Becoming a designer
Boy, it’s been a while. An oxymoronic combination of being lazy and busy, I guess. Anyway, for this post I wanted to talk about design. It’s a topic that comes up a More »
Support for Windows 7 ends today
It is a sad day, as Microsoft is officially ending updates and security patches for Windows 7, the popular OS still being used by a large majority of PCs. Windows 7’s popularity More »
Returning Home: World of Warcraft Classic Comes Online
On August 26th, fans of the original World of Warcraft (henceforth referred to as WoW), and those who are just curious to see what all the hubbub is about, were finally able More »
The Lawnmower Man, and Vintage CGI
Inspired by a couple of Reddit forums to which I am subscribed, VintagePixelArt and VintageCGI, and being a fan of all things historical as it pertains to technology, I uploaded to the More »
Jony Ive leaves Apple
As someone who teaches extensively about design as it intersects with technology, and is also a computer and technology historian, I am conflicted about Jonathan (Jony) Ive leaving Apple. Mainly because he’s More »
And again
Once again, I am here writing about the loss of a giant in the recording industry. Mine is but a small voice in the sea of condolences flooding the Internet, but David Bowie, whom everyone knows and everyone loves, has passed away in a death that unlike that of Lemmy, I – and apparently many others – never saw coming. His last album, Blackstar, had the clues but we were all too busy enjoying it to notice.
Before I continue, it must be noted that another icon of another type, but no less important of stature, passed away the day before we lost Mr. Bowie. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a gargantuan fan of horror movies, and so it was with equal sadness I learned of the death of Angus Scrimm, otherwise known as the Tall Man from one of the crowning, best examples of low-budget 70’s horror, 1979’s Phantasm. I loved this movie, for a brief time I was even comrades with some of the people involved with its creation, and it has been a staple in my life for as long as I can remember. It was very unique, offered some novel horror-movie ideas, and the silver ball sentinels were genius. I will simply acknowledge Angus Scrimm’s significance with a respectable BOY!
Now back to David Bowie, and why you may be wondering why I would be writing about him on what is primarily a tech blog. First, it’s because I’ve always been a huge fan, from his eclectic to his standard. I’m a fan because his music is magic. And I’m a fan because he wrote and sang about technology and science quite a bit. Songs like Space Oddity, the lyrically brief Sound and Vision, the spoken-word Future Legend, and, frankly, the entire Ziggy Stardust album, not to mention his movie The Man Who Fell to Earth (a movie I dare to watch and not be deeply impacted by) put technology and science into mainstream pop and made it acceptable to be into those kinds of things, things that were never considered to be all that cool. If you read science fiction,. if you dreamed of outer space, if you thought about the future, David Bowie was telling you it was ok. I have read tribute after tribute addressing these ideas, and now more than ever it seems like his influence in that sphere is coming true. Now, these things are considered part of regular life and many bands write songs dealing with science and tech; back then, not so much (so thank you Rolling Stones and Zager and Evans for also being innovators). There are even chiptune bands!
EDIT: I don’t know how I forgot about this, but I was just reminded that he also starred in and contributed to the eccentric 1999 PC game Omikron: The Nomad Soul, and even had his own ISP! His influence is obvious throughout both of these, and they’re just more examples of how much foresight and influence he had.
Even the way I found out about it was technically eerie. It was 11:34pm, I was in bed, the house was dark, yet I noticed a glow coming from the adjacent room. It was my Mac’s screen glowing brightly, which was unusual since it goes to sleep after 5 minutes of inactivity. I got up to see what the issue was, and as I sat down the browser refreshed the news site it was on to show the new stories, and the page was flooded with the news of his passing. It’s like someone or something wanted me to know right then.
David Bowie was transformative and transcendent in his style, his music, and his influence. Also, Labyrinth is a masterpiece.
The recent loss of Lemmy, by the way, is not void of this concept either. He played for a brief stint in Hawkwind, a surreal prog-rock group that sang about science and technology with as much – if not more – zeal than even Bowie, it was their conceptual anchor. Here’s their video for Silver Machine, a song about spaceflight.
