According To Ali

Ever since I watched the Young Justice EP-1 the security system of the Hall Of Justice and Mount Justice wow-ed me. After all it was built by Batman. You see similar AI driven voice guided system in pretty much in all sci-fi series these days. I always dreamed of having something similar of my own. Well, now I have it (sort of). Although we not quite in the flying cars era yet (disappointment) but IOT powered locks are somewhat normal these days. The adoption rate is great.  Some background: What is this Hall Of Justice Authorisation system? This is the security system that Batman built for Hall Of Justice. The movies haven't shown it yet but there're several scenes in the animated series and comic books. Basically, it is a AI powered voice guided intelligent security system that scans bio signatures (like retina, body dimensions, temperature, heart rate) through a scanning device and identifies which member of the justice league it is, logs entry then gr...

"So, you have hacked it" -- Few days ago one of the guys at work passed me this comment on a random discussion about something I built. I paused for a moment and pondered: Do I reply defending how that's not a hack. OR Do I just not bother I picked the second option for 2 reasons: It was late. It probably isn't worth defending the "hack vs" topic as the comment passed was out of context. So I chose the next best action and replied "Yep, sure did and it is working great.". I felt like Batman in the moment. In this post I will rant about the knowledge gap around hacking and then describe about one of the components of my home automation project (really, this is the main reason for this post) and use that as an example how hacking is cool and does not always mean bad. But first lets align on my definition of hacking: People use this term in good and bad, both ways. For example: "He/she did a hack job" -- Yeah, that probably...