Saturday, January 31, 2015

Anti-Terror Terror

Article

Let's fight this as we did all the other crap limiting the Internet and such.  Where is Geist?  Has he become too comfy on all his earnings?  We need him.

All of this can be handled under existing laws.  Especially propagating the killing crap (only in Canada).  Unlike the US, we have hate laws.  Prosecute that radical nut with that!  Stopping potential terrorists from going to Syria can also be done with existing laws.

They always want to go too far.  This will cost our economy dearly as all the bright ones go to California (the dollar isn't helping).  NO FISHING ON THE INTERNET!

Addition:  Our Russian friend, Snow-happy, revealed that Canada fished millions of downloads and got two weak leads that crapped out.  Although the proposed legislation may not mention fishing directly, how are they going to enforce it?  You can bet the fishers of men will be lining up the next day for a few mil.

Oh - Oh!       Harper of Killjoy
                      The Face that Launched a Thousand Ships (to California)

New Texas Injection Zone

I told you it would happen again.  The idiot son decides to mix in surface water (fracking waste) into the salt water injection well, and we get another series of earthquakes.



Right now these are poorly located.  They should be right on top of each other.  This is a fine game of Whack-a-Mole, and let's see how big we get.  :)

**Remember, if anybody in Texas were honest we'd know how to treat frack waste for injection.

Addition:  I think we've had about 5 of these games in T-land.  Maybe more.

Friday, January 30, 2015

Wither Goest Google?

Hot news on Disqus, my tech discussion forum, is that Google is getting sliced to ribbons in the mobile ad market.  Facebook and its children are cleaning up with the teenyboppers.  Trouble is, that these young people are all unemployed and don't buy anything, except maybe a new iphone every other year.

As well, the articles say that this market is open for new entrants to make a killing.  Anybody with a few mil of venture capital can start a new outfit, like Painterest, where young celebrities paint nude graffiti of themselves on virtual walls.  :)  (That's a joke, son)

This ad market will crash.  But where's the money?  Where can my hotshot Valley son go?  Why back into the resurgent Google.  They will adopt my method of flat corporate organization and go after the oldies ad market.  Japan is totally choked with old guys guys wanting school-girl robots, ordered on-line.

I envision my G-chair, with voice keyboard in front of my giant 4K chromebook screen.  I scream "WANT THAT!" and it's instantly delivered by drone.  My g-glass magnifies fine print and hearing, for the few times I venture out with the dog.  When we have parties, I'll be asking "What the hell is her name again, you know, that irritating bitch?"  It'll have to pick up my sub-vocalizing, since I don't want it to say "You just said that out loud."  Bummer.

My g-band will measure heart and brain signals, and blood levels, all going into my personal g-assistant.  The ads will say "Ask your doctor about Gammystan, the new miracle drug that will clear up the pain in your right knee.  You should also order some more GM Super-prune, for that other problem."

This is paradise!  And Google rakes off 10%.

 ps. The Googster may not be in on this if they succumb to old-company disease, which I think is probable.  #1 son will have to form a new company.



Thursday, January 29, 2015

Workplace Collaboration Again

After the sillies with witnit.com, I was noticing all the big and small players are humping the workplace collaboration camel again.  Trouble is, they all want to sell it to dysfunctional big companies with rigid hierarchies, who would actually pay.

It won't happen.  For 30 years at the old company, I tried bring things in.  I was just trying to settle for forums, and maybe wiki-type pages.  Nope.  They still go with Outlook email with monstrous cc lists which each person likes to fiddle with.  But all the email releases (from MS) got all the bosses spooked, so they would never say anything on email that would nail them to the wall.  Everything got done through a single channel (phone or meeting) where you were told what to do, and on your head be it!  Practically every company works this way.

Why is this?  In an organization stricken with old-company disease, the fundamental political schema is feudal.  Each person (who wants to advance) spends 90% of his time looking up.  Every email is written with that in mind.  Hopes are dashed on the rocks of mistakes, since there is no currency on accomplishments.  The organization is self-similar to the top in that each person wants nothing to leak out from below.