Honestly, I’d be happy if these people who influenced so much of my personality, my character, my tastes, and my individuality would just stop dying – can someone meet Joe Black already? Give me a break, it’s been too much too soon!
It’s the end of Motorola
The new year has already begun and a well-known name in technology and communication is being – to use a computer science term – deprecated. Yes, the stalwart Motorola brand is being phased out in the consumer sphere, and will instead be replaced with the brand name “Moto.” That’s a term that has been used in the Motorola world for a while, but at the same time Motorola is the company that developed the first cellular phone known as the DynaTAC. The man in the header image is Martin Cooper, who developed the phone and made the first wireless call all the way back in 1977 using that phone, which was then released in 1983. Here’s a pic, and keep in mind it retailed for $4,000.
The Motorola DynaTAC
This particular phone is also notable from a historical perspective because prototypes were developed as early as 1973, it had to be bulky to incorporate the technology available at the time, and a version of this phone was released all the way up until the late ’90s!
Motorola continued innovating in the Cel Phone space, even maintaining the ‘TAC’ suffix (which makes sense as it’s actually an acronym for Total Area Coverage), with the much smaller flip-phone StarTAC, the phone that rendered the DynaTAC obsolete.
Motorola StarTAC
Motorola also had the “Hello Moto” jingle. let’s not forget that. Listen to its glory:
It always hurts a little when such an important name or brand in technology fades into the fog of history. I understand it, but the names have meaning. The Motorola name will live on in a corporate capacity, but like so many well-known names before it, as a brand it is time to move on. It will be Moto for high-end devices from now on, and we’ll see if that is enough to keep the brand going.
I am Oculus Rift ready
For the first time in I don’t know how long, I am not attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas as I am busy with classes at UC Irvine. I must admit, I’m envious of those who are there, getting to see things like the LG curved, two-sided display panels and the Farady Future 1,000 hp electric car.
As was the case with several recent CESs, a big draw is virtual reality. That is the technology I’ve gone the most berserk over as my previous post indicated, and the new advancements – including redesigned controllers and a front facing camera – in my VR platform of choice, the HTC Vive, are giving me very high hopes. If I could go into hibernation until it arrived, I would.
That being said, industry leader Oculus has made their VR headset, the Rift, available for pre-order at $599. This led to some negative reaction, as there was a belief the consumer-grade version of the Rift would be around the $350 – $400 price point, based on comments made by CEO Palmer Lucky.
I didn’t order one as I’m holding out for the Vive, but we all know early tech is expensive. Plus, the Rift comes with some peripherals including an Xbox One controller and remote, and is packed in a nifty carrying case.
Image Credit: Ars Technica
In addition to the headset, you’ll need a pretty decent PC in order to power the dual displays and motion tracking required. Palmer Luckily, Oculus provides a tool you can download (be sure to click the blue ‘download’ button, not the black ‘checkout’ button! Unless you want to order a Rift. In that case, click anything you want) that will test your machine and see if it passes muster for providing a VR experience. It checks memory, GPU, processor, etc. and provides details about each.
And I’m ready! Thank you Oculus for letting me know the Vive will work perfectly!
You can get additional details about each component tested
10,000 words
I have been hearing the rumors that Twitter wants to increase the number of characters one can tweet from 140 to 10,000. It would only show the first 140, allowing a reader to expand the entire tweet.
In case you’re interested, 10,000 words is about 40 pages, so 10,000 characters would be perhaps 10 pages. That depends on a lot, though, including the types of words, lengths, narrative structure (2 people talking in brief responses, for example).
Regardless, I always appreciated the 140 character limit, because it forced people to be concise, terse, to get right to the point. People already use too many words to say very little. I fear it will get much worse if the rumors are true. Plus, the character limit led to some hilariously unfortunate tweets.
On the other hand, perhaps it will deal a blow to text speak, which was born out of the need for brevity in length-restricted communications. That would be nice.
I myself just started using Twitter a little while ago, and I find the process of constructing cogent, brief tweets that still get a point across to be challenging, and I always feel a sense of accomplishment when I do.
I wonder if they would have to change the name of the communication. 10,000 charcters is hardly a tweet. More like a squawk, a word I didn’t know how to spell until right now. Or perhaps a caw. Maybe a murder?
