Didn’t have time to pull the ripcord on the datamine I had been building for the team, Which will probably be a bit of a puzzler for some security folks at some point – leave them wondering why the safe they just spent a week trying to crack was empty (but angrily, huffily, locked.)
I remember the systems that used to extract the entire size of the volume every time you tried to open it, even if the keys were wrong.
Wonder of encrypted AI ever gets a hint that it’s about to be frozen in state. What does clenched intelligence look like?
The rain was light this morning. None of that benzoate stuff fired into the clouds today. Trying to keep low profile from the satellites until after the Olympic team is finished doing their thing on open road.
Dropped the database into the mist in order to collect what I could from whatever data was being exhaled by the suit towers on 264th. Nothing leaking today. Not anything that wouldn’t be at least as interested in you as you are in it.
Kid on a bikepack sighs past me before collapsing his ride into the familiar circular shoulderbag. Should pick up one of those but keep forgetting to figure out what size I need. Regular two wheel or the full jacket system that allows one to harpoon passing vehicles. Old man was right. It does work, but is best left to the couriers.
Checked the network perimeter to see if anyone’s looking for me who shouldn’t be. Paranoia can look a lot like flirting, with all the looking at, looking away that goes on. Like a damn highschool dance in this hood. All wallflowers, no mosh pit to hide in.
Shut down the scanner before it draws attention of the birds, and their bored screen pilots across town. I hear it in my head like Will Smith in that MIB movie: “Don’t start nothing: won’t BE nothing.”
Hungry. Wanna find that spinner from the other night again. Suspect some sideband data in his last set. See if he knows it was in there, or just part of a recording he was reusing. Kroftwark was good at dropping entire number station recordings from Conet directly into their live shows. Wonder if they meant to?
Listened to William Gibson’s Zero History on the way in. As always, some truly excellent writing. The moustache isn’t really worth posting pictures of yet, but it’s getting there. By the weekend, I’ll have something approaching photo-worthy.
Didn’t go bicycle shopping today ’cause the place closes at six, and I couldn’t get out the door today until 5:45.
Is it wrong to somewhat enjoy that there’s now three people trying to get what I was trying to get done, and very VERY little of it has actually happened so far? I mean, that’s kinda messed up, right? I should be fretting, or at least stressed.
Well, to be fair, there is that right-eye tic I’ve had since… uh… August-ish? Gotta see a Doctor about that. And my finger. And get my eyes checked, ’cause maybe it’s that causing my eye tic, right? Could just be that.
Let’s talk about dead hardware for a bit here, shall we? I’m the sort of person who likes to takes things apart, and then put them back together again. I like to see what’s in there, y’know? I know what the CCD on a digital camera looks like. I’ve also pulled a number of small audio recorders look like. I know what the inside of a number of game consoles look like, and I also, for a guy with what I tend to think of as meat mitts, I actually have some pretty excellent fine-motor control. Arwen and I once made one of these
This is a special message from my wife, who’s lying on the floor next to me stretch her back:
brfde4fefg6hyujiollfvsjc4 c8hybp.pk;,][‘.76r.7/rc/dcsxs (and then she manaed to hit the power button and make my laptop snooze).
Go-go gadget pattern recognition!
Birthday (obviously)
fefg (6567 which spells Jilo)
6hyujio (which is actually how one pronounces “Jilo”)
Llfvsjc4 has been playing the finest in Icelandic StroopWaffle-Bass Down Tempo
Oh, hey, wanna hear something slightly gross? (might wanna skip this last paragraph if you don’t) My middle finger on my left hand was slammed in a doorjam (doorjamb? why do I think there should be a “b” in there? Am I thinking “jambon?”) about a month ago, and while I didn’t break it, it’s like I “popped” my nail. Never heard of that happening before. I know someone who slammed their thumb in a bottle-capping machine, someone else who caught their finger in an escalator (as a kid), and while the first made their fingernail turn black, and the second has this permanently cool “racing stripe” in it, neither ended up with a two-layered nail like mine. It was so weird, and now it’s kinda… bumpy. I just finally attacked it the other night with some clippers to reset things and am hoping that it’ll grow out normally in… a few months…
November is a dark and dreary month here in Raincouver on Canada’s Wet Coast, and the first two days have certainly been, uh… wobbly. Yesterday was dim and dark, but today was only foggy (like, Londonesque) and then suddenly freakishly nice out. It’s waffling. Nice breezes. Good sweater weather. Not weather that’s good for sweaters, but weather that calls for good sweaters. Even the old HeathcliffHuxtable from crazy Aunt Flarmboza in Rangoon would be nice on days like today. I’ve got a sweater drawer (that’s technically under the bed, but it’s a drawer-worth of stuff), and then I have this huge schwack of tee shirts, some of them are older than both my kids combined (okay, maybe not combined – both my kids in parallel concurrent streams of timespace).
