Cancer update

So they sent me for a PET scan, to see if the cancer had spread.  It hadn't.  Nice.

A PET scan is kind of like an MRI, but first they inject a die that gets absorbed by cancer tumors.  A radioactive die. It came encased in a big lead shield.  I thought they're going to inject that into me?  Yup.

I also got the first of the hormone injections.  It wasn't bad, and the only real side effects have been fatigue.  The Lupron starts at the end of the month; that's where I expect side effects.

They're scheduling a spacer, which is a gel injected next to the prostate.  It will let them be more accurate with the Death Ray beam, keeping it focused on the lesions and not zapping parts of me I want to keep.  Radiation will be every day starting in 2 or 3 weeks and will go probably until the end of the year.

All in all, not as fun as a barrel of monkeys but not so bad so far. 

The man who made the Internet possible

Divemedic has been geeking out about home network stuff which has been a bit of a walk down memory lane - I once had a supervisor who turned down my request for a 2400 baud modem "because you can't read that fast".  You see, at 1200 baud, a text file comes down at around one line per second, and a fast reader can read that fast.  Sorry, Borepatch, no speed for you.

And quite frankly, nobody in the late 1980s got much speed.  We had big VAX computers and the standard wisdom was that "You'll never get more than a megabit per second out of TCP/IP".  And it was standard wisdom because nobody did.

Enter a fellow named Van Jacobson.  He looked at the source code for popular TCP stacks and decided that it could be improved.  WAY improved.  TCP wasn't implemented in the operating system, as an OS service; rather, it was implemented in a user application.  The problem with this, thought Jacobson, was that every time you wanted to send a packet the OS had to do a context switch to let the (user-land) data structure containing the packet go to the OS kernel.

Jacobson thought this was stupid, and that networking should be the job of the OS.  He hacked IP into the Unix kernel and all of a sudden not only were you getting more than a megabit from TCP, a single Sun Workstation could saturate a 10 Mbps Ethernet.

IBM basically said that this was because Ethernet was stupid and primitive, and IBM's Token Ring network enforced bandwidth sharing.

Enter Jacobson again.  He defined a mechanism called "Slow Start" which he added to his hacked TCP code. Basically, whenever you started to send data, you would start slowly and increase the speed gradually until you hit congestion.  What he found was that not only would his Sun workstation saturate a 10 Mbps Ethernet, but 5 or 6 Sun workstations would saturate that same network while gracefully sharing the network between them.

So why do I say that he made the Internet possible?  Imagine a bandwidth-constrained Internet - constrained either because Internet Protocol was too slow or because more powerful computers hogged all the bandwidth.  There would be no Tik-Tok, no Youtube, no Netflix, no Zoom.

And it instantly made Sun Microsystems into the Ferrari of computers.  As Networking took off, Digital Equipment Corporation couldn't compete with lower cost workstations that were much, much faster.  That was it for VAXen, and for IBM's Token Ring, and for ISO's Open Systems Interconnect protocols, and for Asynchronous Transfer Mode.  The problems that these technologies were designed to solve were suddenly obsolete.

All because of Van Jacobson.

Not many people remember this time of massive upheaval, but we all owe Jacobson a huge thank you. 

You guys are a bunch of nerds

The comments to yesterday's post were simply hilarious.  I clearly am not the only nerrd around here.

Oh, and Rick T - sometime I will have to tell you about watching a guy install a vampire tap but forgetting to use the spacer while drilling into the cable.  Drilled right through the center wire ...

Happy Birthday, Ethernet

Digital Equipment Corporation, Intel, and Xerox released the Ethernet spec on this day in 1980.  This is why old timers sometimes refer to it as "DIX Ethernet".

And yes, I am one of those old timers. 

Comprehensive study identifies all Roman roads

Well, for some values of "comprehensive" and "all":

The study published earlier this week mapped out the roads into what the Roman network could have looked like at the peak of the empire's power, sometime between the 2nd to 4th centuries AD. That network of main roads and little countryside paths didn't centralize in Rome, though. Tom Brughmans, classical archaeologist at Aarhus University in Denmark and one of the leads on the project, told Reuters that, "...when we consider all movement within the entire Italian peninsula, we were shocked to discover that the most central road actually follows the opposite Adriatic coastline, bypassing Rome altogether." 

