Weeding, peas and locking down again

Well it was a good day for weeding (if such a day exists) with a fresh breeze of wind and sunny intervals, so I proceeded to weed my patio gravel.

I gave up weeding the driveway about a month ago and if anyone asks I just tell them I am providing bees with their lunches ( a great excuse to do nothing if you ask me, sort of like killing two birds with one stone, without the murder)

In between cutting and glueing bits of wood together to loosly represent a 4x4 for my market stall (if such a thing will ever exist again) I got the patio finished and moved on to weeding the veg plot, Bad Move.

The veg plot is in a sheltered spot and the midgies (following Government advise are Staycationing) Anyway after nearly knocking myself out swatting them I moved on to harvesting my dinner.

Had peas and shallots ready to crop along with Thyme and parsley, the fridge revealed butter and parmesan some mushrooms and half a lemon and the larder some rissoto rice so tonights dinner was fresh garden pea/ mushroom rissoto.

In late news, my favourite caravaners are back so I better lock up the sheds and tie down the dogs or get out fishing.

 

 

How to stop Ransomware and Malware (my pennies worth)

 

Why, do we not use the same tools against the criminals?

When I say “we” I mean us as individuals AND our elected officials. 

 

If something is sent to you, it is possible to trace where it came from. Most intrusions into networks occur in this fashion ie clicking on a link in an email.

What is normally done with unwanted emails, is we list them as spam and set our email programs up to block the senders ip address.

So if you don’t open the email because you don’t trust the sender, and block the senders ip then you are protected against this way of invading your space. 

 

Thing is, the scam emails get more and more sophisticated every year ie they look like a legit email from your bank, with scammers even following up with phone calls etc. This really targets the older generation who may not be as savvy.

(Apart from me).

So instead of rubbing our hands that McAfee stopped 53 thousand risky connections and logged 1083 suspicious connection attempts on my computer alone, (which turn out to be mostly from my home network devices like an old ipad and a printer) and queuing up to pay them again for next years protection. 

 

 

Why don’t we as a nation launch a DoS attack on the ip addresses that the criminals are using?

A DoS attack Denial of service is typically accomplished by flooding the targeted machine or resource with superfluous requests in an attempt to overload systems and prevent some or all legitimate requests from being fulfilled. 

 

Probably the reason is that the global information security market is forecast to grow at a five-year CAGR of 8.5 % and reach $170.4 billion in 2022 according to GARTNER

 

As a nation of connected people we have a HUGE resource of computing power, think of your own situation there is probably a laptop or three an ipad or two and phones galore sitting doing nothing aprt from monitoring FaceBook ,each device is capable of sooooo much more. If all this power was used to thwart hackers they would not stand a chance.

 

Obviously the likes of companies like Norton and McAfee, (that we all pay out hundreds to every year to keep our computers and networks secure) would not be onboard in any way to try and kill off their golden goose. And probably, rather than do some graft the elected officials, we all trust so much would go to Security companies for advice and get the "cant be done, (I want to keep my goose)" answer but believe me all the kids out there designing apps, that will never make any money selling online, could be putting their brainpower into designing a program that could be installed on every device, sponsered by the Sate to beat the hackers, infact employ some hackers to beat the baddies.

 

The Antivirus goose egg collectors will have a vault the size of Western Europe full of data on where the most common types of malware including viruses, keyloggers, worms, trojans, ransomware / crypto-malware, logic bombs, bots/botnets, adware & spyware, and rootkits originate.

So what do we do? Launch a Dos attack or some other attack on the perpetrators, then do it again and again every day every new scam email gets a DoS attack.

Of course this couldn’t be done by us alone, without a bit of coaching anyway, but surely our Governments with our help and the brains of the younger generation could collect the required data and go into attack mode rather than whimper in a corner in catch up mode.

Some photos around the garden today

  

It is the turn of the Roddies to make a splash of colour now for the next few weeks in my garden.

I have cut down a lot of the purple  Rhododendron ponticum  and burnt it as it is poisonous to bees larvae and grows like a weed here.

 

 

Planted a few hollow log cookies around the place these are at the front gate and I have planted gladioli, cornflowers and French marigolds in them. 

 

It was a great Spring for Dafs and bluebells which are still flowering.

 

 

This is an awesome smelling blossom on one of my trees I shall have to do some research to find out what it is called.

 

 Sushi and Tempura Veg

 

I'm making Sushi for tonight's dinner along with Tempura veg and a Kimchi pancake. A good site to see how to cook Sushi rice properly is at  https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/how-to-cook/how-to-make-sushi-rice 

Mine will have Daikon (Japanese radish,) Cucumber, Spring onions and Tuna. To dip the rolls in I'll make a sauce with soy sauce, chili paste, sugar and lemon juice. I also have wasabi paste which I love and Angie hates so I'll put loads of that in the rolls, only kidding.

The veg I'm going to coat in Tempura batter (made with ice cold sparkling water) are mushrooms, asparagus, broccoli,cauliflower and carrot. and the dipping sauce for them hmmm Teriyaki marinade, chili, grated ginger and lime zest.

