Saturday, November 06, 2010
Herschel-ATLAS Finds Gravitational Lenses
Large numbers of unusually bright images in the far-IR which appear to be galaxies magnified by gravitational lenses in newly released data from the Herschel-ATLAS project
“Our survey of the sky looks for sources of sub-millimeter light. The big breakthrough is that we have discovered that many of the brightest sources are being magnified by lenses, which means that we no longer have to rely on the rather inefficient methods of finding lenses which are used at visible and radio wavelengths,” says lead researcher Mattia Negrello of the Open University.
Negrello says that “…Our results show that gravitational lensing is at work in not just a few, but in all of the distant and bright galaxies seen by Herschel.”
Tumblr, Twitter and Blogging
I just read the article Can Tumblr Topple Twitter by Paul Sawers and poked around Tumblr a bit more this morning. One thing I realized about Tumblr is that it can look quite a lot like Twitter. You can post brief, tweet-like messages and the page display (using one of the default themes) is quite clean and Twitter-like.
Add to this the searching function, the Reblog buttons, and the ability to follow other users, and you basically have Twitter. Hm.
But, there's also the versatility of it being a blog with titles and of course much longer posts, if you wish. Hm.
Looking at the default set of themes on Posterous, there's no doubt the thinking there is that this is purely a blog. All the themes and layouts look blog-like.
Of course there's nothing preventing you from posting short, subject-less posts of, say, 140 characters or less.
Add to this the searching function, the Reblog buttons, and the ability to follow other users, and you basically have Twitter. Hm.
But, there's also the versatility of it being a blog with titles and of course much longer posts, if you wish. Hm.
Looking at the default set of themes on Posterous, there's no doubt the thinking there is that this is purely a blog. All the themes and layouts look blog-like.
Of course there's nothing preventing you from posting short, subject-less posts of, say, 140 characters or less.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Important: Steve Gibson Explains Firesheep
with Leo Laporte on Security Now. If you never watch another TWiT video/pod cast, you should probably watch this one.
A new Firefox extension, Firesheep by Eric Butler, allows anyone at an open WiFi hot spot (e.g., current, typical Starbucks) see your face, your Facebook and other sessions on other services and have full access to your stuff and whatever you're doing. They can look at your pictures, change them, make posts, change your profile and even reset/change your password.
The fix is simple: If you didn't type in a password to access their WiFi, then it's not secured. If you typed in a WiFi password (technically, if they use WPA encryption), then all is okay. Hopefully everyone involved will fix this as soon as possible. Until then, beware.
Some sites are secured against this themselves, e.g., Gmail, such that it's not a problem, because they force the use of SSL (https://).
Note that there's a brief chunk of news discussion in the early middle of this video. You may want to skip ahead to 44m30s.
For computer folks who may be wondering, the blinking lights behind Steve Gibson are old PDP-8 computers! 8-)
A new Firefox extension, Firesheep by Eric Butler, allows anyone at an open WiFi hot spot (e.g., current, typical Starbucks) see your face, your Facebook and other sessions on other services and have full access to your stuff and whatever you're doing. They can look at your pictures, change them, make posts, change your profile and even reset/change your password.
The fix is simple: If you didn't type in a password to access their WiFi, then it's not secured. If you typed in a WiFi password (technically, if they use WPA encryption), then all is okay. Hopefully everyone involved will fix this as soon as possible. Until then, beware.
Some sites are secured against this themselves, e.g., Gmail, such that it's not a problem, because they force the use of SSL (https://).
Note that there's a brief chunk of news discussion in the early middle of this video. You may want to skip ahead to 44m30s.
For computer folks who may be wondering, the blinking lights behind Steve Gibson are old PDP-8 computers! 8-)
Embracing the Virtual
I'm starting to embrace virtual computers and machines, and virtual computing in a big way.
I'm also starting to embrace video and music streams vs. media and soft downloads vs. buying hard media.
More to come.
I'm also starting to embrace video and music streams vs. media and soft downloads vs. buying hard media.
More to come.
