Sir Edward Grey once said (in relation to WWI) “The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.” (God help them if Europe succeeds in starting WWIII with Russia… the largest nuclear power inthe world.)

Fortunately the folks in Europe WILL get their lights back fairly soon… most likley. But the failure of much of the European Grid yesterday highlights the utter fragility of the modern power grid (especially when relying on “renewables” and the extreme impact that failure has on society.

People can’t even buy food in those reiopns which have gone cashless. You would think people would learn…. but they won’t.

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2025/04/28/the-lamps-are-literally-going-out-all-over-europe-n4939304

The Librarian

I watched an interesting video yesterday about a fellow learning how to smelt tin so he could alloy it with copper (which he also learned how to smelt) so that he could make Bronze which was a revolutionary metal in it’s time which allowed mankind to emerge from the stone age. He’s also the author of a book on “How to Rebuild Civilization”.

The problem is that should a total Earth catastrophe occur people are NOT going to be making Bronze.

There is a quite good Sci-Fi/Fantasy book series by S.M. Stirling called “Dies the Fire” or the “Emberverse”. In it the characters are caught in what at first seems to be a worldwide EMP in which all modern technology fails. They survive the initial chaos and then start trying to rebuild. Almost the first thing they try to do is build steam engines to provide traction power for machine tools and electricity. But none of it works. Steam engines simply do not work. Gunpowder doesn’t explode but simply burns slowly. Batteries do no generate electricity. Nor does any other industrial age technology. They are FORCED back to medieval technology like swords and bows. It proceeds from there.

The point is that they had KNOWLEDGE of industrial age technology like steam engines, steel, gunpowder, electricity, telegraph but the author invokes a deus ex machina to prevent them from building such technology. Otherwise they would certainly have skipped the medieval age and jumped straight to the early industrial age. Thus they are forced into a medieval society.

And that is the issue I have with the focus on more primitive technology. I applaud this fellows efforts to learn smelting and alloying of Bronze. I LOVE learning old skills like that simply out of fascination. But it is NOT what will be needed after a collapse.

We KNOW about gunpowder and steam engines. We KNOW about electricity. We KNOW about the telegraph. We KNOW about railroads. We KNOW about refining petroleum. We know of the EXISTENCE of industrial age technologies even if we don’t know exactly how to make them ourselves. We KNOW they are possible and have at least theoretical knowledge of how they work.

So if/when there is an imposed collapse of our modern technology we are not going to be sitting around the fire trying to think of how to make Bronze swords.

We are going to be figuring out how to making gunpowder (milled or corned) until we can perfect gun cotton (smokeless), how to make primers in order to make more ammunition for our modern weapons (as long as they last), how to get an old (non-computerized) diesel engine running until we can build a steam engines, how to build gang plows out of old car steel, etc.

We’ll skip right over the swords and bows and armor medieval age (however great it is for fantasy books) and go right to the 18th and 19th century industrial age.

To illustrate the validity of the point even further, in Stirling’s companion series called “Island in the Sea of Time” the same event which destroyed technology in the former series transports the island of Nantucket to the Bronze Age. The characters in that series do just what you’d expect. They immediately start building an 18th and 19th century industrial base from which they manufacture modern technology to give them a massive edge over other societies. The story proceeds apace as they accomplish that and then interact with the Bronze Age civilizations.

It is a common theme. In Rally Cry by William Forstchen a Civil War regiment is transported to another world in the midst of a medieval war. They recreate 1800s technology. In Destroymen by Taylor Anderson a Destroyer is transposed from early WWII to a Bronze Age world. They rebuild 1800s technology. In the Axis of Time by John Birmingham a Modern Carrier Group gets transposed to early WWII where they help build a modern technology base for the Allies.

The theme is consistent. When people have to rebuild they build the most modern technology of which they are aware and capable. If someone KNOW about steel they are going to work on making THAT and not Bronze.

Reality will be the same. If one community builds bows and swords and another manufactures gunpowder and steam engine… history tells us how that ends.

The Librarian

Ran across this story today and thought it was worth posting. Seems Zuckerbeg is expanding his Hawaii home into a self sustaining, underground, well stocked bunker with steel and concrete security features and trying to keep it secret.

This isn’t the first of the billionaires doing this though many of them seem to prefer New Zealand. I guess it’s remoteness is a key feature.

Problem for all of them is that you can assume that pretty much EVERYONE in the area knows about his (and other’s) bunker since after all it’s locals building it. And if everything falls apart then the entire local community is going to be at the door and one thing Military Science and History tells us is that fixed fortification always fall.

https://www.khon2.com/local-news/14-facts-zuckerbergs-secret-270m-hawai%ca%bbi-compound/

The Librarian

With all the talk these days about the fragility of the Power grid I ran across an interesting story out of Cuba. Apparently the grid and electrical supply there has collapsed to the point that one city in Cuba has told visitors that they are welcome in the city ONLY if they bring their own electricity in the form of generators with fuel.

