Chris Johnson

There is a social experiment where an employer goes to his employees and hands them each a bonus. Jim gets $500, Bill gets $500, Jill gets $500, and Karen gets $400.

Everybody is talking about how wonderful the boss is for giving them bonuses. Karen is delighted, and so are Jim, Bill, and Jill.

A few days go by, and Karen finds out that Jill got $500 and she only got $400.

Now, a good person says, “Thank you , boss; I wasn’t expecting a bonus.” A normal person might then sulk about not getting the extra $100.

Unfortunately, the most common response was for Karen to bitch to her boss and the world that she got cheated out of $100. She deserved it just as much as the others.

She loses sight of the extra $400 in her pocket and instead focuses on what she didn’t get.

The bosses are unlikely to give out bonuses in the future. Or everybody is going to get the same amount. That amount will be lower.

The actual experiment used amounts ranging from around $100 to around $10,000.

This experiment was done at a place where I was employed. We were all handed envelopes with cash in them as bonuses at the same time. We were told that the amounts might not be the same. We were told not to share how much we got.

When I had seen the amount, I went to my boss and said, “Thank you very much.” After I did, the rest did the same.

Of all the employees, only one, V, tried to find out what the others got. He is the same guy who demanded a pay raise when he found out how rich our boss was.

He was envious of what others got. He lost sight of what he had received and was more focused on what he had not gotten or might not have gotten.

As I said, my boss was wealthy. I was able to listen as he explained to the person selling him a new airplane that he didn’t give a flying f. If the plane wasn’t finished with its repaint and new interior and at the local airport by the end of the week, he was going to cancel.

Canceling would have cost him around $150,000. But he would rather cancel than put up with more shit.

Did my boss being able to buy million-dollar (or more) planes keep me from buying a plane or getting flying lessons? No. Did his owning multiple cars keep me from owning the car I wanted? No. Did his owning and flying a helicopter keep me from owning and flying a helicopter? Absolutely not.

As a matter of fact, him being wealthy allowed me to buy my machine shop. If he had not been wealthy, then I would not have had a job that allowed me to purchase that shop. My boss didn’t own a Bridgeport, South Bend, and all the rest. Was he jealous of me?

Our economy is not a fixed pie. There isn’t a fixed amount of wealth. You can always add to the wealth of our economy and make something and profit from what you make or provide.

Last weekend, the Indian encamped next to Ally was frying up venison steak on a soapstone griddle. It looked incredible, and according to Ally, smelled even better. I wish I could have eaten some of that venison. I love venison.

I could have been envious; instead, I am looking forward to harvesting a deer or two this season.

Why do people feel envious? Because they feel they are not getting what others are.

When wealthy, spoiled man-children descended on Wall Street demanding that they be raised up to the wealth of the traders of Wall Street, they looked like petulant children.

They were complaining about the “1%.” They were part of the “0.1%.”

Americans are the wealthiest people in the world. There are people that live below the poverty line in America who are wealthier than 99% of the rest of the world.

But those spoiled children were more focused on what they didn’t have rather than what they did have. Tweeting about how downtrodden they were from their $1000 cell phones while sipping $10 coffees from Starbucks.

Somebody was talking about the Ponzi scheme that is Social Security. As it was set up, the goal was to never pay out any money.

Retirement age was set to where the government expected most to be dead. Or to only live for a few more years.

My parents lived decades past retirement age.

So the young of today are paying into social security money that goes right back out the door to pay the people who already paid in.

I’ve been watching the market recently. I invested the money they inherited from my parents into money market funds. Both children have earned nearly $3k this summer from that money.

If the money the government took from me during my youth had gone into an investment, rather than lending it to the government, then that investment would measure in the millions, and the interest would easily support me.

That’s correct. The social security fund is only allowed to invest in “special” government bonds, treasury bonds. The “reason” for this is that treasury bonds are “guaranteed” a fixed rate of return.

The problem is that treasury bonds are how the government borrows money. If the government borrows $100 from SS, it promises to pay back $143 in 10 years. The same $100 invested at 4.31% APR compounded monthly over 10 years returns a total of $153.

SS is a scam at all levels. My money went to pay for my parents and grandparents generations. My parents went to their parents.

You might be unhappy that your money is going to pay for the current generation of SS users. I’m part of you in that.

