Trump Creates Second-Class Citizens

Posted on September 28, 2017 by Robert Pogson

“The Department of Homeland Security is proposing to expand the files it collects on immigrants, as well as some citizens, by including more online data—most notably search results and social media information—about each individual.”
 
See U.S. to Collect Social Media Data of ImmigrantsUSA is a country of many immigrants. Trump has a plan to sort them all out. Immigrants after some date will now be stripped of the right to be free of unreasonable search. Yes, USA will be great after they do that. It’s interesting that the constitution of USA will be side-stepped again by regulation rather than modifying the constitution. Didn’t Trump campaign against that? How soon power has corrupted his feigned respect for human beings.

Posted in politics, technology | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

OMG! Twitter Wants To Enable Trump Further

Posted on September 27, 2017 by Robert Pogson

“We want every person around the world to easily express themselves on Twitter, so we’re doing something new: we’re going to try out a longer limit, 280 characters, in languages impacted by cramming (which is all except Japanese, Chinese, and Korean). “
 
See Giving You More Characters To Express YourselfThis could be horrible. Trump already does the overflow-to-the-next-tweet thing. Now he could tweet less and spread more hate/discord. What the world needs is less Trump, not more. Perhaps Trump should be banned like other racist bigots or limited to eighty characters like the old IBM punched-cards. He wants to take USA backwards so he should be OK with that.

Posted in politics, technology | Tagged , | 12 Comments

Marvell MACCHIATObin Delayed

Posted on September 26, 2017 by Robert Pogson

“Estimated shipping : end of October (Based on availability from Marvell)”
 
See Marvell MACCHIATObinOne of the candidates to replace my AMD64 hair-drying Beast was promised for September but now it’s October…

Shucks! Socketed RAM, SATA connectors, lots of Ethernet… Why can’t these guys deliver something the world needs and wants? This would be the perfect firewall/file-server for my LAN. I’ll have to buy something with not enough RAM and add SATA via USB 3 or something.

Posted in technology | Tagged , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

It’s About Time, Saudi Arabia

Posted on September 26, 2017 by Robert Pogson

“Saudi Arabia’s King Salman issues an order allowing women to be given driving licences”
 
See Saudi women ‘given right to drive’Is it April 1? Nope. Is this some Fake News? I hope not. It’s way past time Saudi women were allowed to drive a motor vehicle. Having to wait on Hubby or some son or uncle to do the job is just silly. I’ve seen a lot of crazy driving in Saudi Arabia. I doubt the women could do any worse. I witnessed several “Riyadh turn”s where someone punches it when the light turns green and hopes he can make across several lanes of traffic before the others get off the line. I witnessed a lot of really expensive automobiles trashed near intersections. Then there was “road rage” or standoffs with neither driver willing to change course. Then there were fiery wrecks by the highway with a tanker truck on one side and an passenger car on the other. The men were rarely willing to give the right of way or wait until there was room to pass. People died because men drove like idiots. Go women!

As much as this looks like progress, there’s still a lot of segregation in Saudi Arabia. I doubt there will ever be a queen, for instance, in my lifetime. There should be, someone to deal properly with the neighbours.

Posted in family, politics | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

From Russia With Hate

Posted on September 26, 2017 by Robert Pogson

“The batch of more than 3,000 Russian-bought ads that Facebook is preparing to turn over to Congress shows a deep understanding of social divides in American society, with some ads promoting African American rights groups, including Black Lives Matter, and others suggesting that these same groups pose a rising political threat, say people familiar with the covert influence campaign.
 
The Russian campaign — taking advantage of Facebook’s ability to send contrary messages to different groups of users based on their political and demographic characteristics — also sought to sow discord among religious groups. Other ads highlighted support for Democrat Hillary Clinton among Muslim women.”
 
See Russian operatives used Facebook ads to exploit America’s racial and religious divisionsYes, the Russians invested heavily in the US election. Evidence provided by FaceBook, probably the tip of the iceberg, clearly was targeted to incite Trumpists to vote and Hillarists to waver. I can see Trumpists like Trump and Bannon suggesting to the Russians just what to do to pick the scabs off several wounds in the USAian psyche complete with timing and regional flavour.

Those holding that there’s “no evidence that Russia influenced a single vote” are correct. The evidence suggests Russia influenced millions of votes. The Russians planted seeds of hate that grew into a win for Trump.

