A tale, oft repeated…

This was a story I’ve shared many times; my father gave me a circular slide rule. It wasn’t just a slide rule, though; on the back of the slide rule was the periodic table of the elements. Circular site rules are different; you have to learn how to use them differently than a regular slide rule which is long like a ruler-straight. I spent a lot of time perfecting my skills with a circular slide rule. Inside in the middle of the circular slide rule, there was a plastic sheet. You could pull it out, and it had all sorts of information on it. I realized that that was not an item of technology. You would probably not even consider that in the technology realm. But that’s circular slide will spark my love of technology. I have spent the rest of my technology quest to replace the circular slide rule.

I have long since replaced the capabilities of a slide rule with the scientific calculator available on my iPhone. Before that, I had a programmable HT calculator that did way more than the circular slide rule ever did. But the functionality of the circular slide rule wasn’t the driver for my love of technology. Rather it was the ability to do multiple things with a simple single thing—the Swiss Army knife approach. Which works very well for some things; it works not as well for others. For example, my favorite 3D printer, the snap maker, also does CNC carving and laser engraving. That is a Swiss Army knife 3D printer. It works very well. So Swiss Army knife-style multitool work. I think it’s interesting if you look at the handheld tool market. Another tool that has taken off like a Swiss Army knife is the Leatherman series. I have one myself. I use it all the time. It is my primary plier in my office. I’m always shocked at how often I use flyers in the modern world.

I’ll end with this, the value and power of what your cell phone can do, compared to that circular slide rule of mine from more than five years ago, is amazing. Couple that song with the ability to receive and send out 5G network, which can be amazing. However, I would caution you that the TV commercials saying the most 5G bars nationwide don’t make for the best 5G signal nationwide. The ultimate measure of 5G is the throughput of data to the device. You can have five bars of 5G signal and still only get less than a gig of net transfer. You want to get more than a gig of transfer speed up and down. That is the true value of 5G. 5g is this, but it is more, 5g when you can move a movie to your phone in less than 10 minutes. The number of bars you have is simply a pretty picture on your screen. And by the way, that can be artificially changed by simply tricking the phone’s OS. So the next time you hear that commercial, remember it’s not about the bars; it’s about the throughput.

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Apple watch detected a fall, are you OK?

I am deeply saddened by the continued march of Russian troops in the Ukraine situation first because it is a horrible unprovoked open act of war. Second because nuclear determents were mentioned. Finally, my third is that I remember when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. A people that did not want the soviet invasion. They ended up leaving because, honestly, they underestimated the impact. I suspect that has happened again. The saddest reality of history is watching someone repeat the same mistakes.

Interesting technology event yesterday; in my family history blog, I mentioned that I fell while walking. More a pride thing than an injury thing this time. Although my knee is sore, and my elbow is sore today. However, when I finally started getting up again, my apple watch informed me that I had fallen. Two things happened, a screen popped up with a timer. The timer was simply if I didn’t respond to the watch, it would call 911. There were two options on the watch screen.

One was I’ve fallen, and I need help. The other was I have fallen, and I am OK. I selected the second option, and the watch then confirmed that I was OK. That is an amazing feature; I know they have a TV commercial where the apple watch call for a user is played (so and so has fallen, and is not responding. Latitude and longitude). I have to say that while I was embarrassed that I ultimately fell, I was impressed with the technology working so effectively to protect me!

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the power in your pocket!

The growing area of tablet and phone add-on stations that replicate a lot of the functionality of a desktop are interesting. I have one for my iPad. It allows connecting USB and an HDMI out video port. That makes my iPad virtually a desktop in the sense that it can do a lot of the things I use my desktop for now. There are also stations for your phone. I suspect you will see those stations replace the laptop/desktop combination for many workers in the next two-three years.

But, what always amazes me is the sheer functionality now available for the phone itself. I carry two phones today (one for work, android, and one for personal iPhone). The later versions of both operating systems are a lot closer to each other than the Mac and PC are. Although, for me, the biggest gap remains that Macs don’t have touch screens. I press the screen of my mac multiple times! Still, the use of the systems is much closer now than it was when I first made the mac to PC transition.

Where I honestly still struggle is the tablets. The Android Tablet is just less useful than the iPad. Now, in fairness, that may be my thing. But I find that I use the iPad every day and the android tablet less than once a week, not because it’s hard, just because it is not as simple as the iPad.

I will end simply with this—hope springs with the rise of the sun each day. I truly hope that saner heads will realize war solves nothing.

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Cool Tech Review Speechify!

