Top 10 cell phone wish list

Cellular vendors and manufacturers, PLEASE listen to this lady. She's right!

Watch out, the Replicators are here!

This and other robotic developments in the last few years are starting to get scary!

The description of these sounds just like the buglike Replicator robots in the TV series Stargate SG-1.

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Ok, I may have to find another bank...

Wells Fargo has connected all it's ATMs using the Web and Microsoft technology.

What a bunch of maroons. Banks are normally the most security conscious places. Apparently someone forgot to inform their IT department that if you want security, Microsoft is who you do NOT use.

Is this Sony's answer to the iPod?

As PDAs, cell phone, MP3 players, camera, etc all converge, one has to start wondering what happens to the iPod and other stand-alone gadgets.

My Sony Clie NX unit is darn near all of the above in one; if they had an internal HD instead of memory cards (so I could approximate my iPod's 40GB of storage), and it had cellular support, then it WOULD be all of the above.

Sony's been publicly embarrased by the iPod.....and has now withdrawn from the PDA market too. But perhaps THIS is a sign of where they are going. And the rest of the industry as well.

Looks like an iPhone to me. A Walkman-Phone. Who'da thunk it.

Now they tell us...

Now they want men older than 65 who smoked to be screened for aortic aneurysm (a "bubble" in the large artery leaving the heart heading toward the legs).

Like the one that killed my father, who was 67.

Now they tell us. They've long known it's a problem, believe me. My dad's doctors told us so, and for the very reasons that this new guideline uses. In fact, my dad's surgeon told me and my sisters that WE should be tested regularly. And I'm only 42 and my sisters even younger.

My dad's mom had an aortic aneurysm (although they say that's not what killed her, but I'm not so sure since as this article points out a burst aortic aneurysm is often thought to be a heart attack or stroke...and my grandma died of a "heart attack").

And my dad's cousin's husband had an burst aortic aneurysm too. He survived, and was very VERY lucky to do so, as about 75% do not.) And he was DRIVING when this happened. When an aneurysm burst, you basically pass out. NOT what you want to be doing while driving. If my dad's cousin hadn't been with him to grab the wheel and stop the car, he'd have crashed. Talk about lucky people!

Not that this new "guideline" makes things that much safer for the person with the aneurysm. Aside from the fact that you bleed out quickly, it causes lots of other complications. And the surgery to repair it is almost as dangerous as having it burst - to fix it you have to cut off blood flow to the bottom part of your body, which is exactly what the aneurysm does. This causes clotting, possibly loss of blood to organs, even major ones depending on how close to the hear the aneurysm is, etc. Which points out that however "perfect" the creationists think "God's Design" of the human organism is and other parts of nature is, and how it couldn't possibly have come from evolution....it's quite far from perfect! You couldn't ask for more eloquent proof against the creationist and other "intelligent design" loons.)

There are other developments as well. About 2 months after my dad died, my mom and I were flying out to California to visit my sister's new daughter, who was born the month after he died. During this flight to visit a grandbaby who her granddad never got to see, I ran across a small article in the in-flight magazine about a new procedure that helps strengthen the artery by putting a "stent" (sort of a "liner") in the artery and stave off the burst...perhaps even letting them repair it withough cutting off the blood flow to the lowe part of your body.

I recently had a $$$ ultrasound scan for aneurysms, and plan to do so every few years for the rest of my life. My insurance company paid for it, and some stats in this article does make me breathe a little easier...but still, I was around my dad's second hand smoke for many decades, and I wonder how that affects me. I'm trying to be more healthy, eating better and exercising....but with my dad and my grandma both having aneurysms, I have to wonder how much is smoking/lifestyle and how much is genetics.

What the HELL is wrong with people these days?

Frightening. Truly frightening.

Here's another market that the Mac mini will capture

People who are "tech support" for their computer-maintenance-challenged parents and other family members.

I keep hearing the refrain in reviews and commentary articles (of which there are a lot, the MM is generating quite the buzz) that the reviewers or interviewees are planning on buying one or more for their parent/children/relatives because they are tired of dealing with repairing the constant Windows virus and spyware attacks and general Windows cruft that builds up and takes out a Windows box.

