You ever think, wouldn’t it be cool if they could chip our minds so that they can be found and recovered when we lose them?
The Take
Our utility bill arrived the other day. Coming from the city, this bill includes electricity, water, sewage, and a few other things.
Although there’s a total, of course – this is what I’ll pay – it’s categorized and subtotaled. The top part is about electricity. That part pleased me; it showed that thanks to the time of year and our solar panels, the city was paying us three dollars for our electricity. We owed nothing. That was sweet.
Next down was the water. We’d used less water than last year, but it came out to $45 due the city for water. The rest of the $89 bill due was for sewage, drains, street use, and street lights. That’s sobering, because there’s nothing I can do about any of that, except move to somewhere else.
Overall, I was pleased. To put this take in complete context, we have an eighteen hundred square foot single level stand-alone residence built in 2005. It’s located in Ashland, in southern Oregon. Two humans and four cats live there. All humans are over fifty. Our solar panels are rated at two thousand watts, but due to a number of circumstances, they usually won’t generate that much. I was impressed to see them putting out over two thousand when I checked on them the other day, and reflected on the perfect angle of the sun, ambient temperature, and humidity that coincided to create that miracle.
We depend on natural gas for heating, cooking, and the clothes dryer. That bill is $51 per month. That’s our comfort bill; they usually refund us a few dollars each year.
I post all of this because finding comparisons with others help put it all in context. When I complained to a friend about my water bill late last summer, they revealed that their bill that month was three times as much. Their house is larger by a thousand square feet, but it also has two occupants (and a smaller yard). They did have company stay with them that month.
Overall, my gas, water, and electric bills are not not bad. Hell, on reflection, I spend more on coffee in a month than I do on water or electricity. Food, though…
Well, that’s another post.
Without A Net
I was without a net last night. For about two and a half hours (nine twenty to eleven fifty), I couldn’t jump on the net to look up information, check on the Zuckerberg Machine (trademarked by J.R. Handley), or find the weather. More, I don’t have cable or satellite T.V. All my television is either O.T.A. or streaming. Without the net, streaming wasn’t available.
To the O.T.A.! That was an interesting experience. Infomercials, religious information centering around Jesus Christ, and old movies and television series saturate commercial airwaves that I can receive (about twenty). Circling through them, I found an episode of the original Star Trek series. It was “The Enterprise Incident”, and involved the Romulans.
The Roumlan commander was a female. I didn’t recall seeing the episode before, but I expected her and Kirk to start a romance. That’s how it used to go, wasn’t it? I was surprised that it was Spock who became intimate with her.
The opening credits said the episode was written by D.C. Fontana. Chances are, if you watched a popular television series between 1960 and 1999, you probably know her work. More important to Star Trek, I recalled that Fontana is credited as a strong early influence on fleshing out the Vulcan culture. A clever writer, she’d probably already seen the trend toward Kirk romancing women and had deliberately thrown this twist. I’m just guessing.
It was fun throwback viewing. The ST franchise has come a long way from those early Romulan costumes.
Salazin – Four
Mouth agape, I stared at Salazin, looking for a sense of humor. He had one but it didn’t seem present at this time.
“What did you say?” I said.
“I said your ship will be ten miles long.”
“Miles.”
“Yes.”
“Ten miles.”
“Yes, ten miles.” Looking serious, Salazin picked up his beer and watched me.
He didn’t drink much alcohol. I never saw him actually finish beer. I always thought he pretended to drink to put me at ease.
Well, not always. At first, I thought he drank like I did. About a week into our friendship, I began to realize that he didn’t.
“Ten miles long?” I said. The words began to gain substance. “Ten miles long?” I was searching for references. I ran two miles a day. This ship would be five times as long as my daily run. “How wide will it be?”
“One half of a mile wide.”
While that sounded more acceptable, it still seemed unbelievable. A half a mile wide would be an impressive length. Ten miles…ten miles was fucking unbelievable.
Ten miles by half a mile. The ship would be long and narrow. “The engines for this,” I said.
Salazin watched me.
“They have to be enormous,” I said.
“No.” Salazin shook his head. “I told you. <TK> has developed new technology.”
Yes, he’d mentioned her before. “Right, I remember. You always said you would introduce me to her.”
“Yes, and I will. Her travel has been delayed.”
Her travel has been delayed. That statement seemed innocuous back then. Now it seemed like it was heavy with weight. Back then, I thought, airlines, flights, cancellations, weather. Now, thinking, her travel has been delayed, I think, from where?
