The insane political campaigns and the media frenzies have ended at least for a time. It appears that the losing side’s political organization is in complete disarray, chaos and too busy finger pointing and blaming-gaming to cause any real trouble in the streets,
The media is too busy reeling from their failure and will be quiescent for a time.
So for at least a few weeks, maybe even months, we should be able to enjoy some peace and quiet and calm.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
The Librarian
Guess they know something we don’t. But it is a little heartening to know that at least someone in the Federal Government takes the issue seriously. Of course in the event of a Grid Down situation you now know where all of the refugees will be headed.
The Librarian
Some updates:
Since early this year about the time I got the site moved to the new server I’ve been having some somewhat debilitating, though expected to be temporary, health issues that have made working on the site or doing much dedicated computer time difficult.
It’s not that I don’t want to continue working on the site it’s just been difficult. I expect that to be resolved fairly soon before the end of the year.
In the outside world we’re coming up on an election that will be like none before in our history.
If one side wins the U.S. will quickly become a One Party State like California and rapidly decline into economic failure likely followed by social collapse of our major cities. Think the streets of LA nationwide. If the other side wins we’re likely to see violence in the streets of pretty much every major city in the country as well as a bureaucracy which simply refuses to carry out instructions.
In an even more dangerous scenario an incoming Congress could refuse to certify the Electoral College winner, disqualify that candidate and instead certify the Electoral College loser as the new President. That scenario could literally spark a Civil War in the U.S.
That any of those situations are actually possible and in fact probable says the country is in a dire situation with no easy or simple solutions.
I urge everyone to stay alert, keep your heads down, avoid public spaces after Election Day until things are sorted out.
The Librarian
The link below is a good non-technical article on what the Solar Maximum actually is.
We’re currently moving into that Solar Maximum which peaks next summer. Should be an interesting period.
The Librarian
I quit trying to post every flare as they occurred since they have been occurring pretty steadily all day, every day for the past week.
We are just exiting this major CME that caused Auroras to be see as far South as Texas and Florida.
I imagine they will continue and will hopefully be little more than curiosities.
https://redstate.com/wardclark/2024/10/11/aurora-borealis-shining-down-on-dallas-n2180459
The Librarian
Another X Class Flare to start off the week. Just an X 2.1 but that’s still on up there.
There are currently 6 sunspots pointed this way and NOAA predicts a 75% chance of M Class Flares and a 30% chance of X Class Flares.
You just know it’s a Monday.
The Librarian
The same sunspot that threw out the X-7.1 flare two days ago just threw out an X-9.0 flare today. No word yet on a potential CME from it.
The CME from the X-7.1 flare on Tuesday, 2 days ago, has been detected and is expected to arrive tomorrow 10-4.
Fortunately it’s a fairly diffuse one and wont produce more than a moderate G3 Geomagnetic storm here.
I’ll be glad when THIS sunspot rotates away. It’s a bit too frisky for my liking.
The Librarian
The messy sunspot, AR3842, just blasted out an X-7.1 flare. Scientists are waiting on Satellite reading to see if there is a CME coming this way from it.
If there is we could see some sensational Auroras pretty far south. Hopefully a 7.1 isn’t enough to do any significant damage.
And we’re still 9 months form the Peak of this cycle.
The Librarian
We’re just over 40 days from the Presidential Election in Nov.
If you’ve been reading the news and keep abreast of the positions of everyone running then you likely have concerns about the aftermath of the the election.
If one side wins then there will almost certainly be violence in the streets in reaction. That violence will continue indefinitely. Those living in major cities will need to exercise extreme caution. If the other side wins then government inserting itself into our lives will almost certainly increase dramatically along with the suppression of speech and dissent. Worst of all there will likely be Price Controls imposed. If imposed on food then there will almost certainly be rapid food shortages as occurs whenever Price Controls are imposed.
Vote however you like. Quite bluntly I have little faith in the U.S. Election system and believe it to be fatally compromised. The “results” of the election come down to how many Ballots are counted for each side and between election day when the polls close and the end of counting I expect lots and lots of “Ballots” will be discovered and counted.
In the last two national elections there were counties where the number of “Ballots” counted significantly exceeded the number of registered voters in the county. I expect that to increase even more.
