scott

The Story of Coming Full Circle With Amazon Alexa

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I purchased my first Amazon Echo in April 2016. At the time I noted in my personal journal that the threat modelling used to justify the purchase said it was probably okay at the time. I also said and repeated for a while that I know at some point in the future I would need to likely get rid of the device for privacy reasons My friends who were big into security looked at me like I was crazy when I bought it and talked about. Most everyone else at the time had no idea what I was talking about. Those the new of the echo thought it was cool.

When we moved to the UK I purchased an Amazon Tap. The Tap is now discontinued portable speaker with Alexa. We used it around the house before we moved since the other echo was in transit. I packed it in our luggage and when we arrived in England and got our internet we had a music speaker. Even now we mostly use the smart speaker for listening to music and setting timers. Right after we moved simply having a speaker in the empty house was the goal.

Once we were settled in the wired Amazon Echo ended up in our bedroom. The Tap wound up in the kitchen so we could move it around and use it when we needed to. One of the advantages of the tap was that you could disable the always listening mode of Alexa. That way you could turn it on only when you wanted it to do something. It was less convenient but more secure. That was a selling point for me. Then we just got lazy and left it on all the time to unknowingly call out for it and have it not hear us two or three times before it reacted.

When I was debating on building out and an Internet of things network in the house I purchased another Amazon Ech Plus or whatever they called it. It was the version of the Echo that had the ability to become a home hub. That went into the guest room/my office.

Over time I kept reading stories of the privacy concerns people had with the the Echo speakers. I also experienced one or two shall we say oddities with the speakers that made me think it was listening a little more then you realise it should be. I convinced M to use a plain old “dumb” Bluetooth speaker for music in the Kitchen. I was able to get her one for £25. I also purchased myself a portable Bluetooth Speaker so I could listen to my audiobooks. With that new speaker I unplugged the bedroom echo. With M’s Bluetooth Speaker I intended to unplug the Amazon Tap in the kitchen however I didn’t feel that M was comfortable enough with just the Bluetooth speaker to do that.

Around this time Apple did a funny thing. They released the HomePod mini. Based on my current threat model that was my opinion the answer to my technical challenge. We had some gift card money so I purchased a few of the Home Pod Mini’s at John Lewis when they came out. I immediately removed all three of the Echo’s that we had.

The home pod mini is not as feature rich as an Amazon Echo. For what we use it for it has so far been good enough. That’s another story for a different day. The reason I bring it up is it was the final piece to the puzzle that enabled me to throw out the Echo’s and still have a relatively safe alternative.

Technically I did not throw anything out. I gave one of them to my nephew and another to a friend of mine. I think we still have one left to give away or may have given it away already. I cannot recall. We also still have Amazon Fire’s that the girls use. I severely limit what they can do and there is no always on listening. So it’s not like I just stopped using Amazon hardwa. It’s that we don’t use their what has always been a bit spooky audio devices. And now if you’re thinking about it I am not a hypocrite. Apple’s privacy policy and how they use the recordings on the surface seems much more palatable then what Amazon does. That means at least for now I’m happy to leave Apple devices listening in the home and not Amazons.

My New Swag

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Pleasantly surprised to get my LSEG swag in the mail today. Hoping the mug doesn’t get taken by my kids to become a pen holder like my Reuters mug did.

Vindicated By My Stance of You Are Not Paranoid If People Are Trying to Get You

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I got worried when I started reading this article about Major Privacy Breach as Eufy Security Camera Owners Report Seeing Other Users’ Video Feeds. I use these cameras outside our house. I was curious how the issue could impact me since we use AppleHome kit. The reason I use HomeKit is because the video feed is encrypted before it leaves my house. it is stored encrypted on iCloud. By the time I came to the end of the article I was justified in my use of HomeKit since apparently I am not impacted. Well done past Scott for doing his research.

The Story of a New Addition to The House

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M has wanted a new vacuum for a while. There was much debate between a fancy Dyson bag less and a bigger bagged one. I preferred the Dyson. M did not want to clean out another vacuum without a bag. She ended up getting Henry.

