TECHNOLOGY: Our old friend “network load balancers”

Tuesday, October 21, 2025

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15210077/reality-internet-meltdown-amazon-aws.html

The alarming reality EXPOSED by the global internet meltdown… and why Amazon’s crash is only the beginning

By HARRIET ALEXANDER, US SENIOR FEATURES WRITER

Published: 15:37 EDT, 20 October 2025 | Updated: 08:35 EDT, 21 October 2025

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By 11:43am ET on Monday, over eight hours after the first sign of trouble, Amazon sounded optimistic that the end was in sight.

‘We have narrowed down the source of the network connectivity issues that impacted AWS Services,’ the company said. ‘The root cause is an underlying internal subsystem responsible for monitoring the health of our network load balancers.’

They said they were deliberately slowing some services ‘to aid recovery’ and were still ‘actively working on mitigations.’

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 Having once ran an IT tech support group for AT&T PBXs, I sympathize with the poor souls with an impossible task.  Six 9’s is the standard   —  .999999 reliability — that’s about 3 seconds of downtime per year.  Sometimes you just need to lucky.  And, you better have a fantastic testing strategy since every change that’s introduced into this tech version of Jenga has the potential to bring down the whole shaky stack.

End Users need to plan for those outages which as in this case can last for hours.  

Hopefully we never have one of those Carrington Events (an intense geomagnetic storm on September 1, 1859) which could cripple our civilization.  

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GOVERNACIDE: Are Canada’s “assisted suicide laws nothing more than “eugenics” nothing more than murder by Gooferment

Monday, September 1, 2025

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15031627/Canada-euthanasia-newborn-BABIES-disabled.html

Terrifying new details of Canada’s advancing assisted suicide laws… including push to euthanize newborn BABIES
By GERMANIA RODRIGUEZ POLEO, US CHIEF REPORTER
Published: 10:02 EDT, 25 August 2025 | Updated: 10:25 EDT, 25 August 2025

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Canada’s assisted suicide laws have continued rapidly expanding in recent years, with a group of doctors now pushing for disabled newborn babies to be euthanized.

The demand for euthanasia is so high that doctors who provide it cannot keep up, according to a new report by The Atlantic.

Assisted dying, legalized in 2016, now accounts for about one out of 20 deaths in Canada, far surpassing countries where it’s been legal for longer. 

*** and ***

Canada’s road to allowing euthanasia began in 2015, when its top court declared that outlawing assisted suicide deprived people of their dignity and autonomy. It gave national leaders a year to draft legislation. 

The resulting 2016 law legalized both euthanasia and assisted suicide for people aged 18 and over, provided they met certain conditions.

They had to have a serious, advanced condition, disease, or disability that was causing suffering and their death was looming.

The law was later amended to allow people who are not terminally ill to choose death, significantly broadening the number of eligible people.

Critics say that change removed a key safeguard aimed at protecting people with potentially decades of life left.

Today, any adult with a serious illness, disease, or disability can seek help in dying.

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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/08/the_return_of_eugenics.html

The Return of Eugenics

By Robert Weissberg  —  August 25, 2025

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If one word is guaranteed to enrage the woke mob, it is eugenics, a term conjuring up images of Hitler, the Holocaust, white supremacy, and sterilizing the feeble-minded. Yet, despite the odium surrounding “eugenics,” it is, paradoxically, making a comeback thanks to medical advances, not the rise of right-wing ideology. Vast sums are currently being invested in firms to promote eugenics, but the term “eugenics” is never uttered.  

Recent newspaper stories recount how parents employ cutting-edge scientific advances in genetics to have the best possible children while avoiding deadly genetic defects like cystic fibrosis. A New York Post story – “Silicon Valley Parents Spend Thousands to Screen Embryos in Search of ‘Baby Geniuses’” — recounted parents spending upwards of $50,000 to screen embryos to discover one with the best genes for intelligence prior to fertilizing it, and then via In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) implanting it in the woman’s womb. The Post story mentions two intelligence screening start-ups — Nucleus Genomics and Heraslight — both funded by major Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.

A particularly successful illustration of this new eugenics is Orchid Health headed by Noor Siddiqui with thousands of clients thanks to its 100 U.S. clinics, a figure that doubled from the previous year. Given the complexity of human genetics, Orchid Heath’s claims to use as few as five cells from the mother’s embryo to develop a “polygenetic risk score” to predict a child’s future chances for some 1200 single-gene disorders plus more complex polygenetic illnesses such as bipolar disorder, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease. According to its mother, one of Elon Musk’s children was from an embryo screened by Orchid Heath and, at Musk’s request, the embryo was screened for intelligence (the firm does not usually screen for intelligence but will do it on request).

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As gun-owning pro-life pro-choice little L libertarian, I find this deplorable.  And, interesting that two stories come to light on the issue from different authors and perspectives.