I don’t care about you political affiliation. Just know that the aftermath of this coming election is almost certainly going to be chaotic regardless of who “wins” and be prepared for it.
The Librarian
I reluctantly had to remove that Bulk Download Powershell Script I had posted.
My wife is a Triage Nurse Manager who works from home and relies on the Internet to stay connected to all the Nurses and Medical Practices around the country. While bandwidth use by folks using browser plugins gets a bit large at times it doesn’t fully saturate the line to the point she cannot work.
Recently however bandwidth use has gotten so heavy some nights and weekends that she had to use her cell phone hotspot simply in order to work. That’s a breaking point.
So the only practical option was to remove the bulk download script. Sorry for the inconvenience but the site’s been running for over a decade without one and I imagine it can continue a bit longer.
The Librarian
The CME from Saturday’s X-4.5 Flare hit the Earth late yesterday afternoon. The Aurora was visible as far South as Texas. Sadly we had storms all day yesterday and overcast with rain last night so we missed it. We haven’t seen the Northern Lights since we left Alaska many years ago.
That Sunspot is still passing across the face of the sun and is still a threat. Still the sequence was a good reminder of the process.
The Flare occurred last Saturday. The CME arrived Monday afternoon. Thus we had about a 48 hour lag between the actual Flare and the CME impact. Hopefully if there is a large one, X-10+, we’ll have at least some warning before the impact.
Not sure how much good the warning will do for most folks but for some of us anyway it will be a short time to store away a few more supplies, put a few more things in a Faraday Cage, maybe make a run to the local Farm Supply store for seeds and other last minute preparations.
The Librarian
That new sunspot is more active than thought. There was an X-4.5 Flare today. Strong Geo-Magnetic Storm expected day after tomorrow. Won’t do any damage but still unexpected.
The Librarian
New sunspot has just emerged around the edge of the Sun and it’s popping out high M-Class and low X-Class flares almost hourly today.
It won’t be directly facing the Earth until early next week but definitely something worth keeping an eye on.
Check spaceweather.com for updates as it progress across the face of the Sun.
The Librarian
Turns out that there are twice as many sunspots as the “experts” predicted. Not the greatest news since we are entering into the peak of the Solar Maximum peaking in midsummer 2025.
The Librarian
It turned out that the Herbalism Category Index Page was linking to the old static table format. As a result it was only showing about 70% of the books and was not listing the .ZIP file for that Category. That’s been fixed.
I’ve added a new page on ways to Bulk Download the Library since it is so often asked about. Look in the FAQ page from the main Menu at the top. It’s in the first section of Links at the bottom.
The Librarian
I have a Bulk Download Script that will download all the .ZIP files in one sequence. I still have to fix a couple .ZIP files in Categories but I should have the script posted for use sometime this weekend.
We’re both still recovering from illness last week but doing better so hopefully will have it posted either today or tomorrow.
The Librarian
A friend and I were chatting the other day and an interesting (darkly humorous) scenario came up.
EMP: BAD DAY #1: A Solar EMP has hit and you feel as well prepared as one can be. You gather your family into the basement where you have accumulated weapons for every member of the family, ammo and reloading supplies to meet any possible need.
Then you realize that all your gun safes have Electronic Locks… non-functional Electronic Locks.
The Librarian
Just a note on the issue of Price Controls on Food which has been much in the news recently.
I’ve been chatting with a friend who escaped Venezuela when the economy collapsed there and only slightly before the worst of the repression began.
The day Price Controls on Food were announced is considered by most Venezuelans to be the day that the collapse of the economy truly began. Within days food began to disappear from the grocery stores and marketplaces. Within a month the government tried to ban grocery stores from closing which was meaningless since they had nothing to sell. It cost more to purchase the items than they were allowed to charge for them.
Since then food is primarily a Black Market item. There has been some improvement but it is primarily in the major cities especially ones where tourists visit. In the rest of the country food is still scare and expensive.
Keep any eye on the issue. The day Price Controls on Food are announced run, don’t walk, to the nearest grocery stores. Take a trailer, an SUV or pickup truck. Load up on as many long term storable groceries as you can, canned goods, dried beans and rice, pasta and any other shelf stable things that you will eat. That is certainly what we intend to do.