This should be fun.
Some rare music news, and troll insurance
Happy new year! I spent it back home in Vegas with some of my former colleagues from UNLV, which was very nice, however there were some very sad musical moments as I attended Motley Crue’s last concert ever in Vegas, which was fantastic, but overwhelmingly bittersweet as three days later, on New Year’s Eve, they would play their last concert ever. I grew up with them, having first seen them in 1982, then again at the US Festival in 1983, and many more times during the last 37 years, as well as having many conversations, experiences, and memories that they were somehow involved in.
To see so many tattooed, leather-clad, long-haired heavy metal fans, myself included, have tears in their eyes as the band sang Home Sweet Home for the last time was a beautiful and impactful experience, one I will never forget and once again, a Crue-involved memory was etched into my brain.
But their show was absolutely fantastic, everything an arena show from a legendary rock band should be. Don’t believe it? Dig this:
Now this is a show
More sad news came with the death of the iconic and legendary Motorhead founder and frontman Lemmy Kilmister. Reaction from the pinnacles of rock and roll including Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, Gene Simmons, Metallica, and Dave Mustaine to name just a small few, show how impactful he was. As my dear friend and fellow heavy metal fanatic said, he lived the life of ten men and regretted none of it.
Lemmy; the man, the legend
But hey, if you’re not the consummate badass that is Lemmy, or the members of Motley Crue, that’s ok. If you think you may need some help when your feelings get hurt or counseling when someone calls you a bad name online, then your moment has come. The Chubb group is offering insurance against online trolls, and the very real problem of cyber-bullying.
They will cover expenses related to cyber-bullying and trolling, including therapy, relocation expenses, even PR reps to sanitize your reputation if it is sullied by others, all to the tune of (up to) $75,000. Its main audience is kids, however it will also protect against job loss as a result of online attacks.
I’m surprised it took this long. Online harassment and bullying can be a real problem reagrdless of my snarky comments above, and can lead to irreversible, serious consequences including suicide. Perhaps something like this will give people some hope and an avenue of help if harassment occurs.
Even so, I could also see it being abused. Real harassment, real abuse, can be devastating. On the other hand, some people are just thin skinned. What remains unclear is how to determine what is real harassment and what is the online equivalent of crying whiplash after a fender bender.
Some new equipment, and more thoughts about the future
As some of you may know, in August I took a position at the University of California, Irvine, in their Informatics department, which is in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences. I’ve always been a big fan of that discipline as its multidisciplinary approach to technology provides great freedom and perspective when determine how it should be evaluated and studied. Of course, UCI is a great school as well, very distinguished, and everyone there has been quite wonderful, supportive, and accommodating.
Donald Bren Hall, housing, among others, the Informatics department
As was to be expected, however, I am also now incredibly busy. Last quarter (UCI works on quarters, not semesters), I taught Social Analysis of Computerization and Technical Writing, while next quarter I’m teaching the senior project capstone course which involves partnering with local companies, and a Human Computer Interaction course. The amount of preparation I’ve had to do for these courses can’t be overstated; it’s been nuts. I’m happy to be so busy, but at the same time I barely have time to do anything else.
Sadly, that included this website, my beloved IS301.com. I knew that it may wither and die like so many other sites whose owners abandoned them, that I simply wouldn’t have the time to maintain it and give it the proper amount of love and care with everything else I had to do, and for a good while that did turn out to be the case.
But then, I made a post. And another. Just a couple, not many, and the reason is that even though I was busy, I still thought about the site. I had put so much time and care and love and effort into it, I just couldn’t bring myself to let it die. It had its own Twitter feed, its own Pinterest board, extensive customizations and modifications I’d made over the years to make it exactly, or at least as close to exactly as I could get, how I wanted it. Those things may not be a big deal for other sites, but for a small, one-man operation like this, I’m pretty proud of what it’s become, especially considering its humble beginnings as a site on WordPress.com.
