In the run up to the 2016 Presidential election, I heard pundit after pundit, and commenter after commenter bleating about how Trump’s candidacy was going to be the end of the Republican party. The fact that they nominated (with a full throated roar) such a terrible candidate, a narcissistic, racial pandering, xenophobic, serial sexual harassing, and in general boorish candidate, surely...
How Gullible are the Progressives
With all the recent focus on “fake” news and how much reinforcement happens in the echo chamber on Facebook, with the heavy bias for the conservative point of view, one would think that the progressives would be a bit more cautious, but alas, that appears to not be the case. The past few days, my Facebook timeline has been loaded with bogus stories about how two computer scientists...
A first brush with Time Machine
As a long time Apple user, (one could say fanatic) I have just used TimeMachine as a set-it-and-forget-it technology. Buy a big external disk, plug it in, and point TimeMachine at it, and let it do its magic.
Once, I had deleted a file, and I recovered it, pretty painlessly, but apart from that one incident, it has been in the background.
Until recently.
New iMac for Barbara
Upgrade Shenanigans – 16.04 LTS
For a few months, every time I log into my droplets I get a banner advising me to upgrade to the new ubuntu 16.04LTS. I had hesitated as I worried that there would be repercussions. My first attempt, on a very simple droplet with an nginx webserver with a simple Ghost blog installed. It was a flipping disaster. nodes.js failed, the install broke the nginx, and after 4 hours of messing with it, I...
Book review: All the Birds in the Sky
In the aftermath of the 2016 elections, the lead up to November 8th, I had been reading a lot of political history of the latter half of the 20th century. After The Donald won, I needed a change. While I have often found modern SciFi a bit hard to get into, I steeled myself and asked a High School friend, Chuck Serface for a couple of recommendations. First up was “All the Birds in the...
Good things are coming my way!
Well, I have something VERY Important to say. Apparently, I have some money coming my way, as I have recently received an urgent communiqué from none other than the FED chairwoman, Janet Yellen, herself. Yessir, the good times are soon to be here in Casa Geoff. As you can see, from the email I have quoted below that it is a Major Award. From Mrs. Janet L Yellen Federal Reserve Bank New York. 33...
Backtracking on Campaign Promises
In my 51 years on this planet, in the US of A, I have become used to the sight of politicians walking back their campaign promises. Hell, it is expected regardless of your ideology, politicians make promises that we know they can’t keep.
Here we are, 4 days post 2016 presidential election, and the backtracking has begun in earnest.
Thoughts on Healthcare in the USA
Very few people believe that the USA’s healthcare system is good. Of course, the wealthy have access to the best diagnostics and care in the world, and most people get their healthcare as part of their benefits package from their employers (albeit with a lot more restrictions than the truly wealthy), and therein lies the problem. This is the first in a series that I will write to describe...
Protests and consequences
In the aftermath of the 2016 US Presidential Election, as I watch these protests across the country against the election of Trump. I can’t deny the passions and emotions that have driven these protests. A lot of people are upset, and justifiably so. But, having read a lot recently about the rise of the hard right conservatives, I worry that the protests will backfire. Alas, the protests...
Digitalization
A word I am increasingly hearing tossed around is “digitalization”, something that probably makes you scratch your head and wonder what it is trying to say. Yet, it isn’t so difficult of a concept. If you think of the rise of computers, and workstations in the 1980’s and 1990’s, with the systems that they brought along, email, ERP, CRM, communications, and others...