Socialism is all about control. To achieve control, the left uses a variety of techniques. For best effect, they sometimes combine techniques. Combining fear with envy can be very powerful. There’s even a parable of sorts about this effect. The bucket of crabs analogy goes something like this: If you have a bucket of crabs, they are all fat and happy at the bottom of the bucket—until one of them tries to escape. When one of them attempts to better his situation, the others pull him back down into captivity.

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) is deftly using that combination of fear, calling it “safety,” along with the “bucket of crabs,” technique. Here’s how. The United States has produced a gymnastics phenomenon in the person of Simone Biles. This young lady, through dint of dedication, hard work and the quintessentially American attitude of being willing to “roll the hard six,” is performing routines that appear to defy the law of gravity. She is in such a class by herself, that the other crabs in the bucket have contracted with FIG, the gymnastics governing authority, to pull her back down with them. //

Scoring in high-level gymnastics is markedly different than in most other sports. Rather than athletes earning points throughout a performance, the decision-makers at the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) pre-assign scores to routines based on the difficulty of the skills involved. Then, judges evaluate execution in real-time, docking points from the potential total every time a gymnast makes a mistake during their program. //

Biles suggested that the FIG has serially undervalued her skills because "they don't want the field to be too far apart," she told The Times. If the FIG keeps her provisional scores low, Biles' thinking goes, th[a]n other gymnasts may have a fighting chance.

We have some candidates who have great name recognition but appear to have little else, and other candidates who have great substance and policy expertise, but less name recognition. A debate allows the better-known candidates to prove their substance (or reinforce their lack of it), and gives the lesser-known candidates a platform that can reach more California citizens. Finally, it is an opportunity for the citizen to see all the candidates in a new and different light.

Yossi Gestetner
@YossiGestetner
Jan 6th was the worst attack on the Capitol since 1812? Odd because in 1954, five congressmen were wounded on the floor when 4 terrorists opened fire from the visitor area. (Prez Carter later commuted/reduced the sentences.)

https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2020/05/1954-shooting-at-the-u-s-capitol/ //

A lot of things happened on January 6th. What did not happen is a hitman directly ordering people to attack the Capitol, in this case, Donald Trump. During his speech, Trump specifically asked people to peacefully protest. That some of the protesters didn’t is ultimately on them for choosing not to listen. We have agency in this country, and people are responsible for their own actions.

Besides, there’s precious little evidence there was any intent to carry out a real “hit” that day. Those that entered the Capitol had ample opportunity to cause bodily harm to people inside and they didn’t. That includes police officers who stood in the hallways telling crowds to stay back. That the officers did that is commendable, but the reality is that they could have been easily overrun. That they weren’t is evidence that the crowds were merely looking to cause a scene, and that’s exactly what happened.

Music is one of the greatest things man creates. A single song can define a generation, influence billions, establish worldviews, activate emotions, and create unforgettable memories. It’s one of the most powerful forces on Earth and one of the biggest things we have in common with angels in terms of activities.

Christian artists should be very attentive to what kind of effect their music is having, but if I had to guess, many were seeing two things; cheering and energetic kids dancing and singing their songs, and their bank accounts filling up. Many pushed forward believing they were on the right track, most with good intentions.

They weren’t. //

As I said earlier, music has a powerful impact on those who hear it. People took in the Hillsong-esque lyrics about how “nothing compares to your embrace” and “your love is relentless” with all the lights and sounds and performances, and then…felt nothing later. These aren’t songs that you can necessarily carry into your daily life. The display plays well at the moment, but it’s hard to lean on them when you’re facing down the darkness.

In a moment when you’re down low, today’s Christian music has no “Flood” songs to empathize with you and speak to your pain. Instead, you have a woman wearing a sundress, sun hat, and also a scarf for some reason, repeating the words “you’re the air I breath” ad nauseum. //

Nobody wants to be real here. The mainstream Christian entertainment industry is too busy playing it safe to produce anything that might damage its status quo, and what’s more, anger a Christian establishment too unwilling (read afraid) to allow people to ask very real questions about faith, darkness, and the wars we have to fight on a daily basis against a world trying to strip us of our reliance on God. //

God is important to both the individual and society, and we need to understand our emotions about Him and our place with Him, and good music will be able to talk to us about that over and over again in ways our mind and souls can understand. If we, and especially the youth, are constantly served substanceless Christian music, then the impression it will give is that Christianity has no substance.