Add that to the Unix techies all flying to the Mac because it is absolutely THE best Unix-oid laptop bar none AND it runs MS Office apps and all the other popular mainstream apps like Quicken and Photoshop and so on.

And there is a lot of curiousity among the other computer-techies to buy one to "check it out." I just hope most folks get it with at least 512MB RAM (another $75 from Apple or less if you do it yourself...hopefully the mail-order folks like Mac Connection and such will give you free RAM upgrades as they often do. Heck, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the Mac mini show up in PC oriented mailorder catalogs. Apple would be stupid NOT to purchase placement for the mini there; I think they'd done so for the iMac and Xserver and stuff!)

There's also a lot of even the computer techies who want a system at home that's powerful and that they don't have to spend huge amounts of time maintaining.....because they too are tired of having to screw with Windows at work all day. I know I love to go home to my Mac from my Windows PC at work all day. Windows has it's points.....but none that don't make me far prefer the Mac. None. In fact, some of the things I like (Visual Basic for example) now have better products on the Mac....RealBasic is just as good, just as well supporte by third-party developer add-on libraries (check Versiontracker and see) and unlike VB, it's cross platform -- you can compile for MacOS X, MacOS 9, Windows, AND Linux. And soon you'll be able to develop in RealBasic on all of those platforms (or at least MacOS X, Windows, and Unix too). And it supports Windows versions back to 98 I believe.

Oh yes, the folks who make the decisions about computer purchase are about to get a wakeup call. IT folks can always use more time; I'm not so sure that making desktop computer require less support will mean they'll have any less work to do. The other folks at work always seem to be able to find more for you to do....and hopefully that "more to do" will be more fun and interesting than fighting virus and patches and spyware and other Windows crap you have to put up with. Most folks I work with use Word, Excel, a VT-100 terminal program (just use Terminal on the Mac) to connect to our Alpha minicomputer, e-mail, and a web browser. If we didn't have a bunch of databases I developed in MS-Access (the one thing that is NOT in MS Office for the Mac) then we could pull out their PC, give them an Mac mini with Office and they'd be fine. And I'm trying to move away from Access dbs, as it's too easy for people to go in and screw around with them and screw them up, switching to using VB interfacing with a database backend (preferrably Oracle or someting similar instead of a local database, with no interface they can use to screw things up.)

Oh yes, the next few months are going to be interesting....if you are thinking about a Mac mini and haven't placed your order.....you better do so NOW. It may already be too late if you want to get one anytime soon. I think we'll have them backordered for months before they even start shipping, I do.

Why the Mac Mini is going to be a huge success

Why? Because the head IT honcho at my office, a man who lives and breathes Windows all day, is going to buy a Mac mini.

This seems to be a common refrain in the news reports.

And I think a whole "Mac mini" economy like that which sprang up around the iPod and the Palm is going to develop too. Lots of little USB2 or Firewire or other add-ons that stack underneath the Mac Mini (or beside it; have several stack) with things like hard drives, video switchers, memory card bays, PVR boxes, and on and on, despite that's not being the target market for Mac minis.

Apple may have a bigger market (and additional markets) for the Mac mini than it assumed.

Or maybe it DID know what it had after all. Home entertainment Mac. Home Mac server (get your own domain name here! No more e-mail address switching when you move or switch ISPs!)

If my PowerBook G4 ever needs to go in for a service, I can now go get a $499 or $599 unit to use with an old monitor and keyboard and mouse to tide me over. Much cheapter than a low-end iBook even!

I'm also seriously thinking about using this as a home Internet (web/ftp/mail/news/dns/dyndns/etc) server since it's likely to have a low power options because it uses a laptop drive. I used to use an old PowerBook Duo 2300 as a server because the hard drive could spin down and it could turn off the screen backlight to reduce power usage. I'll betcha the Mac mini can do that too.

Steve Job's Master Plan

I've always thought that Steve Jobs and his minions had a long-term master plan to bring back Apple and eventually screw Microsoft at it's own game.

