March 28, 2020
by sjvn01
Comments Off on Coronavirus: The Cold Equations
Some people in my life are still having trouble believing the Coronavirus is all that bad. Actually, it’s worse than many can imagine. Let’s look at some cold, hard numbers. Yesterday, March 27, we went over 100,000 cases in the … Continue reading
March 23, 2020
by sjvn01
Comments Off on FCC opens up more spectrum to keep mobile phones working during coronavirus pandemic
You may be worried about there being enough internet to go around thanks to the coronavirus pushing us into our homes, but mobile phones are also facing a potential bandwidth shortage. So the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted AT&T, … Continue reading
March 20, 2020
by sjvn01
Comments Off on Tracking the real US coronavirus testing numbers with open source
Want to know something scary? We really don’t even know how many people have been tested for the coronavirus, never mind how many have it. Despite the Trump administration’s promise of millions of tests and President Donald Trump’s claims that … Continue reading
January 28, 2019
by sjvn01
Comments Off on The Challenger disaster: 33 years ago I was working at mission control
Thirty-three years ago I was at mission control at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center for the launch of the Challenger. I was working data communications. My job was making sure all the telemetry links between the space shuttle and NASA’s ground communications system (NASCOM) were … Continue reading
January 25, 2019
by sjvn01
Comments Off on How the Air Traffic Control system works and fails
On Friday, Jan. 25, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a ground stop at New York City’s LaGuardia (LGA) airport. In other words, if you’re trying to fly to or from LGA: Forget it. The reason? Thanks to President Donald Trump’s … Continue reading
December 19, 2018
by sjvn01
Comments Off on IRS Linux move delayed by lingering Oracle Solaris systems
The enterprise server market belongs to Linux now. Clouds, web-servers, you name it, Linux runs it. One of the biggest reasons for this remains that Linux is cheaper than the alternatives. But that doesn’t mean Linux has all its way … Continue reading