Met Mario today for lunch and it was fun just to catch up. He went to Indonesia for the month of Oct, was telling me about his trip and I definitely want to visit there in the future. Also from watching some videos, it looks absolutely beautiful. I also borrowed his PVS-14, I went on night walks with Brandon and once with Maggie and tonight we got out as a family which was fun. 🙂
I’m starting to hate WordPress and the way they handle images, why is that one photo’s thumbnail a different size than the rest?!? Argh anyway the walk was a lot of fun, we weren’t out too long and we did see some other people walking around with flashlights but they didn’t see us lol. Hopefully we can get out one more time before it gets too cold!
Last night Brandon and I went for a walk in the local conservation area and it was great. 🙂
Glad he likes the outdoors and to play with nods at night too, it’s always more fun when there’s company. Maggie stayed home, perhaps I should get a 3rd night vision device, then we can go as a family! 😉
So my desktop is pretty damn old (Intel Core i7-2600K based), I built it around the time that Brandon was born I think so that would make it 11 years and I decided over the weekend I wanted to build a new rig. Today I went to Canada Computers to pick up a few parts, an Intel Core i9-12900K, an Asus Prime Z690-P D4 memory, a be quiet! heatsink, a 1TB Samsung 980 Pro PCIe SSD and a case.
I ordered 64GB of DDR4 memory (store only had 16GB modules and I wanted two 32GB ones) and will reuse the power supply, HDDs and my eVGA GeForce 2060 Super videocard. I did want a new videocard too but finding one of the current generation cards is impossible and I don’t really play games anymore. Most of the components are the best of the best so hopefully this new machine, once it’s built lasts a long time too. 🙂
Technology is wonderful, I absolutely love it but one area that requires heavy regulation is the use of facial recognition software and Canadian privacy regulators have come to a damning conclusion against the police & private companies.
A joint investigation by Canadian privacy regulators has concluded that Clearview AI’s controversial facial recognition technology — a tool used by dozens of police services and private companies across the country — represented “the mass identification and surveillance of individuals by a private entity.”
“What Clearview does is mass surveillance and it is illegal,” said Daniel Therrien, Canada’s privacy commissioner.
“It is an affront to individuals’ privacy rights and inflicts broad-based harm on all members of society who find themselves continually in a police lineup. This is completely unacceptable.”
Sigh it’s a bit late and pandora’s box has been opened, I’m sure Clearview has competitors that do pretty much the same thing and this definitely needs a close watch by regulators. Also shame on the police forces for using such technology, they should obtain a warrant to go through pictures of people and we’re all suppose to be given the presumption of innocence.
LOL I get it may be odd of me to have this stance since I post so much information online already but that’s by my choice, I do think it’s wrong for a company to scrape the internet and put everything together, it probably won’t be used for too nefarious purposes in Canada but in countries that are less free well it gets scary very quickly.
So Twitter just announced that it suspended President Trump’s account and man he must be furious… and I don’t feel bad at all that it gives me great joy lol!
Twitter permanently suspended President Trump’s account Friday after determining that his posts pose “the risk of further incitement of violence.”
The platform had previously handed the president a 12-hour suspension for posts made during Wednesday’s violent insurrection at the Capitol building.
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account,” the company wrote in a blog post.
With that said I do worry about the power the tech companies have and if they become the arbiter of what’s true and fake, it’ll just be another tool of the establishment. Yes it’s the slippery slope argument but any outside candidate that goes against the political norms could have trouble gaining traction online. Right now it makes me happy but what happens when it’s a candidate that I agree with?
Last night my computer was having a problem powering up (it’d turn on for 2-3 seconds then turn off), after playing around with the hardware I decided to replace the power supply and that solved my problem but it got me thinking if it’s time to build a new system. I built this thing I think 7 years ago so granted it’s pretty darn old but to be fair I no longer play video games on it so I don’t really need a power house for what I use it for.
