Links to full articles



Hummers @ The FPR&TF

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They're pigs, too. I tell ya!

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Two Voices: Amalagamated Dreams
unfinished paintings



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A volume of poetry by William B. Meloney VII

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It is an honor to announce the publication of Two Voices: Amalgamated Dreams - unfinished paintings.



Forward: Two Voices

From the arrogance and innocence of youth to the vengeful musings of a curmudgeon.
Romance, philosophy, death, religion, even *gasp* heartbreak is woven through these
paltry offerings. In these scribblings you will find unfinished paintings. You will see
the reflection of the war years... you have to choose which war - perhaps the one that
suits you best. You will encounter mystical prophets, nearly naked young ladies, and ...
grumpy old men.





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For the full article please follow this link Two Voices: Alamagamated Dreams
unfinished paintings

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The IRIS is coming!

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At ~14:30 later that same day...



At ~08:30 on Sunday, 2024-04-28



The Second Superpower

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In the spring of 2003 [James F.] Moore began advocating against the US invasion of Iraq and wrote "The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head" which imagines how citizens worldwide might someday join through Internet technology, engage international institutions, and help set global policy.

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tldr;

First, we need to become conscious of the “mental processes” in which we are involved as members of the second superpower, and explore how to make our individual sense-making and collective action more and more effective.

Second, and ironically, the future of the second superpower depends to a great extent on social freedoms in part determined by the first superpower. It is the traditional freedoms—freedom of the press, of assembly, of speech—that have enabled the second superpower to take root and grow.

Third, we must carefully consider how best to support international institutions, so that they collectively form a setting in which our power can be exercised.

And finally, we must work on ourselves and our community. We will dialogue with our neighbors, knowing that the collective wisdom of the second superpower is grounded in the individual wisdom within each of us. We must remind ourselves that daily we make personal choices about the world we create for ourselves and our descendants. We do not have to create a world where differences are resolved by war. It is not our destiny to live in a world of destruction, tedium, and tragedy. We will create a world of peace.






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For the full article please follow this link "The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head"

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Top 100 Most Banned and Challenged Books: 2010-2019

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The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has been documenting attempts to ban books in libraries and schools since 1990. OIF compiled this list of the most banned and challenged books from 2010-2019 by reviewing both the public and confidential censorship reports it received.

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For the full list please follow this link Top 100 Most Banned Books: 2010-2019

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Flying Pig Ranch & Thistle Farm? WTH?!?

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Pigs I tell you! Flyin' pigs!

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Assuming my best Walter Brennan posture and adopting a curmudgeon tone, "Pigs I tell you! Flyin' pigs! All over my feeders. Flying pigs I tell ya! They're just pigs!"

The first part, 'Flying Pig Ranch', is a reference to our fowl weather friends. ( That was a pun right there, just so you know. ) When the weather turns foul the Flying Pigs begin to flock to our feeders. Yeah, I talking about birds here.

Before ClimateChange/GlobalWarming/BeingCoalStupid turned Kentucky's winter into a near subtropical rain.all.d*mned.day mess we used to have a great 'Sounder' (A group of pigs. Yeah, I had to look it up.) of gold finches, house finches, three kinds of sparrows, blue jays, downy woodpeckers, yellow belly sap suckers, brown thrashers, mocking birds, morning doves, chickadees, tit mouses, cardinals, wrens, ...*panting from exertion* ... and the occasional red tail hawk, who comes to feast on the other little birdies. [My best run-on sentence evah.]





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For the full article please follow this link Flying Pig Ranch & Thistle Farm? WTH?!?

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Two Voices: Amalgamated Dreams
Haiku



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A volume of small poems by William B. Meloney VII

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It is with excitement and trepidation that I announce the free publication: Two Voices: Amalgamated Dreams - Haiku.

These small poems are to be savored as individual sips of fine essences. Please enjoy them one at a time. Let each one ferment in your imagination.



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For the full article please follow this link Two Voices: Amalgamated Dreams - Haiku

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Retirement Reflections

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I didn't know where I was going but I was getting there too damned fast.

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I naively thought I was going to $WORK until I couldn't. The $COMPANY thought otherwise.

Initially I thought I needed to $WORK. My entire identity was comprised of my work. I am my job/profession.



You don't work, you don't eat.

You don't work, you can't support your family.

All I have ever done (mostly) is work. I don't know anything else.

I never planned on not working.


