized to work in a cloud, and they have added a lot of performance monitoring and management tools. I plan to run both and see which actually works best and which suits my needs best.
Both look good on paper. 😉 *shrug* Who ever said being a serious developer was easy? Oh, right, newbies and naive developers. 😆
It’s nice to think that in an alternate universe BetaMax beat VHS and CPM beat M$-DOS, but this universe rarely works that way.
Yeah… I couldn’t agree more m8! And you can add: “Gem beat Windoze”! *sigh*
PS Bryan, it took me ages to get this thread up. It chucked a “503” a couple times and said to notify the Admin to check the logs, so I am. 😉 😀
Yes, Kryten, something has been going on for the last few days that is really bogging things down. I’m working on it as well as getting ready to upgrade WordPress.
You fix one thing and something else breaks, that’s IT.
SNORT! Yeah, I deployed a new cloud today. It fixed a lot of bugs… and set my Nagios alarms clanging when I redirected Nagios to monitor it rather than the old cloud. Seems I forgot to turn on ICMP ECHO_REQUEST from the office in the firewall rules when I wrote the CloudFormation JSON firewall rules to enable NRPE from the office (I had done it by hand with the old cloud because I was still writing the nrpe config files and the Nagios config at the office end), and Nagios doesn’t like not being able to ping the thing it’s monitoring! And monitoring my Postgres servers is totally broken because I forgot to add the NRPE config files and NRPE service enable to my Postgres puppet bundle. Oh well, I’ll fix it by hand in the morning… and add that to my Puppet bundle of course!
Fix things, break things. That’s IT, heh.
Oh yeah, you’re lucky Bryan m8! 😉 Try working on three complex system simultaneously! Every time I go to test something that I want to add, something else invariable misbehaves, and sometimes in annoyingly subtle ways. Or, in a couple cases, all goes well until a certain sequence of events happen, or some level is reached (such as a few weeks ago when I was simulating user load on the Joomla! system to test performance, and created a script to simulate varying numbers of random or simultaneous user registrations and logins. It took me ages to track down why when between 24 and 31 users tried to reg or login, the DB would choke! Anything other than that range worked fine. Turned out to be a weird combination of config settings for PHP, PosgreSQL, my firewalls, and the cloud. When I tested on my local CentOS dev server, it was fine.) I’ve had a number of occurrences where I’ve tested locally and was fine, then u/l to my cloud and… not so much! Unfortunately, I can’t simulate my cloud environment here as well as I’d like. *shrug*
But, on the plus side, I am learning a lot. 🙂
Yep… That’s IT! 😛
Gee, but everyone swears that virtual systems are identical to physical systems … except … well … maybe there are minor, unimportant little quirks, but nothing to bother about … 😉
I remember working with an intermittent problem on a client’s computer that I only solved by sitting in the office for two hours trying to figure out what was wrong. It turned out that one of the people had a habit of removing the main program diskette from the system and running a different piece of software. To be sure nothing happened to the main diskette they put it on the document stand and used the magnetic holder to keep it in place. No one apparently knew that magnets and diskettes were a no-no.
I’m not surprised by a ‘magic number’ crash, they used to happen all the time. Some languages were famous for them, and you would see code that bypassed certain sequences as a patch until a real fix was done to the compiler.
Yes, it’s not really a bug, it’s a learning opportunity. 😉
I must say that working in a cloud environment has simplified things over a VPS, and is far less expensive. I would need to have at least two VPS systems because the base environmental requirements to get the most efficient and useable system are different. With the cloud, I can quickly create a base instance with an OS and virtual hardware requirements tuned to the different platforms needs. Also, if I hit a problem, I can create another instance and step-by-step add and test until I see what causes it to break, then fix it on the dev instance (as I have a few times now). 🙂 I have also found that there are in fact fewer compatibility issues between my local dev system and a Cloud based system than I had with the VPS.
I found a script (set of scripts really) that I think will help manage and simplify my environment on CodeCanyon. I’ve bought a few scripts there, mainly for some WP functions I wanted to implement. 🙂
It’s called “Our API Server” and was $9, so I decided to give it a shot.
It’s all slowly coming together. 🙂
Oh, come on, if it just works no one will know, but if you have a total Obamacare meltdown, no one will ever let you forget. 😉
It sounds like you are finding the tools you need to do what you want, and that is always a good sign for a project. It is certainly better than having to stop and create a new tool from scratch.