I know differently. The relationship I’ve had with God and Christ has been a grounding force in my life. I’ve been through the highs and the lows with faith, and I’ve been fortunate to encounter what I have in the arts to help me ground myself there. The thing is, I can’t help but wonder what my faith would look like if I was subjected to the church culture of today with all its lights and sounds and performances that seem more made to make money than make a difference, tell a story, or resonate with emotion.

The church is likely going to beat this dead horse for a while and people will continue to leave the church and lose faith. At some point, something has to break and a change has to happen.

Christians can survive without good Christian cinema, but it absolutely needs good Christian music. The sooner this collapse of the modern Christian trend happens, the better.

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Windows 11 is on the way, and it’s going to bring with it a new look, new colors, and new features when it becomes available later in the year. But not everything that’s currently in Windows 10 is going to survive the upgrade.

The map to good Christian storytelling started with Christ, then Tolkien and Lewis modernized it. We know how to do it, but we just don’t, and I think the reason is that Christians are too afraid that they’ll be judged by other Christians for it.

And you know what? They’re right.

Like Kanye West said in his debut Christian album, Christians would be the first ones to judge him and make him feel alone for releasing a Christian album in his own manner, and not follow the color-by-numbers methods of making it safe and sterile.

Any filmmaker looking to create a Christian film is going to be destroyed by Christians. If it can’t be shown to a church congregation on Sunday, then it would be hailed as a perversion of the word and deem it unsafe for public consumption.

Here’s the brutal truth. The Bible isn’t safe for work. //

These stories can be told with good cinematography, solid acting, good writing, and in a way that lends more to realism and dynamism without resorting to stripping the film of context, indication, and even scenes that would, frankly, make the rating of the film drift into the “R” category. It would be a far more honest telling and that honesty would glue the viewer and get them interested for more. Does it add shock value? Sure, but the Bible is pretty shocking. It wouldn’t be shocking for shock’s sake, it would be there to help drive home the stakes and feel of the story home.

These stories will never be heard by the mainstream if we’re only making films that play it safe and never take chances. We have to ditch this idea that we’re going to charm the masses with wholesomeness and family-friendly entertainment. We’re not. //

Let’s not be afraid to make something worth watching and break away from the “church” method of making films. Let’s Martin Luther Christian media.

Here are some numerical highlights from the Arizona senate hearing held on 15 July (taken from the hearing video here, beginning at the 3-hour-and-1-minute mark):

1. 11,326 people who voted were not on the 11/7 voter rolls but were somehow listed in the 12/4 database
2. 3,981 people who voted on Election Day were registered after 10/15, which is a violation of Arizona state law
3. ~18,000 people voted on Election Day but were subsequently removed from the rolls
4. 74,243 mail-in ballots were counted with no clear record of having been mailed out in the first place //

• CNN’s “expert source” Garrett Archer didn’t source his data; he claimed the file was provided by “some friends of mine”
• When pushed to cite the files he used, Archer claimed to have used the EV32 (requests for ballots) and EV33 (returned ballots) files. However, Maricopa County election officials stated that the “Voted File” is the correct source for analysis. In short, Archer used the wrong file!
• Without access to the actual server log, it is impossible to ascertain whether the Voted File has been completely secure since Election Day. “[I]f the Voted File was not secure, an individual could have accessed it immediately after the Cyber Ninjas announced the vote discrepancy and changed the numbers.”
• Blehar further explains the importance of gaining access to the server logs: “[T]he Cyber Ninjas want to know specifically if there is a one-to-one match between the absentee/early ballot it examined and if there is a REQUEST for that ballot in the Voted File. Gross numbers of ballots requested and returned – that Maricopa County cited in response to Logan – don’t answer that question.” [Note: Archer blithely ignored that key fact in his “analysis”!]
• There should have been daily figures available of returned vs. requested ballots in the days leading up to and after the election, but Maricopa County has never provided any of those numbers to the public. [Why?]
• “Arizona, through its contractor, dataorbital.com, never publicly posted the ballots requested and returned from each county” in the state. [Again, why?] A possible answer: These data could be used to distribute the excess votes from Maricopa County. As previously detailed in this article, there were ~120,000 excess votes for Biden counted on Election Day night in Maricopa than his final tabulation. Those excess votes were almost certainly distributed to other counties. The router logs must be examined to determine what happened, which is likely among the reasons why Maricopa County is refusing to provide them to the auditors. One of the other reasons is there were 37,000 queries to the election system on 11 March. [Why?]

