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So there’s a lot of stuff going on in the world today. I can’t fix most of it. I can’t even make a dent. I can’t repair what Dems have done, or Mamdani in NYC or any of it. It’s beyond my small grasp. That’s true of every single one of us. As a single human being, there really isn’t much we can do.

Except that there really is. The edict to help others is not just Christian, but runs through most faiths in the world. That desperation to help someone runs deep in the human psyche, to the point where some of us feel horrible if we can’t help others. There are limits, of course. But the fundamental idea of helping someone find food, shelter, a job, a working vehicle, or a quiet night without a screaming infant… these are within our grasp.

@obsessedwmc #itstime it’s time!!! throughout the years #mariahcarey #christmas ♬ original sound – queen mariah

So at this time of year, just as Mariah Carey comes out of her icy slumber, I make the same offer. If you need help, please let me know. I don’t have tons of cash, and I don’t have a big house anymore to stash people in. But if you are hurting bad enough, I have a couch. I have food. I will make sure you don’t starve. If you are feeling down, page me or call me. I will talk to you. I will listen. And for all that’s holy… please know, I would rather spend hours listening to you cry about your life, than thirty minutes at your funeral, so if you are feeling suicidal or dangerously depressed, please please please reach out.

I’m an interfaith minister, among the other zillion things I do. I’m not a psychologist or a shrink, but I know how to listen. I can give advice, if asked, but I usually just listen.

I don’t ask for anything in return. If you find yourself in a place, sometime in the future, where you have the ability to give back… Well, you pay it forward. Go help the next person who needs it. M’kay? I don’t have much… but I have enough. My fridge is full, and so is my freezer (so full that we’re not buying meat for a while because I desperately need space in there in case we get a deer this year). My pantry is bursting with canned goods, which aren’t our favorite, but which will see us through if we can’t afford fresh. I have everything I need to bake bread and treats for the holidays and the holy days. In all that, I’m rich.

Let’s Try Socialism!

In a city of 7 million people, only 1 million people showed up to vote. They decided an openly socialist was the right choice for them.

Some are planning to leave. Others are rushing to the city to take part in the “free” stuff. Businesses are looking at horrible tax rates.

The mayor elect has already turned on the “rich”.

You can vote yourself in, you need to shoot yourself out. I hope they learn.

Steel Challenge

I have a new goal, to put 18 rounds in a ten-inch round at 60 ft. This is the size of the small targets for Steal Challenge Shooting.

Either I’ve lost much of my skill or it is just getting use to a new firearm. I will get better.

We The People Holsters

The holster system I purchased doesn’t come with a backer pad. It is still incredibly comfortable. I’ve not figured out my magazine holster yet. It either feels much to wide or it sits to low. I’ll work it out.

I’ve ordered my second for the Sig P365-XMacro. I expect to be using this as my primary firearm for Steel Challenge.

If you are looking, give them a try.

Trauma Kit

One of the questions on the SOP for the range is “Where are the trauma kits located?” The answer is just inside the clubhouse, inside the rimfire covered firing line and maybe one other place. I don’t recall.

I told the gentleman running the test, “There is no place to list: Back of driver’s seat of truck, right side of range back, and ankle.”

Well, I picked up an ankle kit. It is elementary, TQ, Combat Bandage and two pairs of gloves. My only issue is that there is no place for z-fold gauze. I’m working with that issue.

First Aid Training

I’m looking into getting formal first aid training for the family. It turns out that the local hospitals and a few other place offer low cost to free first aid training.

We’ll do something at the start of the new year. I want to practice applying a TQ, applying a combat bandage, and packing wounds. Those three things should cover most major bleeding issues. Above that, I would like to learn how to apply a chest seal properly.

I’ve started to watch some more serious trauma response instructional videos. There is a reason that chest seals come in pairs, you have to seal the exit hole as well as the entry hole.

SCOTUS

More cases in the Second Amendment space are being conferenced at the Supreme Court. Here’s hoping they take up at least one more good Second Amendment case this term.

Reloading

I had slowed down my reloading when I had reached some of my goals. It is time to go into higher production. 3.67Kg is about 1000 deprimed 9mm cases. I need to be reloading around 1000 per month to keep up with my range schedule.

It takes only a few moments to send 51 rounds down range with my Sig as compared to my 1911s.

Luckily primers are in stock and coming down in price. I have a few pounds of powder. I’m going to need more bullets.

The nice thing is that getting brass to reload is much easier now. 10 minutes of picking gathered nearly 500 9mm cases, some 10mm, one .40 S&W, one 5.56, 2 .22LR, and 10 .45ACP. And this was with a focus on 9mm. Oh, 1 .38 special.

Question of the Week

How close do you keep your trauma kit? Do you carry one on your person or is it in your bag, or vehicle/house?

I have just started with constantly on my person. Each of my LBV has a trauma or trauma plus IFAK, Each of my carry bags has an IFAK, that would be briefcase, break down rifle case, range bag, and GOODE bag.

