Thoughts of Dan

Like most people I leave my browsers download folder to the default "Downloads" on Windows 10. I have on occasion had an issue where I download something and then want to upload it somewhere else right away, but when I browse to my Downloads folder Windows Explorer does not show me the contents of the directory,  Instead it says "Working on it." This time it frustrated me enough I decided to fix the problem.  It turns out the reason what it that Windows 10 optimizes folders for certain types of data.  In my case (and probably yours too) my Download folder was set to type "Pictures."  What this means to Windows aside from "be slow" I don't know.  I assume there is a thumbnail generation process, indexing and other things that are technical but would add value to a folder filled with pictures. But I don't need to wait for that, and as an engineer, I download a ton of stuff that are not pictures.  And you probably do too -- music, ga...

The President has declared October as Cybersecurity month.  It's not a bad idea -- just like you change the batteries in your smoke detectors once a year, maybe you should review your electronic vulbnerabilities? My top ten security tips: 1) Change your passwords.  You've had them too long, you use the same password in too many places.  Somewhere someone has hacked a site that has your username and password in plain text.  Now they are getting ready to try that username/password somewhere else.  Beat them to the punch. 2) Use a safe browser.  That means anything that's not Internet Explorer.   I prefer chrome. 3) Use 2 step verification for your email account.  If your email doesn't provide 2 step authentication consider switching. 4) Get a free credit report  and review it.  You are entitled to one free report a year.   BE VERY CAREFUL!  There are man scam sites that offer free credit reports.  Go through the s...

The other day I was opening a packet of ketchup and on one side it said "open here."  I said aloud "You're not the boss of me!" and opened the packet from the other end, which worked just fine. It is not in me to submit to authority.  I will HAPPILY put my shoulder to the wheel to help anyone do almost anything.  But if you tell me I HAVE to do something?  I'm going to at best resent it, and at worst try to make it obvious that compelling me makes us enemies.  If you try to harness me, I will spit the bit. I'm different.  I mean we're all different, but I am *different.*  I grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons.  I competed in soccer and lacrosse as a young man, not football or baseball.  I had a Bar Mitzvah.  I spent a year studying in Europe.  I can get my face slapped in several languages.   " In toto nusquam corpore menda fuit ."  I love football, action flicks, science fiction and musical theater.  I have an a...

ДО СВИДАНИЯ ЛЕТО Doh Svedanyah Lyeto (Poet's note -- to be read aloud) Charge your glasses and toast the summer 'Fifteen Gone much too quickly, as if never been. Yet hints of it linger to buoy the keen As Autumn approaches and changes the scene. I have counted days passing, while sat at the shore I have slept in the sunshine and woke wanting more I pondered the Pleiades and wondered "What for?" I will not leave summer, like the party's last boor. I secure the lee line and make everything fast The fisherman throwing the redemptive cast. And though I deny it, the truth outs at last Fewer days lie ahead than exist in my past The dripping faucet gets the plumber Behind the beat the lazy drummer The silent rock grows ever dumber A muted witness to the last of summer. Our youth is betrayed by our bodies last treason So put down your labor and come join with me son Time marches on without rhyme or reason I...

Today is Juneteenth , and on the heels of a racially motivated massacre, we are forced to ask ourselves once again -- when can we end this violence?  When shall we know peace with our brothers?  When will we achieve the dream that we all judge each other by the content of our character?  How can we end the hate? The traditional thinking is that prior to the civil war, the North was enlightened and the South was filled with bigots.  Of course the truth is never so absolute.  We know that Thomas Jefferson was in fact a slave owner.  We know that he also wrote the following passage, that was later removed from the Declaration of Independence: He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.  This piratical warfa...