Can we put 'collaboration' into this?  Only for people working next to each other, and what the heck.  Is there a case where a hierarchy went full hog into this, and freely gave up their power?  No, each person protects himself by stashing knowledge or warm bodies.

I've always pushed a three-layer organization, that would be immune from old-company disease.

First layer - the wealth creators, rewards on the money created.

Second layer - the helpers to the first layer (most important thing in a corporation, or you might as well be all individuals.  Rewards based on reviews by the first layer.

Third layer - The Corporate Layer.  Lawyers, accounts, people who face the regulators.  In this layer would be the money men who would flit around, and determine compensation.  Wealth creators might be paid more than anyone here.

Modern technology, like this 'new age' groupware, could make this work.  Everybody would have a chromebook that couldn't do print screens.  Everybody would have a video feed that was always on, and people could watch random feeds, and use it for communication.  People could 'check out' pdf's for reading on tablets and such, but all communication would be done on the chromebooks.  Encryption would be pub/priv key at the chromebook.  Everyone would have to write digests often for legal purposes, or the equivalent to diaries.  Politically incorrect blurts would disappear in the virtual meetings which could not be archived as they are encrypted.

Could IBM go this way?  Fat Chance!  New companies could.

Additional thought:  Even new companies are entrenched in power roles immediately.  Take a certain electric car company.  It's founder is a brilliant ah-hole who likes to fire people on the spot.  They all work in giant arena with just a tiny desk each.  This is a flat organization like my ideal.  But will it scale?  No, the next layer will all want to protect themselves from the caprices of the boss.  And so on.  Could a new company form whose founder doesn't want to play god?  Has it ever happened?

Thought2:  I realize I'm completely wrong on one thing.  If you want to sell to other dysfunctional hierarchal companies, then you need to match them.  I just found out that Amazon Web Services has a huge bureaucracy, and one million business customers who want to make money on the Web.  Silly me.

Big Guns Finally Wade In On Oklahoma

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Witkit.com New thorn in the side of the NSA

Reference

I'm trying it out, and I've spotted a security hole, but they aren't responding in 2 seconds.  I'll put the response here when I get it.

There is no documentation, but it appears that they have made public/private key easier, by having it enclosed in a community.  It works with browsers, since they use a standard https pipe.  There's the problem.  I input my passphrase down a secure channel, but they hold the key to decrypt the pipe.  Everything I enter must be in cleartext before it hits their encryption.  It could be the North Koreans or the NSA that runs this whole thing.  The comments and email are all encrypted, but they must be retrieved by the passphrase, which the NSA has (if they are running it).  I think a gag court order could tap into this.

Encrypting with my own keys is the secure way of doing it, but it is a pain, since nobody else probably runs the same version of PGP, and Windows users are hopeless.  Although this is compromise, I wonder about it, since it relies on the integrity of the owners.

Update:  OMG they are the NSA!  I'll give them another little while to respond in a rational manner.  They don't understand what I'm saying.  I'm just setting up a phoney group, I'll wait to see what the encryption experts have to say, but right now I think it is slightly better security for those who run Win7 and old IE.  :)

Update2:  Ok, these guys are useless.  No white paper, no external review.  They are the NSA, trying to sucker the Saudi driving ladies in.  DON'T DO IT!

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Oklahoma City's Doomsday Clock Resumes its Normal State of Disrepair


It has stopped ticking.  Such a beautiful mechanism and probably gone forever.  Either they have secretly shifted frack waste injection, or have started treating the water with silica.  The northern section is still active because nobody cares about damage up there.  But that area is such a mechanism mess, with several thrust-shear pairs, that it will probably never go boom.

Down in Texas, they have finally fingered "Zeke's Majuck Disposal" where I said it would be.  All those people can go back to their every-day state of torpor.

Update:  They just had an M3.8 well away from the city, with the weirdest intensity distribution.  I am clueless!



Whereas, the M4.0 right after it produced nothing.


