The Operating System of the Future

Forbes recently ran an article entitled, “What Will the Operating System of the Future Look Like?”  Well, I wasn’t satisfied with their rather generic, non-specific answer, much less their assertion that blockchain will have something to do with it:
“Blockchain isn’t necessarily something that stands alone. It seems more of a backbone technology, something we’d use as an operating system for a lot of other technologies… …blockchain may be just the operating system to use.”
No.  Blockchain isn’t a backbone technology which you can use as any sort of operating system.  Whoever said that doesn’t understand the first thing about the nature of blockchain, which is a way to link encrypted records such that each record is dependent on the previous record.  It is “an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way.”  A portion of the record is visible, and a portion is encrypted, visible only to those who are party to the transaction.  You can implement multiple areas and layers of visibility, encryption, and authentication for each transaction.
It’s a ledger, not an operating system.
Nor does blockchain lend itself to efficiently communicating between systems in a secure manner.  Yes, it can do that, effectively and securely.  No, it can’t do that efficiently, and furthermore, the size of the chain increases for every transaction.  When communicating between various IT-enabled devices from your fridge to your smart phone to your bank account, motor vehicle, etc., you do NOT need a ledger.  You DO, however, require rock-sold encryption and authentication for each communication “session.”
A session might be as short as something like this:
Dave:  Hi, Bank Z, I’m Dave X and I’d like to transfer $200 from my ABC account to my XYZ account.
Bank:  Hi, Dave X, you’d like to (repeats request).  Do you confirm
Dave:  Yes
Bank:  Ok, I’ve (confirms request).  Your new balances are…
Or, a session might involve the complex, thousands of times a second communications between three flight computers, five avionics computers, eighteen subsystems, several hundred sensors, hydraulic motors, electrical actuators and pumps, and inputs from two pilots, and via satellite, the corporate maintenance office.  Even attempting to use blockchain for this would result in a very large and unforgivably slow system that would never get off the ground, much less fly halfway around the world.
Alternatively, the Intel i-family of processors already includes dedicated support for AES-256, which has never been cracked despite the best of attempts by the world’s top experts in its 17-year history since establishment by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2001.  Furthermore, TLS (https://) 1.2 and beyond includes expansion of support for authenticated encryption ciphers, used mainly for Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) and CCM mode of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption.
TLS provides privacy and data integrity between two or more communicating computer applications.  Specifically, the connection is secured via symmetric cryptography with per-session keys between each pair of communicating devices initiated with a shared secret unavailable to man in the middle attacks.  The identity of the communicating parties (devices) is authenticated using public-key cryptography.  Finally, the connection is reliable because each message transmitted includes an integrity check using message authentication code to prevent undetected loss or alteration of the data.
Unlike blockchain, TLS is ideal for use in communicating between a very wide variety of computing devices, including the various systems aboard a modern airliner.  Each device would be keyed with shared secret just once, and once keyed, the key cannot be read outside of the device itself.  Before take-off systems checks include a full message security and authentication checks with all devices.
This same technology is already in use by many businesses around the world.  It’s not an operating system.  It’s a secure communications system.
The problem is, I would never use it aboard an aircraft because it is a computer and computers fail.  This is why aircraft have hard-wired communication between components.  They are physically protected and not open to the outside world, so they don’t require security.  The few systems aboard an aircraft that are open to the outside world do employ secure communications.
So, back to what the operating system of the future might look like:
 
1.  Files will be stored online and backed up locally.  For speed, you’ll access the local files, which will keep the online files synced, but the online files, which are redundantly stored throughout cyberspace, will remain the masters.  
2.  User files will no longer be deleted.  That’s not so the feds can get to them.  It’s in case you change your mind ten years from now and realize your wicked mother wasn’t so wicked and you want to bring up the only photograph you ever had of her, the one you deleted ten years before.
3.  Files will no longer have recognizable names. That photo you took at the wedding? It might be names 6tn3h2hHtPE7Ns2q4vosK. The first 12 characters are unique to the individual while the next 9 are unique to the file on the individual’s computer. Windows 10 currently allows 260 characters per filename, but in reality, using just 9 lower, upper, and number characters, you can generate a billion times more unique filenames than are currently required for a large Windows 10 installation. The first 12 characters allow some 300 trillion people each to have 1 million separate identities. But hey, I’m sure we’ll find other uses for more characters, so let’s make each filename 72 characters long. That’s still far below Windows 10’s maximum 260 character limit.
 