Range Day

Last week I made it to the range in time for the orientation class. The “Range” is large enough to take about 45 minutes to get the orientation tour. It was about 20 minutes of filling out forms. It was another 2.5 hours waiting for people to take the range safety and operating procedure test.

You need to score 90% on the SOP test to get your membership. I was unhappy because I got 2 wrong and scored a 95%. I passed on the first attempt. Nobody else passed on the first attempt. There was a membership person overseeing the test taking and answering questions.

The two questions I got wrong were about the 50/100/200 yard rifle range. The range is split between the 200 and the 50/100 targets. I consider them to be two separate ranges. But, there is only a single firing line. I messed it up because I was thinking of them as separate. 2.5% off.

The other was just as stupid.

I almost walked out. The gentleman taking the SOP when I first got there was not doing well. He was failed and was denied membership.

As I told the orientation officer, if they had passed him, I would have taken my money and walked back out.

How nice is this range? Let’s start with “The Range is closed, but here’s a bay for you to shoot in”. The 600 yard rifle range extends over most of the full range. When the 600 yard range is in use, all the other ranges are closed. But they open up the bay just outside the gate for people to use while waiting for the rest of the range to open.

The 600 yard range is scheduled for Thursdays, 0800-1200.

Next come the two trap ranges. The lower one has all the stuff for shotgun people. The upper range has a pavilion. The clay launcher is fully automated. You yell “pull” and the machine does it. No humans except for loading more clays. $5 for 25 clays.

Next is the 50/100 and 200 yard ranges. Then the rimfire bay, both rifle and pistol, .22 and .17 rimfire.

Next are the pistol bays; the first is for paper targets. Don’t draw from behind the bench; use the open slot or off to the side. Place your targets where you want. Then there is the steel bay. Pistol calibers only, no magnums. So I can’t shoot my .357 Mag rifle or pistol in that bay. .45ACP and 9mm all day long. Finally, is the “carbine bay”. Carbine is defined as “yes”. This is for people that want to do two gun practice.

There are more bays that are only open during competitions.

Finally, there is a 25 yard indoor range. As a member, I can use the indoor range 24 hours a day except when it is reserved for a group.

If things don’t break, I’ll be there today.

Food Budget

We eat well. We eat darn well. With the children gone off to university, we eat even better.

My wife grew up with “Love is food, food is love.” While the children were living at home, she constantly purchased crap food for them. I’d guess that 25 to 35 percent of our food budget went to crap food. Today, we buy almost no crap food. Our budget has gone down slightly.

At the high end, we spend about $8.30 per person per day. When we are running short on cash, I reduce that to $5 per person per day.

Here’s the thing: I’ve been using that $5 per person per day for the last 40 years. It has always included nice food.

There are people who have never used a budget. Much less used a budget for food. My wife was like that. For years every meal required a trip to the grocery store. And every week we tossed the dead food, because she doesn’t like leftovers. I eat them for lunch.

We now use a budgeting grocery shopping list. Everything we want for the week goes on the list. We have a chat channel just for groceries. If you think you are going to need it next week, you say it and it gets added to the list.

We don’t buy it if it isn’t on the list.

If you need help budgeting for food, please reach out to us if you want help. If you are hungry, please reach out to us if you want help.

I have sent care packages to people around the world.

Surprised Shooting

Firearm skills are a perishable skill. I finally had a chance to put rounds on paper out of my .357 wheel gun. It actually shot much better than I thought it would. Well, it always shoots well. I, on the other hand, can easily fail.

I’m looking forward to finding out what some of these WWII rifles I’ve collected can really do at range.

Head, Swivel, Keep

Stay strapped. Stay out of stupid places. Stay away from stupid people. Nothing good happens after midnight; don’t be out and about at stupid times.

The next couple of weeks will be touchy. Be careful.

IPKVM

I’ve used Keyboard, Video, and Mouse devices in data centers in the past. They are great when you have many servers that you need to work with but don’t want to have multiple monitors and I/O devices for.

In one data center, we had a KVM with ports on the front for video out and keyboard connection. The monitor, a big-ass CRT, was on a cart. You rolled the cart to the rack with your server, plugged the CRT into power, and connected things up. You then had console access to 8 or more servers.

The price of a four-port KVM is down around $35. I have them in all the data closets. This made life much easier.

What I really wanted, though, was a KVM over IP. With this type of gizmo, you can access the console of a remote server over the network.

The cost of a four-port KVM starts at around $400. An 8-port runs around $650. For that, I’d build out another server.

Enter the iGL.net Comet and, shortly, their upgraded version. Plug a USB C into the side for power. Connect HDMI and USB to the computer. Plug in the Ethernet.

A few minutes later you have web access to the console of that computer. $89 for the gizmo. I have them plugged into the regular KVM.