So, the first one was a shallow oblique thrust, and the second a deep normal.  So nice to be able to talk about it without the thought of city destruction.  All those people up there work for the oil companies and don't care.  :)

Update again:  They are being hit by a swarm of 4's.  This is nothing like the swarm of 5's that I thought would hit the city.  All is well, then.

Monday, January 26, 2015

M4.3 earthquake Oklahoma

I was getting bored, and fracking is dying, so I thought that there would be no more action.


All the action is now in the northern segment.  If rational people had some influence, they probably stopped injecting near the big city.  Judging by the intense zone in Medford, and the symmetrical felt area, this was a deeper thrust.  Most likely it won't be discounted.


Saturday, January 24, 2015

Surface mount LED fixtures

Forget LED bulbs.  The replaceable bulb is a terrible format for the new light sources.  These things will now outlast the 10 year painting and decorating cycle, so you can now go for the full fixture.  All the new light sources are surface mounted on flat cards or strips, since that is the best for heat.


This is the latest thing from Costco.  20W led, equivalent to 3 60W bulbs.  It's glass, and warm white (3000K).  It uses a single driver, and 4 strips with naked surface-mounted light sources.  The price is right at $40.  Amazon is way off the mark with cheap acrylic at $80 with a horrible 4000K, which is neither here nor there.

I'm looking for something bigger and brighter for the kitchen.  Right now Amazon is charging $300 for that.  The legitimate price at Aliexpress is $60, but only in large lots.  I'll have to wait for Costco.  When they go to quantum dots soon, they'll also be in this format.  Right now it is rare to find a 100W equivalent bulb, and they are quite expensive.

Here is the dog sunning herself (not under the new fixture).


Irving Texas - New seismometers start to close in on injection source


Whoever it is, they should pull out now.  That little square is an M1.1, which is the smallest injection earthquake ever recorded.  I still think they don't have good locations, but a bunch of these very tiny earthquakes will locate the source, right where I said it would be.

When all fracking dies, this will be just a memory, but it was fun.  :)

Friday, January 23, 2015

Fracking is Dead, Long LIve Oklahoma

It is time to say good-bye to that great experiment that would have proven all my theories about New Madrid and Eastern earthquakes.  All the fracking companies are about to default on their bonds, and the whole industry will shrivel up and die.  Not a penny to pay for injection.

Slowly, all those earthquakes will peter out.  It's been fun for me, but I'll just go back to natural earthquakes.  There should be one or two good ones per year.  This whole thing has kept an old guy's brain going for quite a while now, but it's time to snooze on the front porch and tell the dog to fetch my tablet.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Probable Irving Texas injection site


Irving, Texas has banned all fracking and injection, but there is a very seedy industrial zone just north of the town's boundary.  Since the Azle earthquakes all ran downhill into the lake, I am postulating that the injection point is to the north, and if they had real seismometers, we would see a narrow band down to the SE.



My eyes gave up on me, but there are lots of possibilities here.  But Google satellite is always 2 years old, and this started quite recently.  Locals should look for a lot of tanker trucks in this area.  :)

Update:  Anybody really interested should go to Tomnod, and request a campaign.  Then you can look at recent sat shots, and pick out tanker trucks.  :)

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Can't Believe Another Irving Texas M3.0


Can't believe another one, with an Intensity 4.  That's easily enough to knock somebody down in the shower.  Now, if only they were famous, then we'd have a story.

Since this injection is totally illegal and unknown, it's time to put some real seismometers in around here.  Not these cheapy 1 channel jobbies.  Real-time decent arrangements like we have in Canada.  I'll bet that distribution will tighten right up to the secret warehouse of Dr. Evil.  Quit saying these these are 'totally organic'.  They aren't.

Of course, we've always known who really controls Dallas - moohaha!

Monday, January 19, 2015

M4.1 earthquake Oklahoma

This is interesting in that it will probably stay as an M4.1.  It was obviously a deep strike-slip (shear), and shows a magnificent asymmetry in the felt area, shooting to the NE.  This is a classic phenomenon for the larger Eastern earthquakes, and why the Hamilton fault is so deadly for Toronto.