4. All files will be thoroughly cross-referenced, and the strength of those references will be pattered after the way our own brain associates memories. After taking video and photos at the wedding, you say, “All photos taken over the last three hours are from Karen’s wedding.” Your computer might recognize a name and ask you, “Karen who?” to which you reply, “Karen Johnson. She just married Zack Davis.” So now your computer knows her maiden name, married name, and husband, date of the wedding, and through facial recognition, the names of who attended. You can then ask, “Bring up pics of everyone at Karen’s wedding I don’t know,” and your computer will display all people for whom it has no names as cross-references.
 
5. The interface will be through retinal pattern transmitters. That’s a fancy term for saying a tiny 4k resolution (that’s better than your eyeball) RGBCYM laser projection that reflects its signal off a slightly silvered but mostly transparent “angled mirror” in front of your pupil. This device could equally be meta-material embedded in a pair of glasses that twists light generated along the rims and sends it to your eyes. Provided you’re in a safe situation (seated, not in a car, on a bike, etc.), you can select a black background for crystal clear images. Otherwise, the projection will allow your normal visual field to predominate. Those same glasses will include earbuds and a microphone. But your glasses aren’t the computer. They’re merely I/O devices. If you need a cursor, the same projection system always measures precisely where you’re looking, and a single tap on, say, a belt-mounted button, produces the same effect as a left click. Mice, keyboards, joysticks, touch pads, and other controllers will be available, as required.
 
6. “Your” computer will reside on your belt, your desk, or anywhere near to your I/O devices. All it is, however, is a local storage and processing device. Most apps will reside in the cloud, to which your local computer connects on a constant basis. Repeaters will be installed in every coffee shop, street corner, motor vehicle, airplane, etc. All files will be encrypted before leaving your device, and if they need to be worked on by one of the apps you rent in the cloud, they will be unlocked by your session key and personal credentials, worked on, then re-encrypted for safekeeping.
 
7. The cloud operating system and apps will not have direct access to the unencrypted contents of the files themselves. Rather, an app will “loan” it’s code to your personal node in the cloud where it will perform the necessary functions within your node’s protected space. Your unencrypted files never leave your security envelope, and only you can access them. No backdoors, with open source code any expert can verify. Furthermore, they’re backed up, so you never have to worry about losing your data again.
8.  Since we are indeed a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, and the Fourth Amendment’s protects against warrant-less and unreasonable searches of our “papers and effects” (this includes computer files), and since we have the technology to tell the feds to go jump in the lake, laws will change to suit the needs of the people, meaning individuals, in support of our freedoms, rather than the erosion thereof.
 
Well, that’s my 2 cents. 🙂

What Makes The GOP So Attractive?

Simple:  The criminal antics of Demoncraps:

1] Today, America is a bitterly divided, poorly educated and morally fragile society with so-called mainstream politicians pushing cynical identity politics, socialism and open borders. The president of the United States is threatened with impeachment because the other side doesn’t like him. The once reasonably unbiased American media has evolved into a hysterical left wing mob.

2] Bill Ayers– Represents the deep and ongoing leftist ideological damage to our education system. An unrepentant American terrorist who evaded punishment, he devoted his career to radicalizing American education and pushing leftist causes. Ghost wrote Obama’s book, “Dreams of My Father.”

