Category: General

How College has changed me in many ways

Paul

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Before College

When I am writing this, I’m really thinking about how this has changed me.  My  blog has been really quite the last few years due to my overwhelming time for working all this over time at my previous job.   When the pandemic hit last year early 2020, the company, I was working at at the time had to make some really hard decisions and they decide to shut down our plant that I’ve been working at for several years.  So we started the process of shutting down the plant and they started the process of laying people off and putting 300 workers off to find better and greater things.   I say that with a little trepidation because they really didn’t care too much what we did after we got laid off or what our plans were.  They just shut the door and said good luck.   I hold no grudge with the company because they provided me with a stable income and a stable job even the benefits were a lot better than I was used to.  While the process was difficult for me and others because we would have to find a new job or go to a new location, I find it was also a rewarding aspect of getting  laid off.   I found that I could go back to school for a trade or skill and I took the opportunity to get my Information Technology Support certifications that I’ve always wanted.

To Present Day

If you haven’t been paying attention the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to keep posting stuff to my blog to talk about subjects that I thought were interesting.   It was required of us to talk about these topics and thought I would be nice to share my thoughts to the community at large.   I don’t expect everyone to understand the concept but I do think it’s something that I thought would bring even more people to understand me and my thoughts in the big world of college education.  We were required to write about certain subjects and I just wanted to bring you guys along for the ride.  So when we got the subject over with I would throw the writings that I did on the blog to see what people thought or what type of response I got from it.   So far it’s not been extremely bad or good, I’ve seen people coming more to my blog on a regular basis but I’m hopeful that more people will drop by and see what I might be posting in the future.

Future Plans

The future is bright for me, I intend to continue the process of writing posts.   If I see a discussion that I like and think others will be enlightened,  I will most likely publish it on my website.   I’m just at odds to what my professors will say or do if they think I am plagiarizing my own work.   I doubt they can do anything more than smile because I am using my own work and sharing it with the world.   It also helps prevent others from using my work for their own devious needs in the future.  I started scheduling more blog post in the coming weeks and I’ll sit down later on this week or next and write even more post to keep this momentum up.  I’m hopeful that more people will come to my site for insightful thoughts and knuckets from me.   So you see college has helped me to see that I’m a better writer than I thought.  I never thought my blog was anything special.  I just like to write and it was something that I wanted to try.   I’ve got some good responses from classmates about my work and that is why I published them here.

College and Me

Finally, I will talk about how it has changed me.   You might not know much about me but you know that I love to write and love to discuss what’s on my mind and that can be a great enjoyment of mine.   I think the biggest thing that has happened to me is that I have a better understanding on how well I write and what people think about my writing abilities.   All the teachers are really impressed and surprised by what I write about how how well I discuss subjects.  The one thing I can say to anyone who’s thinking about college, do something that brings you joy.  You can’t lose when it comes to grades and your life will better for it.

Do you like what you’ve read so far?  Why not comment and tell me what you liked or hated about my blog posts.   I’d love to hear from my current readers and to see my blog posts being shared around the world.

How Nvidia LHR Graphics cards will work. Are they even worth it?

Paul
Someone from Ebay selling their 2070 super for that much!

All over priced GPU’s

Well you can see that there are several different types of people who are trying to sell cards.   Those who get them out right and buy them and then turn around and sell them on sites like this for even more money.   I really can’t blame people for doing this after all the demand is high for really good Graphics cards.  The problem right now is the crypto miners are using them to get bitcoins and even dogecoins.   It is a constant problem because of how much people can make with mining rigs to get bitcoins or even dogecoins.  Although right now the Bitcoin, and other crypto miner coins are dropping in value rather fast, we really don’t know if it will keep going down or go even higher in the future.

Nvidia Announced Low Hash Rates

A few weeks ago, Nvidia announce the LHR Graphics cards that is being made in the future.  The low hash rates will go into effect when the gpu thinks it will is being used to mine and will drop the hash rates to half to discourage miners from buying gpus to crypto mine for coins from all the most common miners.    There are some really big problems ahead for those who might want to bit mine.   So now that they made this announcement what is the likelihood that they find a way to get around this bitcoin limiter?

Will it work?

Many people wonder that, and I am also really curious about it.  I can only surmise what it will likely be like and we can then go ahead and see when the finally release it.   I am hopeful that it will be hardware locked, meaning that no one can change with any possible way.   This should make the miners go somewhere to get their hardware.   I have heard of miners trying to unlock this feature but I think I’ve heard it because of the firmware updates.   This isn’t a hardware but a software lock and those can easily be hacked and changed.    Hardware locks are those that are not able to be modified or changed and thus should make it far less likely for the miners to even try to use them for their mining rigs.

Will it make any difference in gaming?

This part is also something I really don’t know much about but Nvidia has said that it will not make any difference in speed and use of the GPU for gaming since most of them don’t use hashes to run games and when it does is just to check a file is correct and that is far and few between.  I can surmise that if it does make a difference it will be so slight and not even hardly be seen by the gamer.   The frame rates and speed of the games I can’t see that creating any problems in the game play.

When will it be released?

It is due to happen sometime at the end of this month or at the beginning of next month.   Don’t expect too much to happen at first launch and I don’t know what the prices will be.   I’ve been looking all around to see when they will start selling but Amazon, NewEgg, and Even other stores around the internet have yet to show any signs of selling those cards yet.   You’ll know when you see the box, I am sure it will say something like low hash rates or will have the LHR on the box somewhere to make sure to let the crypto miners know that it isn’t something they may want.   This is just one of those steps we will have to watch and see how that will evolve in the future because I am sure the crypto miners are going to try to find way to get past the hash limiter and make it to where it will work just like normal.

Will you use it?

