Every cloud service keeps full backups, which you would presume are meant for worst-case scenarios. Imagine some hacker takes over your server or the building your data is inside of collapses, or something like that. But no, the actual worst-case scenario is "Google deletes your account," which means all those backups are gone, too. Google Cloud is supposed to have safeguards that don't allow account deletion, but none of them worked apparently, and the only option was a restore from a separate cloud provider (shoutout to the hero at UniSuper who chose a multi-cloud solution). //

Google PR confirmed in multiple places it signed off on the statement, but a great breakdown from software developer Daniel Compton points out that the statement is not just vague, it's also full of terminology that doesn't align with Google Cloud products. The imprecise language makes it seem like the statement was written entirely by UniSuper. It would be nice to see a real breakdown of what happened from Google Cloud's perspective, especially when other current or potential customers are going to keep a watchful eye on how Google handles the fallout from this.

Anyway, don't put all your eggs in one cloud basket. //

JohnDeL Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
8y
6,554
Subscriptor
And this is why I don't trust the cloud. At all.

Always, always, always have a backup on a local computer. //

rcduke Ars Scholae Palatinae
4y
1,715
Subscriptor++
JohnDeL said:

This is why everytime I hear a company talk about moving all of their functions to the cloud, I think about a total failure.

How much does Google owe this company for two weeks of lost business? Probably not enough to matter. //

The master paused for one minute, then suddenly produced an axe and smashed the novice's disk drive to pieces. Calmly he said: "To believe in one's backups is one thing. To have to use them is another."

The novice looked very worried. //

murty Smack-Fu Master, in training
9m
90
Subscriptor++
If you’re not backing up your cloud data at this point, hopefully this story inspires you to reconsider. If you’ve got a boss/CFO/etc that scoffs at spending money on backing up your cloud, link them to this story. ...

Google says you can't turn off AI overviews in the main search engine. I'm still seeing the "Labs" icon in the top right, with some checkboxes for AI features, but those checkboxes are no longer respected—some queries will bring up an AI overview no matter what. What you can do is go find a new "Web" filter, which can live alongside the usual filters like "Videos," "Images," "Maps," and "Shopping." That's right, a "Web" filter for what used to be a web search engine. Google says the Web filter can appear in the main tab bar depending on the query (when would a web filter not be appropriate?), but I've only ever seen it buried deep in the "More" section.
Once you do find the Web filter, the results will look like old-school Google. You get 10 blue links, and that's it, with everything else (Google Maps, answer info boxes, etc) disabled. Sadly, unlike old-school Google, these are still the current Google web results, so they'll be dominated by SEO sites rather than page quality.

Google says AI Overviews are rolling out to "hundreds of millions of users" this week, with "over a billion people" seeing the feature by the end of the year, as Google expands AI Overview to more countries. //

The power-user way to use Google Search web now takes a lot of clicks. You'd want to click on "more" and then "Web" for actual web results, and then to get Google to actually pay attention to the words you type in, you'd want to click "Tools" and change "all results" to "verbatim." Alternatively, you could also find a more web-focused search engine instead of Google.

This webcast provided a comprehensive overview of a typical paralleling emergency power system and dove into the fundamental key features needed to parallel generator sets. Check out the additional questions on genset-based paralleling.

your one-stop destination for a variety of diatomaceous earth (DE) products.

When the president orders a contract terminated, and the agency screws up the process, that is not an accident; that is an intentional act.

(In a prior life, I was on a conference call with Fauci the day after Trump pulled the plug on EcoHealth Alliance's gain-of-function research, and he was not a happy man.)

Thank you, Your Honor. I appreciate it. Family, friends, and allies and foundationalists and honored adversaries, today we enter the next phase in the fight to protect our God-given rights from a government that wishes to take them from us and grant us mere privileges in return. To quote another patriot from another place and time, "This is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. This is perhaps, the end of the beginning."