The 11-in Macbook Air
I saw the 11-in Macbook Air at the Apple Store last night. My first impression is, Wow! My second impression is, Yeah, Apple is right on this one, this is the future of the netbook/laptop computer.
Additional impressions:
Additional impressions:
- This is better than the iPad. Yeah, I've finally played with iPads on a few occasions and it's compelling and amazing, but I'm not sure how practical. The enthusiasts I listen to on podcasts are starting talk about migrating back to their laptops and refer to the pad as always a second computer that you want to use, but that it's maybe even a luxury.
- The 11-in screen is sufficient and the resolution is the same as on the 13.
- My 13-in Macbook Pro seems big now. 8-/ And heavy. !!
- I've been expecting the end-of-media for a few years now and I'm starting to embrace it. I'm resisting buying CDs, DVDs and Bluray discs, and a Bluray player, so far. So, no so-called optical drive is okay, I think.
- The 11-in has exactly the ports I use, USB for a mouse and keyboard, video for external monitor or TV, audio for speakers or headphone.
- The wider aspect screen seems shorter and is a bit off-putting. I don't know if it would actually be bothersome but that's something to take a second look at.
More later.
Basically I've had nothing but reservations about the iPad from the start, in spite of being excited about the idea of a computing pad for decades. I have no reservations and I'm pretty excited about this computer.
Web Site Easily Cracks Windows 14-Char Passwords from Hash
CIO Zone has an article by Dan Dieterle has written about a web site put up at Objectif Securite which can crack a 14-character Windows password from an input hash in only a handful of seconds. Their secret sauce is using fast solid state drives (SSD) to make cracking very fast.
If you are a Windows user then it may help to know, before you completely panic, that using this technique requires getting the stored hash of a password. This means they've already broken into your computer, and have access to everything, before this could be used.
A common technique on computer systems is to take a password, use a hashing function to turn it into a long, random-looking string, and store that string on the computer. Then, to verify a password when you type it in, the hash function is applied to what you type in, a long string is generated and it's compared to the stored string. If they match, then the assumption is that the passwords match and you're authenticated.
Another assumption is that the hashing function is essentially one-way, i.e., you can't take the hashed string and immediately turn it back into a password. The above web site uses a brute-force type of attack to make this possible and break that assumption.
So, again, to use this to get your password, an attacker would have to have already compromised your system to dig out the hash string. For a single computer this isn't that big a threat.
What is the threat then? Well, at a site, say a corporate office, by compromising a single, poorly protected system, say some person's desktop, an attacker could get the hashes and then use this technique to get the password of an important user, even the site or system administrator. They would then gain immediate access to other more important systems, the entire corporate infrastructure, and important corporate data. The intruder could potentially live and operate, well-hidden, in such a compromised system for weeks or months.
Etc.
It doesn't seem that long ago that we considered eight-character passwords to be secure. I used 14-char for a while simply because that was the maximum limit Windows allowed. Now I use longer passwords (and no, I'm not saying how long), for non-Windows systems and web sites.
Pretty soon, you're going to start seeing other “factors” used to authenticate to a system. In other words, you'll no longer just type in a password, you'll have to do something else, say answer a question. Or authentication may involve something else you have with you, like a key of some sort. Some well-designed financial sites already use such techniques now.
If you are a Windows user then it may help to know, before you completely panic, that using this technique requires getting the stored hash of a password. This means they've already broken into your computer, and have access to everything, before this could be used.
A common technique on computer systems is to take a password, use a hashing function to turn it into a long, random-looking string, and store that string on the computer. Then, to verify a password when you type it in, the hash function is applied to what you type in, a long string is generated and it's compared to the stored string. If they match, then the assumption is that the passwords match and you're authenticated.
Another assumption is that the hashing function is essentially one-way, i.e., you can't take the hashed string and immediately turn it back into a password. The above web site uses a brute-force type of attack to make this possible and break that assumption.
So, again, to use this to get your password, an attacker would have to have already compromised your system to dig out the hash string. For a single computer this isn't that big a threat.
