#i had no expectations for my capacity to operate the apparatus but it turns out that uh

[unopenablebox]

Local Guy Successfully Interacts With Contraption

[drnikolatesla]

WHEN WOMAN IS BOSS

An interview with Nikola Tesla by John B.  Kennedy.

Colliers, January 30, 1926.

The life of the bee will be the life of our race, says Nikola Tesla, world-famed scientist.

A NEW sex order is coming--with the female as superior. You will communicate instantly by simple vest-pocket equipment. Aircraft will travel the skies, unmanned, driven and guided by radio. Enormous power will be transmitted great distances without wires. Earthquakes will become more and more frequent. Temperate zones will turn frigid or torrid. And some of these awe-inspiring developments, says Tesla, are not so very far off.

AT SIXTY-EIGHT years of age Nikola Tesla sits quietly in his study, reviewing the world that he has helped to change, foreseeing other changes that must come in the onward stride of the human race. He is a tall, thin, ascetic man who wears somber clothes and looks out at life with steady, deep-set eyes. In the midst of luxury he lives meagerly, selecting his diet with a precision almost extreme. He abstains from all beverages save water and milk and has never indulged in tobacco since early manhood.

He is an engineer, an inventor and, above these as well as basic to them, a philosopher. And, despite his obsession with the practical application of what a gifted mind may learn in books, he has never removed his gaze from the drama of life. 

This world, amazed many times during the last throbbing century, will rub its eyes and stand breathless before greater wonders than even the past few generations have seen; and fifty years from now the world will differ more from the present-day than our world now differs from the world of fifty years ago.

Nikola Tesla came to America in early manhood, and his inventive genius found quick recognition. When fortune was his through his revolutionary power-transmission machines he established plants, first in New York, then Colorado, later on Long Island, where his innumerable experiments resulted in all manner of important and minor advances in electrical science. Lord Kelvin said of him (before he was forty) that he had contributed more than any other man to the study of electricity.

"From the inception of the wireless system," he says, "I saw that this new art of applied electricity would be of greater benefit to the human race than any other scientific discovery, for it virtually eliminates distance. The majority of the ills from which humanity suffers are due to the immense extent of the terrestrial globe and the inability of individuals and nations to come into close contact.

"Wireless will achieve the closer contact through transmission of intelligence, transport of our bodies and materials and conveyance of energy. 

"When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.

"We shall be able to witness and hear events--the inauguration of a President, the playing of a world series game, the havoc of an earthquake or the terror of a battle--just as though we were present.

"When the wireless transmission of power is made commercial, transport and transmission will be revolutionized. Already motion pictures have been transmitted by wireless over a short distance. Later the distance will be illimitable, and by later I mean only a few years hence. Pictures are transmitted over wires--they were telegraphed successfully through the point system thirty years ago. When wireless transmission of power becomes general, these methods will be as crude as is the steam locomotive compared with the electric train.

Woman--Free and Regal

ALL railroads will be electrified, and if there are enough museums to hold them the steam locomotives will be grotesque antiques for our immediate posterity.

"Perhaps the most valuable application of wireless energy will be the propulsion of flying machines, which will carry no fuel and will be free from any limitations of the present airplanes and dirigibles. We shall ride from New York to Europe in a few hours.  International boundaries will be largely obliterated and a great step will be made toward the unification and harmonious existence of the various races inhabiting the globe. Wireless will not only make possible the supply of energy to region, however inaccessible, but it will be effective politically by harmonizing international interests; it will create understanding instead of differences.

"Modern systems of power transmission will become antiquated. Compact relay stations one half or one quarter the size of our modern power plants will be the basis of operation--in the air and under the sea, for water will effect small loss in conveying energy by wireless."

Mr. Tesla foresees great changes in our daily life. "Present wireless receiving apparatus," says he, "will be scrapped for much simpler machines; static and all forms of interference will be eliminated, so that innumerable transmitters and receivers may be operated without interference. It is more than probable that the household's daily newspaper will be printed 'wirelessly' in the home during the night. Domestic management--the problems of heat, light and household mechanics--will be freed from all labor through beneficent wireless power.

"I foresee the development of the flying machine exceeding that of the automobile, and I expect Mr. Ford to make large contributions toward this progress. The problem of parking automobiles and furnishing separate roads for commercial and pleasure traffic will be solved. Belted parking towers will arise in our large cities, and the roads will be multiplied through sheer necessity, or finally rendered unnecessary when civilization exchanges wheels for wings.

The world's internal reservoirs of heat, indicated by frequent volcanic eruptions, will be tapped for industrial purposes. In an article I wrote twenty years ago I defined a process for continuously converting to human use part of the heat received from the sun by the atmosphere. Experts have jumped to the conclusion that I am attempting to realize a perpetual-motion scheme. But my process has been carefully worked out. It is rational."

Mr. Tesla regards the emergence of woman as one of the most profound portents for the future. 

"It is clear to any trained observer," he says, "and even to the sociologically untrained, that a new attitude toward sex discrimination has come over the world through the centuries, receiving an abrupt stimulus just before and after the World War.

"This struggle of the human female toward sex equality will end in a new sex order, with the female as superior. The modern woman, who anticipates in merely superficial phenomena the advancement of her sex, is but a surface symptom of something deeper and more potent fermenting in the bosom of the race. 

"It is not in the shallow physical imitation of men that women will assert first their equality and later their superiority, but in the awakening of the intellect of women.

"Through countless generations, from the very beginning, the social subservience of women resulted naturally in the partial atrophy or at least the hereditary suspension of mental qualities which we now know the female sex to be endowed with no less than men.

The Queen is the Center of Life

"BUT the female mind has demonstrated a capacity for all the mental acquirements and achievements of men, and as generations ensue that capacity will be expanded; the average woman will be as well educated as the average man, and then better educated, for the dormant faculties of her brain will be stimulated to an activity that will be all the more intense and powerful because of centuries of repose. Woman will ignore precedent and startle civilization with their progress.

"The acquisition of new fields of endeavor by women, their gradual usurpation of leadership, will dull and finally dissipate feminine sensibilities, will choke the maternal instinct, so that marriage and motherhood may become abhorrent and human civilization draw closer and closer to the perfect civilization of the bee."

The significance of this lies in the principle dominating the economy of the bee--the most highly organized and intelligently coordinated system of any form of nonrational animal life--the all-governing supremacy of the instinct for immortality which makes divinity out of motherhood.

The center of all bee life is the queen. She dominates the hive, not through hereditary right, for any egg may be hatched into a reigning queen, but because she is the womb of this insect race.

We Can Only Sit and Wonder

THERE are the vast, desexualized armies of workers whose sole aim and happiness in life is hard work. It is the perfection of communism, of socialized, cooperative life wherein all things, including the young, are the property and concern of all.

Then there are the virgin bees, the princess bees, the females which are selected from the eggs of the queen when they are hatched and preserved in case an unfruitful queen should bring disappointment to the hive. And there are the male bees, few in number, unclean of habit, tolerated only because they are necessary to mate with the queen.

When the time is ripe for the queen to take her nuptial flight the male bees are drilled and regimented. The queen passes the drones which guard the gate of the hive, and the male bees follow her in rustling array. Strongest of all the inhabitants of the hive, more powerful than any of her subjects, the queen launches into the air, spiraling upward and upward, the male bees following. Some of the pursuers weaken and fail, drop out of the nuptial chase, but the queen wings higher and higher until a point is reached in the far ether where but one of the male bees remains. By the inflexible law of natural selection he is the strongest, and he mates with the queen. At the moment of marriage his body splits asunder and he perishes.

The queen returns to the hive, impregnated, carrying with her tens of thousands of eggs--a future city of bees, and then begins the cycle of reproduction, the concentration of the teeming life of the hive in unceasing work for the birth of a new generation. 

Imagination falters at the prospect of human analogy to this mysterious and superbly dedicated civilization of the bee; but when we consider how the human instinct for race perpetuation dominates life in its normal and exaggerated and perverse manifestations, there is ironic justice in the possibility that this instinct, with the continuing intellectual advance of women, may be finally expressed after the manner of the bee, though it will take centuries to break down the habits and customs of peoples that bar the way to such a simiply and scientifically ordered civilization.