Are we so full of hubris that we can be like the ancient Aztecs, who sacrificed children to appease their “gods”.  What “god” are we appeasing?

Often I see uplifting stories about “disabled children” who grow up and have “good” lives.

And, how do these babies give their “informed consent”?  Or those with confirmed “mental illnesses”? 

Sorry but this is murder or maybe even genocide when you take into account abortions!

My favorite analogy or metaphor is what if we are killing the “golden child”?

https://reinkefaceslife.com/2010/02/26/political-right-to-life/

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My greatest fear is that we will kill “the Golden Child”. In Will Crowther’s Colossal Cave Adventure game, if you killed the bird in Cave #7, you never could proceed past the snake in Cave #11. (Although it was funny to see smart engineers trying “stuff” when it was impossible to proceed.) What if the potential person that’s killed is the next Salk who will cure cancer, the next Hawkings who will explain the Universe, or the next Mother Teresa who will comfort untold number of sufferers?

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If we “believe” that all humans have “rights”, and we can argue about when those rights INURE to any person (i.e., conception; birth; when they can assert them; when they can fight for them), when does our civil society recognize those rights?

Sigh!

Otherwise we are nothing more than talented savages existing in a “might makes right” world.

The Nuremberg Code is a set of ethical principles for human experimentation established after World War II, emphasizing the necessity of voluntary consent and the moral obligation to protect human subjects in research.

And today’s medical professionals are transgressors and should be hung too.

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SURVIVAL: A missing eight-year-old Maryland boy safe and sound

Saturday, August 31, 2024

https://www./news/article-13772993/Arizona-rescue-missing-boy-tzion-maron-lava-river-caves.html

Arizona park rangers’ dramatic rescue of missing boy who spent night alone in wilderness after getting separated from his family
By Alyssa Guzman For Dailymail.Com
Published: 09:43 EDT, 23 August 2024 | Updated: 11:45 EDT, 23 August 2024

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Park rangers and more than 100 volunteers worked together to find a missing eight-year-old Maryland boy who got separated from his family while visiting a cave in Arizona. 

Tzion Maron, of Baltimore, went missing near the opening of the Lava River Caves near Flagstaff on Wednesday after his family was unable to locate him in the immediate area, prompting search and rescue crews to be called around 6:15pm. 

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No details about how he got lost or what he did  — right or wrong.  Would be good for an “after action  —  lessons learned”.

Watching children over the years, I’ve learned (the hard way) to never ever take your eyes off them.  They seem to be able to “disappear” in a heart beat.

Now there are things like Apple air tags and Angel Sense to help.

If you’re not holding their hand, then you better have your eyes on them.

Glad for the good result.  Great help from various groups.  And a lesson to all of us to watch “our” kids.  Even if they are not “ours”.

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INTERESTING: Can pets can sense when we’re in pain or dying? Seems possible

Monday, July 29, 2024

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13664877/pets-sense-pain-dying-hundreds-miles-away-ex-Cambridge-academic-dr-rupert-sheldrake.html

Our pets can sense when we’re in pain or dying – even from hundreds of miles away: I’m an ex-Cambridge academic and these startling, inexplicable stories convinced me..
By Dr Rupert Sheldrake
Published: 21:21 EDT, 23 July 2024 | Updated: 22:11 EDT, 23 July 2024 

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For more than 30 years I have been collecting case evidence of animals that appear to know by intuition or telepathy when the humans they love have suffered a serious, sometimes fatal, accident.

The existence of so many independent reports is persuasive, writes Dr Sheldrake, who has been collecting evidence of animal intuition or telepathy for more than 30 years 

The bond between owner and animal is indeed a real connection, linking them together invisibly, even over thousands of miles

This isn’t a subject that lends itself to experimental investigation. Evidence can only come from chance events, not laboratory tests, since it is obviously impossible to stage dangerous incidents. But in my files I now have more than 100 accounts of dogs appearing to respond to distant injuries or deaths of their human companions, and about half as many cases involving cats.

The existence of so many independent reports persuades me that this is a real phenomenon, even though it is not possible to do experiments. Further research is needed through the collection of more well- documented stories.

My theory is simple: the bond between person and animal is indeed a real connection, linking them together invisibly, even over thousands of miles. Death and danger disrupt this bond.

To take a simple analogy, if two people are connected by a stretched elastic band, and one of them shakes it or lets it go, the other feels a difference. Even if they do not know exactly what is happening to the other person involved, they know something is happening.

*** end quote ***

Based on anecdotal evidence, his theory seems to have some basis in fact.  I haven’t formed a “reasoned belief” to any degree of certainty, but it certainly seems possible.  I’ve read many stories about “loyal dogs”, graveside visits, and such.  We know that dogs can smell disease, so why can’t they have some type of ESP.  We have seen anecdotal evidence about the connection of human twins.  Why can’t there be more to the physical world than we know right now?

