Is being able to travel as my parents did too much to ask for?

Maybe.

It's hard to believe recounts from older people when they say boarding a plane used to be as easy as boarding a bus before 9/11.

Earlier this year I made a very hard decision not to fly to France because of recent changes to international travel.

https://archive.is/https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/news/entryexit-system-will-become-fully-operational-10-april-2026-2026-03-30_en

TL;DR it is mandatory to yield a face scan and fingerprints, like a police arrest, just to enter Europe. According, there is no flexibility to ask the European equivalent of CBP to check the passport traditionally as if I flew within the United States.

Considering I originally wanted to go to visit family, meet online friends, and see the solar eclipse of 2026, yeah, that decision did not come lightly. It also doesn't help that the government can fail to properly steward the data they collect.

https://archive.is/https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/22/france-confirms-data-breach-at-government-agency-that-manages-citizens-ids/

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LinkedIn isn't as good as people make it out to be?

I never joined, but I've had two co-workers tell me they had deactivated LinkedIn. (And later, a friend from a different circle did the same.)

Apparently, there's a sea of "fake recruiters" and bot accounts on LinkedIn. A way to stand out is to verify an account.

https://archive.is/https://thelocalstack.eu/posts/linkedin-identity-verification-privacy/

Every time I tried signing up for any kind of account but came across a page requesting selfie verification, I don't remove the sticker that covers the selfie camera on my phone and back out. In hindsight, I regret nothing, like I may have missed out, but I didn't have 17 different companies handling biometric information.

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If you met me IRL you may have seen me carry this robot hand around for fun.

scuti.neocities.org

Robot Hands

I got two robot hands, an idea of what to do with them, and some notes so I don't forget how I set things up.

#blogroll

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I did my second talk at DC858. Attached a debugger to a video game live to talk about x86 assembly and cause wacky stuff to happen in-game.

scuti.neocities.org

Speak of the Devil: I did my second talk

The full title is 'Speak of the Devil: Runtime Disassembly and a Live Demo'.

#blogroll

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I went to the wackiest and drunkest SCaLE yet.

scuti.neocities.org

SCaLE 23x: Anti-Mugshot Life and the Dark Calling of the Car Fire

I went to SCaLE23x. Acted like a total tourist in the city 2 hours north of me. Also saw a car fire on the road; therefore, I'm being summoned for another pull request by the universe.

#blogroll

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I talk about computational economics or game design at a mostly infosec meetup.

(They loved it so much they gave me a bunch of emoji reactions.)

scuti.neocities.org

I did my first talk @ DC858

The full title is ‘The Algorithms of Creating Money and Their Effects on Inflation and Wealth Distribution’.

#blogroll

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My friends and I went to Pasadena again and held a Qualcomm employee hostage.

scuti.neocities.org

Not my fault! My trip to LayerOne 2025

I attended LayerOne 2025 for Memorial Day weekend. Check out the badge I soldered, a cool gamehacking talk, and a Meshtastic war from a third person perspective.

#blogroll

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scuti.neocities.org

Where’s the money? C Programming or Python?

Everyone hears about the mean or median earnings of a job. But let’s take a deeper look at annual compensation beyond averages and maybe compare apples and oranges.

#blogroll

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I learn how to programatically make stereotypes of people based on the data they give me.

scuti.neocities.org

Intro to Machine Learning (UD120): Online Course Review

I took Intro to Machine Learning (UD 120) on Udacity both for a glimpse into the subject of machine learning and to see how good Udacity is.

#blogroll

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