Now I can select the computer I want on the KVM, go back to my desk, and do all the console work I need to do remotely.

The only issue I have is that if I have it in full screen mode and do any editing, the first time I press ESC, it reduces the size of the window.

vim uses the ESC key to leave insert mode. emacs uses the ESC key as a lead character for META control sequences.

If you have a need for remote access to a console, give it a try.

Oh, I had a friend who required support. I had him pick up one of these IPKVMs. I was able to reboot his computer remotely, configure BIOS, and bring his Linux back to life from 1500 miles away.

The hardest part was getting him to use the correct USB cables. I was attempting to use the power only cable(s) instead of power + data cables.

Question of the Week

What was your favorite range and why?

A little bit off the sides

Well, it turns out that Trump’s new ballroom is going forward. In the process he has removed the old east wing. A bit more than expected.

The rumor mill suggests that they located major security issues when they tore down the portico, leading to a larger project.

Regardless, this sounds much nicer than a private basketball court or an empty cutlery cabinet.

Supreme Court and DOJ

The DOJ has requested that the Supreme Court pause consideration of cert for an 18-20 year-old. This could be because they expect the two cases currently before the court to resolve the issues of 18-20 year-olds.

I am cautiously optimistic about our chances before the Supreme Court this term.

Ball Joints Eat Tires

The ball joints in my wife’s Jeep have been failing. They were on the work to be done list for the next oil change.

Yesterday they were changed.

It wasn’t that they had gotten that much worse; it was that my wife decided her car was unsafe to drive.

While the ball joints were still “OK” for small values of OK, both front tires were badly worn on the inside 1/3. Like showing steel worn.

We have the tires at the house, I’ll get the tires changed today.

Holsters

The We The People holster I’ve been wearing for a week now is nice. Nicer than I expected.

I’ve become used to the pad to protect my tender skin. This holster doesn’t have that pad.

And still it is more comfortable. The firearm seats with a better fit. The draw feels better.

Over all, I think I’ll be getting a few more from them.

Question of the week

How would you describe your local “No Kings” protest?

Third Circut Court Win

Judge Jennifer Mascott now sits on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. This means that the Third is no longer an agenda-driven leftist playground.

She was confirmed last Week, Trump signed her appointment early this week, and she was sworn in on the evening of the 14th or the morning of the 15th.

And the first case she heard was as a member of the en banc panel, Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs I v. Attorney General New Jersey, 24-2415 (3rd Cir.) This is an Assault Weapons Ban and a Large Capacity Magazine Ban (propaganda terms).

The court was 9-7 last week and is 10-7 this week. This means that it takes to Republican appointed judges to slide over to the dark side to lose this case en banc.

This is a case that is fully briefed; it has been decided at the trial (district) court level the 3-judge merits panel and has now been heard en banc by the Third Circuit.

My guess is that The People will win. The state will decline to appeal. If they were to appeal, it has all the right characteristics to be granted cert. It is fully developed; it will be the cause of a circuit split; it is a ban case that the Justices have said they want to hear.

Rogue Inferior Court Judges

In another set of rulings from rogue judges, a judge in California has decided that Trump can’t fire federal employees until she approves.

The magic is that Trump couldn’t fire people who had been funded by Congress. When the funding ran out, he can fire them. So he did.

Another rogue judge has decided that he gets to decide if Trump can deploy the National Guard. He thinks the opinion of a local police chief holds more weight than the Article II executive, which was granted that power by the Constitution.

Still another Judge ordered the fence protecting the ICE facility in Chicago removed. It was blocking the road, according to the court. ICE declared one side of the building a “no protest zone” so of course that is where they are protesting, screaming about the 1st Amendment (that screaming statement is my guess, not verified).

Home Owner Tribulations

Very little demo involved. If you want demolition pictures, go read Miggy’s Substack.

Our plumbing is the result of additions being added and then new pipes being put in place. At one time the owners of our house ran a daycare facility. One of the reasons our doors open out and not in.

Part of the requirement was to add another bathroom. The floor of that part of the house is nearly two feet lower than the rest of the house.

As they say in the plumbing business, shit flows downhill. Except that the output of the toilet was only 6 inches above the outlet to the sewer system on the other side of the basement. This did not allow for enough slope to carry that shit downhill.

The answer is simple: a pooper shooter. This is a sump with a garbage/ejector pump. The output of that bathroom flows downhill into the sealed sump. When the solid/fluid level gets high enough, the pump fires up. This ejects the contents, violently, up a 2 in PVC pipe into the joists and across the basement to flow down into the sewer system.

Great system, works great. Until the pump fails. That was a $2.5k replacement. The entire system had to be cut out and a new one put in place.

That was 4 or 5 years ago. The next problem we were having is that the output from the kitchen sink was going through copper pipes across the basement one way and then the other to get out to the sewer. Food particles and grease were building up in those pipes and making me flush those pipes every four or five months.

