• This is the prime time to test your preparations. Christmas is over, but people are not settled. It’s not “usual” scheduling because kids are off school, and you may be off work. So… Go turn off your power at the main breaker.

    Why? The answer is that preparation only works if you’re actually… prepared. You cannot KNOW that you’re prepared until you test your preparations. That’s where turning off the power comes in.

    In my house, the first thing to happen if the power goes out is to locate light sources. Immediately, that might mean the flashlight on my phone, but only briefly. I want to keep the power up on the phone in case I need it as a phone. I find the flashlights, candles, oil lamps, and I get at least one lamp lit. This means I have fire, which means the world gets that much easier. With one tiny bit of fire on hand, I can start numerous others.

    When the kids were little, the next item at hand would be child wrangling. If it was daytime, the kids would be sat down near the wood stove with books appropriate to their age, or a game to play that wasn’t electronic, and told to stay out of the way. If they got in the way, they got to do “fun things” like shovel and gather wood and other stuff they hated. When they were little (under 10), it was easier to keep them busy and out from underfoot.

    As they got older, the kids were expected to do many of the “power outage” tasks on their own. It was their job to locate flashlights and solar lamps and make sure they worked. One was set to starting the fire, if it wasn’t already. The other went around and turned off all the light switches and other power hogs, so that we wouldn’t overload the circuit when power came back on. If the power was going to be out for more than 24 hours, items in the fridge were moved to our inside but unheated porch (it gets cold, but rarely below freezing) to keep them fresh. Frozen items went into the outdoor freezers, which would stay frozen for a very long time.

    After a few practice runs, we had it down to an art form. Everyone did their jobs, and within a half hour, the entire house was ready for there to be no power for however long was necessary. We had blankets over windows to hold in heat, pulled out sleeping bags so that they were ready for night, if we wanted to sleep in our beds, had easy to prepare foods on hand in case we were tired from shoveling or whatever. Everything just worked.

    The house went without power for anywhere from several hours to a few days on a number of occasions. We’ve always been fine. The wood stove sits over the water pipes in the basement, so the residual heat keeps them from freezing. We always have access to water, even if we have to go tromping to get it. We know how to make sure water is potable, too. By nightfall, we usually had everything in place, and we were all cuddled up by the wood stove, reading or talking or playing cards.

    It’s not difficult, but it is complex. There are a lot of moving parts to get figured out, and until you put them all to the test, you don’t KNOW how it’s going to work. It’s much better to do some test runs long before you actually require all this stuff to be working. Make your family a well oiled machine before the emergency happens, and the emergency won’t be catastrophic.

            

  • SCOTUS

    We currently have one case scheduled for the January 10th conference. The other two cases have not been rescheduled yet. I do not know what we will see in the court filings before the 10th.

    What does it mean to be conferenced?

    When a party petitions the Supreme Court for a Writ of Certiorari, they are requesting that their case be heard by the court. If the petition is submitted through the standard channels, it is processed in the “standard” way.

    If the request is submitted through the emergency docket, sometimes called the shadow docket, then a single Supreme Court Justice will evaluate the submission. They can then refer it to the court as a whole, or they can deny the request, or they can request more filings.

    Regardless, emergency or regular, cases that are referred to the court will be examined. This happens in stages.

    The first stage is the parties filing briefs on why the Court should grant cert or why they should deny cert. The parties can decline to file briefs, but they should file formal documents saying they are not filing.

    When all the briefs have been filed, the case is “Fully briefed.”

    Once the case is fully briefed, it is distributed for conference. This means that the briefs are provided to the justices for examination. The justices have their law clerks do law clerk things and provide reports. All of this is generally kept out of the public light. Nobody knows what the justices ask of their clerks, but former clerks have reported doing such things, in general terms.

    After the case is distributed, it is scheduled for a conference. The conference happens on a Friday. During the conference, only the Justices are present. No clerks, no witnesses, no experts, just the justices.

    They discuss the cases that were scheduled for conference. They can also discuss whatever else they want. They decide, not you, not I, not anybody else.

    They can also talk to each other before the conference and make decisions outside the conference.

    The conference is the formal event.

    If the Justices want, they can reschedule a case, before they discuss the case in conference. This is what happened to Snope and Ocean State Tactical.

    After the conference, the court will issue their orders. These orders will be “grant”, “deny”, or “relist”. If a petition is denied, it is over. If the petition is relisted, it means that the Justices will be discussing the petition again, in a future conference. If a petition is granted, then it is going down.

    A case that has been relisted can be relisted for any reason. Some known reasons include having time to write a statement to attach to a denial of cert, sometimes it is because they need additional information. One of the common reasons in the Robert’s court is a “suitability” phase.