What is the threat then? Well, at a site, say a corporate office, by compromising a single, poorly protected system, say some person's desktop, an attacker could get the hashes and then use this technique to get the password of an important user, even the site or system administrator. They would then gain immediate access to other more important systems, the entire corporate infrastructure, and important corporate data. The intruder could potentially live and operate, well-hidden, in such a compromised system for weeks or months.
Etc.
It doesn't seem that long ago that we considered eight-character passwords to be secure. I used 14-char for a while simply because that was the maximum limit Windows allowed. Now I use longer passwords (and no, I'm not saying how long), for non-Windows systems and web sites.
Pretty soon, you're going to start seeing other “factors” used to authenticate to a system. In other words, you'll no longer just type in a password, you'll have to do something else, say answer a question. Or authentication may involve something else you have with you, like a key of some sort. Some well-designed financial sites already use such techniques now.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
GTD Realization of the Day
While sorting through a big box of cables that I'd collected, I realized that I don't need a 6-liter box full of telephone cables and jumpers with RJ-11 connectors. The fact is, we don't even use wired telephones any more!
Friday, October 22, 2010
I Manage by Dipping
Into the information firehose that @louisgray speaks of.
In an early talk by Laura Fitton, @pistachio, was the idea that Twitter was a stream to dip into, not a flow to fully consume. You don't try to back up and catch it all, you just dip in and take from what's flowing by at the time, like channel surfing on TV. (Well, at least some of us remember pre-Guide channel surfing).
My way of doing this is to read Twitter once or twice per day. I usually read it in the morning and, occasionally, a time or two throughout the day. Maybe more on days like a holiday when I have more free time. I generally read back a little way into my stream of followees, typically covering the most recent hour or two of posts. There are some followees that I will click on to read further back in their stream. Those tweeters are likely to be a news web site, almost never an individual with the exception of a few bloggers. That way, I catch up on their stories of the day and not just what they published in the last hour or so.
In fact, since I tend to read Twitter early in the morning, it's heavily slanted toward Great Britain, so selective reading back on some streams helps balance that out.
For Facebook, I generally only look at the Facebook gadget on the home screen of my Nexus One Android phone. That gadget is on the far left of the five screens, way over there with the music player, photo gallery, Shazam and such, so it's not where I normally go on the phone. I may click through recent wall updates that appear there, but it's only a handful. I probably do this less than once per day and just at random times.
After looking, I might actually click into the Facebook app itself and read more comments or reply to something. This makes my reading of Facebook a similar dipping into the stream. I don't keep up with everything that would appear on my Facebook page because I rarely log into it, maybe once or twice per week. But then, I describe myself as far less than a fan of Facebook.
The other way I interact with Facebook is through email when someone messages or posts to me directly. In that case, I probably do log into Facebook, via clicking on the link in the message (watch for phishing attacks!!), to reply or read further.
I don't use notifications at all (well, almost), so I'm not interrupted by beeps or buzzes or popups. Google Talk and Chat are silent in my configuration.
For years, I've maintained the practice of not using any sort of new-message email notification. I read email periodically throughout the day. Admittedly, I may check email more than once an hour, but it's part of my job. If I'm consciously trying to achieve more productivity, at a higher than normal level, I try to limit looking at email to less than once per hour or I wait until I've completed a timed session of working on a task. Usually I zero out my inbox in the morning so it's only additional messages that come up during the day. Also, my email is very heavily filtered, so I only see the most important messages anyway.
A side effect of this practice is that meeting notices that arrive in less than 24 hours may not work for me. Asking for more than 24 hours notice for meetings has been a standard request of mine for decades.
As far as chat goes throughout the day, I try to keep a browser tab visible, sticking out somewhere on the computer screen, typically out of the way over on the edge. There won't be an audible cue if there's a chat message, but I should eventually see the tab blinking if I happen to glance over that way. That's the closest thing to an interruption I get during the day.
There is one more exception to the above. My Nexus One Android phone does chime or buzz when I receive a text or chat message. Those tend to be almost exclusively from family or close friends, so they are the equivalent of an important phone call and only occur rarely thoughout the day.
