Technology ⁽²⁰⁾

Six years ago we adopted my mother's old GE dryer temporarily when she moved to independent living. Not long after, the motor gave out so we had a small shop repair guy out for a look. Surprisingly, he was still able to get a new replacement motor (not cheap, but available) and belt. After telling us that a new dryer would be cheaper, and giving us a few raised eyebrows, we convinced him to repair it so he took it…

I picked this up at the thrift shop this summer. I was eyeing it for a while, but what pushed me over the edge was my daughter's observation. "You should get it." It's such a delight. The intentionality involved in using it, the mechanical-ness, the maintainability, fact that it still works as well as it did in 1971. I just love it. There's more information on this model here. Fortunately, there's a small but robust community of typewriter enthusiasts like…

My company offered an experimental bug bounty program for a few months during 2024 as a trial with three goals: A) engage with the infosec community, B) assess the effort and cost required to support a bug bounty program, and C) improve the security of our systems. Twomile is a small company with a small staff, funded 100% by customers. We do not have venture capital money or Big Company money to devote to experimental programs. While the bug bounty…

My yardstick for personal tech (laptops, phones, operating systems, software, and apps) is to be like a light switch: Do what I need, when I need it, with zero fiddling or thought required. Aluminum or copper wire? Push connectors or screws? Doesn't matter. I can think about those things occasionally if I want, but I can *use* a switch on autopilot. Technology should efficiently and unobtrusively extend my abilities.

On a recent family zoom call, my sister in law shared how she's been on a "news diet" for about a week (shielding herself from any reports of the concurrent national and global crises), inspired by a Buddhist friend. She said her mood and outlook have been MUCH better, as a result. She has been more productive, and generally more focused on her immediate life. Sounds pretty good, right? Inspired by this, I decided to take similar steps. For me,…

Here are a couple of recent stories from the Clarkesworld podcast that I have really enjoyed. "Aegiopolis Testudo" by Gordon Li People live in a city built upon an alien's back. The way that Gordon combines biology, planetary science, social culture, and technology are just exceptional. "Never Eaten Vegetables" by H.H. Pak Human pioneers struggle for a normal life in a remote planetary colony. A sentient spaceship reflects on her existence, choices, and impact on the people in her care.

I'm moving to hachyderm.io. Here's the background... When I left Twitter for Mastodon in late 2022, I chose fosstodon.org as my home. I appreciated the open source focus and it seemed like a well-run instance that would be around for a while. I also signed up as a monthly patron, to support the admin team and help keep the instance sustainable. In recent days, there has been a minor furor across the fediverse related to one of the moderators at…

My favorite new technology is not new. It's a natural-language game engine for creating text-based interactive stories. Inform 7 The latest version of Inform 7 was released in 2022. Aaron Reed's excellent and completely usable book was published in 2011. The game engine was created in 2006, as a rebuild of a project which was introduced when I was still getting carded for cigarettes (1993). This is a good and appropriate pace for technology. I am just getting started with…