One of the products I use more and more is the subject of today’s Shameless Review. My rules for those reviews are simple; it has to be something I use. It also is not something that I wouldn’t spend money on. IE, if I get something for free that I ultimately give to someone else, I don’t review it! This product is very useful when walking, driving or just sitting and relaxing. It is ultimately a text-to-speech device. I know there are many on the market; I’ve tried most of them, this is the best.

The application is called Speechify. It is available from Google Play and the Apple App Store. I used the free version for about three weeks. The primary difference is the amount of data you can convert. I often like to read web pages (technology focus I gave up on the news). Here is what you can do with this cool program. You can copy and paste the text into the application, and it will read it. You can copy and paste a URL, and it will read that. You can pull documents out of iCloud, and it will read that. Of course, the speech is somewhat machine-focused, but you don’t notice it overall.

Overall the application is not cheap. But you can see from the picture that it has made my startup bar on my iPhone. I circled the speechify application on the screen as it doesn’t have a name on its overall app icon. It also has add-ins for safari and chrome. That way, you can get to web pages and listen to them in the application. You can also post things in your iCloud for later consumption in the application.

What I like

• Easy to use
• Easy to add new material to the application
• Speech is mechanical but does not pronounce words
• Works with external speakers and headphones
• It does allow integration with Google Drive.

What I don’t like

• It is expensive
• There are limited remote data stores (one drive would be nice)

I give Speechify a 10 out of 10!

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You too can prevent forest fires, keep ignoring Climate change…

First of all, the fact that president Biden has proposed electric vehicle recharging stations around the nation is amazing. On my last trip to Amsterdam, I didn’t see a single Electric Vehicle charging station; I saw multiple such stations. There are nations in Europe heading to the zero-emissions world (we need to be a net negative, net-zero is a bad thing in the long run.) We need to start getting more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. It is simple math. CO2 traps the sun’s rays and heats the earth.

The anti-climate change argument makes me nervous based on that CO2 presence. It is less than 1% of the entire atmosphere. Based on that, it only takes a little variance to end up with a HUGE problem. The presence of enough CO2 in this atmosphere would kill humans. Lots of CO2 will kill more than humans. It will kill dogs, cats, and every living thing on earth. That 0.4% number is misleading. That amount has to be small. The good news is that people are working on it and pushing for change!

I saw a horrible meme the other day. It was Smokey the Bear standing in a barren landscape. The meme’s caption read, “Yes, there is another way to prevent forest fires forever. Keep ignoring Climate Change. There won’t be any trees to burn.” I grimaced, then smiled and ultimately decided it was pretty harsh. It is not too late, although it is close. We are all to blame. Children, adults, and the elderly all own a piece of the carbon we’ve dumped into the sky. We need to be responsible and start heading to net -1; NetZero leaves us with too much carbon dioxide in the air!

Link to two longer Climate Change pieces

https://discover.hubpages.com/politics/A-question-of-Climate-Change

https://discover.hubpages.com/education/Futurist-The-problem-of-Climate-Change-is-huge-and-I-am-only-one-person

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so many people lost already

I suspect the suggestion to take Russia’s seat in the UN security council is probably the best thing to do.

This is not the first time Russia or the USSR has gone to war over something that was at best questionable. Isn’t it time to take harsher action?

Our world is a fragile place.

I spent a lot of time with various technical issues over the last few days. I got several fixed and, in the end, had two reoccur. It isn’t very pleasant to fix something, and then it does not work again. Murphy’s law includes a corollary, work on something hard enough to improve it, and it will break. I lived that one twice this week!

The good news is I did get a couple of other issues taken care of, so it was a wash for the week. I also created a new problem wholly on my own. But I am pretty sure there is an easy fix for that issue. Funny how much time we take in trying to solve problems.

I will end with this. I am disheartened that a former president of the United States would come out in favor of a despotic invader who is willingly killing thousands of people. I do not see a historical path where a larger nation invading a smaller nation is justified. I would lean more towards that situation where the smaller nation is being bullied. We are a world of equals. We are a world where every life matters. Those oppressed have the right to stand up and say so. It’s time we try to make things better for all!

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What new business in your city, grow it!

The concept of smart cities is one that still resonates with me. I do understand that the cost-benefit analysis is critical. Cities don’t have huge budgets. But when we talk about the impact of a smart city, the savings can add up very quickly. I don’t see why every city in the world requires a solar array on the roof of every building taller than ten stories. It seems a good way to offset the impact of buildings on a city. The power reduction would be significant, and the value is incredible overtime.

Now the area I am going to pursue today is the innovation zone. That is an area I’ve thought about for a long time. Cities are always looking for companies to relocate their headquarters or facilities to the city. Why not build your own companies? With a city incubator, you could quickly bring, start and grow new companies in your city. Take an old wreck of a building in the downtown area. Turn that building into a technology mecca. The city can do so much to help new startups.