We have seen a beginning of this in the United States. In Wisconsin the sterilization of confirmed criminals and pre-marriage examination of males is required by law, while the doctrine of eugenics is now boldly preached where a few decades ago its advocacy was a statutory offense.

Old men have dreamed dreams and young men have seen visions from the beginning of time. We of today can only sit and wonder when a scientist has his say.

[markstumpgrindingservice-blog]

A Guide To Stump Grinding Service

As a nomad Stump grinding service processor for these previous dozen years, I have encountered an assortment of stump evacuation situations. I haven't composed this with the aim to dazzle, nor has it been composed as the "be all to end all stump grinding technique". I felt there to be a requirement for a composed depiction of what I do, among the plenty of visual and pictorial data out there. Maybe this unassuming piece will rouse other stump processors to put forth an attempt with their composed portrayals of how they granulate away stumps with their apparatus.  You may get a perfect idea about the Stump Grinding sale-  visit website.

On the off chance that this aggregate data, was arranged and ordered, it might end up being an esteemed composed wellspring of reference for all future stump processors. I am blessed to have the option to draw upon my own one of a kind blend of encounters, supplemented with a capacity to place this into composing - albeit how it is deciphered, is not yet clear. This is a nitty-gritty depiction of how I expel a tree stump with an expert stump grinding machine.

There will be deviations from this fundamental theme, likewise depicting my reasons, strategy, and occasions which prompted the present move made. Not at all like a significant number of my stump grinding peers who have depended upon YouTube recordings to exhibit stump grinding, no one has yet - to the extent I am mindful - composed a complete procedural portrayal of the remarkable purposes of this activity, for the situation in the open area. It is comprehended there are numerous different perspectives with numerous different varieties in method, reflected by varieties of gear types.

My expectation of basing my procedural depiction with an altered Carlton 2300 stump processor is to keep it straightforward, without every one of the "extravagant accessories" of present-day stump grinding machines. Be that as it may, this old (1997) model has been refreshed with a Lombardini diesel motor to give it execution moving toward present-day machines. I have included some of my own "fancy odds and ends" as different checks which I feel are critical to increasing a general comprehension of machine execution. Further, good old finger type shaper teeth are utilized. This is an individual inclination dependent on cost alone.

I additionally perceive the OEM enhancements made to present-day stump processors and don't expect these works to lessen those upgrades in any possible manner. Again I re-accentuate the utilization of an old model Carlton 2300 is to keep it basic regardless of the beneath recorded changes to the machine. My desire and expectation are that a portion of this will start extra considerations and enhancements to expanded wellbeing and efficiency in a conceivably dangerous activity. Stump grinding is intrinsically a perilous activity to individuals, pets, and property. The extent of this procedural depiction accepts nature with all essential wellbeing hardware, and will just make intermittent reference to such gear inside the setting of my operational strategy and system.

I will start with a rundown of alterations made to this old Carlton 2300 including reasons:

Sections for verifying a 2.5 Mr. even, floodlight pole at the machine's top, and along its length. When working any good ways from the base, It isn't financially savvy to finish an occupation on a second come back to a site on the off chance that it is conceivable to finish inside one excursion. Winter nighttimes at the solstice here in Britain, start at about 16:00. Working a couple of additional hours in obscurity will make significant cost reserve funds. This incited the establishment of a floodlight connection. to the machine.

 Turned sections mounted instead of curved guards for verifying elastic screens suspended from steel arms. A few makers of stump processors may now give these screens. None were accessible at the time, so I caused them to up. In the wake of encountering a wrecked window, because of stones being anticipated corner to corner from the shaper wheel, such a screening arrangement turned out to be exceptionally prompt. I never work without my curved guard mounted screens.

 Turned section get together for verifying a vertical pole of a three-meter parasol utilized for all long stump grinding occupations - regardless. An agreeable stump processor is a beneficial stump processor.

 Section for verifying an appropriate oil pressure check - not a nitwit light! Most current stump processors have programmed changes to close down the motor when oil pressure is lost. In the event that this machine had one- - I would, in any case, introduce an oil pressure check. A simpleton light won't detect a decrease in oil pressure as when the motor heats up from cold, or when a potential break may happen. Further, it can show surmised motor temperature once the experience is picked up with ordinary weight/temperature examinations.

 Section for verifying a motor oil temperature check. This was a brief establishment on the grounds that the oil dipstick must be subbed with a sensor bulb inundated in the sump oil to increase exact information. With reasonable cool air consumption, my motor was running at 90 C. That is very hot and demonstrates the purpose of the fact that it is so imperative to keep cool air sections and air admissions clear and clean. I have about 4000 run hours on my diesel motor with NO dark or white fumes smoke!

 Section verifying pressure driven oil temperature measure. This is likewise a present brief establishment while information is gathered and can be all the more precisely referenced against the weight check. A perpetual establishment with a mix oil level and temperature pointer will be introduced sometime in the not too distant future.

 Welded edge bolsters for shaper wheel's pivoted (monitor) cover. At the point when this watchman is down in its operational position, it settles between two welded edges giving it parallel help. The expansion of these calculated backings was seen as essential when the watchman reaches a bit of the whole stump which stayed past the swing furthest reaches of the shaper wheel.

 Main issue lubing center point situated inside a pattern on the machine's decking. Heavily clad, sheathed, adaptable, pressure-driven evaluation pipe is associated with four undersides (hard to reach) oil areolas

 Fine work bug screen introduced over motor cooling admission fan opening, supplemented with a steel network bolster fixed inside air consumption cover. This disposed of the need to as often as possible removeth the motor's cool air ducting to the finned chambers, for cleaning ceaselessly flotsam and jetsam got between chamber cooling balances. This was a successive and basic errand to forestall "problem areas" and to keep up proficient motor cooling for such a hot running air-cooled motor. A water-cooled motor has particular preferences for working in such a messy situation.

 Improved fixing/bolster section for shallow screen found legitimately behind the shaper wheel. This section was made in one bit of steel extending the length of the elastic screen. It gives extra screen support and is snappier/simpler to evacuate for screen substitution because of wear.

[scruffyhappaboreherder]

Coming Home

This is for @doptimous, inspired by the prompt “What could be worse than losing you?"  I was going to write something else but it went sideways and I wrote the prequel instead.Happy New Year, and Happy Amnesty Day, which it still is in the Pacific time zone!  (My original posting day was the 30th.  Oops.  And sorry.)

Warnings / tags: Everybody from Rogue One is still dead except Jyn and Cassian.  Bodhi briefly survived Scarif but then I killed him again because I’m a jerk.

Past polyamory (Cassian/Jyn/Bodhi, mostly Jyn/Bodhi), ace spectrum Cassian, use of content from the Aftermath trilogy (mostly an appearance by Conder Kyl and mentions of other characters), trauma, swearing, gratuitous amateur geology, nothing more physical than snuggling/kissing/holding hands, vague allusion to assisted reproductive technologies (but no actual pregnancy)

As the others filed out of the briefing room, tactfully leaving the two of them alone, Cassian stood and crossed the few meters that separated them.  "Come on, Lieutenant Erso.  On your feet."

She rolled her eyes as she took his extended hands and levered herself out of the chair.  "So I missed a lot."

"A little," he agreed, dropping one of her hands.  "Where do you want to go first?"

"'Fresher."  The door sealed itself behind them.  "No, my quarters, then the 'fresher."

Home One was a large ship, and they were entirely likely to be seen by other crew; but under the circumstances he didn't think that anyone would object to their holding hands in the corridors.

Space was tight, but there was enough for the officers to have a room to themselves, however small.  Jyn opened the door and tugged him inside impatiently; then her arms were around him and her mouth was on his.  He kissed her back, gladly and eagerly, because knowing that the Empire had been reduced to scattered fragments while she was away on a mission had torn at the part of him that burned for her.  Even more than usual.

When they separated, he reached for the cord around his neck, lifted it, and held it out to her.  She smiled the small soft smile she always smiled at these moments, and lowered it over her head. The cord settled between her breasts, and she lifted the crystal and tucked it under her shirt.