Regardless, when one of these children looks at me and says, “You own a house, you have wealth, you have passive income, you shouldn’t get Social Security,” they are showing their envy and greed.

I have paid into SS my entire working life. My very first paycheck had SS taken out. As a self-employed person, I pay double what you do because I pay for both my personal portion as well as the employer’s portion.

A couple of years ago, I was visiting a friend, and they were telling me about how hard it was to find a house. They then proceeded to tell me how awful it was that this person they knew had purchased a plot of land to keep it from being developed.

Ok, that’s an opinion. If I could buy land around me, I would, because I love to hunt and I love the forest near my home.

But my friend went on. He started complaining about how this person was talking about how much he spent for this plot of land and why he did it. Specifically to stop development. He then says, “He was so clueless. He knew I was looking for a house. He knew how tight things are for me right now. Damn it, just read the fucking room.”

I waited for him to wind down. It took a while, and there were other conversations.

We were standing in a garage with two cars and multiple heavy duty gun safes. His wife was with her car; his truck and sports car were in the driveway. He had been complaining about only having a little left over after paying rent. Yet, his wife and kids were on their second vacation of the year.

I looked him in the eye and said, “What a way to read the room. I’m driving a 12-year-old truck I bought used. I struggle to pay our heating bill in the winter. Often choosing to buck fallen trees and split them by hand. You spend more on your vacations, while I haven’t had a vacation in 15 years. Yet you didn’t even notice.”

“You didn’t notice because my wealth and income aren’t what define me. What defines me is my family and my passions, not envy.”

Today, I have a virtually unlimited selection of music. I use YouTube Music as my tool. Amazon has something similar.

While the ability to find new music blows my mind, I’ve also lost many artists that I used to listen to. The older I get, the more I miss the music of my youth.

That love of music was born of listening to my parents music. Dad made the speakers we used. Dad made the stereo cabinet that held the record player and the “vast” collection of reel-to-reel tapes. And the “vast” collection of records.

The best way to listen was with the Sony headphones, eyes closed, listening.

The reality was that we had about 50 hours of music on those tapes. I am still attempting to find one album where two black jazz/blues artists were competing. Something like Red from The Five Pennies.

We had around 40 hours of music on those LPs. So somewhere between 90 and 120 hours of music.

This means I listened to the same music over and over again. I had my favorites.

One tape contained a group of nuns singing. I could not find the album until one day, the name popped into my head: Joy Is Like the Rain. This allowed me to track down the album.

The name of the group, in my mind, in my parents’ words, was “The Singing Nuns.” That is not the group.

Here is a song from one of their albums. I hope you enjoy it.

I fought networks today.

They won this battle.

I forgot to write.

See you all later today

I ran into this tripe a little more than a year ago. This week it is showing up everywhere.

People are whining on X and Reddit about how hard it is today. How the “boomers” took all the wealth. How they don’t want you to be able to afford a home.

My parents grew up during the Great Depression and WWII. My maternal grandfather tried to volunteer for the army but was not allowed, as he was a critical worker in railroads. My paternal grandfather was busy being a scientist for Goodyear. Family history says that he helped develop the tires that were using synthetic rubber.

My grandparents worked hard to earn what they held. They died owning a houses.

My maternal grandparents bought their house in the 30s or 40s. Grandpa built the garage himself. He did all the work around the house. Before he started working for the railroad, the SooLine, he was a machinist and a carpenter/woodworker. His hands were calloused from working his entire life.

He bought his house for under $2k, it is currently valued at $145k.

My grandfather also worked most of his life. He was a scientist who worked with cotton. His house was worth much more when my grandmother passed because of California. Likely near enough to a million dollars for a little house.

When my parents started, Dad was an ensign in the Navy. It wasn’t until a LT that they could afford their first house.

They purchased an OLD house in Norfolk. Dad took the test to be a certified electrician because he needed to rewire that house. They couldn’t afford to have somebody else do any work. Dad fixed that house up.

When he was transferred, they couldn’t sell the house for what they had in it, so they rented it out until they could. That allowed them to buy another house. A little nicer, a little better.

It wasn’t until I was in 6th grade that I had a room to myself. There was no “spare” bedroom. It wasn’t until high school that the house was big enough for there to be a shared office for Mom and Dad.