They aren't doing solutions for M4's any more, but this is in the upper shearing zone.



Keep on injecting!  It's not doing anything.

Update:  I hadn't realized that earlier there was an M3.9, with a 6 intensity.  Most likely a shallow shear.



Saturday, January 17, 2015

The Secret of Tender Octopus



So for years we'd go to a Greek restaurant and marvel at the tender octopus.  We'd ask them how they do it, and they would smile slyly, and say it's a secret.

So, began the Great Research.  Everybody had their own secret, like throwing the octopus at the wall, or soaking in lemon juice.  None of which worked for us.  We could only buy the cheap frozen octopus in tubes at the Chinese supermarket.  One of the Greek places let out that they buy 'special octopus', and some may have said it was giant octopus (can't remember).  I had visions of the whole restaurant struggling to put down the octopus as above.

Well, we have cracked it!  We used our new electric pressure cooker, and cooked it in a sauce under low pressure, following a recipe.  Unbelievably tender, and still the same cheap octopus.  No need to fight a giant one!

Friday, January 16, 2015

Seattle and Vancouver - Spectacular Engineering Failures


Both Vancouver and Seattle have wanted to put huge tunnels under the city in muck.  Both are now experiencing settlement problems which is a bad thing in earthquake country.

But Seattle is much more.  Just barely into the tunnel, this monster, the largest ever, sprung it's bearing.  Since the entire machine is just the bearing, this cannot happen, or should not.  I saw one of this things being made once, just a small one.  Unbelievable machining on that bearing, which is virtually whole cost of the thing.

Now, it is very common that when one thing works, somebody says "Let's make a bigger one.".  We know what happened at Darlington -- sooner or later you run into new physics.  With a tunnel boring machine I think you run into several exponentials:

1.  Flaws in the steel.  The probability goes up as an exponential.

2.  Hydraulics.  This is my main guess.  The whole thing is a hydraulic motor, and you have to get the oil to every nook and cranny for lubrication.  All sorts of room for non-linearities.

The now have to sink a shaft 120 feet into muck.  This is as bad as sinking a shaft for the Bruce Black Hole.  The pressure goes up linearly, but that squares for the force.  Then they have to lift the sucker.  Good luck with that.

Reference Seattle


Oklahoma earthquake record


Just in the number for the day, something around 18 over 2.5.  That was just me making a rough count.  There's a new event near Tulsa.  I wonder why they don't just drill new injection wells up the NE line.  Plenty of megathrust to go around!

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Amazon -- All is Forgiven

I was pretty nasty with Amazon the other day, when they screwed up a delivery estimate.  But all my recent deliveries have been next day.  But, they are so terrified of me that they put in long estimates.  :)

Walmart doesn't have a chance, and I'd just rather go to the store for something quick.


**Truth in blogging.  For some reason Amazon gave me a Prime membership for free.  I don't even think they know about it, so don't mention it to them, please?  But if they ever took it back, boy there would be some blistering heat!

Update:  Target has left the building.  Amazon killed them.  :)

Update2:  Shopping Profile (just so Google doesn't have to work so hard)

Most food, clothes, big ticket items and impulse buys - Costco stores

Hardware and paint - Home Depot

Tiny stuff - Walmart

Misc. stuff - Costco online.

Ethnic food - local Chinese supermarket

Entertainment and junk - Amazon

Trends:  Amazon is picking up more stuff from Costco and Walmart.  I'm beginning to just do comparisons within Amazon, so they can sneak up their margins.  I only buy Prime.

Ads and flyers - We ignore all of them unless Metro has a special on prime rib.  :)  Amazon keeps hitting me with Internet ads on stuff I was looking at, so I clean out my cookies a lot.

Irving Texas Earthquake Sequence - One Last Hurrah


I think this is the last gasp.  All these earthquakes are horribly located, but they are moving in more seismometers after the horse has gone.

This is what I wrote on g+.  Sorry that all you Feedly people missed it.  :)


Irving earthquakes gone

Not with a bang, but with a whimper.  

