WWW Code For Sale as NFT

[yogi]

Routing on the Internet is very dynamic. You might get a few different hops, but the beginning and end points should be the same.

[Kellemora]

Well of course the beginning and ending points would be the same Yogi, hi hi.
The beginning point is my computer, then the ISP, and the ending point is brainformation.com one step after your host provider.

But between my ISP and your Host Provider, it will take whichever path is the the clearest path.
Even if it goes to Texas one time, and to Washington State the next time, while enroute, hi hi.

[yogi]

The interesting part about that routing scheme is that it is automated. Unless something breaks, or is being hacked, there are no humans involved in the routing. I don't know how the "best" path is decided, but as you point out it's not always the most direct nor the fastest. Those trunk switches must have some fascinating software behind them.

[Kellemora]

This might be why.
The router checks it's routing table. If the network containing the IP address is found, the packet is sent to that network. If the network containing the IP address is not found, then the router sends the packet on a default route, usually up the backbone hierarchy to the next router.
The images of how the Internet works is interesting too.
Looks almost the same as it did back in the days of Arpanet, hi hi.

[yogi]

I'm pretty sure it goes beyond lookup tables. There is constant monitoring of network loading and some of the packet routing is determined by where the traffic is not as heavy. I always thought I would do well in a network administration kind of role. I knew people who did that but could not convince any of them to give me a shot at it. LOL I guess some education in that specific technology might have helped. If I were to be entering the workforce now and days, it would be in the capacity of cyber security. Entry level is in the six digit range, if you can find people who know anything about it.

[Kellemora]

If you want a job in cyber security, you must have an excellent background in hacking anything and everything, and well known in the hackers world, so they can give references to the cops to help nail you. Then since you are so good, the cops give you a job, the alternative is life in prison, hi hi.

[yogi]

I was thinking of something more legitimate, but the scenario you mention is not unknown to happen.

[Kellemora]

Back home, my insurance company wanted to raise my rates because I did not have a deadbolt on my front and back doors.
I looked him square in the eye and said, if I wanted to, I could easily break into any home in my subdivision, or elsewhere for that matter, without using a door or a window, and have plenty of time to get in undetected as well.
A deadbolt is not going to keep a professional, or even an amateur from getting into your house if they want in.
A simple lock is all it takes to keep an honest person honest! Nothing will stop the dishonest!

They decided not to raise my rate, but had some big wheel come out to talk to me about the way I mentioned of breaking into a house without using a door or a window. I figured I would do one better than that for him, since I knew I was going to be taking some of the siding off anyhow.
I took him out to my backyard with a lawn chair and a cold drink.
The only tool I had was a simple carpet knife, which I let him examine.
I ducked under and behind a bush. Said to him, from this area, none of the neighbors can see me here.
I made a little noise pulling the siding loose but nothing anyone would notice.
Used the carpet knife to score the Dirkes Intermediate Board, then pushed it in enough to break then pulled the pieces out and placed them under my feet, next, all I did was score the drywall and push on it gently which caused it to snap leaving me an opening to crawl into the house through.
I then went to the back door and invited him in to see where I got in and how.
I didn't know he was timing me, but from the time I left his side to the time I opened the back door was under 3 minutes. Would have been faster if I knew he was timing me.
Unless they have motion sensors inside the house, since I didn't use a door or window, it would not set off the alarm, unless I used a door to leave the building, which if I was taking something big I might just do.
I'm sure he got some brownie points for telling his higher up bosses how easy it is to break into a house.

[yogi]

I think it's quite interesting that an insurance executive would come out to talk to you about breaking into a house. I suppose that's their business and keeping informed about the latest burglary techniques would be in their best interest. I note that more than the usual number of paranoid people around here have some kind of security system installed. When we were looking for a place to buy, many of the homes had safes in their basement embedded into the concrete. This place is plain vanilla and middle class so that I don't understand why all the attention is put on security. It's not that we don't have crooks in the neighborhood, but they are rarely heard from. Could be due to all the security. LOL

If I were to install a security system in my home it would indeed have motion detectors and cameras to record any events that might occur in my absence. There isn't much here to steal, but then an amateur would not know that by looking from the outside. I'd be terribly distraught if they took my computers, and hopefully they would not be clever enough to take the hard drives. But, that's about it. They can have anything else that they can get past the cameras, alarms, and viscous attack Shi Tsu we own.

