ArcoJedi's Holocron

2001: A Space Odyssey... A summary by me...

2026-03-31T00:44:00.002-05:00

I recently got this book from the library and loved it quite a bit. I kept thinking I'd watched the movie at some point, but apparently not... Or perhaps I'd attempted to watch it and got bored and abandoned it. I've just now watched the whole movie after reading the book. Of course, I like the book better. Someone with no familiarity asked me to explain what the story is about. So, I'll summarize the book, because the movie... does not explain itself well. Here there be spoilers.

300,000 years ago, the man-ape ancestors of humans were on the brink of extinction; not doing well, not great at hunting or fending off predators, not great at community, etc. Then one day, in the middle of the African savannah, one small pack of these ancestors awoke to find a perfectly rectangular MONOLITH of some strange material just sitting there near their cave homes. They were wary of it at first, but it seemed harmless and eventually they ignored it, as they had other problems; food scarcity, nearby predators, territory dispute with a neighboring pack.

Unbeknownst to them, it was... watching them and while they slept it was minutely modifying their brains. One day, the leader of this pack looked at some blades of grass and realized he had an idea to "tie" them together. And the first knot was born. Then he later saw a discarded animal thigh bone sitting there and picked it up and realized it could be an extension of his arm. And the first weapon was born. And there were other things he was realizing (learning), like cooperation. His pack used his knowledge to hunt, defend themselves and drive off competition. The MONOLITH disappeared some time later, but they barely noticed. Humanity was on it's way...

Fast forward to the year 2001. There are several moon bases for various space agencies. One of the science groups discovers evidence of extraterrestrials, buried deep in the lunar soil. It was a MONOLITH of clearly extraterrestrial origin. It was buried on the moon purposefully at least 300,000 years ago. While studying it, the MONOLITH sort of activates, sending a radio signal outwards, apparently towards Saturn.

Fast forward 18 months. A manned mission was sent for the first time to Saturn, with a secret plan to search for and find MORE evidence. On the way, due to the secret nature of the mission and it's importance, the onboard AI computer (named HAL 9000) sort of goes crazy, because it knows the real mission and the two humans don't. It tries to cut off communication with Earth, one of the astronauts goes outside to fix the antenna and the HAL kills him remotely with a space pod. Then the other human onboard, David fights the machine, attempts to awaken other crewmembers that were in hibernation this whole time. HAL vents all oxygen into space and kills the hibernating crew, and attempts to kill Dave. Our hero manages to get his helmet on and not get blown out the airlock. He fights his way through the ship and destroys HAL's processors and hard drives.

David then restores communication with Earth. They apologetically tell him about the real secret mission. They tell him about the MONOLITH found on the moon, it's age and that he needs to get to one of Saturn's moons, Japetus where they think another MONOLITH (or something) will be. He manually flies the ship there with help from computers on Earth, then gets in orbit around Japetus. He gets in a space pod and flies down to the surface where he finds a MONOLITH and attempts to land on it... Except...

He is instead sucked into a wormhole transit system, and travels some ridiculously humongous distance to an unknown galaxy. There he witnesses stellar wonders, dual star systems, gets pulled into an unimaginably old but alien space building of some kind and then... is put into a weird simulation of a nondescript hotel room. It's sort of real, but simulated for his comfort. Then, he gets tired, has a weird meal on his own, and then goes to sleep. After he falls asleep, his room disappears and a MONOLITH is there hovering near his bed. Then David, while sort of sleeping, is regressed backwards from his adult self, through all his memories of life back to being a baby. This STARCHILD awakens and realizes it has special powers, like the ability to travel anywhere in the galaxy and do wondrous things. And it has a new mission to guide humanity. So it travels almost instantly back home to Earth, where humanity freaks out about this GIANT space baby that suddenly appeared and fires nukes at it. The STARCHILD is apparently not bothered, detonates them harmlessly without being hurt and then descends upon the Earth, where the real work will now begin.

THE END.

Addendum: I wanted to add the following based on feedback.

Q: ... is dave the starchild?

Yes (and no... He's not Dave anymore.)

Just to be clear, the book is great. The movie seems like it would be confusing to someone on first watch. I don't understand how it was a popular or cult hit.

Upon reflection, there are really two plots to this story...

Astronauts are on a space mission with an AI. It goes crazy and tries to kill them all and one guy survives.
An unknown alien entity has been guiding human evolution since the beginning. And right as we step out into space, there is a system (of MONOLITHS) in place that helps (makes) us take the next step.

In pop cultural references, it seems that everyone focuses on the "HAL 9000 tries to kill Dave" ideas in the plot, completely ignoring the much bigger "MONOLITH" plot concepts. But it's not as easy to quote or meme so there you go.

And also... Trying to recall if I'd seen this movie before, I realized there was a sequel to this movie that I appparently HAVE seen. 2010: The Year We Make Contact which didn't have as much popularity as the first. What I recalled from the plot was that the characters travel to Jupiter and somehow activate a different MONOLITH which begins a process by which Jupiter becomes a second sun in our solar system. The plot is "Jupiter becomes a star and our solar system has a binary star system," and this neat idea stuck with me when I was younger. Obviously, this would have huge consequences for every planet in the solar system were it to really happen, but still neat.

R.I.P. KDHX Radio! Long Live CRSTL.FM!

2026-02-02T00:23:00.001-06:00

I came late to the community radio appreciation party, but I've listened to KDHX radio for much of my life. I didn't always like the genre that was being featured from one hour to the next, but they had slots dedicated to Ska, Blues, Reggae, Folk, and World music. There were times for Country, Bluegrass, Classical, and everything in between. A central feature was the local music events and artists featured. It wasn't always my favorite radio station, but I knew people who claimed it as such. And I was always happy to have it saved in my radio dial, and to have a community resource here in my home town.

Well, as of 2025, the holding company that owned and operated the radio station decided to sell the rights to the frequency or whatever to a different company. So when the parent company went to sell, the employees, DJs and a number of volunteers worked on getting a court injunction together to stop them and take over ownership to keep this community resource. But their case was lost. And rather than continue to fight appeals, they decided to pivot their efforts in a different direction. For a brief time, when you tuned into 88.1 FM here in St. Louis, you got a very generic 90s dance music station with no DJs. It wasn't too bad. But that didn't last. Eventually, the parent company sold it to a Christian radio company and they started churning out contemporary Christian music over the airwaves. And I deleted it from my favorites list on the dial. In the general theme of things getting worse in these late-stage capitalistic times, this is one more log on the metaphorical dumpster fire.