Bit late in the season for gardening for most folks but most people can plant tomato plants in containers as well as herbs and spices to improve beans and rice.
I’m 73 and I never thought I’d live to see something like Price Controls on food in the U.S. being seriously discussed much less promised. Like Forrest Gump said “You never know what you’re going to get.”
The Librarian
Just a quick update on things here.
My wife’s brother has been in the hospital in the ICU for some time now. There were some serious complication after what should have been a fairly routine surgical procedure. Needless to say we have been focused on that the last couple weeks.
Today, finally, he has taken a turn for the better and there is some measurable improvement in his condition. It will still be some time before he’s back home but we’re hoping we’ll be out of ICU by the weekend.
I’ll should be back to work on the site before too much longer.
The Librarian
Waiting for Debby to arrive here in the Cape Fear region. Doesn’t looks like we’ll be getting much more than a bit of rain and some blustery wind. I’ll likely be out in the beehouse working on some stuff there.
Ran across an interesting and informative Tucker interview of Patrick Feeney on Prepping as a way of life in contemporary America. You can easily skip over the political parts if you like but then Politics is what is creating the increasing need for Prepping.
Only place I strongly disagree with him is when he says he doesn’t expect there will be a shortage of Gasoline. Venezuela has some of the largest oil reserves in the world and 5 large refineries. Yet the people sell gas in 2 liter soft drink bottles that they smuggle in from surrounding countries.
Nonetheless an interesting listen.
https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1820868239812886645
The Librarian
One of the site Users, Fehmi in Turkey, found a copy of All About Tea Volume 1 and sent it to me.
Volume 2 was in the Library but I was never able to find the first volume. It’s in the Coffee and Tea Category or can be found in the Last 30 days search. I also cleaned up Volume 2 while I was working on it.
Thanks Fehmi.
The Librarian
I’m linking to another article on Technology Dependence since the outage the other day woke a lot of people up to the growing reliance on technology of our modern world.
Patrice Lewis speaks only of the computer outage and that along had a tremendous effect.
Just imagine if it was computers, power, water, communications, transportation and everything else… and pretty much permanent.
https://www.wnd.com/2024/07/when-the-world-grinds-to-a-halt/
The Librarian
One of the site’s Users, Guy, reminded me of this story. I saw it the other day, intended to post it and then got distracted by other projects.
There was an X-14 class Solar Flare and CME on July 23. Fortunately it was on the far side of the sun and only observed by satellites. The Carrington Event is estimated to have been in the X15+ range. That’s the one that set telegraph lines on fire and cause Auroras seen almost to the Equator.
Such an event today would likely destroy or extensively damage power grids worldwide requiring years if not decades to repair… if such repair was even possible. In all likelihood such an event would destroy the world’s technological and industrial infrastructure permanently requiring the survivors to rebuild from scratch.
The Sunspot which produced that event will be rotating around to face Earth late next week or early the following week.
The Librarian
This week saw a major outage across a wide range of businesses due to a single software bug in a single piece of software. Airlines stopped moving, factories stopped producing, hospitals stopped performing procedures.
Yet the IT industries response is that it was simply to great a dependence on a single company rather than being more… diverse I suppose.
In the event of a Carrington Event level EMP every one of these industries and businesses will cease functioning due to irreversible hardware damage to unprotected computers and won’t restart.
If a day or two of computer downtime caused this much chaos imagine if ALL the computers go down and that it’s permanent.
https://www.breitbart.com/news/crowdstrike-crash-raises-questions-about-tech-dependency/
The Librarian
The Library files on the site have been copied over directly from the Master List. The Database of the books and links has been rebuilt directly from that list and imported.
There “shouldn’t” be any more missing files or bad book links. If you do run across any please let me know.
And the .zip files have been rebuilt. One day before too long I’m going to take some of the larger ones like the Scientific American and the Radio 73 ones and break them into smaller sets to make downloading easier. Since those Categories are static and not likely to change they don’t have to be rebuilt when new files are added.
