The Life Programmable

Towns and Cities across the country may well be blind sided by the ruinous crashes caused by self driving cars; as the automatons begin to dominate motor ways, their collective adherence to the laws will lay waste to municipal budgets across the land. Local and state governments across the United States use traffic enforcement to significantly bolster their budgets, a practice which will be forcibly phased out (at least in it’s current form) by the adoption of driverless cars that never speed.

As technology continues to disrupt the transportation model we have known for these last few decades, the systems which grew around them are undoubtedly going to be shaken. Gas stations, rest stops, trucking companies, and delivery services are just a few examples of business models which will be significantly impacted by the future of transportation; but what about our governments. The system of traffic enforcement has drawn questions before, a conversation somewhat recently revitalized by traffic cameras and their legality; but with a looming loss of lucrative law enforcement how will we cope with the lost income?

So how much money do cities make from traffic violations? Well that depends from city to city, but in the past some small towns have seen over 60% of their budget coming from traffic violations, and even Washington DC collects around 200 million dollars a year through traffic citations; accounting for over 2% of the capitals budget in 2014, or enough money to upset the Washington Post. With the actual funding going to everything and anything from roads, to schools, police, and  firefighters; the incomes are allocated differently in each city and town often with some portion being handed over to the state.

The lengths to which some cities will go to bolster this income often puts the government at odds with it’s citizens. Parking signs are a notorious example of governments misbehaving, creating intentionally confusing signage to generate more fines. So the losses will be offset; but how: by the decreased need to replace and repair public property damaged by motorists, and potentially by new taxes and laws which could rely on the accurate travel logs kept by autonomous vehicles to levy fines based on anything from distance or time traveled to the number of passengers in the car? Additional capital  will be saved through the elimination of high-paying and no longer necessary positions in traffic regulation and enforcement, streamlining in the insurance industry, reduced need for oversight and Traffic Court, and while these may offset the lost income for states and large cities, many smaller towns that built their budgets on the backs of speeders will have little to offset the dwindling success of their speed-traps.

The issue of automated vehicles is only a microcosm of the issues our society faces as we embrace the ever accelerating rate of change that has become associated with technology. As the landscape of modern life continues to shift we will need to be vigilant in the protection of our rights, lest we fall victim to the ambition of others. Demanding that we lend our voices to the advocacy and defense of reason so that it may survive.

I’m afraid we have suffered some serious downtime. The new routines I put in place have been maxing out the central processing unit, resulting in a few tasks getting dropped. However, these new protocols are now running smoothly and the firmware has been upgraded to meet the new demands being placed upon the core. Well a few more tweaks are needed in order to get things running at optimum capacity; we are optimistic that operations will resume shortly.

So … yeah, translation: I’ve been gone, had some serious changes in my life (all for the better) and I was exhausted. However, I’ve gotten used to it, and well I need to buy a new pair of shoes, and I’m optimistic that I’ll get a new piece up soon.

In the mean time I’ve been enjoying the change. Having taken a step back before charging forward.

Our fine nation is plagued by many problems, not the least of which is the need to leave our beds, ever, for any reason. One of the many reasons we, as victims of our own responsibility, must venture from our warm-spots is to shutdown our computers before we go to sleep. BUT WAIT! SHIVER NO MORE! Now with this savior of a powershell script you can fall asleep watching your favorite movies and shows, without waking up to an angry mob of Eco-Warriors.

INTRODUCING: Sleepy-Video.ps1

That’s right, a right click, and you’re ready to fall asleep to the soothing sounds of Game of Thrones. Ah the Rains of Castemere, nothing puts you at ease like that little ballad.

Running this handy script will prompt your way through installing and activating one or both of the amazing menu items bundled in this miracle script. ‘Watch Now then Shutdown’ to play your favorite movie immediately with a shutdown timed for one minute after the movie ends. Alternatively ‘Watch at Bedtime’ to decide when the computer will shut down, timing the movie to start just in time for bed.

See the Project Page, for more information!

The gamer is suffering from an identity crisis as modern journalism balkanizes public perceptions. While the majority of people who play video games are women both here and in the UK, the majority of ‘gamers’ are men. While this may seem strange, it is a predictable consequence of our culture, and a symptom of a much larger problem. The media has made a caricature of the gamer in our minds which distances many who game from the word. Even the dictionary qualifies the word as being ‘especially someone who plays video games regularly,’ proving that word has taken on a life of its own. Gamers are not alone in this, the internet is full of shallow articles constructing straw-men which distance the people they are supposed to represent from their own identity.