IS301.com’s humble beginnings
And that brings me to the crux of this post / video. One of the reasons I was hired at UCI was to teach a Human-Computer Interaction course in the new online Master’s program that will come on-line this spring. In order to do that, I will need to make some videos that provide lectures, demonstrations, tutorials, and so on. That requires video production software, so I invested in Camtasia for the Mac, which is more than adequate for my needs, and I also invested in a Blue Yeti microphone that will provide better sound for the recordings.
On a side note, the mic is a beast of a thing, you can see it there sitting on my desk, but it has a lot of functionality including various sound modes such as cardioid and omnidirectional, gain control, and it wasn’t too expensive all things considered (About $120 at Guitar Center).
Now THAT’S a mic!
I will primarily use these tools for the online course, of course, however since I have them, I thought I could use them as part of my repertoire to bring IS301 back to life. I’d like to make some videos including reviews, product unboxings, opinion pieces, that sort of thing, or whatever else strikes my fancy. I originally had a video accompanying this post, but after working on it for a couple of days it just didn’t add anything to the post; video needs compelling visuals, which the next one will have but this one didn’t. It was just a test anyway, an experiment to see how it went, and was essentially just a video version of the post itself. My intent is to move beyond that for future videos, but I didn’t want to go crazy for the first one.
(I did make the video tutorials explaining ripping dvds, Plex, and XBMC/Roku you see in the sidebar on the right-hand side of the page, but that was a jury-rigged setup, and I’d like a more professional setup for future endeavors).
In fact, I’m thinking that I’d like to invest a little more in the site; have a logo developed, an intro for these videos, perhaps some branding. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but you never want to think small. Lately I’ve been feeling like there is some real potential here, I’m not sure what has gotten me fired up about it but here we are, and I already have the idea for my next video. When it comes to videos, it’s easier to write them first and then record them, however for the next video that might be more complicated than it sounds. Or it might not, I’ll just have to try it and see. This video
Additionally, I intend to keep IS301 as the site’s name. I like it; it’s mysterious and enigmatic. People will ponder “what does IS301 mean?” when it’s simply the class for which the site was originally designed. That’s all!
IS301.com today. But you know that, since you’re here!
I’ve always been very pleased with the way this site developed and evolved, and the simple fact is I don’t want it to languish in the island of misfit websites, abandoned by their owners. That happens to sites much bigger than this; you should visit hauntedmansion.com or doombuggies.com (they’re the same site but two separate URLs). It’s a great site, beautifully designed, a ton of content, some of which was contributed by people who worked on the design and production of the attraction itself. But it hasn’t been updated in at least five years from what I can tell, and there’s no indication of what happened. So I have to be sure that I’m focused.
Hauntedmansion.com
I’ll still be incredibly busy, especially with the graduate class on top of my regular teaching load, and I am the sole contributor and maintainer, so I’m being idealistic, but at the same time I’m pragmatic. I have high hopes that this will be a fulfilling side project that continues to grow and expand, in terms of visitors, in terms of content, in terms of quality. I hope you’ll come along with me; in the words of my financial accounting professor, that will make it so much more fun!
I’ll talk to you soon.
Multinational email unsubscribe extravaganza
In trying to unsubscribe to an email, and lodge a complaint, I visited so many countries!
See, I get a lot of spam for all sorts of things I would never use. Michael Kors shoes, Oakley glasses, Coach handbags, and the list goes on and on. I’m sure the products are quite wonderful, however I’m just not enough of a fashion statement to be interested in these things. Also, I’m a man.
While I was home for Thanksgiving recently, my brother told me that against his better judgement he clicked the unsubscribe link for an email (which normally just confirms an active email account), and to his surprise the emails went down.
So I thought I would run a little test. One of the other products I get spam about is something called ‘Uggs,’ which I believe are some kind of boot or something like that, I’m not really sure. Specifically, the email comes from ‘Uggs Australia.’ Apparently, if you read the small print, the fur in these comes only from animals originating in Australia. Or possibly the European Union. Maybe the United States.
Testing the new WordPress App
(UPDATE: Updating works well too!)
Normally when I need to add a post, adjust the layout, or generally manage this blog, I have to use a web browser to log into to the WordPress CMS (Content management System), a dashboard that lets me do all of the above and much more. It looks like this:
As you can see, there is a metric butt-load of options I have for managing the site, and each of the menu options on the left opens up a sub menu of even more options. It’s very flexible, though, and very useful.
