* Blog & notes for the current week.
DAYLOG MON 24 MAR: I was reading an article from SFGATE by managing editor Katie Dowd, titled: "A stay at the decrepit tomb of what was once the Vegas Strip's coolest hotel" -- meaning the Egyptian-theme Luxor pyramid. Dowd found the Luxor, "one of the most reviled hotels in Las Vegas", marked by overworked and surly employees, closed concessions, decrepit elevators, and run-down accommodations.
The reason that caught my notice is because I stayed at the Luxor in the 1990s -- not sure exactly when, it opened in 1993, I didn't keep a log until 2000. I don't have much recollection of the trip. It just didn't make much impression on me.
I could say that for all of Vegas. A friend of mine once told me Vegas was fun for a few visits, but then the tackiness gets wearisome. In the end, it's forgettable. I spent nights in Vegas on California road trips in 2007 and 2012, but those were just pit stops. From what else I've heard, Vegas is in decline anyway. I suspect that's in part to the gradual impoverishment of ordinary Americans, stuck with stagnant wages while prices inflate.
* Anyway, I'm just too old to play tourist anymore: Been there done that. Nothing in it worth the expense and trouble. Under current circumstances, I'm not too eager to get out anyway: the USA is no longer a good place to be a tourist. Activist Reverend John Pavlovitz said online: "I've started to realize that Anne Frank and her family wouldn't have been safe around a lot of people I know and loved and once respected. That's not something you get over."
I replied: "Yeah -- it's been an unpleasant revelation to find out that so many of the people around me are, at heart, cruel and ignorant fascists. For most of them it's a casual low-energy sorta thing -- but that doesn't make it much less unpleasant."
I also commented online, in reply to an article about a Dane reconsidering a vacation in the USA, to tell non-Americans: "DON'T COME HERE." I added: "It's not that you're unwelcome. It's out of sincere concern for your well-being."
DAYLOG TUE 25 MAR: Barack Obama got on to BlueSky a few days ago. He wasn't very chatty, posting about the Affordable Care Act and then going quiet -- but it's good that he signed up, other high-profile posters will sign up, too. Heavens, Obama has 300,000 followers already!
To no surprise, he was followed to BlueSky by trolls, posting in the replies. There were also complaints about Obama's disinclination to protest against the Trump regime. Not surprising, the silence of ex-presidents concerning Trump being "deafening" -- but on consideration, inevitable.
I pointed out that Obama and his family were vulnerable and certain to be attacked: "Better to leave the fighting to the likes of AOC, Crockett, Pritzer, & Walz -- with Obama working behind the scenes to help." That got challenged, with somebody insisting that Obama was obligated to stand up. I replied: "What exactly will you say if MAGA freaks attack Sasha and Malia? They would. Ah, but you won't give me a straight answer, will you?" He didn't -- so I blocked him.
I got to wondering about AOC and Crockett's security, but of course they have the Capitol Police. As for Pritzer and Walz, governors are protected by State Police units.
* According to an article in ARSTECHNICA, the introduction of AI has meant exasperation with the scraping of online data by crawler bots to train the AI systems. The scraping effectively plagiarizes the sources.
While it's common to block the crawlers, data-security firm Cloudflare came up with a slicker idea: lures them into a "maze" of realistic-looking but irrelevant pages, wasting the crawler's computing resources. The irrelevant pages are AI-generated and give valid information -- no sense in spreading disinformation even as a ruse, and the crawlers might wise up that they're being tricked. They just don't give any information useful to the crawlers.
The "AI Labyrinth" also serves an identification function; the dummy pages aren't user-accessible, so a crawler burying itself in the maze gives itself away. Of course, crawlers will be updated to evade the defenses -- but Cloudflare plans to update them in turn.
DAYLOG WED 26 MAR: Of course, anybody who pays attention to the news knows there's a flaming scandal in progress -- due to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth including Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of THE ATLANTIC, in a classified briefing concerning US attacks on Yemen.
The briefing was in a group chat on the Signal encrypted smartphone system. First problem was that this was a grand breach of Pentagon security rules -- the second problem being the use of Signal, clearly to avoid government "paper trail" rules. The Dems have been roaring loud about it, demanding that Hegseth resign. That won't happen, but it's all for the good to keep the Trump regime under public pressure. We do as much as we can right now and seek better options. We can't do less.
The trolls have been out in force, denouncing the Dems for not doing more, to which I ask: They should surrender in advance and do nothing? Or do you want them to call out the A-Team? I've been blocking the trolls -- they are NOT on our side.
Myself, I haven't been as focused on the immediate facts of "SignalGate" as I have with the broader view of it. Of course, I'm not the only person that noticed how the incident proved just how inept, clueless, and essentially criminal Hegseth is. We already knew that, of course. Hegseth and other Trump regime players involved have tried to bluster their way out of their crunch, to only make things worse for themselves. The Pentagon confirmed the truth of the story -- hinting that, again to no surprise, Hegseth gets no respect there.