It was implied to me that we are now a typical British family for having one. My first thought was now there is another man in the house. That means I am only outnumbered 3 to 2 now!

Lego Godzilla

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I am pleased to report my girls continue to love playing with lego. That is the good news. The bad news is they leave it all over the house. Part of our kitchen floor is dedicated for creations. Shelf’s in their room are filled with projects.

Depending on the day the floor of the living room has half built and played with lego creations. With that obstinate course I have to navigate. Ultimately i end up stepping on lego now and again and in some instances break things that were created

It dawned on me the other day after stepping on something that in the narrative of this lego (and my kids) I am Godzilla come to rampage seemingly indiscriminately and then move on. I am ok with that.

The Story of My Blog Being Old Enough to Drink (In The UK At Least)

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What feels like several lifetimes ago I started this blog. In reality it was 18 years ago today. It is so weird to think how much my life has changed in those 18 years. There may have been dry spells where I did not write for a while (a year or so now and again) I have continuously journaled in that 18 years. For someone who used to get claustrophobic in 2 year mobile phone contracts I am impressed that I kept at it.

With a long list of post ideas here is hoping for another 18.

The Origin Of my Origin Stories

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For my birthday I felt a bit nostalgic. I finally will post this entry I wrote almost a year ago. I simply had a lot I wrote and never was sure when to post it. So here I am.

For over a year now (I started writing this post in Jan 2020) I have been thinking about things I am interested in writing about. As much as I like to share, this blog is really for me to just write above all else. That is why I jump around to several different unrelated topics. In thinking about what I write about or want to write about I broke down my writing into a few different categories. Some of them like technology or writing about the girls I’ve been doing for a while. Writing about life as an ex-pat is also not really new anymore either.

There are some distinctly new categories I decided to focus some time on as well. One of which is stories about my dad. The inspiration for that came about around the time he died. In talking about all the funny interesting stories about him he got thinking that I wanted to write some of them down. I have written and posted a few already. There are many more I just haven’t wanted to address however they seem like pretty good stories.

After I started brainstorming about ideas to write about my dad I realized I probably want to write about some things about my childhood and things that happend long ago (aka childhood or single life). The working “category” for those are my origin stories. This particular post was inspired because there’s one story I want to tell. As I started thinking about how to tell it, I realized it is really three separate stories. Each one related and building off the other one. Or that is how it flows for me. As I fleshed those stories out I realised there are more beyond those that I find interesting and would want to tell.

Another category I don’t write a lot about is work. I used to do that often. If you search the archives of this blog you’ll find many work-related posts. There used to be more. However I documented previously how I had to curtail that due to minor issue while working at Parksearch. Nothing bad happened. It was actually pretty funny, even when it happened. I can’t seem to find the right keyword to find that story or else I would share it now. Long story short I originally wrote about work long before it was common and became probilimatic with conflicts of interest. Now I simply do not do it to be safe.

If I orchestrate this properly this intro post will go up right before I start posting some origin stories. Now all I have to do is go write them.

The photo in this post is of a rocket launch pad my dad had at our beach club in the late 1980’s. My dad and rockets will be a post at some point however when looking for a photo that best sums up any origin stories i thought a rocket one was the most appropriate.

The Short and Sweet Story of Frosting Delivery

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The big argument in the Weinstein household tonight centred around frosting. There are those that believe that cake is a delivery mechanism for frosting. Then there are those that believe is not.

No matter how good the cake is it is obvious that all cake is the delivery mechanism for frosting. How in 2021 is this still a thing?

The Story Of Me Getting Off My Bum For a While

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Prior to covering and working from home all the time I was semi-active. If I went to the office the amount of walking between the home, the train, the office and back again (along with lunch or whatever else i did) was close to my exercise and move goals on my Apple Watch. I went to Sainsbury’s something on the way home I would go over my goal with room to spare. That’s not to say I was extremely active. I would force myself to get up and walk around at the office when my watch beeped at me that it was time to stand up. Even then I knew I needed to do more.

