scott

Unruly

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I am curious what you would think if I told you I just finished a book on the history English monarchs from the early mediaeval period (aka pre Edward the Conqueror) through the end of the Tudor’s?

Would you thinking change if I told you that the book used constant references to things like James Bond, Pizza Express, and contemporary pop culture? Oh and it was written by a comedian? It also had loads of profanity, yet was still pretty historically accurate.

Your views probably do change however Unruly by David Mitchell was very funny and informative all at the same time. I was a history major so this stuff is interesting to me even if it wasn’t written by a comedian. It just helps that it was.

Power Up

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My kind of museum. The Science Museum in London has a Power Up exchibit it’s all about the history of video games. They had most video game consoles and computers from the last several decades. The girls and I played Mario, Sonic and other classics to VR games.

I of course had to try the 16 player original Halo setup they had and get schooled by kids not born when the game came out. Well not really but it was super cool to try and play. I had flashbacks of playing at friends houses! You know who you are who snipped me so often!

6 Years

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Luggage Cart Full of Luggage

Today marks the 6th anniversary of us moving to London. I have been working on a Journal Book of our activities from that first year in 2018 (just because I am moving year by year backwards in time and I am on 2018. No other reason) and the girls are so small then. I sometimes forget that both girls now have lived more than half her life in England.

What Is Today?

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Today, if I ask someone, what today is I would get varying responses such as:

In American I would get “Thanksgiving” or “Turkey Day” or “gobble gobble”.

People in the UK on the other hand would answer likely “Ummm, Thursday”.

The Story of my Technology Stress Dream

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In the summer of 2019 I woke up to wrote down the details of a crazy stress dream I had. In the dream, I was working for the leader of a country that was just a bit unstable. Everyone around them seemed pretty out of it and I was trying to be reasonable and rationalise my working there.

Then I woke up. For a minute I was really confused and was not really sure why in the world I had a dream like that. Then I told M about it. And as I was talking to her it dawned on me. The night before I had purchased a SIM card from Google-Fi for our trip to New York that summer. Now it was not as difficult as you might think to associate working for an almost dictator and buying a Google-Fi.SIM card. I actually fretted over the SIM card purchase. I had spent many months previously ridding myself of all direct usage of Google services. Now here I am buying their phone service that inevitably was tracking me in ways that if I fully understood I would probably be very concerned. Then I rationalised the purchase because it was inexpensive compared to most other options and gave me a US number for our trip.

If I’m honest with myself I subconsciously associated buying Fi mobile service with going to work for an evil dictator. It’s not however I should have gone with my initial instinct and stayed away from their services. I know that they harvest data from my information and that’s okay if you know that and are okay with it. I’m not ok with it. I typically try to avoid it for my privacy. I’m also happy to encourage others not to do it. That doesn’t mean that Google is a horrible company. They really aren’t. I have friends that work there that love it. I even went to several interviews with them years ago and seriously contemplated working there.

I found it fascinating that I had that particular stress stream the day after I. made that purchase. I did use the service for the month we were in New York. I then cancelled it and have no intention of getting it again. Besides whatever data collection they do when you have the service it actually was pretty good service. And that is the problem. Not many people say google doesn’t offer nice stuff. it is the true cost that I am not ok with.

Is This Tech Snobbery?

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Is it wrong to be tech biased against businesses (by not using them) in 2023 that still say email us and they give a Hotmail address?

Replace Hotmail with AOL and it’s the same question.

If you said ok to the first question do I assume the same is true if a merchants website looks like it originally was on geocities? Points for you if my last sentance makes any sense and you know what Geocities was!

Gold Shirts or Red Shirts? Halloween Costume Decisions

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Last year my Halloween costume was a Star Trek the Original Series (TOS, yes I use the short codes to denote the different versions) Gold Command shirt. It was all I could get at short short notice. I would have preferred the Next Generation Red command shirt. They did not have it in stock.

This year I again wanted to get a next generation style shirt. The big question was what color to get? Do I get Red for command? Or Gold for Security? If I used my real world job to sort me I am in Security so Gold. Yet I am in and have been in leadership positions for a while so Red for command? I was torn at what to do. Availability or lack of the red command. Shirts dictated that I purchased one of the gold security shirts. That means I can be either an original series commander or next generation security.

This year I will go with the Next Generation Security Gold. After that I am not sure what I will do. Do I go get a Red command shirt or keep the Gold Security? Or go Gold command from the original series.

Questions like that and Bounty vs Kit Kat are going through my mind at the moment.

If you are reading this and don’t know Star Trek very well, you might’ve noticed that I mentioned the original series, gold command and next generation red command colors. In the original series, it was gold for command, red for security and engineering, and blue for medical. In the next generation and all other series, after that they change the colours where red was command and gold was security and engineering.

Maybe I have a Hoarding Problem

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So saving one or maybe 3 of something “just in case” is ok. Having 15 micro SD to SD card adapters is likely past the point of being considered a hoarder.

If having 15 was borderline hoarder then realizing I did not even have a slot on my computer to use the SD card adapters most likely put me over the top.

Classic Text to Speech Voices

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Siri

I do not know why I find it funny every time I hear the automated announcements from Amtrak or the LIRR for that matter too. It’s 2023 (almost 2024). In the age of Siri and Google Assistant sounding almost like real people, Amtrak is sticking with a voice that reminds me of (because it’s the exact voice) a text to speech voice used in bad (and good) YouTube video voice overs from 2009.

London or all of England Train announcements are made by real people or pre recorded by people. Amtrak is at least trying to be modern with a full text to speech system. Or cheap, since they don’t have to hire voice actors. I think this particular voice was so widely used because it was free.

So what sounds more modern the old school person recordings or the synthetic one that is literally used in cheap cartoons?