Technically Speaking

TV is dead!

That was the verdict from my brother-in-law the other day. As Neil commented in his epistle to the masses, he mainly watches downloaded or pre-recorded video rather than 'live' TV. With the technical advances in downloadable content and the number of people using high-speed connections, the traditional use of the TV as an entertainment system is changing rapidly. The number of console games using HD quality video and the more action based games such as Rock Band and those associated with the Wii are more suited to the widescreen large TV's that are the norm. To be honest, I haven't sat in front of my TV for ages - often I'll just stand and watch a brief part of whatever is on at the time. Other than soaps and the occasional movie, my wife hardly watches either. So what, you ask, do I watch?

Other than a few (very few) modern dramas or comedy shows, I find very little to see. I found 'Friends' a poor substitute for 'Coupling', never found 'Seinfeld' funny and could easily forget the other shows. In these days, the 'net is my friend. I tried watching both 'Rome' and 'The Tudors', but after the continuing scenes of gratuitous sex I gave up. Sorry to say that they are both rubbish. The Tudors is especially awful due to the absolute lack of any real history and the actors are nowhere near the right look and the script is laughable. Instead, I would recommend to anyone that you use YouTube (or as Conan has it - YouTwitFace), for some real historical drama. I really recommend 'the Six Wives of Henry VIII' and 'Elizabeth R'. For you Roman viewers, try 'I, Claudius'. I also went back to some really clever Sci-fi stuff that certainly presages the X-files - 'Sapphire and Steel'.

The 'naked' truth

I suppose that, since the infamous 9-11, we must take extra and intrusive surveillance as an unpleasant new reality. This seems to be the case particulary with airport security. To be honest, a lot of this added security seems to be the equivalent of 'closing the stable door after the horse has fled'. One (read that, one) lunatic had explosives in his shoes and now we all have to take our footwear off for scanning. Another (again, one) crazie had liquids to create an explosive and now even baby bottles are suspect. This latest security technique seems to be from the same mold.

Not content with just regular metal and x-ray scanning, we now have a full body scanner that would reveal our innermost secrets. Passengers in Manchester airport in the UK will soon be subject to being seen in their 'birthday suits' as these new scanners from Rapiscan will be soon in place. The technology behind these scanners is actually very clever and I can see the appeal - but, I can also see the issues as this BBC report mentions.They SAY only one person views these images and they are destroyed at once - you believe that? I sure as heck don't. I see the scene now as several people gather round the screen:
"Look at the **** on that!"'
"I THOUGHT it was a man!"
"Get me a copy of that."
The opportunities for abuse of the images are so manifold. They tell us the images cannot be stored - sure they can't. Again, many people will say that if you have nothing to hide, then you won't be concerned. Everyone has something to hide and I don't want people looking at the parts only my wife or doctor should see (for differing reasons, I hasten to add).

Let the Whining Start

I thought that this post (sorry that it's been a while) would fall under the 'just for laughs' heading as I anticipate a lot of silly nonsense about this news. Live View has finally come to Canada on Google Maps! It's quite a lot of fun to do a virtual walk about the city of Toronto and a few (very few) other selected towns and cities. Unfortunatly, Courtice isn't there yet - which is odd because I saw the Google car come down my road earlier this year - I was looking forward to seeing my mansion (ha!). Why the 'nonsense'? It seems that every time Live View has been rolled out, there has been a blizzard of the disgruntled, upset and just plain paranoid comments in all media outlets. There are the questions in parliament, local municipalities and in the press. There are those who feel that this is the thin end of the wedge of government scrutiny, terrorist attacks and petty crime outbreaks. I can hear the complaining now;
"O dear! They can see my house, my car, my pets, my children and how many garbage bins I have"
Well, in a way we can see all this and my response is 'so what'. Anyone with a camera can take the same pictures and not bother about covering up faces, signs and license plates. In addition, I can take pictures that are up-to-date and not 6 months old. I find Live View quite entertaining and a way to travel down memory lane. By using it to retrace routes I took when I went to school or went shopping, I can believe that I am in some sort of time machine and go back to my younger days. Just as an aid to travel, it can be a very valuable tool. I feel that we should accept that our various ideas of 'privacy' must be tempered with the new technologies out there. How many bad people are out there looking at every frame on every street looking for YOU? I'll make a guess - none..

