Author: Paul

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Full Stacks

Mine are much smaller than Elon’s, but never explode, intentionally or otherwise. They don’t even fly, except on the networks. The next system ops phase at 5712 finally began a few days ago after a month of racking my brains on the latest Chinese Chipmaker debacle to ruin my day. Live and learn. Premium hardware for bargain dollars + my labor is a theme for me in other endeavors as well, but it comes at an intangible cost.

The old workstation (top) is running a beta test for the Onion folks. The new workstation (bottom) is running an AMD 7700 with all the latest fancy electronic bells and whistles. I’ve started doing data backup locally over USB, so a network upgrade talked about years ago is still on hold. One gig isn’t enough bandwidth for my data on this net. But with USB3/c, local net capacity is an insignificant storage factor now.

Externally-facing production Stuff sits in the entertainment center. The operational Onion will eventually be replaced in that cabinet, soon as Onion3 is ready for Prime Time. That old Dell XPS in the lower-left was only the second vendor-built PC I ever acquired in the UK while we were there. It underwent several upgrades over the years and ran for the last time yesterday, coming up with a dead nic. I installed a new one, but that was the last time it would ever fire up. It’s an inactive display in the PC museum here now.

The holy piece of sheetmetal in the top left is the valve body separator from a Dodge truck transmission. I’m all over the map.
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Ai Pause

If anybody saw his little interview with Tuckie, it’s pretty obvious the Chief Twit is putting the fear in fascism with his technoprenueur bid for Social Media wheelhouse dominance. It was almost mystical how the minions cheered his predicted launch failure the other day. He may not yet realize how a spacecraft gets only a very few chances to fly before the program is shelved.

I mean, who’s he think’s payin’ for that? Maybe he’ll just buy another one, like he bought Twitter™.

Better think this one all the way through. Computer’s not gonna do it for ya, no matter how hard you try.
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Chinese Chipmakers

I just want you mutherfuckers to know you almost beat me this time. A little light research on the topic(s) indicates DDR5 and AM5 definitely were not ready for prime time at launch. I’ll never learn to stay off the bleeding edge. I was all set to give up running 128gig, when lo-and-behold, Asus decides to issue the first BIOS update for this board just yesterday. I now have a full set of properly trained DIMMS. Imagine that.

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Integrated Test Joke

Starship’s maiden full-stack experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” following what looked to me like somebody forgot to flip the seperate-enable switch. All those dark engines didn’t look real encouraging either. Probably knew it wasn’t going to make insertion long before watching the spin dance to abort.

Wanna bet they were on some timeline pressure in a years-long lead-time NASA contract?

LATE UPDATE: They didn’t even have the launch pad ready.

This explains the lead-up deadpan from the Muskovite on down: to blondie’s wrapup: Low expectations for the black spaceship that didn’t fly.
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Not Looking Good

“VA Chief Acquisition Officer Michael Parrish earlier this month told lawmakers the department was negotiating the addition of new accountability and enforcement mechanisms to the $10 billion EHR software contract.”

So accountability and enforcement mechanisms sounds like an afterthought? You can be absolutely certain accountability was the main issue in my malpractice scandal. We’ll soon see how enforcement shakes out in that case…

LATE UPDATE: VA Has Skirted the Law for Too Long.

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Mifepristone

It is absolutely absurd to me, how this post categorizes Health and Politics together here.

Is that MTG? Should be interesting next time we see her in court…
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Serious Badassification

These baby’s used to just rain 500lb dumb bombs on Vietnam. Somebody should remind Pootin our guys play around with this Stuff all day for fun in the USAF. Just stop leaving them sitting on the ramp at Barksdale overnight! Nothing like a half dozen ALCM’s to ruin your day.

A B-52H Stratofortress assigned to the 5th Bomb Wing is prepped for loading of air-launched cruise missiles during the Global Thunder exercise at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, April 12, 2023. Global Thunder is an annual command and control exercise designed to train USSTRATCOM components, units and task forces as well as assess joint operational readiness. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Zachary Wright)
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Spring Notes Around the Place

We’re looking at freezing overnights again later this week, so no hurry to get the pond going. There’s not much point until it’s time to put the plants out and the Blue Herons are gone, so that’s all weather-driven. Yardwork and lawnmower maintenance are on the bubble. I’m still running the same WeedEater™ mower I bought at the RAF Mildenhall BX in 1993. That was a fun time – Albania, sheesh. I’m literally running that thing until the wheels fall off and then some, with #4 awaiting a re-shim this year. Spent a couple hours trying to patch up the backyard yesterday.

This is what happens to lawns with female dogs: Acidic urine. It’s only around half done, more to do today.
I’m still worried he’s gonna hurt that cat again.
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AI-Enhanced Qualifications

The cartoon’s title is just Qualifications. When Randall’s results become people thinking they know what the computer tells them, I’ll start referring to the outcomes as another A-i-i event. We used to call it subversion back in the day, when the targets were enemies of the state. Today’s electronically-acquired targets can be just about anybody when Big Tech, Pharma, or something with an online and/or broadcast presence and enough coding resources wants your money.

Artificially Induced Intelligence.

It’s pretty incredible what seems to “check out” these days…
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Blue on Black

Tennessee lawmakers suck. The only difference between their little expulsion exercise and the next police brutality episode is which end of the authoritarian pecking order commits it. But every cloud has a silver lining. This event illustrates how the level of tolerance for it has reached new lows.

I’m calling this one the New Group Award for best stepping on your own damn government dick. Ron Johnson holds the individual record. But taken together, theses mutherfuckers really put the ass in asshole. Fuck them. Election time’s always coming somewhere…

Backfired would be an understatement.
Blue on Black -Five Finger Death Punch