And so, as we enter this new phase, there should be no question in the mind of any patriotic American as to why we fight. After all, only slaves lack the right to arm self-defense and we are no slaves, but free citizens of a great republic and we contain multitudes each of us from builder, a healer, a teacher, a statesman, a soldier, a judge, an attorney at law, a sergeant at arms, and an image of God. So, we know why we fight.

The question before us is how we must fight. What kind of discipline we must bring with us into battle and what spirit we must show to our friends and adversaries alike and by way of answering, we refer to our core doctrines.

The foundationalist's manifesto calls us to listen closely and to speak clearly. To deny the self at the same time to defend the individual. To respect tradition and also to cultivate the future. In short, as foundationalists, we are called to embrace disciplines that seem to contradict each other but nonetheless, to embrace them with all of our strength.

So, it is in our current fight because this system as dysfunctional as it often is, as unjust as it often is, it is nonetheless, our system. It is a feature not a bug of our American civilization. Like any other structure built from man's crooked timber, it is not perfect. Judges and attorneys and trial courts and juries in the light of day are not perfect. Judges and attorneys and trial courts and juries in the light of day are merely what we have instead of the blood feud and the vendetta and the dagger in the dead of night.

Knowing this, we give challenge even as we give thanks. Knowing this, we prepare ourselves for battle in a spirit of profound dissatisfaction and profound gratitude in equal measure.
...
When I was a boy my grandfather told me that fire is a great servant, but a terrible master and so it is with Government. And to the extent that our own Government attempts to be our master, we must oppose it. We must fight to the utmost limits of our strength, but in that fight, our spirit must be one of restoration, not destruction. We must confront the enemy as the firefighter confronts his enemy and for the same reasons that the structure itself may yet, be saved.

God bless and keep you all and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you, Your Honor.

KENNEDY: Well...this trial I think says more about our politics than it says about an alleged crime. Mr. Bragg, I don't know him either. My observation is that if you want to hide something from him, you put it in a law book. He's bringing a felony criminal trial, but he hasn't proved a felony. //

Bragg is charging Trump with what are essentially paperwork violations. Those wouldn't be prosecutable, though, if they didn't occur in the process of committing another felony. What is that felony? We have no idea and neither does the jury. At this point, it's not even clear the judge is going to make the prosecution define it. What we do know is that the Department of Justice, far from a friend of the former president, looked at all this and deemed there was no case.

There are also issues revolving around how Bragg managed to upgrade the misdemeanors surrounding the accounting of the "hush money payment" to felonies, which allowed the prosecution to get around the statute of limitations. In short, we have two misdemeanors that require an underlying crime, yet they've been upgraded to felonies based on a supposed crime that hasn't been defined. It's so stupid that even left-wing sources have been questioning the wisdom of it.

I'm writing this on May 15th, and that means it's time for the yearly round of hand-wringing over the so-called "Nakba."

Left-wingers and terrorist supporters across the globe will spend the day decrying the alleged "ethnic cleansing" of Arabs from "Palestine." As the Nakba narrative goes, evil "Zionist" Jews randomly marauded across the land in 1948, completely unprovoked. In their wake, they left a trail of death and destruction, violently expelling "Palestinians" from "their lands." //

what is the truth of the supposed Nakba, which means "disaster" in Arabic? Putting aside the absurd contention that the Jews, who were woefully outnumbered in 1948, somehow physically carried out an "ethnic cleansing," we need to start with how the Israeli War of Independence began. //

Why were they attacking Jewish cities and settlements on the Israeli side of the partition, which at the time was a small fraction of the former British mandate, with the Arabs being given almost all of the land, including all of modern-day Jordan? The simple answer is that having previously allied with Adolf Hitler during World War II, they were trying to prevent the creation of a Jewish state for very obvious reasons.

On that note, did the Jews just randomly show up after World War II to claim land given to them by the UN? Certainly, some Holocaust survivors did make their way to what would become Israel, but much of the original Israeli state was composed of land that was legally bought in the early 1900s. For example, Tel Aviv was developed on land that was deemed largely useless at the time. In other words, the Jewish state was set to be formed on a small sliver of land deemed to be of no real value to the Arabs.