Now before I go all off-on-myself I need to remember that the career that I settled oh so comfortably in was an extension of my avocation not my vocation. Years ago when I realized that I was not going to be able to "retire" from being an EMT I sought out a career path the included my hobby, my passion, my heart's desire; Personal Computers.

After two additional years of college, paid for by grants, to achieve my Secondary Education Certificate (with a "minor" in Computer Science) I spent a year, grossly under paid and overworked, in Education. Again, I realized this was something that I could not "retire" from.

I applied for, and finally, received a position with a manufacturing concern as a PC Tech. I made more money the first week than I had made the last week of my 5-year EMT service. I was more fulfilled the first day as a PC Tech than I was the entire time I was in Education. This was a career that I might eventually retire from, that was clear.

I didn't have a job, I didn't $WORK, I just continued with my hobby, my passion, my heart's desire; Personal Computers. And they gave me money in return.

Fast forward to: The $COMPANY thought otherwise.



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For the full article please follow this link Retirement Reflections

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NEXTCLOUD – LOCAL INSTALLATION (Debian/Ubuntu)

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Nextcloud offers a great Administrator’s Manual which includes in-depth instructions for installations in many different iterations (e.g. stand-alone, container-ized, etc.) as well as OS’s. Being an old curmudgeonly SysAdmin (retired), who doesn’t like to RTFM, I needed a clean, clear, and concise recipe for doing Linux based bare-metal Nextcloud installations.

Remember my Personal Rule #14 – It isn’t a good OS and/or Server install unless it has been (re)loaded at least 3 times.

Caveat Emptor: This is not a perfect document. I have used this recipe more than 3 times and I have confidence in its functionality. All that and $4 will still only buy you a fancy cup of coffee (i. e. Your millage may vary.)




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For the full article and complete instructions please follow this link Nextclould - Local Installation (Debian/Ubuntu)

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NEXTCLOUD – I want to own my own data.

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“If you are not paying for a product, then you are the product.” - Tristan Harris

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Each time I opened Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Flickr, Yahoo, MSN, or Google (i.e. “Silos”), the words of Tristan Harris, a former Google design ethicist echoed in my consciousness. I began to view ‘being the product’ as synonymous with ‘being held hostage’. Big Tech was threatening me with not only the loss of my friends and family but also with the loss of my digital possessions.

Almost from Day One I was a Google user. I would later say of myself that I was an early adopter of all things Google; I drank the Google kool-aid. I was right at home, emersed in the Google Eco-sphere.

“If you are not paying for a product, then you are the product.”

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It is wonderfully ironic that this article is about Free and Open Source (FOSS) software.



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For the full article please follow this link Nextclould - I Want To Own My Own Data

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Home Lab



The Elves.. (Updated 20241225).

The Elf - Lenovo IdeaCentre 5, AMD Ryzen™ 7 5700G, 16GB UDIMM DDR4-3200, 256GB SSD M.2 2242 PCIe® NVMe® + 1TB HDD 7200rm; Debian 12

The Server Elf* - Dell OptiPlex 7040, Intel i5-6500 (4) @ 3.600GHz, 32GB RAM, Debian 12

The Portable Elf* - Lenovo T460, Intel i5-6300U (4) @ 3.000 GHz, 16 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Debian 12 (Dual boots; Windows 10 Pro.)




The Xymon NMS Elf - Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Plus Rev 1.3, CPU: BCM2835 (4) @ 1.400GHz, 16 GB Micro SD, Raspbian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) armv7l

The Tmux Server Elf - Acer C70/C710 "Chromebook", Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 847 @ 1.10GHz, 8GB RAM, FreeBSD 14.2-RELEASE amd64

The Kali Elf* - Fujutisu Lifebook T726, Intel i5-6400U (4) @ 2.800Ghz, 8GB RAM, Kali (Dual boots: Debian12)

The Google Elf - Google Pixelbook C0A, Intel i5 CPU @ 1.200GHz, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD (The Google Silo)




* Recycles

Introduction

Monday, July 11, 2023



Personal Chop: Three pines, 6 unbroken I Ching lines.

Migrated from Michigan to Kentucky because I knew how to spell OS/2. SysAdmin for 28 years, Windows for the abUsers and #Linux for the back office. In past times I have been a Theater Tech Dir./Directer, Mixologist, Radio Announcer, Media Tech, EMT, Secondary Ed. Teacher, Roadie, Kentucky Colonel, Adjunct College Instructor, Chef de Partie, Cancer Survivor, Husband to "B" (40 yrs), father of a Theologian, a Lawyer, and an IT Guy.

Publications