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Once long ago, I was given this SOAP API to interact with.

Now I have no love of SOAP, but at least it fairly rigidly defines the API across different programming languages and technology stacks.

The well defined API consisted of a single function that accepted and returned a string. You passed it JSON and it returned JSON.

But it is a real SOAP API!!! Yes!, it really is SOAP I tell you!

It also had no real provision to return or deal with errors. How about an error field in every result that I can check? And with a numerical code AND a meaningful message that I can pass on to the end user? (And record in my server logs.)

There were a lot of actual underlying API calls present. (in JSON form) (But it's really SOAP I was told.) These API calls were somewhat documented; mechanically from PHP. The real implementation didn't always comply with the documentation however. Results sometimes were, ahem, loosey goosey. (like php maybe?) Over time the returned JSON structures changed from what they originally once were -- without any notice to anyone that might be using this API. There was clearly nothing rigidly enforcing the format on the other end.

Definitely not maintained in the more formal way I would have done it. With API version numbers for newer versions of the official API.

Eventually this other thing fell into disuse.

安倍 晋三
        Why is the Japanese Prime Minister's name spelled “Abe”?
        Written Japanese has a completely different alphabet than ours, so any Japanese speech written in English must be the sounds of that words “translated” into English.
        But in English, Abe doesn’t spell his name. It spells Abraham Lincoln’s nickname. It would be the correct spelling in Spanish, but not English. So why are we not spelling it “Ahbay”?
        Seriously, does no one THINK any more??

goog removes video of Rand Paul speaking on the senate floor

https://www.salon.com/2020/02/13/rand-paul-rips-youtube-after-it-yanks-video-of-him-naming-alleged-whistleblower-this-is-dangerous/

Paul is playing dumb and saying he doesn't know who the "whistleblower" is, but in this situation why not? If you musn't say X then dare the censors to clarify what X is.

Background

Microsoft suddenly realizes . . . OMG . . . the internet is NOT just a fad, as Bill Gates had famously said.

OMG, web applications on browsers could make non-Windows platforms competitive! OMG!

Microsoft scrambled. Needs a browser. (classic) Mac already has good internet connectivity baked right in, and a couple good browsers (at that time). Microsoft finds company SpyGlass that makes the SpyGlass browser for Windows. Microsoft buys SpyGlass for $100,000 up front, plus royalty percent of sales. Renames the product Internet Explorer. Guess how many copies of IE are ever sold? Zero.

Microsoft then, over coming years, spends $150 million on IE to develop it into a 'great' browser, if you're a Windows only developer. With addictively great features (if you're a Windows developer). To create a Microsoftized "internet" that excludes non-Windows systems from running web applications. Windows developers (the monopoly) will naturally target IE as their favorite browser. Especially since it has such addictively great sugar coated features.

To further cement a Microsoft-only internet, there is IIS and Front Page.

(aside: Front Page has a four page license agreement, among its terms is that if you create a web site using Front Page, you cannot ever disparage Microsoft, Expedia, and a list of other Microsoft properties. Thus if you visit any web site, and it has tags in the html header section indicating it was created by Front Page, then you know just how credible that web site is when it comes to Microsoft.)

It's like a story of evil, upon evil, upon evil.

Fast Forward

IE loses. Standardization wins. At some point FireFox share goes over 50% and suddenly Microsoft is in panic mode again. IE share is declining. Also this new upstart Chrome browser is gaining market share. So in panic mode a 'kinder gentler' IE that is a bit more standards compliant: IE7.

But not good enough, so IE 8, IE 9, etc. Each becoming more standard compliant. But Microsoft find this is hard to do when the very purpose of IE was to break standards compatibility.

Then Edge, which is an admission that IE has failed. A humorous TV ad by Microsoft about how IE sucks and Edge isn't quite so terrible. You should try it.

Recently

Then Microsoft throws in the towel on Edge, and change its guts to Chromium.

Wow.

Rewind 20 years

Edge is based on Chromium. (Microsoft's doing)
Chromium is based on WebKit. (Google's doing)
WebKit is based on . . . (Apple's doing)
Konqueror.

Remember KDE 3? About 2000. (Before the pooch screw of KDE 4?) It had this cool browser called Konqueror.

In about 2000 I remember reading this on the green site.

First comes the Navigator.
Then comes the Explorer.
Then comes the Konqueror.

Wow. How true those words turned out to be!

How many billions going forward would be saved by cutting SLS from the budget? Maybe that's a good place to start?

And get Mexico to pay for the wall! He vowed to do that in his campaign.

