Welcome to the “supTweet” blog – inspired by the “need for feed”  –  Feb 24, 2020. And two years since I have been able to get back into blogging. I was pardoners by… And the US presidential race has lurched into Donald J. Trump’s 3rd year as President. So secure communications are more important than ever before. With leaks and free speech under attack by the “Post Reality” President we’ll be digging into secure apps – the good and the bad. First up will be Signal, which just added secure video calling. But wait, there’s more. The update opens up a privacy risk inherent in the iOS system and “recent calls”. Coming up, my take-aways from #wpcyber – Washington Post and Symantec’s “Personal Privacy in a Digital World”.

*freebies* Many of my blog’s visitors read my advice and walk-throughs on installing a working Joomla locally on their Mac’s Apache server with MAMP. (coming soon Drupal! and a small local PHP/MySQL example input/output DB) They also take away my free pushpin images to make the web a more beautiful space. *freebie* My coding how-to for taming the wild herds of #’s in your Twitter search/feed widget . Free code,  free experience. “Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want”

Our mission is to share insight and to discuss the latest developments in Internet technology. Right up there is Apple’s iService (cloud powered stores, technologies, etc.) graphic status page. Is iTunes Store down? it’s a great service to check your cloud status. Microsoft’s One Drive / Office 365 Suite is improving and pairs well with Dropbox. It’s great fun to tap away on my trusty iPhone riding NY train and knowing I can finish an item (research for scripts) at will.

 Recent activities:

• I’ve broken off from the DC Independent Film Festival after 4 years of work and success. BUT WAIT! Back on now for 2019 and now 2020 (21st year for this grass-roots event!) Straightening out their ancient online resources to WordPress https://wordpress.com/ was a great boon to the organization. But the best part for me was taking on four years as a coordinator of the festival’s “Summit on the Hill” which is held in Congress during the festival. Choosing a subject, persuading panelists to contribute time and expertise, and managing the entire process has been incredible. 2016 Summit on the Hill  – Here’s a video I created of the 2016 event.
  DCIFF Summit 2016 from DC Independent Film Festival on Vimeo.
• Mixing Bad – chemicals and film  at the DC Independent Film Festival site
• My contributions (list and links)  at China Daily Mail

Anyway, it’s important that citizens hear about the [messy] exploding networked world in plain, interesting—or even sarcastic, English (American variant). Big data can overwhelm comprehension in fact or shall we say, sometimes by intent. Winnowing it for friends and cohorts is important. An informed voter (if you are fortunate enough to be in a nation that has a vote) is way better than a blindly angry and uninformed one, if less predictable. Washington DC Weather right now…

For the paranoid, refresh the fear with my mega-super-tweet on drones here and read about the craziness around the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as heard from Senator Wyden (update: this was recently passed into law).

If you are new to DC and urgently need to meet that lobbyist or pass that “off-the-record bit of insider gossip, here’s help for  getting around in DC and  Metro/Weather/Maps. Please follow me here as I produce articles that leverage a local’s access to some great resources and speakers local to the nation’s capitol city. I take my own photographs. I especially want to express gratitude to organizations like The Atlantic, The Brookings Institute, Ogilvy Public Relations, The Hudson Institute, The Palestine Center, George Mason University, American University, Georgetown University, CodePink, American Enterprise Institute, DC Linktank, CATO Instititute, The Newseum, The Stimson Center, The U.S.-Indonesian Society, The Middle East Institute, SAIS/Johns Hopkins/Nitze, The Library of Congress, China Daily Mail, The Atlantic Council, Busboys and Poets, Institute of World Politics, The Kissinger Institute, The McCain Institute, The Center For National Policy, Resources for the Future, Revenue Watch Institute, World Affairs Council (DC), Nextgov.com, The Heritage Foundation, the Montreal Gazette, PS21 (Project for 21st Century), The Brent Scowfroft Center and Atlantic Council, The National Press Club, CSIS, Center for American Progress, CNN News and the U.S. Congress peanut gallery facility for being open and welcoming me in to many great events. And of course my loving wife who is downstairs texting me to get down there and make coffee. I have completed a local install of both Joomla 1.5 and 2.5.2., 2.5.3 and the JCE editor. Running on my MacBook (OS X 10.6.8) under the Apache server using MAMP. Very cool. I have a very large site to migrate to Joomla this summer and I am studying. I am also installing a local Drupal that is not ready for prime time yet. Today (July 25, 2012) my opinion letter to the Washington Post about the loopy craziness of another “blame it on Obama” diatribe was published. Joy. Thank you, Russ

