Edward Kerr

New installation of three prints at the University of Pittsburgh. Thanks to Pitt and Casey Droege Cutural Productions. More information on new artwork and contact information is available at edwardkerr.net

Shortly after 1:00 this morning, Vittoria Elliott, Dhruv Mehrotra, Leah Feiger, and Tim Marchman of Wired reported that, according to three of their sources, “[a] 25-year-old engineer named Marko Elez, who previously worked for two Elon Musk companies [SpaceX and X], has direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the US government.”

According to the reporters, Elez apparently has the privileges to write code on the programs at the Bureau of Fiscal Service that control more than 20% of the U.S. economy, including government payments of veterans’ benefits, Social Security benefits, and veterans’ pay. The admin privileges he has typically permit a user “to log in to servers through secure shell access, navigate the entire file system, change user permissions, and delete or modify critical files. That could allow someone to bypass the security measures of, and potentially cause irreversible changes to, the very systems they have access to.”

“If you would have asked me a week ago” if an outsider could’ve been given access to a government server, one federal IT worker told the Wired reporters, “I'd have told you that this kind of thing would never in a million years happen. But now, who the f*ck knows."

Credit Heather Cox Richardson

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89 million people didn't vote...a convicted felon is president...the democracy is being dismantled and we are just letting it happen because of some rich guy from South Africa. When did we become so docile to let this happen?

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President Musk has issued his declarations and expects people to fall in line. Citizens United allows him to run the country and benefit from all of the tax breaks he will receive because of his (300million) contributions. The president elect is not in charge and with his diminishing mental faculties is at the mercy of a cabinet who has no idea of how to administer a government. But let it roll…2026 is right around the corner. Let’s see if voters wise up.

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As always...this is important information from a respected historian.

December 11, 2023 As is sometimes the case in American politics, a bill that many people are likely not paying a great deal of attention to is likely to have enormous impact on the nation’s future. That $110.5 billion national security supplemental package was designed to provide additional funding for Ukraine in i...

Just donated my 1987 Schwinn World Sport to Bicycle Heaven in Pittsburgh...hopefully it will be displayed on the second floor. A fitting end to a bicycle I rode for over 40,000 miles with three century rides...goodbye to an old friend.

Fall at Phipps. ©2023 Edward Kerr

Fall at Phipps Conservatory...©2023 Edward Kerr

Rodin Auguste (1840-1917)
La Pensée [ Portrait de Camille Claudel (1864-1943]
Vers 1895.)
Praticien : Victor Peter
marbre; Hauteur : 0.742 mLargeur : 0.435 mProfondeur : 0.461 m
Musée d'Orsay

Photo (C) RMN-Grand Palais (musée d'Orsay)

This Samurai is an Origami folded from a single square sheet of 95cm x 95cm (37.4 x 37.4 in) Wenzhou rice paper without any cutting, created by Origami artist Juho Könkkölä. It took two months to design and one month to fold.

More details/photos: https://bit.ly/3OCIKQY

What a lovely shot 😍