January 2012 Archives

» This entry is Part 2, cont'd from Part 1, which is posted here » Reflections on the Hitchcock Economy | The Missing Trillion-Dollar Lollipops - Part 1. Split into two parts in order to adhere to principles of web site optimization.

And now, without further commercial interruption, we present the conclusion .. of » The Missing Trillion-Dollar Lollipops.

» The Trillion-Dollar Lollipop Baby-Robbing Tag-Team

Baby eating a lollipopThe final feeling I'm left with .. after reviewing everything I wrote .. is the thing that most OFFENDS my sense of morality.

The one that stands out in a long line of shady characters.

You see ..

It seems our government has teamed with Wall Street (comprising the Unholy Tag-Team) to devise a system that siphons a mind-blowing amount of money from our children's future and funnels it to a relatively small number of greedy adults .. who already have way more than they could ever possibly need.

I know there are an inifinite number of decisions involved in getting from point A to point B, but this siphoning of our children's future is the end result .. after all other variables cancel out. And nobody is stopping it.

People shouldnt have to set up camp all around the country before you get the message. This should've never happened in the first place. In other words, you're way behind schedule. So get busy.

I can assure you that today's youth do not give a rat's ass about your childish excuses. All that matters is the end result. And the RESULT is » ever day that passes plunges their generation deeper in debt and makes their future increasingly precarious. That's right » every day. Every minute of every day.

The Moral Macro Perspective

It's what I call the Moral-Macro perspective .. the moral results of U.S. Economic policy. On a macro level. Shouldnt need a degree in Ethics to realize it's wrong.

Pisses me off. You cant imagine. Good thing I have no lightning bolts flashing forth from my hands. Surely you can sense the depth of authenticity in my disgust.

BAD ENOUGH we screw up things for ourselves. Let's not punish OUR KIDS for our greedy mistakes.

If people feel anything like I do, then I'm not surprised they've taken to the streets. Are you?

News bulletin! This just in. Babies coast-to-coast have had their Trillion-Dollar Suckers stolen. We have recieved more than a dozen reports, nationwide. So be on the look out.

Stay tuned. An artist's composite rendering of the culprit will be posted soon as it becomes available.

Anybody with a lick of sense knows this is exactly what's happening and that it aint right. Downright indefensible. (You guys suk.)

United States Debt-to-GDP ratio climbing quickly, as displayed by the sharp rise in the slope of the graphSo fix it. (While you still can.)

But how can Washington rein in the corrosive influence of Wall Street money & greed when they themselves go to Wall Street on a regular basis? (.. seeking precious gifts).

Answer » they cant.

If there's one thing you learn in JAIL .. it's that they dont take kindly to people who hurt little kids (.. cuz that's the reason underlying why many of them ended up there).

So .. why are we still moving in the exact OPPOSITE direction?

"Yes, you in the back. Stand up, please. Correct-a-mundo! Because we're having an election in November." [ And kids cant vote. ]

So it appears that our DEBT problem is tied to our politicians or the political process. You decide which is appropriate.

At the heart of this dysfunction, you'll find a dialogue that goes something like this » "You and your friends can have a lick of the kid's lolly, but only if you let me and my friends have a taste, first."

Pretty soon » no more lollies left.

Two final questions.

  1. If your parents went on a long vacation the entire time while you were in high school, and left you with an unbelievably huge tab to pay on the day you graduated, would it be wrong if you refused to work the rest of your life to pay their bills?

  2. What kind of parents would do something like that?

» A month ago I posted an entry titled » Using Hitchcock's Notorious KEY Shot to Focus on Political Palms. In looking back (.. after dealing with the server move) and reflecting ..

Bare snowy trees reflect on the surface of icy water during the winter solstice.. I am conscious that the entry (.. which grew large enough to warrant splitting in three parts) combines elements of several conceptual ecosystems ..

.. intertwining ideas as distinct as » morals, ethics, inequality, economics, society, culture, government, capitalism ..

.. corruption, cronyism, protest, civil unrest, values, film/cinema, human nature, psychology, medicine, death & loss, etc.

Most strikingly tho, I am conscious of the mind set that accompanies the Systems Integration portion of the courses at the Navy's Nuclear Power school ..

.. where, after spending the entire school year learning about each individual system .. such as Reactor Coolant, Purification, Charging, Discharge, etc .. you finally (finally!) get to PUT IT ALL TOGETHER.

» Systems Integration

This is by far the coolest part of the course. Such a trip to see/watch all these cool technologies actually taking shape in your head. Like a hologram.

Liquids flowing thru pipes, uranium atoms splitting, pumps spinning, control rods shimming, turbine generators humming at 3600 RPM, fed by arm-cutting steam, reduction gears reducing, main engines ahead flank.

And this part here affects that part there. But how? Everything affects everything. But how? Be specific! I want numbers! To an accuracy of 3 significant digits. How many ping-pong balls would it take to fill the Milky Way? "Times up! Put DOWN your pencils." =)

United States Naval Nuclear-Powered Ballistic Missile SubmarineIn other words, they propose various isolated things go wrong and they want you to tell them how that will affect everything else in the plant.

In medical terms, an aspiring physician might be asked how a kidney infection might affect the brain, the lungs, or any other organ in the body.

Looking back I'm surprised to be reminded of those days, seeing they were'st many moons afore. But yes, I am conscious of the similarity of the patterns. Feels kinda cool, actually.

I mean I can feel the same 'muscles' going to work, assembling the pieces, the constructs, connecting them together ..

.. to the point of making educated guesstimates where no reliable formulas exist. "Now let's cut in chill water and fire this sucker up."

