Rattlesnake Hill WMA

The Rattlesnake Hill Wildlife Management Area is a 5,100 acre upland tract, situated approximately eight miles west of Dansville, New York. Roughly two-thirds of the area lies in southern Livingston County, while the remaining third lies in northern Allegany County. The tract was purchased in the 1930’s under the Federal Resettlement Administration and is one of several such areas turned over to DEC for development as a wildlife management area.

The area is appropriately named after the Timber Rattlesnake, which may be occasionally found in the more remote sections of the “Hill”.

The area offers an interesting blend of upland habitats such as mature woodland, overgrown fields, conifer plantations, old growth apple orchards and open meadows.

The area is inhabited by a variety of game species and is open to public hunting. The white-tailed deer, wild turkey, ruffed grouse, grey squirrel, cottontail rabbit and woodcock are found on the area. An occasional snowshoe hare may be observed adjacent to thick creek bottom brush or conifer plantation habitats.

A number of small marsh units have been developed and provide limited hunting for waterfowl. Some of the area’s furbearing species such as mink, beaver and raccoon may be occasionally viewed at these marsh units.

http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/24443.html

Show Only ...
Maps - Photos - Videos

Been doing a lot of reading about computer viruses lately … 👺

|

Usually when the media reports about computer viruses, they are this dark and threatening thing, that will seize and lock up your computer, demand ransom payments, or otherwise delete and destroy your files. Some news reports also suggest that after you get a virus, your computer hardware will be forever destroyed, although that’s pretty uncommon. In most cases, a damaged boot-sector can be re-written using a boot disk. Spyware is often lumped in with computer viruses — some of it is spread in a viral fashion, but more commonly installed by somebody allowing remote access to their computer to an untrusted party.

The truth is that computer viruses aren’t that scary if you use commonsense — something I’ve always believed and have been confirmed based on my research. Many computer viruses are just nuisances rather then harmful. Few viruses go after Linux desktop computers, as virus makers prefer more popular platforms like Windows or Mac OS X. Despite the advertising, hackers most likely aren’t trying to take over your computer — but do keep your software up to date to ensure you aren’t running buggy software that can make you a target.

Linux developers tend to patch up security bugs and holes after they are discovered, which makes it more difficult to hack and propagate viruses in. The permissions model in Linux is stronger then Windows, and it’s more obvious when your elevating something to root in Linux then Windows. Plus, Linux is fast and easy to update with apt-get and there are large software repositories from official sources, so you are rarely downloading programs or files from insecure servers on the Internet. But mostly Linux’s security comes from less then 2% of desktop computers.

Windows is more of a wild card, but even on the operating system, you are unlikely to get spyware or a virus installed on it if you use commonsense and keep your system up-to-date. The built-in Windows Defender is pretty good, especially for a very light Windows user like myself. They’ve fixed the Excel Macro Virus issue in recent years with better permissions, but I know I’m still very careful on what I download and use on Windows. And I would never let anybody remote access my computer, although I do have TeamViewer installed for work — but only with trusted connections of IT department do I run that app. I also keep an eye on the process viewer, logs, and try to be an informed user of Windows, although I don’t like how hidden so much of settings in Windows.

One thing I didn’t know much about was how secure Android is on my phone. Android seems to hide the guts of how operating system works. I really don’t like the Android operating system, but I often think that’s my only real choice as Linux for phones is under-developed and not well suited right now for phones. Fortunately, it seems based on my research that there are relatively few cellphone viruses at this point, although they are certainly possible to be written and some exist that get around Android permissions. Most of them come from outside of the Google Play store, and they aren’t widespread in United States. But that’s something to watch out for in the future.

Building Shadow Analysis Program

|

Earlier this week I wrote a small PHP script for analysis of the shadow cast by buildings on the surrounding landscape. To obtain sun position and altitude, it relies on SunCalc PHP which must be included in the script. It goes throughout the year, churning out how much of a shadow a building will produce each hour, in feet and direction. Additionally, the script will calculate the maximum point the shadow will be cast as a set of coordinates.