"Thank you for keeping it safe."  She leaned in and kissed him again, gently, and pulled him closer.  "I'm going to get clean.  Wait for me?"

"Always."

When she came back they stretched out shoulder to shoulder on her narrow bed.  His "I've been thinking—" collided with her "What about?"  She laughed and rested her head on his shoulder.  "Go on, Cass."

He took a deep breath.  "The best analyses are that it's all over now for the Empire but the mopping up.  And I think I want out."

"Out?" Jyn echoed, as if she'd never heard the word before.

He nodded.  "We found out that the second Death Star was destroyed, and I spent every moment since then worrying that you might not come back."  His chest felt tight.  "I was sure that would happen as soon as it was all over."

"But I did come back."  She touched his cheek.  "I'm here, Cass."

"Yes."  He curled up against her, and she turned to face him and wrapped her arms around him.  "I spent a lot of time thinking about what I would do if you didn't make it back," he mumbled to her shoulder.

"What did you think about?"

He shifted to rest his chin on her shoulder, so she could hear him clearly.  "Fest."  He took a deep breath.  "I want to go back there.  I hope you'll go with me."

"Would you have gone without me?  If I didn't make it back?"

"Yes."

"Good."  She kissed his forehead.  "Then I will go with you."

"Just like that?"

"Were you expecting an argument, Major Andor?"

"Most people wouldn't instantly agree to live on economically ravaged cold planet they didn't have any connection to."

She raised her eyebrows.  "I think you count as a connection, Major Andor.  Besides, I was born on a cold planet, even if I don't remember it.  And," Jyn sighed gustily "—too many planets are economically ravaged.  And ecologically."

"I didn't even think of that last part," Cassian admitted.  Fest was a cold planet; that hadn't stopped the Empire from turning huge chunks of land into industrial sites, stripping the planet of as many resources as it could carry away, and leaving the industrial sites polluted.

"How bad is it?"

"I don't really know," Cassian admitted.  "I haven't looked."

"Then it's time to."  She grabbed the datapad on her nightstand, unlocked it, and started searching.

***

Later, when they were satisfied with the shell of their plan, they signed up for discharge counseling right from Jyn's datapad.  Unfortunately, the hierarchy was disinclined to let him go quickly.  It doesn't take long for him to become rapidly tired of the bland conference room, or the bland human man who was assigned as his discharge couselor.

"Major Andor, the Republic has a great need of counterintelligence operatives at this time.  We expect that the remains of the Empire, as well as other groups, will attempt to penetrate and influence our organization."

"The Republic needs to develop operatives and planners who are better suited to the restoration of civil order," Cassian countered.  I might stay on for a short time, in an advisory capacity.  But not for long."

"A year, perhaps."

"I think three months would be enough," Cassian countered.

"Six months, with the possibility an of extension."

"If you can't get by with six months I question your ability to do it at all. Or your sincerity in making that offer."  Cassian crossed his arms and leaned forwward, resting his arms on the table.  "You aren't giving me much of an incentive to stay."

"We'll see what you can do in six months."  The official made a note.  "I believe you'll want to stay and strengthen the Republic's security apparatus.  But perhaps you'll surprise me, one way or another."

Cassian took the datapad and read each clause carefully, and then he signed.

"You wouldn't be the first," he informed the official, and left the room and went to find Jyn.

***

She looked pensive.  Before he could ask what was wrong, she handed him her datapad.

It's not a separation document. It's not a contract. It's an acceptance of responsibility for a gamete sample.

"Did you ever ... talk about that?"

Jyn shook her head.  "It wasn't like that."  Her voice was heavy.  He knew this loss weighed on her, and always would, and wished she hadn't been compelled to remember it.

She had come to him a few weeks after the destruction of the first Death Star.  They had seized whatever moments they could find to spend curled around eachother.  They had wept, raged, confided, kissed gently, and held each other as tightly as they could.  But neither of them had made a move to remove any clothing, their own or the other's.

One day she sat next to him, and said  "I think Bodhi wants me."  Her voice was calm, as if she were reporting that weather conditions were mild.

"And?"  His own tone suggested that he wasn't in charge of launch control or scheduled for takeoff, and wondered why she was telling him.

She looked up at him.  The look in her eyes was not pleading, exactly, but vulnerable and asking for understanding.  "I don't know if I want him in the same way," she said slowly.  "But I think it could be something I need right now. And that maybe he does too."

He was silent.  She continued speaking, haltingly.

"I just need ... to burn something off.  And I don't want ... to make you be part of that.  But I don't want to alienate you because I feel ... adrift and looking for a harbor.  Tou've been my harbor since the council meeting.  And this is meaningful to me.  I hope you know that.

"We're comrades.  I hope we always will be.  But I want us all to be friends, too.  And if you can't work with that..." she shrugged. "Then things stay the way they are."

Finally there was a space for his voice in this flood of words.  "Jyn. I'm not arguing."

"But are you agreeing?"  She flushed and looked at the floor.  "I'm sorry.  I'm not trying to pressure you. I just ... this has been itching at me."

"I can tell," he said, dry as the sands of Jedha, and put his arm around her. "Give me some time to mull it over."  He knows that what she and Bodhi really share—not to discount their friendship—is grief for Galen Erso and Jedha and the rest of Rogue One.  But it doesn't seem necesary to point that out.

He'll never stop being glad that he said yes.  After Jyn's first overnight with Bodhi, he asked "Well?" and Jyn made a pretend-thoughtful face and said "He's teachable."  Then she burst into giggles and pounced on him, giving him a long glorious kiss.

Bodhi seemed to expect things to be awkward, and to think that Cassian would rather not see him.  But one day, when Cassian was having a post-briefing snack with Jyn after a meeting, Bodhi came in and veered toward them, and then away, having apparently seen Jyn first and then Cassian.  

"Hey, Ells!"  Cassian had called, using Bodhi's new name, and waved, beckoning.  It wasn't much of a secret among those who were there when Bodhi Rook arrived on Yavin that he and Ells Risken are the same man, but it was meant to provide some measure of security for Bodhi, who is still wanted by the Empire.  He had a new hairstyle, and the repairs to his injuries necessitated some small anatomical differences.  Bodhi had decided it was the best of a limited number of options.

After that, things aren't so awkward.  They go back to spending time together, and sometimes Bodhi joins them for what Cassian secretly thinks of as snuggling sessions.  Everyone's clothes stay on, just like when it's only him and Jyn.  "One of the mechanics asked which of you was my between-lover," Jyn grumbled one day.  "I told her—"

"I think the entire base has heard what you told her," Cassian informed her.

"I didn't," said Bodhi, and winced and laughed at the same time when Jyn repeated it.

Jyn and Bodhi's trysts gradually petered out.  They were all closer together as friends, or more than friends really when it comes to him and Jyn.  

Things ran along those routes for weeks, until one day Bodhi didn't return from the cargo convoy he was part of when they expected him.  Hours later, Shara Bey had knocked on the door of Cassian's quarters.  "I'm sorry," she said simply, and handed them a data stick.  She hesitated, then said "Risken—Rook was good.  He almost got out of range.  I'm sorry we couldn't save him."

The data stick contained a dump from the recorders of Bey's A-wing.  Bodhi had yelled for the rest of the convoy to hyper out, that they only wanted him.  The other cargo pilots had mostly done so; the escort had stayed until Bodhi repeated his demand and added "Tell them I'm sorry."  One of the escort had been destroyed; the others had attempted to defend Bodhi until the overwhelming attacking force had destroyed his ship.

One of Bodhi's squadron-mates had brought Bodhi's small array of possessions to Jyn, including his old Imperial uniform.  She had said thank you and then thrown herself down on her bunk to weep.  Cassian didn't find this out until hours later.  Alliance Intelligence had decided that counterintelligence would be his new assignment; there had been a great deal of uncertainty what do to with him since the Scarif raid.  It had succeeded, but at a great cost, and he had disobeyed orders and the will of the Council.  The first order of any substance he'd received since then was to determine how the Empire had located Bodhi.

Finding the answer had given him no pleasure, but he'd done it, and succeeded well enough in that assignment and others like it to be promoted.  Jyn had been commissioned and sent on infiltration missions that took advantage of her codebreaking and forgery skills.  And all of this had brought them here, frowning at a document that suggested something spurious and dredged up a grief that was usually quiescent, like the scar from an old injury.

