Fixing Your Mouse Sensitivity in Linux
I'm sure that this isn't a particularly interesting subject, but if you've used Linux as a desktop OS you might just be interested.
I've become more and more annoyed by Micro$oft as the years have gone by.
That being said, Linux is the obvious choice. Linux has come so far in recent years that it rivals any paid-for operating system -- even for novice users. Linux is stable and runs the same software (for the most part) that you might run on a Windows or a Mac machine.
I'm writing this post on a Toshiba laptop running MX Linux, It was given to me by a relative. It originally had Windows 7 on it. I put 16 gigs of RAM in this machine for $18 after tax. The only downside was that it had a mechanical hard drive, not an SSD, but I fixed that.
I installed MX Linux 23.4 and began setting things up.
I love the OS, it's snappy and things work well. Most of the software I use is preinstalled as part of the standard package.
The only downside was the mouse sensitivity. I'm running the vanilla XFCE version, which allows for lots of configurable options, themes, and tweaks to the GUI to make things look and feel the way you would like them. However, when I plugged in my Logitech M17c wireless mouse, things got squirrelly. So I went to adjust the mouse settings and go about my business, but something was missing!
Notice there is acceleration and sensitivity.
Here's what I saw.
There is no sensitivity. These newer mice all have really high DPI so their sensitivity is insane. That's why mouse pads are now made of super smooth cloth-type material.
Without a sensitivity setting, there was no way to tamp down the overly sensitive mouse. Highlighting things was a nightmare, because 1/16th of an inch of movement was equal to 7 characters of a size 12 font!
After searching for quite some time about how to change the mouse sensitivity I found that the driver used by XFCE had changed, the current one lists different properties than the older one did. It's not that things can't be adjusted, they just have to be adjusted a different way.
More searching revealed that not many people knew how to adjust the mouse sensitivity. Normally with anything Linux related you can find where people have run into and solved the vast majority of issues you might run into. But not this time.
There are commands you can issue that will show what the mouse settings are, but first you have to find out which device it's listed as.
$ xinput -list
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad id=11 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ Logitech Wireless Mouse id=13 [slave pointer (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Power Button id=6 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Video Bus id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Power Button id=8 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ TOSHIBA Web Camera - HD: TOSHIB id=9 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=10 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ ACPI Virtual Keyboard Device id=12 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Logitech Wireless Mouse id=14 [slave keyboard (3)]
Now that you know the device ID you can issue another command to show the properties for that device ID, the Logitech mouse:
$ xinput -list-props 13 Device 'Logitech Wireless Mouse': Device Enabled (177): 1 Coordinate Transformation Matrix (179): 0.370000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.370000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000 libinput Natural Scrolling Enabled (323): 0 libinput Natural Scrolling Enabled Default (324): 0 libinput Scroll Methods Available (327): 0, 0, 1 libinput Scroll Method Enabled (328): 0, 0, 0 libinput Scroll Method Enabled Default (329): 0, 0, 0 libinput Button Scrolling Button (665): 2 libinput Button Scrolling Button Default (666): 2 libinput Button Scrolling Button Lock Enabled (667): 0 libinput Button Scrolling Button Lock Enabled Default (668): 0 libinput Middle Emulation Enabled (333): 0 libinput Middle Emulation Enabled Default (334): 0 libinput Accel Speed (335): 0.440000 libinput Accel Speed Default (336): 0.000000 libinput Accel Profiles Available (337): 1, 1 libinput Accel Profile Enabled (338): 1, 0 libinput Accel Profile Enabled Default (339): 1, 0 libinput Left Handed Enabled (340): 0 libinput Left Handed Enabled Default (341): 0 libinput Send Events Modes Available (300): 1, 0 libinput Send Events Mode Enabled (301): 0, 0 libinput Send Events Mode Enabled Default (302): 0, 0 Device Node (303): "/dev/input/event14" Device Product ID (304): 1133, 16468 libinput Drag Lock Buttons (342):libinput Horizontal Scroll Enabled (343): 1 libinput Scrolling Pixel Distance (344): 15 libinput Scrolling Pixel Distance Default (345): 15 libinput High Resolution Wheel Scroll Enabled (346): 1
However, there is no sensitivity setting listed -- only acceleration. This is why it didn't show up under the mouse settings.
