Paul's Personal Space

The social networking world was turned upside down yesterday when Twitter and Facebook were victims of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack making the service difficult to access yesterday.  This attack is nothing new as many sites have been attacked in this manner.  The buzz around technology related sites this morning is that the attack was really targeting one individual because of his stand on the Georgia versus Russia situation.  With many social networking sites having a connection to Twitter, the attack was far reaching.  There are many places such as Friendfeed, Facebook, blogs and other sites that will pull Twitter posts to their sites.  In fact this very page shows my Twitter posts on the right side of this page.

To clarify what a DDoS attack is and how it works I will try to explain.  A malicious person will find open computers around the world and upload a “bot”, or a program that runs automatically at set times.  This person will upload these bots onto other computers as they find them open.  These bots will ping a site continuously from many different victim computers sort of like what happens when you are access a web site.  These attempts to reach the site are at such a high volume that it takes up all of their bandwidth preventing legitimate users from being able to access the site.  When I say bandwidth, I am referring to a sort of a pipeline and its size.  The larger the size of pipeline, the more data that can be sent through the pipe.  If all the contents of the pipe are being consumed, then nothing else is left for anyone else.

Twitter still rules the social networking world despite what you may hear from other sites.  The reason I say this is because if you actually go to Friendfeed,  you will find that at least 50% of the traffic on there started by a Twitter post.  Of course from there, people will comment on Friendfeed.  The same can be said for Facebook because most of the traffic that I see are originally posted as Twitter.  Most of these sites have their own features that are very useful but again they depend on the traffic that is generated by Twitter.  With each news story that comes out putting down Twitter, they continue to grow.  In fact their growth is exponential with each story that comes out.  This is probably a result of people’s desire to follow the crowd.  In fact just this morning I un-followed 500 people/bots/strangers.  I will admit that I love the ability to get news from Twitter in real time even before it is on the news.  I can find out when a roll over accident is on the freeway before it is even broadcast on television.

So unless someone can come up with a tool that is so easy to use through short messaging system (SMS) they will continue to rule.  With smart phones becoming more prevalent people can update a news story directly from the site.  Instantly millions of people will know within minutes.  In some cases these posts actually result in the media’s attention instead of the other way around.  Having Twitter is empowering to the individual.  As it has been seen recently, there were individuals in Iran that were posting to the world the violence that was going on.  These Twitter posts were fed into many social networking sites and also to the news media.  In fact every major news entity in the United States has a Twitter page.    I know some people that use them just to follow news sites so that when something happens, they get a message to their phones.  It is inevitable that at some point a new technology will come out and unseat Twitter as the major social tool but for now they remain on top.  I will continue to follow these technologies and see new breakthrough tools as they develop.

There is a many reasons that I do not like liberal politics.  Of those reasons is one that really offends me and that is the act of buying votes.  Politicians on the liberal end of the spectrum make a living off of people’s real and perceived hardships.  These liberal politicians like to exploit those “alleged” hardships by campaigning to fix the woes of the world.  Of course the only way in their mind that you can fix the woes of the world is to throw more money at the problem.  These liberal politicians have no intention of actually fixing the problems but rather just want to use them to get elected.  They do this by two different methods and those are actually putting money into something or proposing something that is so outrageous to the opposition that it never gets passed.  Let me elaborate on these tactics.

In some cases these liberal politician will create programs like this “Cash for Clunkers” program and advertise the merits of cleaning up the environment and helping the economy.  This program is just like many others that liberals propose in that it never actually fixes anything.  It throws the public a bone of other people’s money so that ignorant Americans will vote for this politician.  The end result is that the American people are being played to get this character elected using their own money.  This game plays over and over again with liberal politicians.  The actual result of these programs does nothing but cost the tax payers millions of dollars while putting the money into the dealership’s hands.  Anyone knows that $4,500 dollars on the purchase of a new car does not even make a dent in the price of the car especially when the dealership just does what they always do and that is mark up the price of the car to offset the trade in.  Anytime you trade in a car to a dealership you are just “GIVING” them your car.  These dealerships make so much profit on these cars that your trade in is irrelevant in the big scheme of things.