***

"I went and bothered one of the med-droids," she said listlessly.  She was pale and her shoulders were slumped; he sat next to her on the bed and took her hand gently.  "It said that it was possible for the donor to opt not to reveal the recipient until the conclusion of hostilities, or their separation from the service.  Or it said that the notification could have slipped through the cracks.  It didn't have clearance to access the database, and it couldn't tell me anything more than that."

Cassian looked at her and raised his eyebrows.

She shook her head.  "I don't have clearance to access it either.  And this isn't my kind of slicing.  If I tried ... well.  Odds are good that I'd just destroy any evidence.  And I'm not going to figure it out in two weeks.  Even if I got access."

"Two weeks?!"

"Yes."  She frowned, with her whole face; her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed and her nose crinkled.  "How long are you in for?"

"Six months.  With an option for extension."

"Kriff.  You really have been conscripted all over again."  Her voice is lively and fierce now.  "I guess we won't be going to Fest anytime soon."

"Not together, anyway."

She sighed.  "I have to chase this down.  I owe him."

"We both do.  We all do," Cassian agreed.  "Where are you going to start?"

"Where the sample is, if it exists.  In an underground vault on Hoth.  Right climate, wrong planet.  There's a periodic run that drops off a maintenance droid to do checks and retrieve samples, or answer any emergency signals.  I'm going to get clearance to go along, and see what there is to see.  I'll call in a favor if I have to."

Cassian knows she means Mon Mothma, who regards Jyn as someone who sacrified for the Alliance even though it failed her over and over.  "Are you sure that's how you want to use it?"

Jyn shrugged.  "What else?  Unless you want me to get you released from that contract."

"No.  There was enough pressure on me to stay that the request probably came from her.  Or from someone that it would be hard for her to negotiate with.  Besides, I signed, and I'm going to keep my word."

"I know."  A small smile lit her eyes and tugged at the corners of her mouth.  She leaned closer and kissed him.  "I hope I'll see you before I leave.  The next routine run leaves in twelve hours, and I want to be on it.  I have to find the Senator, and getting a few minutes of her time could take a while."

"Ah."  He took her other hand and tugged her to her feet, and pulled her close.  "I'm being sent to Chandrila," he told her.  "Look for me there, if I'm not here when you get back."

"I will."  She hugged him back.  "Love you, Cass."

"Love you too, Jyn."

***

She found him on Chandrila two weeks later.

"The sample is in the most secure storage I could arrange," she said without prompting.  "I don't know if it's real; I want to minimize forensic disturbance."

He smiled tiredly at her.  "Hello, Jyn, it's good to see you too."

"You know and I know that 'What did you find out?' would have been the first thing you asked."  She sat down on the sofa in his small front room, and he joined her.  "It is good to see you."  She leaned against him, and he put an arm around her shoulder.  

"I monitored the droid on Hoth.  Everything seems secure back at the vault, and the droid handed the sample I had paperwork for to me as a routine matter, and it agreed to report for additional diagnostics without any objections."

"That's good."

"It's a start.  I think we're back to needing a slicer.  Well, I am."

"We are."  He squeezed her hand.  "I'd do it for you, but if there is a problem with the integrity of the database or the vault, we need to find it.  For the sake of everyone who used it."

"Yes," Jyn agreed, with a small sigh.  "So are we doing this officially or unofficially?"

"Officially but quietly, I think."  He handed over his datapad.  "Here.  Write a report for the Chancellor, but don't send it yet."

Jyn rolled her eyes.  "Yes, Major."  She typed a few paragraphs and handed the datapad back to him, and watched with interest as he added a few lines of his own.  

"Kyl has passed a security screening, and is working with us on a few projects," he told her.  "I'll set up a meeting with him tomorrow, and we can add this to his list of tasks."

"It's been two weeks, and you've already turned into a bureaucrat on me," Jyn grumbled.

"It's been two weeks, and you're well on your way to regressing into the loose-cannon space rat you were when you landed on Yavin!"  He knew he shouldn't have said that as soon as the words were out of his mouth.  But she struck a nerve, because she's not wrong.

She's staring at him, astonished.  "Well, I guess I'll be sleeping on this couch tonight.  Or possibly in a hotel room on the other side of the planet."  She pulled away from him.

"Wait," he asked, finding his voice when she was a step away from the door.  "Please."

She turned to look at him.

"I am a bureaucrat," he said with a sigh.  "I write memos, I read memos, I go to meetings where people speak to hear themselves talk, and it's eating me alive.  I'm not sure how I'm going to last the first six months, much less any extension.  I almost hope they find that my performance is unsatisfactory and let me go early.

"The Republic was always too big to govern or help all the planets in the territory it claimed.  That's where the Separatist movement came from, you know.  And it's going to happen all over again, and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it.  And I can't stand watching it happen over again."  He rose and paced in a circle a few times; this is how he spends at least a portion of his nominal off-shift time.  When he could make himself stop, he turned to face her.  "But I shouldn't have said that to you.  You're free, and that's not the same thing as undisciplined, and you were never a space rat.  And I'm sorry."

A corner of her mouth twitched.  "I still am a space rat."  Then the almost-smile fell away, and she looked at him somberly.  "Cass—you know you can't go on like this.  You need a medical leave, or something."

"The longer I spend on leave, the longer it will be until they let me go."

"I'll kidnap you if I have to," Jyn said flatly.

"Don't do that."  He barely managed to keep from saying that the last thing she needed was a real criminal record in the Republic's files.

"You're not doing anything to convince me that I shouldn't sleep somewhere else."

"If you stick around you can go with me to meet Conder Kyl," he offered.  "He won't talk about security matters without someone he hasn't already met present."

Jyn arched her eyebrows.  "Could be interesting to test."

"There's already a schedule for that.  I wrote it."  He shook his head grimly.  "Please, Jyn.  Stay.  Sleep on my couch.  You would be anyway.  I haven't bothered to get a bed yet."

She groaned.  "Cassian Andor."  And she swooped down on him, grabbed his arm, and marched him out the door.  "I'm getting a hotel room, and we're both staying in it.  For tonight at least."  

He leaned against her, and she relinquished the tight grip and put her arm around his waist.

***

In the morning, after Jyn had condescended to let him go out to buy clean underwear and clothes that more or less satisfied the official dress code, they met Conder Kyl at a café.  

"Is this official or personal?" Kyl asked, looking between them with some interest.

Cassian suppressed a sigh.  He knew he was a bit rumpled, even though Jyn had let him borrow her hairbrush.  Somehow the first comfortable sleep he's had since he got here has left him feeling more tired, and frayed around the edges.

"A bit of both, but not necessarily personal in the way you mean," said Jyn.

Cassian jumped into the conversation then, introduced Jyn, and let her explain the problem.

"I need you to look at this database for signs of tampering."  She set a plastic crate on the table; its walls are cloudy but Cassian can see racks of data sticks inside.  "The master copy is in here, and so are all the offsite backups."

"What priority is this, compared to the other things?" Conder wanted to know.

He and Jyn had hashed this out on the way here.    "Top.  It's very time-sensitive."  Hundreds of personnel are mustering out every day, and some percentage of them will be requesting their stored gametes.  He's told the process of distribution has already started.

"It would help if I had some idea what to look for."

"Isn't it better if you go in with no preconceptions?"

Kyl smiled politely.  "In theory, yes.  In practice, not always.  Especially if time is a factor."

Jyn sighed and glanced at Cassian.  He made an open-handed gesture, signaling that it was her decision.  She took a deep breath and said, "Roughly two weeks ago I was told that a sample had been designated for me.  I—the Republic needs to know if any entries concerning that sample are fraudulent or have been altered in any way.  That's the only real lead we have.  But we need to know about the integrity of the entire database."  She handed her datapad to Kyl.  "This is the information about my sample, and a report concerning my visit to the vault."

Kyl glanced at her datapad.  "Is this because the guy was an ex-Imperial?"

