Friday, May 31, 2019

Reconstructing the early Internet and preserving everything coming in from now on!


 Early interesting Cars:
 1958 Fiat (Rose, of Roses are Read' sent me this befoe she passed)
But for today:
Son Jack tells me that some company is planning to build a HISTORY file of the internet even reconstruct most. If I can explain this, not everything stays on the internet forever. Some web sites fade due to ‘not upgrading’. URL addresses change. There are times I click on an address I have had for a long time and get some message like: This site is no longer available/active. (The basic idea is $, information is money!)

Anyway this group envisions storing EVERYTHING that passes thru the net, losing nothing. My thoughts: that is almost an impossibility. I am old enough to know when the IBM card was the ultimate in storage. Government checks were printed on IBM cards. My first Income Tax filing (1957) was on an IBM card. (Example: on the Ship, my intel file was 200,000 IBM cards.) Then slowly the ‘magnetic tapes’ were used. Those cards became two 1” magnetic tapes.  AH, what an innovation. 

Then the ball began to roll faster. Music was on tape, replacing records. Then 8 track players and movies, then the cassette, oh there was the floppy disk, then the CD. The DVD, the ball rolled faster and before long the tapes were no good, and unless someone transferred their VHS to CD it wasn’t long until there were no tape players/readers produced. The CD player is on the way out.

My point, no matter the media this company puts this info on, before long it will be unsearchable because our devices will change.

Some people might think they are storing their data in the ‘clouds’ but we are not. Investors have found a way to make money on Storage.  Huge buildings store more data than I know how to think, much less say. This guy typing can remember when a kilobyte was a HUGE number.  The first computers I repaired occupied 1200 sqft and had the capacity to store up to 26 Kilobytes!  WOW. Technical guys now store that on a spot the size of a pin head. Your cell phone stores thousands of times more than that.

I was surprised how much trouble I had (in my short stay in college) trying to understand the new technology that you cannot see with the eye. It is much easier for someone to accept the new technology if they have never seen the old analog or digital business computers.

Nite Shipslog

Thursday, May 30, 2019

Those sneaky Gardenias



Those cars of my youth (50’s)

Ol' Rick described the Gardenia a couple days ago on Life 101. 
Now here in North Carolina:

My wife’s MOST favorite flower (looks and smell) is the Gardenia. Friend Glenda drove from Okeechobee to Deltonia to plant one for Sherry once. Sherry petted it but in a year did not get a bloom. When we gave the house to Mark he sent his mama a picture last week, the Gardenia had bloomed. She was tickled.

A few days ago it was time to trim the scraggly shrubs around here, so I gave them a scalping. Later we were down in the swing in our grove of trees (Our peace place) and she noticed a plant with two flowers she had not seen. She was, “WOW! That is a Gardenia, I did not know Shirl had one back here. She had one up front, she must have moved it back here.”

A day or two later I noticed a white object out front in a bush when I left to go to Lowes.


I remembered to tell Sherry on my return. I thought it might have been a piece of white paper. She looked, “It is a GARDENIA!” she yelled, and I went out. Knowing this was one of the bushes I had scalped! BUT lo and behold as I looked there were hundreds of buds about to break out, I had not cut deep enough to get them all, but I did get a few.

Here is the bush in bloom with hundreds more to come.



People like me are lucky. I had no idea this was a Gardenia bush. I have never been wise to shrubs or flowers. When I built houses to sell I simple bought 10 shrubs, mostly Azaleas, to plant at the new house. This house was no exception, Sister Shirl planted the Gardenias.



In closing, I shot that last picture after dark. Stormy D was waiting for me on the porch for a petting. I also got her some milk to celebrate the Gardenia crop!
Quick update:
 I am proud of myself. Neighbor Michelle gave us this Daisy a few weeks ago and I haven't killed it yet. (Mama said 'Son you love plants to death.') The Daisy was one of Sherry's mama's favorites.
 

Nite Shipslog

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Plumbing



Those cars of my youth (50’s)
 Who would have thought this kid (Standing in front of a 1941 Chevy with fog lights, would be replacing faucets that  he had installed 25 years ago!

Today:
Plumbing, old plumbing to be specific, can be a real pain. While my sister Shirley lived here, she would not complain about anything. It was leased to her reasonably of course, so she took care of most of the problems that came up, if she wanted to. Otherwise she worked around them or had them fixed..

I did fix most of the things I noted as the years passed. BUT the sink faucet, a Delta, has been leaking and the spray quit working years ago. The leak did no damage, it leaked into the sink when it was being used. “I do not use that spray, forget it!” was her answer when I said I would fix it.

SO now 25 years later, I climbed under the sink. It was no picnic. Both bolts that held the unit on, had to be broken off. What I thought would be a 30 minute replacement was about 3 hours. Something to remember when calling a plumber to old work, there are times when repairing one thing, another breaks. It did in this case, the cut-off valve had to be replaced also.

But we now have new faucets in the kitchen, this time the brand is MOEN. I have used both Delta and Moen. Both are good faucets that last and give good service.

This being a lease/rental unit for the 22 years while we gallivanted and were on-the-road, Delta must be given an A+ for service.

You know things are slow here to be talking about kitchen faucets! LOL. I was just thinking. I paid high dollar for that faucet 25 yrs ago, about $15.00. The replacement in 2019 was $90.00.  Time, it does change!  LOL

Sherry made Spaghetti today, it was good! 

We still cannot decide if this is to be OUR real home. LOL

Nite Shipslog