The other method that liberals do that also always works is their policy of proposing new programs that will cost so much money that it will never get past.  They know it will never get past when they propose it but the real purpose in proposing it is to blame the opposition for putting your grandmother out on the street.  They want to blame the opposition for causing homelessness, racism, or any host of world problems.  In a similar way they misrepresent the word “cut” when arguing politics.  Many programs are designed to automatically increase budget spending based on the rate of growth of inflation.  As the economy slows and the price of products decrease, the cost of living decreases in the same way.  When this automatic increase would outgrow the cost of living increase they are supposed to decrease their growth rate.  I cannot remember how many times I have seen liberals crying in Congress claiming the opposition wants to cut programs to the underprivileged. This decrease in the growth rate is portrayed as an actual cut when reported to the media.  The liberals successfully paint their opponents as being insensitive.

These cuts in growth are still growths in spending yet they are portrayed as cuts to “alleged” critical programs.  As I said above, many of these programs never really help anyone but just throw the people a bone to get their votes.  These programs are just a means to give the impression that they are trying to fix things while the ignorant public gets played over and over again.  In any group of people you are going to have a variety of types of people.  Some will naturally prosper, some will live comfortably but not be wealthy while others will struggle.  Within this group of people that are struggling you will also have a variety of reasons they are struggling.  Some will be injured, have doctor bills, some will have been victims of crimes, and some will be un-motivated.  In either case, liberals get power by catering to this group of people and throwing them a bone.  Because many, not all of those in this group are less educated than others, they are unaware of basic math.  If they were aware of the money that was actually being spent on these programs compared to the number of people in this country they would oppose most of these programs.  The reason that I say this is that much of this money if wit were put into a pool and divided equally among every American would end up with every American, man, woman, and child having multiple millions of dollars.

They would have more money in their pockets if this money were just divided equally among the people.  My point in all this is that just as in most government programs, the bulk of the money goes into overhead and into certain groups of people and a small portion actually goes to the “alleged” intended target.  One thing that I failed to mention in this post is the fact that another truth in the world is that some people just cannot manage money responsibly.  If all this money were indeed divided equally among all Americans, there would still be those that would be living in poverty.  In those cased you would have some people that would squander the money away and then STILL expect the government to bail them out.  Let’s keep everything in perspective and remember the government has NO money but rather extorts money from tax payers.  Yes, I correctly used the word extortion because by definition they are forcing money from unwilling participants through threats and intimidation.   If you think I am just making this up, just do not pay your taxes this years and tell me if you get any threats for non payment. 

Anyway, this seemed to be the story of the day on the news and I had to give my take on the program.  This is just another program intended to buy votes and not really help anyone just like this “stimulus” fiasco.  Just another money grab from working people to pay off those that got them elected all the while buying more votes from your tax dollars.  The phrase “business as usual” seems to apply to this program.

The last couple of days I have been removing contacts from my Twitter page because there was a lot of spam.  I went from 675 followers back down to 73.  I think I may have inadvertently deleted a few people that I did not intend on doing.  Since it took me several hours to go through there and remove contacts I deleted some that I did not recognize.  If you are one of the people that I speak to on Twitter and you find yourself removed from my list, please re-follow.  The problem is that when you delete users, you see their login name and not necessarily their actual name.

The reason that I did this was because I have found over time there are robots that are automatically connecting to users and posting spam. Secondly you get followers that search for certain political key words and then follow you.  Sometimes they agree and sometimes they disagree.  In either case, I do not wish to be arguing politics on Twitter. This is particularly irritating and so I usually try to un-follow them fast.  One of the strategies that has worked for me is when I purposely post something that I know will be offensive to certain political groups.  When they begin to lash out at me then I know who to un-follow.  It has been pretty effective so far.