So he’s joining right in with the political hit agenda of Joe Biden, encouraging the censoring of people for a different political opinion than his. Lippincott wasn’t spreading any misinformation. His “offense” was raising a good point that this general didn’t want to answer. But even had Lippincott been spreading something false, it isn’t the role of the military to be encouraging shutting down political opinion with which they disagree. This is just wrong and conduct unbecoming on top of it. The bottom line was the general had no real response, so he wanted to shut down criticism. Some general. He couldn’t even deal with a battle on Twitter. //

Patrick Donahoe
@PatDonahoeArmy
Public Service Announcement. Block and report the trolls and the disinformation tinfoil hat team. //

Article V Convention of States please
@philthatremains
A Major General in the United States Army is calling for people to block and report people for having incorrect opinions.

I assume this includes American citizens, the same citizens protected by the constitution which he has sworn to protect and defend. //

Jim Hanson
@JimHansonDC
A serving officer calling to censor political opponents

You are a disgrace to the uniform

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Where are the differences between the stainless steel grades 1.4404 (316L) and 1.4571 (316Ti)? Please check the following analysis that highlights some of the main pros and cons of both material grades.

A tremendous number of government and private policies affecting kids are based on one number: 335. That is how many children under 18 have died with a Covid diagnosis code in their record, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet the CDC, which has 21,000 employees, hasn’t researched each death to find out whether Covid caused it or if it involved a pre-existing medical condition.

Without these data, the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices decided in May that the benefits of two-dose vaccination outweigh the risks for all kids 12 to 15. I’ve written hundreds of peer-reviewed medical studies, and I can think of no journal editor who would accept the claim that 335 deaths resulted from a virus without data to indicate if the virus was incidental or causal, and without an analysis of relevant risk factors such as obesity.

My research team at Johns Hopkins worked with the nonprofit FAIR Health to analyze approximately 48,000 children under 18 diagnosed with Covid in health-insurance data from April to August 2020. Our report found a mortality rate of zero among children without a pre-existing medical condition such as leukemia. If that trend holds, it has significant implications for healthy kids and whether they need two vaccine doses.

Rather than acknowledge science, Dr. Makary says the CDC continues to use 'flimsy evidence' to push the COVID vaccine upon children. //

A team of Johns Hopkins researchers recently reported that when studying a group of about 48,000 children, they found zero COVID deaths among healthy kids, but the Centers for Disease Control doesn’t care. [https://www.wsj.com/articles/cdc-covid-19-coronavirus-vaccine-side-effects-hospitalization-kids-11626706868]

Dr. Marty Makary is a medical expert and professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Carey Business School. His research team “worked with the nonprofit FAIR Health to analyze approximately 48,000 children under 18 diagnosed with Covid in health-insurance data from April to August 2020.”

After studying comprehensive data on thousands of children, the team “found a mortality rate of zero among children without a pre-existing medical condition such as leukemia.” Rather than acknowledge this scientific reality, Makary says the CDC continues to use “flimsy evidence” to push the COVID vaccine upon children. //

Makary says “a tremendous number of government and private policies” regarding the vaccination of children are dependent upon one questionable data point. The CDC claims 335 children under the age of 18 have died with a COVID diagnosis in their record. However, Makary reports that, “the CDC, which has 21,000 employees, hasn’t researched each death to find out whether Covid caused it or if it involved a pre-existing medical condition.”

“Without these data, the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices decided in May that the benefits of two-dose vaccination outweigh the risks for all kids 12 to 15,” Makary notes. “I’ve written hundreds of peer-reviewed medical studies, and I can think of no journal editor who would accept the claim that 335 deaths resulted from a virus without data to indicate if the virus was incidental or causal, and without an analysis of relevant risk factors such as obesity.” //

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky claims 200 child hospitalizations and one death can be prevented over four months if one million adolescents are vaccinated. Makary’s unconvinced. He says that, “[T]he agency’s Covid adolescent hospitalization report, like its death count, doesn’t distinguish on the website whether a child is hospitalized for Covid or with Covid.”