Raise a toast to the Irving earthquake sequence.  It was fun while it lasted, even knocking a baseball player on his arse.  How many times can they do this without people getting suspicious?  Basically, the story goes like this:  Some bright young thing thinks he save a mint for Daddy by not shipping frack waste to Oklahoma.  He slips it into the normal stream of deep salt water from standard oil extraction.  Who would notice?  Then the earthquakes start.  For a while, everybody just looks innocent.  Who me?  Then the guys with the rubber hoses come and beat the crap out of everybody.  Meanwhile, the guy in the shower falls.  By the time they got the story straight, we've got a good earthquake sequence.  Then they wrap up the frack waste and send it to OK.  Can't wait for the next one!  :)

Even if there are a few more earthquakes, I think this is true.  This is the real Texas Conspiracy, not that other one.  :)

Update:  Latest official word is "We have seen no disposal wells in the area.", said with eyes closed, and a very tight definition on 'disposal'.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Another horrible tunnel job

Article



Sinkholes are always the tip of the iceberg of ground control problems when tunnelling.  You should be able to cut settlement to zero with a pressure-balancing tunnel boring machine, but that takes money.  Already houses are cracking, and they are complaining about vibrations.  This is going to be a darn train tunnel!

As well, the tiniest bit of settlement makes things a lot worse when the earthquake comes along.

Update:  My one comment of the year has me making an addition.  I will make up a totally fictional situation.

My company Cheapnsleazy Inc.  has just finished a tunnel that may rhyme with a certain blue pill.  I go to Vancouver, and impress them all with my astonishing low price.  I had changed the name because I made a billion on charging extras, and a few people might worry.  I get a crappy old boring machine and paint it up.  What me worry?  I charge ahead at full speed, running a huge ground deficit, with all the portals wide open.  The trees tilt and the buildings crack.  Not me!  Finally I run into big trouble when the sinkholes open up way in front of the machine.  Now is the time for my special trick.  I go to court -- "You didn't tell me that dirt was dirt!"  The judges always go for the contractor.  Another extra billion in the pocket.

Update2:  I am also yelled at because I'm not giving any information.  You will never get information!  The contractor makes a point of never hiring engineers, so he can go full blast with his Stupidity Defence.  And the government people are all under the control of the PR department.

Monday, January 12, 2015

Connecticut M3.3. earthquake



I'm only writing this in a cheap bid to get more viewers.  :)  Actually, these 'hard rock earthquakes' were my first love before all the recent frack injection hoo-haw.  I like them because they are such a shock to the locals, sounding and feeling like an explosion.  This M3.3 is also beyond a mere ice quake, although the cold weather may have something to do with it.

These earthquakes are all bark and no bite.  Yet, if a ding-dong nuclear-type measured it with an accelerometer, it would go off the scale, and then there would be a big huffy fit in the nuclear biz.  They just don't understand that peak acceleration has no physical basis.

This is right near Boston, which is my Number One City in the Earthquake Hit Parade.  Remember that size doesn't matter, it's what you do that counts.  (When I was young I said that a lot.  :(  )

So, Boston is the world's worst city to take an earthquake hit, since it is all on blue clay.  As long as there are no earthquakes, everything is golden.  Even a little Virginia M6 right under the city would take a big bite.  And the East Coast is a high hazard area for M7's.  Have fun everybody!

Update:  Loud explosion, just like the last little ice quake.  You and I know that these are very shallow.  Yet, there is very poor seismic monitoring (no money).  Single component, far away.


This is probably the only shot they got.  They report both earthquakes at 6 km depth, because that is their default, and all the news services take it up as gospel.  Comon' people, now that gas is cheap, vote for a big gas tax to pay for all this!   :)

Update2:  New earthquake.  Still, probably the cold.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Oklahoma - Shallow thrusts more common - M3.6 earthquake

This is the first M3.6 with a large number of Intensity 5's.



Friday, January 9, 2015

Linux - 3.18.2 running well

I always wait for the ".1" versions, and then I'm real happy with the ".2".  I usually don't bother with higher updates, unless they go to 7 or 8.  Then you know something is really wrong!

