Category: I hate people but I love humanity

I think blogging is probably done now.

I have just too many hobbies and as Sir Ken Robinson puts it:

“I’m frying an egg in here!”

If I take just a few minutes to think about what I would rather do with my free time:

 

  • Read a book with my kid
  • Spend time with my wife
  • Fix my house
  • Study hacks
  • Tweet
  • Read the news
  • Exploit #KRACK on the neighbors Wifi to get a better connection speed
  • Borrow Mr. Robot Season 3 from the Internet
  • Watch Mr. Robot Season 3
  • Delete Mr. Robot Season 3

 

It’s pretty clear that maintaining a blog is not my strong suit. It’s not my go to. It’s a thing I thought I should do to build a better more robust online presence. Not worth the time commitment.

This is specifically true in light of a narrative essay II had to write now that I’m back attending classes at a university. My desire to not be anonymous on the Internet and my desire to share what I actually think are often contradictory. This either makes me a phony or a sellout. Not sure which, but I can’t let this site just linger.

I setup that Certbot instance and got LetsEncrypt certificates started issuing over 4 months ago. What I have done since then? Certainly not put one on this site…sure I have considered moving it to Azure since I have a sweet deal on space. I could spin up a *nix VM and just make my life easier…. but would it really? I would learn a lot and it would be great…. but…. eh? Why bother.

I can’t use the Internet as a way to promote my technical skills *AND* as a platform for openly sharing my beliefs in equality, social justice, decriminalization of drugs, spirituality, and other topics that have nothing to do with my professional career. I’m locked out of deep sharing online because I too need to pay bills and have to maintain a very distinct professional edge.

TheWayBackMachine still has a lot of wonderful things I shared. I think I may commit this in that direction soon as well. Perhaps a few years from now when I’ve a few more zeros at the end of the account I’ll feel more comfortable sharing openly with the universe once again.

 

Just can’t stand Lenovo any longer

Another personal hit against Lenovo has shown up. I recently needed to replace the WLAN card in one of my laptops. I grabbed an older Intel-2230 off the shelf and put it in.

I did it while the PC was hibernating (I know… testing in production and all that.) The OS recognized it immediately upon coming back up.

Later on however when I went to restart the thing, I received a cold warning from Lenovo. The apparently well-known 1802 Error.

In short the 1802 error means only a very specific set of add-ons such as WLAN, WWAN, and HDDs are whitelisted. You are not allowed to use something that Lenovo doesn’t want you to.

If I wanted to be restricted and cave and operate only according to a manufacturer’s demands, I would use Apple.

Between this, the Superfish incident, and the pre-installed malware that came on TWO Lenovo Yogas, I am again ruling out Lenovo from ever being part of my deployments again.

Reading: Blackwater : The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army

Blackwater
Jeremy Scahill; Blackstone Audio, Inc. 2007

 

There is a significant amount of detail that I don’t know regarding nearly everything in the known universe. As Silent Bob once said:

“Bitch, what you don’t know about me I can just about squeeze in the Grand fucking Canyon. Did you know I always wanted to be a dancer in Vegas?”

That’s how I feel about Blackwater. How little I knew about them before this book.

My #1 takeaway from this book:

Military contractor is the media-embraced term for a mercenary. Mercenaries are real, they are not a fantasy or only found as guards for villains in a James Bond film. Whenever I hear the terms civilian contractor or military contractor when referring to a position in a hostile space, I will replace the term in my head with the term mercenary.

 

The Wikipedia definition:

A mercenary[1] is a person who takes part in an armed conflict who is not a national or a party to the conflict and is “motivated to take part in the hostilities by the desire for private gain”.[2][3] In other words, a mercenary is a person who fights for personal gains of money or other recompense instead of fighting for the ideological interests of a country, whether they be for or against the existing government. In the last century, and as reflected in the Geneva Convention, mercenaries have increasingly come to be seen as less entitled to protections by rules of war than non-mercenaries. However, whether or not a person is a mercenary may be a matter of degree, as financial and national interests may overlap.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercenary