Canopyflyer

Because it is a LOT more complicated than that.

Not all rheumatological diseases are due to the immune system’s memory. As a case in point, Ankylosing Spondylitis is theorized as being caused by a mis-folded HLA-B27 protein response. The mis-folded protein response is caused by cellular stress, at least that is the theory. The lead singer of Imagine Dragon Dan Reynolds suffers from this disease. So there are people out there suffering from it, it’s not just some disease out in left field no one has heard of before.

Are there diseases that could be treated by clearing the immune system’s memory? Possibly, but there would also be consequences for that as well. Mainly, because the actual method by which the memory works is not completely understood.

Disclaimer: My wife is a Rheumatologist that does both basic research and clinical work. What I wrote above is based on what I have gleaned from her over the years. Any mistakes or misconceptions are strictly mine. I’m just an old IT guy and have never studied medicine.

Princess Bride

Strictly Ballroom

Paul

LOTR

I’ve been an IT Professional for almost 30 years and have had to keep up with the computer industry that entire time. These days, I’m more in management and processes, so no more sitting in front of a console with a pager on my hip.

During the technical portion of my career, I was a full +10, at least for computers and associated technologies used in very large enterprise environments.

In my personal life, I’m ore of a +2 or +3. I usually have the previous year’s flagship phone (my current phone is a Pixel 8 Pro) and keep it till it dies. My audio electronics are mostly from the 90’s, because they are high end components (McIntosh) that I have taken decades to procure. Some of which I actually had to fix in order for them to be usable.

All the computers in my house I bought used and refurbed myself. I think the newest one is my computer and it’s a Dell Precision 7550 and it’s at least 4 years old. The network in my house is more current. My router/firewall one of Ubiquiti’s latest and greatest, although both WAPs in my house are about 7 years old. My previous firewall was PFSense that I ran on a VM on Proxmox. It became too much of a pain if there was an issue with Proxmox, then there was an issue with the internet, although I did have a backup, so I decided to just separate the two.

1970 Chevrolet Impala: Liberty (I bought it from a guy in Liberty, KY).

1997 Nissan 200SX SE-R: Dot (It was Pacific Blue)

2003 Acura TL: Sally (Generic name for a generic car)

2014 Camry LE: Pearl (It was Cosmic Mica Gray which gave the car a pearlescent sheen).

I currently have a 2019 Camry Hybrid XLE, but have yet to name it. I’m leaning toward “Betty”, because the car has so many warnings, alarms, and notifications that I feel like I’m being bitched at when I drive it.

I have owned several cars over the years that I never named. My absolute favorite car I’ve ever owned was a 1985 Corolla GT-S that I raced in Pro Solo for a few years and it never received a name. The next car I owned was a 1992 Sentra SE-R and it never got a name either. Also had a 1969 Chevelle that I drag raced in my teen years, but no name there.

House on the Rock

When I moved to Wisconsin back in 2006, House on the Rock was one of the first things I heard about from my neighbors to go see. My wife and I looked at the website and said “we’ll go see it someday.” Well, that day was about a month ago as back then we started having kids and getting used to living in a new place. However, over the past 19 years I’ve had people tell me that “you’ve got to go see it.”

Now… I understand.

Is that place a monument to a man’s ascent to brilliance?

Or his decent into madness.

There was stuff in that museum that I took DAYS to process and I still really am unable to understand what it was I was looking at. It took my family and I FOUR hours to walk through it. It could have been a LOT longer if we actually stopped to study more than what we did.

I’m 55 years old and I’ve seen and done a lot things in my life… None of it prepared me for the sheer onslaught that is House on the Rock. Walking out of it I told my wife that I rather chaffed at the entrance fee when I paid it… Now, I’m not sure if they charged enough.

If you’re ever anywhere close to South Central Wisconsin… Take a day and go see it.

It doesn’t just live up to the hype… It so far exceeds it that trying to explain the place will never do it justice.

Manfred Mann’s cover of Blinded by the Light has entered the chat. Probably the most misheard lyrics in the entire history of modern music.

It’s “Revved up like a deuce.”

Wait… Manfred Mann’s version is a cover? Yep, Blinded by the Light was originally performed Bruce Springsteen.

Yes and I will stand by that statement.

Yes, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are also brilliant movies. Both movies are also in Frost and Pegg’s exact wheelhouse, Britain.

Paul is another step above, because they so perfectly encapsulated the stupidity of a completely different country and culture. That’s why I like it a bit better. Name US writers/ actors that could do the same thing for Britain? I certainly cannot.

Paul (2011) IMHO Frost and Pegg’s best movie. Not sure why it’s not rated higher, it is simply brilliant.

The Last Starfighter (1984) Epic sci fi flick that was the first to use 3D rendered computer animation. The effects do NOT hold up, but the story sure does.

Chronicles of Riddick (2004) Sequel to Pitch Black and I personally like it much better. Admittedly, that’s due to I like that Riddick aims more to sci fi and Pitch Black toward horror. If you like horror more, then you’d probably like Pitch Black better.

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That photo is from when the gas main blew up right?

I was working at AmFam at the time.

Skydiving

Skydivers are not adrenaline (epinephrine) junkies. Adrenaline actually makes you feel terrible. You know that rush and shakes you get when you get hungry? Yeah, THAT’S an adrenaline rush.

No, we go for the same thing runners do. Endorphins. Nature’s own anti-depressant.

Over 150 Major Incidents in a single month.

Formerly, I was on the Major Incident Response team for a national insurance company. IT Security has always been in their own ivory tower in every company I’ve worked for. But this company IT Security department was about the worst case I’ve ever seen up until that time and since.

They refused to file changes, or discuss any type of change control with the rest of IT. I get that Change Management is a bitch for the most of IT, but if you want to avoid major outages, file a fucking Change record and follow the approval process. The security directors would get some hair brained idea in a meeting in the morning and assign one of their barely competent techs to implement it that afternoon. They’d bring down what ever system they were fucking with. Then my team had to spend hours, usually after business hours, figuring out why a system, which had not seen a change control in two weeks, suddenly stopped working. Would security send someone to the MI meeting? Of course not. What would happen is, we would call the IT Security response team and ask if anything changed on their end. Suddenly 20 minutes later everything was back up and running. With the MI team not doing anything. We would try to talk to security and ask what they changed. They answered “nothing” every god damn time.

They got their asses handed to them when they brought down a billing system which brought in over $10 Billion (yes with a “B”) a year and people could not pay their bills. That outage went straight to the CIO and even the CEO sat in on that call. All of the sudden there was a hard change freeze for a month and security was required to file changes in the common IT record system, which was ServiceNow at the time.

We went from 150 major outages (defined as having financial, or reputation impact to the company) in a single month to 4 or 5.

Fuck IT Security. It’s a very important part of of every IT Department, but it is almost always filled with the most narcissistic incompetent asshats of the entire industry.