I expect that if FaceBook could find 3000 ads, there may be many times that better hidden. Then there’s Twitter and Breitbart and plain old e-mail and all kinds of PACs and … I can’t imagine Putin left many stones unturned.

Posted in politics, technology | Tagged , , , , | 13 Comments

ASUS Provides Competition In ARM SBCs

Posted on September 25, 2017 by Robert Pogson

“From a performance perspective, the ASUS Tinker Board is a capable ARM SBC for its price tag of only $60 USD. The performance is very good against the inexpensive (sub-$100) boards while obviously if needing greater performance there is more to find with the NVIDIA Jetson line-up.
 
The stock Debian 9.0 image for the Tinker Board is quite capable and useful while for those craving an Android environment there’s that too. The GPIO pin layout and PCB board form factor compatibility with the Raspberry Pi 2+ is nice. Though what the Tinker Board doesn’t have is quite the developer community around this ARM SBC that the Raspberry Pi has built over the years. We’ll see over the months ahead how the Tinker Board community grows and if it can rival that of the more popular ARM developer boards.”
 
See ASUS Tinker Board Is An Interesting ARM SBC For About $60 USD ReviewI had been settled on Odroid-C2 as my standard ARMed client platform but ASUS now has the Tinker Board which is very similar but a bit better on performance/dollar. Besides price/performance, ASUS is very widely distributed so I can buy this thing in Canada for lower shipping costs. I like that. Thanks, Phoronix.

Posted in technology | Tagged , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Plug For PASCAL

Posted on September 24, 2017 by Robert Pogson

“Is it worth the extra effort to add static type annotations to a JavaScript project? Should I use Facebook’s Flow or Microsoft’s TypeScript if so? Will they really catch bugs that would otherwise have made it to master?
 
both Flow and TypeScript are pretty good, and conservatively either of them can prevent about 15% of the bugs that end up in committed code. “That’s shocking. If you could make a change to the way we do development that would reduce the number of bugs being checked in by 10% or more overnight, that’s a no-brainer. Unless it doubles development time or something, we’d do it.”
 
See To type or not to type: quantifying detectable bugs in JavaScriptAssuming the results of this study are transferable to other programming languages, PASCAL, being strongly typed, deserves another plug for simplicity, reliability and speed of development. It’s cool when the biggies plug your favourite feature of your favourite language. I’ve liked PASCAL from Day One. It was designed for teaching and learning but it still is superior to nonsensical languages like C which lack meaning in every line of code. My first PASCAL programme still compiles and runs correctly while C-programmers run for the hills every time the C-compiler gets tweaked and does something differently…

Posted in Teaching, technology | Tagged , , , , | 31 Comments

Trump’s ITC Shoots USA In Solar Foot

Posted on September 23, 2017 by Robert Pogson

“The ITC’s decision is disappointing for nearly 9,000 U.S. solar companies and the 260,000 Americans they employ. Foreign-owned companies that brought business failures on themselves are attempting to exploit American trade laws to gain a bailout for their bad investments.
 
Analysts say Suniva’s remedy proposal will double the price of solar, destroy two-thirds of demand, erode billions of dollars in investment and unnecessarily force 88,000 Americans to lose their jobs in 2018.”
 
See SEIA Statement on Anti-Solar ITC DecisionPity USA! Not only are they saddled with a dinosaur in the Oval Office, the International Trade Commission has decided international trade in solar panels is unfair. This will likely mean a huge rise in the price of solar panels greatly curtailing deployment.

Fortunately, I live in Canada and expect the price of solar panels to continue falling as USA sharply drops its demand for the product. There is a silver lining. It will be even less expensive for me to power my future Solo EV by sunshine.

See also https://www.usitc.gov/press_room/news_release/2017/er0922ll832.htm

Posted in politics, technology | Tagged , , , , , , , | 25 Comments

Where Only The Tough Survive

Posted on September 22, 2017 by Robert Pogson

TLW (The Little Woman) and I have a very difficult yard in which to grow stuff. It’s low. It used to be a swamp but heavy clay soil was imported to raise the grade. Still there is one low spot which subsides and traps water in spring or after heavy rains. It’s wide open to winter winds… We’ve planted a hundred trees and only a few survive. We’ve searched and I think found a species that can grow along this edge of the property, the high bush cranberry.