Then the lockdown happened in March and I worked from home. Things deteriorated from there. I bought a bike in April hoping that I would use it to ride around. I did for a while however not every day. I have loved riding bikes since I was a kid and I still do. What I keep remembering is when I try it is not something for me that I will do everyday. I am glad I got the bike however it is not my daily exercise.

Over the summer and early fall I cannot recall. I decided that I would go for coffee every day since that would force a walk. I was actually pretty good at doing that for most day is however not all. It would give me a lot of the exercise I needed. It just wasn’t enough. I tried to walk more however I had an issue with walking that i wont go into detail on.

I needed something more and I knew it. My sister and one of my good friends said I should buy a Peleton Bike or Treadmill. When I stopped laughing I realised they were serious. My sister and my brother in law swear by the Peloton. M and my experience with exercise equipment is they take up a lot of space. We had one in our apartment in New York and I don’t know how many times are used it but it was probably less than two dozen in the 4. Years we owned it. We were lucky that the local fire department needed one and they came and took away for us and were happy to do it. Fight story they offered to bring the kids out to the fire truck some of them climb around as a thanks. They showed up with a pickup in the firetruck am at the lights wire on the street and my girls were petrified and did. To go anywhere near it. I thought it was cool though.

Besides the space a bike or treadmill takes up I am not for a $2000 or more so piece of equipment and $35 a month in subscriptions for the service. I never went to a gym other than the one in my building because I didn’t want to pay money for a plan that I would not use.

When Apple announced Apple One and Fitness+ I thought it sounds interesting and moved on to other news. When it launched in early December there were many reviews on some of the tech sites I read. So I read one review. That I read a few more. If the service came out a year before I would have totally ignored it. It is launched at probably the perfect time for me. I need something easy. I needed something with a low barrier to entry. I didn’t want to spend a ridiculous amount of money per month. Fitness+ offered all of that from me. Sidenote nice a low barrier for entry I am talking about me personally. I already an Apple Watch. I already own an Apple TV and iPad. That means I can do the workouts with nothing more than the service. With homepods in the house instead of echoes (i will likely write about that in another post) we switched from spotify to Apple music family plan. With our iCloud plan getting the Apple one bundle with fitness+ was cheaper and i got even more stuff I will write about later.

With my new trial Fitness+ and a yoga mat I borrowed from one of the girls I was doing a work out in the home office or living room. The girls even joined in with me. I have been doing yoga every day of my holiday. I am hoping this is a habit I will adopt. And setting aside 30 minutes a day and I can do the work out literally feet from my desk. The beginner courses are perfect for me. For the first week I did the 10 and 20 minute beginner course. Then I would do a 10 minute wind down that was really a lot of stretching that I needed anyway. I have since moved on to 20 and 30 minute regular yoga classes. with a 5 or 10 minute wind down of stretching. I am now looking at doing a 20 minute and then a 10 minute yoga course in a row to get my 30 minutes of exercise a day. I am finding the 30 minute courses are a little too fast for me. 10 and 20 minute courses seem a bit more geared to beginners or at least slower paced.

M is even getting in on the action. Since i got the Apple One bundle she can use it too. I have been trying to get her to use my Series III Apple Watch I had spare since I upgraded to a series 5. It wasn’t worth selling so I kept it and was just using it at night. She wanted something for when she did bike rides. she never took it then. With me trying this she seemed eager to give it a go. At the moment we were competing in a seven day activity challenge. It is too close to call so I will not trash talk.

I am hoping this is not one of those things that in a few months I will look back and go yeah that was something I did. I am hoping that the habit will take it has such a low barrier to start doing every day.

My Self Hosted Site Is Alive

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If you are reading this then first of all thanks. Second that means my switch to my self hosted server is working (for now). I have a post about the what and why. That story is still being edited however I needed to post something to confirm that if I or anyone see’s this post on the site then you are being routed to the new site. if you do not see this, well then you will have no idea that you are pointing to the old site.