<?php
// The current values entered into this script currently are for the Empire Plaza.
$latitude = 42.64915;
$longitude = -73.75950;
$height = 610;

$start = strtotime("January 1, 2020 12 AM");
$end = strtotime("December 31, 2020 11 PM");

include("suncalc.php");

// Compass as a Reference
$compass = array(
'north', 'north-northeast', 'northeast',
'east-northeast', 'east', 'east-southeast',
'southeast', 'south-southeast', 'south',
'south-southwest', 'southwest',
'west-southwest', 'west', 'west-northwest',
'northwest', 'north-northwest');

function newPos($lat, $lng, $dist, $dir) {
// Earth Radius in KM
$R = 6378.14;

// distance in feet to KM
$d = (($dist * 0.3048) / 1000);

// Degree to Radian
$lat1 = $lat * (M_PI/180);
$lng1 = $lng * (M_PI/180);
$brng = $dir * (M_PI/180);

// Really Complicated Math (TM) that works based on the HAVERSINE formula from
// https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7222382/get-lat-long-given-current-point-distance-and-bearing
$lat2 = asin(sin($lat1)*cos($d/$R) + cos($lat1)*sin($d/$R)*cos($brng));
$lng2 = $lng1 + atan2(sin($brng)*sin($d/$R)*cos($lat1),cos($d/$R)-sin($lat1)*sin($lat2));

# back to degrees
$lat2 = $lat2 * (180/M_PI);
$lng2 = $lng2 * (180/M_PI);

return "$lat2,$lng2";
}

$output = "Month,Day,Hour,Sun Angle,Sun Position,Sun Pos Name,Shadow Length,Shadow Direction,Shadow Dir Name,Orginal Lat, Original Lng, Maximum Shadow Lat, Maximum Shadow Lng\n";
for ($time = $start; $time &amp;lt; $end; $time += 60*60) { // get sun position for time $timeObj = new DateTime(); $timeObj-&amp;gt;setTimestamp($time);

$sc = new AurorasLive\SunCalc($timeObj, $latitude, $longitude);
$sunPos = $sc-&amp;gt;getSunPosition($timeObj);

// don't include any time when sun is below the horizon
if ($sunPos-&amp;gt;altitude*(180/M_PI) &amp;lt; 0) continue; // add month, day, hour $output .= date('n,j,G,',$time); // get sun altitude $output .= $sunPos-&amp;gt;altitude*(180/M_PI).',';

// get sun position
$output .= 180+$sunPos-&amp;gt;azimuth*(180/M_PI).',';
$output .= $compass[round((180+$sunPos-&amp;gt;azimuth*(180/M_PI))/ 22.5) % 16].',';

// shadow length
$output .= $height/tan(deg2rad($sunPos-&amp;gt;altitude*(180/M_PI))).',';

// shadow direction
$shadowDir = $sunPos-&amp;gt;azimuth*(180/M_PI) + 360;
if ($shadowDir &amp;gt; 360) $shadowDir -= 360;

$output .= $shadowDir.',';
$output .= $compass[round($shadowDir/ 22.5) % 16].',';

// building latitude and longitude
$output .= "$latitude, $longitude,";

// maximum extent of shadow
$output .= newPos($latitude, $longitude, $height/tan(deg2rad($sunPos-&amp;gt;altitude*(180/M_PI))), $shadowDir).",";

$output .= "\n";
}

echo $output;

Here is an example output:

Month,Day,Hour,Sun Angle,Sun Position,Sun Pos Name,Shadow Length,Shadow Direction,Shadow Dir Name,Orginal Lat, Original Lng, Maximum Shadow Lat, Maximum Shadow Lng
1,1,8,4.370562595888,127.16997476055,southeast,7981.2630997694,307.16997476055,northwest,42.64915, -73.7595,42.662350867593,-73.783180446551,
1,1,9,12.464234785715,138.47001937172,southeast,2759.6833421566,318.47001937172,northwest,42.64915, -73.7595,42.654806428356,-73.766311948646,
1,1,10,18.826346377511,151.18871989968,south-southeast,1789.1660233981,331.18871989968,north-northwest,42.64915, -73.7595,42.653442385927,-73.762710054908,
1,1,11,22.92597731207,165.29270254371,south-southeast,1442.2476816852,345.29270254371,north-northwest,42.64915, -73.7595,42.652969571748,-73.76086316453,
1,1,12,24.317973645092,180.27827074558,south,1349.8710413416,0.27827074557518,north,42.64915, -73.7595,42.652845989302,-73.7594755931,
1,1,13,22.827705402895,195.24737437252,south-southwest,1449.1706789769,15.247374372522,north-northeast,42.64915, -73.7595,42.652978239559,-73.758081165062,
1,1,14,18.641667869753,209.31025239405,south-southwest,1808.2272087538,29.310252394054,north-northeast,42.64915, -73.7595,42.653467170112,-73.756204500047,
1,1,15,12.211118961179,221.98033545934,southwest,2818.7133569306,41.980335459338,northeast,42.64915, -73.7595,42.654887013398,-73.752480800429,
1,1,16,4.0670753820534,233.23837174035,southwest,8579.0650125467,53.238371740354,northeast,42.64915, -73.7595,42.663205632648,-73.733908619093,
1,2,8,4.3645441749857,127.03353849744,southeast,7992.3115188513,307.03353849744,northwest,42.64915, -73.7595,42.662327567958,-73.783255965565,
1,2,9,12.476443037614,138.33095911417,southeast,2756.8958218911,318.33095911417,northwest,42.64915, -73.7595,42.654788550435,-73.766323694576,
1,2,10,18.860737296743,151.04916237459,south-southeast,1785.6561891219,331.04916237459,north-northwest,42.64915, -73.7595,42.653428213262,-73.762717935368,
1,2,11,22.985140372821,165.15894624042,south-southeast,1438.1068136859,345.15894624042,north-northwest,42.64915, -73.7595,42.652956261035,-73.760871335783,
1,2,12,24.401639825801,180.15947237405,south,1344.6352402431,0.15947237405339,north,42.64915, -73.7595,42.652831682677,-73.759486067027,
1,2,13,22.932215921968,195.15131682951,south-southwest,1441.810083379,15.151316829514,north-northeast,42.64915, -73.7595,42.652960530629,-73.7580970562,
1,2,14,18.761308368827,209.23956034287,south-southwest,1795.8375075952,29.239560342872,north-northeast,42.64915, -73.7595,42.653440556697,-73.756234277101,
1,2,15,12.340240887742,221.93268535805,southwest,2788.302504508,41.932685358049,northeast,42.64915, -73.7595,42.654829364851,-73.752562956502,
1,2,16,4.2013827926665,233.20922777897,southwest,8303.8756666826,53.209227778967,northeast,42.64915, -73.7595,42.662764126188,-73.734739101558,

Egg Highlighted

Pigs.

|

Pigs! Lately I’ve been watching or actually more like listening to YouTube videos while at work including North Country Off-Grid and jnull0 and Our Wyoming Life. I also sometimes listen to the NRA’s Cam Edwards 40 acres and a Fool podcast, where one of livestock he raises in tammaworth heritage hogs.

Growing up my neighbors raised hogs besides other livestock. Some of my friends from high school still have them. Pigs are kind of smelly, they root around in grain and food scraps that ferments when they rot. They can be rough on fences too and can tear up a landscape rooting around in the mud, seeking a good wallow to cool themselves out. Wild hogs, which have long escaped shooting preserves and farms can be incredibly destructive to farms and forest alike.

I’m not that much of a fan of store-bought bacon, especially after I let some bacon spoil and then try to cook it, but there are many cuts of pork that are incredibly delicious. Definitely need a strong fence, truck and a cage to move the hogs around, although I guess I would be better to shoot and process the animal on my own land. I’m not much of a meat cutter but I could learn, burying the guts on my own land so they rot away in a few years rather than sit in a landfill for a million years, compacted next to plastic bags and crushed television sets.

When I own my off grid cabin, my hope is to live as close to zero landfill as possible, putting waste to as high of use as possible.I don’t generate that much in food waste, keeping it out of the garbage keeps it drier so anything I end up ultimately burning out back will burn hotter and cleaner. Turning food scraps into feed and ultimately food is even better. Sure, I can and will compost but feed us a higher use. Likewise paper trash like shredded junk mail can be used for bedding, one more thing to keep out of landfills and out my burn pit, as most paper products don’t really burn that well, especially if they are wet.