My friend   Chuck Hobbs , a frequent and eloquent writer to places like The Hill posted a photo on facebook which included a naked breast to make a point.  Facebook responded by suspending his account and silencing an eloquent voice. In particular Mr Hobbs is a voice of reason regarding the state of race relations in our country and a proponent of peaceful interaction.  Because he refuses to preach hatred he is an enemy of those who wish for us ti implode.  I suspect that someone like this complained about his post. Facebook!  Give up the censorship!  You're making a mistake in this specific case as well as in general.  Trying to censor the web is a ridiculous idea -- people will always be able to get around whatever guardianship you try to implement.  You are making an admirable attempt to curtail hate speech, and I appreciate your motive -- but the greatest gift Facebook has given to us is the ability for diverse people to come together ...

When something is free, it has no value and people treat it as such. When I worked at a great hospital in Boston, we used to offer free printing to everyone in our small division -- 1000 people were generating printing costs of $100,000 per year. So we put a program in place so that when people sent a job to the printer, they had to go to the printer to release the job with their username/password (this was also important for HIPPA reasons -- can't leave patient records on the printer tray). This allowed us to see how much people were printing. After one year we had some pretty good stats on how much everyone printed, so we told people that we were going to start charging $0.01 per page for back and white prints and $0.07 for color. We also gave everyone an "allowance" of $50 a year, and we displayed their balance on the screen when they released their print jobs. Out printing dropped by 75%.    It wasn't that anyone was deprived -- no one ended up...

I attended the Massachusetts Libertarian Party state committee meeting last Saturday, and as always I left thinking:  "I know I'm being paranoid, but am I being paranoid enough?" To that end, I have generated a new 4096 bit public key.  Scroll down further for my 2048 key. If you want to know how to use it, check out Mailvelope -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: Mailvelope v0.12.0 Comment: https://www.mailvelope.com xsFNBFUINcABEACb+EdqKx3fidEqoJguHYOTN9Il2AKyDISvJSIIthmREUHF swLXUeZJMoTtJIg/LVG9Javct82Br8gMewEZdavgROMKChOWikWIyiaxiN8j FEBv3+YNDqk0LzgAKtUVtM7/zc2/AVw3wwuK0LwPXqhsP2FDH5clIHarp8PA TeqYPaw0fdtDf9MOtABmqpGnbjK/V3CH+4xLkvvV04ygzgVpygRyFY+hDL/M YC+msOQPbg/qYE4uiJvOqOr8In3cUKi8VhMuxGe8TU7v3DcNcICvoh81riB4 HezeFODgxuzgz04Hn4Gd8DlYWopwwqcS2gilYJ4oFCEbzAJLI/m9vFQTxpxA Jmds34wCC2t6x6ofmxSXb2MNASzmD0EN0Pq1N1JEx7mapkScZBxW+MNdsOjX L9Wa2IGWjM6qAeMwl9DMDh3ZOR3FiONmWc64+UFOHF8qCExuNIXFLTGSTtVj jkB0kADuw4XPULkoZefSXwXw9a21TD2IyH7hbMtPrr4cz6AEkgRBbu...

Regarding deflate-gate Amounton's Law says "The pressure of a gas of fixed mass and fixed volume is directly proportional to the gas's absolute temperature." So P/T = Constant For comparing the same substance under two different sets of conditions, the law can be written as: P 1 /T 1 = P 2 /T 2 I'm also going to do this in metric to avoid other potential errors. And I apologize that I am 30 years from doing this sort of work 12.5 psi = 86.18 kPa ( kiloPascals) 75F=23.89C = 297.04K 30F=-1.11C = 272.04K So 86.18/297.04 = P 2 /272.04 0.29= P 2 /272.04 P 2 =78.93kPa 78.93kPa= 11.45PSI Temperature change from 75F to 30F degrees would result in a football ball losing ~1 pound of pressure per square inch. Now this does not account for ALL of the claimed 2lbs PSI that was measued as having been lost -- but we don't know that the ball began at 12.5 -- what if they began at 12? What if they were inflated in a 78 degree room? I think ear...