Looks like, based on this article that I'm not the only one who thought that (or at least has realized it).

When the XServe was announced, I was pretty sure my hypothesis was coming out in the open. With the Mac Mini, I'm even more sure. Not to mention that Apple is out-Sonying Sony in the media market. I especially liked that Steve-o managed to get the head of SONY to kowtow to him publicly.

Now we just have to make sure that Steve doesn't go too far in his pride. This is the man that told Disney to "shove it" after all. But then again, he never has suffered fools gladly, has he?

Hot damn...Apple makes an iCheap!

...and an iPod cheap too

And they're starting to encroach on MS Office's turf more too.. Last year it was a PowerPoint replacement (done better) and an Explorer replacement (done better). This year it's a Word replacement (done better). Anyone want to be there's an Excel replacement waiting? And of course, they already have an Access replacement (sort of) in FileMaker. I think this is Steve Jobs saying to Bill Gates "don't thing you can hold Office over our head...we've got a replacement for your crappy Office stuff now."

And Windows Server's turn

Hell, and Cray's turf with all the K's of Xserve's being clustered these days!

Steve's doing a stealth-end-run around Microsoft in the business market. Cheap servers and cheap clients. Cheap server OS's. And if all else fails, an Intel version of OS X is a few compiler-switch settings away, remember. If MS does ever kill Apple (not likely) then all Steve has to do is open source the REST of OS X (the part other than Darwin, i.e. the GUI) and make it available for Intel hardware....and watch all of Microsoft's market share (and Linux too) run (not walk) to OS X!

Heh.

Paintable solar cell material discovered!

Scientists have discovered a more efficient solar cell material that converts up to 30% of light (including infrared) to electricty; two to five times more than current solar cells do.

And you can paint it on, incorporate it into clothing, whatever. Your clothes could recharge your cellphone or PDA. Your walls could power your house. Your car's paint job could charge your battery, crack water into hydrogen to run you car....you get the drift.

Another interesting link.

I wonder what happened to the flexible/moldable plastic solar cell material that someone at a university here in Iowa was working on?

I've always thought Windows computer were junk, but I had no idea how much...

eBay has started an e-waste program to recycle or resell or donate old electronic equipment, notably computers. The figures on the number of computers alone to be recycled in the next few years is staggering. And the amount of heavy metals it will put into the environment is staggering too. Over 400 million computers in the next 3 years. [And since Apple only sells about 4 million Macs a year, I can guarantee you that most of those are Windows computers, as Apple will sell only about 12 million at present rates in the same time period.]

Most cell phones are replaced every 18 months (and last I heard there are more cell phones sold every year than computers!). I've been thinking about a new phone, but frankly, they are starting to get so overloaded with features that I think I'll just hold off a while until they finish "converging" cell phones, PDAs, iPods, and digicams together. And then wait a bit more until they work the kinks out. Or until Apple makes one (which may happen sooner than you think) as they are the only ones likely to do the job write. Microsoft certainly won't (despite repeated attempts so far.)

Even more interesting is the fact that over 75% of all computers ever sold remain stockpiled in storage rooms, basements etc. (I've got most of my old ones!)

It's time and past time to pull them out, put Linux on 'em and use 'em for servers, to processes SETI or other science data, grid computing, whatever. Donate 'em to old folks/kids/schools/low-income folks who need simple 'Net access, too. Or maybe my local school for use by younger kids. The big problem is finding the older software they'll need.

I've been trying to think how I could redeploy some of my old computers for my own use, too. I'm going to put one of my old Newtons with it's speech generation software in my bedroom so that it can wake me up and make sure I drag my butt into work for important meeting (I'm not a morning person and the alarm is just too easy for me to ignore...both of them I have). Pity that the company that made that software the Newton had for downloading a TV guide went out of business....now that there is wireless WiFi access available for the Newton, I could have left a couple more old Newtons by the TVs in my house, and have them pick up the schedule automatically and wirelessly. Not so needed anymore with my satellite dish, which has a searchable guide, but not all my rooms have been wired for satellite; the rest are wired for cable tv, and the local bare-bones non-digital cable I have with my broadband access doesn't have a program guide (certainly not a searchable one). Newtons also make better (wider/taller) web browsers than most pocket-sized PDAs do. Yep, I really need to revive those old newtons and revisit them for portable web browsing, They're not color, but that's ok. With the use of the wifi drivers now available and www.skweezer.net to strip all the extraneous graphics out, they should make pretty good portable 'Net padds!