Fooled you!

Sometimes companies will announce or intimate that certain features would be included on new and upcoming products that serve to create a demand. The new iPod and Nano from our heroes at Apple are a prime example of this. Consumers were expecting a camera on both items and were rather taken aback when the iPod appeared camera-less and the Nano did have the anticipated camera. According to Mr. Jobs, this was because the iPod is a 'games' device - oh really? It appears that there is a space inside  the iPod case for a camera module - but it's empty. I can imagine the conversation;
"Damn, we forgot the camera. What do we tell people?"
"How about we say that it's intentional and it doesn't need one"
"What's the boss supposed to tell people?"
"It's a 'games' machine and doesn't need one."
"Yeah, they'll fall for that."
Good old Apple - always has an answer for us gullible fools.

The funny thing is that not only were we (the public) fooled, but also the accessory manufacturers. I was looking for a silicone case for my iPod and found a reasonable priced one in a local store. There were also other budget priced cases in two types. When I inquired what the difference was, I was informed that the more expensive one had a hole for the new camera on the updated iPod. The salesman (women) was rather taken aback when I told her that there WAS no camera on the new unit. We also had a good laugh  at the idea of paying more for a case with less silicone (a hole) and how silly the situation was.

About damn time

After all these years, Alan Turing is finally being apologized to for the way he was hounded to his death by the British government and it's archaic homosexual laws of years past. Mr. Turning has finally received an official apology from Her Majesty's Government - only 55 years too late for it to really mean anything. If history was written fairly, he would be a name as big as Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, instead he is only recognized by the few. To those few, he is only known for the 'Turing Test' that measures how intelligent an artificial brain is. I suppose that's not a bad legacy to have. If you are familiar with the Blade Runner movie, the test (Voight-Kampff) used to determine if you are talking with a replicant is a form of Turing Test. He should be also remembered for his pioneering work that helped create the first true computers and by doing so helped ensure an Allied win in WWII. He is truly an 'unsung hero'. It's interesting how we can look at one persons work and then find that he was destroyed by an unthinking and unyielding government and legal system - I wonder how many people like him are littered through the discarded pages of history. Whether or not you consider homosexuality a 'sin' or something 'bad' is not really relevant when it comes to the contributions of brilliant individuals like Turing. As the post title says; about damn time!

Picture this

Sorry about the long gap between posts. I've been busy getting my new boardgame 'Land Dreadnoughts' into shape. Without the use of a PC I have no idea how I would have done this. It amazes me to remember the early dark ages of wargame design when everything was done by mechanical assistance; no word-processors or desktop publishing software then. Now, when I make a change to the counters or rules, it's a sinple matter to make the adjustments and move on, all within seconds. I'm not a great whiz in the art department, so that my use of MS-Paint for my counters may seem a little silly for the more experienced artists out there, but it works for me. I will transfer my counter art to Adobe Acrobat when I work out how to do it. Other than that, Word is a perfectly good program for creating the rules and all of the combat tables I need - I must say that I do prefer the older versions of Word - the newest one doesn't seem as intuitive to me.

What all this shows, is that there is no right way or wrong way to do what you need to do on your PC - just what works for you. Sure, there are others that will just laugh at the way I do what I do, but I don't care - I get where I want to - eventually. As an example of 'what works', I used to create my new or replacement game pieces in Paint and then resize and print them through Photoshop. The results were not always what I expected or were rather poor quality. What a twit I was - I Just needed to correctly use the settings in Paint and now my counters look just perfect. I suppose, like any man, I hate reading instructions. The picture above shows the artwork for the Dreadnoughts themselves - what do you think?

King of the World Ma!