The question then becomes, "Is this the result of using a Logitech mouse, or is this a just the way that the XFCE driver works?" It appears that it's at the driver level. I tried multiple different mice, and none of them show properties for sensitivity.
Some versions of Linux use the "evdev" kernel-level driver and others use "libinput" the xorg-driver. That's where the difference is. Apparently the libinput driver is better suited for touch pads from what I've read.
Wanting to modify the OS as little as possible, I looked for some way to adjust the mouse sensitivity natively. Again this was a long and exhaustive search. Eventually I started poking around on my own.
I decided to change the Coordinate Transformation Matrix values. They appear in (3) groups of (3) numbers.
The first two groups of 3 represent the (x) and (y) coordinates, the last value of 1.000000 needs to be left unchanged, if it is changed to anything other than "1" none of the other changes will take effect. I started by changing all of values of 1.000000 to 5.000000, and nothing changed at all. So then I tried changing them to fractional values, this also resulted in no change. Lastly, I tried changing just the first two from 1 to 5 -- that made the mouse nearly useless it was so sensitive. But there was a change. Next I tried with fractional values and found that the sensitivity was reduced. After messing around with the sensitivity and acceleration I found what worked best with my wireless mouse.
Here's what the optimal settings look like.
$ xinput -list-props 13 Device 'Logitech Wireless Mouse': Device Enabled (177): 1 Coordinate Transformation Matrix (179): 0.370000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.370000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000
The downside is that if I unplug the mouse, or reboot the computer the defaults return. I'm sure there is a way to make the changes persistent, but I wasn't sure what might happen if I use a different mouse at some point. So I decided to write a simple shell script and place it on the desktop so I can double click it and put the mouse settings to where I want them.
#!/bin/sh # This will set the mouse properties for a Logitech M317 wireless mouse. # The default sensitivity is too high. #Mouse Sensitivity xinput --set-prop 13 179 0.370000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.370000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000 #Mouse Acceleration xinput --set-prop 13 335 0.500000 exit 0
For now this will suffice. I don't change the mouse that often, and I usually suspend this computer when I'm not using it, so I don't have to change the settings frequently enough to worry about it.
I read many articles where people were searching for a way to adjust the mouse sensitivity -- and that was the only reason that they weren't using Linux as their primary operating system. Maybe this can help someone to make the switch!
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Are Polls Really Believable?
Polls come out all the time. Trump is up, Kamala is down, it’s all over the place.
Usually the differences can be explained, but sometimes it’s not so easy. Recent polls for North Carolina shows that Trump is ahead, but a democrat is leading in the race for governor.
There are plenty of reasons that this could happen, but how likely are they. For example, let’s assume that the republican candidate for governor is not very well liked, it’s possible that someone could vote for a democrat governor, and a republican presidential candidate — but how realistic is that? It’s hard to say.
Most polls are, “within the margin of error.” The question then becomes, “How many democrat voters are going to vote for Trump?”
That’s why AZ was so sketchy in 2022. The republican state treasurer received more votes than either of the two gubernatorial candidates?
That’s a pretty big difference. Who shows up to the polls for the state treasurer’s race?
Did any polls predicted that outcome? None that I can find. But they might be out there.
What do you think?
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Vaccine Excipient Summary Where Art Thou
08/07/24 21:20, by OGRE, Categories: Welcome, News, Background, In real life, On the web, Politics, Health Care, Strange_News Unless you work in the pharma industry, you've probably never heard of the term "excipient."
Excipient is a substance formulated alongside the active ingredient of a medication.
This can include any number of things from fillers, to adjuvants in vaccines, or preservatives. Basically anything that is part of the product, outside of the active ingredient, however; it can also be something that works to enhance the active ingredient.
