01.26.10
Posted in Apple, Geek Culture, Google, ramblings at 1:14 pm by Nate Smith
Unless you have been living under a rock, or perhaps in the electrical power-less tundra of the Midwest, you probably knew Apple was making an announcement on 1/27/2010. I have been predicting and prognosticating about what Apple might be up to on other entries here tomorrow we may find some things out. Here are the questions I would like to see answered:
- If Apple introduces a new device, is it a tablet, and how many displays will it have?
- Will apple somehow redefine a product category or create a completely new one?
- What kind of secret deals has Apple been up to in order to secure whatever new content might be available on a new device (books, newspapers, magazines)
- How does the new Apple device fit into the Google picture?
- How does the announcement further extend the iTunes media monopoly?
- Will there be a new iPhone or iPod touch in addition to a possible new device?
- Will there be a new firmware or OS for iPod or iTunes?
- Will a new wireless network provider be involved?
And Finally, one more thing….
- Will Steve Jobs be stepping down at Apple?
That’s a lot of questions, but there have been a lot of secrets, rumors and questions about how Apple could change another media category like books and magazines, and how they could subsidize an expensive new device to make it more affordable to the masses.
Once the announcements are made and the dust settles we can start guessing at how long it will be until the next revision of a potential new product and when it will cost $100 less than it did at the announcement. Apple fanboys, warm up your wallets.
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07.16.09
Posted in Geek Culture, Google, rant at 9:35 am by Nate Smith
Remember the early days of Google? The Google page itself was plain and white execpt for the search form and the primary colors of the Google logo in the midde of the page? Remember when searching Google brought back results instead of advertisements? All the results were truly results, there was not a thinly veiled listing of commercialized results at the top?
Google once had a motto, “Don’t be evil”. Do you think a motto like that would loose its emphasis once the happy times are over and they discover they need to make some money to support all the amazing projects, long term initiatives, and employee benefits. How long can it be before they replace product quality with marketing as other large companies have done?
Has it already happened?
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04.28.09
Posted in Geek Culture, miscellany at 9:51 am by Nate Smith
Some people think geeks complain a lot. I believe some geeks complain because they can always see a better way of doing something or can imagine doing it optimally. Sometimes that means complaining because it wasn’t done their way. Even a solution that everyone agrees is good-enough is still probably sub-optimal. In the case of software this may because of sub-optimal tools on hand used to create it. And sometimes, even a really clever hack is still a hack.
Many geeks see the world as it could be, instead of how it is - which may explain why so many geeks like science fiction. Maybe a little too much. Doing what geeks do and approaching things as they do is our way of changing the little bit of a sub-optimal world we can have an effect on. The geeks who are working hard and are not complaining are busy taking over the world.
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02.26.09
Posted in Debian, Geek Culture, Hacks, Slug - the NSLU2 at 10:08 pm by Nate Smith
The Griffin RocketFM wasn’t cutting it. I hooked up a small USB audio adapter and a Ramsey FM30 Stereo FM transmitter and now I 
am cooking with GAS. The Ramsey FM30 has great power and range - all around my house and a bit beyond so I need to be careful not to get a visit from the FCC.
I had an old BBE sonic maximizer so I put that in the loop between the USB sound adapter and the Ramsey and now the Audio is almost commercial quality. (there is still some noise getting in somewhere - probably from dirty power). The BBE boosts the highs and the lows enough to make the music sound a little more robust.
This is exactly what I wanted for working around the house and in the garage. I’m looking forward to the summer.
The only thing I would like to add is the ability to Text-to-speech the local NOAA forcast and slip it into the playlist on a regular basis.
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02.15.09
Posted in Debian, Geek Culture, Slug - the NSLU2, gadgets at 1:53 pm by Nate Smith
I’ve wanted to stream from my SqueezeCenter to a radio for a while, this looks like one way to do it. It works but I’m still looking for alternatives.
The Griffin RocketFM is a USB device that can be plugged into a computer to broadcast sound over FM to radios in very close proximity. I found code and instructions for using the RocketFM under Linux here: http://tipok.org.ua/node/9 . (Thanks to Tipok.org.ua by the way). I followed the instructions there and built this little code on my Slug (NSLU2) and installed mpg123 on the slug. (apt-get install mpg123-alsa). Then you set the frequency the rocket is supposed to transmit at like this:
/usr/local/bin/rocket -freq 106.6
Then start mpg123 to play through squeezecenter, which I already had installed.
mpg123 -b 512 –gapless -T http://192.168.1.1:9000/stream.mp3
You don’t have to use all the switches, but I found these are working well for me right now.
