Category Archives: Weird

The Fragility Of Complex Technology

This is amazing.

[Update a while later]

Note that this seemed to be an accident of inadvertent file naming, but FM subcarriers carry all sorts of info (like real-time traffic, weather, or alerts). Imagine the kinds of malicious things one could do with this, because the automakers haven’t bullet proofed their code. Particularly with self-driving cars and kill switches. There should be a firewall between a car’s radio and the rest of the avionics (as I think they do for aircraft entertainment systems).

My New Keyboard

So I bought a mechanical keyboard. It was reviewed as a good value for someone who wanted it for typing (though it’s also a gaming keyboard). I like the action on it, but it has a big problem. See the key to the left of the right Ctrl key? It seems to have the same function as a right click, but I have no use for it.

Unfortunately, where it’s placed means that I’m often accidentally hitting it with my palm just below my right pinkie, at which point it screws up whatever I’m typing, by inserting text or something else, which I have to then undo with ctrl-z. It would be nice if it could be reprogrammed but even if it was a Windows key (as it was on my previous keyboard, that would screw thing up in Linux by going to the workspace menu. I didn’t have the problem on my previous keyboard because the key profile was lower. I guess I’ll just try removing the key and see if the problem goes away.

[Update a while later]

In the process of trying to figure out how to delete the mapping on the problem key, I discovered this amusing document. “Before you read this, please understand that I never wanted to write this document, being grossly under-qualified, but I always wanted to read it, and this was the only way.”

The Unbearable Whiteness Of Being An Academic

If there is so much racism in America, why do white people want to be not white? Why are they giving up their supposed “privilege”?

I heard an interview with Mike Shellenberger the other day in which he pointed out that if he declared himself to be a woman, his lefty friends would encourage him, but if he claimed to be black, they’d denigrate him. Yet (as he pointed out) he has a much more biologically in common with a black man than with any woman.