This is a problem, because there’s an obvious difference between these patient categories. Hospitals often test patients for COVID as a matter of routine, even if there’s nothing to suggest they’re infected with the virus. But by Walensky’s metrics, Makary says “An asymptomatic child who tests positive after being injured in a bicycle accident would be counted as a ‘Covid hospitalization.’”

Managing ZFS Properties
Dataset properties are managed through the zfs command's set, inherit, and get subcommands.

• Setting ZFS Properties

• Inheriting ZFS Properties

• Querying ZFS Properties

zrep is, by design, fairly simple. It is based around zfs properties. Therefore, when in doubt, check the properties. zrep gives an easy way to do this.

Here is an example of a set of properties used when zrep is replicating to a filesystem on the same host. Note that src-host and dest-host are the same:

# ./zrep list -v scratch/zreptest

scratch/zreptest:
zrep:src-fs scratch/zreptest
zrep:src-host hamachi
zrep:dest-fs scratch/zreptest_2
zrep:master yes
zrep:savecount 5
zrep:dest-host hamachi

For the destination filesystem (in this case scratch/zreptest_2), the properties would be mostly the same. The only difference would be, instead of "zrep:master yes", you would see "readonly on"

ZFS property overview

Fixing zfs properties

To manually change a zfs property, use

   zfs set zrep:something=newval  file/system

To remove a property, zfs is a little odd. The standard (and in fact, only) way of removing a property in zfs, is as follows:

 zfs inherit zrep:master  file/system 

This tells zfs to set the value type of that property, to be "inherited" from the parent filesystem. Since the parent usually does not have any zrep properties, that effectively 'removes' a property from a filesystem or snapshot.

It is the late 1990s and the computer server world is dominated by enterprise UNIX operating systems – all competing with each other. Windows 2000 is not out yet and Windows NT 4 is essentially a toy that lesser mortals run on their Intel PCs which they laughingly call ‘servers’. Your company has a commercial UNIX and its called Solaris. Your UNIX is very popular and is a leading platform. Your UNIX however has some major deficiencies when it comes to storage.

IRIX – a competing proprietary UNIX – has the fantastic XFS file system which vastly out performs your own file system which is still UFS (“Unix File System” – originally developed in the early 1980s) and doesn’t even have journalling – until Solaris 7 at least (in November 1998). IRIX had XFS baked into it from 1994. IRIX also had a great volume manager – where as Solaris’ ‘SVM’ was generally regarded as terrible and was an add-on product that didn’t appear as part of Solaris itself until Solaris 8 in 2000. //

ZFS – and sadly btrfs – are both rooted in a 1990s monolithic model of servers and storage. btrfs hasn’t caught on in Linux for a variety of reasons, but most of all its because it simply isn’t needed. XFS runs rings around both in terms of performance, scales to massive volume sizes. LVM supports XFS by adding COW snapshots and clones, and even clustering if you so wanted. I believe the interesting direction in file systems is actually things like Gluster and Ceph – file systems designed with the future in mind, rather than for a server model we’re not running any more. ///

Interesting to compare the comments to the disparaging statements in the article.

ZFS combines hardware and software layers, combines volume, disk & partition management in one application.

It is the only production ready journaled CoW file system with data integrity management.

Btrfs is not production ready.

When Android was launched soon after Apple's own iPhone, Steve Jobs threatened to "destroy" it.
Ever since, and across the world, the rivalry between both systems has animated users.
Now the results are in: worldwide, consumers clearly prefer one side — and it's not Steve Jobs'. //

Feelings between Android and Apple were pretty tribal from the get-go. It was Steve Jobs himself who said, when Google rolled out Android a mere ten months after Apple launched the iPhone, "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

Buying a phone is like picking a side in the eternal feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. Each choice for automatically comes with an in-built arsenal of arguments against.

If you’re looking for an alternative to CentOS, you cannot go wrong with VzLinux. Virtuozzo has a vast amount of experience developing for Linux within the realm of containers and virtualization, so anyone looking to take Linux down either of those paths will do well with this distribution.

Described as "The last word in filesystems" ZFS is stable, fast, secure, and future-proof. Being licensed under the CDDL, and thus incompatible with GPL, it is not possible for ZFS to be distributed along with the Linux Kernel. This requirement, however, does not prevent a native Linux kernel module from being developed and distributed by a third party, as is the case with zfsonlinux.org (ZOL).

ZOL is a project funded by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to develop a native Linux kernel module for its massive storage requirements and super computers