As of today (at noon central) the team of DJs, management and volunteers who were part of making KDHX tick launched their new project; an Internet streamed community radio station called CRSTL.FM. You should tune in, but first off, lets take a history trip.

What the HELL happened to KDHX?

You can also learn more about the community being built at LOVE of Community Radio STL.

KDHX is dead. What's next?

The new station launched today and I was listening at noon when the first song played. They started with a really good set of Bluegrass, which is always new to me, and then had a live band in studio perform for a good time. It's worth tuning in and checking the posted schedule.

Embarrassing - The US Government Shutdown is Embarrassing

2025-11-04T15:08:00.001-06:00

It's embarrassing. What is happening right now in our country is embarrassing on the world stage.

Did you know that there's almost no other democratic country in the world with a system where, if our elected leaders can't come together and agree on a compromise, then the whole of the federal government shuts down? In fact, there are some countries where, if a resolution can't proceed, then new elections are held and those representatives get replaced (e.g. Australia).

But no. We have a system where fully paid representatives, elected ADULTS, can decide to throw a hissy fit temper tantrum and decide they will just close everything. And real people will suffer because of it. And the elected representative will have no substantive punishments for this, other than an angrier constituency. With how we do our campaigning, both sides point fingers, and nothing changes.

Update: As everyone knows, this was not the first government shutdown. And unless someone (in congress?) eventually really makes an important big change, it won't be the last.

I Am Allergic to Acetaminophen

2025-05-30T20:42:00.001-05:00

I need to remember this, so I'm posting it here to remind me. I get a mild itchy throat and a ticklish urge to cough that lasts for about an hour. No other reactions that I can recall from last time. But hopefully this is the last time I try taking it. I'll stick with Ibuprofen when called for.

Basement Flooding --AGAIN! What is This, Part Three?

2025-04-05T00:59:00.006-05:00

I posted this on Facebook, but I also wanted to record it here.

Back in early November, I was one of many Florissant / north STL county residents that got a majorly flooded basement due to the ridiculous amount of rain. This happened once before back in ...2014?

It was really a lot worse than simple rain water for us, as the sewer system became "overcharged" (that is MSD's word for it 😒) and backed up into our house. To the extent of 5-7" of... sludge. The damage was... bad. My homeowner's insurance didn't cover anything. MSD gave us a small check for the damages while still maintaining it wasn't their fault. I had a company show up and quote us for the cleanup and restoration and it was ~4x what MSD was going to give us. That wouldn't have covered replacing anything lost, only cleanup and restoring drywall, etc.. I took the money, paid the company for the cleanup they'd done so far and that was it.

You can see that Florissant residents showed up at a city meeting that MSD hosted... If you watch closely you can spot me there. I left that meeting unsatisfied... As did almost everyone that I spoke to there. A lot of customer service and PR folks to explain gently how this wasn't their fault.

I've been slowly and surely cleaning things up myself over the past several months, whenever I can get to it. Progress had been slow.

Well... now it's happening again. A "once in a hundred years" rain storm is happening again this weekend. Because of course it is. This time I was a little better prepared, and I think I'm going to stay on top of it hopefully. How?

First, after November I bought a little drain plug. It was relatively cheap (<$10) at my local hardware store. They come in a few different sizes (3", 4", and such) so measure before you buy. This screws tightly into place and keeps MOST but not all of the water from coming up from a basement drain. You don't want to leave something like this in place 100% of the time, as a burst pipe OR water from the basement walls needs a place to go. But when water begins to come UP you can slow that down.

As I am currently getting water from the walls AND some coming up from the drain. I needed a way to get pump out the water that is pooling there. A shop vac worked for a little while, but I'd have to empty it by carrying it up the stairs and dumping into the backyard. After 15 or more trips this way, while barely keeping up with the water, I decided that was not going to cut it. I have to sleep eventually. So another trip to the hardware store and I now the owner of a small 1/6 horsepower sump pump that attaches to a standard garden hose. A 100' hose goes out my basement window and empties into the drainage ditch at the end of my yard.

Now I just need to turn it off every once in a while when the water is low, so it can cool off and let enough of a puddle form for suction. So that's where I'm at now. Wish me luck on keeping up with the rain. This is NOT what I planned to do this weekend, but we can't always get what we want. Stay safe everyone.

Karaoke @ Murphy's Bar & Grill

2024-12-16T18:39:00.001-06:00

I've been hosting a new karaoke night every Tuesday at Murphy's Bar & Grill in Creve Coeur. I was referred to them through Zyi, and it came together pretty quickly after I reached out. This place had a regular karaoke night prior to the pandemic, but it fell apart and they needed a reboot. Here's my invite description.

𝗞𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗼𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸, 𝗯𝗮𝗯𝘆! Welcome old friends and new friends of 🍀 𝘔𝘶𝘳𝘱𝘩𝘺'𝘴 𝘉𝘢𝘳 & 𝘎𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘭.

My name is Jim and I'm the new host for 🎵 Karaoke Tuesday nights from 8:30-11:30pm. I grew up in Creve Coeur and I can't wait to get this started. We are going to have a good time.

I'm an experienced musician and karaoke host, and it's my goal to provide great entertainment for your evening. Some people are not sure about karaoke and I get that. What should you expect? If you'd like to sing, I'll give you every opportunity to take your turn with the mic. 🎤 Or you can sit back, have a few drinks and enjoy the music with live singers of every possible skill level.

Don't forget, it's also $𝟐.𝟎𝟎 𝐓𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 all day, so all domestics 🍻 are available for $2 each as well as all night happy hour well drinks. This is a smoker-friendly bar.

Enjoying the description and cheeky emojis, but will probably update this as time goes on. Right now, I'm looking at the rest of the month. We will have karaoke this week for the 17^th but the bar will be closing early on the 24^th for Christmas Eve. However, there will be a special night on NEW YEAR'S EVE, December 31^st where we will have karaoke up to almost midnight and then I'll lead us all in a countdown. I hope you join us!

