Category: Tech

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New Workstation

The AMD 5000G workstation I built almost three years ago has performed remarkably well, but It’s lost a step. I’d be quite happy running it another year at least, but it developed an unsolved random hang bug about a year ago. It appears to lock up, but just loses the trackball, accepting keyboard input only, requiring a soft reset to get things going again. I’ve replaced literally every user-serviceable component connected to the mainboard in the past couple of months. Now it’s to the point where sometimes it won’t come back up without a hard reset and getting worse – a daily if not multiple times-a-day occurrence.

Error messages typically point to ethernet, wifi or NVME drive issues, but it seems they are just complaining because the system is hung. No other indication in any logs anywhere I can find. So it’s down to the processor itself, and/or the onboard APU graphics. With a new W6400 graphics adapter on order, I suddenly realized I was wasting my time again. So I ordered the rest of the parts to outfit an empty case sitting on the floor here in the workshop. Waiting for the power supply to fire up this new 7700X.

Eight Zen4 cores with 128Gig RAM. Should be a real screamer.

With chip prices receding from pre-holiday and pandemic levels, this comes in at about half the cost of a similarly spec’d machine off the shelf. The case is a little dirty and scratched, but it will run just the same. I switched sides in the Intel/AMD war on that last cycle as mentioned and haven’t looked back. Intel’s response to the malware issue over the years just left too sour a taste in my mouth. It’s starting to look like Intel will rule the gamer market and AMD will supply the corporate server customers. Okie Dokie.

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Not Exactly Punishment

Budget is really the only tool the government wields in these conflicts. As usual, the impact will be to just make it worse. Schedule moves right, cost goes up, quality and predictability go down. It’s an oft-repeated refrain in the defense contracting business and we are doing it to ourselves. Maybe Boeing will think it all the way through this time.

“The Air Force is cutting in half the number of tankers it planned to buy as an interim step, as part of a move to rethink its overall aerial refueling modernization strategy, the service’s acquisition chief said Monday.”

They’ve already started a new tanker program. Wonderful.
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Hacking Defense Vectors

Here’s independent local confirmation on a cybersec topic I’d been overlooking in the mass media. My biggest concerns in the network defense business were always external actors looking for big things in high-level enterprises. Everybody I worked with had a security clearance, so it was normally assumed nobody was looking to abuse the computer tools. With crypto disappearing at alarming rates and international skullduggery proceeding apace, it’s refreshing to remember people have bills to pay and the cyber n’er-do-wells are no different.

Sale of Stolen Credentials and Initial Access Dominate Dark Web Markets.

“The information stolen included the names and Social Security numbers of current and former participants in the DPS employee health plan, employee fingerprints, bank account numbers or pay card numbers, driver’s license numbers, passport numbers and health plan enrollment information.”

Then they pull this shyt.

Just hope someone doesn’t really want to break things and hurt people. You can play with annoying DOS and sinkholing crap all you want, but the best preemptive strikes are a 1-keystroke [enter] pull-of-the-pin, scripting the desired outcome. You have to already be in for that to work – longer the recon, the better. Staying on top of that good account/password management is your first line of defense, but USB sticks can walk right by. These days they can do it at the speed of light remotely from a cellphone, if you’re not careful.

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Security Costs!

Twitter™ limiting 2-factor authentication to paid subscriptions. Nice. At a time when fraudsters are disappearing with $billions of crypto and every other nightly news day ends with some story about another TikTok or Instagram scam, we have the Chief Twit enforcing lax security on a popular social media site. Wonderful.

How to keep ur Twitter™ account secure without giving Musk any money.

Meta’s selling blue checks now, too! Get it quick, before your account gets “drowned by imposters or fake accounts.” They actually say that as a selling point, no shyt. Extra security looks real attractive, and they’ll sell it to ya for $12-15/mo. I wonder how much of that money they’re still printing gets spent on internal security rooting out the imposters and fakes? Musk just recently finished killing off the Content Moderation people at Twitter. None of the balance sheets are going in the right direction, so he’s a little impatient.

Used to be local storefronts and various other small businesses, back in the day. Organized crime shake-downs have graduated to cyber, reaching out for every potential individual customer’s pocket or purse, right up front.

Fly away birdie! Please – fly far, far away…
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Crypto Came to Fruition

…as just another racket, in remarkably quick fashion. Like some other bygone neo-techno paradigms such as “the Automobile,” “Healthcare” and “the Internet,” the Finance industry’s Crypto wing represents alot of money looking for somewhere to be spent. As usual, eager entrepreneurs rush to cash in both legitimately and otherwise, before it’s safe and/or ready for prime time.