That plan was never allowed to come to fruition, though, because the Palestinians and their Arab allies (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia) attacked on May 15th, 1948, the day after Israel declared its independence. Their express intent? To drive the Jewish state into the sea, murdering as many Jews along the way as possible. That's where the genocidal chant "from the river to the sea" originates.

So why did so many Palestinians leave in what is now called the "Nakba?" The answer is that the Grand Mufti, the Palestinian leader in exile who had allied with Hitler, ordered them to. At the time, it was thought that an Arab victory was imminent given how outnumbered and outgunned the Israelis were. Palestinians voluntarily left in droves with the expectation that they'd be able to return after a glorious victory.

Further, the Israelis told the Palestinians that they could remain in their homes if they laid down their arms. The Grand Mufti rejected that offer and ordered the war to move forward. //

The expectation at the time was that the Palestinians displaced due to the war they lost would be absorbed into the neighboring Arab states, including the Palestinian-majority state of Jordan. At the same time, Israel was left taking in nearly a million Jews who had been expelled from Muslim nations. That never gets talked about, though, because it doesn't fit the Nakba narrative. //

The fact that "Nakba Day" is on May 15th, the day the Arab alliance declared war on Israel gives the game away. They aren't upset about a supposed "ethnic cleansing" that occurred the day after Israeli independence. They are upset that they got their clocks cleaned and lost territory in the process. Perpetual victimhood omitting their self-destructive actions is the Palestinian way. That's the truth of the Nakba narrative.

A new video has captured the moment the front of a Delta plane burst into flames after landing at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport last week.

The Airbus A321neo had just arrived Monday from Cancun, Mexico when the 189 passengers onboard were ordered to evacuate on emergency slides due to a fire in the plane’s nose area, according to KOMO News.

Bill Maher came out following the Stormy court appearance to completely dispute her contentions. He explained how he interviewed the actress in 2018, and when he gave her the chance to take the victimhood path, she sternly refused.

Daniels: "I have no idea. It is not a me too case. I wasn't assaulted. I wasn't raped. I wasn't attacked or raped, or coerced or blackmailed. They tried to shove me in to the #MeToo box to further their agenda. And first of all, I didn't want any part of that because it's not the truth, and I'm not a victim in that regard."

That is not only 180 degrees in opposition to her testimony, but on the stand, her account of the affair dropped many of the buzzwords and phrases heard from the movement. //

Steve Krakauer @SteveKrak
·
A journalism "tell" - look for what stories DON'T get covered.

On CBS' marquee Sunday show "Face the Nation," the NYC Trump trial didn't get mentioned at all. On CNN, only a passing reference. NBC relegated it to the final panel segment.

Doesn't bode well for the prosecution.
3:37 AM · May 13, 2024

It's almost as if Democrats don't want Republicans protected. Hmmm. //

anon-ev27
12 hours ago
Deja Vu all over again. We have Milwaukee city hall, (the mayor and chief of staff), the Milwaukee police chief, and the Federal US Secret Service all refusing to properly protect an event. They claim they are not expecting any violence, but they want violence, they want another riot to ensue so they can blame MAGA again. The free speech zone for the DNC convention is 3 miles away so you can be sure no main stream media cameras will be filming "that mostly peaceful protest". Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. The GOP is being setup again. They should move the convention or force the USSS to change their plans. //

anon-u50m anon-ev27
4 hours ago
GOP always brings marbles to a gunfight.

Andrew Breitbart famously asserted that politics is downstream from culture, implying that cultural values and norms prefigure and shape political outcomes. The conventional interpretation seems true on its face, that by the time a political issue comes to the fore, it has already been shaped and conditioned by the cultural milieu.

This perspective resonates widely, particularly among conservatives, framing politics as a passive arena, shaped by the stronger currents of cultural change. However, this viewpoint, while compelling, merits a closer examination to explore the possibility that the relationship between politics and culture may be more reciprocal than it appears.