So, to answer Louis Gray's question, I wasn't interrupted at all while reading his excellent post. 8-)
In an early talk by Laura Fitton, @pistachio, was the idea that Twitter was a stream to dip into, not a flow to fully consume. You don't try to back up and catch it all, you just dip in and take from what's flowing by at the time, like channel surfing on TV. (Well, at least some of us remember pre-Guide channel surfing).
My way of doing this is to read Twitter once or twice per day. I usually read it in the morning and, occasionally, a time or two throughout the day. Maybe more on days like a holiday when I have more free time. I generally read back a little way into my stream of followees, typically covering the most recent hour or two of posts. There are some followees that I will click on to read further back in their stream. Those tweeters are likely to be a news web site, almost never an individual with the exception of a few bloggers. That way, I catch up on their stories of the day and not just what they published in the last hour or so.
In fact, since I tend to read Twitter early in the morning, it's heavily slanted toward Great Britain, so selective reading back on some streams helps balance that out.
For Facebook, I generally only look at the Facebook gadget on the home screen of my Nexus One Android phone. That gadget is on the far left of the five screens, way over there with the music player, photo gallery, Shazam and such, so it's not where I normally go on the phone. I may click through recent wall updates that appear there, but it's only a handful. I probably do this less than once per day and just at random times.
After looking, I might actually click into the Facebook app itself and read more comments or reply to something. This makes my reading of Facebook a similar dipping into the stream. I don't keep up with everything that would appear on my Facebook page because I rarely log into it, maybe once or twice per week. But then, I describe myself as far less than a fan of Facebook.
The other way I interact with Facebook is through email when someone messages or posts to me directly. In that case, I probably do log into Facebook, via clicking on the link in the message (watch for phishing attacks!!), to reply or read further.
I don't use notifications at all (well, almost), so I'm not interrupted by beeps or buzzes or popups. Google Talk and Chat are silent in my configuration.
For years, I've maintained the practice of not using any sort of new-message email notification. I read email periodically throughout the day. Admittedly, I may check email more than once an hour, but it's part of my job. If I'm consciously trying to achieve more productivity, at a higher than normal level, I try to limit looking at email to less than once per hour or I wait until I've completed a timed session of working on a task. Usually I zero out my inbox in the morning so it's only additional messages that come up during the day. Also, my email is very heavily filtered, so I only see the most important messages anyway.
A side effect of this practice is that meeting notices that arrive in less than 24 hours may not work for me. Asking for more than 24 hours notice for meetings has been a standard request of mine for decades.
As far as chat goes throughout the day, I try to keep a browser tab visible, sticking out somewhere on the computer screen, typically out of the way over on the edge. There won't be an audible cue if there's a chat message, but I should eventually see the tab blinking if I happen to glance over that way. That's the closest thing to an interruption I get during the day.
There is one more exception to the above. My Nexus One Android phone does chime or buzz when I receive a text or chat message. Those tend to be almost exclusively from family or close friends, so they are the equivalent of an important phone call and only occur rarely thoughout the day.
So, to answer Louis Gray's question, I wasn't interrupted at all while reading his excellent post. 8-)
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Computing at Scale
or how Google has warped my brain by Matt Welsh.
Having been at Google for almost four months, I realize now that my whole concept of computing has radically changed since I started working here. I now take it for granted that I'll be able to run jobs on thousands of machines, with reliable job control and sophisticated distributed storage readily available.
…
I do all of my development work on a virtual Linux machine running in a datacenter somewhere -- I am not sure exactly where, not that it matters. I ssh into the virtual machine to do pretty much everything: edit code, fire off builds, run tests, etc.
Matt Welsh is a professor of Computer Science at Harvard University. His research interests include distributed systems and networks. He is currently on leave at Google.
Moon Map
This high-resolution map by James W. Head, Maria Zuber and collaborators based on data from the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter covers craters down to 20 km in size. Note the beautiful video! Passed on by Amanda. Published in Science.