A new player (sort of) has flung it's hat into the ring. It now seems that Google wants to take on the big boys to take it's share of the operating system market with it's Chrome OS. I'm sure that Microsoft and Apple are quaking in their boots at the news - not! I wish Google well, but I doubt that the establishment has too much to worry about. Mind you, I could be wrong, it has been known to happen. The rise of certain operating systems and applications is quite interesting and mainly one of buying out or crushing the opposition along with clever marketing and public misinformation. It was never a sure thing that Windows would become the dominant OS as there were other and better multi-user operating systems out there and the market share of Amiga and Apple products was by no means to be ignored. Even the dominant position of Adobe, especially in the portable document (PDF) market was not assured - again, there were other and, in my opinion, better products out there. Remember Stacker, the disk doubling software? It took a couple of years, but finally they were defeated by Bill Gates' little company. Coreldraw was another casualty of the software 'wars'. Even the giants of their times, Lotus 1-2-3 and the venerable Wordperfect fell by the wayside. In my opinion, the rise of Windows destroyed these products as they found it hard to be truly Windows compliant. Change is good, we are told - I'm not too sure. Good luck Google - I'll be watching.

Touch me, feel me!

Still playing with my new iPod Touch and finding out it's little tricks and the neat things it can do. Other than loading up with my music collection and downloading various games and applications (Jailbroken? I'm not telling you!), I've been surfing the 'net, checking out YouTube and navigating around the World, I've also been looking at all the accessories available. I found a nice acrylic case for the thing but found that I'm useless at placing a screen protector - where does the damn dust and grit come from? I needed some cheap headphones and found Radio Shack just right for that simple thing. I was looking at the various external speaker solutions, but didn't really need another boombox, just a simple and inexpensive solution would do.

Good old RedFlagDeals.com and Walmart came to the rescue with this little beauty. For the money, I am quite impressed. The simple benefits of ultra portable and requiring no batteries or power cables are perfect when teamed with the portability of the iPod. The sound quality? Well, it's not what you would call great, but it's quite adequate and actually reasonable considering the size and price. There is a stereo version available, but I don't think that it would be worth the $60 that is being asked for it. The only downside to having this iPod to play with is that my aging eyes have a hard time coping with the small screen and sometime they just go completely out of focus - or is it the booze?

How could I be so wrong?

If you read a recent post, you will see that I thought that the new MacBook Pro hype was over and done with. Boy, was I ever wrong! A couple of days later, my young lad motored off to the Apple store and returned hours later with a shiny new 13" MacBook Pro. Being a canny shopper; he bought it as an educational purchase and saved $100 and got a 'free' iPod (horrible mail in rebate). He has since spent all his waking hours playing with his new toy and installing sundry applications and Windows 7 via 'Boot Camp'. I must admit, it is a really nice looking item and is one of the best looking laptops I have seen. The screen is very good and the 'chiclet' keyboard is real easy to work with - reminds me a bit of the old Sinclair I used to have. He's not too happy with OS X, but I'm sure he will soon get used to it. The only issue so far, is the trick needed to integrate it into our wireless network - Windows Vista is a real pain in the nether regions when it comes to networking.

The REALLY good thing about his moving into the Mac world is what happened for Father's Day. I got a nice 8GB iPod Touch to play with. What a good kid! I'm only just getting used to it and still finding out the cool things it can do, so I'll have to get back to you on how it goes.

He IS Watching you

Good old Big Brother - he's alive and kicking well after 1984 has receded into the dim past. Our wonderful government has decided, in it's wisdom, to insinuate itself even more deeply into our daily lives. The recent tabling of a bill to force ISP's to give personal information to the authorities and to allow the police to monitor internet communications will mean that no ones information or communications will be safe. There is also a provision to use tracking devices that are now part of our cell 'phones and cars to keep a wary eye on us. Now, it's easy to say that if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to worry about. What a a pile of horse dung! Everyone, and I mean everyone, has something to hide in one way or another. This is just a way of our police wanting to see what we are all doing and to hell with our privacy or basic human rights. If you believe the government, we are beset by terrorists, pedophiles and other unsavory characters such as illegal file downloaders at every turn and we must be protected from ourselves. Nonsense, I say. Fight this bill!

On another note; notice how little information has been seen on our news channels regarding the row in the UK over MP's expense claims. I think our own politicians are a little worried that they could (and should) be under the same scrutiny. My opinion? Of course they should. The addition of a weblink to see exactly what MP's have been claiming is now available in Britain and is quite illuminating. I think it's time we did the same here - we have had too many stories over the years about our public officials and their spurious claims. Time to shine a spotlight on the whole pack of them and see what scurries out. I feel that our politicians (our employees) are running scared and they should be. Big Brother should be watching you instead.