The Internet started in the 1960s as a way for government researchers to share information. Computers in the '60s were large and immobile and in order to make use of information stored in any one computer, one had to either travel to the site of the computer or have magnetic computer tapes sent through the conventional postal system.

Another catalyst in the formation of the Internet was the heating up of the Cold War. The Soviet Union's launch of the Sputnik satellite spurred the U.S. Defense Department to consider ways information could still be disseminated even after a nuclear attack. This eventually led to the formation of the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), the network that ultimately evolved into what we now know as the Internet. ARPANET was a great success but membership was limited to certain academic and research organizations who had contracts with the Defense Department. In response to this, other networks were created to provide information sharing.

January 1, 1983 is considered the official birthday of the Internet. Prior to this, the various computer networks did not have a standard way to communicate with each other. A new communications protocol was established called Transfer Control Protocol/Internetwork Protocol (TCP/IP). This allowed different kinds of computers on different networks to "talk" to each other. ARPANET and the Defense Data Network officially changed to the TCP/IP standard on January 1, 1983, hence the birth of the Internet. All networks could now be connected by a universal language.

PhilipStorry Ars Scholae Palatinae 19y 998 Subscriptor++

So why aren’t banks jumping at the opportunity to cast off their mainframes and move to the cloud? Risk and conversion cost. As a rule, banks are risk-averse. They are often trailing adopters for new technology and only do so when under competitive or regulatory pressure.

And more importantly, IBM understands this.

Would it be cheaper to run your processes on someone's cloud? Maybe. Will you spend the next two decades tweaking and rewriting as those cloud services get changed or replaced? Definitely.

I'd love to see a proper study into how much a 1990's/2000s Java replacement for an old Mainframe COBOL program has cost so far in terms of redevelopment for later JVMs and other maintenance. Has anyone seen such a thing?

If there's one thing IBM offers it's a kind of platform stability that can be measured in decades. You're not going to worry so much about what works with the latest OS version - this isn't that kind of environment.

Is that a good or a bad thing? We'll see both views in the comments here. But IBM's mainframes are the extreme expression of "If it's working today, it will work for years to come". And for some processes, that stability is very attractive - much more attractive than the costs of constant improvement and the risks it brings.

A brief comparison of z/OS and UNIX

z/OS concepts

What would we find if we compared z/OS® and UNIX®? In many cases, we'd find that quite a few concepts would be mutually understandable to users of either operating system, despite the differences in terminology.

For experienced UNIX users, Mapping UNIX to z/OS terms and concepts provides a small sampling of familiar computing terms and concepts. As a new user of z/OS, many of the z/OS terms will sound unfamiliar to you. As you work through this information center, however, the z/OS meanings will be explained and you will find that many elements of UNIX have analogs in z/OS.

So why did I put "removed" in quotes at the beginning of this piece? I did so because it's obvious what's actually going on here. Just as with the Colorado Supreme Court ruling removing Trump from the ballot, Bellows stayed her own decision (meaning it doesn't go into effect), giving the final say to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

What does that tell you? It tells you that none of these cheap stunts are meant to succeed technically. It's essentially a foregone conclusion that the U.S. Supreme Court will not only keep the stays in place, but they will ultimately rule against the states trying to use the 14th Amendment without any due process to bar Trump from the ballot. 

In the end, Bellows doesn't believe she'll win. She just wants her name in lights while setting up the U.S. Supreme Court to play the bad guy for half the country. It's a tactic the Biden administration has used over and over, enacting illegal measures with an eye on passing the buck to the judiciary so they can cry foul when they lose. 

The same thing will happen here. The nation's high court will eventually make a common sense ruling to reinstate Trump on these ballots, and then the far left will call them tyrants who want to destroy democracy. What does that accomplish? It helps juice Democrat turnout. It's all so predictable, and it's a blatant abuse of the system to influence an election.

A voter asked Haley the question, "What was the cause of the United States Civil War?" As a Daughter of the South and a former governor of a Confederate state, you would think Haley's answer would have been simple and fluid.