    John Roberts likes to have a case relisted after the Justices have decided, internally, to grant cert. This is to give the law clerks time to thoroughly investigate the case to make sure there are no hidden issues or things that might moot the case.

    We now have three Second Amendment cases that have been distributed for conference. One of which is currently scheduled for conference on the 10th.

    Infrastructure

    We have completed most of the network upgrade. There is still a server that requires a network interface upgrade. There is still a rack that requires a switch upgrade. Not to bad.

    We need to finish running the redundant fiber network for backup purposes. Once we finish running the redundant fiber, we will upgrade the primary router and make sure everything understands multipath routing.

    All the cluster entities have been placed on virtual networks. This means that they no longer need to worry about multipath nor the physical layout of the networks. A complete separation of tasks.

    It turned out that I was having issues with my nodes having their clocks drift/skew relative to each other. This has been fixed, which leads me to want a Stratum-1 NTP server, again.

    The last time around, I used a handheld GPS unit as my clock source. It worked wonderfully. This time I’m looking at something in an IoT idea.

    I am currently researching NTP servers via Wi-Fi. If that gives good results, I might just do a Raspberry Pi Pico W and put the darn thing outside in a waterproof enclosure. I’m still investigating. I’m also attempting to avoid soldering as somebody broke my Weller soldering station.

    Christmas

    Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas!

    We hope you had a joyous Christmas.

    Happy New Year!

    And we wish you a happy new year! My your fortune be bright.

    Question of the week?

    Having had time to learn about what happened in western North Caroline after the hurricane, what changes in your prepping model have you made?

            

  • Christmas is past for another year. It was better than expected.

    Watching movies with the family was good. My wife insists on “A Christmas Story”, as it is her favorite. I picked “Red One” on a recommendation from Scott Adams on X. The final movie was “A Christmas Story Christmas”.

    This last hit a bit hard.

    Regardless, friends came through, and we were able to give back to our friends.

    My wife’s best friend’s husband passed earlier this month. We had her over for Christmas Eve dinner (tacos) and Christmas Dinner (Turkey with fixings).

    Our tradition is to go around the table and each person gives thanks for something that happened that day. Sometimes it leads to discussions, sometimes it is just a little thing, “Thank you for a dinner, I really like.”

    The goal is to stop perseverating on the bad that is happening around you, the things that are getting you down, and to acknowledge, to search for, the good that you have.

    My friend from the NVL called on Christmas Eve. That was a good talk. The only bobble was when he let his distrust of Elon slip out. We have agreed not to talk politics. We are still friends.

    My best friend died in November 2000. I don’t think I ever recovered from that day. He was not only my friend, he was my mentor.

    He was the first person I met that could program better than I could. He was a better man than I, by far.

    I found myself competing with him in programming to be better. He never competed with me. He just won. After a while, it stopped being a competition and became a lifelong friendship.

    Through Mike, I met Max. Max called me on Christmas Eve. Talking to him made me feel better. Friends can do that.

    So on this day, after you have finished with what’s under the tree, had the first of a week’s worth of leftovers, take a moment to reach out to a friend and let them know what they mean to you.

            

  • First off, Merry Christmas! If you’re on the blog on actual Christmas morning, go open presents! Read this later. *grin* I’ll be doing the same, because I’m writing this in advance, so that I don’t have to look at the blog today. There.

    Right… last week the Continuing Resolution was supposed to pass. All 1500 pages of it. Musk made We The People aware of it, and We The People made the decision to call our politicians to say HELL NO. Those 1500 pages were not passed. I considered that incredibly positive. And then I heard the commentary from the Left and others:

    “House Republicans have been ordered to shut down the government. And hurt the working class Americans they claim to support,” Jeffries posted on the social platform X. “You break the bipartisan agreement, you own the consequences that follow.” (1)

    “They come in and undermine us two days before the government shutdown deadline?” she asked. “That doesn’t seem like, at all, a good way to do business.” (2)

    “I thought it was a reasonably good compromise,” he added. “The problem was one or two people in our conference, instead of just opposing it, had to go out and demonize and distort things, provisions in the bill.” Republican Rep. Kevin Bacon (3)

    There are bunches of other comments that made me wince. One senator I caught a clip of basically said that because We The People chose to tank this pork-ladened CR, we were snatching disaster relief from the Carolinas and elsewhere. That one made my blood boil. Biden just sent a billion to Africa. We HAD money to take care of our own, and Biden and his people sent it elsewhere. Coming in at the last second and tacking aid onto a CR that’s meant to keep the government running is just trashy.

