Why East St Louis is so poor

Dave Farquhar St. Louis
Why East St Louis is so poor

East St. Louis is a legendary American city, for all the wrong reasons. Those three words conjure up thoughts of extreme poverty, extreme crime, and danger, sometimes perceived, and sometimes very real. It wasn’t always that way, to hear some locals talk. Others will tell you it was always that way.

In its prime, East St Louis was the place you went because if you couldn’t get a job there, you couldn’t get a job anywhere. And after the late 1960s, it became the place you stayed when you had no other options, but how it became that is something of a geographic and historical accident.

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How to read a Qualys scan report

Dave Farquhar security
How to read a Qualys scan report

Reading and analyzing a Qualys scan is an underrated skill. Frankly, I see a lot of misuse and abuse surrounding Qualys scans. So let’s talk about how to read and analyze a Qualys scan for the purpose of understanding and solving problems.

You can read it in the user interface but I recommend exporting a CSV so you can sort and filter. The exact CSV format has changed a bit over the years so they may not be in this exact order. But this will get you started. The most important columns are all here.

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Marx 6-inch observation car

Dave Farquhar Toy trains
Marx 6-inch observation car

The Marx observation passenger car was a 6-inch passenger car based on the design Marx used for its 6-inch freights. The basic design underwent some changes and updates over the years, but Marx used the name from 1935 to 1942, then resumed production in 1946 and continued until 1961. Observation cars ran on the end of passenger trains and had a platform that passengers could use to admire the landscape as the train moved.

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How to merge data in Excel

Dave Farquhar Office
How to merge data in Excel

I understand business analysts ask each other how to merge data in Excel in job interviews. The rest of us struggle and swear a lot. If you don’t count a business analyst among your best friends, here’s the secret you need to merge data with the best of them. Including the detail everyone seems to forget.

I’ll talk about Excel here, but you may be able to adapt this to other spreadsheets too.

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IBM PC/AT 5170 hard drive types

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
IBM PC/AT 5170 hard drive types

The IBM PC/AT had a troubled history with hard drives. And if you’re using one today, even if it had one of the better hard drives in it, after 35-40 years it may not work. Here’s what you need to know about IBM 5170 hard drive types to substitute newer drives for it.

The IBM 5170 defined either 14 or 22 different hard drive types, depending on the BIOS revision. You’ll get best results if you choose something that can emulate one of the existing types.

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