Other initiatives on the 'Net like FreeCycle or R.O.C.K. (recycle old computer kindly) are good ways to give new life to old equipment. If they don't get too "picky" for their own good. Our local R.O.C.K does just Windows PCs, for gawd's sake. They also want fairly new ones, and functional ones. Ridiculous! And they don't do Macs...which seems senseless to me since the give a lot of computers to schools....and most local schools use Macs (I just saw a picture of a computer class room at an Urbandale school recently, full of current eMacs and some older original iMacs. You'd think that R.O.C.K. would be interested in stockpiling any sort of computer part they could find. Or software. Maybe they got too many donations to store or something, but still.....they seemed awfully picky! And giving a PC to a school seems counter productive...it's widely known and proven that schools don't have the resources to keep PC's running and virus/worm free....and Macs don't have to worry about that.

I've also heard of an organization that ships old computers over to poor/developing nations in Africa and Asia.

I keep my previous computer as a "backup" for my current one; so should everyone. it's easier for me, since I use laptops exclusively. But of course, by the time I buy yet another new one (typically 4 or 5 years with Macs) the old one isn't worth much if you tried to sell it. I've given a few to relatives who have far less powerful computing needs than I have, but that only goes so far. Some friends of mine asked me recently to help them reformat and sell their old Mac laptops (an Duo 230 and a 1400 and a G3/230. The 230 is probably worthless, and the 1400 not worth much of anything...and the 230 they should keep as a backup for the new iBook G4 they got.)

I use laptops mostly, since about 1990, so I've thought about putting my old ones around the house since they are convenient for a quick web-lookup, and take up little space or power. I recently put my most recently replaced laptop in my bedroom as a CD/DVD player, too...and since I have a wireless network, it's also a good way to access the 'Net quickly without having to go downstairs. I'm debating whether I want to leave it in sleep mode, as I don't really use it all that much. I'll have to find figures on how much power it uses in sleep...but it's certainly going to be much more practical if it starts up immediately than if I have to wait a minute or two for a boot.

I'm also thinking about pulling the old Duo 2300 laptop I had before that out of mothballs; When I bought my PowerBook G3, I had set it up as a web/ftp/mail/news/dns server to run my old Info-Newt web site about the Apple Newton Messagepad. I had to take it down when I moved to my new place because about that time the Code Red virus hit and the new broadband provider I switched to when Qwest repeatedly dropped the ball moving my DSL account to the new place (at two weeks intervals for almost a month!) had closed all the ports I needed to run the servers, to prevent Code Red from spreading, and the server wouldn't work anymore. I think they've opening things back up now.

I used a laptop as a server because I can easily set it to spin down the hard drive and turn off the backlight and even slow down the processor when it's not busy....perfect for a low volume personal server. Most new computer that are Energy Star certified may allow this as well, laptop or not.

Now I just have to figure out how to let data reach the system past my firewall without having to pay my provider extra $$$ for a second IP address. Should be loads of fun, since the concept of "user friendly" has yet to really reach the halls of network router hardware makers...

Anyway....dust off that old computer equipment and put it too good use! Don't put it in the landfill. Either way, putting the old computer in the closet or the landfull is a WASTE. Try to keep all the old manuals and disks for your computer in one place too...a computer isn't much use without OS and application software manuals and disks...and you often get new or upgraded apps when you get a new computer. I'm sure your old apps and software can be of use to someone somewhere. FIND THEM! Even if they are in your own household or family or neighborhood. Even if they don't use them much (like the computer I gave to my Mom). You don't use a rake or a snowshovel every day either....but we still have them around when we need 'em. That's why I'm so glad to see laptops pushing 50% of all computers sold or more (at Apple anyway). They take up a whole heck of a lot less room, and for most folks are perfect. Most folks except gamers and computer hobbyists don't need huge boxes full of card slots or huge screens. A laptop is what they need, and more and more of them are realizing it.

