My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on November 16, 2016

The autumn Supermoon of 2016 has certainly been a beautiful sight in the night sky these past few days. The last couple of evening I’ve enjoyed the view and "attempting" to capture the using only my iPhone 5s since my son has my DSLR for an upcoming trip to Hawaii; I’m hoping he will practiced with it and send some photos home (my "tweaked" photo on left).

Nevertheless, if you didn’t pay attention, the "Beaver Moon" was at its closest distance in 69 years … at "only" 221,524 miles away (on Nov 14, 2016 at 6:15AM). The last time it was that close was in 1948! If you missed it, and are young enough, you will get another chance in 2034.
 
In case you are counting, we have had 3 Supermoons in the last 3 months of 2016.

Not my photo … this one is from the Slooh Community Observatory (click for larger)

Category: Photos, Space | 1 Comment »
Tags: astronomy, moon, night, sky, slooh, supermoon

Posted By RichC on November 15, 2016

My good friend and old college buddy lives in an apartment which as been visited by the fire department — they tagged his door regarding the grill on his patio. Bad for him, good for me. All I had to do was go pick it up … glad I put the hitch on the BMW X5 35d! (Thanks Jeff)

His commercial quality grill was a bit more “used” than I had thought when he gave me first dibs knowing our ancient grill is barely working. The burners of his cosmetic yet commercial grade stainless steel grill needs some TLC. The four burners are beyond cleaning as are most of the guts in a older grill. They can be replaced and since I’ll be converting it from propane to natural gas, that is no big deal. Of bigger concern is the inside rust through in a couple spots. Of course it was free- “beggars can’t be choosers“ (a John Heywood 1546 epigram).  I gutted and cleaned it with degreaser and a steel brush to knock off the surface rust and the next step is to order new burners, deoxit the rust and paint. I’m pretty sure I can get a few more years out of it, although not sure about welding in a little bit of new metal???

Category: Friends, Misc, Personal, Photos | 2 Comments »
Tags: BMW, free, friends, grill, hitch, jeffp, rust, tow, trailer, x5 35d

Posted By RichC on November 14, 2016

As part of getting a handle on the Amazon S3 costs, it is finally time to move into the 21st century and eliminate the old-school audio player on MyDesultoryBlog. I attempted to go with an HTML5 player a few years ago, but struggled with using it especially with different browsers. A few years later, everything seems to be working with HTML5 a bit better and so I’m testing this new Compact Audio Plugin because it nearly matches the “look” of the old one I’ve used for over a decade on the blog and will start to convert old pages and posts that contain audio. Below is an Amazon S3 .mp3 audio test using “up-audio-shortcode” as a test.

Orson Welles | War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast – 1938

Category: Audio, History | No Comments »
Tags: 1938, audio, mp3, orson welles, radio, shortcode, testing, war, wordpress, world

Posted By RichC on November 13, 2016

Surprise! At least that’s what I found out when I opened a couple virtual invoices from Amazon for my two AWS accounts (personal and business). After moving files for online web content to Amazon’s fast and reliable S3 cloud-based servers a couple years ago, I’ve been happily adding content regularly since then as the cost has been relatively miniscule … until recently?

Much of the content I’m using Amazon S3 for is audio and video, where speed is helpful and transfers  infrequent (especially older archival items). I’ve contemplating using their Glacier storage but have heard horror stories from people archiving data and then attempting to retrieve everything at one time (a no-no). It seems that uploading data and "parking it" is inexpensive, even for massive archives, BUT retrieving "more than the minimum per month" can be "bigly" expensive.

For me with the S3 storage, my last month invoice for both accounts jumped 200% in price … so I knew something wasn’t right. A quick ticket and reply indicated that access was way up, but no details. Unfortunately the "reports" are not intuitive or detailed enough for me and their advice was to check my "bucket" setting … which of course I have slowly opened up over time. Back to adding "Bucket Policies" and modifying "properties" again. Hopefully this will take care of things?

From Amazon Tech Assistance:

Thanks for following up with us regarding your issue with data transfer charges. I will keep your case locked to me, while you investigate, and will wait for further updates from you.

I’m sorry for the trouble this issue have caused you. In addition to the information that my colleague provided to you earlier, I wanted to mention some other resources, that I think you might find useful.

You can download usage reports from your billing console below to investigate, what kind of request may generate the traffic:

https://console.aws.amazon.com/billing/home#/reports/usage

You can select Amazon Simple Storage Service and download .csv hourly usage report for the previous billing cycle. By filtering the information, you can check which resource and which operation generates the most data transfer.

If you would like to prevent your instance from responding to requests, you may want to make sure your security groups are configured to block unsolicited inbound traffic to prevent unauthorized users from accessing your data. Here are
some tips for securing your instances against unwanted traffic:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-network-security.html

The issue with data transfer may happen if you grant permissions to your bucket to either "Everyone" (anyone on the Internet, even someone who doesn’t have AWS account) or "Any Authenticated AWS User" (anyone who has an AWS account). You may want to review the permissions that you set up for your buckets:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/manage-acls-using-console.html

I hope this helps, and I will look forward to hearing back from you.

