Mike Williams Club – The Blog – Page 82 – Weirder words were never written!

Lower Levels – Castle Nerda

Castle Nerda is a name I created for the place in which I live. It is pretty simple actually. It is a house full of nerds. Therefore, we call it Castle Nerda.

The plan today at Castle Nerda is basement cleaning. I loathe it but alas, it must be done. We were extremely fortunate this time around because most of our valuable equipment (Dish TV cables, Comcast Business Modem, washer and dryer, etc) were all secured above the water line. This lesson we learned from the previous flooding. It had never happened previous to that.

With two floodings in five years, we will probably take things a step further and simply not have anything on the floor. I’ll take some photos and add them towards the end of the day.

Castle Nerda Basement Cleanup – August 2018

August 14, 2018 by Mike Williams Updates

Bitcoin – Still a Good Idea?

Ahhh, hell no. As this Yahoo article points out.

While Bitcoin ended the day with a 4 percent decline in its value, Ether, the native cryptocurrency of Ethereum, plummeted by 13 percent against the US dollar, becoming one of the worst performing major cryptocurrencies alongside NEO.
Tokens recorded the steepest drop in their value on August 11, as most Ethereum-based tokens such as Theta Token, Aion, Pundi X, Aelf, DigixDAO, WanChain, and VeChain recorded a drop of around 14 to 18 percent.
via Yahoo Finance

Today, money has no value unless a government gives it value. The United States is a great example. How much is $5.00 worth? Whatever the United States government says it is. It is not backed by anything. Neither is cryptocurrency. It’s worth is decided by Wall Street traders which makes it even worse than the US government. How much is a bitcoin worth? It depends on what day you ask the question.

What if you buy a fancy crypto wallet and store your digital currency in that? What if you forget the password? Well, this happens.

But not all early cryptocurrency enthusiasts are counting their coins. Instead they might be racking their brains trying to remember their passwords, without which those few Bitcoins they bought as an experiment a few years ago could be locked away forever.

That’s because Bitcoin’s decentralization relies on cryptography, where each transaction is signed with an identifier assigned to the person paying and the person receiving Bitcoin. It’s how the system is able to process large transactions without a central bank, since each exchange is guaranteed by authenticating when money is going from one wallet to another using both public identifiers and private passcodes, and no one can access your Bitcoin wallet without your private password. If someone else somehow had your password and swiped your coins, they’re gone for good. Passwords are used to unlock your bitcoin wallet address, and if you forgot your password, those coins are locked away. There’s no central point of control to help retrieve your Bitcoin or change your password. If there was an easy means of cracking open people’s Bitcoin wallets when a password was lost, the cryptocurrency would be worthless, since the whole point is security without centralization.
via Slate

My two cents: I think that arguing that this is a good idea based on the fact that you are a geek and this is a geek thing has no merit. In the age of hacking, this is a horrible idea.

August 13, 2018 by Mike Williams Official Rant Sh*t Mike Says

Being Served on Twitter?

Interesting story over at Engadget.

While going on Twitter to serve a summons is certainly unorthodox, the DNC assures that the method is perfectly legal and valid. According to CBS News, the party filed a motion with a Manhattan federal court last month to allow it to serve the organization on the social network, which a judge obviously granted. A spokesperson told Gizmodo that they chose to go that route because Wikileaks was being unresponsive and is more likely to read the summons if sent through the website. The organization is very activeon Twitter, after all, and frequently tweets out links to its newest leaks.
via Engadget

August 11, 2018 by Mike Williams Whatever

Mary G. Ross is Dead

Sorry Google.

It is really NOT her birthday. She is DEAD. She stopped having birthdays in 2008. It isn’t even her DEATH day.

Wrong on both counts.

August 9, 2018 by Mike Williams Birthdays

Flooded!

At least we can honestly say that almost no one was left out of this year’s flooding.

The biggest casualty from this flood is our Comcast Business modem. It would have survived if the tech who installed it didn’t put the AC/DC power convertor on the floor instead of inside the IT cage.

Sunday morning, a Comcast technician stopped by and upgraded our modem from a 100mb capacity to the newer 400mb capacity. The internet was back up in about 30 minutes.