That house now lists for $550k. I do not know how much they purchased it for.

When they passed, their house was worth around $360k.

Their houses and their wealth went up as they invested money they had earned and saved.

My first house was a “three”-bedroom, one-bath house. With 870 sq. feet. I could barely afford it with my $35k/year salary. I think we paid around $50k for it. It now sells for $242k. I quote three because it was actually two bedrooms with an extra room tacked on the back, through the second bedroom. So it was three bedrooms and a laundry room, craft room, kids room.

I stuffed 5 kids and a wife into that house, and we made it work.

But here’s the thing: the house I thought I could afford was a $30k fixer-upper. I was going into that house knowing I would have to rip up every floor and put new floors back in. That every wall had to be stripped and painted. And likely, I would have to redo the roof. And I expected to do all the work myself.

I made no money on that house. The bank repossessed it because I was unable to make child support payments AND house payments.

I have a house today because my wife makes good money and I get bursts of money. We were able to afford it only because my parents helped and the house had been foreclosed.

It is worth almost 4 times what we paid for it. Not a bad investment.

It took me 30 years of work to be able to buy this house. I’ve never gone hungry, but I’ve eaten freezer scrapings more than once.

But today I’m told I had it easy. That my parents had it easy. That I’m greedy because I bought this house that could have been used by a large growing family,

One person complained that he couldn’t find a starter home. His definition of a starter home put him at $500K.

My house is not a “starter home.” It is my grow-old home. And it isn’t $500k.

There are 7 houses for sale within 2 miles of my town for less than $150k.

The most significant difference, in my opinion, is what luxuries we “must” have today.

My child dropped her phone in the lake. She has a new phone. My phone bill, for the family, is $250 per month. We shouldn’t be paying that much for phones. But I like having my phone. I like being able to read books in the dark. I like my Google Maps and Android Auto.

So I pay for my kids and family to have cell phones. And good ones.

I think we spend nearly $100/month on streaming services. I have not added it up, but that sounds about right.

There is money for servers, internet, VoIP service, and a dozen other things.

Our electric bill is high. People run heaters when it is cold and fans or AC when it is hot.

All these things add up.

When I was young, going out to eat was a special thing. Today, my kids eat out 4 out of 7 days of the week. The amount of money spent on drinks from Dunkin or McDonald’s blows my mind.

I feel bad for spending $35/month on good coffee. My wife will spend $2 for an iced tea from McDonald’s multiple times per month. It all just adds up.

To put it in perspective, I’ve seen my wife order takeout for us and the kids and spend nearly 10% of a mortgage payment. Taking the entire family out for dinner can easily hit 20%.

Do I feel bad for the people who are struggling to make ends meet? Yes, I do. I’ve been there. I fought through that. I drive a 15 year-old truck so I don’t have to pay $500/month on a car payment. Are they making the same types of sacrifices? Do they make the sacrifices my parents made?

Now they are not.

Stop whining, stop blaming me, get up and go do.

There was a time when I would stand up at a whiteboard and sketch an entire campus network from memory, including every network subnet, router, and switch.

Today, not only can I no longer hold all of that in my head, my whiteboards no longer exist.

In the first office I rented, I installed floor-to-ceiling whiteboards on all walls. I could write or draw on any surface.

I can remember walking into Max’s office with an idea, asking for permission to erase his whiteboard, and then drawing out or describing the idea or project. Maybe 30 minutes of drawing and discussing.

What surprised me was asking to erase my chicken scratches months later and being told, “No,” because they were still using it.

Regardless, today I need to draw serious network maps.

I have multiple routers between multiple subnets. Managed and unmanaged switches. Gateways and VPNs. I have an entire virtual network layered over the top of all of that to make different services appear to be on the same subnet.

Not to mention the virtual private cloud(s) that I run, the internal, non-routing networks.

It is just to much for me to do in my head.

Oh, here’s one that’s currently messing with me. I have a VPC. It has multiple gateways allowing access residing on different chassis in different subnets. I can’t figure out how to make it work today. Even though it was working yesterday.

I’ll be messing with networks for the next week to get things stabalized.

Can I call Network Support, Please?