3]Teddy Kennedy – Most folks remember Teddy as the guy who left Mary Joe Kopechne to die in his car at Chappaquiddick. The real damage came after he avoided punishment for her death and became a major Democrat force in the US Senate, pushing through transformative liberal policies in health care and education. The real damage was the 1965 Hart-Cellar immigration bill he pushed hard for that changed the quota system to increase the flow of third world people without skills into the US and essentially ended large-scale immigration from Europe.

4] Bill and Hillary Clinton—It’s difficult to separate Team Clinton. Bill’s presidency was largely benign as he was a relative fiscal conservative who rode the remaining benefits of the Reagan era. But his sexual exploits badly stained the Oval Office and negatively affected America’s perception of the presidency. In exchange for financial support, he facilitated the transfer of sensitive military technology to the Chinese. Hillary, a Saul Alinsky acolyte, is one of the most vicious politicians of my lifetime, covering up Bill’s sexual assaults by harassing and insulting the exploited women and peddling influence around the globe in exchange for funds for the corrupt Clinton Foundation. She signed off on the sale of 20% of the US uranium reserve to the Russians after Bill received a $500,000 speaking fee in Moscow and the foundation (which supported the Clinton’s regal lifestyle) received hundreds of millions of dollars from those who benefited from the deal. Between them, they killed any honor that might have existed in the dark halls of DC.

5] Valerie Jarrett – The Rasputin of the Obama administration. A Red Diaper baby, her father, maternal grandfather and father-in-law (Vernon Jarrett who was a close friend and ally of Obama mentor Frank Marshall Davis) were hardcore Communists under investigation by the U.S. government. She has been in Obama’s ear for his entire political career pushing a strong anti-American, Islamist, anti-Israeli, socialist/communist, cling-to-power agenda.

6] Jimmy Carter – Carter ignited modern day radical Islam by abandoning the Shah and paving the way for Ayatollah Khomeini to take power in Tehran. Iran subsequently became the main state sponsor and promoter of international Islamic terrorism. When Islamists took over our embassy in Tehran, Carter was too weak to effectively respond thus strengthening the rule of the radical Islamic mullahs.

7] Lyndon Johnson – Johnson turned the Vietnam conflict into a major war for America. It could have ended early if he had listened to the generals instead of automaker Robert McNamara. The ultimate result was: 1) 58,000 American military deaths and collaterally tens of thousands of American lives damaged; and 2) a war that badly divided America and created left wing groups that evaded the draft and eventually gained control of our education system. Even worse, his so-called War on Poverty led to the destruction of American black families with a significant escalation of welfare and policies designed to keep poor families dependent on the government (and voting Democrat) for their well-being. He deliberately created a racial holocaust that is still burning today.

8] Barack Hussein Obama – Obama set up America for a final defeat and stealth conversion from a free market society to socialism/communism. As we get deeper into the Trump presidency, we learn more each day about how Obama politicized and compromised key government agencies, most prominently the FBI, the CIA and the IRS, thus thoroughly shaking the public’s confidence in the federal government to be fair and unbiased in its activities. He significantly set back race and other relations between Americans by stoking black grievances and pushing radical identity politics. Obama’s open support for the Iranian mullahs and his apologetic “lead from behind” foreign policy seriously weakened America abroad. His blatant attempt to interfere in Israel’s election trying to unseat Netanyahu is one of the most shameful things ever done by an American president.

9] John Kerry – The most despicable American who ever lived. After his three faked Purple Hearts during his cowardly service in Vietnam, he was able to leave the US Navy early. As a reserve naval officer and in clear violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, he traveled to Paris and met privately with the NVA and the Viet Cong. He returned to the United States parroting the Soviet party line about the war and testified before Congress comparing American soldiers to the hordes of Genghis Khan. It was a clear case of treason, giving aid and comfort to the enemy in a time of war. We got a second bite of the bitter Kerry apple when as Obama’s secretary of state, he fell into bed with the Iranian (“Death to America”) mullahs giving them the ultimate green light to develop nuclear weapons along with billions of dollars that further supported their terrorist activities. Only the heroic Swift Vets saved us from a Manchurian Candidate Kerry presidency. Ultimately we got Obama.