I’ve decided to take a break for a few weeks. It’s been a very hectic year. I’m exhausted. So continuing to work on the biz is a stupid idea. 🙂 I’m chasing my tail.
I’ve got a lot done. The main biz site is just about done. I’ve been working on some demo sites, templates and artwork to showcase, plus going through my extensive archives to find past work for the showcase. I have three complete blog templates/themes done, including admin/back-end. And I’ve started the hosting site. Lot to do there yet. 🙂 I may do a couple more blog templates (these are not just themes, but different templates with different functionality and way’s of doing things). Each template actually has a few to several *themes* that can be changed either by admin or a registered user. There will be three blogs actually, my personal *Kryten42*, one for the main biz site, and one for the hosting part.
The blogs will be based on WordPress 3.7 (I’m testing 3.8 beta), the primary biz & the hosting sites will be the Joomla! 3.2 CMS + Magento (eCommerce) + SugarCRM. Project management with customer involvement will be managed via either Tracks 10 or OpenAtrium. Version control will be handled with Gitorious. The hosting system will also have the PhpCompta Accounting Management system to manage clients, invoicing etc. with support for multi-jurisdictions. Digital resource management will be handled by ResourceSpace.
All Hosting functions will be managed by DirectAdmin (which I will also use to manage all sites. I prefer it to cPanel/WHM (WHMCS) for various reasons). ThinkUp will be used for social networking, Trac for bug tracking and DocuWiki for the FAQ/Wiki.
I have looked at third party eMail management services, and decided to provide my own, for my company and clients. This will be as described above (Exim, Dovecot, Percona Sever, SpamAssassin + Mail Avenger + CRM114 + Milter & Greylisting, F-Prot & ClamAV chained, Horde & Roundcube). I may eventually use Atmail (or Atmail Cloud) as it’s quite a good eMail platform, especially with regard to mail management and extra services (and it’s an Aussie company!) But it comes at a price, of course. 🙂
Underlying Web technologies used include HTML5, CSS3 + sass (Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets – a CSS pre-processor) + less (a superset of CSS with dynamic behavior such as variables, mixins, operations and functions, and can either be run server-side (via node.js and Rhino), or client side (on modern browsers only) + scss (a superset of CSS, adding functions CSS lacks) — sass has four syntax parsers for scss, sass, CSS, and less and can create pure CSS3 so that no special plugins are required by browsers etc., Ajax, jQuery, PHP, Perl, Python, XML, CakePHP + Symfony (PHP framework for web apps and projects), and others! 🙂
User content (for blogging, forms, etc) will use either plain text, bbcode, Markdown (or MultiMarkdown) – user preference. I’m currently working on a WYSIWYG type editor for WP & Joomla! based on the markItUp! jQuery library.
Even though I’ve spent quite a lot on tools to help the development easier and faster, I still have to do a lot of creation & coding.
For the project management, conceptual design (with brainstorming and mind-mapping), and general diagramming, I use CS Odessa’s ConceptDraw Office Pro. For all my graphics creation, I use Adobe CS6 (mainly Photoshop, Illustrator & Fireworks and some Dreamweaver), I don’t use Flash, and have zero plans to! My primary editors are CodeLobster PHP Edition Pro (with all plugins) & Sublime Text 3. I use ActiveState ActivePython & ActivePerl + Perl Dev Kit. IDE tools include: JetBrains PyCharm, PhpStorm, WebStorm & YouTRACK for bug/issue tracking & management.
Yeah, I’m pretty tired. I have a friend with a nice big farm with a wide river running through it with some great fishing and no stupid restrictions (all the fishing around here is ‘catch & release’! I was taught “You catch it, you eat it!”). It’s a large property that as well as fishing has game (wild hen’s, quail), rabbit’s, kangaroo, boar… so I may do some hunting. See how rusty I’ve gotten! 😀 I think it will do me some good to live off the land for awhile. Been some years since I used those skills. I used to be quite good at it, and I haven’t forgotten. 🙂 It’s near Echuca, a large border town situated on the banks of Murray and Campaspe Rivers. They have a great river boat service that was fun when I used them many years ago. 🙂
Anyway, not sure when I’ll go, I have to save some extra funds, but that won’t take long. Having some place to stay for free will keep the costs down. and they have all the gear I’ll need (and very limited Internet which will be a bonus!) Maybe in a few weeks, maybe stay 3-4 weeks. 😀
Well, time to hit the hay! 😉 😀
TTYL.