Jyn lifted her chin.  "I've known several ex-Imperials.  Bodhi Rook was a fine person and a loyal member of the Alliance.  If he wanted his children to exist in the galaxy, he deserves for that to happen.  I wouldn't necessarily volunteer myself, nor do I believe he would have volunteered me without at least leaving a note, or asking me in advance.  That's part of what's caused some personal and official concern.  We don't even know if the sample is genuine.  It hasn't been examined.  Whether it's genuine or falsified in some way, it needs to be disturbed as little as possible."

"I see."  Kyl made some notes on his own datapad.  "I'll be in touch as soon as possible."

"Thank you," said Jyn.  Cassian barely had time to nod agreement before Jyn was hauling him out the door after tossing some credits on the table to cover the tab.

"You'll never get that back, you know," said Cassian.

"That's not what I'm worried about losing."  She muscled him into her vehicle, waiting impatiently for him to secure the restraints, and took off.

"Are you kidnapping me?" Cassian asked.

"There's a walk-in clinic for former Alliance personnel.  I can take you to it.  Can't make you go, but I hope you will."

Silence fell until Jyn pulled up beside a plain unmarked building.  "Here we are."  She pointed.  "I'll walk inside with you if you want, or wait here, or take you back to that sad excuse for a living space if you want.  Or I will kidnap you, if that's what you want.  The Alliance had me kidnapped, after all.  Seems like a fair trade."

"We broke you out of prison," Cassian protested.  Jyn tilted her head.  "Is this a threat, Jyn?  Do this, or I lose you?"

Jyn shook her head.  "I'm worried that if you don't get some help you'll lose yourself, Cass.  You're tearing yourself to pieces.  And it's for politics, not for the cause.  It isn't worth it."

More silence.  Cassian undid the restraints, because they were uncomfortable, but didn't move.

"Tell me a way to serve the cause without the politics," he said finally, "and I'll do it."

Jyn made a face.  "I'm afraid at this stage it's all politics.  I'm not surprised you let yourself be talked into it.  I'm also not surprised that it's driving you insane, and that you're awful at it.  It's okay to have a breaking point.  You showed me that."  She leaned over and touched his cheek.  He leaned into the touch.

"Walk me inside," he said finally.  He sent a message to the office, letting them know he was going to the clinic, and climbed out of the car.  Jyn walked up the ramp with him, took a chair while he spoke to the intake droid, and waited for his name to be called.

***

It took weeks, but eventually Cassian began to feel more like himself again.  He slapped on the medpatch he was prescribed, and complied with his therapist's suggestions as much as he could.  Jyn accepted a short-term contract with the Alliance that she doesn't talk about much, but he suspected that it involves visiting Alliance data storage repositories, collecting copies, and bringing them back to Kyl to examine.

Cassian's workload was lessened.  He wrote policy papers and compiled old reports, but he doesn't end up in nearly as many meetings.  It's much more like what was in the contract he signed.

Finally, he heard through Jyn that Kyl has a report.  "I got permission to share it with you," she said, over dinner.  "And some other relevant information."

He set his chopsticks down and focused on her.  "Tell me."

"The data record corresponding to the sample that was ostensibly Bodhi's was inserted into the database at some point after his death."  She sighed wearily.  "It's been analyzed.  It's from a human male with some genetic markers consistent with Jedhan origin, but it isn't Bodhi's.  No other falsified records were found in the database, and data integrity concerning other samples was apparently unaffected."

Cassian nodded, and reached over to squeeze her hand.

She squeezed back, and continued, "The sample has gone back into secure storage, in case we can ever find its origin, but that will be like trying to find one specific seed in a pile of bantha shit.  Nothing can be proven, at least not yet, but Conder says the data alteration methodology is consistent with a couple of specific criminal syndicates.  And that your separation contract was altered after you signed it.  I was told to mention a couple of names to you: Tolwar Wartol, and Sinjir Rath Velus."

Cassian closed his eyes, then opened them again.  "Tolwar Wartol is a political rival of the Chancellor.  Sinjir is a member of a ... problem-solving team, you might say.  Not that kind of problem-solving," he added.  "But if Wartol was involved, and Sinjir's team is working on it, you can rest assured the problem will be handled in a way that makes the Chancellor happy.  Legally and maybe even justly."  He knew he sounded a little bitter.  "Eventually."

He watched Jyn unclench her jaw.

"I cannot wait," she said finally, "to permanently leave this planet."

"Me neither, love.  Me neither."

***

The day Cassian's contract ended, he handed over his security access tokens, signed what felt like 20 copies of slight variations on the same form, and handed the keys to his apartment over to the management agency.  He was assured in advance that his contract wouldn't be extended, and given a minor commendation, a certificate stating he was honorably separated from the ranks of the Alliance, and the agreed-upon discharge compensation.  Jyn was doing some last-minute shopping, and will meet him at the spaceport to board a liner that will take them toward Fest.

"Did you find what you were shopping for?" he asked, settling into a seat across the table from her.  She's in a little lounge near their gate.  All their luggage is aboard, except for a small crossbody-strap carryall she's wearing.

She poked his shoulder.  "More or less.  I was desperately looking for an excuse to avoid going to the political heart of the Republic ever again."  She set a small box on the table.  "I did get you something, though."

He opens it.  A lightly polished cream-colored stone of some sort is resting on a bed of dried Chandrilan balmgrass.  "What is it?" he asked, curious, picking up the silver chain the stone hung on.

She flushed a little; her hand went to the place where her kyber crystal necklace rested under her shirt.  "My mother was a geologist, you know.  She told me about this kind of stone once.  It's shocked quartz.  You find it at places where meteors have hit.  If you look at it under a microscope it's got this amazing rainbow iridescence.  Anyway—I have a necklace, you have a necklace, we can match now, or whatever."

He raised his eyebrows.  "Jyn, are you saying your mother would approve of me?"

She laughed a little.  "Yeah.  Yeah, I guess I am."

He smiled at her.  "I'm glad."  He slipped the necklace over his head, adjusted it so that the pendant was under his shirt, and leaned across the table to kiss her.

[nebris]

WHEN WOMAN IS BOSS

An interview with Nikola Tesla by John B.  Kennedy Colliers, January 30, 1926

The life of the bee will be the life of our race, says Nikola Tesla, world-famed scientist.            A NEW sex order is coming--with the female as superior.  You will communicate instantly by simple vest-pocket equipment.   Aircraft will travel the skies, unmanned, driven and guided by radio.   Enormous power will be transmitted great distances without wires.   Earthquakes will become more and more frequent.   Temperate zones will turn frigid or torrid.   And some of these awe-inspiring developments, says Tesla, are not so very far off.                  AT SIXTY-EIGHT years of age Nikola Tesla sits quietly in his study, reviewing the world that he has helped to change, foreseeing other changes that must come in the onward stride of the human race.   He is a tall, thin, ascetic man who wears somber clothes and looks out at life with steady, deep-set eyes.   In the midst of luxury he lives meagerly, selecting his diet with a precision almost extreme.   He abstains from all beverages save water and milk and has never indulged in tobacco since early manhood.            He is an engineer, an inventor and, above these as well as basic to them, a philosopher.   And, despite his obsession with the practical application of what a gifted mind may learn in books, he has never removed his gaze from the drama of life.            This world, amazed many times during the last throbbing century, will rub its eyes and stand breathless before greater wonders than even the past few generations have seen; and fifty years from now the world will differ more from the present-day than our world now differs from the world of fifty years ago.            Nikola Tesla came to America in early manhood, and his inventive genius found quick recognition.   When fortune was his through his revolutionary power-transmission machines he established plants, first in New York, then Colorado, later on Long Island, where his innumerable experiments resulted in all manner of important and minor advances in electrical science.   Lord Kelvin said of him (before he was forty) that he had contributed more than any other man to the study of electricity.            "From the inception of the wireless system," he says, "I saw that this new art of applied electricity would be of greater benefit to the human race than any other scientific discovery, for it virtually eliminates distance.   The majority of the ills from which humanity suffers are due to the immense extent of the terrestrial globe and the inability of individuals and nations to come into close contact.            "Wireless will achieve the closer contact through transmission of intelligence, transport of our bodies and materials and conveyance of energy.            "When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole.   We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance.   Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone.   A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.            "We shall be able to witness and hear events--the inauguration of a President, the playing of a world series game, the havoc of an earthquake or the terror of a battle--just as though we were present.            "When the wireless transmission of power is made commercial, transport and transmission will be revolutionized.   Already motion pictures have been transmitted by wireless over a short distance.   Later the distance will be illimitable, and by later I mean only a few years hence.   Pictures are transmitted over wires--they were telegraphed successfully through the point system thirty years ago.      When wireless transmission of power becomes general, these methods will be as crude as is the steam locomotive compared with the electric train.

