Author: Kelly Adams

This author has written 702 articles

A gentleman’s pocket knife…

Many years ago, in my late 20s, I briefly had the habit of carrying a pocket knife.  It wasn’t a very good knife to be honest: I’m not sure where I got it from.  But I liked having it- it was handy, particularly given the fact that I was living a somewhat ‘rural’ life at the time.  But I got out of the habit, and misplaced the knife.

Several instances recently convinced me that it would be good to start carrying a pocket knife again.  This time, though, I did some research.  I probably bought more knife than I really need: say hello to the DPx HEAT/F Titanium.

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Words of wisdom on choosing a career… not so easy, actually

My brother Ron and his two daughters, Rebeca and Sophia, visited a couple of days ago.  We had a barbecue and some good conversation: I really enjoyed the visit.

My niece Rebeca is about to enter high school, which is amazing in itself.  More amazing is that she asked me for some advice on whether pursuing computer science / IT was a good choice.  I tried to share some ‘wisdom’, but I found it surprisingly difficult to give good advice.  This is a crazy old world, and who knows what the future holds?  So I thought I’d post some of my thoughts here in a bit more detail. 

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Totally misunderstanding the lessons of Nazi Germany

A senior Republican member of the US Government went to Auschwitz recently as reported in the Daily Beast.  Rep. Clay Higgins decided it was perfectly acceptable to record a video blog while standing in the gas chambers where over a million Jews were murdered.  Possibly worse, his recorded message revealed a complete lack of understanding of what happened in Nazi Germany, what the Holocaust was about, and what it should have taught us to fear.

The Nazi's were the bad guys...

Nazi Germany: Fascist xenophobic racist ultra-nationalist state, *not* terrorists

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Power washers- the Karcher is dead, long live the Sun Joe

I have owned several electric power washers over my life, all of which were more or less suitable to my limited needs.  I use them to clean my deck, wash my car, and wash my motorcycle: nothing heavy.  And every single power washer I’ve owned has failed me in some way or another.  This post is an overview of my power washer history and an introduction to my latest ‘pending failure’: the Sun Joe SPX3001

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Space… its big- there’s lots of space out there, right?

I’m a strong advocate for the exploration of space.  I also firmly believe that we need humans out there.  Yes, use robotics to validate assumptions, but please let’s get humans on the surface of the Moon and Mars before I die of old age.  

But I also think Donald Trump is one of the most comically inept and arguably outright ignorant human beings to walk the Earth.  The man quite seriously disgusts me, and strains my ability to show respect for the office of President of the United States, or for the citizens of that country that elected this dumpster fire on legs.  So when Donald Trump signs one of his famous Executive Orders in support of space exploration with Buzz Aldrin, an honest to goodness hero, standing beside him, I’m really, really torn.

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Disruptions in our furry family

My wife and I love our critters, in particular our feline family. It has been the norm during our 27 years together for us to have something like six or seven cats sharing our household. This isn’t ‘by design’, but it seems to work out that way.

For the first time in a while, however, we are down to five cats in our house. And it is a hard change to accept.

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Improving the performance of WordPress: my experiences

I recently upgraded my web server hardware and so, in that spirit, it seemed like a good time to refresh the configuration of my blog software.  I had previously made several attempts to ‘make it fast’, but with only limited improvement.  This time, however, I seem to have made some good progress… read below the fold for some details of my effort.

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Upgrading the ‘kgadams.net’ web server

You will have undoubtedly noticed that my blog here has been down over the past several days if you’ve been trying to visit. Have no fear!

I completed a hardware upgrade of the server behind kgadams.net. While I was at it, I upgraded the OS (Fedora) to the latest version, and did some initial ‘tweaking’ to improve WordPress performance. Details follow below if you are interested….

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Griddle for the grill- The Little Griddle

I am not a cook. But on the rare occasions when I do make food, the barbecue is one of my primary implements. I suspect it appeals to something primal in me that a stove in the house does not: either that, or it is just easier to clean up.

I decided I wanted to get a griddle when we replaced our 20 year old barbecue this year. In my imagination I was cooking bacon, pancakes, sausage, and eggs on that griddle- my imaginary cooking is pretty awesome. So I wanted an awesome griddle, and seem to have found one: the Little Griddle stainless steel ‘professional’ series griddle.

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