Backward Compatibility

The very first computer I ever used was a Commodore 64.

My current smartphone will run Commodore 64 programs.

The next device I got was the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).

My current smartphone will run NES games.

Next I got a x86-compatible PC running MS-DOS.

My current smartphone will run MS-DOS.

Then I got Windows 3.1!

My current smartphone will run Win3.11.

Then I got Windows 95!

My current smartphone will run Win95.

Then I migrated to linux on my PC.

My current smartphone will run linux programs.

Noticing a trend here? It's called backward-compatibility. If the software pre-dates the hardware, it should run on the hardware.

That's the problem with IOS and Android. They are sandboxes designed only to run software specifically designed for them. And it's bleeding over to the PC market. That's bad.

gpodder

I love just deleting software that used to work... but then gets "updated"... and now doesn't work for crap any more.

For the longest time I used gpodder as my podcast client. But it quit working. Just doesn't work any more. Removed and re-installed... still doesn't work.

Bam! Gone! Bye bye gpodder!

Who's next?

STEM

I am so frakin tired of hearing about "STEM" programs.

If you're not aware, STEM stands for "Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics." And that's all anybody cares about any more.

If you force students into STEM programs, they will never produce beautiful machines like this:

[pic]

That machine requires extensive knowledge of engineering, technology, and mathematics. But more importantly... it is a work of ART. The body styling has elegance and class. A STEM student could never design that. Marv from Sin City put it best when he said "Modern cars... they all look like electric shavers..."

[pic]

That's what you get from STEM. No thanks.

the Linux Action Show

I used to watch this program called the Linux Action Show. Right up until this week.

Here's what happened:

Last week, host Bryan Lunduke wanted to do something special for the 200th episode of the Linux Action Show (LAS). So he landed a big-name guest to come on the show: Richard Stallman. Bryan thought it would be awesome.

Well it turns out the interview didn't go the way he thought it would. And his 200th episode extravaganza was a dud. Richard and Bryan had completely opposing philosophical viewpoints, and they didn't agree on much. All that is fine. Respectable.

But Bryan was pissed.

As you can imagine, Bryan spent most of the 201st episode ripping on Stallman in his absence. That's fine too, it's his show. Whatever.

But then it turned slanderous. Bryan called Stallman a pedophile, among other things.

When Rush Limbaugh called that girl a prostitute recently, he lost most of his sponsors. LAS only has one sponsor - GoDaddy. I would not be suprised to see GoDaddy pull their funding after this week's episode.

I might watch next week's episode just to see if Bryan issues a formal apology. If not, I won't be listening to him anymore.

After all, the whole point of the show is to learn about linux. If I wanted to learn who was a pedophile I could go to the sex offenders registry.

Second-System Effect

According to wikipedia:

The second-system effect refers to the tendency of small, elegant, and successful systems to have elephantine, feature-laden monstrosities as their successors.

You know... like Windows.

Or like my car. Or the space program.

People underestimate the value of cutting unnecessary things.

Cheap Tablet How-To

Like the new iPad? Can't afford it? No problem!

If you have a laptop, you are in luck! You can turn your laptop into a tablet.

First open the program called "virtual on-screen keyboard."

Now, cover your keyboard in duct tape.

Boom! Tablet!

Hand Sanitizer

Did you know....

Hand sanitizers with less than 66% alcohol content are ineffective at killing bacteria.

Water is twice as effective as hand sanitizer at removing viruses from skin.

Hand sanitizers will not kill bacteria that is mixed with oil, dirt, grease, or other foreign matter. Skin produces such oils.

Hand sanitizer is not a replacement for regular soap and water.

Hand sanitizer can contribute to a weakened immune system.

So when someone tells you "just a little squirt won't hurt," smack them.

Some bacteria are good. And even bad bacteria give your immune system exercise. Your immune system is kinda like a combine harvester --- it goes after bacteria with a vengeance. If you take all the bacteria away... your immune system will find something else to attack. Maybe YOU!

LCD price fixing

In 2002 I purchased a couple LCD monitors with 1024x768 resolution.

TEN YEARS LATER most laptops on shelves have about the same resolution. WTF happened? In a world where computers are supposed to double in capability every 18 months, LCD manufacturers formed a cartel to fix prices and relax production. For years PC manufacturers have just been churning out computers with the same old stagnant display technology.

Kudos to Apple for actually trying to improve technology.

(OMG two posts about Apple in a row? What's wrong with me...)

Apple iDrive

Apple should make a car.

Before I say anything else... a disclaimer: I don't like Apple. I used to hate Apple, now I just don't like them. But I am developing some respect.

Auto manufacturers seem only concerned with packing as much crap into a car as they can. Eleven airbags, back-up cameras and ultrasonic sensors, heated and cooled cupholders... give me a break.

