Optimistic Nihilism in a nutshell. Itās one of the philosophies that I try to live by.
Thatās right, I forgot it had a name
100%
Donāt sweat it too much: the fucking āholiday seasonā does that to many people.
Honestly, itās that time of the year when lonely people realize even more acutely that theyāre lonely, when stuff that doesnāt go quite right in your life gets put in contrast even more with the engineered happiness of it all, when you get to meet family members you normally never want to see, when you eat too much and you know you shouldnāt, when you spend a lot of money on pointless crap becauseā¦ somehow because you have to, etc etc etc.
In my family, we donāt do Christmas or New Yearās Eve or anything. So that spares us the many disappointments, letdowns and financial expenses of the whole affair. But we have to endure it all from the beginning (roughly October nowadays) to early January.
Imagine that: we watch the whole show unfolding, knowing perfectly that itās a purely commercial construct designed to get people to spend more with zero regards for peopleās feelings. It steamrolls over peopleās lives, turns many sadder than usual, and drives some suicidal, all for crass commercial pusposes. Seriously, it makes us hopping mad.
So now, add to this COVID and the social isolation, and suddenly you have a whole subsection of the population that would normally be fairly well equipped to deal with the overall terribleness of the āholiday seasonā who suddenly canāt take it anymore. Theyāve been socially challenged the whole year, and to top it all off, the bullshit holiday season rolls in and reminds them in no uncertain terms how shiity their life has become.
So donāt be too surprised if you feel like shit. Take it from me, youāll feel better on Jan 1st. We always do in this household.
XOR and storage on the chip is good enough for your purpose. That was my point: if someone steals the reader, it wonāt do anything of value without the chip, unless the attacker is willing to expend considerable efforts to reverse engineer the thing and decrypt the password - the latter of which is extremely unlikely unless the password is weak, in which case why even bother stealing the box.
Itās always the same question: are you a target worthy of all that effort? If you are, donāt rely on a dumb Amal implant, a Zwack keyboard wedge or a Rosco logger for your security. If youāre not, youāll be fine 
Well you did make a keyboard wedge. Typing stuff where it shouldnāt is part and parcel of the keyboard wedge experience, and avoiding that is the exact reason why I coded my logger. But yes, I love the decoupling of the UID and password: I have no idea how people can live with typing their chipās UID as a regular password on the keyboard.
Hereās a suggestion for your box: it should take an āoutput enable / disableā command. Perhaps, since it emulates a keyboard, it could listen to LED on / LED off commands. Couple that with a companion app that enables output upon locking the session, then disables the output when the session is unlocked, and your keyboard wedge would only spit out the password in the login screen. The box could output by default (so it works without the companion app) but it could be disabled programmatically as an optional feature so it never has a chance to output the password outside of the login window.
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Agreeā¦ itās actually insane that itās still advertised as a lovely, warm, comforting we-all-come-together-happily thing, while in the end they just want to sell us crap. There is a TV ad in Germany, for some sort of cheap-y chocolate, where itās so concentrated - people hugging each other, not having met for a long time, candles, singing children, and it all ends in a beautiful little church, surrounded by snow. I really asked myself whoās still living in such a world, and though Iām usually not an advocate for political correctness and such, it struck me that there were only typical āgermanā people in there - no different skin colours, no other religion except for christianity (which is not native to Germanyā¦ at all^^), little girls with long blonde hair in white dresses, no freaks, no outsiders. Thatās just so absurd, because itās most likely not the kind of christmas people actually experienceā¦
So I try to stay away from all that commercial christmas shit as much as possible. I smile at the pagan background of many traditions here (like, the christmas tree and many of the decorations), and try to celebrate stuff my own way. I celebrate the first snow, get myself into winter mood, think of people who shared the year with me, or those who left, burn some pine resin and do some stuff that evolved into my own set of traditions. It helps a lot, at least for me.
Re the depression-thingā¦ I think itās good to talk about it, and this forum is a fine place for that, especially in this thread. Making it a private zoneā¦ hmm. I think itās good for it to be visible, to be public, in a way, for one of the big problems with depression is that while lots of people are affected, few are really open about it, and so many people still think of it as some rare ādiseaseā or stigmata. Maybe just keep it open in the wild, so we can all treat it like a normal part of being human. (Maybe itās just me, but I learned that the more natural I treat my strange sides, the more common it is for people around me). I think this community is sensitive enough to take care of that, and for the few occasional idiots we have the best resident AI one could think of 
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Yes itās good to talk about it. The problem is, very quickly people stop talking about it and start wallowing in it instead. And the place for that isnāt here, itās on the Discord. Personally Iād rather the forum stayed focused primarily on biohacking and implants and such, and strayed into other topics only occasionally.
