ABC’s Steve Osunsami asked the Carters about the secret to the longevity of their 75-year marriage. If you are engaged to be married or have yet to find that special someone, please pay attention to President Carter’s words here and write them on your heart. You will receive no better advice than this.

First of all – choose the right person.

This may seem like simple advice. Even easy advice. Do not let the stark truth of this get lost in the simplicity. //

Loving someone is what happens when the clips of the dress bust, and the glamorous exterior falls away, revealing undergarments that don’t seem nearly as attractive as the original dress. And then you choose to keep loving that person anyway.

Being in love is not a good enough gauge of whether or not to marry someone. It costs nothing to fall in love and wallow in that bliss.

Love is a choice.

That choice has to start at the start — to put it as simply as the Carters frame their own marriage. You don’t choose who you fall in love with, but you can choose whom to marry and too many people make bad choices when it comes to the start. A marriage based on a bad choice is going to be a tough road to travel. It can be done, but it will be painful and costly. If you can learn to be discerning before you walk down the aisle, you will spare yourself a lot of heartache down the road. //

Is your partner patient? Does he treat you and others kindly? Is she arrogant or boastful? Is he honest? Is she often selfish or does she anger easily and treat others poorly? Does your partner hold a grudge? Is he able to rejoice in the successes of others or does he instead get a kick out of when bad things happen to successful people? Does your partner choose trust, choose hope, choose perseverance?

These are the simple but foolproof measures of a love that can survive a 75-year marriage.

380360: Digital Megohmmeter
1000V digital tester with automatic 3 minute test
The 380360 is a 1000V digital tester with an automatic 3 minute test. Three test voltages of 250V, 500V and 1000V. Insulation Resistance to 2000MΩ. Automatic discharge when safety "Press to Test" button is released. Complete with 6 x AA batteries, heavy duty 2.5 ft. (0.8m) test leads, alligator clip, large probe and case with neck strap.

The brouhaha started just a few months ago when Audacity was bought by the Muse Group, the company behind equally popular music software like MuseScore, which is also open source, and Ultimate Guitar. So far, Audacity remains open source (and can’t really be changed into proprietary software in its current form), but that doesn’t mean that Muse Group can’t do some pretty damaging changes. Those changes come in the form of the new privacy policy that was just updated a few days ago, a policy that now allows it to collect user data.

As a desktop application with no core online functionality, Audacity never had any need to “phone home” in the first place. Now the privacy policy says that the new company does collect data and does so in a way that’s both over-arching and vague, most likely by design. For example, it says that it collects data necessary for law enforcement but doesn’t specify what kind of data is collected.

There are also questions regarding the storage of data, which is located in servers in the USA, Russia, and the European Economic Area. IP addresses, for example, are stored in an identifiable way for a day before being hashed and then stored in servers for a year. The new policy also disallows people under the age of 13 from using the software, which, as FOSS Post points out, is a violation of the GPL license that Audacity uses.

Dell PowerEdge R740xd2 rack server

Actually 1 per rack across 20 racks. The Backblaze Vault architecture uses one drive from each of 20 servers to form a tome, which is the storage unit.
The xd2 model which holds 26 3.5 inch drives. That's what we use.

Tip #1: Have a Plan
Let us start easy: Have a plan. If you have not suffered a ransomware attack, congrats! You now have time on your side – hopefully. Use that to get a plan in place, even if you do not have a security team. Start with this simple question: If you got hit by an attack right now, how would you respond? //

Tip #2: Work Together: Ransomware is More than Security.
Ransomware is no longer just a “security problem.” A ransomware attack impacts users, legal, HR, finance and many others, including of course the security team. You cannot successfully defend against an attack if the organization is siloed within itself. //

Tip #3: Audit, and Limit, Highly-Privileged Accounts in Active Directory
One of the first objectives for attackers in a victim environment is to find and gain elevated credentials. These credentials are often necessary to achieve their objectives – they need privileges to find additional systems, move laterally around the environment, execute certain commands, establish persistence, etc. Far too often in our investigations we uncover environments with simply too many highly privileged accounts – and attackers are betting on this. //

Tip #5: Implement and Simulate. Wash, Rinse and Repeat.
Once you have account protections in place, utilize open-source tooling or a security vendor to test your environment. No need to ransom yourself – instead, focus on earlier stages of an attack such as credential theft or lateral movement. What did you detect, what were you able to achieve? Frequent testing will not only give you more insight into your environment, but it will also show you where you have detection gaps and coverage.