Woman--Free and Regal        ALL railroads will be electrified, and if there are enough museums to hold them the steam locomotives will be grotesque antiques for our immediate posterity.        "Perhaps the most valuable application of wireless energy will be the propulsion of flying machines, which will carry no fuel and will be free from any limitations of the present airplanes and  dirigibles.   We shall ride from New York to Europe in a few hours.   International boundaries will be largely obliterated and a great step will be made toward the unification and harmonious existence of the various races inhabiting the globe.   Wireless will not only make possible the supply of energy to region,    however inaccessible, but it will be effective politically by harmonizing international interests; it will create understanding instead of differences.        "Modern systems of power transmission will become antiquated.   Compact relay stations one half or one quarter the size of our modern power plants will be the basis of operation--in the air and under the sea, for water will effect small loss in conveying energy by wireless."        Mr. Tesla foresees great changes in our daily life.   "Present wireless receiving apparatus," says he, "will be scrapped for much simpler machines; static and all forms of interference will be eliminated, so that innumerable transmitters and receivers may be operated without interference.   It is more than probable that the household's daily newspaper will be printed 'wirelessly' in the home during the night.   Domestic management--the problems of heat, light and household mechanics--will be freed from all labor through beneficent wireless power.        "I foresee the development of the flying machine exceeding that of the automobile, and I expect Mr.  Ford to make large contributions toward this progress.   The problem of parking automobiles and furnishing separate roads for commercial and pleasure traffic will be solved.   Belted parking towers will arise in our large cities, and the roads will be multiplied through sheer necessity, or finally rendered unnecessary when civilization exchanges wheels for wings.        The world's internal reservoirs of heat, indicated by frequent volcanic eruptions, will be tapped for industrial purposes.   In an article I wrote twenty years ago I defined a process for continuously converting to human use part of the heat received from the sun by the atmosphere.   Experts have jumped to the conclusion that I am attempting to realize a perpetual-motion scheme.   But my process has been carefully worked out.   It is rational."        Mr.  Tesla regards the emergence of woman as one of the most profound portents for the future.        "It is clear to any trained observer," he says, "and even to the sociologically untrained, that a new attitude toward sex discrimination has come over the world through the centuries, receiving an abrupt stimulus just before and after the World War.        "This struggle of the human female toward sex equality will end in a new sex order, with the female as superior.   The modern woman, who anticipates in merely superficial phenomena the advancement of her sex, is but a surface symptom of something deeper and more potent fermenting in the bosom of the race.        "It is not in the shallow physical imitation of men that women will assert first their equality and later their superiority, but in the awakening of the intellect of women.        "Through countless generations, from the very beginning, the social subservience of women resulted naturally in the partial atrophy or at least the hereditary suspension of mental qualities which we now know the female sex to be endowed with no less than men.

The Queen is the Center of Life        "BUT the female mind has demonstrated a capacity for all the mental acquirements and achievements of men, and as generations ensue that capacity will be expanded; the average woman will be as well educated as the average man, and then better educated, for the dormant faculties of her brain will be stimulated to an activity that will be all the more intense and powerful because of centuries of repose.   Woman will ignore precedent and startle civilization with their progress.        "The acquisition of new fields of endeavor by women, their gradual usurpation of leadership, will dull and finally dissipate feminine sensibilities, will choke the maternal instinct, so that marriage and motherhood may become abhorrent and human civilization draw closer and closer to the perfect civilization of the bee."        The significance of this lies in the principle dominating the economy of the bee--the most highly organized and intelligently coordinated system of any form of nonrational animal life--the all-governing supremacy of the instinct for immortality which makes divinity out of motherhood.        The center of all bee life is the queen.   She dominates the hive, not through hereditary right, for any egg may be hatched into a reigning queen, but because she is the womb of this insect race.

We Can Only Sit and Wonder        THERE are the vast, desexualized armies of workers whose sole aim and happiness in life is hard work.   It is the perfection of communism, of socialized, cooperative life wherein all things, including the young, are the property and concern of all.        Then there are the virgin bees, the princess bees, the females which are selected from the eggs of the queen when they are hatched and preserved in case an unfruitful queen should bring disappointment to the hive.   And there are the male bees, few in number, unclean of habit, tolerated only because they are necessary to mate with the queen.        When the time is ripe for the queen to take her nuptial flight the male bees are drilled and regimented.   The queen passes the drones which guard the gate of the hive, and the male bees follow her in rustling array.   Strongest of all the inhabitants of the hive, more powerful than any of her subjects, the queen launches into the air, spiraling upward and upward, the male bees following.   Some of the pursuers weaken and fail, drop out of the nuptial chase, but the queen wings higher and higher until a point is reached in the far ether where but one of the male bees remains.   By the inflexible law of natural selection he is the strongest, and he mates with the queen.   At the moment of marriage his body splits asunder and he perishes.        The queen returns to the hive, impregnated, carrying with her tens of thousands of eggs--a future city of bees, and then begins the cycle of reproduction, the concentration of the teeming life of the hive in unceasing work for the birth of a new generation.        Imagination falters at the prospect of human analogy to this mysterious and superbly dedicated civilization of the bee; but when we consider how the human instinct for race perpetuation dominates life in its normal and exaggerated and perverse manifestations, there is ironic justice in the possibility that this instinct, with the continuing intellectual advance of women, may be finally expressed after the manner of the bee, though it will take centuries to break down the habits and customs of peoples that bar the way to such a simiply and scientifically ordered civilization.        We have seen a beginning of this in the United States.   In Wisconsin the sterilization of confirmed criminals and pre-marriage examination of males is required by law, while the doctrine of eugenics is now boldly preached where a few decades ago its advocacy was a statutory offense.        Old men have dreamed dreams and young men have seen visions from the beginning of time.   We of today can only sit and wonder when a scientist has his say.

http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1926-01-30.htm

[shirlleycoyle]

How Can We Convince Big Companies to Leave Iconic Websites Online?

A version of this article originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.

Look, I’m not going to tell you that Yahoo Answers was the height of cultural artifacts.

But the thing is, it had value. And the reason it did was because of the amount of time that it was online, the sheer number of its answers, and its public-facing nature. But sites do not stay stationary, encased in amber, and there is significant financial motivation for large companies to only play the hits. After all, it’s why Top 40 radio isn’t all Dishwalla, all the time.

But after seeing yet another situation where a longstanding Yahoo-owned website is shutting down, I’m left to wonder if the problem is that the motivations for maintaining sites built around user-generated content simply do not favor preservation, and never will without outside influence.

How can we change that motivation? In a follow-up to an argument I made about historic preservation as Yahoo Groups was getting shut down, here’s my attempt to see the issue of preservation from the corporate perspective.

“I understand your usage of groups is different from the majority of our users, and we understand your frustration. However, the resources needed to maintain historical content from Yahoo Groups pages is cost-prohibitive, as they’re largely unused.”

— A statement sent to an archivist in 2019 as Verizon took steps to shut down the vast majority of the existing Yahoo Groups, the last major element of Yahoo’s user-generated content apparatus that was dismantled, with Groups meeting its maker a little over a year ago. It’s worth keeping in mind that at the scale Verizon works—making billions of dollars per year, on average—the costs of continuing to host such content would have been relatively minimal—especially given the fact that, uh, it owns a big chunk of the network through which that content is distributed.

The problem with corporate motivations is that they aren’t the same as the user’s, even when the user made the content.

Whether Google, Verizon, Disney, Nintendo, or Sony, the corporate motivations for keeping content available online for long periods differ greatly from the motivations that drive external visitors.

Users very much have an expectation of permanence just as they did with physical media, but in the context of online distribution, these companies have competing interests driving their decision-making that discourage them from not taking steps to protect historic or vintage content.