This conventional framing of Breitbart's claim implies a sequence where cultural values and norms evolve independently of political influence, subsequently molding political outcomes. //

As political mastery involves both the subtle nuances of personal skill and the broader application of power within institutions, it becomes a critical component in the bidirectional influence between politics and culture. This understanding reveals that mastery of political processes is essential for maintaining and expanding influence within any arena, political or otherwise. //

Whether dealing with ideological shifts, mundane administrative adjustments, or crafting overarching policies, the fundamental processes are consistent. This universality underscores that the strategies used to sway opinion, garner support, or suppress dissent in politics are akin to those used across all those where process itself applies.

Moreover, understanding "Culture" as a type of influence rather than a static set of values or norms reveals its dynamic nature. Culture is not just a backdrop against which politics happens; it is a malleable field that can be shaped and reshaped through deliberate actions. Recognizing culture as a learnable, manipulable, and masterable process allows for a more proactive approach to cultural engagement and political success, challenging the traditional perception of culture as merely a byproduct of societal evolution.

The notion that everything from casting a ballot to crafting a policy involves manipulable processes highlights the need for a deep understanding of these mechanisms. //

Andrew Breitbart famously posited that politics is downstream from culture, suggesting that cultural forces shape the political landscape. However, the evidence we've examined presents a compelling case for a more nuanced relationship, where political processes actively sculpt and redefine cultural realms. This dynamic interplay reveals that political actors, through deliberate strategies and mastery of processes, have not only influenced but reshaped cultural institutions to align with specific ideological goals.

The 'Long March Through the Institutions' and tactics like those outlined in Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals exemplify how deeply political mechanics can penetrate into areas once deemed apolitical, such as education, media, and even personal social networks. These strategic infiltrations demonstrate the capacity of political forces to engineer cultural environments that perpetuate their ideologies, challenging the notion that culture merely influences politics and underscoring that politics can, indeed, flow upstream.

This realization invites readers to reconsider the traditional views of cultural influence and encourages a deeper exploration into how political processes are intricately woven into the fabric of societal norms and values. The implications of this analysis are vast, suggesting that understanding and mastering these political processes is not merely an academic exercise but a necessary endeavor for anyone looking to build victory.

Sinistra Delenda Est! //

emptypockets
8 hours ago
"Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches and the media by transforming the consciousness of society."
-- Antonio Gramsci
(1891-1937) Italian Marxist theoretician and politician, “class warrior”
Source: 1915 //

Cafeblue32
18 hours ago edited
No, Breitbart was not wrong. The proof is in the people we elect from the culture. It's why everything Trump did was undone overnight once he left- you can change the leaders 50 times, but unless you change the culture that produces them and votes for them, nothing changes for long. Politics doesn't create culture, it capitalizes on it. Politics didn't create the divisions we have. It merely exploited them and grew them as a means to political power. The academics and elites who benefit from a divided culture are the ones who drive the culture, not politics that arise from it. Cultural problems are always made and fixed from the bottom up, never the top down. The government we get is a symptom of it.

American politics did not create the war in Ukraine nor the Gaza conflict. Both predate America by many centuries. But it does feed it and capitalize from it. When there is power and money to be found in division and conflict, there is every incentive to make sure it continues. //

emptypockets
19 hours ago edited
As one Leftist pundit phrased it, the Left, the "Democrats have mastered Process"...which is where you ended up. I hadn't looked at it that way till she said it but she...and you are right. They are collectivists, doing everything in groups attracted by "activists"/"community organizers"....or in plainspeak, rabble rousers. They pontificate how if you are with them in lockstep you, too are "on the right side of history". Those not there will find increasing discomfort at their hands...even unto lengthy prison sentences. Or worse. The history they believe they're directing tells us they always go too far. If we don't stop ours now, we'll be worse than Venezuela before another 4 years have passed.

