Well, this is odd.
I keep hearing this song at work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX-QaNzd-0Y
Never heard of the artist.  Didnt know he existed till now.  But like a good little earworm, this song infected its way into my brain. I wanted to hear it tonight, so I pulled it up on youtube and took a good hard look at who was singing.
Apparently pop artists these days look like hippy Goku.

The myth of sisyphus

I worked today.  I thankfully only did seven hours (as opposed to 12), but still, it wears you out.
Restaurant work of all kind reminds me of the myth of Sisyphus.  Not Camus', which is loaded with some optimism I simply cannot follow, but the actual Myth proper.
The Greeks came up with the perfect punishment with this one.  Not only is the task impossible, trying, and demoralizing, it is also monotonous.  I always figured that any tortured administered in Christian hell would probably have a degree of excitement to it.  After all, it isn't every day that you are slowly sawed in half by demons.  If nothing else, you get some novelty in your torture. IN comparison the Greek myth seems worse; I imagine that by the end of the first week Sisyphus is most likely out of his mind with boredom, and very likely sick of seeing the damn stone.
Restaurant work is that kind of terrible, everyday you go in there knowing full well that there is a massive stone to push up a hill, and that tomorrow morning you are going to walk in to find all the same problems there waiting for you, as if you had accomplished nothing the day before.
The saving grace to the work is that everyday blesses you with a brand new stone, so at least it is something new to think about every time you do it.
I guess I find that uplifting, if nothing else I get a new stone to push.  Maybe I will learn something about stones.
Today I kept my head down and got the day out as quickly as possible with a nice strong grind.  No stone worth mentioning.
Last week the restaurant was dead, so much so that by 6pm I was doing my clean up work, simply out of boredom.    I pointed this out to the manager; "I'm doing my side work, just to prove how superfluous my being here is".
Apparently, using the word superfluous was a problem.  I got lampooned for a good long time for daring to use 'SAT words' in every day speech.  This was after, maybe three weeks ago, they had began lampooning me for using 'much obliged' as opposed to 'thank you'.
My colleagues apparently have problems with adult words.

Bullshit day, snowed in...

It has been snowing since I woke up, and it has yet to stop.  I am carefully trying to avoid cabin fever, but at this point I am wondering if it is even possible.  I am tempted to stroll around the apartment complex simply for the point of strolling around.  I would be curious if I could get to 10,000 steps with one round through every floor (before you ask, it's a MiBand.  I am far too cheap to buy anything serious).  But at this point I have ordered a pizza and I will likely remain lazy for the rest of the day.

I managed to write two articles for TechRaptor, and maybe I will try to write another before the day is through.  Or I may watch a movie.  I am up for either.
I wrote something about the EFF's rejection of the latest incarnation of the terrible cyber-security law, known as CISA.  It's a fluff piece, and its mostly quotes.
http://techraptor.net/content/eff-calls-for-cisa-rejection

I also wrote about how Apple folded to China's new rather stringent regulation regarding how much access they need to various aspects of certain technologies property (wanting source codes, wanting back doors, etc).  It's actually freighting, but I think it is something we will ultimately have to accept.  Even if we put up all the laws possible to prevent, I think many government will simply learn to do it without asking.  Also, I have a bad feeling that companies will ultimately fold to governments.   We may all just have to learn to live a little off the grid.
http://techraptor.net/content/apple-agrees-to-chinas-stringent-law
Or perhaps not.  I have been reading Luciano Floridi's The Fourth Revolution, and he made some interesting points regarding governance.  I may save my opinion of that for when I finish the book itself.

But I should return to talking about my day.  Or something.
I spent the day watching for too many videos on youtube.  I suffer from a bit of guilt regarding this, which I mitigate by trying to convince myself that what I watch is somehow a little more worthy than much of the other content on youtube.
This is basically a colossal lie that I tell myself everyday.  I have developed an addiction of sorts to all the scientific and educational content youtube has to offer.  I figured if I only take in 1% of what I watch, it is still some kind of win.
I've been watching DNews for about a year now, despite finding pretty much all the presenters they have, past and present, to be rather apathetic.  I get by because, well, science is interesting.  Science make my life bearable.
But the people who make DNews (Im pretty sure it's the Discovery Channel, but I'm not really going to research anything for this blog) have now made another youtube channel called Seeker, which is supposed to have a more humanities approach to content.
In the spirit of a cabin-fever induced Carpe Diem, I subscribed immediately.
Sigh.
I like the humanities.  Hell, my degrees are in the humanities.  Both of them.  But for some damn reason, anything dealing with the humanities seems to come off as so damn depressing when you try to put it to a medium like youtube.
Watch most DNews videos.  They are all optimistic, or at the very least, up beat.  Even the introduction tune has more spike in its step then what they gave the new channel.
I wonder if it is arbitrary or not.
But just look at the titles of the videos Seeker has so far released, and you find nothing but gripes.  They seem to have nothing positive to say.  They also argued for the benefits of censorship, which of course makes me want to say 'you first.'
But from my love of the humanities, I am starting to wonder about something.  What if there is a coming culture war that is going to take sides based on science vs the humanities?  I know full fell what side I will find myself on, and that is the sad thing.  I don't think the humanities stands a chance; they have all the demands and none of the means or methods to ever get anything done.
Blah.  Ramble over.
Where's my fucking pizza?

Insufficiently Busy

One of my jobs has temporarily terminated, and thus I find myself with an abundance a free time.  I have decided to pound out a few articles for TechRaptor until my life gets sufficiently busy again.  All tech writing, however, can make Jack quite the dullard, so I figured I would try my hand at this blog writing nonsense again, just to see how long it would take me to get bored of it again.
Ugh.
Some back story.
I started this blog ages ago, when the names Locus Horribilis merely sounded cool.  I have since migrated a lot.  Ultimately I crash landed on a place I not only hate, but a place wheremy profession of choice (English Teacher) does not earn enough to live decently.  I thus work two miserable jobs while aspiring towards better.
This blog might turn into a bitch fest about said jobs.
Alternatively, I could recount adventures from that period in my life where things were not so boring.  Or maybe a combination of the two.
Or I might continue to post tech news.  Preferably, with some commentary behind it.
Consider this, via HackRead:
https://www.hackread.com/larimer-county-sheriffs-office-website-hacked-by-pro-palestinian-hackers/
Frankly, I'm not sure I get it.  I never really have.  Sure, I get having a grievance and wanting to post it... somewhere.  But why there of all places?  Does anyone really believe that constituents of Larimer Country CO, will be browsing their local sheriffs website, stumble upon that hack, and suddenly have their mind changed on determined political issues.  I am not terribly sure it works that way.
Maybe I am just getting old.

Last shameless link for today (I think)
http://techraptor.net/content/uber-breach-caused-by-uber-incompetence
The story makes me particularly happy.  Mostly it's because thre a certain threshold of incompetence that generally merits our scorn, and Uber has crossed it.  With flying colors.  I have considered the possibility that someone inside Uber might have posted those security links with some kind of malicious intent, and I have already discarded that possibility.  Were that the case, Uber would be screaming it from the hilltops.  So far, radio silence.

http://techraptor.net/content/freak-ssl-vulnerability-discovered

http://techraptor.net/content/tor-flagged-as-malware

http://techraptor.net/content/isis-supporters-threatens-twitter-employees

http://techraptor.net/content/uber-confirms-breach-of-data