We cannot simply plug in tools and expect to be defended with the “push of a button.” Proper information security requires knowledge of the environment and frequent testing and tuning. If you have not suffered an attack, good. Do not wait for the “if” – instead, minimize the “when.”

The pilot of a disabled aircraft radioed the air traffic control facility that he was “putting it down in the trees.” Six words no pilot ever wants to say, and six words no controller ever wants to hear.

A multibillion-dollar radio telescope is moving into its construction phase while still working to raise funding and deal with satellite megaconstellations whose interference “change the game” for their plans.

In a June 29 talk at the annual meeting of the European Astronomical Society, Philip Diamond, director general of the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) Observatory, announced that the observatory’s council had formally approval plans to move into the construction phase of the radio telescope.

SKA is two separate facilities. SKA-Low, in Western Australia, will eventually be an array of more than 130,000 antennas performing observations at low frequencies. SKA-Mid will feature 197 dishes in South Africa for midrange radio frequencies, including 64 dishes of the existing MeerKAT array there.

A science YouTuber has won a five-figure bet from a physics professor after he proved a wind-powered car could move faster than the wind while driving downwind.

Derek Muller, who runs the YouTube channel Veritasium, made the bet with Alexander Kusenko, a physics professor at the University of California, after Kusenko messaged him saying that it was impossible for the car to travel faster than the wind propelling it, according to Vice.

So Muller proposed a $10,000 wager with the professor saying that he could prove it. The pair signed an agreement to the bet, which was witnessed by Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

This comes up far too often, so rather than continuing to explain it over and over again, I’m going to try to do a really good job of it once and link to it here.

Learn to get the most out of your ZFS filesystem in our new series on storage fundamentals.

A 3-2-1 strategy means having at least three total copies of your data, two of which are local but on different mediums (read: devices), and at least one copy off-site. //

There is no such thing as a perfect backup system, but the 3-2-1 approach is a great start for the majority of people and businesses. Even the United States government recommends this approach. In a 2012 paper for US-CERT (United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team), Carnegie Mellon recommended the 3-2-1 method in their publication titled: Data Backup Options.

Google offers many desirable, easy-to-use, effective features. Going open source is trickier. //

Finding a solution to organizing and safely storing these precious memories is more important than ever, and it's becoming an increasingly large problem to solve. Photos depict a special moment in time, a memory or event that can't be recreated. They are irreplaceable and largely only exist digitally. Because of this, there are few categories of data that suit a free and open self-hosted solution better.

Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️
@realchrisrufo
BREAKING: The nation's largest teachers union has approved a plan to promote critical race theory in all 50 states and 14,000 local school districts.

The argument that "critical race theory isn't in K-12 schools" is officially dead. //

This vindicates every move made at the state level to fight this. //

Yet, any veteran of the culture wars can tell you that once CRT gets into schools, there will be no getting it out. Preemptively moving to quash this illiberal, racist ideology from infecting curriculums was the right call. That’s how you win these battles. Conversely, lose then by sitting back and waiting for CRT to become so pervasive that it can’t be pushed back on any longer. //

MabDab
an hour ago
Read the memo, the plan, that lumps capitalism in with other forms of oppression. Straight out of Marxist theology. You may not understand the terms in this document, such as anthropocentrism, cisheteropatriarchy and patriarchy, they are attacks on the traditional family unit, the authority and role of the father, the belief that "men need to be men" and act that way and so forth. CRT in this manner is being used to not only cover the topic of racism, but human sexuality and the acceptance of homosexuality and transgender, and that you should consider it too because if you are to believe what they are saying when covering these topics - men often feel like women and have female experiences, you are merely suppressing them.