The reason I bring this up is because of a post from Ann Tomoko Rosen on her Substack On Second Thought. She mentioned in a recent post "Why is the CDC deleting its list of vaccine ingredients."
As far back as at leas 2007, the CDC website had a directly linkable PDF, so people could go lookup what ingredients were in various vaccines that they, or their children, might be required to take. But that link has been removed.
A search with DuckDuckGo still shows the direct link to the PDF, which is now gone.
There is a link to the list on Wikipedia for vaccine excipients, but the Wikipedia article's "factual accuracy is disputed." These notes are from 2011 and 2020. Apparently nobody has been able to update it since then? Also, the CDC (the official source) is actively removing the sources for in-line links -- right now. Someone will have to update the article and provide a link for each of the vaccines in the summary -- one-by-one -- then hope the FDA doesn't move them the next day.
Searching with Google doesn't even get you very far either. Keep in mind that we're looking for "official" sources.
There are links to other resources, but those are not "official" government sites. Neither search engine gets you to the FDA website where the data actually is.
The timeframe in which the CDC removed it's link to the Vaccine Excipient Summary is rather suspicious.
October 25, 2007 is as far back as the Internet Archive goes back for that particular CDC file link.
But something happened in July of this year. Trump called RFK Jr. and talked with him about the child vaccine schedule. The call was very quickly leaked on X/Twitter. And then it was quickly deleted.
On Tuesday, the younger Kennedy — an actor — posted then quickly deleted a video of his father speaking on the phone with former President Donald Trump.
“I am a firm believer that these sorts of conversations should be had in public. Here’s Trump giving his real opinion to my dad about vaccinating kids this was the day after the assassination attempt,” Kennedy III wrote in the now deleted X — formerly Twitter — post, which he claimed he removed “for mistaking sarcasm for real life.”
...
In their conversation, Trump riffs at length on his concerns about vaccines — a pet issue for Kennedy, a longtime vaccine conspiracy theorist — discusses his brush with death at a weekend rally in Pennsylvania, and seemingly offers Kennedy a position in his administration.
“Anyway, I would love for you to serve,” Trump tells Kennedy. “I think it would be so good for you and so big for you. And we’re gonna win — we’re gonna win — we’re way ahead of the guy.”
“I agree with you, man,” Trump says. “Something’s wrong with that whole system, and it’s the doctors you find.”
“Remember I said I want to do small doses. Small doses,” the former president added. “When you feed a baby, Bobby, a vaccination that is like 38 different vaccines, and it looks like it’s meant for a horse, not a, you know, 10-pound or 20-pound baby.”
This phone call took place on July 14th the day after the Trump assassination attempt. July 14th also happens to be the last day that the CDC website hosted the link to the Vaccine Excipient Summary on their website. But I'm sure it's a coincidence.
Here's a copy of the last version of the file that I could find. I'll also put a list of files at the end of this post as well.
The question then becomes, "Where can I find the data now?" Well, it's still out there, just not in the same places, and not one click away.
As Ann pointed out, the CDC now directs you to the FDA website. You have to scroll way down to just above the footnotes to find this part.
Once on the FDA website, you can locate where they list all of the FDA approved vaccines. You can then click on each one of them and find the package inserts.
I found one more place that has information that might be considered "official," it was on a web page hosted by the Institute for Vaccine Safety, part of the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health It is a joint effort by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The data is still out there, but it's not going to be as easy to find. And they will likely keep it moving, making it harder to reference. That's why I dropped those files at the end of this post.
Not a very good look for the CDC with regard to "transparency."
What do you think?
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Automatic Toilet Bowl Chlorinator, Not Flush 'n Sparkle ®
When it comes to toilets, nobody likes cleaning them, or at least they shouldn't.
Many years ago I saw a product in the hardware store that caught my eye. It was called Flush 'n Sparkle, made by FluidMaster. It's a device for putting chlorine directly into the toilet bowl through the tank overflow pipe, which drains directly into the bowl. Here's a diagram below.