10] John Brennan –Obama’s CIA director who once voted for Communist Gus Hall for president. A key member of the Deep State who severely politicized the CIA. Called President Trump treasonous for meeting with the president of Russia.

11] Jane Fonda – movie actress who made the infamous trip to Vietnam during the war in support of the Communists. She represents hard left Hollywood that has done so much damage to our culture.

12] George Soros – Jewish former Nazi collaborator in his native Hungary who as a self-made billionaire has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into left wing groups and causes. The damage he has caused is difficult to measure, but it’s certainly large. He has funded much of the effort to kill the Trump presidency.

– Frank Hawkins –

Appeals court: 2nd Amendment protects open carry of arms

“A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Second Amendment protects the right to openly carry (aka “open carry”) a gun in public for self-defense.”

Good.  We the People have known open carry was not merely “legal” but “the supreme Law of the Land” for 229 years, since before the ink on our Bill of Rights was dry.  Same goes for concealed carry.  Never forget our Founders and Framers were “We the People” citizens, too.  It’s nice to see that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals knows how to read the Constitution.  Well, two of them, anyway.

How to Read the U.S. Constitution

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

“Keep” means to “own” or “posses.” You can keep your firearm at home. You can keep it in your car. You can keep it about your person. You can keep it with you wherever you go.  In the context of the day it was written, it meant the people were not going to be required to turn them in to an armory, or worse, for destruction.  Instead, recognizing the God-given right to procure food, protect one’s self, family, and property, and in accordance with “the pursuit of happiness” and other freedoms, our Founding Fathers rightfully recognized, respected, and codified God’s inalienable right in the form of keeping arms.

“Bear” means to “carry.” You can carry it along with you on a hike, while shopping, getting gas, at the library…  Pretty much anywhere you want. Since the amendment doesn’t restrict mode of carry to either concealed carry or open carry, it’s both.

Moreover, since “shall not be infringed” is an absolute, lacking any restriction on the type of arms, or the location or manner in which people keep and bear arms, both open carry and concealed carry are equally and fully within the right of the people.  All other arguments to the contrary, including those stated in this pathetically biased article, are mute.  There are no “except when…” allowances in the Second Amendment, for very good reason.  Those who wrote it knew if they allowed even an iota of room for exception, that people and powers opposed to our Constitutional covenant between We the People and our Republican Government would indeed infringe on our right to keep and bear arms.

Why are these very straightforward concepts so difficult for liberals and Demoncraps to comprehend?

It’s because they don’t WANT to comprehend them, or, if they do, they want to advance their blitheringly idiotic anti-gun agenda.  For example, “Hawaii Attorney General Russell Suzuki said … ‘We are disappointed in the decision that would undermine Hawaii’s strong gun control law and our commitment to protect the public’ and ‘well-reasoned dissent supporting the constitutionality of this law.”

No, Suzuki, the dissent is not “well-reasoned.”  It’s an extreme violation of Constitutional law, quite alarming coming from a judge who swore to uphold it.  Furthermore, disarming honest, law-abiding citizens does not protect them.  England, also an island, tried that and their crime rate more than tripled.  It’s still 274% greater than it was before their ban.  Grow a brain, you blitheringly idiotic, anti-Constitutional fool.

Nope! Our U.S. Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land. Says so itself, right there in Article VI: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”

IT’S THE LAW, people.

But it’s not just “guns,” there, Associated Press. “The right of the people to keep and bear ARMS shall not be infringed.”

The term “arms” is short for “armaments,” not “firearms.” Obviously, it includes firearms, but it also includes knives, machetes, spears, bow and arrow, rifle, handgun, revolver, pistol, AR-15, lance, sword… ALL ARMS. ALL forms of armament.