I’m in network hell again. The internal network keeps getting better, but I’m a cheap SOB, so I don’t buy Cisco $50 SFP modules. I buy 4 for $50.

This has downsides, one of which is when it breaks, I’m responsible.

So here’s the story in short. Node 3 <=> SW1, Node 4 <-> SW1, S1 <=> R1, R1 <=> N129, R1 <=> N5, R1 <-> GW, GW <-> THE WORLD.

I have measured bandwidth between N3 and N5 at nearly 10G, as expected, both directions. I have measured bandwidth of nearly 2G between N129 and N3 and N5, as expected in both directions. I have measured bandwidth between N4 and N3, N5 and N129 at 1G, bi-directional.

The measured speed from the WORLD to the ONT is 1 Gbit, bi-directional. The measured speed between GW and WORLD is 480 Mbit bi-directional. This is because the GW is CPU starved at that point. It is a router, not a compute engine.

The measured throughput from the GW to N129 and N5 is 1 Gbit, as expected.

The measured throughput from N129 and N5 to the GW is < 30 Mbit. This is messed up. I'm working backwards. ONT to GW replaced ethernet cable. GW to R1 I've replaced the fiber modules on both ends, next step is to replace the fiber itself. That's where I'm stuck. I've even power cycled R1.

Techs vs Tech Support

The Fidium/Consolidated Communications tech was on site yesterday. He quickly found the ONT. Measured its performance, declared it needed to be replaced. Took a look at the equipment he could see and the fiber runs, went and moved the house to a different splitter. We are now on the primary splitter instead of one a few steps down. There are only 4 drops on this splitter instead of 10+.

When he was finished, I ran my speed tests again. 1G down, 0.040G Up. A major improvement, still not good.

Here are some observations. English was his primary and likely his only language. He understood that he was speaking with somebody who knew networks.

After we decided that something else was wrong, we decided to test with his laptop. Before he did any testing, he tested his dongle. He made sure his laptop was capable of 1G testing. That dongle was not. He went back to his truck to get one that did support 1G.

We tested, and he was getting the same numbers I was.

I’ve ordered a USB-C to Ethernet dongle for the laptop so I can connect directly to the GW to do testing. That’s a different question.

He called tech support. Those people, tech support for the techs, could not handle him just plugging in his laptop to test.

I introduced the tech to 8.8.8.8 and showed him how to verify he was online.

Because Tech Support couldn’t figure it out, he had to install a company router for them to be able to test. Tech Support then tried to force me to use their router. Their router has no SFP ports. No, thank you.

New Client

The new client project is winding down. After their people said it couldn’t be done for over a month, I do have the new server running. Management and their customers are happy. Most of the people using the new server are happy.

Their IT people are not happy with me. He managed to make enough visible mistakes that management noticed. Not that they hadn’t noticed before, they just didn’t know what they didn’t know.

Now comes the difficult task for me: turning a one-time project into long-term client support.

TDS

I look at the world of today versus the world of 12 months ago, and my life is better. I might not be pulling as much money as I want, but the economy is moving in the correct direction.

If I see a headline with “Trump!” in it, I know another TDS sufferer is about to tell me why their life is horrible because of Trump.

People being told to buy soda and snacks with their money and not mine? That’s evil.

The federal government not paying for people’s solar systems with my money? That’s evil too.

Removing criminal aliens from our country? Think of the children!

There was a thread on Reddit complaining that solar is going to die in Vermont because the solar subsidy is being stopped.

I’m sorry, solar in the Northeast is not as viable as solar in Florida or other sunny places. If you think it is such a great deal, buy it with your money, not mine.

Go read Dive Medic’s blog over at https://areaocho.com for his personal experience with solar power. It is a win for him. It is a nice concept for me. But it requires doing the math. And using your money.

The National Guard Can Be Used for Law Enforcement IF

It is for a good cause, like protecting President Biden from those horrible, evil, red-hatted people. They should have been called in to stop the most horrific, violent, attack on the government of the United States ever. January 6th, when 10s of thousands of the most heavily armed people in the world, left all their guns at home.

Activating the National Guard to help law enforcement officials in the District of Columbia? That’s forbidden. That’s misuse of the military.

Remember, the Second Amendment only protects the rights of the Militia, which is the National Guard, until Trump uses them, in which case they are the Military and it is a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. (End sarcasm).