Wheel of Lunch - another casualty in the death of the Web as we knew it...

2024-11-22T01:30:00.001-06:00

A moment of silence please...

I like fun single-use websites. I've written about The Useless Web and other sites like it a few times, and they are fun and goofy. But there have also been a number of effectively useful single-use websites over the years that I've frequented. And right now I find it hard to believe that I've never written about my absolute favorite.

The Wheel of Lunch

Imagine you are with your coworkers or a group of friends and it's getting close to lunchtime. "Where should we go?" you might ask. And then a long discussion begins.

And here's what you should know about me. I am pretty open to most restaurant options, and don't have a strong preference. Basically, once we've decided to eat, I'm pretty agnostic as to the where. When the conversation goes on longer than 2 minutes, I'm politely ready to pick something at random. And for this exact reason exists the Wheel of Lunch.

The screen shot I've saved here does not do this justice. This website has existed since at least 2009. The original version that I was familiar with used Flash (R.I.P.) as a technology. It was later remade with <canvas>. But that was just the front end. The backend technology was pretty genius.

Loading the site at default would give a wheel with ~20 generic options for what to do for lunch (or dinner). You could spin it and get a generic result (like "hamburgers"). But optimally, the site had a connection to YELP, and if you gave it your local ZIP code, the best feature was triggered. Results for the top 20 local restaurants got loaded onto the wheel and then it would get a spin. If you were interested in a specific type of restaurant --for example, BBQ-- you could enter that as a search query and get a list of thosrestaurant types on your wheel.

This was great! Of course, you weren't forced to eat at the first random option. You can always spin again. In coworker groups, the list at least facilitated inspiration and quicker discussion on available options. It was fun for "hey, have you heard of this place?" New adventures could be had.

My wife and kids? Funny enough, they were not fans. They didn't want to trust the wheel for dinner, and they didn't like the clicking sound the wheel makes. And probably didn't want to hear me suggest the WHEEL. OF. LUNCH. one more time. But they are spoilsports who hate fun! 😝

I guess all good things must come to an end. Tonight, I went to try it again when we were discussing dinner options and was greeted with the familiar wheel, missing the search options. On the left column was this note:

July 22, 2024

I am sad to report that after 15 years of The Wheel of Lunch, Yelp has decided to no longer provide free API services to the wheel. Yelp’s cheapest API plan is $230 a month! I can't afford that.

The Wheel of Lunch has always been a labor of ♥, and provides zero $ to me (I stopped running ads a while ago). I have no desire to “monetize” the Wheel.

I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the Wheel, while it existed. It was from an older, friendlier version of the World Wide Web that was not exclusively about commerce. Many of these sites are shuttered now, and the Wheel of Lunch is just another casualty in the long march to the death of the Web as we knew it.

Have a nice day! :)

Oof. I felt that viscerally. And it triggers a nostalgic feeling for the early web 2.0 peak of the 2010s or thenabouts. I guess the Useless Web is still around, but I'd suggest we all appreciate it before it fades entirely.

Upcoming Music Events

2024-07-09T23:57:00.003-05:00

In the last paragraph of a recent post, I mentioned that I'm back on Facebook. And considering my level of dislike and vitriol for the dumpster fire that is FB, it's probably best if I explain why. In a few sentences, I've returned to Facebook in an attempt to promote myself as an entertainer a little more. It's quick and easy and I can reach a lot of my friends and family with some immediacy. Time will tell if I keep that up or if the good outweighs the bad for my mental health.

That aside, there are a bunch of my upcoming performance events that I thought I'd share here also. Oh. I've neglected to mention that I'm in a ska band now, called Free Champagne Band. This is in addition to the brass party band MO ECHO. Last but not least I should update regarding my weekly karaoke events.

7/4 - The CWEA Fourth of July Parade - MO ECHO Brass Band will be performing at the parade in the morning, starting at 10am. We march down Euclid towards Maryland Plaza, and perform in place at SuitSupply there by the fountain. #NewOrleansBrassBand [Here's the CWEA event page.]

7/5 - FREE CHAMPAGNE @Llywelyn’s Webster, come see the Free Champagne Band perform on stage, 9pm to midnight. #Ska #Reggae #Blues

7/6 - < 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗻𝗲 𝗕𝗮𝗻𝗱 private event >

7/25 - Hosting Open Mic / Karaoke at Padrinos Mexican Restaurant from 6pm until 9pm. Subbing for Michael Marciano. #karaoke

8/16 - The 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗻𝗲 𝗕𝗮𝗻𝗱 returns to Llywelyn's Pub Webster Groves, starting at 9pm.

8/25 - The 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗻𝗲 𝗕𝗮𝗻𝗱 performs at Ferguson Farmers Market starting tentatively at 10am.

9/7 - The 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗻𝗲 𝗕𝗮𝗻𝗱 performs at South County Block Party, TBD

9/11 - 𝗠𝗢 𝗘𝗖𝗛𝗢 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗕𝗮𝗻𝗱 performs at Overland Concert in the Park - MO ECHO Brass Band at 6pm to 8pm.

9/14 - The 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗻𝗲 𝗕𝗮𝗻𝗱 performs at Overland Farmers Market, TBD

10/24 - Hosting Open Mic / Karaoke at 𝖯𝖺𝖽𝗋𝗂𝗇𝗈𝗌 again from 6pm until 9pm.

My regular Karaoke Fridays (3rd and 4th Fridays of the Month) at Padrinos are currently on hold, although Karaoke is still happening every Friday, just with a different awesome host named Victor who you should check out. I'll be there as a surprise participant every once in a while, so I'll talk about that too.

So that's a quick update. It does appear that I may be losing my regular karaoke gig, but that is yet to be confirmed at this time. In the meantime, I'm still singing and playing trombone out and about whenever I get the chance.

No Child Left Behind - Broken From the Beginning (Facebook)

2024-02-22T00:34:00.014-06:00

Back in 2010 or so, I created a Facebook Group specifically for bitching about and spreading information on the negative effects of the No Child Left Behind Act. This was a terrible policy and law brought to us by the George W. Bush White House, and it needed to be repealed or heavily overhauled. This did happen in 2015, when NCLB was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act.