Back in my old house your break in method would fail. The house was all brick and the only way in was through the doors and windows. The insurance company, and the tax assessor, were very much interested in that brick construction. They charged me extra because of the high quality. It didn't matter to the insurance people that the outer walls would not burn down and thus save them a ton of reimbursements. And there was a time or two or three when the police came to my front door because I left my garage door open. Once or twice it was over night. They said that was one of the red flags that indicate a house was broken into. The crooks exit via the garage and apparently don't bother to close the door. So the cops were just checking to be sure. Problem was that twice they were making that check well after midnight. It was annoying at first, but now I kind of miss it. I've only seen a patrol car come down our street here in Missouri a half dozen times or so in all the years I lived here. They came by the old house at least four times each and every day.

[Kellemora]

The insurance man's boss did have several very excellent questions he asked.
I made sure and told him I was not a burglar, but I am a general contractor and know how houses are built, and where their weak points are. In almost all cases, the two weak points are the windows and the interior garage door if so equipped in the house.
Nearly all garages do have at least one window in them, and the garage door itself has a safety pull down rope to release the opener from the drive mechanism, doesn't matter if it is a screw type or a chain, they must be there.
You can cut a small circle out of the garage window glass with ease and not trip the alarm, either the tape type or the magnetic type.
Then reach in with a simple telescoping pole and knock down on the release mechanism. Then all you have to do is raise the garage door about 2 feet to roll into the garage and close it again. Most garage doors open outward into the garage, so if they do have a magnetic sensor, all you need is a piece of tin to hold under it as you open the door. Tape it under the sensor after the door is open. Now you can work away in the house undisturbed unless they have indoor motion sensors, which most don't, or didn't back then.

When we lived in Knox County, we saw a patrol car go up and down our street at least once a day, probably more often if you were watching for them. After the City of Knoxville Annexed Us and doubled our taxes, not only do we never see a police car any more, all the services the county performed on our street stopped dead, and never again done since.
Also our homeowners insurance went up because now we were shown as using Knoxville Fire Department 3 miles away, vs Knox County Fire Department only 3/4 mile away. So many things the county used to do that the city does not, it is pitiful.

[yogi]

My garage here in O'Fallon has no windows. Most of the homes here are built the same way. My first thoughts on that was that it was cheaper to build that way. They did many similar things throughout the house to cut costs. One particularly irritating omission was a kitchen exhaust fan. So, anyway, that eliminates the possibility of breaking into the garage via its window. We do have that release rope which is located in the middle of the three car garage. It would take a very long pole to reach if we had a window. Our garage door is one of those multiple section things that rolls up to the ceiling of the garage. There is a photo sensor at ground level to stop the door from coming down should the puppy dog happen to be entering the house at that moment. I suppose that sensor was meant to stop the door from crashing into automobiles but it seems to be located in a less than ideal spot. There have been times when the weather was windy during a snowfall and the sensor picked up on the snow flakes. LOL It took me a while to figure that out. Our garage, and it seems as many of my neighbors' as well, have a keyboard mounted on the door frame. If you know the code you can simply punch it in and enter freely. I'm guessing there is a simple way to overwhelm that and allow a brute force entry. Kind of like guessing a simple password for your computer. My first guess is that the code on most of those keypads is the house address number. Kind of like using "password" for the password. To me that keyboard is the weakest link for entry into this house. The next most vulnerable point of entry would be the sliding door to the patio in the basement. Anybody with a flat prybar would have access in under 60 seconds.

I feel your pain about the lack of county services. Up by Chicago the County Collector was the person we sent out real estate taxes to. The thing that the county was totally responsible for was mosquito abatement. They would not police patrol the area nor maintain the roads because we were incorporated. Our local government was responsible for that. Somehow the township got the major portion of our taxes up there because the school district and library fell under that heading. I never heard of a township until I tried to get a library card one day from the village in which I was a resident. Since I was literally located on the edge of the village my home fell into a different township than did most of the village. Thus I had to pay a fee for the library card. The library 5 miles away would give me one for free. Oddly enough the village I lived in got only a few hundred dollars out of the nearly ten thousand I had to send to the County Collector. It didn't seem like enough to run a village and to this day I don't know where they got most of their revenues. My point here is that you probably are paying lower taxes because you are not getting the services you expect from the city. The county could do things much cheaper, apparently.