The fix? We had the plumber reroute the sink to the pooper shooter. No problem. Until…

Somebody was pouring grease down the sink. This would flow into the pooper shooter, and it slowly built up a dam around the pump. Then it sealed off the pump inlet.

This allowed the sump to overflow. Yes, it was a gross as you think it was, and it smelled worse than you think.

My son and I spent a less than pleasant day opening each cleanout and making sure there were no blockages. In the end we got a plumber in who emptied the sump, cleaned it out, and made it all good. We called the plumber because the installers had not put the proper joints to allow us to remove the lid of the sump to do the cleanout ourselves.

See above about total replacement.

Which leads us to today’s unpleasantness.

If you remember, my son and I removed every cleanout to do what we could. We put them back. We got them on tight. We thought.

For the last two years we’ve been chasing a “bad smell” It wasn’t all the time. It was only part of the time. We checked for dead animals in the crawl spaces. We checked to make sure the pooper shooter was still shooting. We couldn’t find where the smell was coming from.

I had isolated it to wet weather. I was thinking the vent pipe might be to low. But before I invested in that. I did another check in the basement.

There was a mound of dirt below the last cleanout before the sewer. It was a little damp.

As I was looking at it, a drop of water fell from the cleanout onto the pile.

Our basement gets wet when it rains hard.

During the dry seasons, that drop is slow enough that it dries before the next drop lands. In the wet seasons, it doesn’t.

We had a shit pile in the basement, built from a single drop of water carrying small amounts of solid waste.

And I can’t get the damn cleanout open to clean the threads and reseal it correctly. That’s today’s fun project.

Oh, I love being a home owner.

Holsters

My new holster system from “We The People Holsters” arrived this week. I’ll be at the range testing it out tomorrow. It feels good. It looks good. My only issue is that it doesn’t come standard with the pad to protect my delicate skin.

If you are looking for holsters, they might be worth looking at.

(Of course you are looking for a better holster)

Mantis Laser Academy

This Mantis system uses the laser insert to spot where your shot goes. The the targets are self identifying. There are multiple games that can be done with the different targets.

Push stick, app, laser, and targets all get a giant thumbs up.

The phone holding tripod and phone holder, not so much. My phone in its OtterBox case didn’t fit. Luckily, I have real camera tripods and real phone holders.

The little I did was helpful. I’ll do more when I have a bit of time and now that I have a holster.

Hello, My name is Chris, and I’m a (sugar) addict

My wife’s birthday was recently. She ended up with many pies, which was an acceptable day off the diet. We like our food way too much, and I eat too much if given the chance.

I’ve lost nearly 20 pounds since I went on this diet. Not enough, but a start.

What I can’t do is walk by those sugar things without taking a piece. A cookie, a slice of pie, a slice of cake. I don’t even like the flavor. It leaves my mouth tasting bad. And I feel, mentally, horrible after I do.

Yet I still do it. I can walk past a sugar thing 10, 20 times and leave it. But at some point I give in and eat that sugar thing.

The only thing I don’t do is buy those sugar things and stash them. It isn’t that I crave them so badly that it overcomes my innate laziness; it is that I have difficulty not eating those sugar things when they are available.

Question Of The Week

If you have been listening to regular news reporting, what are some of the subtle ways they twist the narrative?

I’m not talking about the outright lies they tell about Trump, or quoting out of context. There is nothing subtle about that.

It things like the straight reporting that Trump had authorized the CIA to operate in Venezuela because they had emptied their prisons and sent the prisoners into the US.

The statement, as presented here was neutral. The reporter then followed it with, “President Trump has offered no evidence that Venezuela emptied their prisons into the US.”

They Can’t All Be Lieing?

My new car audio console uses Android Auto. It will provide a choice of podcasts to listen to. It can also play music, which I prefer, but today I pushed the button for news.

Two minutes of advertisements, one minute of news from Fox. Two minutes of advertisements, five minutes of news from some unknown source. Two minutes of advertisements, ten minutes of news from Routers.

In those ten minutes I did not detect a single lie. What I did hear was a narrative created by what wasn’t said and what was reported.

The story was about Trump calling for J.B. Pritzker and Brandon Johnson to be put in jail. They choose to leave off why he wanted them to be put in jail. They left it hanging as if it was for personal reasons. They then added another truthful fact. Neither man has been charged with any criminal act.

The narrative was that Trump is threatening his political opponents with jail time, even though they have not done anything wrong.

Not All Power Supplies Are Equal

One of the nodes in my Ceph cluster died, taking three OSDs with it. Two of the drives were moved to a different node, and the cluster rebalanced.

Because I’m cheap, I didn’t toss the dead node. Instead I stripped it out of its case, saved the case fan, power supply, and the motherboard, still with its memory and NVMe card.

Saving this board turned out to be useful. When I found that the CPU that I had purchased for the replacement node didn’t have integrated graphics, leaving the new node totally headless, I was able to use that old board to install an OS to the NVMe card and then move it to the new node.

