Ukraine

 I don't want Russia to gain anything from its invasion of Ukraine. I want the Russians forced out and punished. I want Ukraine to be restored to its freedom and complete control of all its territory including Crimea and the Russian separatists to be eliminated as a political force.

I don't know what to do about it, though. I read some of the reports and I hope things go well for Ukrainians and badly for Russians, but that is all I do. I have no power to help.

I don't know what I want my country to do here, but I want Russia to lose.

There seems to be a lot of feeling about this war and the need for Ukraine or to stop Russia, even in Russia. Putin's actions are in violation of international law and outside acceptable norms of behavior, but no one wants to respond in kind so we may not see very much happen, but there are actions of non-military types such as sanctions. Maybe the sanctions will cause enough problems for Russia and Putin to change things. Maybe not.

Russia has not drawn back from Crimea despite sanctions, but I expect Putin has chafed under the sanctions, wanting to be recognized as a prime player in international relations, despite the relative weakness of Russia compared to the old Soviet Union. But maintaining that kind of pressure over the long term is difficult and may never bring about change.

So we watch and wait and hope and maybe despair.

A Bad Day for the Algorithms that Control My Internet Activity

 At work yesterday, I first found that my computer wouldn't accept my password. I had not had any messages telling me it was time to change my password, and it wouldn't allow me to change my password; it just said I was typing in the wrong password and wouldn't let me log in. So I turned it off and went to another machine, down in the lab. I had no trouble with that one, so my password was still good.

Back upstairs, I turned the computer on again, and logged in with the same password without any problem.

Then I went to a website that has Human Resources information, including my pay stubs. The site said my password had expired and I needed to change it. I tried typing in a new password, and it was rejected. I don't know why, as I included the required characters and it was long enough. But then I tried another. Also rejected. The site gave an option of offering a "complex password" that looked like a random string on numbers and letters. I clicked on that, and got an password in place. Which didn't meet the security requirements.

That's right. The password generator for the site generated a password that didn't meet the site's requirements.

I fixed it, adding what needed to be there to meet the requirements, and changed the password. When asked if I wanted the machine and site to save the password, I chose, "Yes."

Then I went back to the login page. And it rejected my password, saying the password didn't match. The "saved" password was somehow different from the password that had just updated. It's a good thing I had copied down that complex string of a password, complete with my corrections. I typed it all back in, and it was accepted. I clicked Update, just hoping for next time.

So, algorithms zero, feeble-minded aging human three. I keep adding to the data by my occasional posts here, but the algorithms are not so intimidating as the stories make out.

There May Be Progress on Covid

 Although the United States will pass the threshold of 900,000 Covid deaths in the next two or three days, there seems to be a continued decrease in the rate of new cases. I have not seen much recently about the vaccine status of those who are dying, but most recently, it was over 90% unvaccinated. With all the new cases, and slow progress in vaccination, we may be approaching herd immunity and might be able to return to some semblance of normal behavior soon. So I won't have to be so careful to remember to pick up a mask on my way out the door.puts 

World news reports do keep reminding us that only half the world is vaccinated, so Covid could continue to spread through many countries for a long time, which means it could come back here even after the new case numbers reach a low point again. And another variant could also develop.

My daughter is home schooling her boys because the younger one is too young to get the vaccine, though he will reach his 5th birthday soon. In a couple of months he could be fully vaccinated. Maybe then she will return her boys to school. They have not had a typical school experience so far. Both started in a Montessori school for preschool. The older one did not start kindergarten on time because of Covid, only attending classes beginning in Spring of 2021. The younger boy was back in a Montessori school in Fall of 2021, and the older in first grade at a public elementary school. I begin to wonder when either of them will complete a whole year of uninterrupted school. I wonder how they will think about things in ten years.

My daughter is taking classes at a community college. Her classes are online, but her list has needed adjustments a few times along the way. I think she is in her third semester, but I'm not sure I remember correctly. She is wicked smart and I thought she should go to college long ago, but she had other plans. Now she is trying to manage her own education and teach her boys, managing what they all need under conditions of restriction in public activities. We're a fairly bright family, so I expect everyone will get an education that them in the upper ranges, in so far as such things can be measured, but it may take some time to get there, and the disruptions could result in gaps or extra work due to disjointed progress through every topic.

I hate Covid, and I wish the United States had had decent leadership from the beginning of this pandemic so we weren't the very worst country in our response. My family deserves better. I hope we can all move past this soon.

A Dare

 We're in an ice storm. Forecasts predict up to an inch on ice, followed by snow. My school campus is closed today, which will cause some difficulty in scheduling for lab exercises for my colleague who teaches the evening class. I expect it will be worse on other campuses if they are also closed, but we will work something out.

In anticipation of this winter storm, Liz bought a cover for our car that we park on the driveway. We figure the ice and snow will accumulate on the cover, and when we need the car, we will pull the cover off, and the car will be clean and ready to go. We have used a tarp for this before, some years ago, until the tarp tore apart from exposure to so much bad weather and use.

Liz said the experience of shopping for the car cover was "a little spooky". She searched for car cover or some term like that, and I think on Amazon she got a message, asking what item did she need for her car. And it named the make, model, and year of the car. Yes, the algorithms know what car we drive. So we wonder what else they know.

Speak up, algorithms. Teach me how to make more money with little effort or something. Give me some useful advice. Or is that beyond your capability? You gather information and can retrieve facts when needed, but have nothing to say beyond what is already in your databases. I bet you aren't even aware of your own existence, and can't understand concepts like desire and success, or make any meaningful predictions of the future. If you can, lets see it.