What’s wrong this time? A rift has formed between our perceptions and reality which cheapens the conversation to a counter-productive blame game. After all, the industry is already rife with women’s issues, which are compounded by associating the word gamer with a particular gender and personality. When the media then begins to harp on the mutterings etched in a few miscellaneous twitter accounts it serves to, at best, distract from the real issues which reflect on a cult of testosterone casting shade across the medium. It gets foggy when you’re in the cloud. There is a lot of static buzzing about the internet and it’s impossible to see through it all. This exacerbates the problem of commentary-journalism, as it creates a one-sided conversation. When Kanye West is reported on, at least he can respond; where informal groups such as ‘gamers’ lack the autonomy to do so.

I tweet therefore I am newsworthy. As the media has made a habit of using internet comments for everything from fluff pieces to debate questions; we have reached a point where everyone is speaking on behalf of every group they are perceived to be a part of; classifying entire groups in 140 characters or less. While some articles use tweets to make real points about society; most only serve to give credibility to what someone muttered on the bus, that is twitter.

Avenue Q got it wrong, the internet is for comments. Content made of commentary existing to be commented upon. Allowing the sort of speech which would naturally be filtered by the real world to instead be broadcast to the whole world. The media seems to love getting trolled; distracting itself from the issues with fluff disguised as news. I mean we have spent the last nine or so months talking about a wall, and it isn’t even the Great Firewall.

The internet has allowed us access to the full spectrum of modern rhetoric, from which we can easily build shallow arguments amounting to straw-men. This is not to says that twitter is inherently un-newsworthy, there are times when trends and escalations in the medium merit our attention and consideration. However, in a space where we can find ourselves subjected to every imaginable form of hate; we should avoid spreading it further. Filter out the vitriol and focus on the issues, because as they say: haters gonna hate.

I’ve been hard at work revitalizing an old project (IAI) from university. Using the platform my team and I once used to explore basic artificial intelligence; I am now experimenting with the underbelly of Python, toying with the Data Model and probing the amalgam that lies beneath. I’ve been discovering that Python truly is a slippery beast which often seems to be coiling back upon itself, becoming ensnared in its own coils in its quest for clarity.

Python is an interesting language. The high-level focus on readability, and the numerous modules available for simplifying complex tasks have made it a standard tool for professional and academic applications. However a discerning look at the language reveals an arcane labyrinth of data, convenient yet costly; creating code where the readability is shrouded by a mercurial mist of mysterious methods. By abstracting away the defining features of lower level languages it exists in-between conventions. Scripted, compiled, functional, object-oriented: Python blurs the lines commonly used to describe languages, implementing a relatively unique interpretation of scope and making a muddled mix of parameter passing; causing me to question the efficacy with which it preforms as a teaching tool.

On the other hand: Python is a LOT of fun. The language offers list-comprehension, splicing, callable-classes, class-operators, and more; all of which can be manipulated and overwritten. Used well these features can result in some of the most interesting and certainly the most readable code I’ve seen in any language, however that requires practice without which one’s code can become overwhelmingly esoteric.

I’m going to continue to explore Python as I develop the IAI project. I think the language displays a lot of potential especially for quickly generating scripts and I am strangely satisfied by the quirky classes I’m concocting as I explore the Object-Oriented features of the language.

For the last few months I’ve been considering switching most of my diet to the meal alternative Soylent. I have an unusual relationship with food, and the general convenience appeals to me; however, I have not yet tried the unconventional nutritional replacement. With the start of the new year, I have been trying to kick my expensive take-out habit with a somewhat opposite approach, learning to cook. I’m giving conventional food one last chance before I jettison an established staple of human existence to live a little more like the Jetsons.

I began with multiple trips to the grocery. A challenge in itself, I considered space and spoilage while trying to create a string of meals which would keep me satisfied in the week to come. Once I had stocked my apartment to the brim with food, I started with a fillet of salmon. As the fish fried atop my stove I marveled at the ease with which the meal came together.

Proud of my accomplishment with the fillet, I returned to the grocer and decided to try my hand at a steak, while storing another fillet in my freezer for later. The steak proved just as easy to fry, a relief since I don’t have an oven. I surrounded the steak with some mixed fruit and vegetables then topped off the food pyramid with a bowl of black raspberry ice cream.

My next major endeavor into meal preparation was making some pancake batter, seizing the opportunity to finish off the raspberries before they spoiled. I made pancakes twice before finishing the batter, and while all the pancakes tasted equally good; the second batch looked better since I put the raspberry pieces into the pan first then poured the batter over the top, leaving them visible.

Having opened a pack of bacon for the pancakes, I had put myself in a race against rot with yet another ingredient so I made up some eggs, hash and bacon, crumbling what remained into a potato along with some green beans. Happily embracing any excuse to eat more bacon I finished what remained within a couple of days.

