Confusion all round

 

I'm cynically amused at the reactions popping off like fireworks all over the political scene after the results of Tuesday's mid-term elections.  I expected the Democratic Party to do well, although not as well as it did.  I expected the Republican Party to lose ground, but not as much as it did.  The signs were not hard to see, and not hard to read.

Unfortunately, this means many topics of importance to conservatives, particularly the transsexuality brouhaha, the battle for Second Amendment rights, the reform (or otherwise) of our political and judicial system, etc. are going to be very much in play during the second half of President Trump's second term in office.  Sure, he has a veto, and he's threatened to use it:  but if he does so every time a bill reaches his desk, his political opponents will (quite rightly) portray him as a man who cares nothing for his country, but only for getting his own way.  Similarly, if his opponents try to bedevil him by passing bills that are in direct opposition to all he stands for, they need not be surprised if he refuses to play their game.  There's going to have to be compromise, and a lot of it, if our nation's government is to fulfil its purpose.  Can compromise be achieved?  One wonders . . .

I fear greatly that a culture of revenge may take root.  Block us when we're a minority?  Then we'll do exactly the same to you when we're a majority.  Work in an enterprise to which we're ideologically opposed (cough*SpaceX*cough)?  Then we'll do our best to undermine and overrule your enterprise at every opportunity.  Both sides have been guilty of this in the past.  If Democrats try to do it again, in a country as bitterly divided as is ours right now, sparks may fly - literally.

I dropped in at a local gun store on Wednesday morning, deliberately, to try to assess the reaction of staff and customers.  I was the second person in line, and within half an hour there were eight or nine more.  Almost without exception, they all wanted to look at - and many bought - the suppressors on display at one counter.  They all expect the Democratic Party to try to legislatively re-enact the tight controls over suppressors that were suspended a few months ago.  They were making sure to buy theirs, even if the models available weren't exactly what they wanted or cost more than they could immediately afford, for fear they might not be able to do so in future.

While we were there, the store owner received notification that two suppressor manufacturers had just implemented steep price increases;  and he told us that others had said they would not be able to increase production in a hurry to cater to a sudden increase in demand.  What's in stock right now will have to last, with some additional production, until the New Year.  I don't think that gun shop will have any suppressors at all in stock by Thursday morning.  Ammunition, too, is selling fast.  SGAmmo, my favorite online vendor, announced yesterday:

"We have seen a surge in ammo sales this past week, with a massive increase in the number of consumers placing orders, as well as the size of those orders, with daily sales numbers double to three times normal over the past 7 days and demand continuing to rise, reaching its highest point since March or 2026 ... With nothing expected but more factory price increases in the months ahead, and very significant potential for demand to spike, I can say with certainty that it would be a wise time to stock up. Conditions and pricing in the ammo market are not going to get better any time soon as high copper and energy prices continue to translate into increased manufacturing costs and reductions in stockpiled materials and products. If demand continues to stay high for much longer, there would be major shortages on popular ammo products very soon."

Their warnings have proved prescient in the past.  Fortunately, I don't need to worry.  I've already got mine.

Uncertainty always does things like that.  Stock up on what one considers essential, for fear the "others" may make it less available, or not available at all.  I guess we'll be seeing a lot of that for a while.

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  From SGAmmo this morning:

"Yesterday, demand reached its highest point since March or 2020 when Covid-19 kicked off the biggest rush to buy ammo in history. It would be wise to buy sooner than later while we still have good options in stock. At this point I can almost guarantee that there will be a series of factory price increases in the weeks months ahead with many of the major factories following the lead of others. If demand continues to stay high for much longer, there would be major shortages that will last months to years before the market can be replenished."

Creating a crisis - or responding to signals we can't yet hear?

 

I'm sure many readers are aware of the sudden rush of articles and media reports, recommending that we make sure we have enough supplies stockpiled to take care of sudden, unexpected shortages.  Periods range from a week to 90 days, depending on who's talking.  The quality and trustworthiness of the warnings varies widely.  The more alarmist ones I tend to discount.  The ones that are based on solid evidence and knowledgeable analysis, I listen to more carefully.