Apparently not. //

I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are. And I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people.

The town hall voter didn't seem satisfied with her response, so he gave her a bit of a nudge, then pressed a bit harder. Finally, he said it was “astonishing” that Haley did not mention slavery in her response. Haley's response to this? “What do you want me to say about slavery?”

Haley then moved on to the next voter question. //

Largo Patriot
6 hours ago edited
This is the woman who, upon BLM's demand, disappeared South Carolina's history by removing all reminders of its Confederate roots which, it turns out, she doesn't know much about. For obvious reasons, Democrats want the American people to forget who the slave owners were and which political party fought for the Confederacy, enacted Jim Crow laws and supported segregation. Instead of owning their party's racist history, Democrats want to flip the script and persuade us that it is preserving the history of slavery that is racist, not slavery itself - and Nikki Haley was happy to assist them. Democrats can tear down every "racist" statue in this country and it will never change the fact that it was THEIR ancestors who captured, sold and owned slaves, it was THEIR ancestors who fought and died to preserve the institution of slavery and it was THEIR ancestors who tried for many decades after slavery ended to keep African Americans at the back of the bus.

With 60% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, most U.S. households could use a raise. But an arbitrary, one-size-fits-all increase in the minimum wage imposed by lawmakers in Washington would only exacerbate the struggles of these households.

According to a new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, proposed legislation to increase the federal minimum wage to $17 per hour by 2029, a jump of 134%, would reduce employment and increase prices, interest rates, and federal deficits.

Any one of these consequences of the so-called Raise the Wage Act of 2023 would be bad news; all four together would add insult to injury for struggling workers and families.

When Harry Truman told his cabinet in 1948 that he was going to recognize the new country of Israel (without yet knowing what its name would be), most of his closest collaborators and friends vehemently opposed such a move.

Truman always considered that he had made the right decision, and in many ways, his was an extremely lonely choice; not backed by a majority of his cabinet or by most members of his own political party. //

While it’s true that Harry Truman had a soft spot in his heart for the Jewish people because of his Baptist and Biblical upbringing, and while it’s true he had close Jewish friends, and while it’s also true that he was deeply moved by the suffering of the Jews at the hands of the Nazi’s, these were not the main reasons that he came to his momentous decision. Looking at the actual arguments advanced at the time by Clifford and others who defended Truman’s move, it’s evident that the reason Israel was recognized was that they wanted a liberal democratic nation to exist in an area of the world where such a phenomenon was woefully absent. Not much has changed in the past 75 years. //

One sees in Harry Truman’s step a clear sense of right and wrong, but at the same time, there was a fierce spirit of courage in this lonely but righteous decision.

What is the replacement plan for plastic, rubber, cement, steel, and the millions of products they create?

Wind and solar make electricity — albeit inefficient, unreliable, intermittent, and expensive. But fossil fuels do so much more, and the Biden administration and environmental leftists pretend to ignore it. For example, the Biden administration passed the so-called Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which threw over a trillion tax dollars at, among other things, “rebuild[ing] crumbling road [sic] and bridges.” But at the same time, a government agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, is restricting the very oil, gas, and coal needed to accomplish this. //

Every call to eliminate fossil fuels is a call to slowly, incrementally raise the price of all these products making them cost-prohibitive for the masses. Yes, cement and steel are vital to our economy and our quality of life, but so are the millions of affordable, daily-life products like laundry detergent and aspirin.

I always carry a handkerchief (because my dad did), but most people prefer disposable tissues. When fossil fuels are gone, tissues are gone. Disposable diapers are gone. Yoga mats and plastic water bottles are gone. Do climate change activist suburban moms know that? Do you think Starbucks can survive without fossil fuels? What about that salad from Whole Foods in a plastic container or even the plastic packaging for meat and produce? Cologne, deodorant, perfume, bathroom cleansers, Swiffer pads, paper towels — sure, that mom may think disposable products are “bad for the Earth,” but a lack of hygiene is far worse for her and her family. //

What is at stake is much deeper: human dignity — a dignity that elevates us above the harshness of nature and cruelty of illness or allows us to cleanse ourselves from the sweat of labor.