Owning hogs might mean that I’m more strapped to my land, but when I’m at the point of having an off grid cabin I don’t think I’ll be as interested in traveling and camping, as I’ll have much of the same adventures on my land.

I wonder why people are lionizing of now philanthropist Billy Gates

|

Billy ripped off ProDOS and used monopolistic tactics to corner the Operating Systems Market with Microsoft Windows, a poorly designed bloated operating system that is widely used for praying on the elderly and disabled with spyware installed by telephone scammers. An operating system that is mostly about selling software and additional products. In many ways his career is no better then the J.D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie.

Billy Gates is no expert or voice of authority on climate change or vaccines. He’s not a scientist, even if he has given to some of his ill-gotten worth to worthwhile causes. But he’s hardly somebody to look up. You would be a lot better to listen to real scientists and important decision-makers then a computer geek and theft become monopolist who in his retirement turned to philanthropy. 

The interesting discussion I got into the other day about climate change 🌎

|

The other day I was in an interesting discussion about climate change. It was kind of interesting in the sense that it came with a fundamental misunderstanding of how I see the problem and how it relate to the solutions towards it. Often people who are concerned about climate change, mostly see the problem in a collective sense, or one of personal guilt, rather then a personal risk — something to be prepared for and take steps to prevent oneself from becoming a victim of it in the future.

There is a popular trend in the liberal ideology to feel a lot of guilt about the world today. To be concerned about the hungry starving children in India, the poor people loosing their homes and all their belongings to wildlife or floods. People who have a lot less then they do, who ultimately fell into their misfortune by no fault of their own. Some people truly do have bad luck, but also some people bring upon their bad luck by making bad decisions and not being prepared for likely scenarios of the future.

Every other day when I open up Facebook and the Youtube, I see another one of these so-called sustainable investment opportunities and technologies. Endless advertisements for heat pumps, solar panels, renewable energy schemes (SHOUTING GIRL IN YOUTUBE AD: get solar power, now without panels on your roof !!!), electric cars, recycling, organic and vegan food, and endless investment opportunities in sustainable funds. Because if you have money, you can buy your way out of your guilt. Or so we are told by the advertisers, pushing endless amounts of plastic, aluminum, not-so-green chemicals, and electronics upon us. No need to give up the suburbanite way of living, as long as you pay for your sins. I often see these sustainable ads, and have to wonder what Martin Luther would have said about them?

All the evidence suggests that climate change is a big problem that is going to be solved by government action, not individual choices. Buying the right kind of car or properly cleaning out your salad dressing bottle and recycling it isn’t going to stop the planet from getting warmer. Investing in the latest green energy scheme might feel good, but there is no guarantee it will be profitable or even have much of an effect on the warming planet. Feel good actions are nice, but they aren’t really significant if they don’t lead to political change. There is an important place for political activism, and it’s wonderful that some people step up to do it — but political activism shouldn’t cover for personal failings.

My view on climate change is pretty darn simple — it’s going to happen and going to be real bad, especially if politicians fail to enact policies that are dramatic enough to arrest it. There is a lot of denial, especially in “greenie” circles that climate change won’t happen, especially if you buy the right products. Not the big jacked up truck I have, or the fact that I don’t clean out plastic bottles before chucking them in the fire. In this discussion I was having, it was pointed that if I move out to country, with my hobby farm, driving my big jacked-up truck back and forth to the city, my carbon footprint will increase, as will the impacts on the land by farming and living on it compared to my small apartment in city, where I can ride the bus to work, walk to a lot of destinations, and it’s a short drive to the store.

But if you believe that climate change is going to bad, and is almost inevitable as politicians don’t want to enact unpopular policies to slow it, then you have to take a different tack at the problem — namely, taking action to protect oneself from the worse impacts of climate change.