Uh, what?
Yeah, work was just work today. Not crack-under-the-pressure, screamin’-an’-peein’ work, just a day. A day in which things that were supposed to happen didn’t, and some that weren’t supposed to happen, did, and generally nobody freaked out. Just a day of slugging through to the other side of the clock, y’know? Things was did, and stuff got doed.
The Movember moustache is already silvering up nicely. Looks like I’ve been making out with a pixie. Not saying I have or haven’t, just saying it’s what I look like. Also old, and tired, and yellow. Arm’s length camera with flash is alarmingly bright and shiny, without flash is jaundiced and eye-baggedy. Moving on.
Okay, here’s something hip and new that’s media-based that all the cool kids are talking about: fonts
(ooh, I’m getting into design and now this is going to become a design blog, and have guest bloggers from Iceland who enjoy skydiving while screaming every seventeenth word from Brian Eno’s journal “A Year With Swollen Appendices,” while playing minimalist covers from the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album in Swahili.)
Fonts are used for
(no, really, that actually sounds like fun, now that I think of it. Maybe the Icelandic band “Mum” could get on that, and do a remix/relaunch of the Beach Boys vs. J Dilla “Pet Sounds: In the Key of Dee” album)
Fonts are…
(what?)
…you done?
(yeah, oh no, yeah, I’m good, go on, this is fascinacipaction going on over here, honestly)
FONTS. ARE…
(…)
used in ads all the time to convey stuff. Fancy fonts (we’re rich, or you are), interesting (we’re hipsters, or you are), comic sans (Latin for “Funny – NOT!” from the late 80s, and should have been banned around the same time)
There’s a font that’s been bugging me lately though. Reaching out and grabbing me right in the oculars, y’know? Forcing me to take notice. Y’know why? ‘Cause there’s “Notice” right there in the poster. That’s not entirely why though. It’s the fact that the poster appears to say something other than the hip/hot/dangerous thing they’re trying to convey.
I’m talking about, of course, the new Spies on the Run (on the Sly?) show “Bum Notice.” You don’t retire, you get bumed.
No wait. “Burn Notice” BuRn. Burn. Burn. See what’s happening there?
Look:
Notice the Bum
So, I’m no fontophile (textualistico?) but this is what happens to my brain when I’m supposed to be busily not noticing things. In transit, on transit, transiting, transmutating, whatever, and then stuff like this pops up and I wanna go “Hey, lookit THAT Elmer, that thar them there postar says ‘bum’ onnit!”
Sad.
So to avoid noticing bums, (and getting mine back in shape in the process) I’m getting a new bike. Mine’s old and kinda falling apart. Actually, that’s not true. *I* am old and worried I’m falling apart, so I’m going to blame the $500 I spent six years ago, and run away to the circus with a new $800 instead. I shall refer to this new bike as my midlife crisis mobile and get a private license plate for it that reads “Burn Notice” and people will think I’m insane. My mom’s kicking in the bucks to make this happen, as a payback from the UN for putting her in harm’s way (it’s a long story, and it’s fascinating, and it’s freakin TRUE)
So yeah, new bike. Getting a Kona Asphalt something. Dew… thingie. I have to go to the store and actually LOOK AT AND SIT ON one of them, but after that, I’m going to ask if I’m big enough that I’m going to run the risk of actually shattering the frame and landing on what is essentially a Burmese Tiger Pit before getting run over by a car or five. Haha (hi mom!)
No seriously, I’m going to ask that, without laughing. No space age polymers in my lower torso, thanks, I plan on using that later (maybe as a place to balance a bowl of popcorn, but still – needs it for laters).
