The Adventures of ChipheadMike
Writer. Nerd. Gamer.
Great conversation tonight about a variety of topics.
Everything from flipping your vehicle over to speeding to television issues.
Happy to hear that the HAM radio world is also populated with women and not necessarily a male dominated thing.
The conversation is wonderful.
I’m finally taking a few days off. I’m happy that our big project is past the first big hurdle and we are now into phase 2.
With that being said, I believe it is time to test some new camping gear. One of the latest additions is the Lynx ALPS 4 tent. It is a rather large tent weighing in at 10 pounds. I like the smaller Bivy style tent I have but sometimes you just need more room.
I’m going to spend most of the morning trying to figure out what gear I’ll need and then — pack it up. I’m taking the Trekking King 60L Survival Rucksack.
I’m looking forward to some winding down.
Great article over at Engadget about congress trying to pass stricter laws against Robocallers.
I get about a dozen of these per day. I wish Apple would just allow us to block any number that is not in our contact list.
Yes. I like using “asides” to post. I think bigger posts should be handled differently. Asides are great for quick posts. Love. Them.
We have a couple of these and they are fantastic. I’m sorry Apple is getting out of this game.
Thanks to you, I see this multiple times a day in my email inbox from various companies.
That is all.
Update: Under Armour just sent an email too…
but wait…there’s more…
It is a new term I created.
Yell-Sing. (v) The act of yelling and singing at the same time.
See…
Adele
Whitney Houston
Kelly Clarkson
Today’s discussion is mostly about the weather.
Everyone is happy that it’s getting warmer. One operator was talking about how we all need the sun. Wasn’t sure why. Just knows we need it. He is correct.
I enjoy listening.
Good article over at WriterUnboxed from the author of “The Good Liar.” I haven’t read the book yet but it is on my list.
Last night I decided to try out both my mid-range sleeping bag and the Winterial bivy style tent.
I was amazingly warm and actually very comfortable last night. The temperature was 58 F when I went to sleep and got down to low 40s when I woke up.
The air cushion also helped to make the overnight enjoyable.
Thumbs way up — can’t wait for camping season.
I bought this Winterial tent in the dead of winter so I was happy to finally be able to set it up in soft ground.
It is a single person tent. Easy to set up and also comes with a rain fly.
Here is the Amazon link. Highly recommended.
I wrote a story a couple of years ago called “P-5443 or Bust.” I’m not sure why I chose the name but it seemed fitting for the story itself.
I’ve added the story to the short story tab above.
I just re-read it and I still like the story — especially the ending. Hat Tip to my friend John who always believes that stories need hope — somewhere.
There is some hope in this story…sort of.
It is a very quick read. The idea was a small word count. I was originally going to submit this to the yearly PBS writing contest but never got around to it.
Enjoy.
We just lost power at work. The last time I can remember an outage of this magnitude was several years ago.
Of course, for whatever reason I am not carrying my zombie battery.
Well, the time has finally arrived. After several delays — this weekend should mark the dawn of a new WMS where I work.
I think we’re all ready to just get this thing overwith — already.
I’m not sure how much posting I’ll do. I came up with a great short story idea a couple of days ago and I plan to write that out.
I may also post a short story I wrote a couple of years ago about a “space mishap” and a stranded Marine.
Hope everyone enjoys the fabulous weekend weather!
Update: 3:00 pm – The process seems to be taking a little longer than anticipated. We don’t anticipate being able to start anything until at least 7:00 pm. We’ll have another update at 6:00 pm.
Update: Sunday Afternoon – 3:17 pm. We have completed the upgrade and are moving forward with our configuration. I had a straight 36 hours of being awake. Time for bed.
Update: Wednesday Morning – April 16, 2018 – 2:19 am. We’ve been using our new system since Saturday. It is not without it’s flaws but we are pounding through it. Monday and Tuesday have been mostly mission critical patches and we still have a few of those but we’re getting through the problems. I’m not surprised by any of our issues. They are pretty standard pain points in any upgrade. The folks on the project have been wonderful and I couldn’t have asked for a better bunch of co-workers.