Now here’s the ultimate question, will you use it when it get released just to because you’ve been waiting for that GPU to put in the system you’ve built or are you going to just wait and see what people say about it?  Why not leave a comment and tell me what you think will happen and is this a good idea or a bad idea?

How IP Cameras are watching us all

Paul

Megapixel IP Camera Testing 3

 

Malware at a global scale can be daunting to say the least

We can do everything possible to protect ourselves from this but there is no real way to Mitigate it and there is not real way to prevent it.   Hackers are always going to find holes and white hats are always going to fix those holes as quickly as possible.  I could document millions of ways a hacker could do damage to your system, car, or even your tv and there is no real way to prevent it.    A good exploit that I would like to talk about is IP camera exploits, where all you need to do is just connect to the IP that a camera is using through a web browser.

IP Camera Tools

There are several tools around the world to help you find these IP Cameras for example Shodan.io. As you can see people can be watching without you even knowing  it.  The problem that is so prevalent is that people are paying for this service and watching people take off clothes or even having sex and you wouldn’t know it because these are private residences who are trying to make sure there isn’t any people going to rob them.  The only way to mitigate this is to not have cameras that can be easily found or even make the camera require authentication and also change the default passwords and default usernames for these types of cameras.   It will also be a problem until the manufacturers change how they make these cameras.

Exploiting Knowledge

This isn’t really a software malware but more of people exploiting the knowledge of trying to connect to ip’s and knowing about sockets and ports.   Anyone who knows how the IP camera is used knows that all you need is a certain socket and port to go to scan for to find cameras that are available on the internet.   It has gotten to the point of people recording you and then making you pay with ransoms to keep from releasing it online to embarrass you or your name.  There isn’t any real estimate as to how much the damage is in way of ransom because most people will keep quiet because of the stigma of having someone watch them doing something private.

How to Save Money on plane tickets!

Paul
American Airlines Chicago Airport!

Track the Prices!

If you are looking for the cheapest possible tickets that you can buy. You will want to track the prices of the tickets through some website or app. I figured I’d give you a few that will help you in the future:

  • Flights.google.com — I’ve always used this to track flights from one airport to the another. It’s been a really good help for me to see which airports are the cheapest and it even emails you if the prices is going down or up.
  • Hopper — I’ve used this from time to time to find the cheapest tickets also. They have a nice tracking app but it can be spotty at times.
  • Cheapflights — Another website I like to use to check out if I can find a cheap flight to make it less hard on my wallet.
  • SkyScanner –  Is an excellent way to check out prices across multiple airlines and websites.
  • Expedia —  another good one which is Microsoft’s little website.

I know these are just a few. There are a ton of websites out that I occasionally use also to find the cheapest flights. You should start there and work you way around the web and see what other sites might work for you.

Fly on Tuesday or Thursday!

If you are looking to find the cheapest flights, it seems to be a common thing to find the cheapest flights on Tuesday or Thursday. So buying your tickets on Tuesday for a Tuesday flight in the future might give you the best results for cheap flights. Although I’ve seen low price flights on Fridays and Mondays but I find Tuesday and Thursday to be the best time to fly!

Notifications

Depending on which apps you use to monitor flight prices, you should always find apps to notify you if there is a change in prices.   There are many apps that will do that, I like Googles way of emailing you daily if the price goes up or down so you can decide when the right time to buy that ticket.   Kayak and other sites will also notify if you are registered with them so that you can also find the cheapest flight possible.   I already did one blog post about finding cheap flights but I wanted to update it and give you some more information on how to find those cheap flights.

Philippines will probably open up Late this year!

Paul
Dallas/Ft Worth International Airport Photo By Paul Sylvester
All Rights Reserved!

When’s the borders going to open up

This will be a speculative post about when I expect the Philippines to start allowing tourist into the country.   I’ve been seeing some stuff that I wanted to talk about.   I know this might not come true but I wanted to give people some hope in this evolving situation.   I’ve been talking to a few people left these last few days about this possibility.   Take what I say as you wish but who knows.

I’ve found some interesting stuff!

Now onto why I think it will be opening up in the coming months.   I predict it might be early fall to  fall.   I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t close to the Christmas season.   I’ve found flights that I haven’t seen before going into the country.   I’ve found Direct Flights going into the country from other areas other than Manilla.

These types of flights make me think that it will open up in the fall but they have yet to post any new flights to their flight timetable.   Even though these are just the summer schedules, I would love to see the fall or winter timetables and know what they are planning.

Twitter People

I seems that someone is asking the question we are all wondering about.  When do you expect the Philippines to open up to allow foreigners to come into their country.  I agree it is probably going to be later this year.   I however wanted to allow you the chance to see the results and or vote for when you think it will be available:

I really don’t see the Philippines opening up until November or December at the latest because of how the Government is handling the problem at hand.   I however could be wrong but I still wanted to share with you my thoughts on the matter.

Cebu to Open up?

There have been talk about Cebu opening up in the coming weeks to anyone who has a 9a existing visa.   This is something that also makes me really think if it will actually happen in the coming months.  Cebu also seems to be trying to make it easier to get into the country by not requiring you to do the 7 days in quarantine.   The Mayor even seeks to allow entry into cebu if your were vaccinated, I’ve not heard much else about this but the Cebu opening up might be just that.

Vaccinations

According to what I’ve heard they will have mass vaccinations in the 3rd Quarter.   So this means that they will potentially open up in November or December.   These are the reasons that I think the philippines will open up late this year.  I expect the IATA pass to start either just before this or just about the same time.    I just hope they start to open up the app so you can download and register with them so you can get your information in the system for that flight that you might be taking in the coming future.

I know this is just a little bit of the evidence that I think we see more flights and more chances of people getting into the philippines.   What’s your thoughts? Will it be open this year?  Do you think it will open sooner?