In a given day, I will get 10 or so new followers that I do not even know.  It is clear these followers are not real people but robots because when you look at their profile they are following over 1,000 people and only 20 are following back.  Also they only have less than 100 updates.  Anytime someone has only a fraction of updates compared to how many people they are following, that is a pretty good give away.  There are some people that I genuinely enjoy hearing from on Twitter.

There are certain things that I have learned are just common sense.  There are some things that are just expected that everyone should know instinctively.  The longer I live, the more I learn that some people just never learn things that are considered common sense.  This morning was a shocking reminder of this when a high school friend of my wife’s just showed up at our door at 6:45 AM today, Saturday to visit without even calling first.  Of course we were in bed asleep because we had gone to bed at 2:00 AM. This friend has done similar things before and acts like what she does is completely normal.  One important thing to note is that her friend is deaf.  This should not be a factor except that I think she missed out on some important manners lessons as a kid because she could not hear them.

The first time I ever met her was about a week after I met my wife in 1988.  We were sitting at a Braums restaurant together when this lady walks in and sits down in the chair right next to me and tells my wife to dump me so they could go out and party.  I was willing to go home at the time but my wife chose to stay with me instead.  I was a little surprised that she was so bold and blunt but then I began to think that maybe because she was deaf, her family did not spend the time to teach her manners.  I may be completely wrong about this and maybe she is just the most rude person I have ever met.  I am still hiding in my bedroom at 8:00 AM while she and my wife are in the other room talking to each other. 

It was very clear that we were awaken and still adjusting our eyes when my wife answered the door.  Most people would have noticed that we were clearly still in bed and left but she is still in there.  I have listened in there a couple of times to see if the visit was about an emergency but found they were talking about a cat.  My wife is a very good person and I think the world of her.  Her friend on the other hand is about as stupid as a box of rocks.  I would never even consider showing up at someone’s house at 6:45 AM when every light in the house was turned off.  I certainly would not do it without calling first.  Heck, I would not go to a person’s house at noon without calling first.  You may be interrupting some personal time that is not appropriate to mention on this blog.  Anyway, I thought I would take this opportunity to spend my captive time venting on the blog so I do not lose my cool in front our our unexpected morning guest.

As I type this, I am still in awe that anyone would not know better than to show up unannounced at this hour on a Saturday morning.  Yes, we are normally up at this hour on most days.  In fact we normally get up at 4:00 AM on work days but on Friday’s and Saturday nights we like to stay up and sleep in.  I suspect that we are not the only ones that do this.  Since I live in a bad neighborhood in the first place, it is rare to see anyone go to bed before midnight.  I was just curious if anyone else felt this was rude like I do.  To me this is one of those common sense things that everyone should just automatically know.  I would think that certain manners would be known instinctively, and not necessarily a learned behavior.  Simply “putting ones self in the other person’s position” would be enough to understand certain manners.  Maybe I am too simplistic in my thoughts about common sense.  After all, we are now living in a day where people put warning stickers on appliances to warn against shock.  We must warn people not to touch power lines on our ladders.  Maybe I am living in an dream world where common sense actually exists where in a parallel world people have no such wisdom.

As much as I hate to get myself in debt buying another home, there are some things that just get on my nerves about living here.  The photos below are of my next door neighbor’s backyard.  This is just one of the many examples of what life is like over here.  This house is just one of three that surround me that has dogs barking day and night.  If I go into the backyard for any reason, these dogs start barking and continue for as long as I am out there.

Sorry I had to punish you with it twice but I wanted you to see what I am talking about with a closer shot. 

This tree house was built by the guy that live here before these people.  He built it for his kids that he had temporary custody.  Being a rent house, he was evicted for non payment of his rent.  Then the current group moved in and spray painted this all over this tree house.