The Librarian
I’m working on getting the Files and Categories synced properly. Making sure that:
That was an almost impossible task on the old site since it was purely manual and errors crept in over the years and were hard to track down. I spent much of today checking the Master List of files, recompiling a full list, ensuring the names were regularized and then built a new list for the site.
I’m going to be recopying the files from the Master List to a Server drive, rebuilding the .ZIP files for each category then moving them onto the Website Server. Once I get them moved I’ll swap out the Library directory with the new one and reimport the Files database.
I won’t need to take the site down but it may be a bit sluggish during the file copying.
The Librarian
There was a corrupted PDF of the Savage Cub Bolt Action Rifle manual in the firearms Category. I was never able to find a good copy of it but Mack, one of the site Users, found a copy and sent it to me.
The corrected file has been put in the library and the date update to today to make ii easy to find for anyone interested.
Thanks Mack.
The Librarian
It was suggested that I add a Category Column to the Search Pages to make it easier to save Books to the proper category.
Done.
It makes the tables much wider than the page layout but… hey… I’m not particularly worried about the sites “appearance” as long as it does what it needs to do.
The Librarian
I’ve added a Date Range Search to the top of the Main Index. It lets you see what has been added in the last 30, 60, 90 and 180 days. Much simpler and easier than all the coding required to enter a specific date and then handle all the possible error conditions.
It’s supposed to sort them title but doesn’t. Since it’s easy enough to just click on Title or Date to resort the list however you like I’m not going to spend a lot of time tracking down why it doesn’t. I might get around to that sometime soon. Oh and it excludes Zip Files which are in every Category now. When ever I add new books to a category I’ll rebuild that Category’s Zip File
So… Search is in. Zip Files are in. Dynamic Tables are in to make it easier to add books. Comments are disabled so I don’t have to spend time dealing with Spam.
FINALLY I can go back to looking for new books, cleaning up ones I already have downloaded, looking for missing books in partial collections and get back to work on some printing/binding projects that have been on hold for a while.
The Librarian
As I half expected 90% of the comments left on the site have been spam. That’s pretty much the norm on the internet these days but the only way to avoid it is to load down the site with heavy spam filtering plugins and all sorts of bot filtering addons.
I don’t really care about the spam as much as I care about having to waste 10-20 minutes every morning having to wade through the dreck, deleting spam, to find the few real communications.
Easier to simply turn it off. My email address is posted on the Contact Me page and I’m always welcome email from folks interested in the books or the site.
The Librarian
Dynamic Tables are in. Some of them span too far to the right due to some long file names. I’ll get that fixed soon. But they work and that is the main point.
Zips files have been added in each category. I prefixed the file name with aaa- in the index so it will sort to the top or bottom and not be embedded in the list. The actual file does not have the prefix and the zips contain the folder name and the files under it and not just the raw files to make organizing them simpler.
I’ll get the search pages added in the next few days.
The Librarian
I’ve gotten the Dynamic Tables Plugin working properly and will be replacing all of the current Category Indexes with Dynamic tables. They will look pretty much the same but will pull data directly from the database when the page loads so they will always be current and new files can be added much more easily than the old static tables.
The Dynamic tables will also make the Search for recent files simpler since they can use a simple database query.
Now that I’m not longer on a hosting service that throttles bandwidth, blocks IPs that download too much and otherwise make posting .zip files useless I’m going to be adding a zip file in each category that will allow you to download the entire category as a single file.
Since this is our primary fiber line and my wife uses it for her job I have to ensure that the line is not saturated by downloads. To that end I’ll be monitoring the bandwidth use by the website and if it gets too high I’ll have to set a limit on it. Just have to see how many people try to download those files simultaneously.
If there are no bandwidth problems I’ll probably add a torrent link as well.
The Librarian
I’ve finally got the php code figured out and working more or less correctly. Still have some work to do to get all the required pages and code snippets built and tested and then put them in place.
Probably be sometime next before it’s finished but the primary obstacle has been overcome now it’s just the grunt work and fiddly bits to do.
The way I’m approaching it means I’ll be replacing all of the Category pages as well and using a php search function to pull the data directly from the database which is what I wanted to do in the first place. That way new individual books can be added once… to the database… and the proper page will pull it when the page loads. Makes everything much easier to maintain in the long term.
