Category Archives: Entertainment

Entertainment, Programming, Projects, Technology

To Turn an Amazon Echo into a Spy Device… or not?

I’m sitting here on a Friday evening looking at my Gen. 1 Amazon Echo and wondering if it’s hackable enough to turn it into a live tracking device. There’s ample enough documentation and tear downs floating around the Internet at this point to make the project doable. But… does it really need to be done? Will I just be doing another fun weekend project, or something meaningful that will bring people’s attention to the fact that our technology driven world is a complete mess?

Considerations:

#1: It definitely has enough microphones to be able to track multiple people’s locations through a room.

#2: There has to be an audio library out there somewhere to measure the size of a room based on echo location, and it has a speaker and multiple microphones. If nobody has written it yet… how long would it take to hack from other code or from scratch?

#3: Can I take it apart without completely destroying it?

#4: Do I even need to put it back together properly? Do I even care?

#5: I’m awful at soldering and such and there’s a distinct possibility I would destroy it before creating/wiring a port so that I can hook it up to my laptop for a little of the deep, deep, hot programming action.

#6: Is this worth at least a weekend of my time?

#7: I would love to say the phrase, “I pwned Alexa in her dirty face.” out loud and it actually have an accomplished meaning.

#8: This is an awesome diagram: https://anatomyof.ai/img/ai-anatomy-map.pdf

#9: Will my cat ever stop trying to kill it in the middle of the night? Seriously. He hates it. He doesn’t bother with the 3 Google Home/Nest devices we have, but the Echo is his late night nemesis.

Editorial, Entertainment

How to learn to drive a stick shift in 2020

#1. Call the cops on yourself for grand theft.

#2. Hop into a car with a stick shift. Preferably one that looks like it’s well-insured.

#3. Drive it like you stole it… because you are stealing it.

#4. Profit or fail.

You either know how to drive a stick now, or at the very least not to drive one…and if you failed you have some time to think about what you can do better now that you’re in jail.

Entertainment, Programming, Projects

Ab Irato – 2000

I unearthed this set of songs recently. It’s from 1999-2000. This is the musical portion to my senior thesis (Div III) at Hampshire College. There are other songs that I need to pull off the CD I have. I found the CD moving my mother out of her house after my father passed away. All of the sounds were programmed from scratch, as far as I remember. I actually wrote code to do this project. It’s an awful way to compose music.

The songs are mastered for car stereos, which was pretty how much everyone listened to music 20 years ago. The songs sound decent through a nice set of headphones too. I’m still very proud of this. It took me a long time.

Believe it or not, I made these when audio tapes were still being made, and only nerds had mp3s.

Entertainment, Programming

Coding Cat

This is a stupid simple trick for debugging code. It nearly never fails, and allows you to keep your cool and not lose it when going through your code.

I used to work with a friend that asked me one day to come over to his desk and look at something. He asked me by saying, “Be my cat for a second.”

I looked at him blankly and he said, “Just sit on the desk next to the monitor.”

I most likely replied, “Are you going to paint me like one of your French girls?”

He then proceeded to go through his code, explaining to me how it worked. I just nodded and eventually he found his error and said I could leave.
I now have a picture of a cat at my workstation that is my coding partner. If something doesn’t work. I explain my code to the picture until I find the error.

Your coding cat is anything you want to explain your code to while you’re debugging. The picture attached here is my real life cat, Bacchus. I ask him to help me, but he likes to chew on my monitors and knock things off my desk.

What most people don’t get is how frustrating it is to work on something for hours to have nothing happen, or get a completely unexpected result. Coding and development are not the cut and dried process non-coders think. Do yourself a favor and don’t drive yourself crazy. This stupid little trick will save a little sanity. If you’re working in an office with others it might also make you a little more interesting. Because, let’s face it, you’re a very unstable and boring person who talks to pictures of cats instead of real people.

Entertainment, Projects

Passive Aggressive Office Technique – The Game

I started working on what will become either a game, or a coffee table book about passive aggressive things you can do at work to make yourself feel better about your awful office life. If you hate your job, you really should quit and do something else.

In case you’re not wired that way… this is an easy to follow guide to ruin your office life and that of your coworkers. At least you’ll leave with a little bit of pride at the end of the day.

It’s the little victories that count. You’re not going to win a war if you hate what you do, but at least you can take those down in your immediate vicinity. 😉