Cool and damp again.\u00a0 Maybe some rain, maybe not.<\/p>\n
Yesterday was misty in places, overcast most places, and somewhat warm for a short time.\u00a0 Just a pretty gross day.\u00a0\u00a0 So I spent it indoors.<\/p>\n
Solved my client’s issues with a lot of technical help from my sometimes business partner.\u00a0 A piece of hardware somehow lost its “IP Table” which tells it where the other parts that it controls should be found.\u00a0 The fix meant downloading a current version of the IDE, then a firmware file, uploading the firmware (32 minutes), then downloading the control software files, and finally reinstalling them.\u00a0 All that messing around followed by rebooting, restarting, and testing.\u00a0 Still, it got him back up.\u00a0\u00a0 He’s getting a bit tired of piecemeal replacement of the stuff that got damaged by lightning.\u00a0 I may be doing a complete remove and replace on the system.\u00a0 That won’t be cheap.\u00a0 Should be good for me though.<\/p>\n
Lest anyone think I know what I’m doing with any of the above, I have good help.\u00a0 I’m just monkey punching the buttons.\u00a0 I’m the remote set of hands when it comes to the software side of all that.\u00a0 Kinda like here, where Rick keeps it all working, while I’m the smiling face that people see.\u00a0 I’ve been very lucky in my\u00a0 career to have access to really good people to backfill my gaps…<\/p>\n
I’m sure you have gaps in your preps and skills, and I can’t emphasize enough, that you need good people to help you fill them.\u00a0 Consider how you’ll repay them for the help too, either through stuff or loan of skills of your own.\u00a0\u00a0 There is a great feeling too, when you can help someone else with your own expertise.\u00a0 It’s about building a community, or network of resources and it helps in normal times, as well as bad times.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, your normal network might not be available.\u00a0 That’s why you need a reference library.\u00a0 It doesn’t have to be a ‘rebuilding society’ library, but should cover the sorts of things you don’t know well, and it should also provide backup for the stuff you DO know well- because you might not be there.<\/p>\n
It has to be offline too.\u00a0 Consider infrastructure failures.\u00a0 Consider censorship.\u00a0 Consider the internet balkanized.\u00a0 Consider search engines distorting results.\u00a0 And consider your browsing history being weaponized against you.\u00a0 Can’t happen?\u00a0 If I’m an oppressive government and there is a general famine, and I want to seize the “excess” or “hoarded” food, I’m going to start with everyone who bought canning jars.\u00a0 I’m going to cross that with searches for “how to can vegetables” and “beginning gardening” or “stealth gardening”.\u00a0\u00a0 After 9-11 there were stories that various agencies went on a terrorist hunt by collecting grocery store ‘loyalty card’ purchase histories, and looking for people that bought hummus, or falafel.\u00a0 It’s part of their institutional knowledge now.\u00a0\u00a0 Even if they don’t have the resources to do it as a dragnet, they will certainly use it to build a case, or reduce the pool of candidates.\u00a0 And they’re likely going to go for recent low hanging fruit, because they’re lazy.<\/p>\n
Now that day may never come, and you and I will both continue doing searches for what we think of as normal or ordinary things.\u00a0 We’ll leverage the beast for our own betterment with youtube and google.\u00a0 Just keep in mind that you really really might not want to have watched a repair video, and then ordered a gun part, after having declared all your illegal guns to be sold or lost.\u00a0\u00a0 Much better to have a couple of books, picked up used, to answer your questions in what might become the ultimate in ‘non-permissive environments.’<\/p>\n
With that cheery thought, I once again suggest that you keep stacking…<\/p>\n
nick <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cool and damp again.\u00a0 Maybe some rain, maybe not.<\/p>\n
Yesterday was misty in places, overcast most places, and somewhat warm for a short time.\u00a0 Just a pretty gross day.\u00a0\u00a0 So I spent it indoors.<\/p>\n
Solved my client’s issues with a lot of technical help from my sometimes business partner.\u00a0 A piece of hardware somehow lost its “IP Table” which tells it where the other parts that it controls should be found.\u00a0<\/p>\n