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So I have a depression history, and I fell DEEP into it. While itās important to acknowlege it for me, and even to discuss it some. I canāt really be a part of a large long term conversation.
I kinda liken it to being an alchoholic. I will always feel the pull of it on me, and I will always fear sliding back in. I can know it and talk some about it, but if I surround myself with it, I fear that it will suck me back in, and nothing is worth that. I almost didnāt make it out the last time.
I think this is similar to what Rosco said about not wanting to wallow in it.
So, Iād vote against such a thing, and if it came to pass anyway, my only option would be to block that thread, both from my forum settings, and from my life.
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Wow I never thought of it like that, Iāve always kinda gave myself flak for never being able fully rid myself of itā¦ this is a useful framing
You make a pretty valid point, I like the idea of the forum supporting itself because we are pretty close knit for strangers on the internet, but yeaā¦ I can see where it could be a negative
This is one of those concepts that you need to haul over to the mental toilet, and flush that bitch down. (definitely not trying to be harsh on you)
Iāll always be a little broken, but thatās o.k., because I REFUSE to let it run me.
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This is exactly what I meant. Kind of like tinnitus - something I have a lot of: one surefire way of getting a flareup is just talking about it. As soon as you start thinking about tinnitus, you pay attention and your ears start ringing like a mofo.
As for depression, Iām not generally prone to it, thankfully. But lately Iām having to deal with hard personal issues that arenāt going to get better, and so far the only way Iāve found to deal with it and not fall over the edge is drinking myself stupid. I just donāt need more depressing talk from my favorite forum.
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Quick, @Coma!
Deploy Unicorn of Joy!
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Sameā¦ Well, Iām very broken but getting better. And the less I talk about some things, the better.
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I think maybe a closed or private thread might not be the best thing if the thought was to sort of ruminate there. My intention was to create a spot to do two thingsā¦ first was to share stories and strategies, and second was to create a place where people could actively ask for help if they felt they were in crisis. However, I realize that the first goal can be accomplished, at least half way, Iām public threads because sharing strategies isnāt necessarily a privacy concern (unless the idea of disclosing depression might be considered that), and for the second, the forum really isnāt a place for that anywayā¦ not the best option (though if you feel you have no other option please DM me).
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Thereās a little glimmer of hope on the horizon yet too, even though this wasnāt specifically tested on Omicron, this one looks even broader and more encompassing than our current vaccinesā¦ https://www.wrair.army.mil/node/659
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Canāt wait!
Actually in reality Iām excited about the possibilities.
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Doesnāt really belong in the cyborg beats threadā¦ but music related
I wasnāt really looking for it, but I just stumbled across a sort of remix genre I wasnāt aware of, but Iām digging it
Lofi remixāsā¦
Has this been a thing for a while and I wasnāt aware?
Iāve come to appreciate nitecore remixās (cringe I know) as a tool on the days I need to have my ass in the fast lane at work and the faster the musicā¦ the faster I can functionā¦
Something something ADHD brain, be the bee something something?
This Lofi thing is weird, the music isnāt slower (well sometimes)ā¦ but itās missing a bunch of layers and Iām not a music major, but just the important notes get highlighted? (Lofi - low fidelity, obviouslyā¦ but itās clean and just simplified)
Itās weird, I can feel it siphon a lot of the brain bee energy to āfill in the blanksā of the song, in the background processes of my brain I guess?
I havenāt used it for anything, just discovered it last nightā¦ but man I feel like I could focus and stay focused on something in a much lower energy state
And yea, as Iām trying to find a good exampleā¦ itās still mostly all anime stuffā¦ so itās potentially cringy if you hate animeā¦ but w/e
Michael Jacksons Beat it - Lofi
its actually pretty funny comparison if youāve seen the show
I wonder if this is why Iāve always enjoyed 8 bit remixs of stuffā¦
I just figured it was because I grew up with 8bit
I had heard similar from a few different people, but still tried to watch it with an open mind (yet low expectations due the past track record)
I must say it wasnāt as bad as I expected, but it was still 2 Ā¹/Ā² hours of complete horseshit 
.
They should have quit whilst they were behind.
This info-graphic should be all you need for the review.
If you want some more specifics, without spoilers, read on with your free will 
There were a couple of good scenes, but they were overshadowed by the missed opportunities to make some actual good decisions, and therefore a better movie;
To me, It felt like lazy and uninspired writing and ironically, 20 years later, rushedā¦ It seemed to rely on nostalgia rather than actual good story telling.
I could easily pick it apart, but I have wasted too much of my life on this disappointment already,
also, I donāt want to spoil it for anybody else who also wants to waste part of their life watching it.
So to summarise:-
Am I glad I watched it? Yes (completionism)
Would I watch it again? Noooppe
Would I reccomend it? Fuck No.
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Yep