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 »
an interesting selfie conundrum
We all know selfies are inane, unless they’re taken by Lord Vader of course. But Vader notwithstanding, we’ve all seen the dumb trends – from selfies of people wrapped in cellophane to the dreaded Duckface. Or any of these. And, well, all of these. They’ve been analyzed sociologically, and even linked to mental illness. But now, thanks to a wildlife photographer and a dispute with Wikipedia, an issue has cropped up over selfie ownership. It sounds pretty easy, Wikipedia’s stance is that whoever took the selfie owns it, which makes perfect sense. You take a selfie of (obviously) yourself, you own it, even if other people are in it.
But consider the ‘selfie’ below:
According to this article on itv.com (from which the above image was lifted), this image was taken by the monkey itself when it swiped wildlife photographer David J. Slater‘s camera. The picture was a huge hit around the world, of course, perhaps the only animal selfie ever taken, and nicely framed to boot! Plus, my Chinese zodiac is the monkey, so I have an affinity for it right away.
Mr. Slater wants ownership of the picture which Wikipedia is now using without recompense to the photographer, because they believe it is public since the monkey took it, and even if it wasn’t it would actually be owned by the monkey since it took the selfie in the first place.
The whole thing is just bizarre. I mean, if your dog or cat or ferret inadvertently snaps a selfie of itself, do they own it? Perhaps it could be re-framed as an issue of who owns the device and the intent behind the image. I don’t know, but what I do know is this is one of the most bizarre intellectual property, technology and ownership stories I’ve ever seen.
I’ll just add it to the list of reasons I don’t take selfies.
The Future of this site
Before I get to the post, I would like to offer a heartfelt thanks to everyone who provided such positive feedback about this blog during the session. It was wonderful to hear all you learned form the posts that were made and what you discovered. It was a risky (remember that?) switch from the tried and true Blogger platform, but I believe the WordPress platform offers more flexibility, administrative tools, and potential for the future. But I really do appreciate the overwhelmingly positive response.
Building on that, and as I mentioned briefly in class, now that class is for all intents and purposes done, I have been asked by several of you if the blog will stay up after Friday. It certainly will, you are all more than welcome to continue to visit and comment if you so wish and I will continue to make posts that you (hopefully) find as interesting and relevant as any of the ones made during the session. I will also try to provide more in-depth how-to’s based on some questions I was asked over the session, and if you have anything you’d like to see or know more abut please be sure to ask. Many students both new and old still ask me questions and I’m happy to respond. If it warrants a post, I’ll put one up.
I will also, at some point in the hopefully near future, move the entire thing over to its own domain. I have already registered is301.com, and while there is nothing there yet, by making the move I intend to add additional interactive and social features making the site more dynamic and inclusive. I’m excited about it and we’ll see how it goes.
I’ll be making a few more posts this week so you have a chance to get any comments in, and thanks again for a great session.
Federal websites don’t screw around
This won’t be a very long post, I just wanted to show all of you that the federal government wants to be very clear in your expectations of privacy when using their websites. It also fits perfectly with the discussion of security and privacy we’ll be having tomorrow (or today, depending on when you see this). I was recently using the IRS.gov site when I was presented with this window:
It almost sounds scary, but to be fair it’s no secret this happens. It happens on most websites, actually, government or not. Their wording sounds Orwellian and apocalyptic, but it’s par for the course when conducting business online. I actually don’t have a problem with it, you can’t have 100% privacy and also have 100% security, you have to make sacrifices in one to have any amount of the other. Even so, the wording is so forceful it gave me pause. Maybe I should have used my real name instead of the pseudonym “Gleeson McNasty.”
Look what I got!
I suspect many of you got the same thing. You will find at the end of this post an email from Cox claiming they have just doubled my Internet speeds up to 50 Mbps. I don’t even have to do anything!
That’s very nice of them. However I’d like to make a couple of points about this email; first, I tested my connection on Speedtest (remember that?), and I pulled about 27 up and (amazingly) 16 down with a ping of 36, which is good, not great. My national grade is a B+ and my regional grade A-, however subsequent tests to Mojave were slower while Las Vegas was faster, as expected.
