Hollywood has the term “magic negro”, but how much magic do we expect from this mortal man Obama?

May 3rd, 2012

I heard on news this morning about reactionaries doing well in Greece, and I remember to note the general swing to the right in Europe: this is valuable perspective.

Obama has been very disappointing to those on the left, but remember the environment he is in. Who in the world has resisted swinging way right in this environment?  Mostly everyone is charging right.  At least Obama is resisting.  And he is resisting.

While I am defending the man, remember another disadvantage he has.  Not only did George II destroy both our government’s and our country’s finances, and not only did he try to make most of the world hate us…

He also did a damn good job of gutting the federal work force.  Good people were driven out, quit, and retired. Rightist incompetents were hired at every opportunity.  The people Obama has under his employ include a lot of terrible people who want to do bad things, people who are dolts and crooks.  People who now have civil service protections.

When Obama’s history is written his work to rebuild the basic functioning of our government will be a big item.

I am looking forward to reading It’s Even Worse Than It Looks, just out by Thomas E. Mann (Brookings) and Norman J. Ornstein (American Enterprise Institute).  There is an argument that Washington is not its most broken ever, that it was more broken just before the US civil war.  Wow, what a low bar.  Just before the war where we killed 700,000-plus fellow Americans, we were worse off than we are now.  We are in a very bad place.  My mother is right about that.

Hollywood has the term “magic negro” for a swath of characters with mystical powers, but how much magic do we expect from this mortal who is badly constrained by a reality that is trying to crush him and our country?  He is doing one hell of a good job.

-kb

©2012 Kent Borg

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I Felt Like I Kicked a Dog

December 30th, 2011

I went to see The Ides of March.  I am visiting Los Angeles, we went to the Laemmle Playhouse 7 in Pasadena.  I listen to KCRW on the internet, I hear references to Laemmle theaters, they sound great. Or, maybe that is an unfortunate way to put it.  The sound was a problem.

There was a 60Hz hum throughout the entire film, and for about half the film there was a twittering, like a bad, theremin-inspired, jazz improvisation on a crappy electronic piccolo.

My mother-in-law didn’t notice, but her hearing is not up-to-snuff. My wife, however, leaned over and whispered “What’s that noise?”, I muttered a short expletived-phrase.

When it was over I exited through the lobby so I could complain.  I looked for the most senior-looking/manager-looking person available. I chose the salt-and-peppered guy at the ticket-taking podium.

I told him the problem and he listened.  And he took it.  And he responded “Okay.” (I think it was) and there was a pause, and I said something like “That’s not right.”, for emphasis.  And he took it. More silence.  I stared sincerely for a moment, and I left.

It was not surprise to him: the customer was complaining, and he didn’t talk back.  He has heard it before.

Then I figured it out: I am in LA, Movie Capital of the World.  On a regular basis some jerk in The Business goes to a retail movie house and complains bitterly that it isn’t as good as the screening room back at the studio or posthouse or the jerk’s house.  (Or so I figure.)

And these jerks complain that their eight-dollar ticket doesn’t buy the same quality.  And they complain righteously.  (Or so I figure.)

I’m not in The Business (I don’t even have a home theater back in Boston) but complain is what I did.

And I felt like I had kicked a dog.  And he took it.  And that I kicked him again.  For emphasis.  And he took it.

Postscript: Across the street and a couple blocks down, for roughly twice the price, is an Arclight theater: and they do sound right.  A couple days earlier we saw the narrow-screen, black-and-white, foreign-made, Oscar-rumored, silent film The Artist, and for a silent (that actually has plenty of sound, just very, very little dialog), Arclight did a better job.

I suspect the jerks in the business, when they go slumming, go to the Arclight.

Movie theaters are in a pickle, they need to compete with not just each other but with home.

-kb, the Kent who, if he is going to be a jerk, feels a bit proud to momentarily feel like a Hollywood insider version of jerk.

P.S.  I complain in Boston-area theaters, too, when projectors are out of focus or flicker and go dark or the sound can’t be heard right.  I have discovered that, for some reason, theaters in Montreal are much better.

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Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook

November 15th, 2011

I saw the cover of the magazine Fast Company, and it said to lookout, Facebook will beat Amazon, Apple, and Google.