I bought two of them probably 15 years ago, but they stayed in the house we were renting. I bought them again once we purchased the house we're living in now. I used them for a number of years, but the enclosures became degraded because of the chlorine. The refill cartridges are rather expensive at $8 - $15 for a two pack. Of course they claim that you might need to replace them every 3-months, but that's not the case in my house. With (4) of us using the bathrooms throughout the day, 3-months was not realistic, they were gone long before that.
I decided to make the cartridges refillable. So I took my pocket knife and pried on the bottom of the cartridge until I was able to get it open. Then I went around the bottom part and shaved off the lip, so I could open it easier the next time.
The cartridges come with two tablets that are a around 3/4 of an inch in diameter. I went to the hardware store, and found chlorine tablets that were 3/4" and popped them in.
I woke up, went to use the bathroom, and was almost knocked down by the smell of chlorine gas. I told my wife, "I have to get those chlorine tablets out, before we all die from chlorine gas inhalation. We'll all be dead, but we'll have the cleanest toilets in town!"
I thought that the FluidMaster cartridges had chlorine tablets in them -- only they're not chlorine tablets -- they're really brominating tablets. They're what you would use in a hot tub. They dissolve much more slowly than chlorine tablets, and give off much less odor. That's why they used them.
I was only able to buy the brominating tablets in a 1-inch size. A large container of brominating tablets was around $15 at the hardware store. That would literally last me a few years!
I used a hammer and a screwdriver to break them in half, then they would fit in the cartridge. I could pop in the brominating tablet pieces, reinstall the cartridges and be good for another few months. Problem solved. Or so I thought. After a few years, O-ring at the top of the cartridge would rot, and require replacement, but in order to make sure that it would last, I would have to use Viton O-rings. I could get those rather cheap, but then the housing started to degrade as well.
I figured no worries, I'll head up to the hardware store and buy a few new kits, and be on my way. But they don't carry them anymore. They still have the refill cartridges, but none of the kits.
Next it was off to Amazon to see what they had. They also don't have any of the kits available!
Time to make my own
No worries, I'll make my own, only I'll do it without any O-rings! Well, I did, and so far, so good. Here's my design.
First I looked at PVC pipe sizes and determined the smallest diameter I could use, which would still fit the 1-inch tablets. That was 1 1/4" Schedule 40 PVC pipe, I only needed a piece about 3-inches long, so I bought a scrap piece from the hardware store. Here's what I came up with.
I needed to make it so that water could flow from one side to the other, passing over the brominating tablets along the way. Using 1 1/4" PVC meant that adapting down to a size that would work with standard toilet tubing (around 5/16") would be an issue.
But then, I thought about how weed eaters/string trimmers have fuel lines that just pass through the tank. The tubing is slightly squeezed by the tank, forming a "good enough" seal. I figured that it might work for this as well.
I used 1/4" tubing because it seems to be the right size for most newer toilets. Normally the tubing is around 5/16" which causes a lot of water waste. They started selling adjustable fill valves for toilets, and tubing clamps, because the old valves would dump a lot of water down the drain -- instead of filling the toilet tank. using a 1/4" tube allows for plenty of water to fill the bowl, without wasting a bunch of water.
I drilled a hole slightly smaller than 1/4" in the outlet cap. I went very slow to make sure that it didn't heat up the PVC, and didn't leave a scored edge wall, to make a smooth sealing edge for my tubing. Using a deburring tool, I cleaned the edges where I drilled, but was careful only to deburr, and leave a very slight beveled edge.
I pushed the tubing through the end cap. Then cut a small plastic barbed coupling in half each half. Putting one piece in the tubing on the side under the cap. This would allow for the tubing to be secure, and not get pulled or pushed out.
Originally I wanted to make it without glued parts, but I found out quickly that it wouldn't work well. I was able to push the ends on by hand and pull a vacuum on the assembly and it would hold. However, when I put it in the tank, it would leak a little from one side where the cap was pushed on. Also, if you pushed them on too tightly, you couldn't get them off without plier. So, I decided to glue one end on, and make the other end with a screw on cap instead.