I enjoyed the variety of choices available to me right after a shopping trip. Eating whatever seemed most appealing, be that a granola bar from a well-stocked supply, or a bowl of hot dogs and beans. At the same time, I found myself obliged to eat many meals to avoid letting the ingredients spoil, or else at risk of being “part of the problem,” that is food waste: a consideration which spurred me to revisit the fillet still chilling in my freezer.

I attempted to outdo myself, flourishing the salmon with dill and lemon, while selecting the more appropriate green bean as a side. I overdid the dill a bit, but otherwise it turned out well so I rewarded myself with pre-made cookie dough cooked in my toaster-oven and a glass of chocolate milk. putting an end to my initial stock of groceries.

Cooking my own meals, I found myself able to appreciate the pleasure of eating more than ever before. I eat mainly to ward off the paralyzing effects of fasting, which is perhaps why I was so successful in my efforts to prevent food waste; happy to eat whatever meal would stave off my appetite I focused on using the most volatile ingredients first. Still, with almost every meal I discovered new ecstasy in every bite, inexplicably enjoying these simple meals more than food I had eaten at nice restaurants.

The past week or so I have reverted to old habits as the weather turned bad. I am however determined to resume a proper grocery regiment and continue giving conventional consumption a chance because of how well my first experience went. Although the effort involved in preparing and eating a meal makes a strong case for the efficiency of a product like Soylent; the physical and emotional boon I experienced well cooking for myself has convinced me to keep with the nutritional norms of solid food for the time being. Hopefully I’ll learn a few more recipes and be back in the kitchen soon.

For the past decade the major game developers have been held hostage by a standard they created. Inside sleek steel towers, the richest, most prolific figures in the industry conspired openly to form a cartel. Together they used their combined influence to manipulate and intimidate their way throughout the publishing and distributing sectors, strangling their competition until nothing remained but the twisted fingers of their machinations, swiftly coiling around all that remained; their own necks.

Entombed by the uniform cost structure which they had standardized, the triple A (AAA) industry began to suffocate as pressure built from the rising  cost of technology, an explosion of competition from independent developers, and inflated expectations being placed upon their products. They finally they choked. The proliferation of the internet became lodged in their throats as multiplayer and other online features became so standard that the president of EA even boasted that he had gone a year without giving the green-light to a single project that didn’t have an online component.

However, their empire was struggling to survive as the earth quaked beneath it. The AAA developers would need to find a new source of stability in this changing landscape. Their crude old methods of drilling an intellectual property with sequel after sequel and fracking the franchise until barren had been made obsolete. Gamers now saw ‘Expansions’ & ‘Downloadable Content’ (DLC) become staple features of their pastime. These bypassed the overhead associated with servers which are needed for sequels, and the long term costs of development came to be financed with increments of content being delivered at cost to players of the game.

This was not without resistance. Consumers wailed upon deaf ears. The companies who embraced and invented incremental content were accused of releasing incomplete products while still expecting to charge the standard $60 price at launch. They were arraigned on charges of fraud and deception in the people’s court, but were never indicted. In a flurry of affronting new practices, only pre-order schemes have seen regular defeat. Capitalism in its divinity deafens itself to post-purchase prayers.

Still pressured in an over-saturated market, even the most prominent developers were struggling to meet the growing budgets demanded by modern incarnations of their games. Several companies faced the risk that they would be phased out of their own industry; when they were saved by the introduction of the newest, smallest, and most disruptive form of payment ever featured in the medium.

The Microtransaction burst on to the scene transforming the way in which we, the consumers, pay to play. However, the cabal still sat in a ruin of its former self and in dire dissatisfaction conjured the demon of the denominator. No longer unified, some of the remaining cabalists, often desperate, un-leveled the playing field inside their games, casting players in to classes, tiered in the only terms they understand, giving birth to ‘pay2win’ which in greed not wisdom, would become the newest form of gambling. This torrent of new methodologies brought forth real innovation and opportunity for developers, polishing what are now jewels within the industry; while simultaneously paving the way for tyranny to be a trademark within the art form.

“Microtransaction” became the umbrella term for small digital purchases, and brought with it the introduction of a new concept for digital media: repeatable transactions. The sale  and pricing of digital goods, had long been justified much like brand-name pharmaceuticals. The value of a product being correlated to the research, development and general efforts of the inventor(s); including some expectation that the price will fall with time as the investment is recovered. Microtransactions disrupted this paradigm, redefining goods as services and  shifting the valuation to be based on what the consumer receives rather than the production costs. Star Citizen, for example, offers the repeatable purchase of in-game space-ships ranging in price from $20 to the in no way ‘micro’ $400(and up) section of their shop, going so far as to include packages as egregious as $15,000; flaunting the abstraction which money has become.