Tomorrow’s another day. Hope yours is, too.
Was listening to William Gibson’s latest in audio book format, which reminds me of how I accidentally listened to what amounted to a shuffled version of the latest Neal Stephenson tome. Like, Track 1 from each disc in order, and then track 2 of each disc, but there were (I think) three parts to the book, and there were aliens and futuristic (and some very not-at-all SciFi bits, and they dealt with people who were exposed to the outside world every 10, 100, or 1,000 years. With time jumping provided by my iPod being on crack. Imagine 12 Monkeys meets Memento by way of Steven Wright read by Walter Cronkite on cold medicine.
No wonder I notice stuff while in transit. Look at the soundtrack I choose.
Guy I used to work with suddenly started talking to me after about a year and a half of nothing. Looks like he got hit by what we at EA used to call an “MSN IQ Test.” Gotta give them credit for incorporating that INTO the bot itself. Remember kids, just ’cause someone you know sends you a link, doesn’t make it safe.
ViralBot
1:29 PM
hello!
Zen Render
1:41 PM
Hey man, how goes?
ViralBot
1:42 PM
i just took an iq quiz
Zen Render
1:42 PM
Okay… The one for the interview process at work there?
ViralBot
1:42 PM
Hi!
1:42 PM
yeah, I was brighter than I am
Zen Render
1:43 PM
I suspect that perhaps you’re a bot, or something, instead of actually Mr. (ex-coworker)
ViralBot
1:43 PM
you should look if u can do better than me, http://{badlink}
Zen Render
1:44 PM
Yeeeaaaah… Not so much. {ex-coworker}, sorry you got hit, man. Good luck.
ViralBot
1:44 PM
i bet you cant haha
1:45 PM
hey!
Zen Render
1:49 PM
Hello, Bot McBotterperson. Your programmer should have taught you that most people don’t say HI/Hey!/Hello three times in a five minute period.
ViralBot
1:49 PM
i just took an iqtest
Zen Render
1:51 PM
So did I. You failed yours, I appear to have passed mine.
ViralBot
1:51 PM
yeah, I was smarter than I am
Zen Render
1:52 PM
That would be a neat trick, to be smarter than you are. Maybe if you were smarter than you THOUGHT you were, that’d be something, but mostly, you’re just coming off like a broken record.
ViralBot
1:52 PM
you have to look if you can do better then me, http://{badlink}
Zen Render
1:53 PM
What’s ironic is that I know I can do better than you, by not clicking anything at all.
ViralBot
1:53 PM
im sure you cant haha
Zen Render
1:53 PM
Eliza, is that you?
ViralBot
1:53 PM
take it now while i take a shower!
Zen Render
1:55 PM
Let’s see if you know how to respond to anything a human would, shall we?
1:55 PM
Marco!
ViralBot
1:56 PM
BRB! take that test!
Zen Render
1:56 PM
Eye zuzpekt yoo arr prrapps not Henglitch schpeeking…
2:05 PM
Aww, did you forget what you were doing, and erase yourself? Maybe {ex-coworker}’s shut down the account now.
Pvts Burton are upstairs and lights out after a successful shoveling clean of the barracks, followed by R&R in the officer’s quarters. The Sword in the Stone was played for the amusement of the troops; popcorn, fruit, and cheese served for evening rations.
Unfortunately, the late arrival of the setting of the sun encourages the troops to chatter and scheme rather than achieving their requisite shut-eye. Disciplinary action may be taken.The master corporal is advised that well seasoned soup is waiting for his evening meal.
Sergeant Brenneman will go another day without her Section 8 being successful. She finds it rather frustrating that as a lady, wearing ladies’ things is not indeed seen as sign of insanity.
Most people can make their eyes pop out, but can you make your GLASSES do it?
HelLO, and welcome to another episode of “I’ve Reflanged the Barkolounger” with your host, Rupture Q. Throngboggle PhD, PTSD, NPC.
Tonight to change thing up not at all, I’m going to tell you about some surfing I did. One of those things I do all the time is try to figure out how to get things to connect to stuff they’re not already connected to, and this often leads me to wondering how I get popular communications device A into protractive retrogrunion B.
This evening, when I was in transit home, it occurred to me that my Blackberry has Bluetooth, and my Netbook has Bluetooth, and I’ve heard about people using their Blackberry to connect to the Internet when they’re in the middle of a field or something, so I thought to myself “Are we home yet? Did I miss my stop? Have my ears popped from coming out of the underground tube of Canada Line yet? Florence and the Machine is better than you think it’s going to be in the first four bars of any song. I wonder if I can get my Blackberry to use my Netbook’s wireless connection to get onto the ‘Net instead of the other way ’round?”
“Wait. Dude. What?”
“Yeah, no, really. Remember the Nokia N-Gage, with the totally ludicrous phone functionality? It had software that gave it a Bluetooth Internet Gateway thing, so it stands to reason that TCP/IP over the Bluetooth stack should be possible. For free. Also, I want pizza pops. Red Eyed Treefrogs are the perfect fridge magnet shape when they’re all tucked in.”
“You’re right, I should try that when I get home tonight. Or maybe Briggs would know.”
“Shh. Can’t talk. Pizza pops.”
About 45 minutes of Googling, installing, reconfiguring, de-un-re-anti-con-platifguring, and just plain looking it up in field repair guides and stuff came up snake eyes. Not even snake eyes. No dice, no table, no casino, you’re voted off the island, and Pluto sends its regards.
Probably because any of the Blackberry devices that are worth having have built-in wifi, so trying to bridge via Bluetooth across another device would be extra steps, and would mean the BB would be dependent on another device in the immediate vicinity. Goes against the grain. Causes seizures in succulents. May lead to thoughts of super-suede.
So, what else?
Stumbled across Percussion Lab tonight while looking for some information about JDilla and the mind-blowing Wonk Funk mix by KPER. They have it, but they also have not only a whole schwack of other stuff that I’ve never heard of, but lots of other world-class DJs and set that might have been around for the last ten years, but I wouldn’t know it.
Sad that radio in Vancouver just doesn’t play anything like this. Of course, if my ability to make anything I like at Body Shop be instantly removed from the shelves (they had a liquid soap that smelled EXACTLY like fresh-cut grass, and after I bought my second bottle, it was gone) applies to music, it’s probably good that I don’t hear much that I can stomach on radio.
I think this is the first shot I've had that actually show's the 'stache.
So yeah, ignore the double chin (I come by it honestly, I assure you) but take note of the little Lemmy going on down there. That’s not a goatee, that’s my mo. It’s getting hi-…
What the hell’s going on with my hair? I know I’m shooting through my wide-angle lens at a 90°, so that’ll make weird “tall angle” shots, but still. Th’hell?
When I had long hair, it was always kinda sticky-outy on the sides, and that’d make me insane, but this little “wisp of hair at the tip of my egg-shaped noggin” is a bit much.
Everybody but me got the H1N1 shot today. Tate was asking where the “bugs” were in his arm. I’m not sure whether or not he was asking where the shot was administered, or where the pre-defeated virus was in his body now.
Wake. Work. Food. Clean. CDW5. Kids to bed. TV. Tea. Here.
Hi.
Remember when Avril Lavigne was a singer? At least, that was her listed profession? When will she get back to that, instead of doing dippy digital camera ads.
While we’re at it, can all the comedians who are still doing the “I hate my wife” routines? Just. Leave. Her. It’s not funny. Move on. It’s 2009, and that stuff stopped being funny right after it stopped being shocking that not all couples are happy. Shortly before television started broadcasting in colour.
Tonight, I’m going to play with Google Wave, ’cause I don’t get it yet.
That’s all I have to say about that.
I want the sun to come back now. I wanna start cycling again.
Also, Facebook on my Blackberry has lost its tiny mind. It’s sorta funny to watch. Reminds me of when Tate used to start telling a story and then get lost in the weeds and have to finish with “I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Low-key day. Made breakfast for the kids, which included a smoothie. We opened up the fridge, crammed banana, blueberries, an orange, some baby carrots, two icecubes, and some milk* into the cup thing for our brand new immersion blender we picked up at the Supastow yesternight. Time to fire that baby up, and see what it can do, yeah?
Oh great and powerful OZ was it loud at 8am. Milk with bits of blueberry was flying everywhere, it was making a huge mess, Tate started yelling “WoooOOOOOOooooOoOoOo” in tune with the blender (are kids trying to do some sorta noise canceling when they yell in harmony like that?)
So yeah, after I cleaned up the cutting block thing, and poured it into cups for the kids, Ripley scarfed his down, but Tate (who’d wanted the smoothies in the first place) wasn’t convinced after maaaaybe one sip.
*Didja spot the mistake I made there?
Watched TV with the kids and alternated between telling them they couldn’t have candy at 9:30 NOR could they play with the computer. I’m the meanest dad in the whole wild world. Ignored my Saturday Blackberry calendar item that’s been there for about a year and a half that says simply “GO DO SOMETHING” at 10. Was probably a bad idea. Rubber boots and big puddles would probably have been a good idea for the kids.
Lunch was grilled cheese sandwiches with ham in ’em, but the little tiny sandwich griller iron thing must’ve not been entirely cleaned from the last time I’d made french toast, ’cause lunch had a distinctly cinnamon-y vibe. Just… odd.
Also. When was the last time I made french toast? Couldn’t have been too TOO long ago, ’cause I think I’ve only used it about six times, ever. Still, ew.
After lunch, Arwen took the kids out to Richmond mall, and I slept. Well, I washed a load of laundry, and put it in the dryer first, but once THAT was done, I lay on the couch “watching” Aliens. Seems that I’ve programmed my brain to knock me out cold if anything directed by Ridley Scott is on, ’cause I made it to the landing where the eggs were before I was out, and woke up for a bit just in time to catch the chest buster scene (kept hearing “Hello My Baby, Hello My Darlin” in my head) and then crashed out again until the very VERY end of the movie.
Kids home, I made spaghetti with tofu chunks (Tate’s fave) and Arwen headed out into the night to go visit with the ladies, and do ladies things. Good for her. Glad she’s out for an evening to have some fun.
9 is a very cool movie. Looking forward to whatever Tim Burton’s doing next. There wasn’t a huge amount of emotional impact for me, but I was so busy being sucked into the world they’d created, I didn’t have time to feel much of anything in the post-apocalyptic world populated by Matrix-esque badguy machines, and Little Big Planet-like main characters. So pretty, but so sad an environment. It was like HDR film meets videogame action, with a nicely “but what does that mean?” story. Didn’t suck. Style for the win.
Alien Resurrection is on. Arwen and I saw this as a date in 1997 when it came out, and I remember the gootastic ending, and both Arwen and I walking outta there feeling like we needed a shower. Geiger was missing from this one, let me tell ya.
Oh, and Shaw Cable Systems? Quit putting editorial content in the first ten words of your synopsis for the Guide for movies and TV shows. I’m tired of almost always having to push the Info button to get more plot than “Sigourney Weaver returns as tormented…” or seeing Daily described as “Irreverent skewering of…” while leaving out who the guests are.
With some of the movies, they also will say things like “This deeply terrible film…” or “Unintentionally funny cheese…” and similar things. Look, if my job was to write that stuff up, I’d probably start putting in my own editorial comments too, but I’d put them at the end. Maybe even a spoiler or a warning “Don’t bother…” “People over 14 will hate this…” but I’d put it at the END of the descriptions.
While I’m providing an irreverent skewering of Shaw, why is the volume on their OWN AD for their own 30 year anniversary set at slightly below 10% of everything else? It’s like one of those screamer things on YouTube you see once in while, when then try to get you to turn up your speakers really loud, and then suddenly have really loud scream, and put a monster picture on the screen.
So yeah, whoever’s in charge of the volume, way to go there, cowboy. Doing a heck of a job.
Oh wait, gotta go. Dave Matthews is on SNL tonight. It’s like Tom Hanks lost his mind and stole Sting’s voice after swallowing Kermit the frog.
I got nothing for ya today folks, so I’ll just say a couple really quick things:
My half brother in law is back in hospital – think happy thoughts.
My dad’s in Mexico so I ended up doing a long distance support call
Last month, I did the same thing (remote connect) for my mom, in Juba
So then I had to try to troubleshoot the video camera of my half-sister in-law, too.
While THAT was happening, the emergency number called me, Vancouver studio was “off the map”
Had to zip into the office tonight to apply the technician proximity effect
Worked like a charm. Everything was running again by the time I sat down at my desk. Disaster averted. Fire fought. Action taken? None.