When I put the NIC into the new node and buttoned it all up, I thought it would be fine. When I attempted to power it up, it failed to start.

Pulling the NIC out allowed it to boot.

I tossed the “bad” NIC. Went back to check things out and to move forward with the new node. Installing another NIC caused the same failure.

Back to that singleton motherboard with a desktop power supply powering it. No problem running with any of the NICs. As an aside, did you know you can hotwire a computer? I was accused of hot-wiring a computer the other day because I used a jumper to emulate the power switch on the case.

Overall, it turned out that the power supply wasn’t supplying good power. I replaced it with a new power supply, and that headless node is busy rebalancing the Ceph cluster. And I found that I really like modular power supplies. The ability to choose which cables you want makes the wiring so much easier and cleaner.

Do You Feel The Need For Screwing?

I have a manual ratcheting screwdriver that I really like. It is a Stanley FatMax with an integrated bit holder and good ergonomics. It was my go to when I needed to drive screws.

If I need to drive many screws, I use my cordless drill. The problem with that is that it is a pain switching between drill bits and driver bits. It is also bulky and a bit heavy. Finally, it doesn’t always have a light touch.

One of the YouTube videos I was watching had a powered screwdriver. I decided to try one. I purchased the SKIL one from Amazon for around $30.

This was well worth the dollars just for the Ceph node build. The process of building out that node required me handling 30 some screws. Most were removed and reinstalled multiple times.

The amount of time and wrist ache this one tool saved me was worth it. I have a couple of other tasks coming up and this tool will be in my pocket for the job.

It’s In An Interlocutory State?

When they say that nobody knows what the Supreme Court will do, they are not joking. There are people with much more experience than I who have spent a lifetime trying to predict what the Supreme Court will do. They get it right about 50% of the time (Joke).

There are some things we do know. Having a circuit split on a question increases the likelihood of a case being heard. Its being a novel question also increases the likelihood. The Court doesn’t like to relitigate the same question. Having many cases with the same question will also increase the likelihood.

Other things we know are that cases that are repeats don’t get heard, or they might just get a GVR. And cases that are in an interlocutory state are not heard. The Court does not want to hear cases until the case has been fully litigated in the inferior courts.

Wolford v. Lopez was granted cert, even though it is in an interlocutory state.

The Court has also agreed to hear Trump v. Cook, 25A312 (SCOTUS), which is also in an interlocutory state.

Things, they are a-changing.

Cloud Init

This is a game changer for me, if I can get it all to work. The ability to put a thumb drive into a new node, power it on, and end up with a full install with no action on my part is wonderful!

I’m looking at setting up a server to do the full configuration from a network fetch instead of from the NoCloud datasource.

He Deployed the National Guard!

I worry about government overreach. Having the president deploy the National Guard to cities to perform police functions worries me.

What will the Democrats do when they are back in power? Will I see troops in my small town demanding to see my papers?

Then I remember the beautiful images of our troops guarding a chain-link fence surrounding buildings in D.C. and go, yeah, already done that.

Keep your head on a swivel, watch your six, stay strapped.

Question of the week?

When you take a long, hard, honest look at what the current administration is doing, the powers they are flexing, which of those powers do you think will be used against us when the Democrats next take power?

Just examine J6 vs BLM mobs in the same time frame to see what I’m talking about.

WordPress Issues

For years the go-to source for consistent container images has been Bitnami. Bitnami is owned by Broadcom via its acquisition of VMware in 2023.

With over 200 different containers covering every part of the container infrastructure, developers and system administrators have gone to Bitnami images for consistent interfaces and methods.

Until last month, these container images were offered free of charge to the world.

Starting on the 1st of this month, only development containers are offered free of charge. This means that if you want tagged versions of WordPress, you need to buy a subscription for the Secure Containers from Bitnami.

I looked into this. Does anybody think paying $62,000/year is a good deal? I don’t.

This is not a long-term issue; it is a pain because I have to reconfigure all my WordPress clients to use a new source for images with different mounting points.

Wire Runs

There are times when it is so simple that you can’t find instructions.

When running redundant cable or fiber, you want to make sure that there are no single points of failure. I remember the great Internet outage of the early 90s. Some good old boys in a swamp down in the south took some potshots at something hanging on telephone poles.

They managed to sever a fiber optic bundle. This cut the US Internet in half because all the redundant fibers were in that same optic bundle.

The contracts for those fiber circuits had been let to different long-haul fiber networks. Those long-haul networks were picked because they had north, south, and mid-Atlantic routes heading west. When a new dark fiber vendor came on the market, offering better service with better prices, these long-haul networks purchased their dark fiber from the same vendor.

And all the circuits ended up in a single bundle, down south.

I currently have a star configuration for my network. I’m going to be adding a ring around the outside of the star. This allows better throughput between adjacent data closets. Instead of going to the hub then out to the data closet, we will be routing closet to closet.