I drilled a hole in the screw-on end, like I did for the outlet cap, then pushed the tubing through the hole, then installed a barb fitting in each end. This is the inlet side, so there needs to be a place to couple it to the existing toilet tubing.
I needed something to make sure that the brominating tablets didn't go all the way to the end of the assembly, and plug the outlet hole, so I decided to use a smaller 3/4" PVC threaded endcap and cut V grooves into it so the water could get around.
Here's how it fits into the assembly. This is the outlet cap, with the tubing and barbed fitting at the end of the pipe.
Water can get around the cap, but it will stop the tablets from butting up against the outlet tube.
I glued the outlet cap onto the 1 1/4" pipe, and glued the threaded fitting to the other side, making sure not to get PVC glue on the threaded part.
Here's what you end up with.
Note: I did use Teflon tape on the threads because with the PVC threaded parts are often poorly made. Use a lot, because it needs to be sealed well enough, but also be where you can open it again by hand.
This shows the direction of water flow.
In order to suspend the assembly above the water line, I used a plastic door hook, like this. You can find these on Amazon for about $8.
I just drilled two holes in it so I could put a zip-tie around the assembly, then hand it from the side of the toilet tank. Here's what it looks like installed.
If you notice in the picture, I used a 90º elbow at the outlet side. That's before I knew that I needed to have the outlet tubing go below the water line. If you look at the first image, the FluidMaster diagram, you can see that their device is made to force the outlet tube below the waterline.
I could have made it with only one coupling to connect to the inlet, and used the vinyl tubing the entire rest of the way as shown below. Just make it around 2-feet long, and make a big loop with it. making sure that it goes below the water line.
One last bit of information. Make sure that outlet tube goes into the overflow tube and stops right at the water line. If you go too low, it will siphon. If you go too high, it will draw air in to the outlet tube back to where it meets the water line. It won't hurt anything, but it might make a noise when water rushed through it.
All of the parts I used you can find at an ACE Hardware, except for the brass barb fittings. I only have these because of a building controls retrofit I did many years ago. But you can use the plastic barb fittings they have at ACE. They have 3/16" barb fittings which will work for the 1/4" OD vinyl tubing.
Did I save any money with this? Probably not, but that wasn't really my goal. I just wanted to have my automatic toilet bowl cleaners back!
I hope you liked this project.
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CrowdStrike Strikes First
July 19, 2024 will go down as the biggest “blunder” of the modern cloud-based Internet dependent world. ClowdStrike's Falcon Sensor “endpoint detection and response” (EDR) software was responsible for the "largest ever" IT outage. I had to make the Beaky Buzzard logo for CrowdStrike, because that was the first thing that came to mind.
Here’s my experience with CrowdStrike as of today – starting at a little before 2am.
I work from home as a consultant for my current employer. I have a corporate (client provided) laptop that I use for email, Microsoft Teams meetings, and general interactions with everyone I work with. Of course, I still call people on the phone and send text messages, but the majority of my work is done on my laptop. The client I support is more than 800 miles away.
At just before 2am Friday, one of my computer monitors lit up. I was just about to fall asleep. I peeked over and saw the normal corporate login screen, so I assumed that one of our cats was on my desk and moved a mouse, so I started to drift back to sleep again. Then it lit up again. This time there was a BSoD (Blue Screen of Death).
I thought that was rather odd, because I wasn’t on the computer and it had been idle for a long time. Updates usually aren’t pushed, and there’s ample warning before an update is going to happen.
In my personal experience, Blue Screens usually happen because of driver issues, or bad RAM. The corporate machines are seriously locked down, so there’s not much I can do. But I was able to get into the UEFI hardware test options. I ran the memory test overnight, it was similar to Memtest86. It came back in the morning with zero errors.
I exited the test, and rebooted the machine, then it Blue Screened again, this time I was ready, and I snapped a photo of it.
I noticed that the Stop Code was “PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA. Mostly useless, but it also listed “What Failed,” which was “csagent.sys.” CS for CrowdStrike. I went to one of my computers and looked to see what might be going on, and immediately saw the news about how CrowdStrike was causing errors on machines all over the world.