    There is a LOT going on with all this. The bottom line is, we want to see an end to the bloat in Washington. That means that a lot of Democrats and probably quite a few Republicans are going to get their panties in a wad. I am really okay with that. I’m okay with anything that reduces the size of government. Here’s the thing… our Founders never imagined career politicians like we have today. They couldn’t have. It’s so against their beliefs, because it essentially mimics the aristocracy in Britain. That’s exactly what they were trying to avoid.

    So… Trump and his team have come in, and they’re up to making changes. To the people who’ve suggested Trump is overstepping by attempting to lead the country now instead of waiting for January 20th, I say, “At least *someone* is attempting to run the damn country. Biden sure isn’t.”

    (more…)

            

  • Here is hoping that the happy man in the red suit brought you all you wish.

    More importantly, I wish you health and happiness in the coming years.

    -Chris

            

  • So far it is only Gray v. Jennings, but it is still early.

            

  • For those of the Jewish faith, I want to wish you a happy Hannukah. May your latkes be delicious, may your oil last all eight nights, and may the darkness of the year be driven away by the light of the candles. 🙂

            

  • We, at Vine of Liberty, wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

            

  • Okay, I made these because they seemed funny and amusing, and very retro. I am making more because they’re also easy and REALLY yummy. They also have a lot less sugar than some of the cookies I’ve seen out there, which is nice. This is based on an early 1970s Jello recipe.

    Ingredients:

    • 4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
    • 1 teaspoon double-acting baking powder
    • 1-1/2 cups butter (room temperature)
    • 1 cup sugar
    • 1 package (3 ounces) jello gelatin, any flavor
    • 1 egg (room temperature)
    • 1 teaspoon vanilla

    Preheat your oven to 400°F. It doesn’t take long to pull the cookie dough together, so you should be ready about the time it comes up to temperature!

    Sift your flour and baking powder together. I don’t normally do that, but because these are technically spritz cookies, the dough is supposed to be very soft. Sifting helps the dough come together the way it should. If you don’t have a sifter on hand, pour your flour and baking powder into a strainer and tap the side of it until all the ingredients fall through.

    In a separate container, cream your butter. If you’re doing it by hand, you can use a fork or whisk, and work it. I recommend using a stand mixer, however. Using the wire whisk attachment, whip the butter until it’s soft and fluffy. At that point, add in the sugar and Jello packet, about a quarter cup at a time, creaming it well after each addition. This makes the dough very light and fluffy, which is necessary. Add the egg and vanilla, and continue to beat well.

    Jello cookies with “snow”

    Gradually add in the flour mixture, and ensure that  you mix well enough that the dough is smooth each time before adding the next portion. About half way through the process, if you’re using the whisk attachment, you’ll want to switch to the paddle attachment on your mixer. The dough gets a bit thick, though continues to be light and fluffy.

    There are two ways to make the cookies. They both start with lining two or three baking sheets with parchment paper. Do not grease them.

    For shaped cookies, force the dough through a cookie press. Decorate however you wish.

    For round cookies, use your hands to make inch-wide balls of the dough, and place them onto the parchment paper. Lightly grease the bottom of an appropriately sized glass or cup, and press gently into the dough to make it into a circle. It ends up looking almost like a wax seal, to be honest. Again, decorate as you wish. This is the method I used, and I put on sprinkles to most of my cookies. I just shook them on, then pressed very gently with clean hands to seat the sprinkles into the dough. I also did one batch with “snow” on top, by baking them and adding powdered sugar AFTER they came out of the oven but when they were still very hot. To do “snow” you add a tablespoon of powdered sugar to a small sieve and then tap the side of it over the cookies. The sugar will fall through and dust the top of the cookies. You can even use pre-cut shapes like stars and trees to decorate with “snow”.

    Bake your cookies for 13 to 15 minutes, or until they’re golden brown at the edges. They can be frozen, or they can be stored in a loosely covered container.

    Notes:

    I used orange jello for my first batch, and the result was very tasty. The “snow” batch had a sort of orange creamsicle flavor to it, and the rest it was hard to taste the jello. The color definitely comes through, though. I also used margarine for my cookies, since I can’t digest dairy. They turned out just fine!

            

  • I own a pocket watch. It is beautiful, but I don’t use it very often.

    I know that I own a couple of watches. One of them is a battery powered solar recharging thing.

    My standard “watch” today is my cell phone.

    When I was in high school, I was very interested in accurate time keeping. As was my father.

    This meant that we would call the “time” phone number to set our watches, at least once a week.

    My grandfather had a “railroad watch”. This was a wristwatch that was approved by the railroad for time keeping. It was approved by the SooLine for use as a time keeping device. Amazing, until that model of watch was approved, the railroad required the use of pocket watches.

    This was because a level of accuracy was required that only pocket watches or well regulated wristwatches could maintain.

