Timmerov's Blog: February 2016

Timmerov's Blog

Sunday, February 28, 2016

360

clear 360 circles

¶ 8:00 AM

Saturday, February 27, 2016

dear trump

i am not gonna pay for that fucking wall.

¶ 8:00 AM

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

apple v fbi 2

some developments since yesterday's post. first, freedom to tinker has a really nice write up. they illustrate what's likely to happen using the luggage locks the tsa suggested people use. which are now completely useless as a security device. the second development is it's been revealed that it's not just one phone. there are at least a dozen phones the fbi wants this master key for. i say at least because we have secret courts. that issue secret warrants. with gag orders. so apple would not be able to say anything about them. not even confirm or deny them. so the fbi could on one hand say, "it's just one phone". when really there are 100s or 1000s of phones to be unlocked. and they'd be perfectly safe in that lie. cause gag order. from secret courts.

¶ 8:00 AM

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

apple v fbi

wow. there's no good answer here. on one hand i'd kinda like to have the information on that phone. on the other hand, i don't want to make it any easier for people to get the information on my phone. the fbi is technically correct when they say they're not asking for a master key. on the other hand, apple is absolutely correct in saying that once this technique is used once, all sorts of government actors could compel them to use it. so for all practical purposes, it IS a master key. from a security point of view, there is no difference between a good guy with a legitimate tool and a bad guy with a nefarious tool. these two scenarios are exactly the same. so what do we do? i think it might come down to a legal technicality. ie if apple has a master key, the government can certainly compel them to use it. but this master key doesn't exist. can the government compel apple to create one? the government can certainly bribe apple to create one. if the government can compel apple to do this thing, what else can it compel people and companies to do? what are the limits? can the government compel me to jump on a grenade? i'm thinking nope. and it can't compel me to create a tool that could be used by bad guys. nor apple neither.

¶ 8:00 AM

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

originalism

according to the original authors... prince charming encounters beauty sleeping in the woods. rapes her. leaves. she bears his twins. he brings her to his castle. they murder his wife. get married. perhaps we shouldn't be too hasty to blindly embrace originalism.

¶ 8:00 AM

Monday, February 15, 2016

scalia

the good news is scalia is no longer on the supreme court. the mitigating news is that he died. celebrating a person's death is sometimes proper. but scalia wasn't that kinda of monster. he brought two phrases to the lexicon. the first is originalism. which is claimed to mean to interpret the constitution the way the founding father's intended. it's noble and proper in concept. it's also bullshit. scalia was an originalist when it suited his ideology. otherwise his brand of originalism was more accurately an original and novel interpretation of the constitution. which brings me to the second phrase he added to the lexicon: jiggery-pokery. which means by cromulence, to torture and twist logical thinking to achieve the desired result. and befitting his stereotype, he bombastically accused others of his very own sins. i am glad that he is gone from power. i am not glad that he is gone from this earth.

¶ 8:00 AM

Sunday, February 14, 2016

modesty drones

if you're going to dance ballet naked, you might want to invest in some modesty drones. wait for it. regrettably, not safe for work. but only technically.

¶ 8:00 AM

Friday, February 12, 2016

speed limits

we have those fancy dancy radar enabled speed limit signs in our area. they're usually pretty okay. but lately they've taken to some odd behavior. like flashing your speed when it's below the speed limit. like speed limit 35. your speed 33. on off on off on off. that's weird enough. but then they flash red. slow down! slow down! slow down! your speed 33. speed limit 35. wtf? bad idea. very bad idea. it's training me to ignore the speed limit signs.

¶ 8:00 AM

Saturday, February 06, 2016

bacon!

i started playing ddo during the beta. that was 10 years ago. sheehs. where the time go? anywho, work was stressful for numerous factors. i ended up needing time to hit things. better to do it in an imaginary world, eh? over the summer, i ran my party of 6 up to level 20 by farming xp from an easy saga. like i said. i didn't need a challenge. i just needed to hit things. the same things. over and over and over and over. call it ocd. call it therapy. but remember this - i didn't hit anyone in real life. so there's that. anywho, i recently pushed my guild up to level 40. and bought a bigger airship. this one has 3 bacon. which is more than the old airship had. also has twice as many rooms for guild buffs. including a state room. woo hooty! i'm unblocked at work. so i don't know when i'll be able to farm the tokens i need to reincarnate my party as first levels. err... second level characters. cause i've banked enough xp tokens from the daily dice. mmm... bacon.

¶ 8:00 AM

Wednesday, February 03, 2016

zika

the biggest challenge facing human civilization right now is overpopulation. i'm willing to believe the zika virus causes birth defects. but if not... man. someone's a genius. make people afraid to have babies. cause they're gonna be 'tards. heh. wish i had thought of it.

¶ 8:00 AM

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

needs

the difference between needs and wants is one of the conversations i had with my kids when they were little. you want a cookie. you do not need a cookie. unfortunately apparently not everyone gets that conversation. we use slack at work. and slack is very clear. it NEEDS my permission to send me notifications. no. slack wants my permission to send notifications. it doesn't need it. alerting me every fucking day that it needs my permission is irritating. and is not going to get it permission. it will however get me to stop using the product.

¶ 8:00 AM

Monday, February 01, 2016

anonyfuncs

so i taught myself c++11 between coding gigs last year. c++11 added anonymous lambda functions. pretty much don't ever want to use em. cause if you want to program in lisp then frikken go program in lisp. sheehs. so anywho, we have this standard interview question. and every so often the question comes up, how do we improve our interview process? cause either 1) it sucks, or 2) every candidate who's not currently employed sucks. anywho, take home exams are inevitably suggested. so i turned in my response to the standard question as if it were a take home test. i used a lambda function. and a template. and wrote unit tests.

¶ 8:00 AM