Oh! Almost forgot… (well, I did forget). 😉
The all-singing & dancing, super-duper water-cooled gaming system is complete and is in production, with two samples delivered and tested (I just got back from Melb.) They have taken over a dozen pre-orders with deposit’s paid, which for an AU$8,500 (there about) system, is not bad! 🙂 Ad’s have been put in the top 3 trade (PC & Gaming) mag’s and other media, and I’m told interest is high. I did a comparison with a system built from components from online PC store sites, and it would cost over $9k and they would have to assemble it themselves and take a big chance with no guarantees. Also, they would loose the warranty on the CPU, which they keep with our system (the company is wearing the cost of CPU replacement for the first year as we expect it to be very limited if at all. I designed a way to show if the cpu/mount/wc system has been tampered by the end-user which will void the warranty. Part of my old spook training actually. 😉 🙂 Simple and effective, the way I like it! 😀
I am really pleased with the final result! 😀 It was a lot of damned hard work (another reason for a break) but the funds have helped pay for my work on my biz (I couldn’t have afforded those s/w tools otherwise).
Oh… It’s a BEAST! And I get to keep one! Wahoo! 😈
Anyway, I’ll post details soon if you like and let you know when I’m off to have a break! 😉 😀
OK… My bed is calling! 🙂
Have a nice break. An occasional venture into the outback is definitely a Good Thing when you’ve been geeking out for too long. Lets you get your priorities straight. Like considering the importance of the lowly spoon and tin pot when it comes to preparing whatever you intend to eat. Or the question of where do you take a dump in the desert and what do you wipe your bum with :).
People need to go off-line and off the grid to really appreciate modern conveniences. As Badtux has often noted, hot water on demand is something that makes all of the other annoyances of living in civilized society tolerable.
Getting back to reflexes and shutting down the higher levels of logical thought, allows things to sort themselves out so you can think again and see things in a new and different way.
Tech requires a lot of concentration, and often involves immense time pressures. Actually relaxing and allowing your body to go back to its natural rhythm is very refreshing. This is what weekends and vacations are supposed to be about.
Thanks Guys. 🙂 I’ve been checking things out for my getaway! 😀
I am very happy to see that the river cruise I went on years ago is still going. 🙂 And isn’t that expensive ($35 for a 2 hr cruise). 🙂 And nice to see that the young Uni student I met back then, is now running the Biz (and has tacked on a few more qualifications.) 😉 Way to go! 😀
Benita Cox & Kingfisher Cruises
The trip goes through one of my favorite places on the river. The world’s largest stand of River Red Gum, with a huge variety of wildlife. 🙂
Oh, BTW… We took another record from the USA! 😉 LOL
Echuca-Moama has the largest operating fleet of Paddlesteamers in the World! Yeah! Looking forward to a trip on one steamer that’s a historical representation of of the original cruise 130 years ago. 🙂 All the crew are in costume and character, food and entertainment is period, it’s a lot of fun actually. 🙂
Echuca-Moama – Paddlesteamers & River Cruises
And yeah, the hunting & fishing is on. I just have to renew my fishing & hunting licenses. I still have my weapons permits (I’ve had no choice but to keep those up to date, though I would rather not have. At least I don’t have to pay for those, which given that they cover a rather wide variety, would cost more than I currently earn!) *shrug*
Don’t know when exactly, lot of details to work out. 🙂
Or the question of where do you take a dump in the desert and what do you wipe your bum with
Ummmm… Anywhere, and anything! 😆
(And I am pretty sure that’s in the Army manual!) 😉 😀 When you do a 40 day extreme survival course (after the 14-day standard course), you learn all those little details. Or you fail (or die). Being dumped in the middle (not actually the middle, but a long way from any settlement) of the 2nd largest desert in the World with limited equipment and supplies and you have 40 days to make it back to the survival camp about 380 km away, teaches one quite a lot. 🙂 *shrug*
Cheers m8’s! 😀
If I had a choice, I would choose the Army manual given the rather bad attitude Australian fauna and flora tend to exhibit. 😉
Ah, yes, the many joys of survival school – although we split it up with fresh snow in the mountains, the jungle, the Arctic, and the ocean. Learning out to get along on next to no food and either too much or too little water.
The biggest problem with the schools was that they were too rushed, so you didn’t have time to actually get into the hunter/gather routine which would have made things a hell of a lot more pleasant. They were really more about escape and evasion than survival.
It sounds like a good change of pace, so have fun.