My main complaint about the NCLB was that while it had a laudable goal of improving schools, the actual method seemed to be draconian in nature. For any schools or school systems that struggled, the method seemed to be to restrict or narrow their budget. Reduce federal or state funding for any school that didn't improve. But that's not really how education works. If a school system is struggling, they need MORE money and support instead of less.

I had forgotten about the group I created, as it didn't really go very far. I'm archiving some of the links I posted here just for my recollection. Most of them were to similar groups with similar goals.

Missouri Assessment Program - this was likely an unofficial local business page automatically created by FB and managed by no one.
President Obama's 'No Child Left Behind' Overhaul Plan - Associated Content - ~~www.associatedcontent.com/article/5728900/president_obamas_no_child_left_behind.html~~ - domain down - but here's a more official page.
And for this one, I said "Oh, yay. Your children's private information is being shared with the military thanks to the NCLB Act. This site deserves a page / group of it's own. Read more:" - Leave My Child Alone
I posted: "Quote posted May 2007:
With support for NCLB/Helter-Skelter faltering in Congress as the country wakes up to the stupidity of the change strategies and the damage being done to its schools, No Child Left has accompished its goal, the repeal or drastic amendment of the law. Publication of the journal stopped with the May 2007 issue but the site will remain as an archive of articles exploring the distortions, simple-minded thinking and fraudulent notions hidden within this dangerous experiment."
I posted: "This site was active prior to 2007/05 and was dedicated to revision of NCLB. In that month, they posted an update that they had reached their goal of bringing attention to the issue. I'm not sure I agree, but this looks like a good place for more information." No Child Left - Committed to Repeal of NCLB/Helter-Skelter - ~~nochildleft.com~~ - domain down
I posted: "There are three groups on Facebook called No Teacher Left Behind:" and only one of which was still live at this point.
I posted: "A well-established group with shared goals." - Leave No Child Behind?? - and then I commented that I wished I'd found that group first before creating my own.
And I posted a link to another group: Abolish NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

That was fun, if I recall. It was short-lived and I closed the group shortly thereafter. This probably marked my first foray into getting heavily political on Facebook. Perhaps I just needed to do something more than rant.

Hey wait... Why am I back on Facebook? More about this later...

Hosting Karaoke

2023-07-31T14:36:00.000-05:00

So, I'm hosting a weekly karaoke night now. And getting paid for it! Let me explain.

Through working with Zyi Li, I've met a whole network of musicians, venues and new friends. One of the places that MO ECHO played last year was a Mexican place called Padrinos. I think the story was that Zyi knew the owners and hosted a regular weekly open mic / karaoke night there. After a few months of establishing that, Zyi gave it over to some friends from MO BRAVO, two of the folks I knew the best from that band. They were singer Erica Soulstice who handled karaoke on Fridays and guitarist Michael Marciano, who handled open mic on Thursdays and sometimes booked bands for Saturdays. Well, at the time that was going well, Zyi made sure to pass my name along as someone that could substitute for them at various times.

Erica showed me the works with the karaoke set up at Padrinos first. They have their own PA system and all the mics and stands needed. All I needed was to show up with a laptop and a subscription to Karafun. And I started substituting for her whenever that was possible. And I really loved it. I've also subbed for Mike on a Thursday once and that was a great time too.

Fast forward to this past month. Erica has gotten an opportunity for something out in California, so 7/21 was her last event. I took over permanently on 7/28 and will be hosting karaoke at Padrinos every Friday from 9pm until midnight. It's my own weekly musical event and it's such a great time every time.

Anyhow, if you are reading this then you are invited to come on out and enjoy a fun evening. Sign up and sing or just sit back, enjoy a margarita and listen to the music.

Bonus: Check out MO BRAVO in this video from last year, playing a variety from Padrino's humble stage.

And here's MO ECHO from a different night.

All Things Local STL: Zyi Li Music & Entertainment

2023-03-03T20:02:00.025-06:00

Check out my buddy and bandmate Zyi Li giving a summary and introduction of what he's been doing for the last few years with his music networking organization.

I may have mentioned this before, but Zyi is a powerhouse at bringing people together and making things happen. I have found that being in a band, the most important piece for success is organization and Zyi has been so good at keeping MO ECHO Brass Band organized. It's honestly very inspiring.

No, There Are No Litter Boxes in the Bathrooms at Your Local High School

2022-10-24T18:32:00.002-05:00

People will really believe anything. It's honestly very sad. But just in case you've innocently fallen victim to this bigoted hoax, here is some more information.

How an urban myth about litter boxes in schools became a GOP talking point - nbcnews.com
Fact Check-No evidence of schools accommodating 'furries' with litter boxes - reuters.com
Litter boxes in schools hoax - Wikipedia

How did we get here? Well John Oliver has the scoop:

See more about Transgender Rights on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

There are no litter boxes in local schools or ANY school anywhere in the USA. This was all just a lie to make transgender kids look bad. And give open cause for violence or bigotry against them. The rumor started because it came from an edited video of a teacher talking about how fucked up the US school system is, because she was given a bucket and litter for use in case a kid had to go to the bathroom during an active shooter situation.

There's No Such Thing as a Good Billionaire

2022-10-17T19:46:00.007-05:00

There was a short period of time where I was an Elon Musk fan, but that ended quickly after learning more about him. And over the last few years, I've become convinced that the uber-rich are inherently evil. And I do mean all of them.

Here's a fact you may not know. Most billionaires inherited, exploited or lucked into their money. No one becomes a billionaire through individual hard work or tenacity.
— Mr. R-Dizzle 🎼🎶🎵 (@ArcoJedi) October 5, 2022

I've been arguing with folks on twitter about the value and worthiness of the billionaires of the world. I could expand on these ideas, but I'll just let Adam Conover explain it here:

This isn't the first time Adam's talked about this. Here's an episode of Adam Ruins Everything from years ago:

Tax the rich.

For a Developer, What Does Identity Theft Look Like?

2022-09-27T22:51:00.002-05:00

I love the Internet, I really do. deep breath But...

It does by it's nature allow a certain kind of terrible identity theft to take place. Please read through the following blog post and collection of investigative material. For clarity, the "me" in the headline is not referring to me personally.