There is nothing that the Trump administration can do that the left won’t cry about.

It’s Not Sharp

I think I’ve mastered the art of woodworking with hand tools. All cutting implements are dull, by definition. Sharpen them before you start.

Seriously, almost every time I’ve had issues, it is because I have not done enough sharpening or flattening.

That includes such things as flattening your planes. I have a Stanley #4 that needs more work to make its sole flat. It is almost there, but I got tired of trying to make it flat. I’m in a position to work on it again.

I picked up a wooden fore plane. This is really a jack plane, but it works.

The first step was to examine it. The sole looked ok, until I realized that there were little drips from whatever was used to finish it.

It took a good 30 minutes on 320 grit sandpaper to make the sole flat. It took longer than that to grind a good edge on the iron. It was so bad that the iron got to hot to hold, even with my slow speed grinder.

I need to spend a bit more time, but I believe this will be a real workhorse.

Now all I need is a day that isn’t so hot and muggy.

The same with the 26″ handsaw I found. Once it is properly sharpened, its 8 TPI will just rip through wood. The long length of the panel will make it another workhorse.

All I need to do is finish my Jointer’s Box. OH, I realized I had been staring at a Jointer’s box at the Fort without seeing it. I have to spend the time to examine it more closely.

Question of the week

My standard in interacting with the police is “I don’t answer questions.” Which I fail at, so I work harder at succeeding.

If police were to roll up in my yard, I would be telling them to leave.

With the advent of federal law enforcement hitting the streets of DC, there are reports coming out that LEOs are walking up on people sitting on their stoops to demand ID and justification.

Where do you stand on the idea of the cops demanding ID of people sitting on the steps of their own homes?

Two years ago I switched from the worst Internet provider to the second worst Internet provider in my area. Fidium by Consolidated Communications.

Until yesterday, when I called, I got an American-based tech support person. They were all at what I consider tier II or better. Their knowledge base was good, and they treated me with respect.

Yesterday Ally pointed out that my voice communications had gotten bad. My new client is complaining about upload speeds to their server. I’m seeing 28 KB/s upload speeds.

Before I go yelling at the client about their network, I verify my own.

Download speed: 1095.4 Mbps down. This is precisely what I pay for. 0.260 Mbps up. This is not the 1 Gbit I am paying for.

To put this into units that highlight how bad this is. I pay for 1.000000 Gigabits up and down. I got 1.09500 down and 0.000260 up.

This is an issue that needs to be resolved. I power cycle the firewall and the ONT. No change.

I call Fidium via VoIP; the representative, speaking with a strong accent, can’t hear or understand me.

I hang up, take my cell off WiFi calling, and call, making my way through the prompts to reach customer support again.

The representative I reach is also not in the US. I authenticate to her. Tell her that I have asymmetrical speeds. Give her the download and upload speeds.

“That’s the plan you’re paying for.”

“No, it is not. I’m paying for 1G up/down symetrical.”

“You called technical support. You need to talk to sales.”

“I am only getting 0.26 megabits up. This is not my plan.”

“You need to talk to sales.”

“Let me talk to somebody competent!”

More arguments from her that I’m getting exactly what I am supposed to be getting

“Let me change that, let me talk to your supervisor now.”

10 plus minutes of waiting before she comes back on and asks, “What are the speeds you are getting again?”

I tell her, and she finally starts to work towards a resolution.

I ask her where is the supervisor that I asked to speak to, “He’s in a meeting and can’t respond.”

She gets me an appointment for a technician. For today at 0800-0900. 23 hours from the time I put in the call.

I tell her this is unacceptable. She refuses to do anything. I tell her to yank her supervisor out of the meeting.

When I finally get to talk to him, I use some emotional blackmail. “My VoIP is down. This means I’ve lost e911 capabilities at my site. Tomorrow is to long. I need somebody here today.”

I’ll update this posting if they actually did get the issue fixed in a timely fashion.

Damn, I miss US-based support.

Or to put it in the jingo of my youth, sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.

In Cincinnati, a white man and a white woman were beaten badly. This wasn’t a one-on-one beatdown; it was a gang of feral hood rats attempting to murder them.

Because they are black, they are not to blame. The white folks are. They said something that justified the beatdown.