While the “cost” of that extra hop isn’t really measurable, it does put some limits on the total cluster bandwidth.

Say you have to move 10 Gigabytes from Node 101 to Node 102 in the same closet. We move that at 10 gigabits, so around 15 seconds to move the data.

But say you want to move the same 10 Gigabytes from Node 101 to Node 103 in a different closet. It still takes around 15 seconds to move the data.

But what if you need to move 10 gigabytes from Node 101 in closet 3 to Node 103 in closet 2, plus 10 Gigabytes from Node 101 to Node 105 in closet 1, and 10 Gigabytes from Node 101 to Node 129 in closet 0? Each movement would only take 15 seconds, but the total time to move would be 3*15, or 45 seconds.

With the extra links in place, we can go directly from Closet 3 to Closets 1 and 2. This will reduce our total time to 30 seconds.

I have the hardware to do this ring. What I don’t have is the conduit. If I use the existing conduit, it is easy. But that means if that conduit is compromised, I lose access to that closet.

I figured out that I can run some conduit along the outside of the building with much shorter runs, much easier access, and with the level of redundancy I’m looking for.

When I finish pulling fiber, I will have three paths to every node.

OSPF/Multicast

In networking, we use broadcast packets when we want to reach every node on a network segment. In the old days there was a single IPv4 address for that, which was the host portion of the IPv4 address was all ones.

It turns out that there are other reasons to want to use a broadcast packet. Often for discovery purposes. OSPF uses this method to find other routers on the network segment.

Which leads to the issue of L3 managed switches. These things are not advertised as full routers, though they can act like them. In particular, each of these switches can run an OSPF process.

This means that the network topology is quickly updated when things change.

And these low cost managed switches don’t understand how to forward OSPF packets when they are running an OSPF process.

Another thing to figure out and fix.

Government Shutdown!!!

The world is wonderful. With the government shutdown, they are less likely to FA with me.

The reality is that the government barely notices when it is “shut down.”

It looks like the Democrats played into Trump’s agenda. J.D. Vance has stated that they will start firing people very shortly if the government isn’t started back up.

The government is shut down because the Democrats and the Republicans could not reach an agreement on a continuing funding resolution.

The Republicans have put forth a CR that funds the government at current levels but for VA housing, security for federal law enforcement, and security for the Supreme Court.

There is nothing in the CR that the Democrats object to.

The Democrats have put forth a proposal that adds more than 1 trillion dollars to the budget. They want to restore funding for healthcare for people that are unwilling to meet Medicaid work requirements. They also want to provide funding to states that are showing healthcare budget shortages because the state spent state money on providing healthcare to criminal illegal aliens.

The big word is “fungible.” Let’s say you want to buy a fancy dinner for your wife. You have $1,000 in the bank. You owe $700 for the mortgage, you owe $100 for Internet, and you owe $100 for water. This leaves you only $100 for food and other things. This means you can’t afford to take your wife out for a $100 dinner. There is no money in the budget.

You reach out to your parents and ask for help with the Mortgage. They agree to pay $500 for the mortgage but tell you that it can’t be used for “fun” things.

To make sure they send the $500 directly to the mortgage holder. You send your $200, the mortgage is paid for the month. None of your parents money went to fun things like dinner out with your wife.

You now have $600 for food and other things. You allocate $250 for food, spend $100 on other things. You have $150 of your money to take your wife to dinner.

Where did the money come from for that dinner? From you or your parents.

Fungible means that you can’t send any money to states that are spending money on criminal illegal aliens. You can’t send any money to organizations that spend money on abortions.

Question of the Week

What is your opinion of this government shutdown?

Pistol Optics

I have red dots on some of my AR-15s. For my wife, this is great. Put the dot where she wants the hole to be, and press the trigger. A hole appears near where the little red dot was.

All of my AR-15 red dots are co-witnessed. The little red dot shows up at the same place where my iron sight points. If the optic is off, I can see my iron sights through the glass. This means that if I have issues with the red dot being “dead,” I still have functional sights.

With the peep sight of the AR-15 platform, I have a rear sight that flips down. Some of my ARs have fixed front sights, and some have flip-up front sights. Even if they are flip-up, I leave them up.

Some pistol optics are set up so that when the optics are mounted, the rear sight is removed. This means that if your optic fails, you have no sights.

I looked into a P365-RS; this is a Sig P365 with a Romeo Sierra already mounted. The sights are co-witnessed. And the sights are the standard great Sig sights.

Holsters

I have been a fan of Alien Gear holsters for several years. I like how they fit and the positive retention they provide for my firearms.

I particularly like their Shape Shift system. This system consists of different shells, which are specific to a firearm; parts to mount to the shell for different types of retention; and a backer.