Someone is pretending to be me.

-Source: hackernews

The commonly understood version of identity theft as far as I'm aware of it, is that someone gets your personal information, like your address, birthdate and social security details and signs up for accounts or credit in your name. This steals money from the creditors and steals (or ruins) credit reputation for the victim. The goal is usually short-term and monetary.

However, the story described in the linked post seems much more insidious. In this era of remote development work that has been around since well before the pandemic, there have been many a developer or coder that has worked for a company and never actually met any of the stakeholders face-to-face. Online portfolio websites, online resumés, and public LinkedIn profiles have created an option for some nefarious actors to entirely pretend to be someone else specifically for the sole purpose of soliciting development work based on the reputation of the victim. The specific victim in the blog post linked above was luckily warned by a potential accomplice that was refused to be roped in.

Long story short, a supposed freelance development company (the bad actors here), were attempting to hire a developer named Andrew (the accomplice) to interview and interface with potential clients (so far, so good), all while pretending (uh-oh) to be a developer named Connor (the victim). Once Andrew got the full picture of what was going on, he backed out and contacted Connor directly to warn him. Connor was lucky.

So I previewed the document and it was scary. It was a document intended for someone to have a cheat sheet for an interview on how to act as me.

It included a subset of my personal information.

It included my education history.

It included my employment history.

It included my certifications.

It included a fake cover letter.

It included a fake email/address that was "near" mine.

It included information about the company interviewing for.

-Source: connortumbleson.com

Connor was very lucky, and smart enough to follow up and investigate all the possible details of the bad actors, and put them on blast. It's a good job of shaming them publicly. But ultimately the criminals in this case can simply move on, rebrand and start working on gathering work on the reputation of the next victim. Ultimately, the independent developer victims lose money because they aren't really the ones getting hired, and their reputations are most likely hurt given that the work is shoddy.

This is very scary. The only way to combat this is to raise awareness of the existence of this scam. I don't exactly have a big reputation or portfolio footprint at this exact moment so it's unlikely I'd be a target. But it's important me and professionals like me to be aware. It's also important for corporations large and small to be aware and do a proper investigation of who it is they are hiring. Since the bad actors are getting hired as "independent contractors" there's no HR investigation or other due diligence, no verifications. Here's more from Connor...

So it seemed like I was starting to understand the picture now.

A person/company sets up fake Upwork profiles of real people.

They apply to jobs in hopes to get an interview using that fake profile.

They find suspecting victims on GitHub who are willing to go along with this.

That person uses the identity of someone else to land the job.

-Source: connortumbleson.com

Connor's blog post was only first published a few weeks ago, and updated 9 days ago, so this is all very new and continues to develop. He will likely update the post as more details become available. Everyone be careful out there.

Upcoming MO ECHO Events 🎼🎶🎷 Zyi Li Music 🎵🎺🎙

2022-04-28T19:15:00.004-05:00

At the moment, there are three scheduled gigs I want to share with you.

Thursday, May 19 @ 6:00pm - Saint Charles, MO
MO ECHO Fashion Show Fundraiser at Mary's House of Healing in St. Charles
Saturday, June 4 @ 9:00am - Ferguson, MO
MO ECHO Brass Band at the Ferguson Farmers Market
Friday, June 24 @ 7:00pm - St. Louis, MO
MO ECHO Brass Band at Evangeline's Bistro

Come out and see us. Check us out in this video from a benefit gig at Blue Strawberry.

You can learn more at Zyi Li Music and Entertainment LLC.

Boredom - I'm Bored of the Internet Now

2022-04-13T01:18:00.000-05:00

I wrote a most recent post of alphabetical websites I like for a reason that I'm struggling with. And it's tough to admit, but I'm very bored of the entire Internet. At least I'm bored of the stuff I visit almost daily. This is all entirely my fault of course. The modern web, the social web has evolved through design so that it maximizes the attention-grabbing dopamine triggers. And I gobble it up in my free time with ridiculous speed. The alphabetical list came about because I often found myself opening a new browser tab --usually on mobile-- and thumbing my through each letter one at a time and catching up on the latest updates, if there are any. But I found myself going in circles, bouncing around so much and getting nothing from it. You know that meme where it says something like "Browse Facebook for an hour until I get bored. Then I close Facebook. Wonder what else is going on,... so I open Facebook!" Ba-dum-tish!

But that struggle is real. And as I've mentioned before I'm not on Facebook (since Jan. 20, 2017) anymore. But I go to reddit.com, then imgur.com, then m.twitter.com, then tumblr.com and back around again. I go in circles a lot and it's sad and I'm not enjoying myself. I mean, I'm doomscrolling the latest news and it sometimes feels like it's important. But when I'm busy with these sites, do you know what I'm not doing?

I'm not learning anything new.
I'm not reading anything new or important.
I'm not building anything for myself.

This is all outside of work time and is my leisure time so it's okay to escape sometimes during this. But I'm starting to recognize that I don't have anything to show for it and it's not nearly as much fun as it used to be. This isn't a criticism of any of my actual friends on Twitter, or the quality of the content anywhere. I used to find the Internet, as a whole, inspiring and fun and full of possibility. Now I feel like it's all been collectively squandered and monetized and compartmentalized to such an ugly degree.

And yes I do recognize how fucking WHINY I sound right now.

I hesitated to write about this, because I know how it sounds. Part of it is the devisive politics of the last few years, of which I've wanted to write so much but instead just tweeted. Part of it is how much else I've got going on, most of it very good by comparison. A great number of the fun services that I've relied on in past years are folding up or no longer useful; Google Music, Flickr, and so on. And it bums me out.

What I want to do is turn all that negativity around and build stuff. Learn some new skills (career-relevant and/or not), reading more books (fiction and non-) and build back up some of the fun. Now to take that goal and divide it up into manageable pieces.

Alphabetical List of My Most-Visited Websites

2022-01-27T22:30:00.002-06:00

Here's a stereotypical apology blog post, referencing the lack of recent blog posts, which only further highlights the lack of blog postings. At the moment, there are only three live posts for the last year. That's current, but it might change. A peak under the hood shows that there are often blog drafts that get saved but not published. You can see that over the life of this site, I've got 974 posts saved but just slightly more than half actually published. I often have a seed of an idea to share so I save a quick one- or two-line note on the idea.

