Category: Uncategorized
-
NO! It’s Not a “glitch”.
Pet peeve: News people love the word “glitch”, every computer bug is a “glitch”, even in headlines were they are usually looking for short words, and “bug” is a lot shorter than “glitch”. The truth that every bug is a “glitch” is kind of like how cameras are for selfies, everyone knows these things. And […]
-
“Selfies” are Something New
We are watching a program on Apple TV+ and it has venerable old actors in it who would know better, but there are flashback sequences, with young actors, shot by the B unit. So far they take place in Europe, in the ’70s, I’d say. Young American couple traveling, he has a Nikon 35mm camera, […]
-
Thoughts on Blowing up a Pager
The news today was that thousands of pagers in southern Lebanon exploded. Presumably Israel targeting Hezbollah. Effects and Purpose Not sure what to make of it. Sounds like mostly not lethal injuries, but it does disrupt things, it pains individuals, it marks locations, it litters their ranks with injuries that will mark them forever, disrupts […]
-
Two Wristwatches
I realized that there is a very specific group of people out there (Hello!) who wear two wristwatches. The Venn diagram makes it a pretty exclusive group.
-
Mastodon
I’m on Mastodon. P.S. Comments are broken and have been for sometime. Sorry.
-
Rescheduling Rio's Carnival?
It’s the end of May, 2022, so I’m a month late in writing this, but still…it’s kind of appropriate. Read on. This year Rio held their Carnival (as in Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday), in person! Live! Drinking, music, food, sights and sounds, pickpockets—all that fun stuff! After several years of canceling it due to […]
-
Saw a Slashdot headline "Intel Calls Its AI That Detects Student Emotions a Teaching Tool, Others Call it 'Morally Reprehensible'"
Um, …Yes. People think the questions of AI ethics arise from dealing with the consequences of what Turing and all those cats invented: Computers. And they are right, to a point. But more it is about dealing with the consequences of what the Sumerians invented: Bureaucracy. Teachers infer the emotional state of students all the […]
-
Patron Saint of Ham Radio?
Today, 19 May 2020, is Oliver Heaviside’ 170th birthday. Hurray! Who? Okay this post will be a bit technical…but only a bit. One of the giants of science is James Clerk Maxwell, he figured out the science behind how radio waves work. Pretty important stuff. He is immortalized in the famous four Maxwell Equations. Maybe […]
-
Inviting Phishing: Stop Training People to Be Fooled
As we try to tighten up our computer systems, in 2018, phishing feels like one of the most dangerous things. Sure, getting someone to open a dangerous attachment that exploits a PDF bug (is there an infinite supply?) is a problem, but let’s imagine users running on such tight systems that dangerous attachments are no […]
-
We Are Really Unhappy with Our Operating Systems, and Don't Know It
Linux has won. It is taking over everything, from tiny devices to the biggest super-computers. Apple’s operating systems are all pretty much on the same model, and Microsoft always seems to be trotting along in roughly this direction, too. The idea is pretty cool: Give each program a uniform view of the machine, keep them […]