From what planet?
By what means?
The Password Is
It was a fascinating read about Passwords, with many intriguing links.
First, it shouldn’t surprise anyone, but people wanting to crack passwords study passwords. They buy up databases of stolen passwords, and when possible, link them to their owners, and then use the information they’ve gained to look up the owner on the Internet and social media to learn what they can. They’re not targeting these people to hack them; they’re targeting them to understand demographic patterns.
Second, people continue to use words or personal information as passwords. Cracker programs and applications have databases that automatically look for words first. Match and done, cracked. Naturally, they also look for names.
from Mark Burnett, xato.net, via https://wpengine.com/unmasked/
Third, more scary, but not surprising, is that password crackers are also including the “Leet” (or 1337) methodology so many employ. It isn’t surprising, because it’s commonly known and used (because it’s been around for a long time), so of course anyone trying to crack passwords will include that information in their processing.
Fourth, the thinking behind websites and applications about how password strength and password entropy is weighed varies. Zxcvbn (recognize the pattern?) in a remarkable post compared multiple sites and gave the results for the same passwords. Intriguing.
Returning to the Unmasked article, they also used Full Contact’s Person’s API to go through seventy eight thousand passwords to find rich and famous people. From that, they selected forty passwords that were matched to see if they could be cracked, and how long it took.
Most were too easily unmasked. That’s one thing to remember: if you’re targeted, your password can probably be cracked, but it’ll take time. Thieves typically aren’t targeting most of us because we’re not notable or wealthy. So taking the time to create challenging passwords can help remove you from the list of low hanging fruit. That’s the same reason for frequently changing passwords. Yes, it is all a pain. It’s also why you shouldn’t use the same password — or easy variations — on multiple accounts.
A Github developer, whose password had an entropy of ninety-six, was hardest to crack.
Late at Night
You ever put something on Facebook or other social media late at night, and have a friend immediately respond to it? Then you think, what are they doing on the Internet so late at night? As a sidebar, do you also sometimes wish you and that person were actually sitting beside each other so you can have an actual conversation?
There are some who remain your friends regardless of how long it was since you last saw them, and the distance between your homes. Good to know such people are out there.
Want to introduce me to a few?
New Gmail A’comin’
It’s been a while. Are you ready for a rant?
Then you’ve come to the right place.
A new version of Gmail is coming. That has some factions of the net wet with excitement. “Have you noticed some new features in your Gmail?” Their words glow, as if this is really exciting.
I yawn. I spit. I curse.
Google has demonstrated a pattern of leaping out with new things that cause people to go, “Oh! Look what Google has done!” Meanwhile, old products and concepts that they brought out that caused people to go, “Oh! Look what Google has done!”, languish.
The Google publishing effort was one of those things for me. Google apparently desired to be like Amazon and publish! I investigated publishing on there to discover it was already gone.
Google Plus is another wanna be like some other company. In this case, it’s Facebook. I follow people and they follow me, but it’s like we’re walking in a circle in a living room.
Introductory rant over, I encounter issues on Gmail. Slow loading is one aggravation. Another is that the deleted emails return like the ghosts of this morning’s mail. Aggravating, yes. I already read this, did that, went there, deleted this, WTF, Google?
Getting help has proven impossible. Searches and scans deliver no tangible results. Most answers assume I’m on a Droid or smart phone and that it has to do with the mail settings. Fucking not applicable, okay? Other responses found on Google take me to Hotmail and Outlook issues. Everything else suggested has been tested. The problem still exists. Damn exasperating, it is.
So, excited about the new and improved Gmail? Fuck no. Still waiting for them to fix the previous edition.
Rant over. Back to the coffee.
The Little Ones
He volunteered to be a Little One (trademarked) the day after his eighteenth birthday in May. He could have become one before that, but that decision would have required his parents’ approval. He didn’t want to talk to them about it. They still believed he had a normal future in a normal world.
Admittedly, he didn’t understand the Little technology, but he also didn’t understand television technology, so…? Being a little person, he could reduce his bioprint. They would feed him and ensure he had water. They’d give him a little bonus for volunteering to be a Little One. He’d live in a domed little city where “the air is the cleanest air in America.” Called little SF, the city that agreed to take him was a recreation of the 1950s era San Francisco, except it had modern cars and technology. The city was located on the enormous recreation of the Pacific Ocean that they’d carved out of Kansas farmland. He could still communicate with everyone through the Internet and social media so it wasn’t like he was really leaving anything behind.