It is said that history is 90% n geography and 10% common sense.   It would make no sense at all for traffic from Hispania to Syria to be routed to Rome.  The direct route goes via Constantinople:

Hopefully Stanford's Orbis will be updated to include the new found roads.  We've seen Orbis here before. 

 

Commercial shipping is being hacked

I haven't blogged about this, but apparently it's a thing now and has been for maybe a decade.  This is a really good breakdown of what one of these attacks could do (and more importantly, could NOT do) to a container ship or a tanker.

Well THAT was fun

Yesterday was recoil therapy with Big Country.  He brought a collection of Enfields and a Springfield 1878 trap door in 40-70 which was great fun.  Another guy had a "Quigley" rifle = a Sharps 1874 in 45-120 (!).  That one kills on one end and maims on the other.

Many thanks to BC for participating in an experiment to see if going to the shooting range is effective in treating cancer.  Probably not, but I feel better already. 

Helicopter Gunship vacation

Viva Las Vegas, baby:

At Gunship Helicopters we offer:

• The only place in the world you can shoot full-auto belt fed from a helicopter as a civilian
• 71 acres of mountainside range space
• A truly authentic military experience

I was surprised that they have packages under $1000, but they get more expensive pretty quickly.  But things like this make me proud to be American.

 

What caliber for Orca?

Something weird with Orcas started around 6 years ago in the Straight of Gibraltar: Orca pods started ramming sailing boats.  Hundreds of boats have been attacked, so many that there is a Wikipedia page about the situation. 

Well it seems that yachtsmen have started returning fire: 

 I dunno - a pellet gun is maybe not my first choice.  But since this is Europe, it may be the best option they have.

Twenty-Five Years

 

 

Remember. 

 

 

Recommended blog

FotB Tom Lindsay has a very interesting blog: The Whiskey Trail which is all about, well, cocktailblogging.  He has a very fun series of posts on the James Bond drinks (with recipes) and even includes Kina Lillet blanc in the martini.  10/10.

As an Old Fashioned admirer, I really quite like his New Fashioned.  Clever, that. 

Highly recommended. 

A blog comment I received from The Queen Of The World

Plague Monk left a comment on my post about Dolly Parton's passing.   The Queen of the World was not amused.  She emailed this to me because I require Blogger registration to comment:

Usually I just rant to you in private but this was too big!!!

I’m once again impressed at how kind you are to your most ignorant of readers. The moron that commented about pissing on Dolly Parton’s grave is clearly a troll yet you were polite in your response to the most asinine of low life idiots that ever stepped up to prove the serious decline of intelligence ever exhibited in black and white. Its very clear he found the movie 9-5 to be as realistic as Superman and Ghostbusters and was therefore offended, thus yet another example of the current snowflake mentality the rest of the intelligent world has to live with while wishing there was a law that would allow the thinning of the herd!

I have never registered to allow myself to make comments on your post for fear you would have to quickly ban me and thus cause much marital strife, but once in awhile DAMN!! Can’t you just call an asshole an asshole?!?!!!

I love you.  Your hair looks nice.

Tacticalshit.com

I really wanted to like these guys, because (a) what a great name, and (b) they had fun stuff like soda can launchers.  Plus they are an American company, not one from Red China*.

Except (you knew there was an "except" coming, didn't you?) The Queen Of The World ordered a gift from them three weeks ago and all she's seen from them is an order confirmation - no shipping notification, nothing.  Still hasn't been shipped or received.  Maybe it's all Chinesium or another Minnesota Learing Center, I don't know.

Anyone else had any experiences like this from tacticalshit.com? 

* I use the term "Red China" to annoy the Usual Suspects. 

Well, great

I have cancer, blast it all.

It's prostate cancer.  While that's what took Dad, usually this is the one you want to get because it's slow growing.  Except for mine.  Hey Borepatch - Nice Gleason score!

It seems that it's nothing but the finest, most aggressive prostate cancer for Mom Borepatch's little blogger.