Category: Archive, Blogs, Cloud, Computer, Technology | 1 Comment »
Tags: amazon s3, archiving, glacier, server, storage, webhosting, website

Posted By RichC on November 12, 2016

^{Photo credit: Xiaolong Guo}

Category: Photography, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: china, fisherman, photograph, photography

Posted By RichC on November 12, 2016

Have you ever wondered what ammo and its components look like internally? If so, check out the interesting and educational photos below. During a bit of free time at FOG (Finger of God) Firearms and Cartridge Company, our staff cut in half six popular hunting,… More »

Source: Cartridges Cut in Half: A Unique Look at 6 Popular Rounds | OutdoorHub

Category: Misc, Recreation | No Comments »
Tags: ammo, Cartridges, firearms, outdoorhub, shooting

Posted By RichC on November 11, 2016

A lot has changed in the 11 years that have passed since I posted on “First Man” Neil Armstrong … but after re-watching the 60 Minutes clip and pondering going “back to the moon and to Mars by 2018,” Armstrong would have been disappointed as a lot hasn’t changed.

Click for post from 11/11/2005

WHY the repost? I was reminded of this post partially due to looking at an old 2005 “Who is Max Peck” trivia post that has moved to the top ten in traffic for 2016. It is amazing to see old posts being resuscitated — who knows why … but maybe Bock is next … that’s a tease.)

Speaking of trivia, although I have never personally met Neil Armstrong (did meet John Glenn), I felt a kinship with him as he was a “local” boyhood hero. Instead of entertainers or sports starts, Neil Armstrong kept me at least a little more focus on school and developing an interest in aviation. We both grew up in western Ohio farm country, only a few towns apart, and eventually called Cincinnati home, his life was inspirational … of course every kid my age admired Apollo astronauts. But here’s the bit of trivia (in case my kids read it someday): I purchased my wife’s engagement ring from a jeweler who met me after business hours in the parking lot of the Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio … although probably should have placed it on the moon rock before giving it to Brenda! (was going to try and incorporate some kind of “out of this world” wisecrack … but that would have just been corny).

Category: Blogs, History, Memories, Space | No Comments »
Tags: blog, first man, memories, moon, neil armstrong, space

Posted By RichC on November 10, 2016

A mockup weapon seen at a Ukrainian trade show appears to use a Raspberry Pi micro PC as the basis of a guidance system—probably not at all what the inventors of the hobby computer had in mind when they introduced their affordable wonder to the world.

The weapon was reportedly sighted at last month’s Bezpeka Security Trade Show, which showed off the latest in Ukrainian surveillance, intelligence, and military technologies. It appears to be part of a shoulder-fired, disposable rocket launcher …

Source: New Ukrainian Rocket Launcher Appears to Use Raspberry Pi

Category: Millitary, Raspberry Pi, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: missile, raspberry pi, rocket, russia, ukraine

Posted By RichC on November 10, 2016

When contemplating just how crazy men were when trying to fly in the era of the Wright brothers, you realize "some" are still testing the envelope when it comes to craziness and flight (or perhaps "stupidity and flight?")

Category: Aviation | No Comments »
Tags: crazy, experimental, flight, flying, Photos, wright brothers

Posted By RichC on November 9, 2016

America woke up battered and bruised from what was the likely the nastiest election for president in my lifetime. I suspect most around the country are just glad it is over even if their candidate did not win. As seems to be the forced optimism after every election, leaders will say: “it is now time to heal our country; let us all unite in our commonalities; it is time to put aside the divisive rhetoric; we must roll up our sleeves to move our nation forward.” Just word to most of us, but helpful just the same.

Hillary Clinton started the process this morning by delivering a painful (to her and her supporters) concession speech and will be followed by President Obama putting out the diplomatic olive branch tomorrow by hosting President-Elect Donald J. Trump at the Whitehouse. The peaceful transfer of power is surely one thing all Americans can take pride in.

The counting continues after most conclude Trump adding Wisconsin gives him the current 279 electoral votes and that pushed him over the 270 mark, although likely there will be a few more votes to add to the count (as of lunch on Wed., Nov 9, 2016). The down ballot victories for control of the House and Senate were also positive for a Republican president, giving him a unique opportunity to move his populous agenda (details?) forward without the added resistance from what could have been resistance if Democrats controlled congress. That said, the Republicans have lost seats and many in the senate and congress are not necessarily 100% onboard with President-Elect Donald Trump … so our new president would be wise to move swiftly and make the most of his honeymoon come January 2017 (if there is one?)

Category: News, Politics | 1 Comment »
Tags: clinton, election, government, president, results, trump