And in the case of user-generated content, there might be outside considerations at play. Perhaps they are concerned that something within an old user agreement might come to bite them if they leave a website online past its sell-by date, opening up to liabilities. Perhaps the concern is old, outdated code that may look novel on the outside but is effectively a potential attack surface in the wrong hands. After all, if they’re not keeping an eye on it, who’s to say someone can’t take advantage of that?

And then there are reasons that are a little more consumer-hostile. Nintendo recently ended sales for a bunch of old Mario content in both digital and physical form. It evokes the old gating of home video releases that Disney used to do in an effort to keep its old content fresh and make more money from that old content.

When it comes to websites, though, much of that content is user-generated, even if a technology company technically maintains it. I have to imagine that there’s an expectation that a company only has limited capability for maintenance costs, and the motivation for doing so is limited.

But on the other hand, as digital preservationist David Rosenthal has pointed out, in the grand scheme, preservation is not really all that expensive. The Internet Archive has a budget—soup to nuts—of around $20 million or less per year, around half of which goes to pay for the salaries of the staff. And while they don’t get all of it (in part because they can’t!), they cover a significant portion of the entire internet, literally millions of websites. They have a fairly complex infrastructure, with some of its 750 servers online for as long as nine years and petabyte capacity in the hundreds, but given that they are trying to store decades worth of digitized content—including entire websites that were long-ago forgotten—it’s pretty impressive!

So the case that it costs too much to continue to simply publicly host a site that contains years of historically relevant user-generated content is bunk to me. It feels like a way of saying “we don’t want to shoulder the maintenance costs of this old machine,” as if content generated by users can be upgraded in the same way as a decade-old computer.

One thought I have is that this issue repeatedly comes up because the motivations for corporations naturally lean in favor of closure when the financial motivation has dried up. Legislation could be one way to manage this to sort of right the axis in favor of preservation—but legislation could be difficult to pass. (This was the crux of my case for trying to make the existing legislation for the National Register of Historic Places apply to websites.)

In my frustration about this issue recently on Twitter, I found myself arguing for legislation that balances liability in favor of preservation of public-facing content. But I’m a realist—a law like that would have many moving parts and may be a tough sell. So, if we can’t encourage a law, maybe we need to build strategies to make maintaining a historic website easier to lift.

2012

was the year that the genealogy platform Ancestry.com launched a new site, Newspapers.com, to offer paid archives of newspapers to interested parties. The company, which charges about $150 per year for access to the archive, has helped maintain access to the historic record for researchers who need it. (I’m a subscriber and it is worth it.) With the exception of paid services for Usenet like Giganews, this model has not really been tried for vintage digital-only content, which seems like a major missed opportunity for companies raising concerns about financial costs for maintaining old platforms, like Yahoo/Verizon. Certainly I would prefer it to be free, but if I had to have a choice between free and non-existent, I’d pay money to access old content. Just throwing that out there.

Image: Ethan Hoover/Unsplash

A middle ground: An “analog nightlight” mode for websites

In some ways, I think that part of the motivation for taking down old or outdated websites is the expectation that the internal systems must also stay online.

But I think archivists and historians would be more than happy if public-facing content—that is, content that appeared on search engines, or was a part of the main experience when logged in at a basic level—was prioritized and protected in some way, which would at least keep the information alive even if its value was limited.

There’s something of a comparison here that I’d make: When the U.S. dropped the vast majority of its analog signals in favor of digital tuning, it led to something called the “analog nightlight,” in which very minimal, basic information was presented on analog stations was presented during the period before it was turned off. A TV host parlayed basic information to viewers about the transition, and told them what to do next. It didn’t entirely work—TV stations in smaller markets didn’t actually air the analog nightlight—but it helped give a sense of continuity as a new medium found its footing.

This approach, to me, feels like a path forward that could minimize the crushing pain of a loss of historic content while taking away much of the risks that come with continuing to host a site that may no longer be popular in the modern day but still continues to have value in a long-tail sense.

In the case of an “analog nightlight” equivalent for websites, the goal would be to essentially shut down any sort of attack surface through good design and planning. Before the site is taken offline in its original form, users are given the chance to download their old content or remove it from the website over a period of, say, 60 days. This is not too dissimilar to the warnings that site operators offer when they shut down currently—and looks like what Yahoo Answers is doing.

But once the deadline is hit, the site operators launch a minimal version of the original platform, with no way to log in or comment. The information is static, and there’s no directly accessible backend. That’s actually the important part of this—the site needs to be untethered from its original content-management system so no new content can be added. Instead, the content would be served up as a barebones static site (perhaps with advertising, if they roll that way), so as to minimize the “attack surface” left by a site that is not actively being maintained.

This reflects relatively recent best practice in the content-management space. Platforms like Netlify have gained popularity in recent years because they actively separate the form of distribution from the means of production, meaning that security risks are minimized. This is a great approach for live-production sites, but for sites that are intentionally meant to stay static, it removes one of the biggest risk factors that might discourage a content owner from continuing to maintain the work.

As far as liability concerns go, language could be included on the page to allow for users to remove old content if they so choose, along the lines of the “right to be forgotten” measure of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), though that measure includes a carve-out for purposes of historical research, which an archived version of a website would presumably cover. But the thing is, sites that are driven by user-generated content are generally protected by Section 230 in the United States anyway, so the onus for liability for the content itself falls onto the end user.

And if, even after these steps, a company still feels uncomfortable about hosting a dead website, they should reach out to librarians and archivists to donate the collection for maintenance purposes—perhaps with a corresponding donation to said nonprofit so they can cover the hosting costs. The Internet Archive actually offers a service like this!

The one site that makes me think that a model like this could work is Gawker. The news and gossip site, which was taken offline by the combination of a lawsuit and a corporate asset sale that specifically excluded it, remains online nearly five years after its closure in a mode very similar to this. Comments are closed and not visible to end users, which is a true shame as those comments often fed into the writing. But the content—the part that was truly valuable and important—is still out there, accessible and readable, even if you can’t do anything with it other than read it.

There are no ads. It’s a shrine to a platform that a lot of people cared about, even if others found it controversial. And there’s no reason what Gawker did couldn’t work in an equivalent way for Yahoo Answers.

Look, I’m going to be the first to fully admit that the motivations for protecting publicly accessible user-generated content simply remain only if the owner of that content feels “nice” about it.

And even then it feels like a bit of a surprise.

It’s still online, but it moved.

Recently, Warner Bros. got a little bit of flak for replacing its long-online Space Jam website, which dated back a quarter-century in its original form, with a site for the sequel. But I think what the company did was actually shockingly noble. They not only left the old site online, but they made it accessible from the new one. The work done to maintain this was not perfect—I think they should do archivists a solid by putting in 301 redirects on the old URLs of the vintage site, so they go to the new place—but the fact that they showed the initiative at all is incredibly impressive given what we’ve seen of corporate motivations when it comes to preservation.

Honestly, part of this was a result of people who were associated with the website’s creation still being at the company years later and being willing to speak up for preserving it—a 2015 Rolling Stone article explains that the site actually briefly was taken down after it went viral in 2010, only for employees involved in the creation of the site (now with leadership roles in the company) to swoop in and save it after some executive made the call to shut it down.

“If we had left the company, the site probably would not exist today,” said Andrew Stachler, one of the employees involved with saving the effort. “It would’ve gone down for good at that time.”

But imagine if they weren’t there. We’d be telling a different story right now.

And perhaps that’s what many companies need—someone who is willing to go to bat for the purposes of archival and protection of historic content.

In the digital age, preservation is the act of doing nothing but minimal upkeep and being comfortable with that fact. As proven time and time again, companies are more than comfortable with killing services entirely rather than leaving well enough alone.

Perhaps the way to save user-generated content is by making it as painless as possible to keep the status quo.

How Can We Convince Big Companies to Leave Iconic Websites Online? syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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Choosing the Best Drill For the Job

On the off chance that you were an expert temporary worker who utilized different sorts of drills once a day over the span of your employment, you would most likely definitely comprehend what kind of bore you requirement for a particular occupation.