Update: Sunday Morning – April 22, 2018 – 10:19 am – We are almost finished getting to a stable state. Only a few more things to work out. It has been a very long week.
As an Apple iPhone user, I am grateful that Apple takes security and privacy seriously. So much so, that they’ve been to court many times over it.
A story from Engadget this morning sounds troubling. Apparantly, there is a hardware device on the market that can crack iPhone security. From the article…
Based on an earlier report by Malwarebytes, GrayKey is a small box that can unlock two iPhones at a time. (See the two connectors in the image of the device below?) It was developed by Atlanta company Grayshift, which is run by long-time US intelligence agency contractors and a former Apple security engineer, according to Forbes. To use GrayKey, all cops need to do is connect a phone to it for two minutes. They simply have to wait a bit after it’s unplugged to see a black screen pop up with the passcode — how long they’d have to wait depends on how complex the passcode/passphrase is.
Hopefully, Apple will release a patch that will negate this device.
My Google home screen of choice.
No birthday bullshit.
As you can see by the sidebar (today anyway), I am reading a series called Arisen. It is an awesome series about a ZA or Zombie Apocolypse for anyone who doesn’t get the lingo.
I started the book yesterday and I was immediately confused about what series this was. You see — I have probably read about 14 books between the last book, Book 12, and the current book, Book 13.
A lot of different things have happened in a lot of other books. It can get really difficult to keep track.
I suppose it is a great problem to have. Reading so much that you can’t tell which series you are in.
Ok. Just wanted to rant a bit.
After a few weeks of ups and downs, my friend Chuck is finally out of the hospital. He collapsed at work several weeks ago from a mild heart attack. After a few days of diagnosis, it was determined that he required open heart surgery.
After the surgery, Chuck has some more battles to overcome including standing up and then — dying.
He was brought back and then forced into a coma for a few days.
He was supposed to be able to come home yesterday but the hospital wouldn’t release him.
Today — after all of this — he is finally home.
Watching a friend go through this makes me look at where I am as far as my health is concerned.
I certainly don’t want to go through what he has.
Anyway, I’m glad he is finally home.
Update: (04.21.2018) – Chuck had to go back into the hospital a couple of times because of respiratory issues. Fluid builds up in his lungs and he can’t breathe. This has happened twice now. He finally came back home again yesterday. He sounds much better and has lost a lot of weight. I have to admit that I was getting worried when I didn’t see him this morning. His brother called and finally woke him up. I was honestly wondering about whether or not he had passed as a reason for not seeing him this morning. My mind wonders and I couldn’t be more happy to be wrong in this instance.
This documentary is free to watch until midnight.
It is very well done and asks the question “just because we can does it follow that we should?”
We’ve created countless films warning about the dangers of AI and yet, we still plow forward.
Human beings aren’t very bright.
Great article in Scientific American about debate on whether life would exist or not on a world made up of water.
I like the comment near the bottom of the article about comparing everything to Earth and why it is not always a good idea.
“I think it could be dangerous just thinking about everything in an Earth-mindset,” Ramirez says. “You might be missing out on other possibilities.”
I still feel a bit of arrogance from the scientific community about life on other planets. You can’t armchair quarterback the universe and the only way you are ever going to know what these worlds are like — is to VISIT them.
In unrelated news…I still think it is super cool that I can copy a link on my iPad and paste that link into my MacBook Pro. </end geek moment>
Gruber at Daring Fireball has some good points about a poorly written/researched Wall Street Journal article about Apple Pay.
My take away is that Apple has been doing a poor job of marketing Apple Pay. I still have friends and co-workers who — when I mention Apple Pay — have a “deer in the headlights” look on their face.
There should have been enough commercials running everywhere by now that everyone knows what Apple Pay is and what it is used for. But, alas — there is not.
Update: 04.04.2018 – Apple released some new Apple Pay ads.
Over the weekend, I took a trip down memory lane and decided to read the older blog posts from several years ago.
Good stuff — except for the broken links.
Websites come and go. I know that more than anyone and with them also goes their links and pictures.
Fixing the links is no small task. I will probably need to do some research on each one and locate the picture from elsewhere.
Happy to do it but will probably not be until this weekend.
TTFN