Related articles

• Joomla Security and Vulnerability Scanning (resources.infosecinstitute.com)
• HOW TO: Change the default 80 port of Apache Server when port 80 is busy with other application (howmenet.wordpress.com)
• Setting Up PHP (The Right Way*) on OS X (chrismcleod.me)
• Global Internet Stats here 2005-2013 at Suptweet (suptweetblog.net)
• Survey shows 70% of Americans think global warming should be a priority, but… (treehugger.com)
• If I were to start from scratch on Twitter, this is what I’d do (jonworth.eu)
• I can hear you and see you, and I’m live-tweeting all of it! (socializedca.com)
• How to Avoid Twitter’s Pitfalls (For Political Types) (abcnews.go.com)

 

Live Updates on the Corona virus (CNN)

It’s February 24, 2020 and the corona virus is spreading around the planet. There’s a lot happening and we’ll have more information going forward.

As I head off to a large funeral gathering near San Fransisco from Virginia, I am thinking of picking up a face mask – not fun—for there will be large crowd, some from overseas.

Here’s CNN’s live update link with this url for copy-pasters “https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-02-24-20-hnk-intl/index.html”  and a live link here CNN Live Updates.

It’ll be a cold day in Burma

A Cold Day In Burma

By Russell Imrie

February 9, 2018

A few days ago the 2018 Winter Olympics took off great with ceremony at PyongChang, Republic of Korea (“South Korea”). That a very unlikely competing country, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“North Korea”) marched in the opening festivities is amazing, given that the two sovereign states have been locked in an unresolved conflict since 1953 when an uneasy armistice began following a short, intense war.

That a prosperous and democratic South Korea even thinks of accommodating the North says a lot about the South’s confidence and progressive outlook—and the pariah North’s need for respect and global credibility as a nation.

This astonishing turn of events is one more step in South Korea’s historic path to establishing itself as a modern, dynamic Pacific nation with a vibrant economy and a place as regional power.

Myanmar’s (Burma) story now lies in strong contrast to South Korea’s narrative. At the end of the 1950-53 war, Korea was in utter ruins and had scant natural resources. Things looked bleak. Burma, another Asian country (now known as Myanmar), was in a similar condition but had rich mineral, forest, and agricultural advantages like fertile land, water, and a favorable climate. The steps each took to evolve their economies in the coming decades have led to vastly different outcomes. SE Asia expert and advisor Dr. David Steinberg, in “Myanmar and South Korea Expert Discusses the Reasons Why the Two Countries Upended Their Development Expectations, September 18, 2017” states that the strikingly contrasting conditions are primarily the result of two contrasting polities.

Myanmar is a country of abundant natural resources, and yet is still one of Asia’s poorest countries. This situation is in part due to recent political turmoil.

Myanmar’s economy, with large deposits of ores to support it, should have lifted the nation to a thriving economic giant and lifted the welfare of its people. Instead, authoritarian regimes controlled by a corrupt military and cronies have hobbled the nation and rejected foreign ideas and management expertise. Its economy and politics, despite the recent relaxing of junta-like control, are more than ever in desperate shape. Religious conflict and ethnic cleansing sees hundreds of thousands of Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh, itself struggling with its own challenges.

Korea’s post-conflict military regime though, exercised intelligient discipline by encouraging a free economy and foreign expertise. The ravaged mountains and cities were populated by an energetic population that could build ventures and were open to imaginative products.

The “my country first” economic model re-emerging as a populist meme ignores this fundamental lesson of national development: “It will be a cold day in Myanmar when the chains of authoritarianism will bless its peoples with freedom and prosperity.”