(Clever folks: There were three other covers, each touting how one of the four companies will prevail. They sort of managed to get more shelf space at Whole Foods.)

But far more interesting is the list of four companies:

  • Apple (originally a computer manufacturer),
  • Amazon (originally an online book retailer),
  • Google (originally a web search engine), and
  • Facebook (still a social network).

How do computers, books, searches, and friending end up at each others’ throats? And how did we come to ignore Dell, Barnes and Noble, Yahoo, and AOL??

Dell vs. Apple? Not interesting. (Should Dell just liquidate and give the investors their money back?)

B&N vs. Amazon? Not interesting.

Yahoo vs. Google? Not interesting.

AOL (or maybe Myspace) vs. Facebook? Not interesting.

How did these other companies become such losers? What makes these Big Four so important?

-kb

©2011 Kent Borg

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Which Gadgets Do I Need?

September 30th, 2011

So Many Gadgets

This week Amazon announced new Kindles, both low-power e-book readers that work forever on a charge in ambient light, and the color tablet Kindle Fire.

Fun.  I want.  But what do I want?  What gadgets do I want?  (What do I need?)

Smartphone, notebook computer, tablet, e-book reader, Ipod, Camera, Hiking GPS?

Each has its virtues…

Smartphone

Little, always with me, internet access (when I am in T-Mobile territory).  Hard to be without.

Notebook Computer

Keyboard, real web browser, lots of disk space, multiple windows at once, lot of familiar software.  As a software engineer, needed for nerding.

(My current notebook is wearing out.  Anyone have a good recommendation for a nice sub-notebook? Under 3-pounds, full dimension screen, good trackpad, works well with Ubuntu, tough?)

Tablet

I don’t really know, I don’t have one.  But I want one.  I want something like my phone but bigger.  Even though pulling out my notebook and opening the cover is very easy (sleep to RAM wakes up quite quickly) I want something that is even easier: just pull out the tablet and hit the switch, no lid to open nor surface to sit on needed.

I want a big screen phone with a front-facing camera (my phone doesn’t have that).

I want to be able to read the New York Times better. My phone can read the Times but with such a small screen. My notebook can read the Times, but such a production to open it up and set it down.  (Oh, so much work!)

I also want to use Google Maps on a bigger screen than my phone.  As impressive as maps are on my phone, maps scream for big. Remember paper maps?  They are big for a reason, so you can see where you are, and where you are going, and detail in between.

I want to play Angry Birds on a bigger screen.

I have this idea that a tablet can be more opportunistic, not as omnipresent as my phone, but more casual and available than my notebook.

The Kindle Fire

Is rather tempting at $200. Luckily I am saved for the moment because it isn’t yet available.

But it is rather limited:

  • No cameras.
  • No orientation sensors nor gyroscope.
  • No GPS (Google’s Maps application probably won’t install at all without GPS, doesn’t seem to exist on Amazon’s Appstore).
  • No Bluetooth.
  • No microphone.
  • Probably no apps that don’t come from Amazon’s appstore. (A little like Apple’s closed Ipad ecosystem.)

Still, it is only $200.

E-Book Reader

The key features here are long battery life, screen that uses ambient light and is easy to see outdoors, and limited function so I don’t keep looking at what new Tweets have shown up.  The new cheap Kindle is so small and pretty dang cheap at $79 (still only $109 without ads). And so small.  And linked to my reading on my phone’s Kindle app.

I’ve been reading a 400+ page book on the Kindle app on my phone and it is taking forever.  I have this idea it would go faster if I had a bigger, better reading screen.

Ipod

(No, I won’t cooperate with marketing driven fuNNy caPITaliZatioN.) I have a 120 GB Ipod and it is great to have a ton of music available.  It works without any network connection.  It has great battery life.  (Alas, it might be discontinued soon. Constantly listening to things I already own, and free podcasts, doesn’t generate any bucks for Apple.)

I also have the FM radio adapter that Apple used to sell, and would listen to public All Things Considered and Morning Edition on it, but now I usually use my phone for that–it gets better reception in buildings.

I don’t usually have it on my person these days, not like I used to, my phone is the bigger entertainment. Instead my Ipod has been relegated to the larger bag I carry my notebook computer in.  Handy at work, handy in the car, not terribly far away at most other times.

Camera

I like having my little camera with my almost always. I like that “film” is now essentially free, I can use the camera to take notes and document physical stuff (what exact replacement part do I need at the hardware store?, I look the picture I took of the dismantled gizmo at home).

My phone has a camera, but I think it is a lesser device, though I haven’t tried side-by-side comparisons.  I know the phone doesn’t have a real zoom. Swapping new memory cards is easier on my camera than on my phone because the phone has other data on the card I don’t want to swap out.

The usage model is different, the phone wants to upload photos, the dedicated camera wants to transfer them to my notebook.

The camera has a battery that doesn’t need constant charging because it is only for the camera.  The camera doesn’t have GPS and can’t tag photo locations.

Hiking GPS

I have to throw this in.

My phone has GPS, and better maps than does my Garmin GPS Map 60Cx, but I still like my Garmin with the North American maps I bought for it:

  • It has better battery life.
  • It has a display that can easily be read in sunlight.
  • Its maps work when out in the sticks! No need for any cell service. (When there is cell service it is also sometimes nice to have a second opinion for navigating.)
  • It is far tougher than my cellphone, it is pretty happy being dropped and being used in the rain.  Works in cold weather where my phone reboots.
  • I have a nice mount for it on my bike where it is a nice speedometer and map.

I don’t have my hiking GPS with me always, but I frequently have it in my bigger bag, with my iPod and notebook computer.

And the Winners Are?

I don’t know yet.  These are very different beasts.  The dedicated devices are nice in that they are better optimized for their specific uses.  The multi-use devices (phone, notebook) are nice for their general purpose aspects but I am then afraid of dropping it on a hard rock and being out too many features.

I suspect there are some Amazon products to be added to my list of toys in the next few months.

Stay tuned.

-kb, the Kent who always has some tech on him.

©2011 Kent Borg

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Google Motorola Mobility Purchase Explained

August 23rd, 2011

It does make sense, people understand parts of it, but no one seems to get it right.  Let me explain.

Personal Tidbit: Kent’s Market Manipulation

Looking at a down-market, thinking this was a buying opportunity, I bought a few shares of Google. A few days later it fell on the Motorola news.  No, I wasn’t annoyed with myself (I didn’t have any inside information, and wouldn’t trade on it if I did).

Rather I am annoyed that the market doesn’t seem to understand what Google is up to. I need to explain so my stock can go back up.

Google wants Android to succeed.

Google’s Android “partners” don’t particularly care about Android succeeding, they want their own tablets and smartphones to sell.  So they tart up their versions of Android to try to catch an eye (“Hey, big guy! Wanna..touch my tablet…?”).  The other day I was talking to someone who was considering getting an Iphone.  No, I didn’t say “Get an Android!”, I kept my mouth shut because the Android market is a mess, I have no idea what Android phone is good right now.  I think Google is going to tell Motorola to make clean versions of Android.  Like the Nexus One (which I bought).  Once they do that I can recommend people buy a Motorola Android.  People will still be tempted by the trollops from the other “partners” and that is a matter between consenting adults, but at least there will be a clean and respectable baseline you can bring home to mom.

Google wants Android phones and tablets to innovate.

God knows what it took to get Samsung to put a near field communications radio (NFC) in the Nexus S, but I bet there are some cool things Google wants to do but no “partner” wants to bother with.  Google will tell Motorola to add new features.

Google “partners” need not quake.

Much has been said about how the “partners” won’t like Google being in the handset and tablet business, but if Google forces Motorola to do things the “partners” don’t think is smart…well, that might be just the kind of competition they could use: either ineffectual (no problem) or truly innovative (serves them right).  Google is no Apple, they don’t have an “all mine” utopian (dystopian!) vision, they aren’t interested in crushing LG or HTC. They want to sell ads.

Google has a really nice cash cow in their ad business. They aren’t interested in the low-margin hardware business for any reason other than to keep their ad business healthy. Their fundamental interest here is different from that of other Android hardware manufacturers.

Google has patent battles to fight.

Speaking of Apple and Android “partners”, Steve is doing his best to crush the entire Android ecosystem in the courts, some recent decisions out of Europe should have them all deeply scared.  Google to the rescue: Motorola has a lot of patents, many are probably even wireless-related. (What was the Nortel portfolio mix like?)  Motorola, unlike a patent trollhouse, and being a hardware business, might even have legitimate patents.  (I think software patents should be very rare and noteworthy, and that all the other SW patents are garbage.)  By measuring patents by the count, people miss the fact of these might include legitimate and topical patents.

Google is interested in big screens, too.

Google TV hasn’t done much so far, but they haven’t given up.  Motorola Mobility also includes set-top boxes in living rooms.  As much as we all like to poke at our phones, we also like being couch potatoes, sitting in front of a big TV, poking at our phones.  Google wants access to our TVs, Motorola Mobility gives them that.

Sitting on tons of cash is a waste.

Google can afford to buy Motorola Mobility. We now know they are serious about Android and will do what it takes to make it succeed.

Apple is not going to manage to drive a lawyer-hewn stake through Android’s heart. Android is here to stay.  Long live Android!

-kb, the Kent who thinks it all makes great sense and GOOG should go up now.

©2011 Kent Borg

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Android Phones Won’t Keep Time Precisely

August 17th, 2011

Google should use the GPS receiver. They should use NTP. But they trust the cell carrier.

Recently I have been in awe of what an amazing thing my Nexus One is.

For example, with few instances of a little 2×1 widget called myUTC Clock, one of my home screens turns into an 8-timezone pocket watch.  A read-in-the-dark, self-setting, 8-timezone pocket watch.

I am old enough that such a thing would once have been very expensive if possible at all.  Yet I can add it to my phone for free.

So cool.  It must be time to start complaining.

My Android Nexus One isn’t reliable about how it keeps time.  Sure, it is good enough for prosaic purposes, but it could do much better.

In the Settings I have two choices, either “Automatic Use network-provided values” or I can set it manually.

I have it set to use network-provided values.  This means to take the time from the local cellphone network.  Unfortunately, the cell provider is sometimes quite wrong.  There is a lonely roaming section of highway I drive frequently where my phone clock is off by almost two minutes.  At home, on T-Mobile in the big city, my phone clock is set within a second or so.  That seems sloppy and random and prone to wild errors if some technician makes a typo.

My other option is to manually set the time.  I did this yesterday afternoon, and this morning my phone was off by over 20-seconds.  That’s enough to start missing airplanes if not reset frequently.

There are two other options that are not available without rooting my phone and customizing the software:

1. Use time from the GPS receiver.  Yes, the GPS receiver is not always turned on, but when it is it is an exceedingly good source of time.  Pretty much “gold standard” where time still has a “gold standard”.

2. Use time from the internet.  The Network Time Protocol (NTP) works over wireless connections, uses very little data, and can set time very precisely.

In both cases, once the Linux kernel inside my Android knows the correct time it is willing to faithfully honor it to very small intervals.

Google: Please make Android keep decent time.  Possibly someone has already done this nicely and you could just pickup the code, examine it some, and make it part of the official version.

Android phones have the ability to keep excellent and time, it is just a simple matter of programming.

-kb, the Kent who has been a time geek for years, who knows that time is very complicated because of the conflicting expectations we have about time, and who still misses airplanes.

P.S.  One of the complications that Google tries to avoid by taking local phone system time is that of timezones and daylight savings/summer time.  Okay, so it is tricky, but there is detailed timezone data available for Linux, you have location data (from the GPS and, ironically, from the local phone system), the result could still have problems, but they will likely still be better than blindly trusting the local phone system.

©2011 Kent Borg

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Healthful Diet: A Too-Simple Summary

August 15th, 2011

Everyone else pontificates on what we should eat, why can’t I?

Two big points, A and B.

A.  Only eat food that is made of … food!

This means don’t eat junk food.

This also means don’t eat most convenience foods.  If you look in the freezer case at the grocery store there will be frozen vegetables there and they are good for you.  Nearly everything else in the freezer is bad for you.  If the frozen broccoli is made of stuff that isn’t broccoli, don’t eat it.  If you can’t pronounce the ingredients, don’t eat it.  If the ingredients include a lot of salt or sugar or long words that you don’t know the meaning of, don’t eat it.  If it even has a long list of ingredients, be suspicious.  The word “hydrogenated” means don’t eat it.

If eating out, don’t eat fast food.  This doesn’t just mean don’t go to McDonalds, it means don’t go to restaurants that can’t convince you their food is made of food.

B.  Eat stuff that is good for you.  This second big point has three sub-points.

  1. Fundamentals, remember what your grandmother told you. Eat your vegetables, eat real fruit, don’t eat too much salt (okay to sprinkle on top at the table, not okay to spoon in during cooking).  Deep fried foods should be eaten in moderation.  Desserts and other “treats” should be eaten in moderation.  Organic is good (one can tell how much someone eats organic food by measuring how much pesticide is in their blood).  Maybe don’t eat animal products that are too industrial in how they are raised and processed.
  2. Don’t eat so much sugar.  This includes not eating so much potatoes because they rapidly turn into sugar in your body.  Same with white bread, white rice, and other refined starches.  After too many years of eating too much pure starch and sugar one can easily end up with “adult onset diabetes”.  Lately we have gotten so efficient at this that kids now get “adult onset diabetes”, so they had to change the name to “type 2 diabetes”.  Refined carbohydrates are dangerous, go for hearty whole-grain.  (If bread is colored brown but is still as soft as Wonderbread, don’t eat it.)
  3. Don’t eat so much corn.  Back in the ’70s the US federal government changed agricultural policy to encourage lots of grain production (alas, not fruits and vegetables), and this has mainly meant every year we produce mountains of corn.  And the food industry has been working hard to figure out how to get us to eat it ever since.  The kind of corn we are talking about here is not sweet, but they have an industrial process to convert the corn starch to “high fructose corn syrup”: don’t eat it.  Junk food is loaded with corn.  Somewhat hidden is “corn fed beef”.  Beef cattle have spent many thousands of years figuring out how to digest grass.  It is an impressive feat, and they have done it!  They will even wander around and harvest the grass they eat.  So what do we do?  We put then in packed corrals where they can’t much move, and we feed them trucked in corn.  Then we slaughter them young, before their health gives out, because they are not designed to eat corn and it makes them sick.  Eat local grass-fed beef, it tastes better, is safer, better for you, better for the planet, better for the cattle.

Unfortunately, if you put all this together, it means you that if you are stuck in an airport waiting for your next plane…there is little to eat.  If you are at the mall…there is maybe nothing to eat.  If you are at a convenience store…there is very little to eat.

Shop at real supermarkets, go to a local farmers’ market if there is one near you.  Pack a lunch.  Support restaurants that try to serve food that is made of … food.

-kb, the Kent who is eats better than he used to, and who even gets some exercise.

©2011 Kent Borg

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Bitching about the Obama economy is like telling Captain Sully: “The Hudson was the wrong destination! And why am I all wet!?”

June 3rd, 2011

Our economy nearly died, and you are griping about it being too sluggish?

We almost had to rename the Great Depression!

World War One got renamed.  It started out as The Great War, the “war to end all wars”.  But a few years later we had an even bigger war, and we had to rename it.  It became “World War One”.

Well, we almost had to rename the “Great Depression” to the “First Great Depression”.

It was that bad.  Instead we only call it the “Great Recession”.

Consider:

  • The port of LA/Long Beach.  It is the busiest port in the US, and it came to a near halt.  Cars that were already on ships when the crash hit arrived, but had no place to go when dealerships couldn’t afford them, they accumulated. One of our biggest exports through that port also stopped: cardboard.  Recycling was a problem when it backed up. (Did you know that recycled cardboard is a significant export from the US to China? They ship us TVs and we ship them the empty boxes.)  Normally there have terrible air pollution there, with all the trucks moving freight back and forth, in and out.  But the port mostly stopped.  The air cleared.  Prices to ship goods (such as Baltic Dry Index) plunged because nothing was moving.
  • The “TED Spread” shot up to scary levels.  That is, the difference between the interest the US government must pay to borrow money and what big banks charge each other. Normally, big banks get almost as good a deal as does the USA and the TED spread is well under a half percent. But in 2008 it shot up to over 4.5%.  Banks were unwilling to lend each other money at a good rate because they knew the others were at risk of going out of business.
  • The “commercial paper market” stopped.  Much of the economy runs by big companies borrowing and lending money back and forth, for short periods of time, at low interest rates.  That all stopped.  You might remember GE (normally an extremely good credit risk) had to get a big loan from Warren Buffet because it couldn’t borrow money anywhere else.  If GE can’t borrow money, the economy is badly broken.

That has all changed.  All the “bailouts” that people complain about saved our sorry butts.  Heck, the US auto industry is making a profit now.  The maligned TARP program even made money for the US government!  That’s right, TARP was profitable.

No one bitched that Sully didn’t get them there on time, so quit bitching that the recovery from this recession is too slow.

Our economy almost lost it.  We are damn lucky we aren’t in breadlines still in 2011.  Instead, our economy is growing.  Painfully slowly, but it is growing.  Be grateful.

-kb, the Kent who is glad he has a job when so many do not.

©2011 Kent Borg

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Sony Passwords: Now do you believe you should not reuse passwords on different sites?

June 3rd, 2011

Sony has been cracked.  Multiple times.  It seems Sony employs nerds who know nothing about security.  Now, sonypictures.com has had a million username and passwords (and other information: DoB, e-mail) scooped up and made public.

Are you on that list?

The Playstation breaks would have been even more users.  It hasn’t been posted public, are you on that list?

Are you an X-Factor wannabe?  That database was also grabbed by the same crackers.

And these are just the public breaches.  The real bad guys–the ones who want to steal money instead of making a political point–are breaking in quietly, grabbing passwords, and moving on to see what other doors these keys will open.

What is the lesson here?  That companies have terrible security?  Yes, they do.  But that isn’t what should keep you up at night.

You should toss and turn if you are one of those people who reuse one password on multiple web sites.  If one site is broken into, then the bad guys have the keys to any other sites you have given that same password to.

Don’t reuse passwords.  Use a different password on every account you have.  And how should you keep track of all these passwords?  Write them down.

Yes.  Write down your passwords.  The advice about not writing down your password comes from way olden days when the number of computer accounts a person had was either zero or one.  It is obsolete.  Write down your passwords.

-kb, the Kent who used to use three different passwords for everything, until he discovered a machine on which he had an account, one he used the “good” password on, was broken into.

©2011 Kent Borg

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Write Down Your Passwords

May 23rd, 2011

Recently someone pointed out that an Ubuntu mailing list will e-mail a forgotten password back to you.  And that this is wrong.  Well, I agree, but…

I am never bothered when a mailing list sends me a plaintext password.

But I do something Extremely Radical: I don’t reuse passwords.

If a mailing list password of mine gets out it is only a mailing list password.

Reusing passwords is too scary. Somehow the idea of having just one (or a small number) of keys to my life and casually handing out copies to anyone who asks seems really stupid. How do I know what they are going to do with it?

Write down your passwords. Yup. Write them down. Keep a list, obscure things a little in the list, but keep a list. Put it in your wallet, keep an updated copy someplace else. If someone steals your wallet you will probably notice it and you will be able to go change passwords before the thief figures out your obscuring scheme.

But when you reuse a password and one of the various sites is broken into, first you won’t know it was broken into, second, even if you did get notified…how would you ever know what other sites you used that password on if you don’t keep a list?

Yes, it is better for mail reflectors to not send out plaintext passwords, but it wouldn’t matter much if you didn’t reuse passwords.

It should bother you that a site is mailing back your real password, but sites are constantly doing things far scarier than e-mailing a password the right person (such as letting actual criminals get a copy). You should be far more bothered by the password reuse that makes every breach have possibly unbounded consequences.

Even if a site does a password reset and e-mails a temporary password, that is also a risk. E-mailing the original password is only worse if it is used elsewhere.

Don’t reuse passwords.

-kb, the Kent who thinks expiring passwords are stupid, too.

©2011 Kent Borg

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