CRT in this format, is not just about racism, but also indoctrinating males to act and feel like women.

The bottom line is that the objective of folks like Touré is to foster more racial division and to intimate that the U.S. is irredeemably racist. What they fail to acknowledge is the fact that the narrative they perpetuate is an affront to Americans – black and white – who have done the work to move America forward.

Yes, there is still more work to do in the quest for equality. I acknowledged as much in my earlier piece on Independence Day. But the notion that we cannot celebrate the legitimate advancements we have made, because some issues still exist, is not only absurd but counterproductive to what they claim they wish to achieve. Perhaps they are not as serious about their mission as they would have us believe.

In a piece published by NPR last week, entitled, “Do I Need to Worry About the Delta Variant If I’m Vaccinated?” researchers, other scientists, and even the World Health Organization say that possibility is pretty unlikely. They wrote:

The COVID-19 vaccines are expected to be protective against the new virus variants, according to the World Health Organization.

And those variant (there are several: alpha, delta, but there’s also delta plus) are likely covered by all, current vaccines against the original virus. Here’s the data from the article about the three vaccines in use in the U.S: (emphasis added)

As for the vaccines, one study of the delta variant in Scotland from the University of Edinburgh found that while the variant was associated with a doubling in the risk of hospitalization in those infected in the region, the Pfizer …. vaccine offered a …. 60% protection…. against infection two weeks after the second dose. And a study from Public Health England showed that two doses of the Pfizer vaccine were 88% effective against symptomatic disease from the delta variant.

As for other vaccines, David Montefiori, director of the Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research and Development at Duke University Medical Center, is optimistic. Based on research he has conducted that has not yet been published, including the Moderna vaccine, he says that “delta does not look like it will be much of a threat to vaccines.”

Weatherhead has this to say about Johnson & Johnson’s effectiveness for the delta variant: “We just don’t have the data, but that doesn’t mean it’s not efficacious. We know it works against [other variants]. We’re going to have breakthrough infections, but the vaccines really prevent severe disease and death.” //

https://www.kqed.org/news/11879587/do-i-need-to-worry-about-the-delta-variant-if-im-vaccinated

Cori Bush
@CoriBush
When they say that the 4th of July is about American freedom, remember this: the freedom they’re referring to is for white people.

This land is stolen land and Black people still aren’t free.
10:48 AM · Jul 4, 2021

Keep in mind, this is a House member who grew up poor, rose to prominence via her activism, and was elected to office by the voters of Missouri. If anyone is representative of the incredible privilege all Americans enjoy at a base level to better themselves, it’s Bush. Yet, instead of showing any gratitude, she proclaims that only white people enjoy the freedom that July 4th represents. //

the term freedom has an actual meaning. For example, not being rich does not mean you lack the freedom to be rich. Yet, people like Bush try to define freedom in terms of specific results instead of freedom of opportunity. That’s asinine because it ignores that people have agency, and the moment you take agency away from people, you are depriving them of said freedom.

There are many reasons. I love the principles upon which it was founded. I love the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution — the words themselves and the ideas enshrined in them.

I love that the men who authored those documents valued liberty and recognized the perils of concentrated power enough to attempt to guard against them in a way that, while imperfect, has enabled millions of people to thrive and prosper, while enjoying a degree of freedom previously unknown.

I love that we elect our leaders — as imperfect (and frustrating) a process as that often is.

I love that millions of people have made a point to come HERE because of the opportunities this country holds.

I love that we have a beautiful country full of wonders both natural and man-made and we can travel about it freely.

I love that American ingenuity has led to a wide array of discoveries, inventions and innovations.

I love that you and I can see things totally differently and express that freely.