Cool SF artist site

Just found the web site of an interesting science fiction and fantasy artist, Stefan Martiniere. Never heard of him before, despite having a long-time interest in SF/F artists such as Michael Whelan, and it turns out I have been seeing his work a lot. He's worked on books, animation, films (such as the recent I, Robot and The Fifth Element, theme parks and rides, and more. Busy fellow, according to his résumé

Feeling overstressed? I resemble this remark

If you feel overstressed, overworked, and wonder why the wonders of modern technology haven't made the world a utopia, you're not alone.

Technology is good....but can be used badly.

Examples are everywhere (and no, i don't just mean Mac vs Windows ;-)

One big reason why I use MacOS and PalmOS

An article in the BBC points out today one big reason why I prefer Macintosh computers and PalmOS PDAs to Windows PCs and WindowsMobile/PocketPC PDAs:

The number of viruses. Which doubled in 2004, and exceed 100,000.

"The last 12 months have seen a dramatic growth in almost every security threat that plague Windows PCs.

The count of known viruses broke the 100,000 barrier and the number of new viruses grew by more than 50%. "

The current virus tally for the MacOS? Zero (OS X, that is. OS 9 and before had a few wimpy-ass virii that never did much.) Sure, the Mac has only a few % of the market (installed base is far larger though) but with 4 million new Macs sold every year, and older ones kept running and passed on to friends and family instead of being pitched like most Wintel PCs seem to be, there's a LOT f Macs out there (50 million maybe, I'd estimate) and that's GOT to be a big enough target for the virii writers. THere have been proof of concept works and virii for the Mac...but it's still next to impossible for them to spread, due to the inherent security of the OS compared to Windows....which has always been and still is a sieve, despite Microsoft's so-called best efforts.

And the success of the iPod is encouraging more switchers than Apple's "Switch" ads ever did. Not to mention constant, repeated press coverage of such switchers and articles by PC pundits who've tried the Mac...and liked it, some even staying switched or at least going cross-platform (often with a Mac-laptop, widely knows as among the best along with the IBM Thinkpads)

Here's to a kick-ass 2005, Apple. (Palm, you'd better start doing some ass-kicking yourself...or just rename yourself to "Treo"...or Microsoft's going to do to you what they did to Apple in the 80's and 90's.)

John Young retires

Just read that astronaut John Young is retiring from NASA. The amazing thing is that he's been an astronaut as long as I have been alive (he joined in 1962), and flew six missions in four different spacecraft (the article in the link doesn't explicitly state it, but from the fact that he flew two Gemini missions (including the first), two Apollo missions, and two shuttle missions (including the first), I make that the Gemini, Apollo, LEM, and Shuttle. He's 74 this year.

Hats off to such a pioneer spirit. Would that the world, the USA, and NASA had many, many more like him.

I'm not a big reader of biographies, but if he has written one I'd like to. I'll have to check out the Biography channel to see if they do a bio program of him. They should.

UPDATE: Here's the NASA biography of John W. Young.

Maybe there really WERE Hobbits!

Interesting story about the discovery of a group of hobbit-sized hominids down in the South Pacific (ironically the The Lord Of The Rings movies were filmed in New Zealand, also in the South Pascific).

And apparently (Komodo) dragons and oliphaunts (although dwarf ones) were present too.

When someone tells you it's impossible...ignore them and do it!

A group of high school students with a shoestring budget have made a totally self-sustaining hydrogen powered car (truck, actually). It uses sunlight and water to produce it's own fuel. It's a bit ungainly, but it works. Hey, they weren't concentrating on pretty, they were concentrating on functional. All the "experts" figured it'd take 20 years.

Looks to me like all it needs now is a little polish and miniaturization. We can dang sure do that (and if we can't, the Japanese or the Taiwanese can). Heck, the PDA in my pocket is so far in advance of the first room-size digital computers it's not funny. (Say, does that make PDAs "bonsai computers". You know what bonsai trees are; trees that are miniaturized and trained and shaped to be tiny versions of real trees many hundreds of times larger.)

