The Iggblog

The turkeys are back at work. Careful guys, thanksgiving is getting pretty close

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.

Who needs a lucky clover when you have bullets? Maybe she just waned Starbucks to know that she meant it when she said “splenda not sugar”. For the record she had a badge on her belt too but I couldn’t get a discrete shot of it.

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.

As sort of an update to yesterday’s post and a followup on an earlier idea… When satellite radio came out I noticed there were no stations I’d really listen to. Maybe one or two tops. But I listened to internet radio all the time. I was tickled when I figured out how I could get my PDA at the time to get internet radio over bluetooth, so I could listen to it uninterrupted when I had to use the bathroom. This was before PDAs had wifi (and people even used PDAs). I always said if there’s a way I could get internet radio in my car, I’d jump on it so fast. I’d even pay for it. And everyone that knows me knows how much I love free shit. I’ve been listening to my favorite internet radio streams and even Pandora in the car through my iphone, and it’s everything I thought it could be.

Unlimited data… who’s bright idea was that? You really want to take a guy like me who almost literally lives online, and stamp a free all access pass on my hand? I like mobile internet, and I do a LOT of driving/walking/errand-running. 10 out of 10 for style, minus several million for good thinking. But hey, you offered it up and I’m more than willing to make use of the 30 bucks a month a pay for unlimited internet, IM, SSH/VNC, and internet radio… which, as I always said, I’m more than happy to do. Here’s to you, internet.

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.

My stupid red slider phone was showing signs of aging and abuse, and I was starting to outgrow it. It was pro at using the internet 120×120 pixels at a time, texting, and streaming internet to my laptops via bluetooth (still a favorite trick of mine). But the signs of aging and abuse were starting to show… the chassis was made of cheap plastic and was getting beat (the battery cover didn’t really “stay on” so much anymore), and the battery life was standing up well to time, but still degrading. And there may or may not have been a rapid deceleration incident involving my hand and some asphalt. The phone was a trooper no doubt, but my 2 years was up and I had the opportunity to look around.

There was a buzz about my workplace when the new iPhone 3GS came out. The regular iPhone 3G was getting cheaper, and my company is in bed with AT&T. When the new 3GS came out, the price for an 8 gig 3G dropped to 50 bucks for employees here, along with a discounted rate plan including enterprise unlimited this-and-that. That put it into “I’d be stupid not to” territory. So 50 bucks later and a few clicks on a web form, and I have myself an iPhone. Don’t get me wrong, I hate Apple as a company. I think they have terrible business practices when dealing with other companies, and their dedication to customer lock-in is worse than Microsoft. But They have some really good hardware. My boss put it best, “I had so many reasons to hate the iPhone before I got it, but now it’s probably the coolest thing I own”. Gonna have to agree with him there. I still hate the company, but this is an awesome little piece of hardware.

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.

One of my favorite sites that I subscribe to is The Art of Manliness. It’s not like GQ, Maxim, or macho type manliness… More like “the lost art of being a real man and a gentleman”. It centers in on Integrity, physical and mental fitness, style, relationships, career, and everyday tips for things men deal with. It’s really a stellar site. One of the things they do from time to time is historic themed motivational posters that center in on some of history’s greatest men. I thought I’d post a couple here. Of course every man has his foibles, so let’s just leave those at the door. These focus in on what they had to offer as men, and what they did to live their lives as great men.

Theodore Roosevelt

George Patton

Winston Churchill

These all remind me of one of me of some of the Courage Wolf memes. Unlike the original Advice Dog memes, a lot of what courage wolf has to say can be thought of as actual motivation or direction. Among my favorites, and the one that specifically reminds me of the Art of Manliness threads:

The only way I ever excel at anything is by biting off more than I can chew, then chewing it. Failing if I have to, learning from it, and being able to take a bigger bite next time. I rarely excel by slowly building up to an achievement. Resolve: Fuck yeah.

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.

Poking my head into the internet to say hi. Two weeks ago I moved into a new place. About goddamn time. The last place I was in, Emily and I were subletting for 4 months while we waited for this place. Thank God it was only 4 months… the place was a hole. Emily and I were like “Hay, lets move in with Lindsey. It’ll only be 4 months, how bad could it be? lololol”. Well, it was bad. The living room was also an entry and a hallway. About 8 feet by 12 feet, minus space for a closet. Kitchen was (I shit you not) about 7 feet by 4 feet, not including counter space. There was no air conditioning, and window units were not allowed. On the day of the move we threw our sheets away, they were (watch me keep this work safe) yucky. There was an elevator, but it was like something out of a horror movie. The thing gave you a new appreciation for life every time you’d successfully exit it.. It was more of a cross between a cage, an electric chair, a bathysphere. Apparently it’s the oldest cage elevator in Boston, and it lets you know for damn sure.