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SURVIVAL: At least they had a flare gun … …

Sunday, July 28, 2024

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13657649/Miracle-fishing-crew-Elite-Navigator-survived-three-days-sea.html

Miracle at sea as fishermen reveal how they survived being stranded on a life-raft for three days
By Mitchell Goodbar For Dailymail.Com
Published: 00:24 EDT, 22 July 2024 | Updated: 00:39 EDT, 22 July 2024 

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A group of fishermen lost at sea for nearly three days managed to survive by keeping themselves in high spirits aboard their life-raft, before they used a flare gun to attract rescuers.

The seven crew members were forced to abandon their ship, the Elite Navigator, on Wednesday after a small fire on the vessel quickly turned into an inferno.

With little time to spare, the men piled into a life-raft and abandoned the burning boat.

*** end quote ***

No inventory of what they had, should have had, or an obviously needed transponder.

No one seems to care about “preps” until it’s too late.

The concept of EDC (Every Day Carry) is to have what you’d need in an emergency.  When you go out on the water or into the forest, then your needs change and so to you EDC.

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: I don’t think he udestand what “capitalism” means!

Sunday, December 17, 2023

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12853431/San-Francisco-homeless-drugs-Dean-Preston-blames-capitalism.html

Liberal San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston blames capitalism for city’s sprawling homeless problem and says it’s ‘counterproductive’ to arrest people openly doing illegal drugs in public

  •     Supervisor Dean Preston has blamed capitalism for the city’s homeless problem
  •     He said he doesn’t believe arresting those that do drugs in public is productive
  •     Preston is the supervisor for the Tenderloin District where a majority of the homeless and drug-ridden population reside 

By Emma Richter For Dailymail.Com
Published: 02:11 EST, 12 December 2023 | Updated: 03:21 EST, 12 December 2023

*** begin quote ***

A liberal San Francisco supervisor has blamed capitalism for the city’s sprawling homeless issue and said that it’s ‘counterproductive’ to arrest people openly doing drugs in public. 

Dean Preston, the Supervisor representing District 5, has also been very open about his support for the ‘defund the police’ movement. 

‘I think we have a very, very bloated police budget. All kinds of waste in the police department. I mean, I could cut a hundred million dollars out of the police department,’ he said in a recent clip shared online from the UnHerd documentary.

*** end quote ***

What we have in California is some type of socialism or fascism; certainly NOT capitalism.

 — Inigo Montoya from the 1987 romantic comedy film The Princess Bride.

Drug prohibition is certainly not “capitalism”.  

And, “defunding the police” means let criminals run wild robbing, killing, and terrorizing “We, The Sheeple”.

Think back to the Wild West, as long as you didn’t hurt someone, you were free to pursue your destiny.  But, “An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.” — Robert A. Heinlein

“The question isn’t who is going to let me: it’s who is going to stop me.” — Ayn Rand

The political class are the “parasite class of humans” (i.e., Gooferment politicians and bureaucrats, “scientist with agendas”, “celebrities”, the corporate press, Big Pharma, Big Tech).  All belong on the scrap bin of humanity

Argh!

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ECONOMICS: Big deffered contract takes a big risk?

Thursday, December 14, 2023

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/mlb/article-12853145/baseball-fans-slam-shohei-ohtani-deferred-contract.html

Baseball fans SLAM Shohei Ohtani’s ‘league-killing deal’ after it was revealed he will defer $680m of his eye-watering $700m contract… as rival supporters blast MLB’s ‘downright laughable’ decision to give green light | Daily Mail Online
By Jake Fenner For Dailymail.Com
Published: 23:39 EST, 11 December 2023 | Updated: 00:11 EST, 13 December 2023 

*** begin quote ***

  •     Ohtani’s deal will see the bulk of the contract paid out after it ends in 10 years 
  •     Baseball fans were irate at the structure and that it was allowed to happen 

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The Dodgers must have channeled their inner Bill Belichick.  This will get everyone’s shorts in a knot.  Especially the politicians and bureaucrats in the Pepuls Republik of Kaliforkneeah.  That’s a lot of money they can’t steal.  And it’s a big risk to take on the financial stability of the Dodgers and the future value of the USD.  Wonder what kind of Futures Contract he’s buying to protect it.

While I understand the motivations behind “stretching the rules”, it’s NOT without some significant risks IMHO.

It violates my favorite heuristic (rule of thumb; “common sense”; pov) that one should always “take the money and run”.  

It’s not beyond the imagination to conceive of the politicians and bureaucrats of the Pepuls Republik of Kaliforkneeah creating a special income tax rule for “deferred compensation”.  Watch for it!

AND, inflation AKA dollar depreciation is for SURE to erode that deferred wealth.

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