As Republicans, we were excited when the Catholic Church elected an American pope. America is the greatest country in the history of the world, and it was absurd that it took 250 years for one of our own to finally be put in charge of the Holy See. Unfortunately, it turns out that Pope Leo XIV is the wrong kind of American—a woke liberal who denounces things like “violence” and “wiping out entire civilizations.” There’s no better evidence of Pope Leo’s liberal failings than Vatican City. Like all Blue cities, it’s overrun with crime. Looking for the perfect Graduation gift? Perhaps you’d enjoy this gorgeous deluxe boxed set of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Shockingly affordable!
The Vatican is in desperate need of criminal justice reform. As of today, any criminal can walk into the Vatican, confess to any crime, immediately be forgiven, and walk out with zero consequences. Any punitive measures are extremely lenient and amount to verbal commitments to pray a few “Hail Marys” or “Our Fathers,” or, at best, the Rosary. In what can only be described as leftist wish fulfillment, there appear to be no prisons in the Vatican, and the only law enforcement agency is the Swiss Guard, who look more like court jesters than a police force.
President Trump, on the other hand, understands that criminals should have to pay for their crimes. That is why he has established a process that forces criminals to pay upwards of $1 million to receive a presidential pardon.
It should come as no surprise that the Vatican’s soft-on-crime policies have resulted in a massive immigration problem. Thanks to its porous border with Italy, millions of migrants from around the world flock to the Vatican every year. In fact, even the year-round population of the Vatican seems to be entirely made up of immigrants, as its birth rate is virtually zero. With the entire city-state being run by immigrants, it’s no wonder the Vatican is a sanctuary city home to St. Peter’s Basilica—one of the largest sanctuaries on Earth.
In the years leading up to its 7 April 1964 launch, however, the 360 was one of the scariest dramas in American business. It took a nearly fanatical commitment at all levels of IBM to bring forth this remarkable collection of machines and software. While the technological innovations that went into the S/360 were important, how they were created and deployed bordered on disaster. The company experienced what science policy expert Keith Pavitt called “tribal warfare”: people clashing and collaborating in a rapidly growing company with unstable, and in some instances unknown, technologies, as uncertainty and ambiguity dogged all the protagonists.
Ultimately, IBM was big and diverse enough in talent, staffing, financing, and materiel to succeed. In an almost entrepreneurial fashion, it took advantage of emerging technologies, no matter where they were located within the enterprise. In hindsight, it seemed a sloppy and ill-advised endeavor, chaotic in execution and yet brilliantly successful. We live in an age that celebrates innovation, so examining cases of how innovation is done can only illuminate our understanding of the process.
This is a rather fascinating story about the history of the technology.
In the modern era, it’s important that everybody know how to do a little computer programming. Not an expert on every langauge, but basic profinency on the concepts behind computing coding can make individuals much more productive. It’s hard to describe how many times before, I’ve used little bits of code to make my life better, to automate processes, to find solutions to problems that nobody else has addressed.
Invited presentation at a meeting of the Old Guard of Summit NJ on January 5, 2021. Brian Kernighan is a professor of computer science at Princeton University and one of the original Unix pioneers at Bell Labs. Brian described his experiences teaching "Computers in Our World," a first year course designed to inform non-technical students how modern hardware, software and communications systems operate, and their ubiquitous role in today's world. It was a 45-minute version of his one-semester talk!
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.
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.