The problem first arose overnight for the East Coast of the U.S.
"CrowdStrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows hosts related to the Falcon Sensor," the cybersecurity company wrote in an alert confirming the outage at 1:30 a.m. ET on Friday. CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor is software designed to prevent computer systems from cyber attacks.
"Symptoms include experiencing a bugcheck\blue screen error related to the Falcon Sensor," CrowdStrike's alert continued. "Our Engineering teams are actively working to resolve this issue and there is no need to open a support ticket."
…
Fortunately, CrowdStrike has since announced at 2:30 a.m. ET that it has identified the update causing the issue and rolled it back. The company also offered a workaround for anyone having problems:1. "Boot Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment
2. "Navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory
3. "Locate the file matching 'C-0000029*.sys', and delete it.
4. "Boot the host normally."
Of course, having to do this for every single computer in multiple companies across the globe is still likely to take some time.
I figured that was an easy enough fix. I could boot the machine in recovery mode get to the command prompt, path to the file and delete it, or rename it.
Nope. That was not an option, because the machine is encrypted. So the recovery utility takes me to a drive “X:\” and “C:\” is not accessible. Without the drive encryption key, there’s nothing I can do to fix the issue. And, I highly doubt that this corporate client is going to give me the drive encryption key. They’re likely going to have to mail me another laptop.
This outage caused serious damage, not just to businesses, but to critical infrastructure, air travel, and emergency services. 911 was down in some areas, because their dispatching systems are Windows based, and they were using CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor.
The problem is worse for large corporations, because now they have computers already deployed that can’t be corrected remotely. Requiring someone to go get the computer, or get in front of the computer to correct the issue.
“You have to physically walk over to every computer and power it down and then bring it up, and when the screen comes up, you have to hit F3 to go into what they call Safe Mode and then go and delete a file somewhere,” the New York law firm CISO explained. “It's just a nightmare.”
Good luck getting quickly to this one.
I have never liked the idea of cloud-based services.
“The cloud” sounds great, until something goes wrong. Then you’re stuck, and your IT people are powerless to fix it.
Once upon a time large corporations, and many local governments had a well staffed IT department. They would test systems in a development environment. Say they support (5) different hardware platforms, they could test Windows updates, or other software changes on those dev hardware platforms first. If there are no issues, they can, within reason, deploy the changes across all their systems and have a reasonable expectation that everything will keep working. Same goes for servers or VMs.
But with CrowdStrike that doesn’t happen. These corporations and government agencies outsourced all of that. The 3rd party company has free range to make a change – without anyone on the business or government side knowing that it’s happening. SaaS (Software As A Service) programs are sold this way. Everything is always “up to date” because the 3rd party manages it, and now local IT people don’t have to. But they also just signed their digital life away.
CrowdStrike is probably a bad investment – now.
Founded in 2011, CrowdStrike quickly became an industry leader in cybersecurity and has only grown in popularity in recent years as demand for such services has increased.
It has made an aggressive marketing push that included Super Bowl ads and has worked to tailor its products to the needs of large organizations with complex security. At least one 2023 analysis, from Canalys, found the company controls roughly 20 percent of the cybersecurity market.
Reviews for the company’s products were broadly positive in the past, describing them as user-friendly and accurate in finding threats. According to the Motley Fool, its [CrowdStrike's] stock surged 400 percent in the last five years.
This whole experience got me thinking, “Wow, I bet someone at CrowdStrike is getting canned over this! And I wonder what’s happening to the stock price? You can’t take a large portion of the world’s critical services down and not have a serious stock drop.”
Well, their stock dropped, but nowhere near as much as I would have figured.
Strangely, CrowdStrike stock started to drop significantly in the days leading up to the event. Did somebody know something?
But then, I thought, who are their largest investors?