Incidental comments in the released chat also suggested that Hegseth was not always clear on what Trump wanted him to do. Yet again, that's no surprise; Trump is not a serious president, not even a serious person, and he's borderline incoherent -- with the borderline creeping further into "incoherent" all the time. The reality is that the Trump White House is a dumpster fire clown parade, Trump governs ever-changing whims, with different factions trying to influence him and fighting among themselves. Trump will continue to decline.
Oh, and on the use of Signal to avoid a paper trail: of course, that's normal procedure for this gang of criminals. At the same time, law-abiding government employees are likely using Signal as well, maintaining a communications network and waiting for better days.
DAYLOG THU 27 MAR: Ukraine has announced a new "Bird of Prey" killer drone. It looks like an ordinary quadcopter drone, being described as optimized for attacks on armored vehicles and fortifications. Beyond that, Ukraine's drones these days tend to be modular -- with replaceable warheads, batteries, sensors, or guidance systems -- and the Bird of Prey may be customizable to a degree.
It seems Ukraine is also encrypting the runtime software in the drones (& other weapons) to prevent the Orcs from reverse-engineering it. Encryption of run-time software poses a puzzle: how is the encryption key used to decrypt the software stored in memory? Wouldn't the Orcs just pick the key out of memory and then decrypt the software? Obviously that would be no good. On investigation, it turns out the key is stored in specialized computing hardware -- either a separate unit, or part of the CPU. A key can be written into the hardware, but cannot be read out of it.
Similar as with smartphones: each one has a unique "private key" that cannot be read out, making each smartphone uniquely identifiable. This key is, incidentally, created by the phone; nobody ever knows what it is. The scheme is based on "asymmetric encryption": there's a "public key" known to the world that can be used to encrypt but not decrypt, coupled to the private key, which does the reverse. To validate a phone, a long random number is encrypted with the public key, with the private key decrypting it. If the number is properly decrypted, the phone is validated.
* Ukraine is also now producing the "Peklo (Hell)" cruise missile. It looks like a conventional "aerial torpedo" cruise missile, with tapered wings, a fixed vee tail, and a small turbojet engine mounted on top of the missile in front of the vee tail. It has already been used in combat.
The Peklo has a range of 700 kilometers (430 miles) and a speed of 700 KPH (430 MPH). There doesn't seem to be cowling for the jet engine; it seems availability of small turbojets is a problem, so the Peklo can use different ones as can be had.
It would seem the Ukrainian Motor Sich aircraft engine company would be able to build the little turbojets -- they're not particularly high-tech. It would seem the problem is that Motor Sich's production facilities are too vulnerable to attack, and it's taken time to "harden" them.
The Peklo is presumably launched with a rocket booster from a rail, and possibly air-launched. It is called a "missile drone", it appears because it can be remotely "flown" in the target area. Details of communications, guidance, and targeting systems are not known.
DAYLOG FRI 28 MAR: The alleged efforts to obtain peace in Ukraine stumble on in a deliberate muddle, with much confusing talk. To the Putin and Trump regimes, "Ukraine peace" means "Ukraine capitulates", with Putin and his people being entirely blunt about it.
The Trump regime is only slightly more veiled about it. Discussions between the US and Ukraine on mineral exploitation continue -- but they don't sound like they're going anywhere, one Ukrainian legislator calling the American proposals "robbery". It sounds like a typical Trump "deal": demand everything, offer nothing in return. In the meantime, the EU and Ukraine are pursuing their own "Ukraine peace", with an emphasis on setting up a "peacekeeping force".
Putin has no interest in a serious cease-fire -- such alleged "agreements" as have been made have done nothing -- so the EU "peacekeeping force" sounds more like EU military intervention in Ukraine, focused on air defense. Discussions are active, and it looks like it's a real thing. There remains, however, the question of whether it will be deployed without some sort of peace agreement. German intelligence believes Putin's long-term plan is to attack NATO, and stopping Putin in Ukraine NOW is the most cost-effective response to the threat.
* Closer to home, new Canadian PM Mark Carney threw down the gauntlet to Trump, with Carney saying that the age of Canadian-American cooperation in defense and economic development is at an end. It seems Trump was actually conciliatory in response.
Carney's background is in finance and banking -- in particular central banking governance. He's wealthy, but not filthy rich; still, he looks like a businessman, but unlike the businessmen in the Trump regime, Carney is by all evidence a responsible, competent, decent individual.
Things are really bad in the USA right now, but we need to remember Trump is all hot air -- capable of endless trouble, but weak. I tend to challenge pessimists online; I've learned the virtues of optimism, and also that the real goal of defeatism is to spread demoralization.