You may remember this guy across the street that decided to change the oil in his huge Ryder truck in the drive way and then just hose the oil into the street.  He has three full grown Rottweilers that are always getting out terrorizing the neighborhood when he is away. This same guy plays the stereo all night and you can hear the “boom boom boom” inside my house.  On other occasions I have found that someone had gone through my glove box on my car and left the contents on the ground outside the  car.  Thankfully the stereo is too cheap for anyone to actually try to steal it.  I am getting so tired of dealing with this every day. I am not saying the whole town is this way but rather my neighborhood.  We moved back here from the Air Force when my mother in-law was sick and then my mom became sick.  Now both of them are gone and there is nothing left in this neighborhood to keep us here.  My dad does live a half mile from here but we drive over there anyway.  I am always trying to decide whether I want to get myself in debt by buying another house but when things like this happen, it makes the decision easier.  If I stay in the house and do not go out in the yard, I am fine but that is not realistic.  I just thought I would share what it is like to live in “the hood”. :)

I think most people in this country are very suspicious of politicians in general because of the past indiscretions of those in the past.  This is tragic because as much as we do not trust them, we need them.  There is one thing that seems to be common among politicians that I have noticed is the way that they never commit to ANYTHING.  There answers are always vague, non-committal and even deceptive.  This is not unique to one party or the other.  In fact I have noticed that both Democrats and Republicans are famous for doing this.  To take this a step further, you can look at their use of the word “reform”.  If you look at the definition of the word, you get a clear meaning.

To improve by alteration, correction of error, or removal of defects; put into a better form or condition.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. (2000). Houghton Mifflin Company.

When a politician uses the word, they do a fairly good job of applying it as an active word yet undefined.  The word is usually followed by another term that is usually the political word of the day.  Some examples of this are campaign finance reform, immigration reform, and health care reform.  In each case, the word is used to mean an improvement to these problems/topics.  Where the problem comes in is the how one defines campaign finance, health care, immigration as it relates to being a problem.  To one person, immigration may be seen as a good thing.  This idealistic view that our country was founded on immigrants coming in and making a home.  To another person, immigration may be seen as going too far.  To this person, immigrants are becoming a problem because of their high numbers.  In either case, the same problem is seen from completely different points of view.  To use the word immigration is to be vague and not very descriptive of the problem to begin with.

When a politician comes in with his or her use of reform, they are not addressing the problem at all.  Yes, they do have an agenda and do want to take sides in the issue but they will never state which side they are on.  They will say we need meaningful “immigration reform” while never spelling out which side they are on.  At this point, the ignorant populace just takes it in as this politician wants to fix things.  The politician is never pressed to spell out what immigration reform really means.  They are never pressed to define health care reform or any other topics.  This play on words, or rhetoric is often allowed to go unchallenged.  Whenever you hear a politician use the word reform, hold on to your wallet because more often than not, it is going to cost you.  If it were not going to cost you, then the politician would have no reason to be so deceptive.  Why not come right out and say what they really mean?  To say what they really means would be to take a side.  To take a side, alienates those on the other side and thus, lose their vote. 

If a politician really had any integrity, they would speak how they really feel and if the media had any integrity they would not allow them to get away with this.  People are often quick to forget the last politician that did this so they ignore it when it comes up.  When you hear health care reform on the television, you can rest assured that it is going to cost you.  When they speak of immigration reform, you can be just as assured that it will cost you.  The next time you turn on your television and they are talking “REFORM”, I would suggest you perk up and pay attention.  What ever it is,  you need to call your elected official and go against it.  If it were real reform defined as it was above, they would not be using the word reform at all.  They would spell out specifically what it is that they want to do.  Listen real hard for the word REFORM.

You may remember last week I posted about a storm that came through and caused some damage around my dad’s house along with mine.  This storm caused a lot of hail damage to my car, bent the repeater antenna on my tower and also on my dad’s tower.  I just did not have the time, nor the desire to climb the tower and try to fix the damage.  As I get older, I do not feel comfortable climbing the tower to work on antennas when I do not have a safety harness.  Well my dad is very resourceful and managed to find a tower climber and fixed both antennas yesterday.  It is nice having a dad that use to be in the radio industry for many years.  That is one crisis that is not a problem anymore.  Thankfully the repeaters were not affected in the first place.  both the two meter and the 70 cm repeaters still work fine and it was just the repeaters themselves that were affected.  Disaster is averted! :)