Diary of a Network Geek

I love free, weird, art-related stuff on the internet.

As you might have guessed since I share it here incessantly. Maybe it’s got to do with the fact that I was always encouraged to be practical as a kid. Or maybe it’s that I somehow ended up befriended by the world-renown artist, Mark Flood, who constantly encourages my crazier and more creative impulses. Either way, I’m always on the lookout for an art-related time-waster for a Friday afternoon when I should be working.
So, this week, before I share my artistic distraction, let me remind you that I was never a painter and am an absolute clumsy oaf. But, I never let that stand in the way of having fun with art, and neither should you. So, thanks to Boing Boing and David Li, I share with you “paint”. It’s a pretty incredible paint simulator that really gets a good, wet, well, painterly look to it. I felt like the brushes were hard to control and the overlapping paint was a bit of a mess, but that makes it the perfect thing to kill time without getting too serious about an end product. And, to me, an absolutely fun way to spend a few minutes on a Friday afternoon.
Enjoy!

This post originally appeared on Use Your Words, where I share the most original content I write.

Yes, that’s humans using echolocation to navigate in the world.

It’s like a superpower, only for real.
When I was in college, I minored in Psychology, which meant that I got to mostly take the “fun” classes and skip statistics. Though, of course, I took a different statistics course for my major. And, of course, my idea of “fun” may not match up to normal people’s idea of what makes psychology fun. The last psych course I took, and my favorite, was Physiological Psychology, and included a lot of study on how our senses worked and fed into our intelligence and the evolution of human intelligence. It was absolutely incredible and, for me, a lot of fun. I’ve been told that most Psychology majors hated it.
One of the things we talked about, naturally, was intelligence in other creatures. My professor studied dolphins and their intelligence at one point in his undergrad work, so we talked about how their use of echolocation most likely enhanced their relative intelligence. That, and my fascination with bats, let me to write a final paper that involved a LOT of echolocation and how it all worked. All of which is to say that I’ve read a fair bit about animal echolocation and have always found it interesting. So, you can imagine how excited I was when I saw this article on Boing Boing about human echolocation! Yes! Humans using passive and active echolocation to navigate! It’s incredible! And, the video gives you the basics of learning how to do it yourself!
Just the thing to see and try before the weekend!
Seriously, it’s real and it’s cool and definitely worth checking out!

This post originally appeared on Use Your Words!

I can get lost in how complicated our brains are.

When I was in college, I minored in Psychology and, at one point, was on my way toward becoming a therapist. I ultimately decided to get into a field where I could actually solve people’s problems for them, but I still love understanding more about how our brains work. We confuse who we are with what we think and the other things that happen in that most miraculous of all organs. As you might have guessed, I don’t entirely trust brains, even my own, but they are still the best tools we have for running our lives and solving our problems.
And, of course, like many other denizens of the internet, I love TED Talks. So, I’ve been crazy busy this week and, frankly, I don’t have time or patience for more introduction than that, so I’m just going to point you to the 8 Great TED Talks About Psychology. And they are great. Totally fascinating, and a great distraction from whatever else may be going on this lovely Friday. Also? You may just learn something interesting or useful about your own mind. Maybe not, but I’m willing to take the chance that you will.

Enjoy and, hopefully, I’ll see you next week!

This post originally appeared on Use Your Words.

Another new year and another chance to break promises to yourself!

I never bother with New Year’s Resolutions any more, personally. I’ve tried “turning over a new leaf” in January so many times that I’m in danger of becoming a walking cliche. At least I know that I’m no different than most people, which is why gyms and churches are both bursting at the seams in January, but thin out by April. Still it’s traditional, so I’ll share, again, my own little solution to the New Year’s Resolution “problem”.
Back in the day, when I still had delusions that I could make myself into a decent programmer, I whipped up a New Year’s Resolution Generator. I based it, in part, on some ideas from the Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Holidays, but I have to admit, I threw in some of my own warped sense of humor. And, I weighted things a little more toward heavier drinking and looser morals because I figured those were the resolutions that would be easier to keep. Also, I figured they’d be funnier.

In any case, it was apparently funny enough that Comedy Central Insider linked it in their blog back when I first released it. Which is pretty cool, no matter how long ago that was. Besides, can completely random “advice” from a website really be any worse than the suggestions you got from family over the holidays? In today’s world of chaos and unreality, it honestly doesn’t seem as bad an idea as it used to! So, why not give it a shot yourself? You don’t even have to share about it publicly. No one will know but us!

And try to have a good year, no matter what happens. Make time to love your loved ones, do good work and add something positive to the world. Or one of the random resolutions. Whichever seems likelier to produce good results.

This post originally appeared on Use Your Words!