So… want to get married in the city? Bring a generator and fuel. Want to do business in the city? Bring a generator and fuel. Want to go to the bank? Bring a generator and fuel.

https://www.breitbart.com/latin-america/2025/03/12/report-cuban-public-offices-tell-visitors-bring-their-own-electricity/

The Librarian

I remember discussing this a year or two ago but I have to say I’m surprised at the acceleration of the problem.

California has banned the most effective Rat Poison that is used pretty much worldwide. Even the Europeans who are like the ultimate Environmental NAZIs have restricted it’s use to licensed professionals but not banned it entirely.

Chicago is #1 in Rat Population in the U.S. with LA following as a close #2.

The result is both cities are being overrun with Rats. Even in the 1700s Rat Control became commonplace and acknowledged as a necessary function to keep cities disease and vermin free.

The modern world has regressed to the extent that Rat Control is no longer a priority.

If we ever end up in a situation where we are having to rebuild with 1800s technology the moment someone says the word “environment” in a discussion about Rat Control either hang them immediately or expel them from the community as a Public Danger.

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/could-los-angeles-become-the-rattiest-city-in-the-united-states/

The Librarian

When I was growing up my Mother made a lot of our clothes. After learning how to use Mom’s sewing machine I made good money in school making and selling Barbie clothes to all the local girls. My best friend through much of my childhood was a girl up the street who gave me the idea. She told me what I should make and she always got hers free. (We only had two sexes back then and for the most part it was the girls who played with dolls.)

I remember going to the fabric store with Mom many times where she bought yards of cloth, patterns (some of which are still in the drawer of Mom’s old Necchi sewing which Dad bought for her in Germany and I inherited after she died) and visiting with all the other Mothers there for the same thing. I would buy fabric remnants for pennies for my little business.

I occasionally still go the local Joann for fabric for book covers, models and other odds and ends though I do little sewing anymore except to occasionally hem a pair of pants. I have noticed that there are a lot fewer people there and they started carrying a lot of other “craft” items. Then I saw this story this morning.

https://www.wnd.com/2025/02/joann-to-close-500-of-its-800-fabric-and-craft-stores/

I have done a little looking into it and the bottom line seems to be that these days, with imports from China and elsewhere, it no longer makes sense to sew clothes. Between fabric and patterns and sewing machines and supplies it’s significantly cheaper to buy them than to make them. Besides few people learn the skill when they are young anymore so there is a steep learning curve.

While it’s good in a sense that clothes, like so many products, are much less expensive than they were when I was young in the mid-1900s there is also an undeniable and lamentable loss of what used to be a common skill… sewing and making clothes.

It’s just one more of the skills most folks took for granted 50-100 years ago that have been lost. Convenience is great but I’m not sure that trading knowledge and skill for it is.

The Librarian

One of my pet peeves has long been the sad and sorry state of the U.S. Power Grid… it’s fragility and complete inability to survive a significant Solar Flare. Indeed Something like the Carrington Event (an X-15+ Solar Flare) would destroy the U.S. Power Grid and most if not all of its transformers which could not be replaced in a world without power.

The results would be the death of 90%+ of the U.S. population and generations of struggle to rebuild. The same would be true in all of the Industrialized world.

There was some movement a few years ago towards the Electric companies hardening the grid to at least minimize that threat. Sadly it came to nothing. Even worse over the last decade more and more Energy companies have been acquired by Global Companies like Blackrock and Vanguard. THEIR priority is on immediate and short term profits and not the long term viability of the Grid or the countries in which they exist.

I fear that as things continue the U.S. (and the world’s) power grid is going to decline even further since investment and improvement does not enhance the quarterly bottom line or enhance stock valuation. Short of forcing a divestiture or simply shutting down these Global Corporation things are not going to improve. I used to put most of the blame for the situation on Politicians. Looks like it’s out of their hands now and they are much victims as the rest of us. Though it does beg the question… How many have significant holdings of Vanguard and Blackrock Stock?

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/02/high_electric_bills_are_the_tip_of_the_iceberg.html

The Librarian

It’s been a busy winter here. Spent some time reorganizing and moving the Print Shop from an outbuilding to the Server Room in the House which makes it much easier to print and bind. Lot of home projects that had been put off for too long finally got handled. The older you get the longer it takes to bounce back from heavy work.

After some User requests I’ve packaged up the Library Flash Drive and the Book of the Farm into a set at a 12% discount.