I’ll start working on the Category pages once I get the New Book search function pages done since, for the time being, they will look exactly the same whether static or dynamic.
The Librarian
p.s. Thanks to all the folks who offered and provided php advice. It’s coming back to me (like a bad dream) and that helped a lot in getting my head back into the php space. .
ELIMINATED REGISTRATION
I’ve spent several days dealing with snotty emails from the email service I use for the site due to the phony and bot registrations and spurious emails that cause lots of bounces which is bad for them.
I have better things to do than deal with that kind of nonsense so, as I did with the old site, I’ve just eliminated the whole User Registration function entirely.
For now I’ve left the Comment function on and I’ll still have to manually approve them to keep from being inundated with spam and junk. We’ll see if that’s workable or needs to be eliminated too.
I’ll be working on the Book Database today and with luck might have the date based search up and running soon.
The Librarian
PHP HELP
Looking for some PHP help. I’m trying to set up the Book Search page to check for books added since a specific date. It’s been a LOT of years since I did any serious PHP coding and I no longer have the patience I used to have for dealing with syntax errors and malformed statements. (No longer have hair to pull out.)
I need maybe a dozen and a half line of code. What I need to do is
The second age making the database queries I can handle just fine. If anyone fluent in PHP could help out I’d really appreciate it.
The Librarian
NEW SITE STATUS
Managed to miss some obvious stuff. Some of the menu links were broken. I had left a Meta data block on the side bar and the Contact form was broken. Those are fixed now.
There’s no login/registration function anywhere at the moment. Seems I broke that yesterday and didn’t realize it. I’ll get that fixed this weekend sometime.
The important thing is that the book Index is working, the Category pages are working and all of the files are online and downloadable. That’s the Core function of the site so as long as that is working the rest is lower priority.
All the 301 redirects have been added so old links will work properly.
For now I’m off to bed to dream about PHP syntax and variables if I’m unlucky.
The Librarian
p.s. if you do see something not working please let me know either through the contact form or by just emailing me at librarian@survivorlibrary.com
WELCOME TO THE NEW SITE
The new site is live. Basic design and layout is similar to the old site. Minimalist since listing and downloading books is not a high tech function and doesn’t need a lot of bells and whistles to perform it’s function
Only real difference is that there are a lot of capabilities available in the new software which I have not begun to make much use of yet and the up to date software will make maintaining the site a LOT easier.
A few things are clearly different since the Category pages are sortable and have a Date Added field for each book. That will make it easier to see new material when it is added. I’m planning to add some PHP code and a new page that will let you enter a date and will dynamically show you everything added after that date. That will make Catch-Up easier. Probably be at least a few weeks before that is added. My PHP skills are not just rusty but severely corroded and need to be brought back up to snuff.
I know there are still some bugs, mostly formatting items, that still need to be addressed and I’ll be working on those over the next few days.
But the main migration is complete… for now.
The Librarian
SATURDAY 06/01/2024
MIGRATION TO NEW SERVER COMPLETE
The site is now running on it’s new server at the house here. It’s a Dell T410, 32gb, with a few SAS drives in it. Plugged into a 4 battery APC battery backup.
The performance seems better than the old virtual server at the hosting company. I have a 1GB fiber line so don’t expect any bandwidth issues. If too many people start downloading all at once I might have to throttle the bandwidth since my wife uses that line for her job so she makes the rules on bandwidth use.
I THINK everything got tested and is working correctly. But after 40+ years doing this stuff I know better than to speak in absolutes about such things. If you do encounter anything that doesn’t work correctly, bad links, 404 Page Not Found errors and the like, please let me know.
The files are there and can be downloaded and that is the primary thing.
Now that it’s here I’ll be setting up the target server for the new site (Dell R710 128gb) where it will ultimately reside. Probably do that this next week and start installing all the base software packages AMP, MySQL, PHPO, Perk, Python, SEVERAL CMS packages since #I will probably move away form the current CMS the site is running. But that will be an ongoing process this summer.
Weird to be doing all this while my phone keeps pinging SMS alerts of the newest X-Class flare being tossed out by the sun.
The Librarian