The "cure" for the politicization of all that was never supposed to BE political but has been captured by the Left's processes is to shrink gov't, pull it out of areas completely. But that would gore herds of oxen, each with several elected and appointed "defenders". It will have to get worse yet before we can effect changes to make it better. //

Indylawyer
19 hours ago
I agree it works both ways. However, as conservatives we need to recognize that government provides a very clumsy tool for any building project. We are not going to be able to use government to rebuild a free society, but we do need to start attacking the government projects that are actively undermining the free society we inherited from our ancestors. Some of the most poisonous government projects at work are (1) "anti-discrimination" laws - these effectively force every institution to over-consider race in order to avoid being accused of "discrimination" or "bigotry". (2) Government schools - regardless of the curriculum, the existence of this institution establishes the principle that government is a provider of important services. It also does a lousy job of educating, and necessarily establishes some sort of religious views. (3) our byzantine system of welfare programs and tax credits which reward bad choices in the name of determining "need." Biggest impact of this is to discourage marriage, but it also punishes work and savings.

The UN just made an embarrassing adjustment to their estimated number of deaths in Gaza. They just halved the number of women and children previously estimated to have been killed. //

Hillel Neuer @HillelNeuer
·
Replying to @HillelNeuer @UNOCHA and 2 others
In Ukraine, the UN has a defined methodology using individual records of civilian harm, requiring a reasonable grounds standard of proof. As a result, the UN states that the actual death toll is likely higher, because their count is careful & cautious. /4 https://ohchr.org/sites/default/files/2024-02/two-year-update-protection-civilians-impact-hostilities-civilians-24.pdf

Hillel Neuer @HillelNeuer
·
Yet when Israel can be blamed, it’s the complete opposite. For Gaza there is no method or standard of proof. The UN simply parrots Hamas numbers, the source laundered by the UN as “Gaza Ministry of Health” or “Government Media Office.” In fact, both are run by terrorist Hamas. /5
6:34 PM · May 12, 2024 //

Joe Scarborough @JoeNBC
·
UN halves estimates of women and children killed in Gaza. Apparently, the Hamas figures repeatedly cited are false.

jpost.com
UN halves estimates of women and children killed in Gaza
1:52 PM · May 12, 2024 //

You would think they would be happy that the number of women and children estimated to have been killed had fallen. But instead, they were mad that people who pointed out the numbers were being questioned. It doesn't help their narrative. //

anon-ubkk
5 hours ago edited
The number may well be half again and
closer to 5000 noncombatants killed according to Mark Levin and his sources. Trouble is, the UN has helped stoke anger around the world and in the US with non suspecting college students (not the paid agitators) and the naive population who keep calling the necessary IDF military operation "genocide". The UN for the most part has been useless, but they have turned out to be the propaganda arm of dangerous Islamists, Marxists, anti Israeli and anti American interests. The UN should be dismantled. //

JimboCA
3 hours ago
It's not the Fog of War that has lead to wildly inflated numbers. It's the Fog of Propaganda.

Dexter Taylor, a Brooklyn-based software engineer, has been sentenced to a decade in prison for building firearms in his home using parts purchased legally. He was arrested after a SWAT raid in 2022, and a jury convicted him of 13 counts last month. Now, he is set to spend up to ten years behind bars for what many perceive as an egregious violation of his Second Amendment rights.

The sentence was handed down on Monday by Judge Abena Darkeh, who presided over Taylor’s trial. The judge’s handling of the case has been criticized, especially her decision to prohibit mention of the Second Amendment in the courtroom during the trial. //

“She told us, ‘Do not bring the Second Amendment into this courtroom. It doesn’t exist here. So you can’t argue Second Amendment. This is New York.’” //

Taylor recalled that it “seemed like we had three prosecutors in the courtroom, the two [assistant district attorneys] and the judge working in concert.”

Indeed, in a previous interview, Varghese characterized Judge Darkeh as “the most aggressive prosecutor in the room.” //

Interestingly enough, Taylor said some of the officers who escorted him into the holding cell behind the courtroom after the verdict was read began discussing politics. “Literally, they were all talking about how this is nonsense. ‘Of course, you have a God-given right to keep and bear arms,’” he recalled the officers saying. He discussed his case with another sergeant who “thought it was a travesty.” //

When asked about the possibility that Taylor could get bail pending appeal so he could fight his case from outside of prison, the lawyer said, “It’s something that Dexter and I will have to discuss further. The chances are slim to none.”

