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i was greeted this morning with a "Notice of P2P Infringement Allegation" e-mail from comcast. it gently warned me that i may have "potentially" violated an improper use of copyrighted material. i've known for a long time that my web adventures aren't safe and could potentially expose me to antipiracy investigations. but in all the years i've been carelessly downloading from the internet, i've never been warned before until today.

not only did i receive an e-mail, but comcast also managed to intercept my web browser content and inject a warning dialogue on top of the first page i opened. normally i'd brush this off as corporate scare tactic with no real teeth, but it got me thinking that i really ought to use some sort of protection, whether through a proxy server or VPN. so i spent a chunk of today learning all there is to know about anonymous downloading. in a few more days i'll sign up to some sort of service. better safe than sorry!

so instead of setting my straight, comcast's action this morning has actually pushed me in the other direction as i learn to better cover my tracks. i personally don't think comcast cares what i do online. but when they get a copyright infringement notice from the RIAA, they send me a notice for their own legal protection, since should the RIAA reseort to legal actions (as remote as that may be), comcast can be absolved of any liabilities.

my father's google nexus 7 (2013) finally arrived today. my mother called to tell me to come down to the cafe and set it up. i'd just woken up at 10:30am, which is late for me, but i've been running a sleep deficit recently and was just trying to recharge fully. i bicycled down to the cafe around 11:20am.

the nexus 7 with its 7" screen was surprisingly small since the tablets we use have been 8" to 10". what it lacks in physical size, it makes up for in clarity (1920x1200 resolution, 323 ppi). the touchscreen surface also has a very smooth yet tactile feel to it. the processor - qualcomm snapdragon S4 pro quad-core 1.5 Ghz - also feels very responsive, a lot better than some of our chinese tablets. it arrived with android 4.3 jellybean, but it updated itself to android 6.0.1 marshmallow during the initial setup process. it came with a nice flipbook cover, but i'm worried that the grey color (which is nearly white) will easily pick up a lot of stains. the tablet looks tall, because the design features inch long black bars on the top and bottom of the screen, which makes it look clunky. it's definitely more pocketable compared to an 8" or above tablet. another issue i found with it was many chinese apps couldn't be installed because the OS was just too new (6.0.1). i had to bypass google play and instead them manually by visiting the service websites.

i also went with my father to my grand uncle's place to install the old linksys wireless webcam. it's a total invasion of privacy, but it's the only way we can effectively keep an eye on my aging grand uncle 24/7 should be have an accident while in his bedroom. i've set up wireless webcams a few times, but took me a while to remember all the steps.

first thing is to manually assign an internal IP address to the camera that falls outside the DHCP range (DHCP range normally 1 through 199, so in this case i assigned the webcam to 200). i also updated the webcam's wifi network and password information. i was lucky in that my grand uncle's tp-link router is the same one i use at home. in the router's admin page, i forwarded the service port (in this case port 1024) to the IP address i assigned earlier. i then unplugged the camera from the router, reset the power, and test and see if i can access the webcam through the cablemodem's public IP address.

it didn't work the first time because i forgot to update the wifi network. and during the second time, i discovered my sister's power strip had suddenly died, so i had to rejigger some plugs. she also spilled coffee on the cablemodem and router at some point, but fortunately it didn't short the devices.

i ate a meat bun and some leftover food while i was continuing to set up my father's nexus 7. i also gave back my 2nd aunt her chinese tablet while i fixed by reseting it to the factory default and erasing as much chinese bloatware as possible. it's not as fast as her new ipad air, but it's still a perfectly usable tablet, especially after i uploaded it with google now launcher with voice search.

unexpectedly it began to lightly drizzle as a i rode back to my house around 1:30pm. i took a shower and spent the rest of the day at home. for dinner i heated up a brick of lasagna. alfonso came home at 9pm and asked if i wanted to go grab some dinner at zoe's. spanish people just eat too darn late for me, if he wants to grab some food with me he needs to come home earlier. i was watching frontline's league of denial documentary on netflix, and alfonso ended up watching it with me, about the NFL concussion cover-up. later while i videochatted with sunmeng, alfonso made some eggs and toast for dinner. i showed alfonso my HBP drugs and he knew right away what they were, so i guess he really is a doctor. he wanted to watch a movie but i ended up throwing him a china slideshow. as usual, he began to fall asleep and finally retired to his bedroom around 12:30am. he's going back to MGH tomorrow to work, he still has some data to process.