For example, you can use a positive retention where you have to use your thumb to release the firearm, or it can be retained by a spring loaded catch. Pull, and the firearm comes out of the holster. The tension on that catch can be set as you want.

The tool needed to adjust the different tensions and positions is the retaining nut, which retains the mounting system.

The shell can be used as a half shell with some backers or as a full shell with others.

For me, I like being able to move the holster to different backers: an IWB, an OWB, an appendix backer (which I haven’t used), and a shoulder rig. They have drop rigs and MOLLE rigs as well. There are many options. Those backers that attach to a belt can adjust cant easily. The belt clips are solid loops, J-Hooks or C-hooks. You choose which you want.

The C-hooks fit between your belt and your pants, so the only thing that is visible are two small black lines at the top and bottom of your belt. With the solid loop and J-hooks, you can see the “strap” of black plastic, which is the clip.

I’m looking for another holster for a P365X-Macro. They aren’t selling a shell for the Shape Shift system.

Yesterday I spoke to a rep and found out why. They are phasing the Shape Shift system out. Because the shells mount to the backers at the top of the slide, there isn’t enough room for many of the pistol mounted optics. In addition, pistols with weapon lights don’t fit well either.

According to this rep, they are working on a new system.

Is It Lawfare?

The big news yesterday was that the DoJ is attacking Trump’s political enemies, attempting to jail them.

It appears that the DoJ has found that James Comey is likely guilty of multiple crimes, so he has been indicted. We can tell this is lawfare because they are using laws that have existed for many years; they presented evidence to a grand jury, and the grand jury returned the indictment.

This is totally different from charging a political enemy with fraud for putting up collateral for a loan and then paying back the loan with interest but having a difference in opinion on the value of the collateral. It is also totally different from calling the secretary of state for a state and telling him that you need 200K votes to win the state. AND it is totally different from entering into an NDA agreement with a bimbo who is attempting to blackmail you, and then paying that bill through your lawyer.

You see, this crime is real, 18 U.S.C. § 1001 making false statements to Congress. James messed up and answered directly when asked if he authorized a leak. He should have gone with that old favorite, “I don’t recall.”

While not all the grand jury agreed that he violated 18 U.S.C. § 1001, a majority did.

All the members of the grand jury did agree that he violated 18 U.S.C. 1505, obstruction. Corruptly endeavored to influence, obstruct, and impede the Senate Judiciary Committee’s inquiry by making false and misleading statements.

The case was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, 25-cr-00272

Networking Almost Working

The wonderful thing about Unix configuration is that you can do anything you want to a configuration file. With a GUI, you can only do what the GUI allows you to do.

My internal network uses OSPF for internal networking with a bit of BGP magic for the OVN networks. Whenever a router is presented with two choices for a route, it chooses the one with the lowest cost.

It is a little more complicated than that because a router can also adjust its priority. Priority adjustments might be used when you have links that have different dollar costs but the same bandwidth.

There are three parameters that are used to calculate the cost of a link. The algorithm calculates the sum of the costs of all the links between two nodes and takes the lowest cost.

The first method and parameter is to set the cost of the link. This is a value that ranges from 1 to 65535. No calculations are done; this is the cost of using this link.

This means that you could assign different values to different link speeds: 1 for 100G, 2 for 40G, 3 for 20G, 4 for 10G, 5 for 5G, 6 for 2.5G, 7 for 1G, and so forth. This works, but it is painful.

A faster method is to assign a reference bandwidth to use within the router. For me, I set the reference bandwidth to 10G. Since the router knows the bandwidth of each interface, it takes that reference bandwidth and divides it by the interface bandwidth.

If my interface is a 10G fiber link, that is 10G/10G, or 1. But if that particular interface is a 1G Ethernet port, then we have 10G/1G equals 10.

This is a quick way to get the correct costs assigned to every interface. I only have to specify a bandwidth for an interface if that interface is a bridge.

Nice stuff.

Because I have a link that is acting up, I was able to describe that link to the protocol. That link is 10G down and 1G up. So it gets direct traffic down, but when it is sending upstream, that takes two hops.

The only issue I still need to solve is that I have an L3 Switch that is not passing OSPF multicast packets.

Question of The Week

Who else do you want to see indicted, and Why?

Is it Trolling?

18 U.S.C. §922(g)4 says, who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution is a prohibited person.

Trump went there. He suggested that people suffering from gender dysphoria are mentally ill.

If they are mentally ill then does 18 U.S.C. §922(g)4 apply?

Using the DSM-IV we see

There were situations where people with Gender Identity Disorder were classified as “mentally defective” under §922(g), but with the release of DSM-5, that is no longer possible, and it still requires an adjudication.

The trolling is because we now have Trump taking guns away from somebody, good from the left’s point of view while at the same time doing something to a member of a victim class, which is bad.

What’s a good leftist to do?

Noem v. Vasquez

In another win for the Trump Administration, the Supreme Court decided that the Constitution really does say that the President oversees the executive branch, not judges.