And there's no waiting around for things to get scheduled and approved.  Holy cow, things got lined up toute suite.   I guess that's good, but it's not a great sign.

Florida takes action against Flock cameras

Huh:

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Department of Transportation on Monday revoked all existing permits for automated license plate readers installed by local law enforcement in state highway rights-of-way and said it will stop approving any new installations, citing an “exponential increase” in deployments, reports of misuse, data privacy concerns and “surveillance schemes.”

The Engineering and Operations Memorandum, signed by Will Watts, P.E., FDOT’s chief operating officer and assistant secretary, directs local agencies to remove the devices within 30 days. If they do not, the department said it will take them down. FDOT reserved the right to immediately remove any unit that poses a safety hazard.

From my perspective, the biggest immediate problem with the Flock system is that it has a very weak authentication and audit system.  This likely makes abuse of the system hard to find.  And given the widespread abuse that has been reported, that makes you wonder just how much abuse is happening.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, Flock.  I mean, after all - if you don't have anything to hide, you don't have anything to worry about, amirite? 

Well done, FLDOT. 

 

Dolly Parton - Stairway to Heaven

It's rare that we see an honest-to-goodness saint these days.  It's even rarer to see one in the entertainment industry.  Dolly Parton was one.

This is a photo from when she opened a branch of her Imagination Library in London (of all places, but it was at the start of her 2008 "Backwoods Barbie" European tour).

Her father never learned to read, growing up in Depression era eastern Tennessee, but she always said that he was really intelligent and always wondered what he could have done if he had had access to books.  So she started her Imagination Library 31 years ago.

The charity has given away a third of a billion children's books.  I don't think that I've seen anyone in my lifetime (celebrity or not) that has had this big a positive influence world wide.

As I said, a saint.

Her enormous success as an entertainer allowed her to do this.  Here is a quick recap of just how enormous that success was.  Note that the numbers are low because I took them from a 16 year old post, so she was even bigger than this:

• She was called the "Iron Butterfly" for her tough business negotiation, having turned down Elvis' (Elvis!) request to cover I will Always Love You. He wanted too much money - half of all royalties in perpetuity. She said no. 
• She was Entertainer of the Year - one of only seven women who have ever been given this award. 
• 45 Grammy nominations, 7 awards (she wuz robbed). Two Academy Award nominations.
• Ms. Magazine Woman of the Year. Country Music Hall of Fame, and Songwriter's Hall of Fame. 
• A 2003 tribute album to her featured covers of her songs by Melissa Etheridge, Allison Kraus, Shania Twain, Norah Jones, and Sinead O'Connor. Yowzer.
• American Idol had a "Dolly Parton" night where everyone had to perform one of her 6000 (!) songs. 

Yet she said that the greatest honor she's received is a bronze statue on the Courthouse lawn in her hometown. She was more properly called Dr. Dolly Parton - she received an honorary degree for her decades of work to increase literacy. Eastern Tennessee had a real problem with that when she was born in 1946.

Through it all, she's kept her sense of humor. Famous (or infamous) for her showy outfits and huge wigs (among - ahem - other things), she has been known to say "It takes a lot of money to look this cheap."  When Dolly was originally on the UK TV's Graham Norton Show, Graham was wearing quite a loud suit, for which he apologized. Without batting an eye, Dolly said Don't you worry yourself, my aunt had a sofa just like it. It was instant chemistry, and Norton and Parton became great friends, to the point where he recorded a duet of Islands In The Stream with her at her theme park, Dollywood.

Unusually for an entertainment celebrity, she was married to her husband, Carl Dean, for almost 60 years until his death.  When asked if she was going to remarry, she demurred, saying I don’t think I’ll ever be married but once. I think Carl’s waiting for me on the other side, and if I turned up at the pearly gates with somebody else, he wouldn’t like that! He’d be saying, ‘Who’s that little [bleep]? You leave him outside the gates and if the Lord wants him in here, you get on in here with me!

Needless to say, The Queen Of The World and I are huge Dolly Parton fans.  There's a real sense of loss in her passing, that we shall not see her like again.  But our loss is Heaven's gain.  Like I said, a saint.

So long, Dolly.  Thanks for making the World a better place.