Let's pad things up a bit. Here's a fun experiment. Over the last year, I've been thinking about the detritus of my Internet history and found it might tell you a lot about what I browse through in my spare time. I use Google Chrome right now and my browser will bring up a suggested domain with the entry of just one letter. So here with no particular apology or emphasis are the alphabetical list of what comes up first for each letter. Some of these sites I like very much and would recommend. Some of them are just practical. None of these are work-related, as I use a different browser profile for work. Note that some of these may not be safe for work, so you've been warned.

Amazon.com - We have a prime account, watch prime video and do quite a bit of online shopping here. We bought nearly all of our Christmas gifts this year online. That being said, as a company Amazon is lead by a rich oligarch I'd personally toss into the sea given the chance. I could rant about this for a while, but the recent trend of wealthy assholes playing astronaut while the world suffers makes me ill. There's some hypocritical actions here, buying from a company that I am so uncomfortable with. But I'm fully in support of government action against the company. Me personally boycotting any one company won't make that much of a difference.
Second to Amazon, the most-frequently visited sites that start with "A" include some I own:
- Arconati.us - A wiki for our family tree
- Arconati.net - A 'news' blog about our family
- Arconati.name - under construction
So... pretty early here we run into a webcomic that I follow for it's story and artwork, but the content is very much pornographic in nature 99% of the time. Not too worried to admit that, but I won't link it here. Instead, I'll link the second runner-up, Blogger.com. Obviously that's the blog software I use to publish this site and quite a number of others. I'm kind of on the fence about recommending it as a platform, as Wordpress seems much more likely to receive consistent development. Perhaps someday I'll migrate permanently, especially if Google ever drops the platform. I'm still bitter about Google Music.
Here's a few of my other blogger blogs, besides this one.
- Quotes Archive
- Arconati Comedy Awards
- Arconati Kid Korner
Some runners-up for the "B" category...
- Build-A-Bear Workshop, Inc - Where I work currently.
- BibSonomy - A nerdy social bookmarking tool that I've been playing with for a while as a del.icio.us replacement.
Google Calendar - For a while now, in our family, we have been using a shared calendar to organize events and work schedules. Did I mention that both my older kids have jobs now? So keeping track of who is going to be where has been much easier with a shared digital calendar.
- A runner-up for this list is CNN.com, which is one of a few trusted news sources I turn to when called for.
d20MONKEY by Brian Patterson - Here is another webcomic I followed very closely for a long time. This comic was largely about Dungeons & Dragons, and a gaming group of friends and their various interactions both in and out of game. The final post in the story was published late in 2020, but I have still returned here to catch up with the story from the beginning, read about some of Brian's homebrewed material and to await the next story called Innsmouth Garden Society.
There are a number of other Dungeons & Dragons related domains that come up in the list for "D" here that I should mention.
- D&D Beyond - a great site for D&D 5e players to create characters, campaigns, and encounters. I've been using this for all the games I've been running lately and it's just great.
- donjon; RPG Tools - another great site with a bunch of D&D tools for game masters to help randomly generate character names, monster encounters, maps, and treasure.
- 5etools - This one is a secret treasure trove.
- The Hypertext d20 SRD - and one more great RPG site, although this one has fallen down the list a bit with some of the others I frequent more often.
Also coming up for "D"...
- Google Drive
Example Domain - This is an example site, but I use it more often than you might think to test just about anything from my browser to my network connection.
Fantasy Name Generators is another site I use often for Dungeons & Dragons, to come up with a quick list of character names very quickly. And there are generators for different species and different themes. Do you need ten Ewok Names from Star Wars? How about Legendary Creatures based on the names of real-world legends? Or how about Maiar Names from Lord of the Rings?
Gmail tops this list, but coming in a close second is another webcomic I've followed for the longest time. It's also based on D&D and it's called Order of the Stick, hosted on Giant in the Playground Games. It follows the adventures of a stick figure band of adventurers out to save the world.
How Many Days Until Star Wars? was a website I visited often to see the latest countdown to whatever was going to be the next Star Wars movie in the saga. I first learned about it back before Episode VII, then watched it closely for Rogue One, Solo and Episodes VIII and XI (not necessarily in that order). It appears the domain is no longer serving a countdown timer anymore, replaced with a generic "coming soon" message. That may be because there are no current plans for a full-length Star Wars film, only short-form shows and shorts on Disney+ for the moment. There ARE rumors of upcoming projects that will be developed, but no release dates yet.
Imgur - Here's one of the few social media sites I still enjoy. Kind of an anonymous image/gif/video sharing site, very much started as a quick way to share images on Reddit. It's just a fun place to see new images every day, funny and irreverant.
JustWatch - The Streaming Guide - This is a great site if you have multiple streaming sites and would like to watch a particular film that occurs to you, but you aren't sure what streaming site it might be available on. If you create an account and set your preferences for the streaming services you do have, you can get immediate search results specific to you.
Google Keep - My favorite note keeping app, connected with my Google account. You can make shopping lists, idea lists, long form notes, capture photos, draw doodles, all kids of stuff. It connects with your email, calendar, Google appliances, and so on.
LinkedIn - Another social media site. LinkedIn is a professional profile site and for the most part avoids a lot of the issues of other sites. I visit infrequently enough that I'm surprised to see it come up first. Since I've been off of Facebook for so long, this is the only way I keep in touch with former coworkers. I've also been doing a bit of networking with other musicians more recently so that's fun.
Twitter - And one more social media site, which comes up next for it's mobile.twitter.com subdomain. I dumped the Twitter app off my phone but kept browsing to the mobile site. It turns out the mobile version was also "better" at the time in desktop browser so I stuck with it. Nowadays I can't tell the difference visibily, but I keep typing 'M' when I want to check out Twitter.
Any more 'M' sites?
- Musescore.com - A sheet music repository as well as a great composition/arranging tool. I've use Musescore for a while now, but I've been using it lately for arranging band music.
NPR - One of my favorite news sites these days. Back when I was commuting to work and Reese was driving me, so she could have the car, we would often listen to and discuss the topics on the 1A show. I now listen to the show occasionally through the podcast app in Spotify.
Reddit - What can I say? I like Reddit despite the toxic reputation it sometimes has. This one comes up for the old.reddit.com subdomain, which I prefer on desktop. I used to have an account that I used, but now I just browse the frontpage as a guest.
Pinterest is a surprise, since I don't think that I visit this site very often. I save inspirational ideas for gaming, fantasy maps and music reference stuff.
Questionable Content is another webcomic I follow regularly. It's about a bunch of 30-somethings living in New England. It's modern day, except there are robots everywhere and there are a few other subtle differences because of that.
Reddit comes up next, and I browse the front page on my phone. On desktop I prefer the old.reddit.com as it's more my speed. Again, I stopped using my actual account years ago, but still browse as a guest. Pretty sure it's not a place I'd recommend to a lot of people, as it can be a shithole. Perhaps I should take my own advice? A second "R" site is another adult-rated webcomic, which I won't be linking to.
I use Craigslist sometimes (which comes up for "S" because of stlouis.craigslist.org), searching for a good deal on a used trombone or marvelling at the free stuff people attempt to give away.
- Additionally, Spotify comes in second for "S" in my browser.
Tumblr was the first social network my kids wanted to join. Strike that, Reese wanted a MySpace page from a very young age, but we said 'no' for so long that she eventually gave up. When she was old enough for an online account, we suggested Facebook but she wanted Tumblr. Which I had no experience with. So I signed up for Tumblr just to have a way to monitor what the kids were doing. After a while, I started to really like it so it's become something I check daily.
Utopia Studios, a rehearsal hall and recording studio here in St. Louis. I first learned about this place back in my Bullseye Womprats days, but I've been there a few times since then and it's nice. I don't really have much else that comes up for "U"...
Google Voice comes up for "V" and that's how I have my personalized cell number.
Woot is an online deals site that I've been a fan of since before it was a subsidiary of Amazon. I first learned of this site back in 2003 or so, and they specialized in having one special one-of-a-kind product deal for 24 hours (or until they sold out) and then they'd never have it again. Honestly, not as much of a fan since they joined the parent company. Their deals just don't seem as great.
xkcd is another important web-comic that I've followed for a good long time. I know I've mentioned them a number of times before. Very simple, usually one panel, stick figures, usually science related, often quirky and obscure.
YouTube is always good for some entertainment.
Zyi Li Music and Entertainment! I've recently mentioned my band MO ECHO, and of course our website comes up first for "Z". I check the site's calendar and other resources to see where I need to be, but also to keep up with the other lineups.