I want a basic car with as few parts to break as possible.

A perfect example is power rear view mirrors. What a waste. Unnecessary switches and actuators that are just another thing to break.

I bet if Apple made a car, it would not have power adjustable rear-view mirrors. Instead, it would incorporate rear-view mirrors positioned in an unconventional way, incorporating compound curves, and they would never need to be adjusted. Ever. They would "just work" and show you what you needed to see regardless of eyepoint.

Eleven airbags? *sigh*

My Device, My Rules. Bitches.

I get my home internet through a Sprint-branded WiMax 4G modem by Motorola. I needed to edit the firmware. How would one do that?

Option A) Call Sprint customer support and beg, plead, and argue about how I need to change the password on my device for security reasons, but get shafted. Then call Motorola customer support and do the same thing. Then call ClearWire because although I bought the device from Sprint, they no longer offer support for it, whereas ClearWire does. But ClearWire tells me to f- off because I don't have an account with them.

Option B) Comb the internet for learnin', then hack into my own device and manually edit the binary firmware files with a hex editor.

Which option sounds easier to you?

If you guessed Option B would be easier.... YOU WERE RIGHT!

Gettin' Tracked

There is a big uproar in the media right now about digital privacy and tracking. People are uneasy about the idea of the Goog tracking their every move and selling that information to 3rd parties.

I am struggling to understand what the big deal is.

I get really annoyed at spam. I get really annoyed at junk mail. But I haven't noticed this online tracking resulting in significantly more spam. If anything the spam filters are getting better and better. I still get a little but not that much. The junk mail that the USPS delivers to my house every day is more annoying.

I get a lot of free stuff from Google. Hell, this blog your reading now is a service from google that I enjoy for free. I'm not opposed to compensating google with a little tracking info in exchange for all this free stuff.

Other than being annoyed by spam... I can't think of any material way that I have been harmed by all this tracking. Yet.

There is one thing that annoys me... I constantly have to log out of google in order to get proper search results. If, for example, I go to the YouTube site without first logging out of google; then youtube is only going to feed me videos that relate to my recent google searches. Sometimes I DON'T want my search results prioritised like that. So I have to log out.

Gettin' Hacked

My home network was recently hacked. I am only aware of the intrusion because I happened to be using the computer they gained access to at the moment they gained access. Their address pointed back to Spain, but they could have been anywhere.

My home network is connected to the rest of the world through a Motorola WiMax modem running on *gag* clearwire networks operated by Sprint. The modem is a Sprint branded device.

Let me say that again... the modem is a Sprint branded device.

I hate how all these networks brand their hardware. They don't make the hardware. They don't know about the hardware. But they sure know how to screw it up.

The Motorola CPEi 150 WiMax modem has a web-accessible interface with password protection. You can set the password to anything you want.

Sprint thought this would be too confusing for people. So they permanently set the password in firmware.

So if anybody would like to install a backdoor in my modem that will let them access my home network with ease... the password is MOTOROLA.

Thanks to Sprint, there is nothing I can do to change that. They won't let me. Bastards.

I called Sprint and asked for new firmware that would let me fix this. They said I would have to get it from Motorola. When I called Motorola, they told me their contract with Sprint prevents them from offering any customer support at all.

What the F--- has happened to customer tech support?

Astrophotography

I did some astronomy projects back in school and was really amazed by how much more a camera is able to see than the human eye. Even a basic point-and-shoot camera mounted in front of the eyepiece of a telescope can take some pretty amazing shots. I just wish I had more time for hobbies like this!

So here is a picture of Betelgeuse I took last night. The image of Betelgeuse is not amazing. What's really amazing is the field of stars behind it. When I looked through the telescope with my eye I could see Betelgeuse and maybe a hint of one or two other stars. But when I "developed" the digital picture by increasing the brightness and contrast, hundreds of other stars came into view.

Now, this is only one picture from one night. Another really amazing thing to do is take the same picture night after night and make a flip book out of them. You can watch darkness fall on the moon or a planet make its way across the background stars. This is also how some near-earth objects are found.

(click on the picture to open the full-size version)

Windows 8

Linux has repositories. Repositories are nice. Every distribution has their main repositories and it's not difficult to get software into them. People can even set up their own repositories in the form of a ppa. You can add or remove repositories from your system as you need to. The system gives you the control. It has been this way for years. It is good.

Apple saw this and thought... what a great way to make money! Enter the app store or whatever you call it. It's genius. Instead of person A making software and person B buying it, now person A pays apple money to put their app in the app store and person B pays Apple money to buy it. Apple gets you coming and going.

Now they have put this on their desktop Mac OS too. The newest version is restricted to ONLY allow software from the app store. Of course this can be overridden... for now.

