Man - I’m such a sucker for these long, detailed reverse engineering/security posts. This one does not disappoint! The video is full of not-so-subtle hints that HP’s printers are secure and buying a non-HP printer is bordering on criminally negligent. For example, the opening sequence, white text on black background states “There are hundreds of millions of business printers in the world. Less than 2% of them are secure”. From here, the “Wolf” executes a series of unlikely attacks that leverage the insecure printers to own the companies network and sensitive data, with the obvious implication being that HP printers would not be vulnerable to these attacks. ...

I have to admit I knew very little about Marxism going into this comment thread – this person’s comment blew my mind a little bit. When you consider this as a background for what ‘class’ means, the whole idea of class based on income amount risks scrambling and obfuscating everybody’s relationship to the means of production in society. Marx would think that even when people make pretty different amounts of money, the pressures and stresses from society they experience are a lot more similar within each class section. For example when Donald Trump went bankrupt he had negative money, negative income, but that didn’t make him suddenly a lumpen, or a prole, there was still something categorically different about his life which income figures wouldn’t catch. I remember his daughter once saying to her that during that time he pointed to a homeless man and said ‘that man has billions of dollars more than I do’, and while that technically might be true, it’s also importantly not. ...

Man, I love this blog - always seems to make me see a problem I’m facing from a different angle. The sole incentive they are biased towards is their own self-preservation, which is equivalent to the preservation of the entire group. They cannot stereotype any particular group as they could be members of it. They lack commitment to their prior selves as they do not know who they are." When considering whether we should endorse a proposed law or policy, we can ask: if I did not know if this would affect me or not, would I still support it ...

I always find these looks ing mental illness issues interesting. something that especially stuck with me was the psychologist talking about – I forgot how he phrashed it – like mindsets - basically, if you go around the world with the basic assumption that “there are peoplea actively spying on me and I have to be careful” then every little blip will confirm that. that on it’s own wasn’t particularly grounbreaking, but it just struck me beceause lately I feel like I’ve been stuck in a mindest where everyone is out to get me or…I dont know, pin me down. Based on past experiences, my body and brain seem to just go down the same path, with similar confirmation bias. ...

How could it be any other way? The odds that a pure meritocracy chose you and you alone to inhabit your spot on the ladder is worthy of Dunning-Kruger status. You’ve been getting lucky breaks for a long time. We all have. Source: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2017/10/imposter-syndrome.html

This is cool! PVC pipe is a valuable material to the backyard hacker. It’s cheap, readily available, and comes in a range of different sizes. However, what do you do if you need to bend it? The typical approach would be to grab a heat gun or blowtorch, warm it up, and go from there. Source: How To Bend PVC The Nice Way

I have to say before reading this article I was one “…tech enthusiasts suffering from low information, that sees MakerBot as the Kleenex and Asprin of 3D printing.” Though, honestly that didn’t mean much because I’ve had such a poor experience of 3D printers in general. Still, an interesting read, and sad to see a company backtrack so far from the open commitments they started with. They deserve their reputation. ...

This is a beautiful lodge - definitely worth the visit. My fiancé and I spent some time just wandering around the inside. We were in a bit of a rush so we couldn’t grab drinks/food. Definitely a nice place to sit and have a drink. Thanks to the lovely blogger below for reminding me :) I enjoy taking tour groups to Timberline Lodge situated at nearly 6000′ elevation on the south flank of Mt. Hood. About 60 miles east of Portland, this National Historic Monument is within the Mt. Hood National Forest in Clackamas County, Oregon. Constructed from 1936 to 1938 by the Works Progress Administration, it was built and furnished […] ...

I’ve spent the past two weeks dealing with a full on pain flare up. I’m talking 5/10 pain constant for about two weeks. I actually think I have fibromyalgia. I have an appointment with a rheumatologist in a couple of weeks. I hope I can get at least some answer. This is brutal and I don’t want to have to rely on marijuana (CBD and otherwise) just to make it through the day. Partly cause it’s expensive, but it’s also against my company’s policy and I don’t want to worry about getting in trouble for dosing at work so I’ve been going without. ...

Amazing video that explains plainly a very (at least what seems like to me) complicated space of work. Source: Toy model of the AI control problem: animated version