First, the city can provide a standard network that allows these new companies to start. They can offer city-wide bulk purchasing for Azure, AWS, Good, Oracle, IBM Cloud, etc. The more you buy, the cheaper things get from cloud service providers. They can also provide a security infrastructure so the new companies aren’t at risk and yet still have the freedom to do what they need to do. If we had these incubators running in every major city globally, more and more startups would flock to cities.

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science is the process of testing

Time is relative in that the closer to the speed of light we get, the slower time appears to move. It is more of an external observer seeing time moving slower the closer to light speed we get. To us, time passes at the same rate. That is one of the postulates in Einstein’s special theory of relativity. The nearer we get to the speed of light, the slower time progresses. One of the interesting things I’ve been reminded of lately is the evolution of science. It is very sad to me that people don’t understand science.

Scientists leverage educated guesses then form a hypothesis. Once there are working Hypotheses, the scientist develops tests. Or another scientist in the case where the hypothesis cannot be tested when it is postulated. The goal of the test is to verify the parameters of the hypothesis. If the parameters are verified, then the hypothesis becomes a theory. Eventually, theories that stand the multiple test that result from their existence become laws.

But laws are not immutable either. Look at Newton’s laws of gravity. The general theory of relativity (published by Einstein, after the special theory) negates one of Newton’s laws of gravity. That is what science does. Science tests ideas to see if they are possibly true. But, a scientist doesn’t care if someone comes along and disproves their theory, educated guess, or hypothesis, even disproving laws. Science is about testing to determine if something rings true. I realized yesterday that science is so hated now because there aren’t a lot (if there are any) of the grand conspiracy theories that can stand the rigor of testing. The sad reality is the adage is now true. If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS. We have entered the age of BS.

(by the way, there is no such thing as a conspiracy theory. They are all at best conspiracy guesses. No one ever tests any of them).

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Get a longer selfie stick!

Does your selfie stick reach far enough so that your frown doesn’t show?

In the modern world, the rise of digital cameras has been interesting. In particular, I am most interested in the rise of digital cameras in cell phones. I know that many pundits talk about how Facebook has driven more picture taking (look what I am doing). But the reality is that the cellular camera is the biggest driver. I complained for a long time about the quality of that cellular camera. That isn’t the case now, but there are still issues with the overall quality.

I’ve noticed lately that TV shows are using the various cellular connection software or meeting software packages to show people on the go- participating in live video calls. For the most part, if you have many people speaking on conference calls on their cellular phone, the reality is they are not sharing video. That is because it is extremely bandwidth-intensive when people use video chat. Not only are you carrying the normal phone audio, but you are also carrying data in the form of video.

We have all seen video calls where the person’s bandwidth wasn’t good enough. They are the person on the calls whose image goes from 30fps (roughly what the human eye sees) to 10 fps. Your eye will know the difference between those two frame rates. As if the person is doing the mime routine of slow-motion movement. So it’s interesting that on TV when the characters do a video call, it is always perfect. It will be in an Ultra 5g zone, but it will be a little less clear if you aren’t. That is why the front-facing camera on your cellphone has a much lower rating in megapixels than the back camera. Lower megapixels for video mean smaller images!

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a 30 year joy ride…

I am always amazed at how far technology has come in just 30 years. Years ago, we were in Detroit, visiting a graphic conversion business (basically, they took 3d renderings and turned them into a video. That, by the way, at the time was the state of the art. Now, you can do that on your phone). Anyway, I was tired and took a nap (we drove up after work and then waited 9 hours for the video and drove home). When I woke up, I watched an artist draw on the computer with a pencil.

It was a Wacom tablet (I still have one) and a Fractal Painter program (I still have a copy of that as well)! Fractal was bought by Corel years ago. However, in the modern age of computing, that tablet by Wacom is now the screen of the computer often (still by Wacom often)! That evolution is just amazing to me. Steve Jobs once famously said you don’t need a stylus, but now even the iPad has the pencil! But that is only one-way computer interaction has evolved in the last 30 years.

The rise of VM’s made your PC similar to a mainframe (which could run discrete or separate applications 30 years ago). Now you can have a windows 11 computer and run a Windows server 2022 or a Linux box simultaneously. Cloud is the evolution that came out of virtualization (the original virtualization programs were much harder to use than what we have now). The processor is probably 20 if not 40 times faster than the first Pentium chips. Those Pentium chips were much faster than the 386 and 486 chips they replaced.

It has been an interesting ride!

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