Month: May 2015

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Sometimes ya gotta bend the rules!

Karen Momsen-Evers

I read about this woman the other day.

Seems her husband sent her a text message just as she was getting on a plane and now she’s saying that Southwest Airlines prevented her from calling her husband to prevent his suicide.

I think that the whole incident was handled badly from start to finish. I hate to say it but I think the woman is trying to implicate Southwest as somehow partially responsible for her husbands death, perhaps for monetary gain.

I’ve read several versions of the story and with each version it seems more like she’s looking for someone to blame. 

Sadly her husband killed himself. But this lady had the option to step off the plane

Southwest

The Flight attendant could have explained other options to this distraught lady.

The flight attendant was DEAD wrong if in fact, she slapped the phone down. Try that with me and it’s going to get REAL ugly REAL fast!

I’ve noticed that flight attendants these days are far more sanctimonious and rule bound than they need to be. I know they put up with a lot, and passengers are already spun up by security, lines, and the cattle car environment of planes these days, but flight attendants don’t have to be assholes! They are after all, servicers!

Flightattendant

It would have been nothing for the flight attendant to tell the pilot about this lady’s concern and get a call to emergency services in her township. In fact it would have been easier for the airline to make that call than the lady herself. If she’d dialed 911 in New Orleans, she’d have gotten 911 in Louisiana. Someone at Southwest ticketing or even the control tower might have had better luck finding a Sheriffs number in Wisconsin, making the call with the address and getting emergency services to the lady’s home.

The problem is that the Flight attendant wasn’t listening. A problem we see all too often, these days and more often than in the past this not hearing someone out ends in tragedy.

All that being said, with each telling of the story I’ve heard or read, something doesn’t sound quite right.

This event doesn’t’ pass the smell test with me, I think if someone digs into it we’ll find other issues and possibly simple greed. 

Do life insurance policies pay off if the policy holder kills themselves?

Makes me wonder, how about you?

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Well that seems to have cured the problem…

workinglaptop

Unfortunately, It means that now I have to get back to work, looking for work.

My network is once again happy and stable. Backups are being made in minutes instead of hours and surprise surprise surprise, my access to the internet is once again solid.

It’s amazing what a few bad components (all of whom report they’re happy and functional) can do to screw your world up.

It’s going to take me a few more days to stop being twitchy about my network, but I’m sure that in no time I’ll take it for granted like I’ve done for the past 5 or 6 years.

We’ve got bandwidth, we’ve got gigabit, we’ve got connection!

I’m happy!

computer idiot

Oh and I discovered another little bit of interesting information.

Those of you that are not Time Capsule or Mac users might want to stop reading here.

I think I’ve found an answer to a problem that I’ve been seeing over the past month or so. The internet has been almost completely useless in resolving the issue in part because of one guy who apparently posted the exact same question on every message board ON THE PLANET! Hey dumbass, that kind fucks up any useful search results for the rest of us.

Anyway…

I think I’ve found the solution for one of the discoveryd problems. This may work for you, it may not. Apple’s discoveryd service has been, and is being documented as having serious issues. Some of these issues appear to be associated with Apple’s “handoff” and automatic hotspot functions.

IPv6addresslayout

I haven’t figured out that stuff yet. But I have managed to put a stop to my logs being overrun with one particular error.

Here’s the deal,

I’ve been seeing this error all over my logs.

5/15/15 10:31:05.057 PM discoveryd[75]: Basic Sockets Couldn’t set IP_BOUND_IF on socket fd[63] scopeID[4] errno[22] result[-1]

This error happened so frequently and hit my computer so hard that it would suck the battery down in just a few hours, my computer would heat up because it was running the CPU at near 100% and all the while it’s silent except for the traces in the log.

internetrainbow

I thought this was an artifact of the dying routers and drives, but that assumption was wrong.

Last night after I’d become mostly convinced that the network was stable, I noticed my computer was running warm again. I wasn’t doing anything to account for the system being run hard enough to be that warm. I had safari open in the background but I was actually doing some word processing.

