www.geekybob.com

The Internet Is Down

21 October 2016 • by bob • Computers, Humor

You know, for all those hundreds of times that my kids would tell me "The Internet is Down," today the Internet actually goes down and none of my kids lived at home to complain about it. I'm not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing...

FYI - For news about the Internet outage, see the following URLs:

• NBC: What Exactly Happened to Knock So Many Sites Offline?
• CNN: Widespread cyberattack takes down sites
• BBC: Cyber attacks briefly knock out top sites

Idiots in the Desert

18 October 2016 • by bob • Arizona

I grew up in Arizona, and I can attest to the fact that there is no shortage of creeping, crawling, and slithering things which simply cannot wait to kill you. So when I saw the following video, I posted the following synopsis on Facebook:

"You know, there's a fine line between bravery and stupidity; and for the record, this guy was nowhere near that line - he's just way, way off into the stupid zone."

In the video, this guy says he does "Crazy Things."

Um, no... I have to disagree. He may be crazy, but what he does it just plain stupid. There's simply no other word for it.

One day, I bet this dude earns a Darwin Award.

Hacking - Hollywood Style

08 October 2016 • by Bob • Random Thoughts

I read an article the other day about the "tech consultants" who work for Hollywood. (Sorry, I don't remember where I read the original article... and at the moment I don't feel like looking for it, either.)

Anyway, these consultants are acutely aware of the fact that real hacking does not make for gripping Hollywood-style action, so directors and assorted other creative supervisors ask for scenes which make for better movies. These requests - of course - lead to scenes which are so far over the top ridiculous that you have to completely dismiss reality if you actually know anything about computers. That being said, the article also mentioned that since these same consultants are aware that their scenes cannot be realistic, there is something of a competition between consultants to see who can make their scenes the least-plausible. (My favorite is the guy who used Excel and a MacBook to diffuse a nuclear bomb.)

With that in mind, a subreddit has emerged as a repository of all of these utterly ludicrous technology fails, and I have to admit - I'm hooked and I cannot stop laughing...

It's a Unix System, I know This! • /r/itsaunixsystem www.reddit.com A subreddit for every over the top, embarrassing, and down right flat out incorrect usage of Technology found in Movies, TV Shows, and Video Games!

Bob's Presidential Campaign: Day 2

30 September 2016 • by bob • Campaigning

In an effort to quell the rumors, I have to be honest; I did run a private email server in my basement...

But it's okay, I deleted all the emails when I was done with it.

Bob's Presidential Campaign: Day 1

29 September 2016 • by bob • Campaigning

I have decided to run for President...

On day 1 of my campaign - I promise to institute mandatory siestas every afternoon.

My new campaign slogan: "Make America Snooze Again."

Alternate campaign slogan: "A Tired Man for Tiring Times..."

What I see on Facebook all day now...

28 September 2016 • by bob • Politics, Rants

This is what I see every time I log into Facebook now:

Blah, blah, blah... Can we get back to people posting hideously-insecure "If you're my friend you'll repost this" drivel and ridiculous urban legends which are easily refutable on Snopes? Isn't that really what FB is all about?

[Deep Sigh.]

UPDATE: I recently found the following image which sums up my sentiments exactly:

Fixing Underwater Videos with FFMPEG

23 September 2016 • by Bob • Batch Files, Photography, Scripting, FFMPEG

I ran into an interesting predicament: I couldn't get the right color adjustment settings to work in my video editor to correct some underwater videos from a scuba diving trip. After much trial and error, I came up with an alternative method: I have been able to successfully edit underwater photos to restore their color, so I used FFMPEG to export all of the frames from the source video as individual images, then I used a script to automate my photo editor to batch process all of the images, then I used FFMPEG to reassemble the finished results into a new MP4 file.

The following video of a Goliath Triggerfish in Bora Bora shows a before and after of what that looks like. Overall, I think the results are promising, albeit via a weird and somewhat time-consuming hack.

Exporting Videos as Images with FFMPEG

Here is the basic syntax for automating FFMPEG to export the individual frames:

ffmpeg.exe -i "input.mp4" -r 60 -s hd1080 "C:\path\%6d.png"

Where the following items are defined:

Combining Images as a Video with FFMPEG

Here is the basic syntax for automating FFMPEG to combine the individual frames back into an MP4 file:

ffmpeg.exe -framerate 60 -i "C:\path\%6d.png" -c:v libx264 -f mp4 -pix_fmt yuv420p "output.mp4"

Where the following items are defined:

The Midnight Ride of Rob McMurray

18 September 2016 • by bob • Bicycling, Arizona

So, I went out for a late-night ride on my mountain bike last night... I left the house around midnight, and my route took me through some of the desert on the northeast side of Tucson.