And that's the alphabetical list of everything that comes up in my browser suggestion box when I type in a single character. I sort of skipped numbers and special characters because most of them bring up nonsense results. Except I did include 5etools above with the "D" and other Dungeon & Dragons sites. Otherwise, these are the ones that I browse first and fastest alphabetically. I hope that was interesting.

xkcd: Bee Orchid

2021-11-15T23:33:00.033-06:00

I've written about XKCD before. It's the webcomic I've followed for the longest. Sometimes it's simple tech gags and fun references, but often it's some very deep story told with simple stick figures. Here is another one that caught my eye...

The botany, the entomology, the overall biology that comes together here is interesting. But the warmth of the story speaks to me.

MO ECHO Brass Party Band at The Mocktail Lounge - October 23, 2021

2021-09-30T17:22:00.007-05:00

Our band has been playing at various spots around town. Now we are coming back to the Mocktail Lounge in less than a month on October 23. The set is growing, the vibe is good and the sound is strong. Check this out:

A no cover, family friendly, 3 hours of music at the great non-alcoholic venue The Mocktail Lounge Saturday October 23rd 7p-10p! ZME's MO ECHO lineup is performing!

This is a STL based party/brass band that can be on the move. MO ECHO stands for Missouri/more echo. That is the sound you’d imagine such a band can create with its blasting horns. The Band consists of your standard band instruments (Saxophone, Trombone, Trumpet, Drums) and plays a variety of music. The music ranges from New Orleans like styled classics, new age brass band arrangements, and to popular hits of yesterday and today. This band is able to add energy to any event. With horn flashes, movement, and energetic and talented players, MO ECHO gets the audience grooving with a positive family friendly feel. The players are all of different backgrounds and experiences. Therefore, the compiled group brings unique styles to the table. Formed in 2020. #MOECHOLINEUP. zyilistl.com

For more information, you can check out the listing on Bandsintown. But keep in mind that the show is free and no tickets are necessary, it's just a feature that Bandsintown does by default.

I'm in a Band (Again) 🎵🎶 MO ECHO, Zyi Li Music 🎶🎵

2021-04-13T20:27:00.006-05:00

It's been a while since I posted about my music biz adventures. Well, I've joined up with a new band called MO ECHO, part of ZYI LI MUSIC AND ENTERTAINMENT. I can't say enough great things about this opportunity. We had a nice gig a few weeks back and Hendrick's BBQ and we are going to have another one coming up this Friday. There are many upcoming gigs on the books and I'll try and link them from here. This promises to be a big busy year and we are all going to celebrate as much as possible.

del.icio.us is Back (In Archive Mode)

2021-02-21T22:14:00.002-06:00

Back last summer was this update.

del.icio.us: social bookmarks
July 15, 2020

Hi, my name is Maciej Ceglowski, the latest (and hopefully last) owner of del.icio.us.

The site will be back online soon. If you had data stored on del.icio.us after 2010, you'll be able to export it here.

If you had data on the site before 2010, whether I still have it depends on whether you completed the "opt-in" process in 2011, when Yahoo transferred the site to AVOS.

I'll do my best to get everything I can back online this summer!

The summer came and went with no update. Then there were some minor changes before Christmas.

December 21, 2020

Hi, my name is Maciej Ceglowski, the latest (and hopefully last) owner of del.icio.us.

The site will be back online ~~soon~~ sometime in the new year. If you had data stored on del.icio.us after 2010, you'll be able to export it here.

If you had data on the site before 2010, whether I still have it depends on whether you completed the "opt-in" process in 2011, when Yahoo transferred the site to AVOS.

I'll do my best to get everything I can back online ~~this summer!~~ soon, but please keep in mind that I have to prioritize my main business, pinboard.in.