Rest In Peace and rise in Glory, Dolly Parton

The Queen Of The World and I are saddened by the passing of Dolly Parton.  But neither of us are unsure of whether she has been reunited with her husband of 60 years on the far side of the Pearly Gates.  While she was not in this version of the song, I'd be astonished if she would not have been able to sing this from memory. 

Deep History

Scott Rank hosts the "History Unplugged" podcast.  He excels at highlighting interesting books.  We've seen him here before, talking about "The Rifle" where a veteran gets World War II veterans to autograph his M1 Garand, about the tank duel in front of Cologne Cathedral, and about an interesting conservative blog and podcast.

He has a fascinating episode up about how analysis of ancient DNA is entirely rewriting our understanding of "Deep History" - things older than around 10,000 years:

Humanity’s story from 10,000 BC to 3,000 BC (from the end of the ice age to the beginning of civilizations) follows this pattern: primitive hunter-gatherers slowly progressed to farmers, then to village-builders, then to city-dwellers and kings. With enough food surplus to free up everyone from having to farm, religion, medicine, and art developed. But a revolution in archaeological science has completely rewritten the human past. Tools like ancient DNA sequencing, isotope analysis, LiDAR scanning, ground-penetrating radar, and high-precision radiocarbon dating are completely rewriting what we know about the ancient past. For example, the Natufians of the Levant, living between roughly 14,500 and 11,500 years ago, built permanent stone villages, stored food, buried their dead with elaborate grave goods, and developed complex social hierarchies — all before farming a single crop.

We’re going to look at other recent discoveries that have changed what we know about the Ice Age and Neolithic periods, and we’re joined by is Patrick Wyman, author of Lost Worlds: How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World. We cover the Copper Age megacity beneath modern Spain that was abandoned so completely it wasn’t rediscovered until the 1990s. We talk about Ukraine’s Trypillia culture, which built cities of tens of thousands of  people, with no kings, no temples, and no walls. We look at the Neolithic mass graves of central Europe that shattered the myth of the peaceful early farmer, a single Polish burial site where DNA, isotopes, and radiocarbon dating together revealed a family massacre tied to the very moment steppe migrants were pushing into the region.

 Highly recommended.

Battle of Trafalgar news

Admiral Collingwood was Nelson's second in command at Trafalgar, and led the second division of ships of the line on HMS Royal Sovereign.  Because this was the Age of Sail and because the wind was so light, HMS Sovereign was under fire for an hour as it approached the French/Spanish battle line.  But the day ended as Collingwood had predicted to his officers earlier.  Now, gentlemen, let us do something today which the world may talk of hereafter. 

As we are today.

The news is that the Union Jack flag flown from the Royal Sovereign was purchased at auction last year by a foreign buyer and was set to leave the country.  As one of only three surviving flags from the battle, historic preservation laws were invoked by the UK Ministry of Culture and the export was suspended to allow local UK organizations to match the purchase price.

Well, that has been done, and the flag will be displayed at the Discovery Museum at Newcastle-on-Tyne, Collingwood's home town*.

 

Bravo Zulu to the donors for preserving part of Britain's Royal Navy heritage.

* And not just Collingwood - many of Royal Sovereign's crew came from Newcastle as well.

What do you call someone who doesn't back up their data?

Dataless:

You should backup your data. You should have multiple backups of your data. You should have multiple rotating or rolling backups of your data. You should have multiple rotating or rolling backups of your data saved to different types of backup media. Ideally, you should have multiple rolling or rotating backups of your data saved to different types of backup media including off-site backups.

Evidently, a PBS station didn’t follow any of these rules. Instead they handed their data to a third-party, said “Here, we’ll pay you to store it for us,” and now they’re screwed because the company went defunct.

Le sigh.  Lawrence brings the hammer down on their IT organization:

Nor can this PBS station plead poverty: “2022 their gross income was [about] $13.5 million expenses 12.8 million. Their net was 3/4 of a million. So the net that is what they got to keep after paying all the employee salaries, after paying the directors 700,000 bucks.” Yeah, they could afford a local backup solution. 

 And quite frankly, so can you.  ASM826 and I wrote at length about this a decade ago.