However, the email has some important word choices in it. First, it says “up to” 50Mbps, and the fact is you never get the max speed advertised as that’s only a theoretical based on ideal network conditions which never exist. It also mentions at the bottom of the email you should use what’s known as a DOCSIS (the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) 3.0 compliant modem, and they’re right. If you’ve been using the same modem for more than a year or so, you might want to call up and see if they’ll upgrade you.
Speaking of making decisions
Since the session is winding down, I thought I would make a post about a show that I think is superlative, brilliant, topical, intelligent, and pretty dang funny to boot. It’s Futurama, created by the same guy who developed The Simpsons, and what makes it great is that it has actual Ph.D.’s on the writing staff, including one in mathematics that discovered and proved a mathematical theorem that was worked into an episode! There are also writers with Ph.D.s in chemistry and computer science, and one with a law degree.
Futurama doesn’t do lowbrow. Science and technology are intricately woven into every episode, it’s one of the reasons I hold it in such high regard. While so many television shows strive to make us stupid, Futurama strives to make us smart.
Witten’s Dog, a corollary to Schroedinger’s Cat, and it tastes like grapeade
So what does this show have to do with class or making decisions? It turns out that there is an episode (episode 9, specifically) of Futurama from their ninth season titled “Free Will Hunting,” and the whole premise is that the Robot Bender discovers he has no free will and therefore lacks the ability to make decisions, after he lectured Fry on the importance of each decision one makes every day. Indeed, it is the seemingly small decision Bender makes to wear his ‘nerd glasses’ that sets off a chain of events worthy of Scorcese. It is brilliantly written, moves very quickly at first, and really offers an interesting commentary on the importance of making decisions, and the ramifications that can result.
It’s available on Netflix if you have a subscription, or if you know someone who has it it is definitely worth watching. I also thought about having an on-line episode viewing, but I suspect getting everyone together online at the same time is unlikely. But if you get the chance, don’t miss it!
Film may survive after all, sort of.
It appears that there may be a lifeline for stalwart American film company Kodak after all. They have had quite the struggle; filing for bankruptcy in 2012, removing their name from the once-iconic home of the Oscars, the Kodak Theater, an inability to keep up with digital competitors.
One the one hand, it’s hard to feel sorry for them. They screwed up repeatedly, for decades. But to be honest, myself and many others simply love film. It has an imperfect quality to it that coveys a realism lost with digital, and that was really brought to the front with the debate over the 48fps issue in The Hobbit (film runs at 24fps, the same speed at which the brain interprets movement). My TV is a plasma because it presents a warmer image than pure digital that makes any video viewed on it very full.
One of the things that makes great movies even greater is that they were shot on film
If you need further proof about people’s dedication to film, though, it looks as if some well-known film-director types including Quentin Tarantino and J.J. Abrams so love film they have agreed buy quantities of film from Kodak, even if they have absolutely no intention to actually use it. I also learned from reading the linked article that the new Star Wars is being shot on film. Now I can be a little more enthused about it, after the last three disasters.
Maybe we’ll see a revival. I hope so, I actually prefer video (maybe not pictures so much) shot on film, it gives real character.
Even TOR users aren’t safe now
Not that they should be. You see, there is a dark underbelly of the Web appropriately known as the Darknet. This is the place where people often carry out very illegal activities such as sell and buy drugs, find child pornography, suborn terrorism, traffic in weapons or even endangered species.
How does it happen? Through a project known as TOR, or The Onion Router, so named because it surrounds your browsing experience with many layers, like an onion. Essentially, when you use a TOR-compatible client you are routed through an even more labyrinthine series of points than you are when doing regular browsing. This makes it very, very difficult for anyone to track who you really are or what you are really doing.
Because TOR is so well-known for the bad things that happen, it has also been the target of white-hats who want to shut down those activities. It’s happened again and again and again., it’s a never ending battle.
Now, a new attack has happened, however in this case it’s to strip away those protective layers and expose those who are using the network. The attackers are believed to be two researchers from Carnegie-Mellon University who claimed to have found vulnerabilities in the network, and are to give a talk at the Black-Hat Conference that will be taking place right here in Las Vegas this weekend! Those same researchers also discovered flaws in a similar anonymizing service known as the Invisible Internet Project.