I checked the logs and found that this error was literally zipping past. The console application was posting this message 50 times a second.

So I went to google. There I found the dumbass person’s question all over the place but few possible explanations and no answers.

Then I decided to look at IP_BOUND_IF to find out if it was an Apple only function or if it was a general UNIX function. Turns out, it was discussed on a general UNIX board.

From there I started investigating. I noticed by navigating to some web sites I could increase the frequency of the messages and by going to other web sites I could stop the message all together.

switches

This suggested that the problem wasn’t actually in my computer or even in my network, but that the problem was externally induced.

There were some websites that wouldn’t render any page, but those same sites would make this IP_BOUND_IF error post faster.

Then I stumbled across some sites talking about IPv6 having been enabled on some ISPs. This reminded me that I’d seen an IPV6 DNS entry when I was setting up the new router and that entry had been automatically populated.

I was curious if my new ISP had in fact turned on IPv6, so I went to the router control interface. Sure enough, there was an IPv6 DNS entry. Oh Cool! I thought, then I noticed there was no IPv6 address being provided to the router via the WAN.

DHCP is providing my IPv4 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx address and an appropriate DNS address to the router. But the only IPv6 information is a WAN supplied DNS address.

I wondered if my web requests were trying to go out to the IPv6 DNS address for lookup and results were supposed to come back to an IPv6 Client address that wasn’t assigned. That might explain why IP_BOUND_IF was failing. I know next to nothing about IPv6 standards. I’ve tried reading about it but have found that the specification makes a much better sleeping aid than educational one.

logos

I figured, “Awww what the hell,” I told the router, do local link IPv6 only. That means that my machines that support it inside my network will get IPv6, but that it will not be routed to the internet at large.

The IP_BOUND_IF errors went away, my internet surfing got faster and all pages now rendered properly. I don’t know if I guessed right, but my logs aren’t sucking up 100% of my CPU resources anymore.

Obviously, my ISP is working on IPv6 and they’ll probably implement it sometime in the future. When they do turn is on I’ll tell my router to use it. For the time being though, I’ll keep the IPv6 internal and rely on the good old IPv4 standard to surf the web.

For what it’s worth, I hope this helps. I make no warranty or guarantee.

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This is why many conservative gay folks…

sandyrios

… are still in the conservative closet. Yeah they’re out about their sexuality, but not about their philosophy, or politics.

All I can say after reading and listening to what this woman said is, “ARE YOU F&$KING KIDDING ME?”

Sandy Rios of Sandy Rios In The Morning said ON AIR that she’s wondering if the sexuality of the Amtrak Engineer in Tuesday’s train derailment was a factor in the accident.

PennsylvaniaTrainCrash

She goes to great lengths and is obviously choosing her words carefully to say she’s not inferring the accident happened because Bostian is gay…

Then goes on to infer exactly that! (Yeah and some of your best friends are gay too!)

Here’s a link to the article in the Huffington Post

LAfreewaybailout

This is the same as me saying, “I’m not inferring that because her last name is hispanic that she’s likely to leave the scene of an auto accident but well sometimes being hispanic is a factor in hit & run accidents… I was once in an accident where a hispanic lady left the scene. I mean she just abandoned her car and a friend picked her up before the cops came.“

True story, The lady did abandon her car on the freeway, left behind one hell of a mess for the CHP to clean up. 

For years gays have been accused of having larger amounts of disposable income than their straight counterparts. Additionally, they’re supposed to be more into taking care of themselves, they’re supposed to drive nicer cars, have nicer homes and apartments, they’re typically well educated, well insured, and well just awesome in every way.

Were you describing a straight person with all those same traits, you’d say they’re responsible & reliable.

gayborhood

Yet when you preface those same traits with “They’re gay…” somehow these traits lose their blush and now all that responsibility & training counts for nothing with conservative assholes like Rios.