FYI - It's a little unnerving when a whole pack of coyotes starts sounding off near you when you're by yourself with nothing but a single headlight to keep your bike on the narrow path. Just sayin'...

Perhaps a midnight ride wasn't my best idea.

PS - The coyote image is from Michael Frye, who has even more amazing artwork on his website.

When A Song Gets Stuck In My Mind...

25 August 2016 • by bob • Music, Guitar

I had a song stuck in the back of my mind all evening and it was starting to bug me, so I decided to sit down and transcribe it in Guitar Pro 6.

Once I had finished transcribing the song, I remembered that it was named "Silver Tightrope," and it was from an album which was released in 1975. I seem to recall that I thought the song had been recorded by "Yes" when I had first heard it, but the song was actually written by a short-lived band from the UK named "Armageddon."

The four bars which I transcribed are probably around 99% of the song, so it was a pretty quick diversion for the evening. Now I'll get back to the business of writing some code.

More 511th Stories: Live Rounds on Guard Duty

22 August 2016 • by bob • Military

During my tenure in Germany, the Army had decided that soldiers on guard duty would no longer be issued live rounds. Apparently this decision was based on a large number of suicides which seemed to occur when soldiers were left alone all night pulling a miserable duty shift in a miserable part of the world. However, what this meant for me personally was that every night that I pulled guard duty at Sickles Army Airfield, I was supposed to guard an entire flightline of very expensive Army aircraft with no way to defend either them or myself. (Remember that "Military Intelligence" is an oxymoron.)

Actually, I didn't even have an unloaded M16 as some guards had in other areas of the world; apparently some of the locals had discovered that the guards were carrying unloaded M16s and attempted to steal one by overpowering some poor guy on guard duty. After that incident had occurred, no one carried an M16 on guard duty anymore. This meant that the only two things with me which resembled weapons were a cheap, wooden Billy Club and my three-battery Maglite.

However, that was not the case when the 511th deployed to the border; whenever we were within the 1K zone, we always had our M16s, with three live rounds in one of the guard weapons and a sealed case of rounds hidden in reserve. Depending on the deployment site, the guy on radio watch would have the three live rounds in a magazine of his M16, and the roving perimeter guard would carry an unloaded M16. (Once again, this was to serve the dual purpose of cutting down on suicides and preventing a loaded weapon from being stolen.) The three live rounds were supposed to be enough to fire warning shots if a potentially-threatening situation ever presented itself, and the sealed box of rounds was kept in reserve for the unlikely event that full hostilities erupted.

That being said, in all my time at the border, even though one of the guards had three live rounds in a magazine, there was only one occasion when someone ever felt the need to load them.

During one of our deployments near OP Alpha, SPC Terry was on radio watch and I was the roving guard when a group of three nosy civilians bypassed our "You Will Be Shot" signs and started poking around the perimeter of our site. Everything was surrounded by a triple-ring of concertina wire so they could not get close to any of the equipment, but still - we didn't want anyone nosing around our location.

I think it was SGT Bullard who tried to warn them away in German, but they weren't leaving. After a few, tense minutes of arguing back and forth with the civilians, SPC Terry had had enough and started to walk over to our position. And as he did, he pulled back on the charging handle of his M16, and when he released it we all heard the audibly familiar and oddly reassuring sound of a 5.56 round as it slid into the chamber. There was no mistaking what that sound meant; that M16 was now ready for business - all SPC Terry needed to do was to rotate his M16's safety knob to "Fire" and point the weapon.

And yet these civilians still would not leave, so CW2 Klebo ordered one of us to "Hit one of the civilians hard enough to knock him on his ___." I don't recall if it was SGT Bullard or someone else from our group who complied with the order, but someone other than me used his M16 to execute a textbook "Butt-Stroke to the Chest" maneuver and the guy went flying backwards, after which the injured imbecile unleashed a tirade of German expletives as the three civilians quickly hobbled back to their car and angrily drove away.

To this day, I still think that these clueless civilians had it coming; they had walked past several signs which made it clear that entry into the area was forbidden and the use of deadly force was authorized, plus we had someone who was fluent in German explain several times to them that they needed to leave. Despite all of our efforts, we eventually needed to make our point in a more forceful manner; and if the situation had continued to escalate, it was good to know that someone with live rounds was standing only a few feet away.

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