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 »
Idiotic password requirements of the week.
All hail the DMV! For the second time, they get the award for stupidest password requirements so far. I alluded to this in an otherwise glowing post about their texting service last year, so I’m just going to repost it again because I just had to deal with their restrictive, constrictive password requirements again. I don’t know what the DMV is trying to accomplish with these nonsensical limitations, but here they are in all their continuing dominant glory.
A CPU built in Minecraft
Minecraft is nothing less than a phenomenon. Originally developed by Swedish programmer Markus “Notch” Persson and his company Mojang, the blocky, open-world game in which you can build your own world out of various types of blocks was very recently bought by Microsoft for $2.5 billion, making Markus an overnight billionaire and allowing him to pay $70 million cash for the most expensive house in Beverly Hills, which was in the process of being bid on by several celebrities.
The house that Minecraft bought
Nevadanet!
Not really. But there is a mention on USA Today of two Nevada politicians, Paul Anderson and Mo Denis, who want to ensure any state governmental data stays within the borders of the state. Meaning, a Nevada email that’s going to a Nevada email address would remain entirely within Nevada’s infrastructure.
I suspect they aren’t terribly familiar with how this kind of thing works, as evidenced by the plan itself. I understand their concern, especially since Edward Snowden very recently told John Oliver that an email whose source and destination were in New York could be routed around the world first. That’s not true, first of all, routing is meant to reduce the steps it takes for a packet to get to a destination, and even if it were, as long as it were encrypted – which it should be – it would likely be fine. That a message might go out of state to switch over from one provider (say, Cox) to another (Say, Clear) is just not a big deal. That’s called peering, in which one company’s network physically connects to another, if you’re interested.
Star Wars saga available for digital download
For the first time ever, the Star Wars movies have been made available for digital download. Until now, Star Wars was The Beatles (or AC/DC, if you prefer) of movies, not available for digital download anywhere. New co-owners Disney and Fox have made the movies downloadable through the expected channels including iTunes and Amazon.
To be fair, these are the (in my opinion) abominations that have additional CGI incorporated by George Lucas, and not the original footage that until now have only been available on LaserDisc. Although I’m not one of those hardcore Star Wars fanatics, I do think the movies are masterworks and the originals should be available, regardless of who you think shot first. The picture below hurts every time I see it, never mind the scene itself.
Seriously?
Either way, I’m hoping Disney releases the original movies as their original theatrical release without all the added computer graphics.
Microsoft turns 40
This post is going to (try, at least) look in to the future, but also take a very interesting look into the past.
In looking ahead, I was surprised to find out that Microsoft turned 40 last weekend. *I’m* older than they are! But it’s no small feat considering the derelict companies and products that waft idly at the bottom of the sea of good ideas and potential. CP/M, Northstar, WordPerfect (which apparently still exists), TRS-80, these and many more just couldn’t survive the turbulent tech ocean, especially during the beginning of the industry. None of these products were bad, mind you, in fact all of them had distinct advantages when compared to their competitors, but the fact is very few of what was there in the beginning is still there now.
Finally, a mobile OS for the rest of us
There are many mobile operating systems you can choose from: iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry OS, Tizen, and while they all have their strengths, they also clutter up the phone and the interface with unnecessary and clunky icons, pictures, and functionality. They’re so easy to use and so useful, but who really wants that?
Some pics from the AAOS Convention
I’ll just get this out of the way right now: AAOS is the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. This year, as occasionally happens, their annual conference was held here in Las Vegas, and I am very fortunate in that I can scam my way in with a family pass since my father is an actual orthopedic surgeon and I rode along on his coattails. I was last there about six years ago or so, and as is always the case in every industry, the related technology has advanced with leaps and bounds. The conference is gigantic taking up the entire Venetian-Sands conference center. Here’s what it looked like when I first entered the hall:
The main AAOS conference hall
Monitor your kids when they drive, they love that
Have a kid? A kid of driving age? A rowdy kid who will drag race the family minivan at every green light? A kid who needs to be monitored and watched to ensure they drive safely? Well, GM – Chevy specifically – has you covered.
There’s not much actual information provided, but according to a GM press release, the 2016 Chevy Malibu will have a feature called ‘TeenAssist’ that, when activated, will allow you to set parameters that can’t be adjusted once enabled. For example, it will disable the radio until seatbelts are buckled, it enables the standard safety features, and even lets the parent set a max speed that, if exceeded, will alert the driver and set a max volume for the radio.
Would you notice this?
There are countless news stories about credit card numbers being stolen by hackers, and people having thousands of dollars of fraudulent charges levied against their accounts. Target is paying out $10 million to compensate for a data breach in their system, however everyone from Sony to multiple financial institutions has been attacked recently.
Unbeknownst to many, there is another way that criminals are able to get hold of credit and debit card info that many of us would never notice – skimmers and keypad overlays.
A skimmer is a device that fits over the card slot on an ATM or gas pump or other device, and when you slide your card into the slot, you slide it into the skimmer as well as the ATM slot itself. You’ll still get your money, but the criminals will get your information and you’ll never know it happened, at least until you get robbed. Keypad overlays are the same, except they sit over the keypad of a machine and when you enter your PIN, it’s recorded on the overlay as well as in the ATM. Again, you’ll still get your money, but you’ll also have unknowingly given your information to some unscrupulous people.
Make your own computer art
See that nifty work of art up there? That’s actually all the mouse movements I made over the course of just under 90 minutes while using my PC. It’s the result of a tiny program called IOGraph, and it doesn’t even require an install. You simply download it, double-click the .exe, click the button to start, and it uses very little resources (I couldn’t find it at all in Process Monitor, which is disconcerting) while it runs in the background graphing your mouse movements.
The lines represent mouse movements, and the circles indicate when and how long the mouse is at rest (the larger the circle, the longer the mouse was resting).