    The big thing in my youth were “quartz” watches. Instead of using a tuning fork or a mechanical balance/regulator, they used the vibrations of a quartz crystal to keep track of the time.

    What this meant was that you had devices that were now able to maintain the same wrong time over an extended period of time.

    The user had to set them correctly.

    As an example, for years, maybe even to today, my wife would set her car clock (and many other clocks) 10 minutes fast. “So she would be on time for appointments.”

    I set my car to my phone’s reported time.

    One of the fun things that I did as a kid was to call up the Naval Observatory to get the current time. This was reported from their atomic clock. One of the most accurate time keeping devices in the world.

    Accurate Time

    Many protocols require accurate time. It is wonderful that you have a time piece that is accurate to within 1 second per year, but if it is reporting the wrong time, it is not particularly useful to the protocol.

    What we want, is to know what time it is right now, and then to set our time to that.

    We get the current time from a known, accurate time source. Today, that is often GPS satellites.

    If you have ever wondered how GPS works, it works because your device knows where each satellite is at any instant of time. Each satellite transmits its ID and the current time. Over and over again.

    That is all they do.

    And here is the magic, if your device knows what time it is, and it knows where the satellite should be at his time, it can calculate the distance by comparing the difference in time.

    If you are directly under a GPS satellite, it takes about 67ms for the signal to reach your device. From this, we can use the speed of light to figure out the distance traveled. Then some simple math and we know the location of your device.

    We can also get accurate time by listening for the atomic clocks via radio. If you know where you are, and you know where the clock is, you can calculate the delay between the atomic clock and your device, then match your device to the atomic clock.

    Today, when people want to use that type of process, they use a GPS device and get the time ticks from the device.

    How long did it take?

    This is where it starts to get complicated.

    The standard for communications with a GPS device is 4800 or 9600 baud across a 3 wire serial connection. The protocol, the text being transmitted, specifies the time when the last character is transmitted.

    That data is being received. Your device is processing it. Your device takes a certain amount of time to process the record it just received. It takes time to process that record. All of that is latency.

    If you do not know the latency in your device, you do not know what time it is. For grins, just think of that serial link being 300,000,000 meters long. That would put a 1-second latency by itself.

    There are ways of calculating the latency, but I do not remember what they are.

    Latency is the important piece of information.

    Calculating Latency

    Many network people have run ping. It is a tool for testing reachability and latency between your device and some other device on the Internet.


    ping -c 5 8.8.8.8
    PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
    64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=116 time=11.1 ms
    64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=116 time=11.1 ms
    64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=3 ttl=116 time=11.6 ms
    64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=4 ttl=116 time=11.1 ms
    64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=5 ttl=116 time=11.0 ms

    --- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---
    5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4004ms
    rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 11.022/11.179/11.616/0.220 ms

    This is a test from one of my faster machines to a Google DNS server. This tells me that it takes 11.179 ms to reach that DNS server. Testing to one of my network timeservers, the average is 78.094 ms.

    This means that the time reported by the timeserver will be off by some amount. In a simple world, we would guess that it is 1/2 of 78.094.

    But, I use NTP. NTP does many transmissions to multiple timeservers to discover the actual time. It is reporting that the latency is 78.163512 ms. A little more accurate. It tells me that the dispersion is 0.000092 ms.

    How does it know this? Because of many samples and because of four different time stamps.

    When my device sends an NTP request packet, it puts the current time in it. When the server receives the packet, it puts the current time in it. When the server transmits the response, it adds the current time again. Finally, when the reply is received, the current time is added to the packet. This gives us four different time stamps from two different sources.

    We compute the total latency via mine(R)-mine(S). We know the processing time by server(S)-server(R). The difference between server(R)-mine(S) and mine(R)-server(S) as the symmetry between the two paths the request and response traveled.

    From these values, we can calculate the network distance, in seconds, between us and them.

    Assume we transmit at time 0(M), it is received at 100(S), the response is transmitted at 105(S) and we receive it at 78(M).

    How can we receive our reply before the server sent it? Easy, we have to different views of what time it is.

    The latency is 78. This means that the halfway point was at 38. It took 5 to process the reply and get it on the wire again. If we do simple stuff, this means that our time is off from their time by 67.

    But we can do better. By looking at the reported latency between the two legs, we can actually calculate how long it took for us to receive the reply.

    NTP uses multiple timeservers to get a consensus as to the time. It monitors each timeserver to determine which one jitters the least.

    All of this means that we can have very accurate times.

    And having accurate measurements of the time, NTP will calculate how much the computer’s clock drifts over time. It will then modify the clock rate in parts per million to get the drift as close to zero as possible.

    This means, that the longer your device runs NTP, the more accurate it becomes.