Terminal Man


So my newest gig got me all wired up like a lab rat.

It's for the same outfit I've been doing surveys for since 2014 (and have made $653 so far over the years pretty much at $3 a pop). Now they hooked me into their "elite" group of marketing guinea pigs, sent me a laptop, eye tracking device and a funky brain reader cap. I took a 1:1 training course with some girl in India, sweated through some painfully slow apps like the facial recognition software on this computer and did my first "test" today.

No I don't get to keep this shit they sent, eventually I'll have to ship it back to them. But I do get what amounts to $30 a session though! And if they're similar to today's, it only took seven minutes (though I swear it seemed longer, thus the sad face, since the position I had to keep my head still in and the feeling of this goofy cap had me in some discomfort).

Of course each session also takes time to set up. I have to soak little 1 cm. wide felt doohickies in saline solution for a few minutes, then plug each one into the over 30 terminal connection sockets arrayed on the inside of the cap, squeeze the cap onto my fat head (tolerating the drippy leads), plug in earphones and place right hand on a separate numerical input keypad all while sitting in a somewhat jauntily awkward position in my chair to perfectly align my head to the laptop camera and eyetracker laser bar. 

I've set the whole shebang up on the dresser top I call my "painting station" (though I have yet to actually paint there) but I may do a bit of rearranging in my bedroom since I'd rather use the other desk I have in here that is currently used as the box fan stand. I can probably find a cheap, actual stand for the fan thus freeing up the desk. Then I can move the desk to be right next to this built-in one I'm at right now. Then I could also set up my almost-never-used Omen laptop and with the dual monitors on this desk and two computers on the other, this place will look like NORAD!