Good Pans Are Worth the Money
A few tidbits of wisdom and humor
https://manageknowledge.us/blog/?p=452
If using your mind to think logically doesn’t scare you, doesn’t represent your worst nightmare, then you should be able to handle this series of eight videos. It starts out seeming to be only about the growth in world oil consumption — and maybe about economic growth itself — but it becomes about something even more important. Oh yeah, it seems to rely heavily on mathematics, or at least on arithmetic. Viewing all of it takes about 80 minutes, but you don’t have to it all in one sitting.
https://manageknowledge.us/blog/?p=441
These men were released. Their captors — acting on our behalf — decided they had really done nothing wrong, the same decision ultimately given about the Japanese-Americans that the United States interred during World War II.
https://manageknowledge.us/blog/?p=434
You’ve heard that. You know it’s true. You may even have done it, or at least think you have done it. This has become an especially important topic for those of us who have a WordPress blog (such as this) or a personally maintained photo gallery, such as Gallery2.
It seems the first thing that’s emphasized is the importance of backing up the system’s database. Most packages provide specific instructions for doing that. If you have done that you figure you’re done. After all your blog or gallery is the same thing in your mind as the database. The trick here is that the database is a particular thing used by web systems to enable them to function. It’s not your data — your content — it’s data about your data. After you have backed it up you still have not completely backed up your blog or gallery.
Your blog or gallery consists of three things:
- the content (the wise words in your blog or the great shots in your gallery)
- the program package that tells it how to work, and
- the database that describes its structure so it will work
The entire system resides on a web server somewhere. To back up the database you follow instructions explaining how to use mySQL to back it up and download it to your computer where you store it somewhere safe. Now, if anything happens to the system as it resides on the far away web server you would have a copy that can be used to restore the database, but you cannot necessarily “rescue” the programs nor your content.
To backup the programs and your content that are on the web server you need a FTP capability — a package such as FileZilla — to download them to your computer where you can store them.
There is one further consideration about backups that goes beyond what is needed to backup a blog or a photo gallery. What about any files that are stored on your computer that you do not want to lose? Have you backed them up onto something that is stored away from where your computer is, so they will be safe in the case something happens to your computer or its location?
In the “old days” we did not have many of these files so we could store them on floppy disks or later on CDs. They didn’t take up much room and we could keep them at some other location we felt was secure. Now there are many more files and they have become quite large. Furthermore we’d like to back them up frequently and immediately move the backups “off site.” Two packages that can be used to accomplish this are Mozy and the new S3SystemBackup. One final decision you will need to make if you decide to use such a package is whether and how much to backup backups you have stored on your computer of your blog or your photo gallery.
https://manageknowledge.us/blog/?p=420
Well, let’s see: the Taliban are really, really nasty people. You do know, don’t you how they treat women and children, and criminals. You don’t want to be caught stealing in Taliban territory, not using a hand that’s a favorite of yours. But, there are also nasty people in Darfur, and in Somalia, and actually in some neighborhoods here in Los Angeles. We could be trying to clean them out, too, right, if nastiness is the criterion for directing the firepower and youth of the United States of American to get rid of nastiness or at least correcting nasty behavior.
I heard another idea today. Since the guy from Denver arrested as a probable terrorist is from Afghanistan, then obviously we must keep up the war; otherwise we’ll be troubled with more like him. But, but, he trained in Pakistan not Afghanistan. Pakistan is where the anti-American guys are nesting now. Also, in my humble opinion continuing to bomb innocent Afghan civilians in our efforts to root out Taliban bad buys might actually be motivating more folks with links to Afghanistan to want to do something bad to us.
OK, then how about this, the Taliban supported the Al Qaeda guys. Yes, they did, but those guys seem to have melted into Pakistan now. Well, they did it in the past, and they deserve to be punished.
Another idea is that we’ve got to keep on keeping on. We’re in there now; we’ve been mucking around in the country for 8 years now. It would really look bad to leave now and the United States would lose credibility. After all we do want the world to believe we continue wars even if they’re pointless, wasteful, impolitic and possibly evil. What kind of a reputation would that give us if we were to quit now? People are still laughing at Russia and England, and way back, even at Genghis Khan, for running away from Afghanistan and calling it a quagmire.
So, I guess we’ll keep on keeping on. The one job I really wouldn’t want is having to come up with the words that come after: “Your son/daughter died in Afghanistan to…”
https://manageknowledge.us/blog/?p=414
https://manageknowledge.us/blog/?p=406
After a whirlwind 3 days in Pennsylvania (two days traveling) two of which were spent in and around Pittsburgh, I’m back. If looking at photos is your thing go here.
https://manageknowledge.us/blog/?p=408
https://manageknowledge.us/blog/?p=404
If you haven’t watched all along, this one may not too much sense to you; although you’ll wonder with me how many different sides Jack can take in one one-hour episode. This is a powerful show. I hope we can keep it:
https://manageknowledge.us/blog/?p=402
The opinion of the market guys (gurus?) I follow is that this current market advance is phony — the result of manipulation. Levin in this video expresses that opinion clearly and forcefully.
https://manageknowledge.us/blog/?p=398
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