We do not talk about the “then what” after fossil fuels are eliminated. But I assure you, life as we know it would be absolutely, categorically impossible without them.

Local authorities indicted a New York resident on Tuesday for allegedly submitting more than 100 absentee ballot applications during the state’s 2022 Democrat primaries.

Few of the facts seem to matter as international organizations and the press ignore documented evidence of al-Shifa Hospital’s military use. //

Israel is entitled to win this war, morally and legally. The horrible reality is that many combatants and innocent people have died, largely due to the nature of urban warfare combined with Hamas’ abuse of Palestinian civilians. //

In this current war, neither attacks on terror facilities masquerading as humanitarian facilities nor the number of casualties should detract from Israel’s lawful and just effort to liberate the region from this stain on humanity.

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• In Winamp, select Media Library. Right-click file to convert > select Send To: > Format Converter.
• Click Encoding Format to choose the format > OK.
• Follow the steps above to convert an entire playlist.

“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as "bad luck.”

― Robert Heinlein //

California has created a government that depends on one percent of its citizens for 50 percent of its revenue. It is in the process of creating a situation where it has half the revenue and 99 percent of the people. That is not sustainable.

UNEXPECTEDLY: ADV. FREQUENTLY USED BY PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING, TO DESCRIBE UNPLEASANT EVENTS OR SITUATIONS THEY HAVE CREATED.

While we must acknowledge this engagement's success, it is not sustainable. The Eisenhower CSG is not playing the game to win; they are playing to not lose. They are like the team sitting on a one-point lead at halftime and trying to run out the clock. The Eisenhower must be successful 100 percent of the time; the Houthis only need to occasionally have a missile or drone leak through to achieve their mission. //

Dieter Schultz
10 hours ago
The Eisenhower CSG is not playing the game to win; they are playing to not lose. They are like the team sitting on a one-point lead at half-time and trying to run out the clock.
Winning teams never really back off... they might do it once or twice but, the ones that win and do it consistently, have learned that stopping at playing the game brings them losses that they hate and, when that happens, they formulate a hard and fast rule that they never back off until they've won.

I'm not sure Biden's team... gets that. Playing to not beat a team too bad, even if they are very, very bad, hurts both teams.

I hate the way Biden plays the game but, he's running the team... at least for another year or so.

“You’re visiting—you’re out of the country or out of town or you’re in a motel or at a bar in D.C.—and whatever you’re into—women or men or whatever—comes up and they’re very attractive, and they’re laughing at your jokes. And you’re buying them a drink. Next thing you know, you’re in the motel room with them naked,”

And the next thing, you're about to make a key vote an what happens? Some well-dressed person comes out and whispers in your ear, ‘Hey, man, there’s tapes out on you.’ Or, ‘Were you in a motel room or whatever with whoever?’ And then you’re like, ‘Uh-oh.’ And they say, ‘You really ought not be voting for this thing.’” //

Anna Paulina Luna @realannapaulina
·
I travel with my husband at all times. If he cannot come with me, I have a female staffer as an alibi. I don’t even touch alcohol in DC. DC can be a nasty place. Keep your circle tight and just anticipate you’re always being watched. That is how this game operates.

Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson
Members of Congress are being blackmailed.

Rep. @TimBurchett broke the internet on The Benny Show for speaking out on it.

Thank you @JesseBWatters for covering
Embedded video
1:32 AM · Dec 22, 2023

And yes, there are enough very strange votes by conservatives that make you scratch your head, and Burchett provides a very easy-to-believe "unified field theory" to explain their actions. It also reminds us of the "Pence Rule." This rule, made famous by former vice president Mike Pence but used by sane men from time immemorial, says you don't have private dinners or meetings with members of the opposite sex...

