It’s an incredibly weird day when I find myself defending Google, or voice assistants, but here we are. I’ve seen it mentioned in several places that a Google Voice Assistant contractor is “blowing the whistle” on inadvertent recordings made by google devices. I want to note first that I have a very good friend, whom…
Quick Hit: Flight Hour Cost
A reminder: Trump misappropriated military funds meant to more safely house our troops to spend on his border wall instead. Meanwhile Trump’s July 4 parade for himself featured 2 Abrams battle tanks, a B-2 stealth bomber, 2 F-35Cs, 2 Super Hornet F-18s, 4 Apache helicopters, 2 F-22 Raptors, H-60 and H-65 helos, the BlueAngels &…
Items of Note: Senate doxxer sentenced, information & dopamine, missile site oops, and more
It’s a weird world where we market kevlar shoelaces for their ability to cut through flexcuffs/zipties, pay people pennies to game search engines to promote your business AND de-prioritize your domestic violence and malpractice history, and tech CEOs blame software problems on alternate universes. I should be back to regular blogging shortly. For the moment,…
Visualization: Viking Burial of the Past
Came up with this visualization earlier this year and it’s been quite helpful, especially when used at the end or beginning of each day. It’s relatively simple and once you’ve got the basics down you can walk through it as slowly or as quickly as you’d like. Relax however you like. Sit in a chair,…
Items of Note: Browser and cryptocurrency research, books and study materials, future leaking through tumblr, more
Quotes in quotation marks, comments from me in italics. Some items not brand new, but worth a smirk as I start out blogging again. Polish charity gets huge phone bill thanks to stork – “EcoLogic told the Super Express newspaper that somebody found the tracker in Sudan, removed the sim card and put it in…
A Revenge Fantasy
I have a very specific revenge fantasy in mind for the person that stole my Amazon package with a spool of solder in it. I hope you open that package, pal, and I hope it confuses you. I hope you don’t know what the hell it is. I hope, in your darkened den, in your…
The Wellsian Mirror
I’ve struggled recently with the individual and collective response to the Trump administration. The level of inaction and unconcern feels nothing short of pathological given the material harm that’s being caused. And I’ve been unable to construct the right internal model in order to understand it until the past few days. On the whole, people…
Where did I leave that bottle? On 2017 and Trump.
The number of mixed messages is maddening. Whether we’re in a bona fide emergency or not. A constitutional crisis or governmental concerns in the context of a frantic news cycle. Steps toward a new type of government or a mechanism that largely preserves the status quo. After all, not a hell of a lot seems…
Fiction: Scrape to soothe the rasp, hiss to hide the hum
Emily had been dreaming again. No tears on her pillow this time but the sound of rocket engines still rushed in her ears for a few fleeting moments. Slowly she came into her body, felt it materialize. Slowly the concrete around her became, well, concrete again. The camping mattress underneath felt like it had become…
The Explosive Trajectory of Technology
Jon Jeckell tweeted a Popular Mechanics piece showing what appeared to be a Ukrainian prototype shoulder-fired missile with a guidance system powered by the Raspberry Pi microcomputer. The inclusion of the Pi makes it a seeming next-step from the much shared image of Syrian rebels in Jobar in 2013 using an iPad to angle mortar…