The remainder of the week will be spent cleaning up the items that were either on the floor or on low racking close to the floor.

Things could have been much worse. The last time we flooded the building owner installed an internet cage to house all of the important electronics and also built a shelf for the washer and dryer to sit up on. They are commercial grade and we lost both of them during the last flood. We ended up making out better because the newer units are fabulous.

Note: I’ve used the word fabulous three times today so far.

August 4, 2018 by Mike Williams Drive By Blogging

Congratulations Apple!

Apple reached a 1 trillion dollar market valuation yesterday which makes them the first company to do so. Ever. Below is Tim Cook’s letter to his employees via MacRumors.

Team,

Today Apple passed a significant milestone. At our closing share price of $207.39, the stock market now values Apple at more than $1 trillion. While we have much to be proud of in this achievement, it’s not the most important measure of our success. Financial returns are simply the result of Apple’s innovation, putting our products and customers first, and always staying true to our values.

It’s you, our team, that makes Apple great and our success is due to your hard work, dedication and passion. I am deeply humbled by what you do, and it’s the privilege of a lifetime to work alongside you. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the late hours and extra trips, all the times you refuse to settle for anything less than excellence in our work together.

Let’s take this moment to thank our customers, our suppliers and business partners, the Apple developer community, our coworkers and all those who came before us at this remarkable company.

Steve founded Apple on the belief that the power of human creativity can solve even the biggest challenges — and that the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. In today’s world, our mission is more important than ever. Our products not only create moments of surprise and delight, they empower people all around the globe to enrich their lives and the lives of others.

Just as Steve always did in moments like this, we should all look forward to Apple’s bright future and the great work we’ll do together.

Tim

August 3, 2018 by Mike Williams Apple News

Random Haberdashery

I don’t know what haberdashery means but it fit in the title. Ok, I know what it means but like Google, I like to hijack words to make them them mean what I want them to mean. So, henceforth — haberdashery means “shizz.”

First thing is that I got to work on a new MacBook. Not a MacBook Pro — just a MacBook. It is one of the smallest but I was impressed with the keyboard. I didn’t feel “cramped” working on it.

2018 12″ MacBook

The other thing I’d like to post is the damage I’ve done to the lawn. Yep. My big ass tent left the mark you see below. Hopefully, this will grow back. I actually feel bad about it.

Impression made by Alps Mountaineering 4 Man Tent

August 1, 2018 by Mike Williams 15 in the A.M.

Gutenberg Plug-In

Well, the next version of Word Press will feature the Gutenberg editor. That is what I am writing this post in right now.

It focuses on the way the post looks on your site much more than just the content that you write.

Since this is my first time using it, I’m not sure how I feel about it just yet but I’ll add updates as I go along.

July 31, 2018 by Mike Williams Neat and Cool

Dealing with Shizz in the Eighties

This is how it was done.

July 29, 2018 by Mike Williams Whatever

Star Wars Fan Films

I spend a lot of time watching these. These are films created by fans and some are good and some are not so good. I enjoy them all. There are even awards given out by Atomfilms and Lucasfilms.

I always like to take into consideration how much time and effort is spent to do these and with very little to no real payback.

Of course, there are guidelines for making these types of films.

StarWars.com announced that for 2007 they will be “expanding their guidelines to take in more types of movies than before.”^[1] The contest imposes a time limit on entries—for the inaugural contest, it was 30 minutes, but this was lowered to 15 for the 2003–2005 contests. For 2006, the time limit was lowered again to 10 minutes. Entries must not contain nudity, excessive swearing, explicit sexual themes or graphic violence. In addition, no unlicensed copyrighted material may be used in the entries, with the exception of a small collection of approved sound effects. For 2006, the contest rules were revised to prohibit contributions by union members. In 2008, the contest has expanded to include mashups with footage from the Star Wars films.^[2]

Here are some of my favorites so far…

A Clone Apart.

The I.M.P.S Material is absolutely fantastic! This link joins two Chapters together. I do not believe the 3rd Chapter has been released yet. I could be wrong on that.