Seeing some hints and indications from the new Administration in D.C. that there may, perhaps, be some progress made on hardening the U.S. Power Grid. Not holding my breathe but “The signs are positive.” as my old 8-Ball used to say.

The Librarian

If you want to see what modern societal collapse looks like look no further than California.

Ignore the politics since that’s not the issue. Imagine an EMP that knocks out the grid which stops the flow of water in water systems. Then imagine fires breaking out. Even assuming fire engines and bulldozers worked (which they wouldn’t) the resulting situation would look something like this.

People fleeing, abandoning cars and homes and no water to fight the fire as the fire spread wherever the wind (and fuel supply) takes them.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2025/01/08/no-water-in-fire-hydrants-as-devastating-fire-rips-through-la-n2650206

The Librarian

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

This year is the peak of this Solar Cycle. The peak is this Summer and with the number of X Class flares being tossed out these last couple of months it promises to be a lively one.

Twice in the last six month there have been Auroras seen in the upper third of the U.S. which means some pretty strong CMEs streaming in for a visit.

Domestically and politically the U.S. is (hopefully) settling down and looking at a good year ahead. With God’s mercy we’ll make it through this Solar Cycle and the direct threat of a Carrington Event scale solar flare will begin to diminish over the next few years.

While it’s probably wishful thinking perhaps by the time of the next Solar Cycle Peak in about 16 years we will have hardened the grid at least in the U.S. enough to be able to recover from a destructive Solar Flare in less than several generations. Sadly much of the rest of the industrialized world is still pursuing “Green Energy” fantasies and  beginning to de-industrialize as they run out of power. I suppose being a non-industrial society is one way of preparing for a Solar Flare that destroys the power grid but not one I’d want to be part of.

We can always Hope but as I was once taught… “Hope is not a Strategy.”

The Librarian

I had to read this twice to really understand that these scientists have “discovered” that the sun is capable is producing REALLY BIG Solar Flares that might do bad things to our technology.

Not sure where these guys have been the last 20-30 years while there has been so much discussion of that subject.

https://thedebrief.org/scientists-say-our-sun-could-release-a-deadly-superflare-at-any-moment/

The Librarian

p.s. In other breaking news the same scientists announce that Water is Wet and Fire is Hot. Eagerly anticipating their next revolutionary breakthrough!!!

I’ve been getting a number of emails recently, like the one below, about problems with a ZIM download of the Library.

“I downloaded the whole ZIM archive to be used with Kiwix. Downloaded the whole 200gb+. The Zim file opens, but when you go to look under the different book categories the PDF files don’t show up like they do on your website.”

I remember speaking with someone a while back who wanted to build such a file but don’t know anything about it other than that. I didn’t create it and have no knowledge of it other than that someone was talking about building it.

I do know that the files on the site here download properly as do the .ZIP files in each Category. I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about the ZIM download or how to fix problems with it.

The Librarian

While not germane to our goals there is a new Digital Library Project in Tibet.

https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/ancient-library-in-tibet-creates-digital-archive-of-84000-scriptures?sfnsn=mo

The Librarian

Have 8 sets of text blocks for Book of the Farm printed and awaiting covers.

Currently printing covers. I’ll be binding them tomorrow and boxing them up.

Still recovering from fence post digging and installing chain link fencing and building gates. But tomorrow is supposed to be rainy so binding 48 separate volumes will be a nice rainy day activity while listening to music or an audio book in the print room.

The Librarian

The downtime the last day or so was caused by a Posthole Digger.

I have been replacing some old wire fence with chain link. Seems we forget that the fiber line was buried right in front of the section of the fence facing the driveway. So while digging the hole for the posts my wife came out and said that the internet just went down. A few minutes of checking revealed that the fiber modem had no signal.

AT&T came out this morning and ran a new cable and all is well again.

Oh and I completed that section of the fence as well.

The Librarian

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.

https://www.fauquier.com/news/navy-picks-quantico-for-nuclear-power-site/article_118108c4-192a-510a-94eb-f516c47700a5.html

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.

https://scitechdaily.com/nasa-confirms-solar-maximum-brace-for-massive-flares-and-epic-geomagnetic-storms/

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.

https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/sunspots-surge-to-23-year-high-as-solar-maximum-continues-to-intensify-far-beyond-initial-expectations

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.

https://spaceweather.com/

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:

• Every files in the Master List is on the site
• Every file is listed in the proper Category
• All file links are correct
• All .ZIP files are up-to-date

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

1. ask for Year in a select statement (2024-2020)
2. ask for a month (01-12)
3. concatenate them into yyyy-mm-01
4. call another php page passing that date in the URL.

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