One year ago today: December 5, 2017, can he make porridge?
Five years ago today: December 5, 2013, the phony mumble-talk.
Nine years ago today: December 5, 2009, it doesn't exist yet.
Random years ago today: December 5, 2008, remember Forest Wally?
Got the shed doors done, leaving another eight or more hours to install the shelving and another day to fix the roof. I think the route to go on that is to just lay in a frame of furring strips and tarpaper it for shingling. That furring strips might be an option for new siding as well. Here's my helper grinding off the old screw heads. I may even opt for a small canopy to the front of the shed to creat a dry and/or shady work area. Summer's a-comin'.
Plus, he is seeing his old girlfriend again, even though she steals things from him. Don't none of you wag fingers until you understand this is a Florida way of life. Every woman from Florida I've ever dated or even befriended in that department has stolen things or asked me for money far too early in the relationship. This is not bloggable material, but that doesn't mean it never happens. And my standards in women, while not that high, supersede most of what is even available in this vicinity.
I don't really like even being around when she is present. Okay, so she used to be good-looking. But let's talk present tense here. I didn't even recognize her when she started talking to me at a fast food joint fifteen years ago.
Cadbury World*
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The 600 watt Gigrack is set up using the speakers from the Hungarian church. I think I got the set for $30. They got water damaged in the shed. This is a major pity, but they were supposed to be in there two months, not two years. The cabinet, made from what in our troubled times passes for lumber, got damp and swelled up. Just the one, the other speaker is fine. But it is beyond repair. It still works, but would not survive being moved around a lot. Too bad, they are the right size. I have the tools now to build custom parts, so don’t rule anything out.
Something is wrong with my camera lens, probably dirty. It has that lens cover but that gets forgotten often enough. Shown here, the Gigrack has not been used for so long it took an hour to figure out the setting again. And it can really punch out a sound on those speakers. I still have the big Yamahas if the need arises. I traditionally use channels three and four for, respectively, my bass and vocals. That’s because when you get a guitar ego in the room, he will argue that channels one and two are “set better” for his guitar and his voice. Go figure.
So what’s this I hear about Google hitting the skids. Something to do with misuse of customer information, you know, what I issued warnings about 13 years ago. Good, if nothing else this will let Google know they are being watched. On the other hand, they could do a MicroSoft and just take everything underground. Oh, and did you see that article about the Australian government requiring encryption software to contain a back door? Time for somebody to come up with an entirely new scheme. Once one government gives itself the right to snoop, you know the drill.
And Jimmy Ruska (no link) posts that some form of quantum computer is ten years away, not the formerly projected twenty years. Folks, the entire impetus for a quantum computer is to crack existing encryption codes. The machines are too fragile and finicky for any other use, at least not as everyday purchasable entities. You need a clean room to operate them.
Okay, here is your free article that would otherwise be in a twenty dollar magazine:
For a layman’s description of how the quantum computer will crack the codes. Right now the reason the codes take regular computers so long is because the enciphering uses “irreversible” math formulas. Probably the easiest or most familiar way to grasp this is the clock on your wall. It uses a base 12 system. If someone says meet them an hour from noon tomorrow, you know they mean 1:00 o’clock and not 13:00 o’clock (ignore military time which is the same thing base 24).
This is called modular arithmetic, where the solution is based on the remainder after division. Seven divided by five has a remainder of two. So does twelve divided by ten. This is the basis of irreversibility. If you know the remainder is two, you know nothing about how it came to be. So, on very large numbers, the computer has to try every possible combination, and even at computer speeds, it can take centuries.
There is a theory that every prime is a sum of two other primes. When prime numbers are used to encode, the task of cracking becomes almost impossible. That’s all you need for now, but that, I believe I’ve written elsewhere, is why you hear so much about teams trying to calculate the largest prime number. After, what is is, a million, the primes get rarer and rarer, but each combination has to be tried.
A quantum computer still uses this brute force approach, but it operates at warp speed. The time to protect yourself is now, not when the hammer falls. How do you do that? You use codes within your ciphers. Even if my protonmail is eventually deciphered, they still won’t know what half the terms mean. Cabin 509? Big Willie and Little Willie? You get the idea. Only those who know this blog could even guess who is Agt. R and what is Unit 31.
Ah, you say, but what if they find somebody who knows these terms and lean on him? That, my friends, is why we live in a democracy. Only so much of that can go on before there is an outcry. You can’t prevent this sordid activity, but the idea is to learn that something is afoot, and having that knowledge in advance is often enough to tip the odds in your favor.
Do I have anything to hide? Not really, but I certainly believe that every person with brain will still at least learn how to hide things in case they ever need to. It has always been a life skill of the survivors. What would have happened to me if I had not had money hidden in Colorado?
Again, you do not know what new laws will be passed, but the direction things are going is not exactly a nerve tonic.
ADDENDUM
Take this at face value, but last night was one of the clearest and brightest I’ve seen in Florida. Even on cloudless days, there is a lot of moisture in the air from the Gulf, making for an almost permanent slight haze. Last night was like being on the prairies. Even with the light pollution of the city lamps, it was pretty dazzling. I was out there for an hour. Then back inside due to mosquitoes and I seem to have misplaced my flash drive. And it’s the important blog one, so I know when it is really missing. I had put it in my pocket where I keep my cash, a certain place to find it. And I heard something fall. If so, it is in the garbage at the old club, mercifully the clean garbage near the piano. This could be fun. There was a new bartender in training, so I’m hoping the trash has not yet been emptied.
*Make no mistake about it, Cadbury's is the supreme chocolatier in the world. The vaunted European chocolates are all over-hyped. Cadbury is and remains the only chocolate with a royal warrant, and is the best ever made. They are reputedly developing a chocolate that does not melt in the sunlight.
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