However, shouldn't something be said about the individual who does not work with drills each day? This individual presumably realizes that a specific occupation or undertaking requires the utilization of a penetrate, yet may not be sure about what kind of bore is required. Picking the correct penetrate can be an overwhelming undertaking and it's truly nothing unexpected with every one of the sorts of drills to look over. You have:

Essential drills

VSR drills

Bore/drivers

Pound drills

Affect drivers/torques

Revolving hammer drills

Right point drills

Spade handle drills

Perhaps you have just been taking a gander at drills and have different inquiries, for example,

What does VSR mean?

What is the distinction amongst SDS and spline drive?

How does throw estimate make a difference?

What is the distinction amongst keyed and keyless tosses?What is a hex driver?

 Would it be advisable for me to run with a cordless or corded penetrate?

What sort of cordless battery is ideal?

What is the grasp utilized for?

Numerous years prior, when the directly held power drills came around, there were very few decisions outside of brand names when it came to choosing a power penetrate. Fundamentally, the drills were altogether corded, all had keyed tosses, and turned in just a single course and at one speed. Along these lines, the decision was not very troublesome. Simply pick a brand you like.

Things unquestionably have changed throughout the years. There are sufficient choices accessible today to make a man's head turn. There are considerably more varieties and advancements in progress as I compose this. While the extent of this guide won't have the capacity to cover each kind of energy bore in presence, we will endeavor to cover a large portion of the bases. My objective in composing this article is to help the individuals who may be experiencing issues choosing which kind of penetrate they require, so how about we begin.

The fundamental corded penetrate

This is the most fundamental of handheld power drills. It is a basic electric bore with one speed and one bearing. It is essentially useful for boring gaps in wood, metal, plastic, and delicate metals. It is not the perfect decision of penetrating to use for applications, for example, driving screws. Since the speed is not variable and the bore just works at a higher RPM, you would likely either strip the screw head or snap the take off the screw on the off chance that you attempted. You won't likely discover a large portion of these around today as their uses are fairly restricted.

The VSR penetrate

VSR remains for "variable speed reversible". These drills come in both corded and cordless forms as will most every one of the drills we talk about starting now and into the foreseeable future. The bore speed is changed by the measure of weight connected to the trigger. The more distant the trigger is pulled, the higher the RPM will be. There is likewise a switch, more often than not close to the trigger which turns around the operation of the penetrating. As you can envision, these have unmistakable favorable circumstances over the fundamental corded penetrate. 

Notwithstanding having the capacity to play out every one of the elements of the essential corded bore, they likewise have a more qualified albeit still constrained capacity to drive screws, and little slack fasteners. Since the speed is variable, you can bore into the harder material without overheating the bit.

One weakness to this kind of penetrate is that endeavoring to keep up a specific RPM with the trigger can be extremely dubious. It takes a specific talent and some getting used to so as to have the capacity to drive screws reliably without stripping the heads, driving the screw too profound, or snapping off the screw head. The reversible component enables you to expel screws, drive turn around strung screws, and retreat from stock when your boring tool stalls out or stuck.

The VSR penetrate/driver

The VSR bore/driver has every one of the abilities of a standard VSR penetrate with the special reward of a lower rpm/higher torque setting. Another element, for the most part, found on these drills is a flexible grasp. These are likely the most widely recognized sorts of ordinary utilize cordless drills you will discover available today. 

The huge preferred standpoint with the low rpm/high torque setting is that now you can drive screws and slack fasteners at the low rpm required without trying to hold the trigger in a specific position. The movable grasp will shield you from driving the screw to profound, stripping the screw head, or severing the screw head. The grip will likewise counteract response torque which happens when a bit sticks or screw bottoms out and the bore tries to turn the other way. Likewise, you additionally get higher torque at the low rpm setting that you pass up a great opportunity for when utilizing a standard VSR bore and higher torque implies more screw driving force. 

These drills, by and large, have a slide switch that you use to switch between the 2 settings. In the high RPM setting, the penetrate capacities precisely like a standard VSR bore. In the low rpm/high torque setting, the bore turns into a compelling driver for driving screws and little slack fasteners. Some of these drills may have a third moderate setting that bargains amongst torque and speed enabling you to better match the speed/torque setting to the application.

The VSR pound bore/driver

Do you have to bore into solid, stone, or workmanship? Assuming, in this way, at that point you would need to consider a mallet bore. This kind of bore utilizes a sled or beating activity as the bore turns. The beating activity of the bit is the thing that empowers these drills to chomp into the solid, stone, or workmanship. If you somehow managed to endeavor to utilize a non-pound sort bore, you would experience serious difficulties the solidified solid, stone, or brickwork and would likely overheat the bit or the bit would wind up noticeably stuck in the material. 

When boring into solid, stone, or brickwork you will likewise need no doubt and utilize a workmanship bit. A brickwork bit is exceptionally intended for boring into these materials. Contingent upon the material, the bore and the bit utilized, you can, for the most part, hope to have the capacity to adequately penetrate openings in solid, stone, or brickwork up to around 1/2" in distance across. VSR pound bore/drivers have every one of the capacities of a VSR bore/driver notwithstanding working as a sled bore at the flip of a switch.

Because of their flexibility, pound bore/drivers have turned into a prevalent decision among both expert contractual workers and do-it-yourselfers. Some down to earth use would be, boring openings for embeddings solid stays or TapCon screws for connecting installations, for example, hand railing or light present on solid surfaces or appending apparatuses to solid, piece, stone, or block dividers. A standout amongst the most profoundly and professionally evaluated pound penetrate/drivers available today is the DeWalt DC925KA.

Revolving Hammer Drills

Think about a revolving hammer penetrate as a bigger, all the more capable variant of a mallet bore with a special reward. It additionally works like a little jack pound. These drills are committed to the reason for boring and chipping into solid, stone and brickwork. They are for the most part not expected for penetrating into wood or other comparative materials. Revolving hammer drills utilize an uncommon piece outlined not to slip in the toss. 

The most widely recognized sorts are the SDS and spline drive. The sort of bit you utilize will rely upon the bore. SDS bits come in a few distinct sizes, so you should get the size that matches your bore. On the off chance that you need to penetrate numerous bigger measurement gaps in concrete or stone, at that point this is the kind of dill you require.

As specified, this bore likewise works like a little jack pound. By flipping a turn you can kill the revolving activity, at that point embed an etch bit and you're prepared to go. While revolving hammer drills wouldn't contend with a full estimated jack pound, they are extremely valuable for some littler occupations, for example, expelling fired and stone tile, expelling blocks and pieces from existing divider or floor structures, wearing down undesirable or spilled mortar, chipping the harsh edges from concrete, and expelling overabundance concrete from solid structures or different surfaces.

Generally, rotational mallet drills were the greater part of the corded assortment since cordless batteries were not ready to supply the power expected to work a turning hammer bore. In any case, all that is changing with headways in lithium-particle batteries and power apparatus outline innovation. The ubiquity of cordless rotational mallet drills is developing quickly. 

Some cordless turning hammer drills equal, and may even outperform the execution of their corded partners. One such case is the Bosch 11536VSR which in an HGTVpro control device audit was found to penetrate 1/2" openings in concrete quicker than the apparatus' corded partner.

Effect Drivers/Wrenches

Effect drivers are rapidly turning into a hot thing among temporary workers and do-it-yourselfers and with all the additional advantages of an effect driver, it's no big surprise. In the event that you drive a considerable measure of long screws, slack fasteners, or have a lot of stray pieces you need to amass rapidly and effortlessly, at that point an effect driver is for you.

The effect driver works as a standard VSR bore until the point when the time when additional torque is required. That is the point at which the effect activity kicks in. Try not to mistake this for the sled activity of a mallet penetrate. The distinction is that a mallet bore "hammers" on the bit in a horizontal bearing along the length of the bit as it pivots where an effect driver impacts the hurl of the bore a rotational way. 

The outcome is a tremendous increment in torque. The effect activity additionally causes the screw bit to snatch the sink coming about less slippage, lessening the likelihood of stripping the screw head. To sweeten the deal even further the measure of drive the administrator needs to apply to the bore so as to keep the screw bit from slipping is altogether lessened bringing about less client exhaustion.

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