One of the very best analyses I've read recently is "The Coming Food Crisis May Look Nothing Like a Crisis Until It’s Too Late".  It doesn't speak about the short term so much as how a long-building crisis will reveal itself over time.  As such, it'll repay reading more than once as you think about it.  You won't agree with all the author's points, but I suspect most of them are carefully thought through.  Here's a brief excerpt.

This article rests on three kinds of claims, and it is worth keeping them apart. First come the demonstrated problems: measured facts about the age of farmers, the drawdown of aquifers, the concentration of meatpacking, the cost of inputs, the price of food. Then comes an interpretation, which is mine and can be argued with: the suggestion that these separate trends, taken together, are eroding the system’s ability to absorb a shock. Last come scenarios, which are conditional rather than predictive, describing what could happen over the next decade or two if several pressures arrive at once and little changes. The text will say which is which as it goes.

What follows is not a forecast of collapse. It is an attempt to look past the grocery aisle at the people who grow the food, the water and soil they depend on, the infrastructure that moves it, and the habits of a public that has rarely had a reason to worry.

There's a lot more at the link.  Highly recommended.

As for more immediate problems and how to prepare for them, there are literally dozens of articles, both mainstream and otherwise, that address the issue.  Here are a few that caught my eye.

• A Reminder from Kim du Toit.
• "The Fear Mongering Going On Right Now Is Near Covid Levels" from Bustednuckles.
• "5 countries. 6 warnings. 1 week..." on X.
• "Government advises households to prepare national crisis ‘emergency kit’ " from the Telegraph in Britain.
• Also from Britain, " 'State-sponsored attacks' may cause food shortages, Streeting warns", from the Independent.
• "Nine Days from the Dark: What Sixty Million People Learned About Water, Warmth and Medicine During Spain’s Ten-Hour Blackout" by John Walter.
• "Fortress America - Outside the Gates - Why 90 Days Matters" on YouTube from Monkey Werx, referring to the US Secretary of War's warning that all military bases must prepare to sustain themselves without input from the local population for up to 90 days.

I'm not wanting to panic-monger here.  I've prepared for trouble for a long time, and I'm reasonably sure that my wife and I can weather up to 90 days of deprivation - apart from critical supplies such as water - without too much difficulty.  However, I know many people are nowhere near as prepared for trouble.  If things went badly wrong, very quickly - for example, urban unrest cutting off incoming food supplies in the wake of a disputed election result, or something like that - the more people who are prepared to look after themselves, the better.

One of the things that far too few "preppers" have adequately considered, IMHO, is the question of local authorities and law enforcement agencies seeking to confiscate the supplies of those who've prepared for an emergency.  They'll be labelled as "hoarders" and "selfish" for refusing to share.  The mass of the population, who won't have prepared as they should, will almost certainly echo such sentiments and demand that our supplies be handed over as our "fair share" towards coping with the disaster.  How are we going to handle such a situation?  If you think you can shoot your way out of it, you're living in cloud cuckoo land.  You might be able to fight off the first couple of police officers, but when a dozen of them show up, supported by a couple of dozen armed people from your neighborhood?  Not a chance.  There are ways to minimize the risk, and the loss, under such circumstances, but I won't go into them here.

Meanwhile, I suggest we all read at least a few of the articles mentioned above, particularly the first one, and behave like wise virgins rather than foolish ones.

Peter

Computer bugs, legacy programs, and the coming crime wave

 

Eric S. Raymond, well-known computer systems author and commenter, recently commented on the potential usefulness of artificial intelligence to detect and fix errors in computer software.  He observed on X:

I have to agree with him:  if we turn a blind eye to the capacity of AI to fix past errors, we basically give in to cybercriminals who will have no hesitation in using AI to find such errors, and then to exploit them rather than fix them.

The scale of the problem was recently revealed.