A lot of bad things happen on the Darknet, but it is also important to keep in mind it is also an invaluable tool for those who might have their privileges of communication stifled in any way, such as those living in oppressive (or not-so-oppressive) and restrictive regimes where access to the Internet is strictly controlled or prohibited to hinder dissent. In that sense it’s a valuable tool, but anything used for good can also be used for bad.
(Header image from cyberwarzone.com)
A most unusual post
Today I am writing two letters of recommendation for former students hoping to attend grad school, and doing a hardware review for a company’s network, so i won’t have as much time as usual to put up posts as I had hoped. Therefore, I am going to do something I have never done before and put up a post that is science-related but not technology-related.
C|net has an article about what would happen to you if your unprotected body was hurled out of an airlock and into unfiltered space. Don’t think it doesn’t happen; if The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Outland, and Futurama’s treatment of Attila the Hun, Dr. Moriarty and Evil Lincoln have taught us anything it’s that it happens all the time.
So if you’re ever at risk of being sucked out of an airlock, at least arm yourself with the knowledge of what to expect. As quickly as technological advancement occurs, you never know when you’ll find yourself floating in space!
Maybe we need this app here in Vegas
I keep hearing about the terrible drought that southern California is currently suffering through. Have these people never been to Las Vegas?
Either way, considering that the drought is very real, the response to it has been weak, and no one wants to see Mad Max become a reality, people have started using apps for something called Water Shaming.
Using apps like VizSAFE (iOS and Android) which is described on their webpage as “Crowdsourc[ed] Community Safety and Awareness” and H20 Tracker (iOS and Android) that lets users learn about conservation and report wasters to their local government, people have now started ‘shaming’ those that are considered to be wasting water. Pictures are taken of the offenders and then sent out to other users of the app. Twitter has also gone crazy with the *heavy sigh* hashtag #DroughtShaming.
You. Stop that or be posted to social media.
I am virulently against any shaming on social media, there’s no place for it and no reason for it. We’ve all seen the terrible stories about the way innocent and undeserving people are shamed on social media for who they are. Sometimes this shaming leads to the ultimate tragic result.
Having said that, I feel I can get behind DroughtShaming. The drought is a serious problem, all it takes is one look at Lake Mead and the Boat Docks it supports (and that was from 2008!). These people, unlike those who were targeted in my previous example, have a choice in what they are doing, and they shouldn’t be doing it. In fact, since this practice, drought shaming, started getting public attention, water use in southern California dropped a small bit. Even though officials seem to be against it, I guess in this exceptionally narrow example, it’s had a positive effect.
Chronicling the use of words in the New York Times
Now here is an interesting exercise. The New York Times has put up a very simple webpage called Chronicle that lets you enter a term, and it will show you how often that word has been used in articles from 1860 until now. It can be incredibly interesting to see how linguistic trends sometimes mirror actual societal/political/economic trends when tracking terms like war or recession, however I, of course, wanted to see how some technology terms were represented.
You can see in the graph below that the term ‘computer‘ started to come in to use in the late 1950s, and had a huge peak around 2000. Both of those make sense; although the government had relied on computing machines for quite some time, during this decade we saw the introduction of the UNIVAC which was the first machine that was used by a business, the development of the FORTRAN and COBOL programming languages, creation of the transistor, even the cover of TIME magazine trumpeting a new computer system and its benefits.
Use of ‘Computer’ in NYT articles since 1860
The graph below shows the use of the term ‘Technology’ over the same time period, and it closely mirrors what we saw above. It also shows that several terms can be combined for the purposes of comparison, as I have done with ‘Computer,’ Technology’ and ‘Digital.’ The trend for ‘Technology’ starts around the 20s when we saw the introduction and general acceptance of Radio and other advancements, and ‘Digital’ taking off areound the ’80s when vacuum tubes started to be widely replaced by integrated circuits in consumer devices.
Use of ‘Computer,’ ‘Technology’ and ‘Digital’ in NYT articles since 1860
And then of course my favorite graph, by which I mean the most depressing – ‘Kardashian.’
I won’t dignify this with a caption
I find it most interesting to see how certain terms reflect the social interests of the time. You’d expect that, but some surprising results can be found as well. If you discover anything unusual, let us know.