From their abstract they conclude, “The characteristics of pre- and postmare crater populations support the hypothesis that there were two populations of impactors in early solar system history and that the transition occurred near the time of the Orientale Basin event.”
From their abstract they conclude, “The characteristics of pre- and postmare crater populations support the hypothesis that there were two populations of impactors in early solar system history and that the transition occurred near the time of the Orientale Basin event.”
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Don't Rewrite Your Code From Scratch
Says Joel on Software in this fascinating blog post. It's and oldie but well worth reading.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Inbox Zero
I read this interesting post this morning about cleaning one's inbox to zero. The zero inbox concept comes from, and is a central idea, of GTD, which I've been practicing for a year now. In addition to that, I was already practicing a form of email inbox zero before GTD.
Here's a quick list of how I do it.
Here's a quick list of how I do it.
- I use Gmail. That takes spam out of the picture completely.
- I use **a lot of filters** in Gmail to filter mail into a lot of labels. Most of them contain messages that I never read unless there is some reason to.
- The only mail in my Inbox consists of messages I want to look at.
- When I read them, if they require some action, If I can do it or reply immediately, I do. The GTD rule is replies that take less than 2 minutes. I probably use a rule or more like if it takes less than 30 seconds.
- Otherwise, I click on More Actions, Add To Tasks, and that email message goes into my Tasks list, which I use for my GTD process.
That's it. With this approach my INBOX gets, I don't know, I'd guess maybe 100 messages a week. A lot of them are ads from vendors I actually do care about, so I click through them with just a glance.
I use this same approach for both work email and home email.
In the spirit of Gmail, I don't delete messages (usually). So far, after using Gmail since it began, that's not been a problem. The excellent search capability means it's not difficult to find and email message that I may need.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
A Dog Named Beau by Jimmy Stewart
[Video] This has been a favorite moment of mine for a long time. I enjoyed watching it again when Penny sent this out the other day.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Out Though the Blog, In Through Email
With the communication world seeming as unstable as the Genesis Planet, I'm wanting to retreat to the blog as the only reliable home for my outgoing messages. It's relatively permanent (as things on the Internet/Web go) and I “own” and control all of the content. I can edit or delete any posting at any time.
The next problem is notification. How do I let particular friends or readers know I've posted something. They could subscribe to an RSS or similar feed from the blog, but that requires action on their part. I doubt they'll do that, so I need to send a notification to them. If they tend to be gathered in one of the usual places like Facebook or Buzz, then the blog can be gatewayed into those sites. However, the most reliable of all is to use old-fashioned email. In spite of the fact that, apparently, almost noone uses email any more, generally everyone still reads it.
Finally, there's the need for a back channel for comments, where individuals can post a follow up to something that has been said or, even better, a conversation, where a group can accumulate on-going comments that they all see. This is still the missing link, IMHO. There doesn't seem to be a good general mechanism for doing this. You can do it with Buzz, Facebook, but those may be subsets of people and the groups, e.g., on Facebook, don't always align with the set of people I might want to have a conversation with.
And, for some of these sites, you never know what crazy things they'll go off and do with your privacy or sharing permissions.
Right now my personal solution is to use email to collect responses then manually publish them, if requested, and manually fan them back out to the list (if there is one) if it involves a small, closed group.
I still say the classic BBS is the best solution, but it only works if everyone in the group joins the BBS and then, either they read it regularly, or it has a notification system that will work for all of the participants. Again, the only such notification system I know of is email. Well, I guess text messages to phones works pretty well, too.
I have to say that it looks like Posterous really seems to handle all of the above really well. It's highly email-oriented to the point that you can practically do all of the above including posting and follow up comments via email. You can limit a blog to a particular set of participants using only their email addresses which means they don't have to set up accounts on Posterous and don't have to log into the site. In fact, a particpant can never look at the blog at all, so it all functions like an ad hoc email list. This is quite huge, really.
Another similar and interesting site is moot.ly. Moot.ly does actually require you to log in or authenticate to continue on a conversation, which ends up being similar to a Brizzly picnic. But watch out for that Libian domain name!