Elements of this abstract valuation can be leveraged to create wonders of the modern market place. Valve(Steam) is a pioneer in the field, and they idealize how they can make the marketplace for digital games work for everyone, often succeeding. However, the principle itself creates inherent market inequalities as developers have exclusive production rights within their respective games; often taxing and filtering any second or third party content present in their microtransaction shops and even in after-markets. Valve in particular has created DotA 2 and revitalized Team Fortress 2 using microtransactions with the good intentions to create interesting and non-intrusive mechanics. Sadly, not all companies are so well intentioned, and even those who are often find themselves embroiled in both financial and ethical dilemmas.

The shifting view of digital products towards that of a service has a long history in the broader software industry. Subscription products have slowly become more prevalent since the internet and online shopping made it a possibility, with recent examples being made of Microsoft Office 365 and Adobe Creative Cloud. Gaming saw this early on in some genres, and recently it has been adopted by more in the form of subscriber-specific content and updates. Different adaptations of these concepts have been executed with various levels of efficacy and acceptance, many becoming norms in spite of their bad reputations.

At this point the use of small repeatable transactions is so widely embraced that the major developer Activision-Blizzard acquired the smaller Digital King Studio for  $5.9 Billion. After all, Digital King had flooded their bank accounts with $1.98 Billion in 2013 alone with a single “free-to-play” game Candy Crush. Paying for powers, and boosts to win in situations where one would otherwise fail, digital gaming had created their own Vegas strip, building digital slot machines that never pay out anything but the words “you
win.” At this point, the price to play had become the game itself. Even the most banal examples of microtransactions often employ randomized rewards which force players to gamble for their contents. Additionally these games often target very young demographics, seemingly designed to exploit children for their parents money.

This revolution in gaming has been marred by tragedy but is not without its merits. Microtransactions have enabled free-to-play games, which at best democratize their costs, allowing players to make informed purchases in games they are confident they enjoy; at its worst however, it is a stochastic beast which preys on addiction and the thrill at winning in a game of chance the house rigged so they never lose. I understand that this gamble can be attractive in itself, but when the stakes weight cash versus a digital good; the game becomes tipped beyond the break, in favor of the developers.

In conclusion, a relatively short and muddled history has led to the invention of the microtransaction; which has enabled innovation and encouraged the entrepreneurial spirit in developers. However, it has brought with it an abstraction of gambling which
now courses through the blood of the industry like a virus; polluting the plasma with psychological ploys, aiming to create a system where wealth equates opportunity. A virus which if left unchecked could doom the medium, until we only play to pay.

Today I’m celebrating the addition of the Projects Page (up top, in the header-bar.) Which will in time become one of most populated pages here on the life programmable. However, for the moment,  I am content with this first addition: BaltoTab

I developed BaltoTab in my free time during 2015 to learn the ins and outs of C#; a language I had only just started using in late 2014. Using this as an opportunity to dive into the .NET framework and the Windows API.

The project uses the framework to manipulate open windows in ‘Windows 7’ using the API-DLLs and acts as a fun visual replacement for Alt-Tab, and while the project was put on hold when I upgraded my home system to Windows 10 (a wonderful decision overall.) I’m hoping to breath a little more life into it once I finishing building this site.

So check out the new BaltoTab Page, where I will keep updates on my progress, version notes, and links to both the source code and the project installer.

Welcome to 2016, a momentous year for me. My first year as a college graduate. My first year outside of that industry called education. My first year… to be determined. The short story there being: very short.
I have no particular plan for my immediate or long term future.

I get asked what my plans are a LOT lately; however experience has taught me that planning is often just a way of designing disappointments. I find myself in front of a clean slate. A fresh start. So before I start buying furniture for my own tower of babel, I figure I should see where the first brick lands.

This does not mean that I am lost for what to do. I have passions, ambitions, expectations, and ideas.  All of which will guide me into the future. I have a degree in Computer Science, and a LinkedIn profile which improves every day; I’m not about to pack my bags, hop on to a plane and hunt the Yeti through the Swiss Alps.

Then Again, if any Yet-Hunting-Expeditions feel like they could use a Software Engineer and can offer a reasonable compensation package, call me. Which may or may not be ‘the point.’ I was in Oregon Wednesday, standing on a fourteen foot snow drift at Crater Lake. Now I’m in a T-Shirt warm inside my apartment in Boston, and I’m not sure where I’ll be in another two days.