Too bad December is such an expensive month, I’ll reassess in the new year and go from there, assuming that it makes it that long lol.
So this weekend we did a lot of driving, hey new car means adventures right… We did the usual Brandon activities (badminton & swimming) and after dinner Maggie & the boy went back to Commander to play some more badminton so I figure I’ll take the Toyota Prius out and try some of those Prius driving tips to get better gas mileage.
On city roads I can run on EV mode anytime I want now though it’s only good at maintaining speed, not enough power to actually accelerate.
Today I went to the range with some people from work Patricia, Hannah & Shafi. Hannah has her license but they were all new to shooting and it was fun to see the big smiles when they had after shooting each gun. I brought 9 guns for them to try out, a bunch of pistols, some rifles and a shotgun. I don’t I don’t have the group picture we took but Shafi did capture me shooting a S&W 686 revolver in slow motion and that’s pretty cool!
Very neat to see the ring of fire that comes out of the barrel! We left just after 12, everyone was tired and had a great time, they all shot pretty well and haha I think they’re hooked. 😉
So the driving tips I read online worked pretty well,
We put on quite a bit of mileage but that’s how it always goes at the beginning right, after 554.6KM, I still have 1/3 of a tank according to the gauge and 4.4L / 100km is equivalent to 53.4 MPG for my American friends. That’s freaking awesome, yes I have to drive slow (going ~110km/h) but hell that’s fine if I’m getting great mileage! What will also take some getting use to is people flying by me but hey I’m driving a Toyota Prius, not a Ferrari!
All in all a great weekend now I’m just relaxing and will clean some guns shortly.
So yesterday I took ownership of a used 2012 Toyota Prius. Initially I wanted something maybe 2013-2014 in age but this one had a full service history and was only dealership serviced so we jumped on it. The car is in great shape internally, externally there are some chips and scratches here and there but overall it’s fine.
Hehe under the trunk floor is a small storage area and there I put my emergency supplies. There’s a ton of storage space and with the seats folded down, there’s more usable area than our old Toyota Matrix!
I was also pleasantly surprised that the car was equipped with Michelin Premier A/S tires and better yet, the date of manufacture is Dec 2016 so they’re like brand new! Tread depth is excellent so I’m glad it’s not something I have to worry about for a few years.
Last night for fun I went for a drive around the city, the Toyota Prius is slow but man it gets great gas mileage, 3.9L / 100KM (60.3 MPG)!!! I’ve been reading the tricks Toyota Prius drivers do to get even better economy, lol I’ve turned from someone who liked to drive fast to someone who goes slow with the snap of the fingers.
Anything new is fun and I’m really happy we bought this car, it’ll help us save a lot of fuel and with it being a Toyota should be very reliable as well. 🙂
When I look at the future, I really do worry about the upcoming automation wave and what it may do to our society. Right now many low skilled jobs are being replaced by machines, the popular right wing talking point is that those are entry level jobs, stepping stones and that people should be striving for more, easy to say but the realities of the world are another thing. What’s the excuse when robots start taking jobs from family doctors, lawyers or accountants, these are not people we think of being “losers” in society.
AJ+ has put together a great series of videos talking about the subject.
I really hope that by Maggie and I are retired before our jobs get automated away, mine is a bit harder I think (though not sure) as it’s based on human relationships but Maggie’s an accountant which is basically a series of inputs and outputs, her job could be done by a robot pretty easily. 🙁 I also worry about Brandon’s future, what type of job can he do that won’t be automated?
It’s something as a society we really need to think about, I think the solution we’ll eventually get to is some sort of universal basic income where everyone gets money no strings attached. Our society at the moment is built on consumption by the masses, if the masses have no money then it no longer works. In the short term I think it’s going to be very scary, the optimist in me thinks that the future can be really bright where robots do everything for us and we can live our lives out in luxury but the pessimist thinks we may head down some dystopian path where everyone except the richest people live in slums.
Who knows what the future will bring but this reality is closer than many think.