And don't build a wall along the Southern border. Build a Wal-mart along the length of the entire Southern border. Workers can come in from the south. Shoppers can come in from the North to buy foods high in fat, salt and sugar at low, low prices.

Remodel the current SLS hardware into a novel restaurant.

Congressman Schneider goes after the NRA tax exempt status, but he has a problem himself.....

Updated: an hour ago

On 2/6, Congressman Schneider escalated the attacks on the NRA’s tax exempt status.

https://www.thetrace.org/rounds/congressman-escalates-call-for-irs-probe-of-nra-citing-trace-reporting/

Democratic Representative Brad Schneider of Illinois reiterated his call for an Internal Revenue Service investigation into the National Rifle Association, citing the Trace’s April 2019 investigation with The New Yorker. In a new report released on February 6, he compiled numerous allegations of self-dealing and financial misconduct at the gun rights nonprofit and concluded that “American taxpayers are subsidizing the NRA’s scheme.”

        A member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Schneider last year requested documents from the NRA and its vendors as he sought more information on possible violations of its tax-exempt status. But he says the organization stonewalled his queries and blocked its former public relations firm, Ackerman McQueen, from cooperating.

Ok, fine (even though that whole thing with the New Yorker was an orchestrated hit job by Everytown). But what about Rep Schneider’s past dealings/influence over not for profits, specifically Everytown/Moms Demand Action?

So, the congressman contacted Moms Demand Action and asked them to contact public schools (taxpayer funded) in order to setup an event for him by using Everytown’s resources. The email that MDA sent states Schneider told them to do it. Schneider, on the other hand.....

https://schneider.house.gov/media/brads-newsletter/newsletter-school-safety-proposal-passes-house-representatives

On Saturday, I had the chance to meet and speak with students from more than a dozen area schools at a workshop program organized by Moms Demand Action. These young people are incredible. Their passion and energy are changing the debate on gun safety and setting an example for their elected leaders.

Uh, Congressman, MDA said YOU wanted them to organize it in 3/9/18 email. So which is it? Maybe this should be investigated further, as if you’re able to use a not for profit to setup events for your own purpose, that’s a huge no no in the 501C world.

It’s also interesting that Rep. Schneider is the one who spearheaded the investigation into the NRA in Congress two months after his little event in March.

https://schneider.house.gov/sites/schneider.house.gov/files/2019.05.09-%20Rep.%20Schneider_Tax-Exempt%20Enforcement%20Letter_IRS_FINAL.pdf

https://www.mom-at-arms.com/post/congressman-schneider-goes-after-the-nra-tax-exempt-status-but-he-has-a-problem-himself

Dear Mr. Trump,
For your cyber convenience, here is a selected subset of Bash exit codes I have compiled just for you:

1 Operation not permitted
2 No such file or directory
13 Permission denied
25 Inappropriate ioctl for device
29 Illegal seek
31 Too many links
32 Broken pipe
52 Invalid exchange
57 Invalid slot
62 Timer expired
67 Link has been severed
69 Srmount error
74 Bad message
78 Remote address changed
87 Too many users
95 Operation not supported
111 Connection refused
113 No route to host
117 Structure needs cleaning
125 Operation cancelled
126 Required key not available
128 Key has been revoked
129 Key was rejected by service
130 Owner died

Windows 10 vs. Ubuntu Linux Performance On A $199 AMD Ryzen Laptop

This $210 AMD Ryzen laptop may well be the best-value business notebook ever

Motile 14" Laptop: Ryzen 3, 1080p, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD ($199)
Motile 14" Laptop: AMD Ryzen 5, 14" 1080p, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD ($299)

MOTILE 14 Review $299 RYZEN 5 3500U Performance Laptop Amazing Value! (10m40s video)
$299 MOTILE 14" Performance Laptop Emulation Test - RYZEN 5 3500U (11m50s video)
External GPU On A $300 Walmart Laptop! MOTILE 14 + Radeon RX590 (10m52s video) (lol)

These $200-$300 laptops have a stellar reputation compared to the $80 landfill-tier EVOO 10.1 tablet that Walmart is associated with.

The main problems are probably single-channel RAM (although at least it can be upgraded), apparently a crappy Wi-Fi card, no USB-C charging, and they are Zen+. It's possible that Zen 2 "Renoir" could allow 4 or 6 cores in place of what is currently 2 or 4 cores, although it would take a while for prices to drop down to these levels.

Personally, I might take a break from laptops and try building a small form factor PC using Zen 4 (AM5 socket), which may be released in 2021. AM5 should support "mainstream" CPUs with at least 24 cores, possibly 32 cores.

Also, @krishnoid, Lenovo 100e is at $99.