It is the white victims that need to be charged and arrested. They are responsible for 6 felonies.

When I started to babysit Cray Supercomputers it was just another step. Massive mainframe handling many users, doing many things.

But I quickly learned that there are ways of making “supercomputers” that don’t require massive mainframes. My mentor used to say, “Raytracing is embarrassingly parallel.”

What was meant by that is that every ray fired is completely independent of every other ray fired. His adjunct program rrt was able to distribute work across 1000s of different compute nodes.

We were constantly attempting to improve our ability to throw more compute power at any problem we were encountering. It was always about combining more and more nodes to create more and more powerful compute centers.

Which moved the bottleneck. We went from being CPU starved to being memory starved to being network starved. So we added more network bandwidth until it all balanced out again. Until we bottlenecked on networks again.

After his passing, I did work with a company that supported multiple large corporations.

I was introduced to VMware. A virtualization framework.

Instead of taking “small” computers and joining them together to create larger computers, we were taking “medium” computers and breaking them into small virtual devices.

What is a virtual device

A virtual device is nominally a network interface, a virtual disk drive, or a compute instance.

To create a virtual computer (instance), you tell your vm manager to create a virtual drive, attach it to a virtual computer, attach a virtual DVD drive, allocate a virtual network interface, and boot.

The virtual drive can be a physical drive on the host computer. It can be a partition on a physical drive, it can be a file on the host computer, or it can be a network-attached drive.

If you attach from the host computer, you can only move the drive to other instances on the same computer.

If you attach a network-attached drive, you can only move the drive to other instances with access to the network-attached drive.

I use libvirt for my virtual manager. If I expect the instance to stay on the same host, I use a file on the host computer. That is easy.

If I need to be able to migrate the virtual computer to different machines, I’ll use a Ceph Raw Block Device or a file on a shared filesystem.

What are the cons of using a virtual machine

It can be slower than a physical device. It doesn’t have to be, but sometimes it is.

While you can oversubscribe CPUs, you can’t oversubscribe memory. Memory is always an issue with virtual machines.

When the network isn’t fast enough, network-attached drives will feel slower.

And the big one: if the Network Attached Storage (NAS) fails, all instances depending on the NAS will also fail. Which is why I use Ceph. Ceph can survive multiple drive or node failures.

Another big con: if a host computer fails, it will cause all virtual computers running on that host to also fail.

What are the pros of using a virtual machine

It is trivial to provision virtual machines. There is an entire framework OpenStack that does exactly this. Using OpenStack you can provision an instance with just a few simple commands.

You can migrate an instance from one host computer to another. Even if the disk drive is located on the host computer, it is possible to move the contents of that drive to another host computer.

If you are using a NAS, you can attach a virtual drive to an instance, work on it with that instance, then detach that virtual drive and attach it to a different instance. This means you don’t have to use over the wire data moves.

You can also increase the size of a virtual drive, and the instance can take advantage of more disk space without having to be rebooted or any downtime.

Besides increasing the size, we can attach new drives.

This means that storage management is much easier.

Virtual Networks

The host computer lives on one or more physical networks. The instances can be bridged onto that physical network.

The instance can also be protected behind a Network Address Translation (NAT) service. This gives complete outbound connectivity but requires extra configuration for inbound.

But an instance can be placed within a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). A VPC provides the complete internet IP space to the instance (or instances).

This means that user A can have their instances on 192.168.100.x and user B can have their instances on 192.168.100.x with out collisions.

None of user A’s traffic appears in user B’s VPC.

VPCs can be connected to share with gateways. When this is done, all the VPCs must use non-overlapping subnets.

In other words, 192.168.100.1 on user A’s VPC cannot communicate with an instance on user B’s VPC at address 192.168.100.55.

But if user A agrees to use 192.169.100.x and user B agrees to use 192.168.99.x then the VPCs can be connected with a (virtual) router.

Using a VPC means that the user must use a gateway to talk to any other VPC or physical network. This places a NAT service in the gateway.

A physical address is assigned to the gateway, which forwards all traffic to one or more VPC IPs.

Conclusion

While every infrastructure manager (network manager) needs to know their VM Manager. They all work in similar ways. If you know the basics, the rest is just a matter of finding the correct button or command.

This stuff is easy once the infrastructure is set up.