I'm running a Tor exit relay, so you know the Big Guys will try to bust in.  They already tried with a top-class phishing attempt on my credit card.  Too bad suckers!  If you want to try this at home kiddies, run Linux, Openwrt router, and have gmail.  As well, get an unlimited account from Bell.

If we have a million Tor relays out there, it diminishes the attacks.  The poor Saudis can access Facebook without flogging.  Maybe.  I wouldn't trust that Mr. Z with a stick.

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Vancouver M4.8 - Down Mystery Lane

Great earthquake down my 'mystery' extension of the strike-slip fault that defines the edge of Vancouver Island.


A beautiful thrust-shear combination and fairly shallow, so you know it isn't on the crummy overrated Cascadia subduction fault.  :)


So, here is my original art, and there is no evidence for this fault because nobody has looked.  It would be all covered in sediment, so you would have to image it.  But I feel it has to be there to accommodate the sudden curve of the Cascadia.

I think this is the main shaking threat to Vancouver and Victoria, and who cares about Seattle?  We can get a good 7 or 8 out of this, and it has to come before the main event, since it is a lock.  Oh well, I'm glad nobody reads this.

Note to Panic-ers -  This doesn't change the seismic hazard as defined by the Establishment.  They've gone too high on the Cascadia.  Seismic hazard can only be defined to a single log digit of PGV in 500 years.  It's 1, 10, or 100 cm/s.  And that mostly depends on your foundation.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Ocean Currents and Air

These are great maps.  First, there is MIMIC which I show all the time.



Reference

I just found this which shows real-time ocean currents.


Reference

The main heat energy goes up the middle of the Pacific, so you can see why California is in drought all the time.  As I have said, the ocean currents are the real heat pumps of the earth, and weather just follows along.  Such an incredible amount of energy.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Irving earthquakes engage the thrust mechanism

They just had an M3.5 that reached a wide Intensity 4.  That's a good shallow thrust, and the earthquakes are lining up on the NW line, now that they got some instruments in.



No predictions, but I think they will have pull off an Azle* soon.  Next one knocks things off the shelves.

*secretly shutting down the injection of fracking waste.

Update:  Followed quickly by an M3.6.  Gather in the back room, boys!

Update2:  Definitely shallow thrust.  "It was harder than normal and lasted a little bit longer and rumbled, like everything…the walls, the floor, it shook,” said Tinner. "I want to know what's the cause of it. What's going on? Why's this happening? It shouldn't be happening here."

Update3:  Actually explosive noises.  I've waiting for legitimate report from OK for a long time.  “All of a sudden you hear a 'boom.' That's why we thought somebody hit the building. And then everything started shaking,” said Melissa Lockard, who works in Irving.

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Capital One Phishing

They left out something important for me, and I run Linux, so ha ha!  Still, they got hold of email accounts, so I think Cap One has been breached, and although I marked it as gmail spam, it got through as a zero day attack.  I signed into my account and there is no such alert, and I notified them.

8:34 AM

Capital One

 Account Alert: Service Validation.

Dear Valued Holder,

As requested, We're writing to make sure you're aware of a NEW change in security procedure for all account holders.Your profile and billing information needs to be validated.

Kindly follow the ONE-TIME action below in order to opt with our recent security improvement. By passing back and forth private information that only you and us know, you can feel even more secure with your online access experience. We recognize you and you recognize us.

ONE TIME ACTION: 
To continue, we have sent you an attached HTML Web Page.

See e-mail attachedweb page
Download and save it
Open the attached web page
Get started by confirming your informations


Sincerely,
Online Customer Center. 


Further thoughts:  If nobody else reports this, then it could be a high-quality 'Spear Phishing' attack aimed at me, since I mention Cap 1 in my blog.  On the other hand, they would know it was useless.  :)

Friday, January 2, 2015

Amazon screws up delivery

Oh, how the mighty have fallen!  In this very blog, or somewhere, I was very hard on Walmart for screwing up the delivery.  I said that Amazon would never do something like this.  Even now at 8:38 pm, Amazon is telling me that they will deliver today by 8:00 pm.  I was looking forward to this toy, it's a computer controlled electric pressure cooker.  I even bought the dried beans today.

