Drive By Blogging

Drive By Blogging

Saturday Night

I wasn’t sure what to write about this evening and then I decided to backup my MacBook Pro. This means that I can’t use it so it left me with a dilemma. How could I write a blog post without the main computer.

Answer: Write the post on the iPad. I am doing that now but I am not using the external keyboard but rather the on screen keyboard. It isn’t too bad on the iPad Pro. the screen is so big that it feels like you are typing with a full sized keyboard anyway.

I had a couple of major projects I wanted to finish this weekend and I have finished one of them. The other major project was to try and fix and old iMac but atlas, it is not really fixable. not for a reasonable amount of money. The problem is the video card. This used to be my computer and I remember having to get the video card replaced a year or so after I bought it. In fact, it failed just after the warranty ran out. Of course.

I plan on getting a new iMac when the bigger sized machines come out. With the chip shortage, I don’t know how long that will be.

Anyway. That is a quick look into my excessively boring life.

Sorry for your pain.

August 7, 2021 by Drive By Blogging

Out of the Box

Overheard today…

“There is no scenario where AI doesn’t get out of the box.”

What this means is that AI will always get loose and do “who knows what” once it does. It is an absolutely controllable situation that will become an uncontrollable one because we’re just not very bright and forward thinking as a species.

We think about the here and now. Have you ever heard someone complain that this is the hottest summer ever! Well, it’s not. You’d have to go way back in time for that record. Hint: It was BEFORE 1950. Most climate records only use data going back as far as 1950 because it makes the misery look better.

My two cents for the day.

Image Credit

July 7, 2021 by Drive By Blogging

Still Reading…

…the same book since October 18th. I feel bad about it however, it is quite busy around Castle Nerda.

I’ve read that blog confessions are good for the soul or something like that.

November 16, 2019 by Drive By Blogging

School Begins Near Castle Nerda

image from Patch.com

It makes absolutely “NO” sense to me to start school right before the Labor Day holiday. Why bring students back just to give them days off? Why not just start the year uninterrupted? Warwick is the only local school district that understands that idea year after year. They are at the bottom of the list below.

SCHOOL START DATES (via Lancaster Online – No link – paid service)


Monday
• Columbia Borough
Tuesday
• Cocalico
• Lancaster Mennonite
• Pequea Valley
Wednesday
• Donegal
• Conestoga Valley
• Lampeter-Strasburg
• Lancaster Country Day School
• Penn Manor
Thursday
• Hempfield
Aug. 26
• Eastern Lancaster County
• Elizabethtown Area (first through 12th)
• Ephrata Area
• Lancaster (ninth districtwide and K-8 at Martin)
• Manheim Central
• Manheim Township (first through 12th)
• Octorara Area
• Solanco
Aug. 27
• Lancaster (10th through 12th districtwide and seventh and eighth at Hand, Lincoln, Reynolds and Wheatland middle schools)
• Lancaster Catholic High School
• Manheim Township (kindergarten)
Aug. 28
• Elizabethtown Area (kindergarten)
Sept. 4
• Warwick (first through
12th)
Sept. 5
• Warwick (kindergarten)

August 18, 2019 by Drive By Blogging

PHP Storm – A Small Rant

I like PHP Storm. I use it to write PHP pages and for the most part, it works rather well. Except that is, the debugging part. I’ve always had real trouble getting the debug function to work properly. I have to admit that most of the time, the problem is me.

Fast forward to this past week. I have been working on my computer since Monday trying to identify problems with MacOS Catalina, report them, and try to figure out how we are going to fix them.Part of tat process has been fixing MySQL (which broke really bad) and also working on getting PHPStorm to debug..again…sort of. The port for xdebug has always been 9000.

Until, whenever someone at Jetbrains decided to change it to 9071. I cannot tell you how much time I wasted trying to get debug to work only to find out that the port has changed! Why on God’s sweet green Earth would anyone do that? It wasn’t well publicized and I found the answer quite by accident. In a random post, someone mentioned trying port 9071. What the actual fudge?

Debugging in PHPStorm is great when it works and for now, it does. Of course, when I update the OS it will probably break again. I’ve tried MAMP and XXAMP. The idea is wonderful. It is a contained system that should not care about my constant OS upgrades. Well, I couldn’t get it to communicate properly. I’m chalking that one up to Catalina. There are a number of things that just don’t work right now and it is because of a lot of different things. Security has been ramped up but it also prevents developers from doing basic things. For example, good luck getting a new setup of postfix to work on any level.

Ok. I am done ranting now. I’m blaming travel fatigue and a daughter for making me well, travel.

June 21, 2019 by Drive By Blogging MacOS Catalina

Website Hiatus

Well, I’m still here. Not on the blog actually. Just busy doing all kinds of fun stuff. Sometimes, I forget to actually share those things on this blog. I’m including a small set of photos from random things.

What these pictures explain to anyone who knows me is that I really do go outside on occasion.