I’m a mostly conservative asshole, and I know a lot of really conservative gay men. We’re not obvious about our conservative beliefs for two reasons.

1) Lots of gays are totally Democratic, progressive liberal dip shits.

2) People like this ‘gash in a sundress’, (Thank you Pam from TrueBlood, that is a great line!)

Pam

When you say you’re a conservative gay person you’re treated badly, and people identify you with Perry, Santorum, Rush Limbaugh, or crazed bible thumpers from Westboro Baptist Church.  Obviously, none of my conservative gay friends are anything like these examples, and by the way we don’t hate ourselves either.

Generally we’re thinkers who tend to prefer common sense practicality over “theory”. We don’t tend to buy into social engineering and are more about people deciding what’s best for themselves. We realize we don’t have to agree on every point with someone else and can hold discussions with folks who have different opinions without resorting to name calling. After we’ve had even “spirited” discussions, we can still be friends, have a beer and even sex, and feel great about life and how lucky we are.

WestboroBaptistchurch

Thank goodness this lady isn’t mainstream.

Next, people like Rios would be claiming that gays shouldn’t operate heavy machinery, drive cars, or fly planes, for fear of a gay person “getting the Vapors” and losing control.

[After all it only takes one despondent faggot, and planes get crashed into the ground.

Oh wait the German pilot was straight… oh wait the Islamic terrorists that crashed into Pennsylvania were straight, and it was a gay man that was one of the leaders of the rebellion against the terrorists on flight 93.]

Flight93memorial

The same line of reasoning was, ironically enough, used to deny women the vote and briefly the ability to drive in this country.

That line of “Less than” reasoning is STILL used in some countries in the Middle East to deny women’s rights.

So Ms. Rios, YA might want to think for just a moment about all the privileges and rights you have, which would have been denied simply because you’re a woman and therefore “Less Capable”.

Then for just a moment think about the fact that you’re suggesting a “Less Than Capable” status because someone is gay. Then after that…

selfiedriving

Do us ALL a favor and shut your pie hole!

Allow me to spell this out using small words so you can understand the meaning.

Gay people are just like everyone else.

Give gay people ALL the rights of being a US citizen and you’ll see just how normal, and dare I say it, “Average” they are.

Oh and by the way, we’re better drivers than you straights…

We do have nicer cars and therefore have to be better drivers, just to avoid accidents with distracted soccer moms like you!

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Hey Comedy Central, Its time for “The Nightly Show” to GO!

larrywilmore

Larry Wilmore is about as funny as a finding out you just went down on someone with an antibiotic resistant venereal disease.

The sad part is that he thinks he’s funny.

I thank God that I have an “OFF” button on my remote control, each and every time I hear this guy open his mouth.

Comedy Central you need to stick with interesting stuff that is actually funny.

Key and Peele for example are experimental and sometimes I plain don’t get it, but they’re worth watching because when they get it right, they’re funny as hell.

I watch your network to laugh, South Park, Futurama, & your stand up comedians usually make my day. Do what you do well, keep us laughing!

SouthPark WavingShot

The Nightly Show is absolute SHIT!

If I want cynical, comedic news, I’ll watch CNN.

Even Tosh.0 is better than Larry Wilmore & The Nightly Show. My fingers burst into flames typing that!

Call this guy and his show a #FAIL and move on.

Or you can keep registering God knows how many people pressing the “OFF” button…

Your Choice.

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Sometimes being cheap is more expensive.

AppleTimeCapsule

After fiddling around with backups, networks, dropping WiFi connections, and a myriad of other tiny annoying issues I came to the conclusion that I’d have quite enough of death by a thousand cuts!

I just yanked out two 7 year old Apple time capsules and the NetGear router that was freaking awesome when I bought it, but which became a complete POS with subsequent firmware upgrades.

With each “Upgrade” the machine got slower. Now its to the point that the device is now almost completely useless. (Before you ask, I’ve downgraded the unit to previous versions of the firmware. It doesn’t help. At some point, there must have been a hardware module that was reprogrammed, but is not being flashed to its original state. Or theres something really wrong with the device itself.)

