Category: Tech

I Hate Squirrels

Bastards. Little furry rodent adorably cute bastards. Squirrels. The bane of my existence.

Jen and Harry like to have bagels for breakfast now and then. Today is Instacart day so Jen included a bag of bagels in the grocery order. The delivery came and in good social distance practice they left it outside on the steps. There were only a few minutes between the delivery and me going out to get it, but that was enough time for a couple of squirrels to rip open the bag of bagels and have at it.

Damn you, squirrels! First my bird seed, now my bagels? Is there no end to your evil? Will the torment never end?

Dream Come True or Hack

About an hour ago the State Department website’s presidential biography page for Cheeto McClownshoes was updated saying his term ended on January 11, 2021 at 19:49. Assuming that is Eastern Time and not UTC, it means that his term ended at 7:49 PM… five hours after the page was updated.

https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1348722530224373761

Check out that screen shot from one of the many twitter posts I saw that reported the page.

Unfortunately, that page is now down with the message, “We’re sorry, this site is currently experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again in a few moments.”

So what does it mean? There are three possible things that I can think of.

  • The site was hacked and someone with a bad sense of humor decided to get us all excited just to watch our hearts break when Cheeto fails to resign.
  • Someone on the State Department’s IT staff has had enough and just did it as a big giant fuck you to society.
  • Cheeto McClownface is going to resign tonight and it leaked.

I’m betting it’s the first scenario. Some jerk is trying to get our hopes up only to see them dashed in a few hours.

ADDENDUM: Apparently it was scenario #2.

Whack a Mole

So yeah, anyone seen anything good on Twitter lately?

Last night was insane. Twitter finally (FINALLY) banned trump after years of easily verifiable lies, inciting violence, and (probably most important from Twitter’s point of view) violating the terms of service. It was glorious. Millions of American voices cried out in bliss all at once.

My first thought (did I write it here or somewhere else?) was, how long until bunkerbitch realizes he can still tweet from @potus? Well, not very long. He sent a tweet from that account and Twitter immediately removed it. It was almost like they expected it. How ’bout that?

When he realized he had been thwarted a second time he went to one of his campaign accounts and tried to tweet from there. Once again, immediately banned. Then he tried to tweet from a staff member’s account and that was banned too. Today I read (but did not confirm) that Don Jr’s account has been banned. Did daddy cheeto try to tweet from there?

The part of this that amazes me the most, outside of all of the maga cult people saying his first amendment rights are being violated when anyone who has ever paid attention in a Junior High School civics class knows that they are not, is that he has an entire core of press assigned to cover the white house 24 hours a day. If he wanted to get word out to his cult all he needed to do was walk down the fucking hall and have a press conference. I mean, it is literally part of his job! Nope, it has to be Twitter because his ego is completely wrapped up in the number of followers he had on his account. He’s a child. A whiny, bratty, little three year old child.

Oh, and for the record I currently have 711 followers on Twitter. That’s 711 more than trumpy the nazi clown. @RobJ_ is totes winning this race.

Home Workspace Update

I had to go in to the office and swap my little desktop computer for a shiny new laptop. The guy in charge of the process was kind enough to bring the new box out to me so I didn’t have to go into the building. I did, however, have to drive an hour each way. Yikes!

I straightened out my desk a little. It definitely doesn’t meet my wife’s very high workspace standards, but it’s okay for me. The headset, mouse, keyboard, and GIGANTIC monitor are all Jen’s and I’m just using them during the lock down work from home zaniness. The closed laptop underneath the laptop stand is actually my pre-Covid work-from-home box. These days it’s my watching Netflix while doing my 30 minutes of exercise box. The iPad is not for work use. It’s for listening to music or podcasts (not books) and sometimes youtube streams (like when trump’s terrorist mob attacked the US Capital two days ago) while I work.

How long until I go back to the office? Who knows. Do I want to go back to the office? Nope.

BendGate 2020 Edition

Remember that super groovy iPhone stand thing I posted a picture of a couple of days ago?

Check out what putting my iPod touch into it for a whole day did.

Woah! It’s like BendGate all over again! I’m glad I used the iPod for the 10 hour time lapse instead of my iPhone. That woulda sucked!

12/30 Random

Tomorrow is New Years Eve. I have to work. We never get NYE off. We get Christmas Eve off, but never NYE. Why don’t I ever put in for that day? I don’t know… I guess I’m just responsible. Idiot.

Speaking of work, late next week I am going to be issued a new computer. A laptop this time. 16+ years as a desktop user and I’m making the switch. Actually, we’re all making the switch. At least that’s the rumor. The company is going laptop across the board. I’m actually the last of my group to get one. No more trying to find an open desk when I travel between buildings.

Traveling between buildings is actually the issue here. I actually have to do it in order to pick up the lappy. I have to go to the building in Canton. I don’t want to. Not even a little bit. I haven’t been in a work building since March 13th and I was really hoping to stay out until I got that second dose of one of the vaccines. I have to do all sorts of health checks before I can walk into the building, and I have to wear a mask the whole time. It’s safe, I just don’t like it. I’ll only be in there for 15 minutes or so. Still… I’m freaking a little. Just a little.

Speaking of work things that don’t have anything to do with work, I’m sitting at my desk finishing up lunch, typing this little postie and listening to music. My iPad is streaming to our new pair of HomePod Minis. It’s a really sweet little setup. I set my entire iTunes library to shuffle. It’s been running since a bit before 9:00. If I leave it on for a few days it still won’t have repeated a file. It just played a song from a Boston music compilation CD (Pipeline!) by a great band called Christmas. I thought to myself, I wonder if they are on Apple Music. I brought it up and searched and… yeah, shoulda known better. Naming your band Christmas back in the ’80’s might have been a cool move. Naming your band Christmas in the ’20’s when no one goes to record stores anymore and everyone finds your music by searching in one app or another… not a good move.

The kids are coming over tonight. That makes me happy. The kids are spending New Years Eve at their dad’s. That makes me sad. It’s the price we pay for having them at our house Christmas morning, but it still makes me sad.

Okay, it’s 2:00 so I need to get back to work. Lunch time is over. Back to it, red head.

Apple Audio

Santa brought me two Apple products. A stereo pair of HomePod Minis and a set of AirPod Pros.

The HomePods are a replacement for our old Sonos speaker. The Sonos is too old to support Apple AirPlay so now I’ll be able to run audio directly off my phone or iPad while I work. This pleases me greatly.

I still need to play with some of the features on the AirPod Pros, but the early verdict is they are a serious upgrade over the first gen model.

It’s an Apple Christmas and that is goodness.