There's no way to bitch to them until after the delivery, and they've all gone home for the day.  I'll have to wait the whole weekend.  I'm so sad.  :(

Amazon has totally destroyed all stores in Palo Alto.  The Canadian employees just don't have the killer instinct...

Update:  Wow, they sent a robot response, pretending to be human.  The robot said the shipment was lost, when really, it's just late.

Update2:  UPS has completely shut down for the weekend.  I can't complain about somebody doing what I would do.  I'll get it on Monday, it's not like it's serum for Alaska, or anything.  I'll go with Walmart more.

Update3:  Got everything on Monday morning, so you can say it was just a few hours late, business-day wise.  Still, a fall from the Heavens.....

Update4:  Now they've ridiculously long on their estimates.  So much for 2 day Prime.  :(

Update5:  Delivery back to a day and a half, but the estimate is 4 business days.  I think Norkies have got into their computer system.  :)

Earthquakes at both ends of the Cascadia Basin

M5.2 a the top end.  I only did this because of the cute picture.


Although it is aesthetic, it doesn't mean anything in physics.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Linux - Tails for Security

I'm running the Tor relay, and it's only done about 4G over a few days.  I just upped the bandwidth.  Having a relay really helps your local use of Tor.  I use it once in a while for boring things, just to keep up the noise cover.  Everybody should be doing this.

Lots of evil things go on, but they can be handled by normal police work since there is always money involved, and it is easy to penetrate.  Massive snooping is just lazy.  In fact, Tor just gives them a false sense of confidence so they can be snatched up a lot easier.  Look how the disgruntled Sony hacker is being exposed by IRC trails.  Should have used Tor!  But that might not have helped because you can link by writing style.  Reminds me of murderers getting caught when trying to hire a hitman, or the terrorists trying to hire an explosives expert.

You'll find when you use the Tor browser all the fancy flash, and other stuff is not available, since these apps just love to spit out your IP address.  So then you go to the next step, using Tails Linux at your local library or Internet cafe, or even a public hotspot.  You first get the dvd-rom version and burn it.  Then you load it on your old laptop, maybe using an external dvd drive, like I did.  This is a live version only so you can't permanently install it, which is good.  You use that live OS to properly install a usb disk with a storage partition.  Excellent!

Now you run off the usb, and all your bookmarks and such are saved.  Ms. Sony-former-IT-lady extracts her revenge by looking for a hacker-hitman at a public spot.  Tails even comes with a Windows camouflage, in order to look like the average idiot.  :)

Now you are golden.  The totally traceable Bitcoin payment is made, and it's off to the races.  Nobody will ever figure out you did it, especially the ding-dong FBI.  :)

Update:  New Canadian copyright law now makes ISP's send a polite notice to customers that they are violating copyright.  How can they do this?  Deep packet inspection, and fishing on a grand scale.  Linux bittorrent is totally encrypted, and that's how I downloaded the Tails OS.  Nobody can penetrate that.  Although bittorrent on Linux is totally secure, downloading the torrents isn't, so that's when I use Tails and such.  For Windows users, the lawyers could just break in and look.  I'm pretty sure that's how they did it before, for their lawsuits and especially this Hort Lucker thing.  :)

Update2:  You can enable persistence on the usb, giving you 5G of encrypted memory. Even if the library police snatch your usb, they can't find anything.  :)  And you can watch youtube on Tails, using the Tor browser.

Life at the End - M5.1 California earthquake at the end of the San Andreas


Having done Eastern Earthquakes, it is fun to have a go at California.  This earthquake is at the end of the San Andreas (or beginning, depending on your polarity).  The big fault ends in a real mess.



You can see spreading ridges and transform faults galore, and, of course, the giant Cascadia subduction zone that has everybody so terrified.  It all meets here.  This is all 'weak rock tectonics' as opposed to the ENA 'strong rock tectonics'.  I love both!