Why?  Because some people may not be able to afford  a firearm, that’s why.

“In 1623, Virginia forbade its colonists to travel unless they were “well armed”; in 1631 it required colonists to engage in target practice on Sunday and to “bring their peeces to church.”26 In 1658 it required every householder to have a functioning firearm within his house and in 1673 its laws provided that a citizen who claimed he was too poor to purchase a firearm would have one purchased for him by the government, which would then require him to pay a reasonable price when able to do so” (Note 1).

As I mentioned before, the article is chock full of liberal bias

Notes

  1.  William Hening, The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia from the First Session of the Legislature in 1619, at pp. 127, 173-74 (New York, 1823), as referenced in the 1982 Congressional Report on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

Markeis McGlockton Shooting in Clearwater – DETAILS

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million:

ANALYSIS

According to trial attorneys Blake & Dorsten, P.A., Michael Drejka was within his rights under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law to shoot Markeis McGlockton:

The “Stand Your Ground” Law introduced two (2) conclusive presumptions that favor a criminal defendant who is making a self-defense claim:  (1) The presumption that the defendant had a reasonable fear that deadly force was necessary; and (2) The presumption that the intruder intended to commit an unlawful act involving force or violence.

These two presumptions protect the defender from both civil and criminal prosecution for unlawful use of deadly or non-deadly force in self-defense. In addition, the defender/gun owner has no duty to retreat, regardless of where he is attacked, so long as he is in a place where he is lawfully entitled to be when the danger occurs.

But let’s take a look at the applicable Florida State Law itself:

A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity, and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.  F.S. §776.013(3)

Having been forcefully knocked knocked to the ground, Drejka had every reason to believe that Markeis would cause him further harm, right up to the point where Markeis began backing off at the sight of Drejka’s drawn firearm.  At that moment, the situation changed, and Drejka pulled the trigger as Markeis was retreating.

This element — Markeis’ retreat at the sight of Drejka’s weapon — removed “reasonable belief it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another.”

Shooting any human being who is retreating is not permissible under the law.  It doesn’t matter whether they’ve turned and are at a dead run or they’re still facing you while backing off slowly.

Contrast this shooting with the Kajieme Powell shooting in St. Louis, where the perpetrator continued to advance after guns were drawn.

Even so, expecting your average citizen to be able to make this assessment and follow the technically correct course of action in the heat of the moment is not reasonable.  Therefore, I find the decision made by Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri to not charge Drejka to be the right decision.

The key takeaway here is Markeis should never have walked up to Drejka and knocked him to the ground.  That’s a felony.

The Lowdown on Anthropogenic Global Warming / Climate Change

As a registered statistician and well-educated scientist (3 degrees and 37 years of experience), I’ve been all over the IPCC’s and others’ data they use to justify the claim that rising CO2 levels are responsible for global warming. Here’s what I found:
 
1. There is indeed evidence that the Earth has gone through a warming period over the last 70 years, one that was interrupted for at least 12 of the 18 years since the turn of the century.
 
2. There is indeed evidence that CO2 levels have also risen during the last 70 years.
 
3. CO2 is indeed a “greenhouse gas,” meaning it tends to trap a portion of IR (infrared) radiation (heat) from being radiated back into space.
 
4. CO2 is by no means the most potent greenhouse gas out there. In fact, both water and methane are far more potent.
 
5. While animal husbandry does produce some methane, termites and microbes produce far more, and deforestation is a leading cause as it interrupts the biological role of methane in the environment.
 
6. Patterns of atmospheric H2O have been significantly changed by aviation. In gaseous (invisible) form, water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas. In condensate and crystallized (cloud) form, H2O reflects sunlight back into space, but it also reflect Earth’s IR energy back to the ground. In most instances, clouds retain more heat to Earth than they protect Earth from acquiring. Both the shape and altitude of the clouds determine the net IR energy flow.
 