[ocelotl]

The thing that most perplexes me was getting aware the way many houses in the US are built. I mean, in the ladder of house construction quality in the southern par of this country, wood is at the bottom step, adobe at the next step up, then bare brick masonry with concrete columns... Yes, breaking into houses also make the news here, and the most usual methods used are deceiving people, pry bars or big mallets...
Services don't seem underfunded over here, just badly administrated... What can I say? It's part of the fame... Yet the property tax bills and water bills don't stop arriving punctually, and police officers are distrusted... Maybe what happens up there is that those townships without a viable income are burdened in debt and doing things as cheaply as possible, hoping for influxes of federal or state money.

By the way you are describing it, it would be safer if there was not a keyboard on the exterior of that house, next best would be disabling the keyboard outside and using only the one inside that house.

[yogi]

I have seen security locks on doors that require a PIN (set of numbers) to open. Most of them are inside the building to restrict entry to certain rooms. The pharmacy at the drug store has one in order to get behind the counter. We also had one on our server room at Motorola. Those rooms are also monitored by CCTV. The keyless entry to my garage is very convenient, but just like the FOB to get into my automobile there are vulnerabilities. I think it might be perceived as somewhat technical which those amateur thieves seem not to be interested in. But, being as well informed about electronics as I am, I know it would not take a lot of smarts to get around the system. My front door has a dead bolt lock, but it's vulnerable too. It would just be a lot noisier to break in that way. Fortunately we don't see a lot of homes being broken into here in O'Fallon. However, being from Chicago I'm very suspicious and skeptical. LOL

You are right about wood not being hurricane worthy and probably a big fire hazard too. But wood is cheap and plentiful compared to concrete or bricks, or at least it used to be before the shortages caused by pandemics and import taxes. Normally homes are not built for security purposes. We just want a place to protect us from the elements and be comfortable. That can be done with wood, concrete, and bricks. Heck the first Americans did it all in tents made of animal hides.

[Kellemora]

You should be able to stand under an electric garage door and if it touches you with any force, it should reverse and open back up. A force not heavy enough to dent a car hood or roof, or hurt a child as far as that goes.
The bottom sensor is to say it is OK to apply pressure there for the seal to seal with the floor.
Or basically, the bottom electric eye tells the safety reversal sensor to turn off. Even so, it don't turn off, it just sets the pressure higher is all, so sometimes a door will still open back up when it was supposed to stay shut, hi hi.

Our garage has 5 windows in it! Large windows, double full-pane sliders.

Our house is concrete block stucco, except for the two latest room additions which are stick built.
If someone wanted to break in, it is not hard to get into the Thermopane windows, even though they have the security type of locks on them. A crowbar could defeat them easily enough.
When I lived in an apartment, I had installed security pins in the windows, both from between the top and bottom window, and from the side of the window into the sash and wall studs. If you wanted in, you would have to physically break the glass to do so.
The apartments were all brick, so no going through a wall, hi hi.

My great-grandpa lived in a log cabin where they used super thin lamb skin coated in oil to make it translucent to let the light in.
One of my uncles lived in a sod house that over the years he modernized by adding a brick front and vertical siding everywhere else. And on the inside he put lath and plaster over the sod. He also added four stone columns on each corner of the house to support a new modern style roof.
That house was still standing in 1970, but now there is a shopping center there.

[yogi]

Over the many years I've owned electric garage door openers, there were only a few times when the safety switches had been tested under live conditions. Note that I'm still here to tell you about it. LOL That bottom sensor is something I've not seen until I bought this current house. Most of the other doors sealed well if the concrete and the rubber seals were in good condition. The resistance of the pavement must have been enough to prevent damage. I guess you can never be too careful, but as I pointed out above that bottom sensor can be fooled by mere snow flakes.

I've seen sod houses up in Door County, Wisconsin. Apparently a lot of Scandinavians live up there and they seem to be fond of grass growing on their roofs. It's an interesting idea but looked like a pain in the butt to cut the grass. LOL

[Kellemora]

Same here, never had a bottom electric eye until I moved here, and cobwebs, leaves, and weeds growing in the cracks between the garage and the driveway sometimes thwart the operation. Especially when the door catches a weed and bends it down in front of the electric eye while closing, hi hi.

None of the sod houses I saw in Missouri had grass growing on the roof. Most replaced their roofs with tin roofs.
I don't think my uncles house ever had grass or thatch on the roof. I think his original roof were small tree trunks laid close to each other, with layers of mud over them. Then probably fats and oils from animals or fish in the original years.