That means first and foremost saving and investing, so you have a liquid asset that can be a means to purchase necessities to survive when shit hits the fan, which is almost inevitable. It also means having land where I can produce a lot of my own food, and an off-grid system that isn’t dependent on a power grid that is likely to have a lot of problems in the future as storms become more severe, more areas flood and trees come down. Where power plants struggle with extreme heat and a wildly fluxing gulf stream. Where civil disorder becomes more common in cities, as people bake and traditional institutions fall. When driveway and roads washouts become more common, and need to be fixed by the farm tractor regularly.

It’s a scary world ahead, and I don’t think I can change it, but I can be prepared for what is going to happen. I can live with less, live simply, and reduce my impacts without buying into all these greenie crap that the marketers are constantly bombarding us with advertising on.

How to Get Out of New York

|

President Donald Trump’s recent remarks suggesting that people leave Upstate New York got me thinking about my own plans to eventually get out of New York, buy land, and have my off-grid property in 10-20 years. Not that I totally agree with Trump’s remarks — Upstate New York’s economy struggles as much as virtually any old industrial and rural area — but because I like the idea of living in a state that is lower cost and has more freedom to enjoy my life as I so wish.

Save and Invest

Money can’t buy happiness, but it can keep you from being trapped into debt and poverty. Spent not on things but on land and experience, can make your life much better. Probably my top priority for figuring out my plan to get out of New York is to have the money to live a decent life, have options, even if it means taking a lower income job going forward. I don’t want to jump until I know I have a sound landing place.

Learn

I am pretty comfortable with being in the wilderness, building fires, working with low-voltage electricity. I understand energy doesn’t come from God, it’s not unlimited. I am willing to conserve. But I still have a lot to learn. I don’t know much about building maintenance or codes. I understand the basics of batteries and solar but are no expert. I need to become a much better hunter and fisherman. I need to read, need to travel, need to read more.

Nail Down Places to Move To

I want to move out of New York State so I can have lower taxes, cheaper living, more freedom. That’s a given. But where to? The rest of the nation, except for the short time I’ve spent in parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Vermont and New Hampshire. I like Pennsylvania, but it’s still kind of cold and snowy, and the taxes are high. But Pennsylvania has good gun laws, they respect the second amendment. They allow open burning, they are pretty relaxed out in the country. There is some pretty nice country in the Pennsylvania wilds for sure, and it’s a reasonable distance. West Virigina is also beautiful but the state’s politics are a bit troubling to me, but in general it’s a wonderful state, especially out in the hills and hollers around the National Forests.

Find Work

It’s hard to relocate without a job. I have some skills from the past decade, maybe two decades by the time I leave New York, but I’m not exactly sure what kind of jobs they would directly translate into. Maybe I could go back to school or continue to learn new skills on my own. I think though doing my best at my current job and building a solid work history is key to me figuring out what I can do next when I get out of New York. Obviously, I might have to a long drive, for interviews, or even take a plane. At the same time, it’s a bit hard to judge a piece of land without going there and seeing it in person — the Internet is great — but it doesn’t give you answers overnight.

Move

When I finally get my ducks in a row, the big thing wil be the move. I will probably have a truck at that point, and I can probably buy or rent a trailer, or maybe just use something like a U-Haul. It would be quite the adventure, but fortunately I don’t have that much stuff, and i probably could move it relatively easily and inexpensively. Nothing is really tied up.

Rent a Place

As much as my goal is to eventually live off-grid, I think I’ll probably end up renting first before I buy land and a cabin. Renting gives me a place closer to where I work, and lets me have some time to find the best land and property around to buy. Try before you buy say the TV commericals. And if for some reason I don’t like the area I end up in I’m not tied down it.

Buy Land/Home

The final step is to buy land and a home. I am still thinking I like the idea of a small cabin, up in the middle of nowhere, away from the road, far away enough from neighbors so I won’t bother them and they won’t bother me on my land. I want to have as low expenses as possible, I want to have land where I can generate my own electricity, manage my own waste, minimize my consumption of natural resources. Land where I can hobby farm, hunt, and enjoy without anybody else bothering me.

It’s a Process. A Journey.

It’s important to have a vision for one’s future, and work to build for it. I am in no rush to leave New York or get on to my next step in my life. My focus is building my investments, learning, and enjoying the life I have right now. Tomorrow will come, and it will be a better life if I prepare for it appropiately.

Cattails along the pond