And now... it looks like the site --and all of my archived bookmarks-- are back! So that's fun. I was able to get a complete export of my bookmarks. There are some browsing issues with tag pages not being active yet, but it's still great news.

Unus Annus - Post Mortem

2020-11-14T22:57:00.002-06:00

My son... is gloriously weird and I love him for it.

Like most kids his age, he's a big fan of certain YouTube 'celebrities' and though some parents might find that cringy, I think it can be neat. There are certainly some creeps to watch out for and avoid, but I've found that Sam is pretty good about knowing what to watch out for. And sometimes, when something is really interesting, Sam comes and tells me about it.

This past week, Sam brought me a video suggestion for a channel called Unus Annus, which means "one year" in Latin. This was a special collaborative project between two prominent YouTubers; Markiplier (who I had heard of) and Ethan Nestor (who I had not heard of). The plan for the channel's project was an interesting experiment in impermenance. The team behind the channel made a plan to make one video a day, every day for one year. An interesting or profound high-concept content video, every single day of the year for one entire year.

And then, on the last day of the year, while livestreaming their final video, they would delete their entire channel.

And the countdown to the end of the channel --and the mortality analogy-- would be openly discussed from the beginning. Here is Markiplier giving a post-mortem from his perspective.

Here is Ethan's video on the same subject.

And ...I'd love to share one of the Unus Annus videos. They were produced well with each of the hosts wearing tailored suits in contrasting white or black. The videos usually featured the group going through with some sort of "bucket list" experience, like getting pepper-sprayed or being brutally honest or hosting a sleepover. They also discussed legal stuff and just did a bunch of weird mortality issue discussions. A bizarre metaphor for death. What would you do, if you only had one year? Living life to the fullest.

Yes, some of it was downright creepy. Like I said, it was interesting and I'd love to share it with you. But, they made good on their promise. And when the clock reached it's countdown, with over 1.5 million people watching the livestream, they deleted the entire channel.

Poof. Amazing. Super weird and morbid. But also amazing. #MementoMori

In case you are worried at this point, yes I did have a lengthy parental chat with Sam about his interest in the channel and what he thought of it all. I was worried about his feelings and if he was going to be super-upset when the channel was over. Or if the discussions about death scared him. And he's just fine. He just thought the whole idea was super interesting.

More Information

Featured below are a few screenshots that some fans captured, some only a few minutes before the end.

And it is already a sure thing that some fans of the channel have downloaded and archived the videos. And some will subvert the point of the channel by trying to reupload or reshare their copies. They will likely get taken down in due time after copyright strikes. In time, even these digital memories will fade.

And doesn't that seem like the right lesson here? Each of us only has a finite amount of time. No regrets. Give everything that you have left to give. The clock is always ticking. #UnusAnnus #MementoMori

Removed Flickr Badge

2020-11-12T19:57:00.010-06:00

Another bygone web site service that I must lament is going away is Flickr. Technically not going away, but certainly becoming less than useful.

As of today, I'm removing the code for a Flickr photo badge from the footer of my blog, because it has not been working for a while. This was a rotating set of photos of Lucas, so it comes with some amount of extra grief. I'd even done something neat with some photo frames. Anyhow, I'll save the code here for my personal historical note, but I don't expect it to magically start working again.

del.icio.us Update?

2020-07-18T21:28:00.000-05:00

There's been an update on del.icio.us.

del.icio.us: social bookmarks
July 15, 2020

Hi, my name is Maciej Ceglowski, the latest (and hopefully last) owner of del.icio.us.

The site will be back online soon. If you had data stored on del.icio.us after 2010, you'll be able to export it here.

If you had data on the site before 2010, whether I still have it depends on whether you completed the "opt-in" process in 2011, when Yahoo transferred the site to AVOS.

I'll do my best to get everything I can back online this summer!

I mentioned Maciej back in 2017 when the purchase was announced. It looks like he's going to at least bring something back.

I ... Can't Read

2020-07-15T23:18:00.001-05:00

It's time for me to admit something that embarrasses me,... but first let me get this reference to a Beggin' Strips commercial from 1998 out of the way.

What's in that bag? ... I can't read!!!

Heh, classic. Okay, time for the embarrassing admission. It appears that I can't read!

Or ... sort of. Maybe? Obviously I'll need to explain this a bit better.

It's not exactly that I can't read anything. I can clearly read well enough to write this post. I can read instructions. I can read a recipe. I can read most articles on certain topics. I read twitter multiple times a day and scan the headlines on CNN, NPR and Reddit among other places with a bit of frequency. Perhaps too much frequency. In fact I probably read a lot every single day right now.

It's just that I used to be a seriously avid book reader. I used to devour books, usually in rapid succession, novel after novel after novel. And I was proud of it. I'd go through shelves of them in a whole year. If I haven't mentioned it, Stephen King is my favorite author but I've got so many other books too. Piles of Star Wars books, fantasy, sci-fi, adventure, all kinds of digital books too, Lovecraft and graphic novels and vampire romance and more. Reading has always been so much fun for me.

However, it seems that with the passing of the last year or two, I've really slowed down and have read almost NO BOOKS that I can think of. I got several books of varying size for Christmas this past December and I've been handed or recommended a few since my birthday. And they are all sitting here stacked on my bedside table almost entirely untouched. What happened?

Obviously, I could list the things that I'm busy with instead. I guess. My current job now and the jobs I've had for the past few years before that have kept me pretty busy, which is good. I don't want to get into it right now, but the politics in my country have been a horrible nightmare since at least November 2016. So that's a bit distracting. More recently there is a global pandemic to think about constantly.

But these all seem like part of the problem. I hate to admit it, but I think the real problem is that I'm buried in my phone so much. Obviously, I'm doing a lot of reading there, but I'm also doing a lot of gaming, scrolling, retweeting, reblogging, liking, tagging, upvoting and trolling. And also a lot of doomsurfing, which also isn't healthy. It feels like my reading comprehension, which I've always know was super high, is slipping into an abyss.

I have got to get back into reading and reading right now and reading heavily. It may not solve any of the other problems rolling around, but it's so strongly a part of who I am and who I want to be that I feel out of place just recognizing that this change has occurred.

Who am I? Time to open a book and find out.