I fear this guy’s right about VR
As everyone knows, ever since experiencing the Vive VR headset I have gone nuts over virtual reality and its potential. However there is one potential of VR that worries me, and worries me greatly, one that nobody seems to be discussing in any meaningful way, and that is its potential to isolate.
VR is a singularly individual experience, one that – as for now – can’t be shared with anyone else. People can watch you play a game on a TV, or even play with you making for a fun social experience. With VR, it’s all you. To be fair, there’s potential here as well, and some are already working on it in the form of a VR arcade where you and your friends, regardless of where they are, could be walking around in the same arcade, or you could all be watching a movie in the same virtual movie theater. That would be nice, but in my opinion it’s also mandatory that VR present social experiences that don’t restrict us to isolationist experiences. I’ve heard again and again that VR is better than real life, and that, coupled with its isolating nature, could, I believe, lead to some real problems.
(This picture is from the Futurama episode I Dated A Robot, and while only tangentially related it was the first thing that popped into my head when thinking about this post. I couldn’t let it go to waste!)
Don’t date robots!
If social capabilities can be incorporated, then it could be a real savior both for the technology and humanity. Being able to visit far off locations or ride rollercoasters with friends would quite fun, I assume. On the other hand, if we all end up alone and isolated, off in a virtual world, the implications could be staggering.
So why, after trumpeting the greatness of VR and how I can’t wait to detach from humanity am I offering this ominous warning? This whole post was predicated on a comment made regarding an Engadget story about VR and how it will change the world, and it struck me as perhaps one of the most insightful comments I’ve ever read, which in the sewer of online commentary is really saying something. Commenter GrangerFX viscerally voiced a concern that I would like to think we all have, at least in the backs of our minds, and reading what he wrote brought it to the forefront of mine. Frankly, the fact it received but a single upvote and no replies considering the immediate truth of its content is troubling. So without further ado, I will quit rabbiting on and let you soak in the wisdom, and fear, of the comment. His concern is a real possibility; let’s hope it doesn’t happen.
I own the second generation Oculus Rift dev kit but I hardly ever use it. There are some minor reasons for this like the lack of support for users with glasses, the soft highly scratch prone plastic lenses and the fact that I must reboot into Windows from my Mac to use it. There is also one major reason:
VR is too good. It is way too good. It is life changingly good. It is the type of thing that could suck away all your free time and shut you off from the world while you immerse yourself in the most realistic gaming experience of your life. I knew right away that if I did not stop immediately my productivity would be cut in half. We are talking full on tech addiction here.
One of the few times I used the Rift was as a demo when a friend of mine and his family came over. I ran a few of the most common demos like the rollercoaster. There was a line of people waiting to try it . These were not tech newbies. These were a tech industry executive and a drone builder and they stood in line to be blown away by the Oculus Rift. Their kids complained when they did not get to play it long enough.
Is VR the next big thing? Yes and you should be very afraid. When this technology hits the market, the GDP will drop noticeably.
Don’t let this happen, humanity
Oh Steam, you never let me down (except when you do)
As you all know, I gave up consoles a few years ago, and use Steam exclusively. If you’re not familiar with steam, it’s Valve’s digital distribution platform, the one that set the standard for the market and made founder and former Microsoft engineer Gabe Newell a billionaire. And not just any billionaire – he’s #307 on the “Forbes 400” list of richest people in the country.
But I digress. I have a powerful PC connected to a beautiful 4K (UHD, actually, they’re not the same) TV, a thingy that lets me connect a 360 controller and I use Steam’s Big Picture Mode.
It’s pretty nice, generally, and they’ve made significant improvements to the interface that make it even more usable with a controller. There is much easier access to game specifics, and more options from the Store page that bring it closer to the desktop client, not to mention they have really improved the input methods (hello, QWERTY keyboard!). The individual game screens offer easier access to game information, and the library has a nice, tiles look to it. The following picture shows the current, controller-friendly library interface taken from my very own machine.
Steam’s library interface