In Genesis’ case, investors have been put off by a lack of clarity over the size of the cash injection necessary to plug the hole, says David Bailey, CEO at Bitcoin Magazine, who also leads an activist group that represents the interests of investors in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, a DCG subsidiary. He describes the shortfall as “massive and unknown in scope.”

What happens when fundamentally flawed systems get piled on top of each other at the societal level?
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Broadcast Television

…is little more than marketing garbage these days. That includes the political variety – marketing various morons for public office. The run-up to elections merely puts them in-your-face 24×7 for a few weeks. I imagine this includes the cable nets as well, but I haven’t subscribed to those ripoffs for at least a decade, so dunno.

Years ago I used to repeatedly lament how every new generation of television set got better at doing bad things. Now I am convinced they are good for only one thing: Sports. News and timewasting (movies, whatever) to a lesser extent, but it’s all irreparably marred with the marketing. I’m starting to count how many kickoffs I miss because they now manipulate digital delays to extend commercial time when that play is inconsequential. Don’t even get me started on the volume bullshyt.

Even the late night talk shows I used to enjoy are now just a rehash of the news with jokes inserted + entertainment industry marketing with visits from all the interesting Hollywood and music people. The YouTube™ clips save alot of time these days. Then you get the greedy bastards at places like FOX™ and their sub-imitators, who skillfully blend marketing and politics to the point where half the country is now brainwashed.

Experience? More like an ongoing nightmare.
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Musk Really is a Total Cocksucker

I hope his Starlink system goes the same path Twitter™ is on now. Everybody has a right to self defense. Why did they ever do it in the 1st place? The fuckwit’s just pissed he thinks he’s not making enough money with it. Total greedy, cocksucking, billionaire fuckface that twit is, fer sure.

What the FUCK did they expect? Idiot. They’ll weaponize Twitter™, given the opportunity.
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It’s the Internet!

Wonder why so much fraud, scam and political skullduggery seems to be going on these days? Maybe it’s just the same old shyt with me getting older noticing it more? Gaining better perspective on certain things as life goes on would be normal, methinks. I still haven’t changed my long-standing view of one common cyber denominator analogous to meatspace since the (public) Internet’s inception when I started helping build it back in the late 80s: The WIld West.

Law is always playing catch-up. Things need to go wrongly enough first before societal critical mass moves to address the issue legislatively, judicially and operationally. I suspect the real reason behind cyber-enabled white-collar crime is simply that many people are making big bank in the dark web fuckery business with impunity. More to the point, the underworld’s selling illicit drugs and legitimate business interests in the FIRE sector love it, because it’s only all on paper (drive?). Half the time they can literally do it legally with chatboxes and byzantine answering programs effectively insulating them from the customers.

You can lie, cheat and steal all you want and probably get away with it these days – as long as you’re smart enough and behind a keyboard. Hell, get enough of them typing in the same direction, and you can get this fuckwit elected POTUS.

4 more years! 4 more years! for fraud, (in the NY State Penn)
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Will Boeing Ever be Punished?

It’s like Boeing is ≈ Trump in terms of accountability. They fly 737s full of people into the ground, egregiously ripping off the government time and again, and the Air Force just begs for more. Everybody concerned with the topic understands the criticality of in-flight re-fueling. I guess they just overlooked the part about R&D testing.

Ten years later, ten people stand around shakin’ their head agreeing this shyt doesn’t work right.

Members of the 60th Aerial Port Squadron load cargo into a KC-46A Pegasus Oct. 8, 2021, at Travis Air Force Base, California. Members from Boeing, Air Mobility Command, and Air Force Materiel Command visited the 60th APS Oct. 7-9 to evaluate their planning, configuration process and cargo loading operations for the KC-46A Pegasus. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Alexander Merchak)

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Think We Have Classification Issues?

“US Air Force Awards Contract to Polysentry to Develop AI-enabled Data Classification Platform.”

Apparently we’ve already been doing this for some time. Maybe review the White House contracts for the past few administrations? Alrighty, then. Now imagine doing this shyt while some Fuckwit‘s working with the Russians to get elected POTUS and kill NATO. Good thing they couldn’t keep a lid on the Ukraine shyt.

This Stuff‘s really pretty straightforward at their level.
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Aerospace Pics are Back!

I stopped following Air Force Magazine online a few years ago after they underwent some back-end reorg that appeared to neuter their graphics publishing. Basically, they had stopped sharing the high-res photography our camera shooters collect every day, ostensibly due to IT constraints.

I guess they got it sorted at some point.

Stuff just got better – promoting U.S. Aerospace Power!
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Lithium and Natives

“This is just the beginning you know,” Melendez said. “We’re going to be building larger coalitions not just with this issue on Thacker Pass, but the issues all across America where lands are being desecrated.”

I could probably use a little for consumption. Batteries? Yeah, we need those too…

Industrial revolution followed by the high tech boom has almost killed the planet.