It’s not a cranberry at all but it does produce tasty red fruit which persists through winter. It’s Viburnum trilobum. It’s native to Canada and my earliest memories of it relate to my mother making gallons of jelly from the fruit. You could find it anywhere, in exposed fencerows, anywhere in the forest, and it loved to be at the edges of the swamps. It has a profusion of white flowers in spring and clusters of red berries at a good height for picking. Imagine that, toughness, versatility, beauty, privacy and delicious food all from a single plant!

Well, I won’t have that. I bought more than 1000 seeds and I intend to keep planting until I have enough shrubs. You guessed it. The perfect plant has one negative. Part of its toughness comes not from producing seed for next year but the year after… Yes, in Nature the seed lies dormant all next summer when it may sprout roots and nothing more. In the following winter seeds grow cotyledons which then emerge in a later spring. Being impatient I’ve a handful of seed stratifying in a bag of moist loam simulating summer. About April, I will place the bag in the refrigerator to simulate winter and plant the seeds in pots in June, saving my patience a whole year… 😉

So, in a year or two I will plant a row of these near perfect shrubs just as I did today with hardy grapes. If I live long enough, my pathetic yard will produce more flowers and fruit than all my neighbours combined. It’s all going to be good. BTW, the newest swath of grass seedlings have taken hold and more mud will grow much more than weeds next year.

Posted in family, food | Tagged | 2 Comments

Trump And Kim Playing With Fire

Posted on September 22, 2017 by Robert Pogson

“Kim’s foreign minister told reporters in New York that Pyongyang could launch a nuclear missile test in response.”
 
See North Korea could test ‘strongest’ hydrogen bomb in Pacific Ocean, says country’s foreign ministerThis is like the 1960s all over again but faster this time. Then USA and USSR were in an arms race and moved nukes closer to each other’s territory. Tests of nuclear weapons were made in the atmosphere and nuclear fallout was contaminating vegetation and animals all over Earth.

The only thing that’s different is now we have two nut-cases leading USA and North Korea. Both “leaders” are erratic and unpredictable. They inspire fear and worry rather than confidence.

If North Korea can deliver a nuke to some target in the Pacific ocean by missile, the game gains momentum. The world is closer to nuclear war. How will it go? A preemptive strike followed by a barrage? Will China and Russia remain neutral? Will both leaders compensate for a possible first strike by giving the military a green light? How many millions will die in the process? Will the egos of these demonic leaders be satisfied? Will humanity learn from or even survive the experience? Stay tuned. You cannot change the channel.

Posted in technology | 3 Comments

Thin Edge Of The Wedge

Posted on September 21, 2017 by Robert Pogson

“According to French press reports, by switching from a proprietary tool to Zimbra, the city avoids having to pay EUR 700,000 for renewal of proprietary licence fees. The city has earmarked EUR 200,000 to cover the exit costs and to tailor Zimbra to the needs of the administration.”
 
See City of Rennes to tackle IT vendor lock-inI wasn’t at first avoiding vendor lock-in when I first began to use GNU/Linux in schools (I just wanted software that worked.) but I’ve seen this e-mail problem in schools. Some company has ownership of your data and if you want to continue using their product you pay through the nose for the right to keep access to your data… It’s a racket. The same thing extended to the desktop OS with fake new file-formats designed simply to keep users on the Desktop OS treadmill. Enough of that.

Use FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software). It’s software that works for people not slave-masters disguised as businesses providing a service. The world can and does make its own software. There’s no need for monopoly. Use GNU/Linux and FLOSS applications.

Posted in Linux in Education, technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

EVSEs fall in price

Posted on September 18, 2017 by Robert Pogson

“AV 30 Amp – 15ft Cable, UL- ListedPrice: $749.00
 
$539.00″
 
See AV 30 Amp – 15ft Cable, UL- ListedOK, so the quotation on the right is an ad for an Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment. I just gave that as an example of the price of things. One of the impediments to adoption of electric vehicles is the still low volume of sales/installations of EVSEs. It cost ~$500 CDN even for a simple 120V adapter. Many home EVSEs cost ~$1000 and often an electrician doubles the price for the labour and materials to extend electrical service to the garage or driveway.

Apparently, that’s changing. The sheer volume of sales of EVs has grown so that EVSEs are coming down in price through market-forces/supply and demand. Thus, it should be easier than ever to make my 2018 Solo EV happy. 😉

Posted in technology | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments