https://youtu.be/fssZICsV4Rg
This is innovation. And it’s from Microsoft.
Geek
Power.
I’ve always been fascinated by power lines. It’s connected to my geeky interest of all things connected.
These lines march across Indiana a little bit north of Indianapolis. We traveled in all 50 states but I don’t think I’ve ever seen towers of this design before.
There’s a lot of power up there.
Mobility.
I have a lot of respect for this guy. I don’t know who he is, I don’t know what he’s working on, nor do I know where he is working. I do know that he’s using a Mac in a public space in a seemingly good spot to get some work done. I find that awesome.
I’ve always had dreams of being a Digital Nomad. I love the idea of working remotely and I’m quite fortunate to be a company-sanctioned telecommuter, but I have a habit of setting up shop in my home office and doing all my work from there, rather than taking advantage of the digital tools available to me and working where I need to.
I do find I get more things done when I change up the scenery a bit. I like the white noise of a coffee shop while I’m working. I can’t have headphones in; I’m more of the type to have music playing in the background, which adds to the general ambiance of a room. I have specific needs to not throw off my concentration, and I occasionally have a hard time finding that at home. Getting out of the office more often would definitely help my concentration.
A couple of years ago work gave me a Windows 10 Dell Laptop, saying I had to make the switch due to security concerns on the network. Frankly I never turned in the company assigned Mac equipment I was given when I joined the company back in 2015, so I still use it from time to time. The Retina display, and the entire experience for that matter, far outshines the Windows 10 experience I have on my Dell laptop. I don’t know how anyone, in this day and age, can think a display resolution of 1366×768 can lend itself to any sort of productive endeavor, especially since Microsoft tries to cram everything and the kitchen sink into ribbons and buttons and advertising in their latest incarnations of Office products.
I’m going to have to read up on the Bring-Your-Own-Device policy at work to see if I can get back to a company-sanctioned Mac platform again. I already structure my day so I have meetings in the morning and development time in the afternoon. If I can maintain these two constants, I might be working from a local coffee shop sooner than later.
Then I can really get some stuff done.
Testing.
I am making updates to the infrastructure of code that runs my installation of WordPress for this blog. Since this blog is self-hosted, I’m responsible for making sure it runs like it should after I patch updates and the like. Luckily I haven’t tricked out the software too much; updates generally go smoothly.
If you can read this, the test has been successful.
If you can still read this, the test continues to be successful.
OK, so the third upgrade I did didn’t work. You couldn’t read the third iteration of the sentence of “if you can still read this…”
For the technically minded, I’m moving to newer versions of PHP on the server. I didn’t get things to where I wanted to be, but things are where they need to be. It works for me.
Cuts.
Not wanting to be left out of a money making opportunity, NBC/Universal recently announced they’re launching the Peacock streaming network in 2020. This streaming network will have 15,000 hours of programming available. I’m sure it’ll be yet another monthly fee for accessing this service.
My husband and I cut the cord years ago. We have relied on an Over-The-Air antenna and the usual suspects of streaming services: Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix. Other than “Madam Secretary”, the handful of network shows we watch have been available on Hulu or another service. The truth be known, we enjoy indie and alternative series from the streaming services when compared with the mainstream stuff being put out by the traditional networks.
And really, who wants to watch Sean Spicer dance around while dressed up like an avocado?
When Apple TV+ comes out we are going to buy an iDevice so we can stream the service free for a year. I’m really interested in the new series “For All Mankind” and I’m mildly interested in “The Morning Show”. I’ve resisted CBS All Access but with “Star Trek: Picard” coming out next year we’re going to need to shell out some money for that. Then, of course, Disney+ is coming out in November and we’ll probably sign on for that.
When does it become cheaper to just go with cable?
Of course, the streaming services are offering no-ads services, and our time is money, so perhaps paying for streaming services without ads vs paying for cable with ads still has a leaning toward to the streaming services. Though, I think we’re going to end up with too many offerings and just start pirating and sharing video that way again. If we could do it in the ’00s we can certainly do it in the ’20s.
Now if I could just find “Judging Amy” again.
Geek Out.
A few months ago I purchased a hoodie designed in the pattern of a “Star Trek: Voyager” Starfleet uniform. It was on sale and I wasn’t sure when or where I would wear this hoodie but I liked the look of it so I grabbed it from the dwindling stock.
Summer is slowly giving way to Autumn in Chicagoland, so this weekend the need for a hoodie like accessory has presented itself; I decided to wear my “Voyager” hoodie out in public. This is a little bit of a bold step for me, as I tend to try to blend into the crowd. But I was prepared to boldly go and after a few moments of self-consciousness I felt comfortable in my hoodie and I was “working it”.
I wore the hoodie to “Out In The Park”, the LGBT-positive event at Six Flags: Great America. Several folks remarked on the hoodie and all of the comments were positive.
Owning my inner geek in a public way like this is a pretty big step for me. Maybe today’s society needs more geeks like me to express themselves like this. It might be the only path left to get to the Star Trek-like future of peace, compassion, harmony, and exploration.
Or, I just like wearing a cool looking hoodie.
The Great Hack.
We sat down and watched “The Great Hack” on Netflix. For those not familiar, “The Great Hack” outlines the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook scandal around the 2016 elections. The production value of the documentary is typical 2019 fare and sometimes the narrative wanders a little bit, but the documentary as a whole is well done. It’s interesting, and more so chilling, to see what bad actors will do with the data of individuals.
tl;dr Cambridge Analytica had at least 5,000 data points on every citizen of the United States. They used that data to target people they categorized as persuadables, and then blasted propaganda at those people to convince them to vote and to sway them to vote to the wills of their clients, including The Trump Administration.
Illegal? Debatable. Immoral? Depends on who you’re talking to. Unfortunate? Absolutely.
I firmly maintain the growth of technology has outpaced the ability of society in general to use it responsibly. So many folks fear AI and sentient robots and the like, but technology is already being weaponized against the populace. Since this benefits the bad actors currently in power in the U.S. government, I have little hope that something will be done from a governmental level to address this issue. So it’s up to us to be vocal about what’s happening and to educate those less tech-savvy as to what’s going on behind the curtain. Oz was not a benevolent wizard.
Neither are the actors behind the curtain of our democracy.
Computing.
So on Saturday I took my mid-2015 15-inch MacBook Pro to the local Apple store for the Recall Battery Replacement. Not to worry, when I get the computer back, I’ll have paperwork indicating the battery has been replaced and I should be allowed to take the computer on an airplane with me.
If the TSA or airlines can even tell the difference between all the various models of MacBook Pro.
Anyways, I am a few days into two weeks without my MacBook Pro and this experience is proving to me that I’m not ready to go all in on an iPad Pro as my primary computer. There’s quite a few folks in the tech columnist community who insist that we no longer need laptops or desktops, we should be able to do everything on an iPad. I would LOVE to believe them, because I agree that tablets are the way of the future, but I’m not sure we are there yet, even with me running the upcoming version of iPadOS on my iPad Pro.
The whole “app” paradigm feels oddly restrictive to me. I’m probably an outlier in this, maybe we really just need tablets, but the old school geek in my likes to go in and mess around with the terminal from time to time. I can sort of do that on my iPad using the Prompt app to get to my Mac Mini, but my Mac Mini is horrifically slow and the terminal is over there, not here on my iPad.
Perhaps I just need to stop thinking how things used to be and start thinking about how things can be. Maybe during these two weeks I’ll have a change of heart and start crowing about the virtues of using an iPad full-time. I know I tried to do so earlier this year but I always went back to my MacBook Pro.
Maybe being forced to use an iPad will finally make me switch.
Data Privacy.
My brother-in-law owns a company that maintains gas pumps and associated equipment at service stations in the Pennsylvania-New Jersey area. During a recent visit he noticed a station down the street that had “canopy pumps”, where the mechanics of the fuel pump is incorporated into the supports that hold the canopy over the area, presumably to shelter customers from the elements while they’re filling their vehicles with explosive liquid. While here he didn’t get a chance to snap a photo of the pumps, but I told him I would stop by and do so. He’d use the information to research where the pumps were from and if his company could get access to them for his customers.
The easiest way for me to share the photos I snapped this morning was to send him a message on Facebook Messenger. As I mentioned earlier this week, I no longer have “infinity pools of information” apps on my iPhone, and I’ve pretty much disengaged from Twitter permanently, but I still have a Facebook account that I can access on my iPad. I sent him the photos and he sent me a note of thanks. I like my brother-in-law, he’s a really good guy and I’m always happy to help out. Generally speaking I’d say I’m a pretty lucky man in the “in-law” department.
I decided to do a quick scan of Facebook to see what’s been happening with family and friends and immediately I was peppered with all sorts of service station related ads: Exxon Mobil, Shell, Gulf, the virtues of the environmental work of BP, etc. Prior to the three photos I had sent via Facebook Messenger, I had never seen an ad on Facebook for a gas station.
Anyone that believes their communication over Facebook Messenger, or any of their other associated applications, in out of their minds. I know family and friends that completely rely on What’s App. The company is owned by Facebook and the data is mined by Facebook. Instagram? Same deal. And Mark Zuckerberg has said on multiple occasions that Facebook’s intent is to tie the messaging mechanisms of all their apps into one database, one point of control, and one platform.
Earl remarked yesterday that he mentioned something while visiting with his brother the other night and now he had ads popping up on Facebook. He insists the only way Facebook could know about these things was to hear the conversation. The topic was so out of the norm, so off the wall, that there was no way he had searched for anything remotely related to what they were discussing so theoretically there should be no digital trail. That would mean Facebook had to be listening to him through the app on his iPhone.
There’s a reason I don’t have the Facebook app on my phone. How I wish there was something around the disrupt Instagram, but the likes of Flickr really screwed that up.
Please be cognizant that nothing you do online is safe, and nothing you do on your phone is completely private. I have lived by this rule for 30+ years and it still holds true today: If you don’t want it appearing on the front page of the New York Times, do not type it into a computer.
I guess that applies to innocent conversations as well.
Hacked.
NBC News is reporting Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s Twitter account was hacked today. Several tweets were sent out from the hacked account.
How safe is the platform if account of the CEO and co-creator of the platform can be hacked?
Wow.
I’m very happy I pretty much dropped the service earlier this week.