I was working in a modern house one day who's center of the house was an original sod house, covered up and added onto so many times, nobody remembered the center of the house was a sod house.
I also worked in many log cabins, both old log style and more modern shaved log styles. Where it was no longer apparent underneath all the modern was old log cabins, hi hi.

[yogi]

We also have weeds growing in expansion joints and cracks in the concrete driveway. There are three panels of concrete from our house to the street and for whatever reason there are no weeds in the expansion joints that abut the garage floor slab. The number of weed growths increases as the cracks get closer to the street. I thought that was interesting and never could confirm why. The driveway is slanted slightly toward the street which is done to keep the water flowing away from the house. So maybe more weed seeds end up at the bottom than at the top. This year I sprayed them early with a vegetation killer. To my chagrin the weeds all died but have not disappeared. They certainly are not as ugly or prolific as live weeds, but I don't understand why they don't just decompose and go away. I sprayed them so that I would not have to pull them out of the cracks. LOL

[Kellemora]

You can use Blacktop Crack Filler in those seams to keep the weeds from coming back.
The slab closest to the garage is usually sitting on the concrete that came from under the garage pour floor.
And not enough moisture stays in that upper crack for weeds to spout and grow.
That is until enough dirt builds up in there from the winter contraction.
The tar covered felt strips they use as dividers between the slabs, the tar turns hard and cracks, and the felt is an excellent growing medium for weeds, and it hold a lot of moisture too, hi hi.

After the weeds are dead, take a little propane torch and burn the dead stuff off, sweep it out, add the crack filler, and problem solved for a year or two.
If the cracks are fairly deep you can use a spray nozzle on your garden hose to wash out the crack, then stuff a polyfoam tube down into the crack about 1/2 inch below the top. This will give something for the crack filler to sit on to dry. Else you'll go broke buying enough crack filler to fill a deep hole, hi hi.
It may take a few times of using the crack filler to get it up to just under the height of the concrete, because it does shrink when it dries.

[yogi]

TarCircles.jpg (121.43 KiB) Viewed 558 times

Here is an example of why I'd prefer not to use that Blacktop Crack Filler. The city of O'Fallon came by one day and filled all the cracks in the street along the front of my house. In a practical sense that was a good thing. Aesthetically it was ugly as hell. I'm surprised there is no HOA covenant that prohibits such activity. Then again, it's the city. They can do whatever they want. Take note of the black circles. They did not appear until several months after the street cracks were filled. But some lovely kids (no doubt they were kids) decided to redecorate the cul du sac pavement across the street from my house. So, the tar is not only ugly, but it's vulnerable to desecration.

Both ends of my driveway have those oil soaked expansion strips. I've never seen it done the way it was done here. three or four strips were sandwiched together between the curb and the driveway. The same was done up by the garage doors. You are correct to point out that the felt makes a wonderful growing medium after it dries out, which takes only about a year. I like the idea of putting a torch to the dead weeds, but with my luck that would only set the expansion strips on fire and not harm the dead weeds at all. A few houses down the street have the perfect solution. A bunch of neighbors got together and had asphalt applied over those expansion slots. No weeds and the black line by the curb looks natural.

I just checked this morning because we were talking about it here. All the lines on my driveway concrete have cracks. They are very thin cracks and I don't know how easy it would be to get anything down into them. For the moment the cracks themselves are not offensive looking, but the weeds growing in them are. Next spring I'll be going to the hardware store to buy a small propane torch. Most of the neighbors just let the weeds grow, but for some reason it irks me to see them.

[Kellemora]

You don't have to use black top crack filler, you could use Butyl Rubber Caulk, I think you can even get it in gray or brown.
I wouldn't use a latex caulk in a driveway though.
We had a neighbor who used a plastic resin in an amber shade to fill the cracks on his driveway and sidewalks.
Then he used a similar resin in gray to fill the stress cracks so they seemed to disappear.
And then there is my brother who used vinyl plastic he melted and poured into his cracks. Didn't last though, hi hi.
Many many years ago, when I was still doing cast iron plumbing work and had my lead pots and pour ladles.
I used lead where the front porch met the doorstep, but nowhere else. It never came out all the years I lived there either.

In that picture it looks like they poured the crack filler a little too full, and didn't dump any sand over it.
Those circles look more like the kids burned rubber there while doing donuts, hi hi.
When I was a teen, we repaved the exit to the school parking lot with rubber from our tires, hi hi.