Now comes along Windows 8. They changed the UI just enough to make you have to re-code your old programs for the new interface. And where will those new programs be? Why, in the app store!

What happens when they remove the override? What happens when you have to jailbreak your desktop too... or else only run programs from the app stores?

(on a side note, i believe paid app stores are making nice, good software harder to find while fart apps top the charts as most popular... but i digress...)

I didn't like the iphone and I don't like android because the user experience is too restricted to what the companies want you to have. They are taking over control of our devices.

And now it's spreading to our desktops...

Long Live Linux!

Custom EDIDs

Is technology getting any better?

When I used analog video to a CRT I could get 1600x1200 resolution and it was easy. I could manually set the PC to output whichever resolution I wanted. The greatest invention was a piece of software that automatically reverted the video settings within 10 seconds if I didn't click 'OK'. Things were easy.

Now I use digital video over hdmi to a 5.1 receiver and a 1920x1080 flat panel. Better? The resolution is about the same, but the surround sound is nice. But the PC tries to automatically detect the resolution of the display. This fails of course since the receiver is between the PC and the display. But I don't get any failure message, the PC just reverts to some low resolution. No problem, I can just manually set the resolution higher, right? Wrong. If the graphics driver isn't SURE the monitor can do it, it doesn't even give me the option. No, I have to download the ID file from the display to my hard drive and then manually override the detected monitor with the saved file. It took me twice as long just to EXPLAIN that situation.

The thing is... the software has a million options and can do just about anything. But GUIs don't exist for any of it. I have to find manuals, read them, and use command-line options to implement them. Why do they make me work so hard? Where are the GUIs? Grrrr

2013 predictions

My tech predictions for a year from now:

Microsoft Windows will lose market share to Mac and Linux. Combined with the flop of Windows Phone, Microsoft will have a major change in marketing direction.

After the flop of Windows Phone, Nokia and Canonical will start selling handsets with Ubuntu and Nokia will regain market share. This will restore market demand for platform-independent mobile apps. Android will do something to bring support for other high-level languages but will fall short. Apple will do nothing and release new devices with ever-increasing price tags.

"Big TV" will still be completely against internet streaming.

More prototype transparent video glasses will be demoed and they will still be too expensive for the commercial market.

Ubuntu Unity

Unity + CairoDock = Mac. err....

I'm not going to complain about that. I wouldn't use Unity without cairodock. It gives me a fall-back "start menu." Seriously... if you installed a program and then forgot about it... how would you ever find it again?

But if you have lightweight hardware... Ubuntu is no longer a viable distro. But that's fine. It never was the best for light hardware anyway. There are lots of other distros for that.

I can see how Unity has evolved to a point where you can do "real work." I actually like that I get more screen space when maximizing windows.

Now please... get it on a real handset device... no side-saddling with android!

what would you do?

What would you do if you were a red blood cell and you learned that the body you were part of was a serial killer?

Linux freed me from tech support

People used to always ask me to fix their computer, so i did.

Then more people asked, so I started charging money.

Then I got tired of it and started just saying 'no'.

Now, I can honestly say 'I can't'. I have been using and loving linux for so long, I no longer know how to fix or administer a windows system.

Is your windows broken? So is mine!

Cloud Backups

I would never use "the cloud" to backup my sensitive or personal data. Why are people doing this? It just seems like a bad idea to me all-around.

First of all, many user agreements transfer ownership of your data from you to them when you upload it.

Second, what are they going to do with your data? Sell it to advertisers? Divulge it to law enforcement? Police need a warrant to search my hard drive. They don't need a warrant if the cloud service just lets them in.

What if the cloud service gets hacked and my data is stolen? A service with gobs of data from thousands of people is a big target. My little ftp server is not.

What happens (as in the case of megaupload) if the service runs into legal trouble and my data is frozen, out of my reach... that sucks.

No i think i will stick with my personal, off-site ftp servers for backup. Cloud services are just trying to attract you, with the prize that you get to be lazy. And they get all your datas. not cool.

Touchscreens

Touchscreens can not replace a hardware keyboard... not until they evolve to provide tactile feedback to enable touch typing.

You can type with a mouse and an on-screen keyboard too. But nobody does.

The touchscreen is a great replacement for the mouse, touchpad, etc. It's a pointing device.

So why do laptops STILL come with touchpads instead of touchscreens?! lame.

CES 2012

Very disappointed in CES this year. Haven't seen very much I found interesting. Seems manufacturers are stumbling over themselves to port android to everything and in the mean time haven't made anything new.

PuppyLinux

O-M-G! Puppy Linux!!! It's got puppies!!!

(and it installs to USB, boots to RAM, runs lightning fast on damn near any machine, and leaves no trace of itself. )

wicked!