Make sure SqueezeCenter is set to play something then tune in the radio to the station you set and you should be hearing it on the radio. Sometimes it takes a few seconds to buffer the stream and start to play.
I was amazed it worked at all, but it works OK. Great use for a slug as a personal radio station. I’d like to see if there is a way to get more range out ofthe RocketFM but I’m sure the range is limited by law.
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12.21.08
Posted in Geek Culture at 3:38 pm by Nate Smith
I love this movie, and I can’t get it out of my head. The Dark Knight is easily the best movie of 2008. The thing I like about it is how it explores a lot of scary concepts with the plot while also being very visually exciting.
The two themes that interest me most are the collision of the Joker who has no rules or remorse and is literally an agent of chaos collides with Batman who has to stop him. Batman has lines he will not cross and at least one rule - he will not intentionally kill. Then within this theme you have Batman who can (he has the financial resources and placement) override everyone’s privacy to gain the means to find the Joker. For me this touches on the Patriot act and whether as a people we trust our government enough to give them this power. Batman chooses to take the power. Does he do the right thing and surrender it in the end?
Heath Ledger is a good joker, but I don’t think he is the only person who could have played the Joker (Crispin Glover - yeah, no kidding, I think he could have done it). Ledger’s take on the Joker is perfect for this movie and fortunately not over-the-top. The Joker is almost believable as a criminal even though the concept of a makeup wearing super-criminal is silly.
I think the writing for this movie touches on genius and now that I’ve seen it several times I see where the subtle groundwork gets laid to make the plot work.
This movie leaves me wanting more Batman with Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan. On the one hand I am afraid they might lower the bar if they do another one, but if they can top ‘The Dark Knight’ I think they should. And I think the Bat-Man should go up against overwhelming odds.
The Dark Knight is a truly great movie that explores important ideas in a fanciful way.
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11.13.08
Posted in Geek Culture, rant at 11:17 pm by Nate Smith
We need a new unit of measurement to roughly estimate quantities of data, The HDEQ or Hard Drive Equivalent. For now, I think it should be the equivalent of a 1TB hard drive (let’s not split hairs over whose version of a Terrabyte).
Why do we need this?
You may have noticed a lot of people adding things like “please consider the environment before printing this” to the bottom of their email.
With the HDEQ we would have an offhand way of asking “I wonder how many HDEQs are filled up with this message?” and we would have a pretty good idea of what we meant.
It would come in handy in other places where we need to estimate how much storage will be needed or is in use or where we need to discuss the economics of storage. In a few years when 10 TB disks are commonplace, that will become the new HDEQ.
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05.14.08
Posted in Geek Culture, rant at 1:04 pm by Nate Smith
The “Berryheads” are those people (cause we would never do this) who are trying to walk while typing on their blackberrys. They run into people, walls, and get off on the wrong floor on the elevator. They make OGBs (Original Gansta Berry-users) shake their heads in disgust.
Watch out berryheads, you put yourself and others at risk until you realize whatever you have to say really isn’t that important. Or you never figure it out and go down as proof that natural selection is at work all around us.
UPDATES
7/29/2008 Chicago Tribune - text walker trouble
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05.11.08
Posted in Geek Culture, Linux/*BSD/Unix, gadgets at 4:26 pm by Nate Smith
I had some trouble installing Squeezecenter (formerly Slimserver) on Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04). Everything goes according to the instructions from the Slim Devices (Logitech) web sites but once you try to access the web server problems pop up.
It seems the issues stem from Apparmor. A program used to protect certain settings on Ubuntu. you can see the issued in /var/log/messages.
After a lot of digging the answer was available here: http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=7580#c1
There is probably a more elegant solution but this will work for now, and I just wanted to point anyone else in this direction in case others have problems.
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03.25.08
Posted in Geek Culture, rant at 9:01 pm by Nate Smith
I have switched out many of the lights in our house with compact fluorescent lights. On many of them I have taken to writing the date of the installation on the base of the bulb. A lot of the bulb packages will say the bulbs have a guaranteed lifespan of five or seven years. Several of the bulbs I have installed so far have not lasted this long. Two or three years it seems.
I suspect there is a probably a big difference between manufacturers and that most CFLs are not yet getting the payback they promise. I have used both inexpensive bulbs and expensive ones.
Caveat Emptor!
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