The prevalence of COBOL is hard to overstate. Created in 1959, the “common business-oriented language” is still widely used today. According to IBM, COBOL underpins over 40 percent of online banking systems, facilitates 80 percent of in-person credit card transactions, and manages 95 percent of ATM transactions. It also supports various government systems, including Social Security and IRS operations. One estimate suggests that COBOL’s inefficiencies cost the US GDP around $105 billion annually.

However, replacing COBOL is no easy task. The same goes for other legacy programming languages like Fortran, which are still utilized in scientific computing, weather forecasting, and critical nuclear security codes. These systems are often too vital to risk breaking, and many of the programmers who once understood them have retired or passed away.

. . .

In its latest update, OpenAI shared encouraging results in migrating COBOL code to more contemporary programming languages such as C++, Java, Kotlin, Python, and Rust, all while preserving the original software’s functionality ... “These evaluation results demonstrate progress toward more accurate, affordable code migration for teams modernizing the software their businesses depend on,” OpenAI stated.

. . .

Experts ... caution that the advancements highlighted by OpenAI are still far from enabling the safe replacement of critical legacy systems ... When dealing with systems as critical as those running on COBOL, experts stress the need for absolute certainty that replacements function correctly. “In many cases, even minor differences in system behavior before and after migration are unacceptable,” Zaytsev noted. While AI can certainly provide efficiencies and speed, the complexity of legacy systems means that partial automation isn’t sufficient.

“Suppose you have a magic AI wand that handles 99 percent of your code,” Zaytsev said. “What do you do with the remaining 1 percent? That 1 percent can be a million lines of code, scattered throughout the system and potentially failing in ways you can’t even imagine.”

There's more at the link.

I couldn't agree more, particularly given that "legacy" code - originally written years or even decades ago, and since then updated and maintained in operation because of various pressures that made it uneconomic to replace - can now be almost impossible to update any further, because of the myriad internal cross-references and patchings over the years.  Let me give you an example.

Way back when, I wrote the main computer program for BP South Africa's Price Book system.  Every day, this program ran in batch mode to update the price charged for every single item sold by BP - engine fuels, lubricants, chemicals, whatever.  When I was given the task to write it, I recommended that I do so in modular fashion:  one program for fuels, one for lubricants, one for chemicals, one for specialized products, and so on.  That way, if any one category needed a major update, its specialized program could be modified and updated without affecting the rest of the Price Book system.  However, I was told that wasn't acceptable.  I had to write one program covering every product in BP's catalog.  Rolling my eyes a little, I set to work.

By the time I finished, if I recall correctly, the program was 6-7,000 lines of COBOL code.  It called in dozens of computer files, moved data around through hundreds of working-storage entries to hold interim calculations and results, and had a test data file of over 5,000 product entries.  It took almost a year to write, test, correct, re-test, etc. and get it into production.

By the time I left South Africa in the mid-1990's, I was told that the program now had a team of three programmers permanently assigned to it;  a lead analyst/programmer designing the updates and fixes, and two programmers to implement them.  It had grown to more than twice the original size, and all of the documentation I had left with it was so far out of date it was almost useless.  The source code and diagrams of section activity were filled with handwritten notes, exclamation points, and even a few profanities.  That wasn't due to anything lacking in the program as I'd handed it over:  it was because so many modifications and changes had come down the pike that one single, monolithic program could not cope with their rapidity.  It wasn't unusual for one fix to be in preparation (design), one to be in the implementation phase (programming and testing), and one going into production - simultaneously.  If it was that bad then, I shudder to think what it's like today . . . assuming it's still in use, of course.

Now, imagine trying to analyze a program like that using AI.  It's comparatively small compared to some very large systems out there, yet I think most AI agents and systems would battle to follow all the convolutions of the design, the code and the output.  Whether authorized or malicious, they'd have a doozy on their hands!

Unfortunately, there are a lot of systems like that out there.  As Mr. Raymond says, "the only way out is through".  We have to gain control of the mess of our legacy systems, because if we don't, malicious actors will use them to rob us blind.  Let the battle begin!

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 334

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Halloween, courtesy of Stephan Pastis

 

Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.

That made me cackle loudly . . .

Peter