Angie made some Kimchi so I'm going to make a pancake each too https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/quick-kimchi-pancakes

I like Japanese dishes and a lot of their culture, we used to plan a stopover in Japan when we flew back from Australia. When we moved to Australia I did a Beginners Japanese course and can still remember most of the phrases learnt back then like how to say "Nice to meet you" "How do you do" "My name is Robert" "I come from Scotland" "Thanks" count from one to ten and the like ohh and "Where is the pen" lol not sure why that stuck in my mind.

Also love Korean food, getting a taste for it when I was Master of a Korean charter vessel in Australia that gave me dinner as part of my wages every night.  

We have been meat free here for over two months now and I get a lot of my inspiration for tasty vegetable and fish dishes from Asia, in Japan eating meat was prohibited for more than a thousand years prior to 1868.

 

 Whirlygig Prototype.

I thought I would attempt to make a whirly gig for the front lawn, some movement to enhance the otherwise stationary carvings ( apart from an eagle suspended from a tree branch who lurches around alarmingly in a wind). 

Whirlygigs are thought to have first been created in China in 400bc but probably someone in Scotland made one before that as we all know how brilliant the Scots are with inventions, anyway below are a few pics of my creation and how I went about making it and the improvements I could make if I do another. Ohh and you can see the stump log planter box I was harping on about in my last blog also used as something to anchor it to :)

The blades are made from tin, bits left over from the shed construction last year and I made a hub from a hardwood circle with 30 degree cuts in it to hold the blades, I bent two flaps on each blade over and screwed them to the hub. 

I was going to use a stainless shaft, recycled from an old wine rack but didn't have a tap and die set to make a thread on the ends so went with a bit of threaded rod instead. To hold the shaft true I dismantled an old hinge that was on the old shed door and mounted it between two halves of wood that make up the base.

The cam to make the Axe Guy move is just a bit of hardwood with an offset hole connected to the wire that moves his arm up and down used washers and lock nuts on the fittings so they wont work loose.

The sort of Christmas tree at the back works as a wind vane turning the fan into the breeze, to find the pivot point to balance the gig on I sat the completed gig on a pencil and moved it until it balanced then drilled a hole to take the stainless pin, put a screw into the hole as a bearing for it to revolve on.

So what would I do different next time? Well I would use the stainless shaft so it wont rust, I like the dismantled hinges but need to come up with a way to insert them without cutting the base in two as water will get in the join and even though it is hardwood it will eventually rot, I would shape the ends of the base so it looks a bit sleeker and the wire to raise and lower the axe I shall have to find something more robust, apart from that it seems to work well and I will be really interested to see what force of wind it takes to demolish it lol. 

The gig can be lifted off the support pole if a gale is due and taken inside.

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 Back to the (Blogger) or The Future

I post a lot of things on Facebook, pictures of my garden plants, dinner recipes, woodworking creations and rants, but who sees the posts is dictated by an algorithm designed by Facebook so I have decided to start up my trusty blog again.

So, what am I up to today? well I have cut some wood circles from tree trunks and made rustic bottomless plant pots out of them, why rustic? well I thought spending money finishing them with routed edges sanding and varnish was a bit daft seeing they are going to be outdoors all weathers and I cant really afford to go to that extreme plus the wood is still freshly cut so wouldn't sand very well.

Very shortly, after I finish my peppermint tea (I started drinking peppermint tea after reading that studies of people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) treated with peppermint oil concluded that peppermint provided symptom relief),and I had IBS. I will shift some compost and fill the pots up ready for planting with flowers, on my driveway in the gaps between the hedges.

I have dozens of seedlings in small pots in the poly tunnel awaiting transplant outside but the weather is cold this week so they wont do any harm were they are for another wee while. I think a big sunflower in each with maybe some marigolds around its base would look good. 

Growing lots of marigolds as they attract hover flies and parasitic wasps as well as producing chemicals that repel white fly, companion planting is something that can be amazingly worthwhile like planting pots of mint in amongst brassicas, who would have known that cabbage moths and aphids hate the stuff, (apart from every horticulturist on the plant) mind you be careful to keep it contained in pots. 

Well I'm back in for a heat and lunch, and yep I got distracted, the tree trunk pots didn't get filled with compost yet. I had to retrieve my spade from the veg plot to sieve the compost and ended up turning over the soil on the plot again, and on the way back with the shovel I got distracted passing the shed and ended up creating a wee hair clip in the form of a turtle, from an off cut piece of hardwood as you do. I have to put some wee eyes on him and give him a proper sanding. With not having much in the way of head hair left I haven't a clue if he will work but hey its something else to put on my market stall when things reopen.

   The hair clip is not much more than an inch long.

Talking about things reopening, there is an advert on RTE radio (one of the only stations I can get on the old radio in my shed) that is driving me absolutely batty telling me repeatedly how wonderfully the Covid vaccination program is going in Ireland, Sheeze, maybe there is someone out there controlling adverts and laughing away at my reaction every time the advert comes on.

Ok I'm away back out to fill the tree trunk pots, or get distracted as the case may be.