…and finally. This is my friend Christie. We’ve been working on projects since March. She’ll be leaving our area at the end of this month which is sad for me. She is a lot of fun to work with.

Christie – New Hair Style May 2019
May 16, 2019 by Drive By Blogging

What Happened to January?

Well. That is a very good question. Was I off taking exotic vacations? No. Was I abducted? No. We spent the last month…planning.

Planning what?

Planning the next year which is already booked solid.

I’ll make a concerted effort to keep this place updated as we blaze ahead.


January 25, 2019 by Drive By Blogging

One Note Wish List

I’d like to add TOC functionality to my One Note feature wish list. I am working on one that is becoming a bit “unwieldy.”

That is all.

December 15, 2018 by Drive By Blogging

Funny. Enough Said.

If anyone is still wondering about how great Bitcoin is or how the government makes great decisions regarding Bitcoin, please…show yourself out.

November 25, 2018 by Drive By Blogging

Awesome Use of Technology

By using a brain implant, people who are paralyzed.

Three people paralyzed from the neck down have been able to use unmodified computer tablets to text friends, browse the internet and stream music, thanks to an electrode array system called BrainGate2. The findings could have a major impact on the lives of those affected by neurologic disease, injury, or limb loss.
The system uses an array of micro-electrodes implanted into the brain which decode, in real time, the neural signals associated with the intention to move a limb. The three people involved in the trial had electrode grids implanted over part of their motor cortex — the area of the brain that helps control movement — which picked up neural activity indicating they were thinking about moving a cursor on the screen. Those patterns were then sent to a virtual mouse that was wirelessly paired to the tablet.

via Engadget
November 24, 2018 by Drive By Blogging

Daylight Savings Time Saves 0.03%

There is a pretty good article in the local newspaper today about Daylight Savings Time, who thought of it, why, and how most countries would like to get rid of it.

Ben Franklin sometimes gets credit for coming up with the idea of saving time because of a 1784 essay for The Journal of Paris that suggested the French could save on the cost of candles by getting out of bed earlier to take advantage of sunshine. But the piece was satirical, and he never mentioned turning clocks back or forward.
Germany became the first country to adopt the measure, to save coal during World War I. France and other countries followed suit. The U.S. tried daylight saving time in 1918, but repealed it a year later. However, some states set their own daylight saving time, leading to confusion.
It wasn’t until the establishment of a uniform system under the Uniform Time Act of 1966 that daylight saving time became standard. It gained traction under the belief that electricity use inside homes would drop as people stayed outside to enjoy the later sunset. And, it was believed most people would be awake after the sun had already risen and have less need for lights.
The federal government also believed daylight saving time, which begins in spring and ends in fall, would prevent traffic crashes as morepeople would travel to and from school or work during daylight. Further, it was believed daylight saving time would reduce crime as more people remained outside during daylight when less crime took place.

via LNP (paid subscription)
November 4, 2018 by Drive By Blogging

Leaving on a Jet…wait..

…ah…Leaving on a bus.

That is right. Big huge bus trip happening tomorrow morning. I plan to take lots and lots of pictures.

I’ll post them here.

Also, can’t wait to see how the new Series 4 Apple Watch works for the entire day.

October 26, 2018 by Drive By Blogging

An Explosion in Allentown

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A car explosion that rocked downtown Allentown left three males dead, including the likely “perpetrator,” officials said Sunday as federal authorities who are leading the investigation looked ahead to autopsies.
“We know there’s been a criminal incident,” District Attorney James Martin told reporters at a news conference Sunday. “We have a high degree of confidence that the perpetrator was probably killed in the incident.”
Authorities released no information about the possible cause of Saturday night’s blast, including whether it was a bomb, but Martin said, “Loads of us in law enforcement” are confident “this was A. an isolated incident and B. there’s no continuing threat.”

via LNP (paid service)
Allentown PA – September 29, 2018
October 1, 2018 by Drive By Blogging

INTJ Personality Types

I did not know this was a thing. I see some of myself in this personality type and also some co-workers, past and present.

INTJ’s are one of the most rarest personality types and form only 2% of the population. Here is a brief overview of the characteristics:
(I)ntroversion – They focus their attention inward and get their energy from having time alone
i(N)tuition– They rely on the information they get from within themselves. As a result, they tend to focus more on ideas and concepts rather than facts and details.
(T)hinking – They prefer to make their decisions based on their own logical reasoning and analysis rather than their own emotions.
(J)udgement – They orient themselves to the external world through planning and organization rather than going with the flow and having sponinaeity.

via Life Hacker

You can read the whole article here. Fascinating shizz.

September 15, 2018 by Drive By Blogging
Mike Williams
My name is Mike or in some cases Mick depending who you ask. I love programming, science fiction, audiobooks, cats, dogs, and writing. I do not filter on this website so you may see nudity, cursing, or other profanity as required. I apologize for none of it.

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