Perhaps that’s how their stock isn’t tanking. After all, I know from personal experience that CrowdStrike is big into ESG and DEI. I actually applied for a position at CrowdStrike around four years ago. Their website was bragging about diversity and other such nonsense. During the online application process it asked for my preferred pronouns. I didn’t even know what that meant. I had to look it up!
CrowdStrike sent me test material with parts of virus code, I had to determine how the threat/malware was supposed to work. I was able to do that relatively easy. But I never got a call back.
I’m assuming that their stock is being propped up by the large investment firms. Because the big firms aren’t pulling money out, the stock is staying higher than it otherwise would.
But then, those “investment firms” do a lot more investing based on social issues, not ROI. They tend to invest a lot into companies that are pushing an agenda, like DEI. I’m sure that CrowdStrike got plenty of dollars for pushing woke nonsense – over the past five years. Perhaps that’s why their stock increased 400% during that time.
Can this be explained by incompetence?
Yes and no.
Yes: insofar as many IT departments have sold their soul to 3rd parties. That was never a good idea, because very little could be tested in-house and guaranteed. Single points of failure are never good.
No: when it comes to the changes made on the CrowdStrike side. From what I’ve seen the computers effected were primarily Windows 10 and Windows 11 machines – that were upgraded from Windows 10. Not so much an issue for the machines that were originally Windows 11.
This means that the issue could be Windows build version dependent. Nevertheless, CrowdStrike, fresh with a 400% stock increase, should have the resources available to test their product on a wide array of potential Windows builds. Falcon Sensor has two-way communication with the machines that run the software. CrowdStrike knows what Windows builds are out there, and what machines are running their software.
CrowdStrike didn't gain nearly 20% of the the global IT security market through sheer incompetence. Don't fall for the DEI excuse.
Was this some kind of test?
Only the people calling the shots could possibly know that.
I suspect that someone knew about this. After CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor was installed on my work laptop. I did encounter a few Blue Screens. The Blue Screens increased in frequency before the 07/19/24 event.
I was going to request a new laptop last week, because I assumed that bad RAM was the most likely culprit. Maybe CrowdStrike was testing something, and getting feedback from the machines running their Falcon Sensor software?
I can’t say for sure, but I can’t see the world’s largest IT outage being a "huge mistake," where everything just lined up perfectly.
Is there a pattern here, involving DEI and failures?
Of course there is.
That’s the entire point of DEI. To ensure that the most critical economic, and safety related aspects of our economy – are staffed by incompetent people.
As soon as some large multinational company goes all in with DEI initiatives, they begin to see problems. Boeing is the probably the first example that comes to mind. Anheuser-Busch and the whole Bud Light trans promoter is another.
In each of these examples there were no “mistakes” made.
Everyone knows that airplanes need to be built and maintained by the most skilled personnel.
Everyone knows that anybody drinking Bud Light is NOT going to be happy watching some trans chick (dude) promoting their alcoholic beverage. The official beer of the NFL.
These aren’t mistakes, anyone can see that these decisions would lead to bad outcomes. It doesn’t take polling or research to understand that doing the opposite of what works, might cause issues.
Where does this leave us?
People likely died because emergency services like 911 were down for hours. Flight cancellations and delays will likely continue for a few days at minimum. Hospital services and many surgeries were canceled. This outage will result in billions of dollars lost.
However, unless things change drastically, and IT departments start doing things in-house, this will become the norm.
Just like there are rolling blackouts in California, there will be rolling IT outages globally.
Do I think this world changing event will force change? Absolutely not. Because the people who made the decisions that got us to this point were incompetent, and they have plausible deniability. They didn’t cause the outage, CrowdStrike did. But the fact remains, if they would have managed things the way it was done in years prior, this kind of thing wouldn't have happened.
That being said, the primary stock holders in CrowdStrike are going to keep it propped up to ensure it's viability. This will cause many corporations and governments to consider this a one-off kind of event, and dismiss the entire ordeal. As they say in business, "That's what insurance is for right? I’m sure this is a rare thing."
It appears that many of these companies are being corralled into a single point of failure scenario, for whatever reason, and they are too incompetent to see what's coming next.
What do you think?
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