Democrats pushing the so-called “Equal Rights Amendment” failed to follow the required procedure for advancing a constitutional amendment. Equal Protection Project had opposed the attempt to embed CRT and DEI in the state constitution.

It looks like the ‘strongest’ legal case against Trump is based on yet another set of lies from corrupt federal agencies. //

Recent court disclosures give two indications that federal employees could have planted the classified documents used to mire Trump and several aides into a sprawling investigation and an election-interfering court case. The first is the explosive evidence revealed Friday: For 11 months, the special counsel’s office hid that it misplaced some — we don’t know how many or which — of the same allegedly classified documents it claims Trump criminally possessed at Mar-a-Lago. //

Second, there’s the also newly uncovered fact that a federal agency sent “two pallets” of documents to Mar-a-Lago while the National Archives and Records Administration was setting up this documents case. It’s unknown who all had access to these document boxes during their packing, temporary storage in Virginia, and transit to Trump’s home. Were those boxes a setup too? Imagine if some boxes the feds sent amid NARA’s dispute with Trump were also boxes the DOJ can’t verify as being in their original state. //

We also learned just last week that the White House and Department of Justice lawyers colluded with NARA to develop what became the special counsel’s classified documents indictment, starting an entire year before the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, according to documents reviewed by reporter Julie Kelly. Just the News reports the collusion between NARA and the White House could have begun as early as a few weeks into the Biden presidency, according to White House visitor logs.

So of course the classified documents case didn’t arise from concern over legal improprieties, as the complete lack of prosecution for the same conduct from Joe Biden, Mike Pence, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, and DOJ leakers also proves. It was a political hit from the beginning, using federal agencies and resources to strangle Democrats’ top political opponent and override the votes of half the country. Talk about an insurrection.

The Georgia Election Board chided Fulton County for breaking the law in 2020 but stopped short of referring the case for more investigation.

Being a mom is a joy. But there's also PLENTY to laugh at, and that's what these mom memes are for.

So Constable built the fence and consulted with his neighbor, artist Hanif Panni, to paint a photorealistic mural of his ship on the fence that would visually look like the boat. //

Jenn Cheng @THATJennCheng
·
Replying to @nettermike
A beautiful example of malicious compliance. This guy seems like someone we'd get along with!
4:02 PM · May 10, 2024

What is Radiation Dose?

When people talk about dose, they're usually using sieverts (or rem, if in the US). Sieverts (Sv) are best used for external doses, like say the dose you receive from a giant hunk of radioactive cobalt across the room.

To understand sieverts, you should first understand grays (US equivalent: rad). 1 gray is equal to 1 Joule of energy per kilogram of matter. Energy/matter provides an idea of how much effect the radiation has, scaled for the size of whatever it's hitting. Sieverts include a quality factor in order to take into account the biological effect of the radiation (1 Sv = 1 Gy*quality factor). Alpha particles have a quality factor of 20, because they deposit all their energy in a small area. Gamma rays and beta particles have a quality factor of 1, because their energy is more spread out, meaning the tissues struck by gamma rays are more likely to recover. So, while different types of radiation have different effects, 1 Sv of alphas is equivalent to 1 Sv of gammas.

Contamination is a little different from radiation. Radiation consists of tiny invisible particles, the largest of which is the size of a helium nucleus. Contamination consists of actual atoms or molecules, and is best understood as "radioactive stuff wherever we don't want it". It is usually expressed in terms of counts per minute (cpm) or decays per minute (dpm), and can be separated into "removable" and "fixed", which are exactly what they sound like. Counts per minute are what you see on your geiger counter. Dpm is just cpm corrected for the efficiency of the detector (about 10% on your average geiger counter, should be calculated when the meter is calibrated). At the Reed Reactor, we consider something "contaminated" and in need of cleaning when it's reading 1000 dpm per 100 square centimeters.