One of the things I enjoy most about academia is the emphasis on intellectual freedom even when expressing such freedom might be seen as problematic for the University’s commercial interests. Case in point: I was quoted in an article raising concerns that some universities’ contractual agreements to automatically transfer certain 5G telecommunications patents to foreign companies (based on research funded by the same companies) could be disadvantageous to domestic national security. One of the universities that is caught up in the issue is the one employing me. Despite my statements potentially being disadvantageous to my own university’s interests there are no rebukes but, instead, praise for being involved with national issues. If only all employers could be so similarly open-minded!
Asides
2019.1.17
Nothing quite like starting the day by refreshing a password that was apparently compromised, and then trying to determine where/how the operators might have obtained the login credentials in the first place. Still, props to Google’s AI systems for detecting the aberrant login attempt and blocking it, as well as for password managers which make having unique login credentials for every service so easy to manage/replace.
2019.1.13
It’s taken me way longer than it should have, but I finally put up a list of all of my favourite/most commonly listened to podcasts! They’re currently loosely ordered by topic; the next step will be to put together short explanation of why I like each of those given podcasts. Hopefully the process of putting together descriptions will take a lot less time than the initial compilation of the list itself!
Apple, Handoff, and the Apple Ecosystem
I listen to a lot of podcasts and music throughout the day. It drives me nuts that there isn’t a consistent and reliable way to start listening to something on my Apple TV when having breakfast, shift to my iPhone while heading out to walk to a coffee shop, shift to listening on my iPad while reading/dealing with email, back to my iPhone for a walk to my office, and then finish listening to a playlist of my Mac without having to open the music app on each device, each time, and navigate to my place in a given playlist and start listening. Yes this is very much a first world problem but it’s the precise kind of problem that Apple’s famed integration is supposed to solve for me!
2018.10.30
Need to actually see one in person, but I super-strongly suspect that I’ll be getting one of the new MacBook Airs in the near future to replace my current MacBook 12”.
2018.10.14
I took a little under 900 photos over the course of a three week work trip. After a first round of cleaning and deleting, I’m left with about 300. Now time to evaluate what gets kept, what gets edited, and what gets published.
2018.10.13
It would be amazing if Sony actually worked to improve the quality of their PlayStation server infrastructure. It’s insane that I have to wait 4-5 hours to download 80GB on a 250Mbps symmetrical connection.