Anyway...If I were the oil industry, or the Arabs, I'd be quaking in my boots right now. Sell your oil stocks now!

I've always thought that with the research I saw on solar cells that are much more flexible and conformable (almost like plastic) that you could use it as some or all of the car body (hell, make the sunroof be a solar cell!). Your car sits outside 8-10 hours a day at least....use that time to crack water into hydrogen and oxygen. Use the solar cell to power a condenser to get pure water out of the air, and a compressor to store the hydrogen. It doesn't have to TOTALLY fill your car yet....we have to let the oil industry down easy, so let them switch to selling hydrogen. Oh, and use a bit of that electricity to put a blasted low power fan in your car to exhaust the hot air that builds up, so that you don't have to fry in the summer when you get in your car to to go lunch. And perhaps use the heat/cool differential to condense water. There are electrical devices that COOL (Pilzer effect or something like that). What happens with cool surfaces in an otherwise hot humid environment (like Iowa in summer?) Condensation! Water (and nice clean water too). And the rest of the year? Shovel some of that good old Iowa snow into a hopper and let the sun melt it. Make hay (or hydrogen) while the sun shines. Hell, design the car right and you could have the snow melt into channels to fill up your water tank for cracking. Take a look at the neat little heating elements on your rear window sometime. Get the idea? Put those on your roof, trunk, whatever, and let them drain into the water tank.

Hell, with a little good ol American ingenuity, we could even make an engine that works on either gas or ethanol or hydrogen. Don't tell me it can't be done. You're wrong. As someone will prove presently, if you're silly enough to say ANYTHING can't be done.

Ain't science wunnerful?

Necessity is the mother of invention, and people are starting to ANTICIPATE necessity now. Hot damn, the world's not entirely going down the crapper (despite Bush and Cheney Inc.'s attempts) now is it?

I wonder if the GOP (Greed Oil Power) will change their acronym to GHP?

Dang, maybe those rumors of a car that ran on water WERE true.

Now maybe that space drive (the Dean Drive) that was rumored, or those anti-grav devices that you hear about from time to time will turn out to be true, too. Or cold fusion? (Hot fusion sure isn't going anywhere...fa$t!)

Oh well, if they aren't, true, I'm sure we'll invent them presently.

And private companies like Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites are making private spaceplanes and winning the $10million X-Prize, and Bigelow is working private space stations and funding a $50 Million prize for the first private orbital craft (the next step for Mr. Rutan, I hope.....he's certainly someone who can get the job done right and without gorging at the public trough, too). And Johns Hopkins Univeristy appears to be creating the first private deep space probe, with a mission to Pluto, Charon and the Kuiper Belt. And about time too...NASA seems to have lost the Right Stuff. (Even more so this week, as "Gordo" Cooper passed away...on the same day that Spaceship One won the X-Prize no less. I think Gordo's spirit might be looking after SpaceShip One!)

Ad astra per aspera! Illegitimi non carborundum!

My, Robot?

Lots of what appear to be practical developments in consumer robotics these days. And now, I'm not talking about the Sony Aibo robotic cat and dog, or the Honda Asimo (named for robotic-fiction writer Isaac Asimov, one of whose famous works was the (apparently very loose) basic for the current Will Smith flick "I,Robot".

These are robotic lawnmowers and floor sweepers. Things more in line with what Robert Heinlein's character Dan Davis came up with in "The Door into Summer".

• Electrolux's Automower lawnmower


• Electrolux's Trilobite floor sweeper (cute name)


• Roomba's floor sweeper.
  

And on the not-quite-"practical"-but-a-hell-of-a-lot-of-fun front, check out the movie of this Korean humanoid kit robot. It dances, it does karate, it does calisthenics. Nifty.

Personally, I'm kind of fond of the toy R2-D2 robot from Hasbro I've got that can respond to voice command, etc. (Especially the "easter eggs" it has - if you have one, tell it to "follow me"!)