7. While CO2 and global warming over the last 70 years are correlated, there is no statistical evidence that either one has caused the other.
 
8. The amount of global warming occurring over the last 70 years is minuscule as compared to the temperature swings associated with the comings and goings of ice ages.
 
9. Prior to the start of the last ice age, the temperature also took a sharp, but small and short swing upward, and it, too, was accompanied by a short rise in CO2 levels.
 
10. We’re about due for another ice age.
 
11. Scientists still discount the role of sunspots, despite the fact that sunspots are strongly correlated with Earth mean temperatures. Since the Earth is certainly not affecting the cycle of the Sun’s sunspots, simple deduction says that sunspots do affect Earth’s climate.
 
12. Scientists who study the dynamics of sunspot formation have determined that sunspots are formed by the Sun’s magnetic activity, which undergoes periodic cyclical change.
 
13. Indications are strong that the Sun is close to entering a period quiessence, where very few sunspots would form, thereby resulting in an accompanying cooling period — even an ice age — here on Earth.
 
My recommandation: Hyper-insulate your house and stock up on snow shovels. Even if you wind up not needing the shovels, you’ll save on cooling. 🙂

Ache

Isn’t it strange the way things can change
The life that you lead turned on its head
Suddenly someone means more than you felt before
Her house and its yard turns into home

I’m sorry but I meant to say
Many things along the way
So this ones for you

Have I told you I ache
Have I told you I ache
Have I told you I ache for you?

Have I told you I ache
Have I told you I ache/and I hope its not too late
Have I told you I ache/Can I hold you and ache for you?

The hours that it took writing words for my book
Seems to have broken in half
The gate that i shut last time i got hurt
Seems to have opened itself

Oh the world its spinning now
Its trying to catch me up
And tell me to appreciate
The here and now

I’m sorry but i meant to say
Many things along the way
So this ones for you

Have I told you I ache
Have I told you I ache
Have I told you I ache for you?

Have I told you I ache
Have I told you I ache/and I hope its not too late
Have I told you I ache/Can I hold you and ache for you?

James Carrington
“Ache”
Live at Strange Brew Coffee House
Starkville’s House of El Podcast

We KNOW how to secure the schools – WHY AREN’T YOU LISTENING???

Anyone who has ever worked at a bank, guarded a military arsenal, flightline, or transportation yard, arranged security for kids on a field trip, or lifeguarded pools KNOWS how to secure schools so this NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN. Thing of it is, we’ve known this for decades, and some schools in our nation are VERY secure. They’re not prisons. The physical, human, and procedural protections in place keep bad people out. SO, here’s some questions, libtards:
 
1. Since we know how to secure schools, why was the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT NOT SECURE???
 
2. Since we know how to secure schools, why was the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL NOT SECURE???
 
3. Since we know how to secure schools, why was the Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, TX NOT SECURE???
 
I’ll tell you why: Because properly securing schools, as has been successfully done throughout the United States, requires, among other things, ARMED GUARDS. These ARMED GUARDS can be law enforcement officers fulfilling their duty as School Resource Officers, armed security, or armed teachers. By far the cheapest solution are carefully selected and trained armed teachers under the supervision of a School Resource Officer who floats between schools.
 
The problem with liberals, however, is that their “no firearms under any circumstances” policies leave our kids vulnerable. Liberals are like Jar-Jar Binks saying, “Meesa give up,” the perfect target for the mentally disturbed mass shooters.
 
Since those of us who have been trained and tasked with securing high-value assets have long known how to secure those assets, why is mainstream media listening to children who have NO SUCH TRAINING OR EXPERIENCE???
 
Do you want to solve the problem, or not? Every indication you’re providing says, “Not,” which raises the question as to how culpable the media has been by failing, if not outright refusing, on how to properly secure our children.
So long as the media refuses to listen, it’s likely schools will continue to ignorantly put our children at risk.  Do not let them!  They’re YOUR kids, not the media’s.