Industrial accidents are no joke, but they can be a fun theme for a game.

At least, I recently played a game on the web about an industrial accident that was, in fact fun.
The game was called, not surprisingly, Industrial Accident. The setting is an automated factory, where you play an artificial intelligence worker who experiences a little difficulty. And, it’s best if I don’t say any more, because it might spoil the fun. Seriously, I know it just seems like I’m being a lazy blogger during a holiday week, but knowing no more than what I’ve told you will make the game a bit more fun.
Also, keep in mind that it’s free and a pretty short game, so, even if you have a lot of work due to the short week, you have more than enough time to play.

Enjoy! And, help keep the workplace safe from malfunctioning AI!

This post originally appeared on Use Your Words!

This may stretch the limits of what even I consider “fun”.

Ever since I was in junior high, I’ve been a little too interested in nuclear war. Personally, I blame the Cold War and movies like [amazon_textlink asin=’B0001WTVUW’ text=’The Day After’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’jkhoffman-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’0f617978-3395-11e8-99c2-4f1995d99183′]. It looks kind of cheesy now, but back in the day, we were all terrified that this was our future. We were quite sure that Russia was going to launch missiles at us any moment and we would have to know how to survive. Or, maybe that was just the crazed group of boys I hung out with who all read science fiction pulps. I’ll allow that’s possible not everyone was as obsessed with the subject as we were.
But, the thing is, I don’t think it would have mattered. For one thing, I grew up not far from a pretty important Naval Air Station, and also not far from a major financial center. I’m pretty sure that where I lived would have been pretty quickly reduced to melted glass if World War Three had broken out. But, that seems to be a topic popping up again. And, it’s fresh enough that someone has created a new Nuclear Bomb Blast Simulator. I’ve shared these before but this one is, well, prettier than the others. It shows in pretty graphic terms just how large an area would be effected. Also, it seems to have better geolocation than the others that I’ve shared. And, if you, like me, have a dark sense of humor, you can always use your worst enemy’s location as the epicenter of the blast. That would be a kind of “fun”, right?

And, if you’re truly concerned, you can get the book I studied for weeks at the library, Nuclear War Survival Skills, for free, in PDF format. It claims to have been updated in 1987, but I’m quite certain it must have only to correct spelling errors because this is precisely how I remember it from all those years ago. And, I’m quite certain I had a copy in hand well before 1987, which was after I had graduated from high school.

So, um, enjoy!? And try not to think about it too much.

This post first appeared on Use Your Words.

More self-education at lunch.

This is a little less work oriented than last week and certainly less technical, but it’s still the same idea. It’s an email newsletter, which seem to be gaining a bit in popularity again.  In this case, it’s a curated email, sent weekly, filled with content that the site owners claim will broaden your perspective called The Lunch Read.  I don’t know about that, but it does have videos, articles and music that you might not have heard yet, all sent to you, regularly.  You can read more about it at About: The Lunch Read.  And, if you’re not quite sold yet, even though it’s free, you can see recent past newsletters they’ve sent out at The Lunch Read Leftovers.  Judging from that content, it’s not a bad newsletter.

Besides, it’s Friday, and if  you’re reading this, you’re not working anyway.  Might as well sign up and see what it’s all about!

This post originally appeared at Use Your Words.

Also, they’re free.

In 2015, Sploid, a sub-site of Gizmodo, had a short film festival. Just to be clear, that’s a festival of short films. There were 21 films, many of which include some actors you may recognize. All the films were creative and, frankly, pretty amazing.
And, let’s face it, it’s Friday and you’re reading this blog, which means you weren’t doing any actual work anyway, so you might as well head over to YouTube and watch all of them. They are, after all, short films, so it won’t take too terribly long.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you this week, because I’ve been a bit sick and didn’t have a chance to get anything better together.
But, I think this will be good enough.
Enjoy, and I’ll see you back here next week!

This post originally appeared at Use Your Words.

Okay, it’s been awhile since I’ve shared something that’s just fun to look at. Time to fix that.

So, I titled this “Modern Art”, but I really mean “Art made with contemporary tools and media”.  Not necessarily what people typically think of as “modern art”.  Not, as I recently heard someone describe it “Murals made by nailing up trash out of someone’s dumpster”.  (Not that there’s anything wrong with that at all, even though I probably wouldn’t hang something like that…
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I’ve talked a lot about writing this month, so this week, I thought I’d throw in some more photography stuff.

I’ve actually had these links for some time, but I have never gotten around to either sharing them or even actually trying them myself.  Still, I’ve never let a lack of personal experience with something stop me from recommending it to others, so I don’t see why I should keep me from sharing these two links.

First, there’s a tutorial on how…
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