The Time Capsules were very reliable over their lifespans. The larger of the two units WiFi had become unreliable and that’s what prompted me to purchase the NetGear. I was trying to save money by replacing the WiFi and continuing to use the hard drives in the Time Capsules.

Recently the drives were becoming increasingly unreliable and the NetGear device had become way too SLOW to do any kind of WiFi to disk transfer. In fact the NetGear unit was slowing data transfers down on wired connections too. 

IMG 0472

Although the NetGear bought me a year, I should have done what I did yesterday instead of going cheap…

Yesterday, I bought a new 3TB Apple Time Capsule. If this one lasts 7 years like the previous units it’s replacing, I’ll have gotten my money out of it.

Best Buy is running a $50 off special on the unit so there is that.

This also simplified the network cabinet considerably, I was able to remove 2 devices completely.

This little cabinet is where all the communications in the house is accessible. Phone line, cables for TVs in whatever rooms and of course al the networking. I do wish that when the installation people for the Satellite TV and the Satellite internet had been a bit more frugal with the lengths of the cable they were running. It’s a pain in the butt fighting with 8 or 10 RG58 & RG56 cables that run along the back of the top shelf. 

In a fit of annoyance yesterday, I mounted a spitter and some kind of power unit from DirecTV to the top and rear wall of the cabinet. I shouldn’t have had to do that, the installation guy should have done it. I didn’t notice until after the installation guy split, that he’d not mounted these things, having them rattling around in the top of the cabinet was a royal pain in the ass anytime I needed to do something up there.

IMG 0474

I still need to purchase a set of CAT6 patch cables of the correct length to connect the switch to all the wall sockets and peripherals. But the cabinet is once again clean and in general orderly.

I can provide Gigabit speed ethernet throughout the house. Once I pick up the patch cables all but one of the ports on the switch will be connected (Yes, I have 13 sockets in the house. Hey I wanted to be prepared for whatever! You never know when you might have to supplement NORAD…)  

Currently, not all the devices in the house can take advantage of gigabit due to their age, but the potential is there as equipment is updated.

Success! I’ve moved the salvageable data from the older drives onto the new Time Capsule. I haven’t flushed those units quite yet. I’ll wait until the new TC is past its infant mortality period. Then its low level format time and reset to factory defaults for everything I’ve yanked out of the network. (Quite a pile now.) Then it is away to E-Recycling for all of it, I hate trashing this stuff, I wish to heck it was repairable. 

Its not a sentimental attachment, its hating the thought of adding to the e-waste problem. I’d really appreciate Apple or whoever making products that could be retrofitted with the latest technology.  

Macbook Air

Take my MacBook Air for example. It’s a fantastic machine. Because I purchased the full boat machine with all the upgrades available at the time, it still beats many of the new Apple Machines including the new Macbook, and all of the Macbook Airs.

There are two areas that are starting to become dated. 1) WiFi and 2) The display is not a retina display.

As of this writing new Macbook Airs aren’t available with a retina display anyway.

It would be very cool to hand Apple my Air, plunk some cash on the table and have them upgrade the WiFi, the display and hell, why not throw a 1TB SSD in the machine while they’re at it.

Because… I am sentimentally attached to my Macbook.

I suppose it would cut into their sales a bit but they’d be SUPER Green if they offered that option.

I can swap out the current 512 SSD drive for a 1TB SSD through Other World Computing. It only costs about $500 or so. I’m not that slammed for disk space yet but when I get there, I’ll go for it. Hopefully It’ll extend the life of my Air for another 4 years.

Oh Cool! Thus far, I’m seeing major speed improvements on data being moved to the network drives and my backups are now taking only 6 minutes instead of a projected 8 hours.

I’m such a dumbass, I saved $150 bucks last year only to subject myself annoyances and troublshooting that cost far more in terms of my time, lost data, and general frustration, than the savings.

OH well… Live and freaking learn!