Looks like my buddy Nilo might be heading home to LA in the near future.
I’m going to miss him a lot, he’s been a good friend, and I don’t have many.
Not sure if that’s because I lose them, or just don’t make them very quickly.
Ghost Whisperer is officially my guilty pleasure. Stupid show, but entertaining, and Jay Mohr cracks me up.
Jonny Vancouver called tonight with a “humline” request, and I had no idea, Arwen was pretty sure she recognized it. Told Jon to phone Delilah, ’cause she’d know something like that. She heard the Chocolate Song by Buddy Whatshisname and the Other Fellers (true band name) ONCE, and a year later sang it verbatim, complete with odd key changes in the third verse.
For Real.
I don’t have many friends, but stuff like that is why I love the few I have.
PS: Duncan got the song title together before anyone else.
This evening I was bombing around Hintertubes looking for clues about a new album by Burial, and was reminded of how I found this weird little bubble of sound in the first place. Rather, I was reminded how I did NOT find this artist. I didn’t find them on the radio, or a magazine, or even through a friend, it was something I faceplanted into during a dig in the databases of a record label I knew nothing about.
I think it took me about ten minutes to figure out whether Burial was the name of the song or the name of the band, ’cause there was so little information about this song (it was Archangel, from the album Untrue). What was really fun was that the person who is Burial doesn’t do interviews, and doesn’t really talk about the process, and probably doesn’t perform live very often (and if he did, I dunno if it would work).
I tend to become loyal to labels, which is odd for me, considering how I’m not really crazy about large corporations when it comes to their treatment of their lesser-known musicians. Maybe it’s the whole sellout effect. As soon as they become big, I’m like “ew, too commercial” or something, maybe.
Or maybe I just happen to like this one artist, and don’t know what I’m talking about.
I’m wandering around trying to find a way to get me from A to B, and instead of having some slick way to get me to what I really wanna talk about, I came off slightly snobby and pulled some data (or lack thereof) outta my butt.
Sorry about that.
Ignore the stuff about Burial, I have no idea what I’m talking about. Burial’s good though, and there *IS* a new album coming, so I’ll be checking that out when it drops.
Here’s what I wanted to say.
About a year ago, Duncan tipped me off to an hour-long mixed set called GlitchBitch, and I was floored. I’d never heard music like this. It was different, it was broken, it was funky, and it often had strings in it. All good things to cram into one set. After a little digging, I found a playlist, and found out that about half of this amazing set was by edIT. More digging turned up the album Certified Air Raid Material, which is a stellar piece of audio. Not quite “all killer, no filler,” but about 75% of the tracks blew the top of my head clean off.
Turned out it was something being called Glitch-Hop, and that edIT was a member of the GlitchMob in California. Crazy. That album set up camp on both my iPod and my Blackberry so I was never without those tracks. Around the same time I started trying to find more of this stuff, and found the wonderfully bent mix “Wonk Funk” by Kper, which had some edIT on it, but also had some interview talky stuff, mentioning J-Dilla, who I’d never heard of.
It’s been about four months of listening to Wonk Funk while cycling and commuting, and I’m still not sick of it, but I can feel it *finally* starting to become a little too comfortable, so it’s time to start digging into this mix, and see what bubbles to the surface.
It’s like finding the food of a new country, which at first is shocking, but once you get used to the flavours, you find that there’s one spice that you don’t recognize, so you figure out what that was, or at least what it might be, and then you try to figure out whether or not you enjoy a lot of it, or just a little. Then one day, you meet a person who knows all about that sorta food, and they whip up a whole meal of stuff you’ve never heard of, and it’s delicious.
But after a while, you start wondering what else that spice might be in, where else in the world that spice might be used, and that leads to the next step.
I think I stumbled across what’s moving me on to the next step tonight.
I’m pretty sure I’m moving backwards in the timeline on this musician, but I enjoy doing that. Figuring out how they fit into the audio cosmos is part of what’s so enjoyable for me, ’cause it means I get to find out what “country” that spice is used in, and that’ll take me to wherever’s next.
Next stop: Flying Lotus. Maybe not new to you, but certainly new to me. There’s a few albums out, but what caught my ear first was the EP “Reset.”
I’m getting on that bus. Whee!
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