Altho the two Systems Integrations appear similar in structure, the actual mechanics of assembly & operation are very different. Almost exact opposites. That's why that-entry felt like I was winging it. Thinking out loud.

But my intuitions here have proven remarkably accurate .. as further information continues to come out and confirm my earlier hunches .. as you will see.

Hank Paulson | Secretary of the Treasury 2006 to 2009, CEO Goldman Sachs 1999 to 2006Nearly everything in Economics is based on a theory, so you naturally look deeper into the underlying assumptions. In that respect, the exercise is introspective.

Lots more shady characters inhabit the world of Economics. Feels a little slimy here.

» Cojones Gigantos

I also thought it seemed a little ballsy .. to presume to be able to see into the economy .. when I dont have a degree in Economics.

But then, something inside corrected me, saying <paraphrase>:

"Dude, these clowns came this }{ close to flushing the whole enchilada down the pooper. At least, that's what they tell us. Not something I'd be inclined to brag about. So it's not like the bar has been set very high. It's not like people werent jumping up & down shouting warnings for years."

So yeah, I think I can do better.

Zippy New dual-Westmere VPS for Xmas

» Notice anything different? I bet the site is loading snappily for you. More responsively. Zippier. That's cuz we're sitting on a new server. Our VPS has been transferred to a new (and improved) "parent node". Nice way to start the new year. Merry Christmas to us.

Ferrari horse logo - rear grilleRadified is still hosting with the same provider » WiredTree .. since Feb. 2008. (Four years ago, our old server was new.)

A month ago, WiredTree upgraded their servers to the latest version of Virtuozzo, the virtualization software made by a company named Parallels (.. as in » parallel universe).

Virtuozzo makes it appear (virtually speaking) as tho Radified is/were sitting on its own private "dedicated" server [ "Mine! All mine!" ] ..

.. with all the freedom-of-configuration and power that is associated with low-level control (.. the kind that is normally hidden from users of Shared web hosting).

In other words, a VPS provides you with the advantages of a Dedicated server [ "Mine! All mine!" ] without the cost (« ~$150-to-300/month).

More complicated, sure, but after you ascend the learning curve, you wonder how you ever lived without it.

Virtualization is a very cool technology. It represents the 'V' in VPS. And it's what provides the VPS with its 'Privacy' (.. or, at least, makes it appear Private).

Note - tho totally unrelated, you may find it intersting (as do I) that the FILE SIZE of the black-n-crome stallion just above is much larger (35-KB) than all other graphics used on this page. These cars are so beautiful it seems a crime to heavily encode the photos. Arent they gorgeous?

Notice all the small HOLES in the photo above. That is what makes it so difficult to encode as a jpeg. I cropped this from a photo somebody took of the rear-grille of a Ferrari parked on the street. This way I didnt have to scale. Max quality.

The huge size is why I dont use this image on the home page, which I constantly struggle to keep light.

» Frustration after Virtuozzo Upgrade Problems

Anyway, something went awry with the Virtuozzo upgrade and it seems like we had one problem after another .. interspersed with dreadful periods of laggy performance. Perhaps the upgrade itself was problematic.

Realize that I am sensitive to site latency, so I tend to exaggerate any problem.

Not surprising tho. To have problems upgrading something as complex as Virtuozzo. I'm sure it's much easier to load onto a clean, virgin server.

'57 Ferrari 250 Testa Rosa BlackBut once you start loading accounts (containers). An upgrade, especially a major one, seems .. fraught. I applaud them for trying, and having the confidence to pull it off.

I like the techs at WiredTree (some more than others) and have much respect for their skills. Some of them are laser-impressive.

Most of all I like how they dont feed you crap about problems. I never feel like they're trying to blow sunshine up my butt .. like all my other hosting providers used to do.

But after a month, I started to get frustrated. When you pay $10 a month for hosting, you dont expect much. But when you pay $50 .. well, you expect more.

So I finally said, "This has been going on a while. If you cant fix the problem, maybe you should move me to another server."

» Moving Suks (Generally Speaking)

Which they did. "Would now be a good time?"

Black Ferrari F30 on roadAs everybody knows » moving suks.

And moving your site is never a pleasant experience. I put it right up there with a root canal.

There are always problems and unexpected glitches to work thru. Always staying up late. Long past tired.

But when THEY do it for you .. well, that's much nicer .. cuz they have the servers right there (downtown Chicago), and they have access to the server mojo .. cuz they know the mojo.

Sure, we still had some problems (like always), but nothing major. Mostly problems with upgrading cPanel/WHM, but I dont spend much time there.

[ They currently have a ticket open with the cPanel-folks .. to see why the upgrade wont take (even when "forced").

Cpanel update failure during updatenow file sync

cPanel/WHM is a server-configuration utility/program that makes it easy for you to host other web sites yourself (via Web Host Mgr) and administrate the server (via cPanel) without knowing the Shell (« powerful but dangerous low-level text-only command-line interface).

But I only have Radified on this account, so WHM is not a big deal to me. And the server is already configured just how I want.

The single installed version of cPanel/WHM is shared by all Containers on the node. Same goes for Virtuozzo and the Operating system (RedHat-ish CentOS). Unlike Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, etc, you cannot control the version of cPanel. I just learned that today.

The reason is because » "They require different versions of certain system libraries, which would cause all sorts of conflicts."

Update 15.Jan - they have cPanel techs working on it now. Copying me on the exchange between/with WiredTree techs (.. cuz it's my ticket). Very cool. Interesting to see how they approach the problem. ]

So! We are now sitting on a new dual-Westmere Xeon beast. Each Westmere comes with 4 processors. Dual Westmere's = 8 CPU's per server. (I am drooling all over my keyboard.)

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This page is an archive of entries from January 2012 listed from newest to oldest.

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