Linux doesn't have to be for nerds only.

• sl: Full Steam Ahead
• CMatrix: Enter the Matrix
• aafire: ASCII Art Fireworks
• oneko: A Playful Desktop Pet
• xeyes: Watch the Eyeballs
• espeak: Let Your Computer Speak Up
• yes: The Ultimate Affirmation
• rig: Generate Virtual Identities
• asciiquarium: Under the Sea
• toilet: Text Art Banners
• Toying With the Linux Terminal

There's an old saying in military circles about the U.S. Army, in the form of a quote: "We will cross a frozen river, at night, to kill you in your sleep — on Christmas morning. We've done it before." That saying refers to the American Revolution Battle of Trenton, only months after the Declaration of Independence when General Washington led his men across the frozen Delaware River to attack Hessian mercenaries in Trenton, New Jersey. This battle, this victory, gave hope to an infant republic that was still struggling to survive.

Partisan politics reigned, inflation soared, and the country was deeply divided. You may think this is America in 2023, but this was the United States in December 1776. In one of the darkest periods in American history, the economy was in ruins, and Washington’s army had lost one battle after another.

The mood of the six-month-old country had deteriorated from optimism to defeat. But on Christmas Day, amid a raging Nor’easter, a small group of soldier-mariners from Marblehead, Massachusetts, conveyed Washington’s army across an impassable, ice-filled river, changing the course of history.

Washington's troops were in miserable condition on this cold December night. Many of them didn't have shoes, and the trail they left on the march was marked with blood seeping through makeshift wrappings on frozen feet. Enlistments were on the point of running out. Rations were running low, and forage was non-existent. Men were beginning to desert. General Washington realized that the newborn Republic needed a victory to boost morale and strengthen the resolve not only of his troops but of the new nation. The general who was to become the father of our country delivered. //

It's impossible to overstate the importance of this battle. While small when viewed against modern warfare, both in scale and scope, it was nevertheless seminal. General Washington gave the country a victory it sorely needed, which did wonders for the mood of the new republic at a time when good news was sorely needed.

Trey Yingst
@TreyYingst
·
Follow
Hamas and Islamic Jihad have reportedly rejected an Egyptian ceasefire proposal that would end the war.

The Palestinian factions are unwilling to consider a proposal that sees new leadership in Gaza.

The Israelis have been clear that Hamas will not control Gaza after the war.
9:16 AM · Dec 25, 2023

This plays into something I've mentioned before, which is that the "Palestinians" want to have it both ways. On the one hand, they pretend to be oppressed victims who just want a peaceful utopia, a claim that is often repeated by intellectuals within Western circles. On the other hand, they refuse to make the slightest concession, even in the face of utter defeat, that would ensure some level of peace. How many deals over the years have various Palestinian leaders rejected that would have produced a two-state solution? How many ceasefires have they broken for no other reason than to continue their delusional intifada?

Yet, most of the international community hand-waves all that away, pretending that it's Israel that is the biggest stumbling block to peace. It's not Israel that's running United Nations schools in Gaza teaching kids to be terrorists and to hate Jews. It's not Israel that's hijacking billions of dollars in aid to build useless terror tunnels while funneling the rest of that money to wealthy leaders in Qatar. Hamas is not a viable peace partner and never has been. If they don't step aside and allow new leadership, there can be no end to the hostilities.

How quickly would this have all ended had the international community stood up and demanded Hamas surrender following the October 7th attacks, with a threat to cut off aid if it didn't do so? How many lives would have been saved?

These weren't just crudely built tunnels dug with a few shovels. They included toilets, an elevator, a great hall, and command and control facilities. One off-shoot connected to the home of Ahmed Ghandour, who previously led Hamas forces in northern Gaza. Ghandour had already been killed in an airstrike by the time this raid occurred. Overall, the discovered complex spanned over a kilometer of distance. //

It is astonishing to see how much money and manpower was wasted so Hamas could dig these tunnel complexes.