I’m well aware that our country is far from perfect. I don’t agree with everything we’ve ever done as a nation. I know there’s more than ample room for improvement. But — I guess I see it sort of like many of us regard a family member — imperfect, flawed, but beautiful and beloved.

Skeptical Techie
2 hours ago
You forgot the offside rule (sorry Law). Its seeming purpose is to perplex all experienced and very skilled sandlot players, fans, novices (who rarely understand it was called and have absolutely zero idea why play stopped with the ball given to the formerly defensive team {"side" in soccer ~football in football parlance~ parlance), and the referees themselves. Virtually nobody understands this rule except for some coaches (some each of rec, select and pro). All (except the refs) get upset and yell incoherently for most of the calls.

And soccer (so called only in the USA, Canada and sort-of in Japan, almost everybody else calls it football, fut, foot or some variant, the Italians call it il calcio, the kick) has its own language with various dialects based on native language and who knows what else.

Kick Off: First Touch

Side Line: Touch Line
Goal Line: Goal Line <== But nobody learning the sport can believe it is actually called that.
Team: Side
Uniform: Kit
How many referees: Really super hard to tell. It keeps changing. (not a definition but...).

Rule: Law
Rules: Laws of the Game
Game: Match
Field: Pitch

Positions: Aside from Goalkeeper/goalie/keeper and forward, the rest are more guidelines than anything really instructive as to what they do.
Fan: Fan
Violent Fan: Hooligan

MVP: Man of the Match <== Never heard "Woman of the Match" declared at a women's match...
Big Box near goal: Technical Area (but for a game with seemingly so many inscrutable rules why is this area THE technical area and not everything within the boundary lines (d4mn1t, within the touch and goal lines).

Small Box near goal: Goal Box (seems too simple and easy).

My favorite rule[law]: The offside rule. It's application (enforcement) has three (3) exceptions which really boil down to only one exception, whenever the ball has gone outside the "field of play" (yes it is a "pitch", but never mind that). So the three exceptions are on a throw-in, a corner kick and (the usually forgotten exception) a goal kick (when the goalie/keeper is given the ball to kick, with a single touch only, back into play from within their goal box). Of course in each instance, the ball had just been sent out of "the field of play" and is being brought back in to restart play. So why not just say that? Nobody knows, except maybe it would make it more understandable to players, coaches, refs and fans alike.

There is one (ONE) term that soccer/football aficionados get right and is simply put:

"Own goal". Yes, this is the easiest one to figure out. Some simp just scored on his/her "own goal". Not safety, not touch back (and what is the difference anyway?). Just "own goal". And, guess who is the first player out of the soccer park that day (skip the showers, I'm outta here). Only weeks later are the beers on the own goal fool..

Soccer is the world’s most popular sport, as we are told every time some bored sportswriter dusts off their collegiate freshman globalization mantra handbook and pens yet another stirring op-ed decrying its status, or lack thereof, within our golden shores. You just don’t understand the beautiful game, comes the cry against those among us who 1) still watch sports of any kind period 2) would rather watch baseball or football or hockey or basketball or tiddlywinks, preferably not involving one spending a few decades altogether too close for comfort. //

In soccer, only the goaltender is allowed to touch the ball with his or her hands. Everyone else is prohibited from using anything from shoulder to fingertip to touch the ball. The preferred method of moving the ball is kicking. Occasionally, a player will bounce the ball off of his or her head in order to make it go in the desired direction. This is called a header. Or, if done improperly, a concussion. //

A player on defense will often try to strip the ball from a player on offense, or a player who’s just plain offensive. This involves trying to either step in-between the ball and the feet of the player who has possession, or sliding at the ball in order to kick it away from the player who has possession. In either case, the player who had possession is required by international law to immediately fall down and writhe in agony much like one who is possessed. This continues until either the player who went after the ball is called for a foul, or no one buys the act of the mortally wounded player at which time he or she will miraculously heal and get back up.

Happy birthday, America! Now celebrate with some warbird trivia...