In —Marbury V. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803) the Supreme Court defined who they were and what their job is. The gist of that decision is that the Supreme Court decides if a government action violates the Constitution. They gave themselves the power as the final arbitrator of what the law means.

Since that time there have been ongoing skirmishes between the branches as each branch attempts to wrest power from the other branches. In some cases it was one branch taking it from another branch to give to the third. Thus we have judges who think they can oversee immigration policy.

The left is playing one of their favorite games: redefining words. As I’ve said in the past, we can easily tell if the plain text of the Second Amendment covers the proposed conduct by looking to see if any of the usual suspects speaks up. If Giffords, Brady, or Everytown is involved, the plain text of the Second Amendment is implicated.

When an unmarked vehicle pulls up and 3 or 4 men jump out in full police gear wearing vests that say “POLICE” or “I.C.E.”, they know who it is. They aren’t unknown people. They are law enforcement officials.

They know damn well that it isn’t a kidnapping; it is an arrest. They know damn well that the officers are wearing face coverings because the left are violent. The left is willing to kill people to get their way.

The Court found that briefly detaining a person with reasonable suspicion is good enough. An I.C.E. agent can briefly detain a person they suspect of being a criminal illegal alien for reasonable suspicion. They must then release that person if they are not a criminal.

A person is not arrested if they are detained. They are not kidnapped. And they are not at any particular risk, unless they do something stupid..

I’m tired of reading about a “pastor” or “father” or “youth coach” that has been “kidnapped” by “masked men.” Reading just a few paragraphs in, it becomes obvious that the person in question was a criminal alien being arrested for deportation.

Freedom From Association

It has been pointed out that medical professionals making any statement suggesting they will discriminate in how they care for a patient is cause for dismissal.

The legal ramifications are so high that a medical facility can’t risk it. If some nurse says they are intentionally causing pain to a patient, that nurse must be fired. If they are not fired, the medical facility is ripe for a lawsuit, which they are likely to lose.

At this point many people who thought they were talking to like-minded people or who thought they were in the majority have reached the FO stage of the equation.

Businesses are finding that they have no customers. Employees are being shown the door and then finding out that they do not qualify for unemployment. FA and FO is happening all over the world.

In addition, people are speaking up in opposition to the vile, evil devils and finding that they are suddenly “Right wing extremists.”

They are being welcomed with milk and cookies and don’t understand how they got here.

Where is the violence coming from?

It is all in the definitions.

While there are multiple outlets reporting that there is more right-wing violence than left-wing violence, the singleton source leads back to the ADL.

Just a few observations. If the violence is anti-government, that is labeled as right-wing. Countless antifa thugs throwing firebombs at government buildings is “right-wing violence.” If charges are dropped, it wasn’t violence. Walking through the capitol is violence; burning cars is not.

The data is so corrupted that you can’t take it at face value.

Question Of The Week

Have you decided to go to red dots on your EDC?

The Most Terrifying Force of Death

Please don’t wake the man who wants to be left alone.

Charlie

As of Thursday night, they still do not have the shooter in custody. They have confirmed they have good video of the shooter. They believe they have his firearm. A Mauser in 30-06. They have released an image of a person of interest.

There are statements being presented as fact that the cartridges had things written in them indicating a trans or antifa motivation. This has not been confirmed by official sources. The different media reporting this might very well be circle sourcing.

Iryna

It has been 20 days since she was murdered. The look of stark fear in her face after she was stabbed is burned in my mind. I am waiting for the trial to end to find him sentenced to death.

Networking

It’s working. Shhh, don’t spook it.

Race Conditions

In computer science, a race condition is when two threads act on the same value at the same time, with the results of one thread being overwritten by the other.

Consider a database with a value in it; call it the number of visitors to the site. Simplistic code would read the data from the database, increment it by one, then write it back to the database.

This works if there is only a single thread. But if there are two threads, between the time one thread reads the value and writes it back to the database, another thread reads the same value. The value will be incremented in the database by one, when it was supposed to be incremented by two.

In this simple case, we can use a monoatomic action to do the operation: UPDATE options SET value=value+1 WHERE key='site-counter'

This SQL statement reads, increments, and writes the results back in a single operation.

The other method is by using a transaction. db_start(); $row = db_query("SELECT * FROM options WHERE key='site-counter'"); $value = $row['value']; $value += 1; db_query("UPDATE options SET value=$value WHERE key='site-counter'"); db_commit();

The framework I am using uses a crass and simplistic ORM (object relationship model). You don’t normally access the database directly. There is no method to start a transaction using the ORM. This would not be an issue except the framework actually has a critical section where a race condition can exist and is being hit on a semiregular basis.

And my last explanation to the client, this being the fifth time she’s asked what this thing is happening, was met with “I don’t speak your language. When will it be fixed?”

Question of the Week

What is the most touching thing you’ve seen since Charlie was assassinated?