The new place is pretty rockin. We’re right next to the JFK Library and UMass Boston. Technically it’s in Dorchester, but we don’t own up to it. It’s so close to the line that we just call it Boston. We’re on the 6th floor and it has an awesome view of Boston (and Dorchester, depending). It has all new everything. Central AC, even ethernet drops in every room with a patch panel in a central location. Hell yeah. The living room is massive and has floor to ceiling window that might as well be a wall. The elevator doesn’t threaten my life and affront my senses. I’ll try to get some pics of this place up soon, I’ve been too busy unpacking and enjoying downtime in a place that doesn’t give me headaches and make my ears pound from heat.

Anyways… yeah. Checking in. Sup, internet?

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.

“By 2047 the Air Force says unmanned aircraft with blazing artificial intelligence systems could fly over a target and determine whether or not to unleash lethal weapons –without human intervention.”

Full article: Clicky
Source document: Clicky (warning, it’s a PDF)

Are you fucking with me? Really? In what distorted reality is this a good idea? Machines break. Usually when machines break, they do it in such a way that halts their operation. But sometimes it “degrades” their operation in such a way that it operates outside of its normal parameters. Machines can also be tampered with… I mean, there’s no way they’d let these things loose without a way to communicate with them. If you can talk to it, chances are you can tamper with it remotely with malicious intent. There’s no way to completely 100% safeguard against that.

The argument could be made that humans break too… But humans CAN’T FLY OR MOUNT DOZENS OF MISSILES. We’re slow, soft, landbound, and can be stopped pretty easily with a pistol. Autonamous flying killer drones sophisticated enough to make kill/dont kill decisions on its own, and “the [ability] to swarm multiple drones on a single target” aren’t something that should be left up to machine logic. Thought engines are notorious for false positives. And once you refine them sufficiently in a lab environment, they get tons more in the wild. I can’t think of a way that developing a machine like this behind close doors, then bringing it to production wouldn’t be grossly irresponsible. I’m not saying “look at how many movies are about AI type machines going rogue!!!”. I’m saying that there’s pretty much no machine that’s been released into the wild that hasn’t been cracked and remotely exploited by someone with malicious intent given a reasonable period of time. And if there’s anything that internet badguys have proven it’s that they’re better at getting into the military’s electronic systems than the military has been at keeping them out.

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.

Simply Orange: Because orange juice has become so goddamn complicated. I find that when I wake up in the morning I almost want to skip breakfast entirely because of “the juice issue”. Things used to be so easy… cereal, coffee, orange juice, perhaps some toast if I’m feeling naughty. But then orange juice got ugly. It started making things way more of a chore than they had to be. And so confusing too… I mean, who could even figure that crazy stuff out? I never thought something as straight forward as orange juice would turn into such a shitstorm of micromanagement.

Then BAM, out of fucking nowhere comes Simply Orange. All the sudden breakfast is easy again. No more of those orange juice related morning issues that we blindly started accepting as a part of life. I’m ready to start living again.

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.

So I’m back from Vegas. Some months ago I decided it’d be cool to see Vegas before I turned 30. Probably after watching CSI or something. So Emily took it upon herself to be awesome and make it happen. She got us plane tickets and a room for relatively cheap on Orbitz or something like that. It’s pretty much exactly what I needed.

I’d been coming to work angry for the last few weeks just due to frustration… There’s a hiring freeze on engineers so I’m stuck in an operator position for now. It’s fine, I like my company but the waiting was getting to me. There hasn’t been much to do except push trash at work recently. I thrive off solving challenging problems, and spending hours troubleshooting something complex that I’ve never touched before. But recently it’s been all boring standardized notification type stuff.

Vegas was impressive. We stayed at Circus Circus, mostly because it was possible to get a big room on the strip for dirt cheap. It’s the place with the massive motherfucking creepy clown outside. It took a day or so to really take it all in. Sure it’s all artificial but the novelty, and sheer density of that novelty, was what was really cool to see. As with most people I didn’t net any wins. Emily and I played a bunch of slots… We’d find the loudest and most ADD/obnoxious machine we could find and we’d rock it for a few hours. All while sucking down free booze of course. I won a little at blackjack, but nothing worth mention. On the last day I got to visit a cousin of mine in the area and his GF. We wound down the vacation with a little BBQ, and leeched a ride to the airport. It was everything I thought it would be and more, and did exactly what I wanted it to. We left Thursday and came back Tuesday, and I returned to work calm and relaxed for once. I even got to do some really fun events at work on Wednesday.

That’s my story. That place is good times, looking forward to going back sometime.

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.