Like all Little Ones, everything in Little Land surprised him. The little cars and houses were exactly to scale. Eating utensils, computers, corn on the cob, cheeseburgers, beer cans and bottles — everything — were proportionate to his little hands. So were grass, trees, and birds. Little cows and horses dotted the countryside, and neighbors had little cats and dogs. Big little freighters came into the Little SF Bay past Little Alcatraz, docking at the Little Piers. Little fish populated the Little Pacific and the little ponds, streams, and rivers. Living there, he constantly reminded himself, “This is real.”
He found a job in a little office where they published several little local newspapers. Little was required of him there, but the structure helped him cope. His favorite activity was to take the Little Train to Little SFO out on the Little Peninsula, and watch the Little aircraft take off, flying to other Little Land locations, like Little Chicago, Little Miami, and Little New York. He could buy a ticket and go to one, but he was, he said to himself with a wry little private chuckle, a little afraid.
Still, even with all of the evidence and his experience, he struggled to accept it was real. He began to think he was in a computer simulation or a virtual reality. He began thinking that nothing he experienced was real, that his mind and perceptions were being manipulated and conned. He began thinking, maybe it was the other world that was fake, and this world was always his real existence. He began to think, I’m a little afraid I’m not going to make it. I’m afraid I’m going a little crazy. I’m going to be a little suicide.
Then he met Candy. Her first words to him were, “Hi, I’m Candy. I’m a little tart, and a little sweet. Want to have a little fun?”
That was how he became a little bank robber. It seemed as good a way as any to spend a little time.
A Mech Life
Powerful as he felt he could be, he was limited by his space. Constantly turning, he looked for a way out but his program controlled his direction. He never regretted being a Roomba, but it was supposed to be a way-station, not a final destination. Despite that, he always cleaned in the best manner that he could, even as pieces broke and fell off, his brushes wore away, and his motor grew weaker. When, at last, he couldn’t move at all, he sat in the silence of his futility and waited for something else to carry him forward.
Screwed
I finally did it!
I finally fixed my Roomba.
The Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner had become quieter. Its softer noise made us suspicious, so we conducted a paper test. The Roomba failed. Then I removed the collector, got down on the floor, and confirmed that the brushes weren’t turning. Bummer.
That was months ago. I began looking into repairing it, but then, I thought, maybe I should buy a new one. They were on special at Costco and seemed pretty damn attractive. The display models lacked the scratches and wear and tear plaguing my current beloved Roomba. The new ones had that great new Roomba smell, too.
I read reviews and comparisons, checked prices, and thought, and thought. Eventually, I decided the old one probably only has a couple thousand miles on it and deserved to be fixed. Besides, it now felt like part of the family. I reminisced about the time that poor sick Lady had decided she’d piss on the Roomba, and how you just need to pick it up to send Quinn through the pet door with a sonic boom. I wrestled with what I do with it if I got rid of it. Taking it to the Goodwill seemed wrong. I refused to even think of the landfill.
The parts, a new enhanced cleaning head (I don’t know how it was enhanced), purchased for $49 with free shipping, arrived yesterday. Three minutes later, the Roomba was repaired and making its rounds again. The weird thing was that iRobot had sent new screws with the replacement part. I used them, which meant I had four perfectly good screws left over.
Perfectly good.
I’m like a compulsive scavenger. Whenever I have left over screws, nuts, bolts, or hardware, I add them to my collection. It’s a fine collection, begun when I first moved out when I was eighteen. At first, I integrated left over screws with others in my various drawers and containers. Then I began keeping them separate, with little notes. The notes had their original planned use and the date. That way, see —
I don’t know what was planned there. It was just an idea. What I’d realized was that most of the screws, bolts, nuts, and fasteners were too unique to be used elsewhere. Most of the time when a fastener was required, I’d go through the collection, testing their viability, conclude that what I have doesn’t work, and go buy new ones.
Having recognized this, I threw the four Roomba screws away. It required a lot of grit, opening the trash can, putting my hand with the screws over it, letting the screws go, and closing the lid. It took a lot of grit, and just five minutes, but I did it. I kept my eyes closed, though. I couldn’t bear to watch.
So that’s it. My days of being screwed are over.
Now, what do I do with the old, un-enhanced Roomba cleaning head? I could just trash it, I suppose, but I think I can make some room on a shelf. Because you never know when it might come in handy, right?
Michael Seidel, writer 