The next problem is notification. How do I let particular friends or readers know I've posted something. They could subscribe to an RSS or similar feed from the blog, but that requires action on their part. I doubt they'll do that, so I need to send a notification to them. If they tend to be gathered in one of the usual places like Facebook or Buzz, then the blog can be gatewayed into those sites. However, the most reliable of all is to use old-fashioned email. In spite of the fact that, apparently, almost noone uses email any more, generally everyone still reads it.
Finally, there's the need for a back channel for comments, where individuals can post a follow up to something that has been said or, even better, a conversation, where a group can accumulate on-going comments that they all see. This is still the missing link, IMHO. There doesn't seem to be a good general mechanism for doing this. You can do it with Buzz, Facebook, but those may be subsets of people and the groups, e.g., on Facebook, don't always align with the set of people I might want to have a conversation with.
And, for some of these sites, you never know what crazy things they'll go off and do with your privacy or sharing permissions.
Right now my personal solution is to use email to collect responses then manually publish them, if requested, and manually fan them back out to the list (if there is one) if it involves a small, closed group.
I still say the classic BBS is the best solution, but it only works if everyone in the group joins the BBS and then, either they read it regularly, or it has a notification system that will work for all of the participants. Again, the only such notification system I know of is email. Well, I guess text messages to phones works pretty well, too.
I have to say that it looks like Posterous really seems to handle all of the above really well. It's highly email-oriented to the point that you can practically do all of the above including posting and follow up comments via email. You can limit a blog to a particular set of participants using only their email addresses which means they don't have to set up accounts on Posterous and don't have to log into the site. In fact, a particpant can never look at the blog at all, so it all functions like an ad hoc email list. This is quite huge, really.
Another similar and interesting site is moot.ly. Moot.ly does actually require you to log in or authenticate to continue on a conversation, which ends up being similar to a Brizzly picnic. But watch out for that Libian domain name!
Comments
If you want to leave a comment on a post here, please send me a message. Be sure to indicate whether or not you want your comment published.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Monday, October 04, 2010
Scale of the Universe from Primax Studio
Beautifully done! This model is extremely well executed.
Of course, this will remind some of us of the Powers of Ten film that we were awed by in the 70s.
Of course, this will remind some of us of the Powers of Ten film that we were awed by in the 70s.
EPA on Bedbugs
Excellent general information on the problem. The EPA has a pretty good site with information on bedbugs. It actually goes beyond just pesiticide information.
Saturday, October 02, 2010
Corporate developers: exclusive first look at Application Craft
From @scobleizer, a new tool for corporate web apps.
“Today Application Craft (CrunchBase info on Application Craft) is releasing a new system that looks somewhat like Visual Studio, but is completely web based.”
“Today Application Craft (CrunchBase info on Application Craft) is releasing a new system that looks somewhat like Visual Studio, but is completely web based.”
The Persuaders
With Tony Curtis and Roger Moore was a show I used to like. Here's the pilot episode (video). It was reminiscent of shows like The Man from UNCLE (Robert Vaughn and David McCallum), I Spy (with Bill Cosby and Robert Culp), and others.
Hello MLB.tv
With Fox Sports local channels holding out on renewing Dish Network contracts for a 50% increase in charging, I'm glad to say we finally subscribed to mlb.tv. This is a step toward removing the traditional media and buying programming directly from the source.
There's been a lot of talk on TWiT and related shows recently about disintermediation of the carriers and resellers of TV programming. It would be nice to find the program you want and click on it to buy, say a year's worth of a particular show. You get the shows you want instead of a cable bill.
A lot of things have to happen before we get there, well, at least a few, but I've heard a number of folks say they only watch T'V on the Internet and don't use the traditional sources.
There's been a lot of talk on TWiT and related shows recently about disintermediation of the carriers and resellers of TV programming. It would be nice to find the program you want and click on it to buy, say a year's worth of a particular show. You get the shows you want instead of a cable bill.
A lot of things have to happen before we get there, well, at least a few, but I've heard a number of folks say they only watch T'V on the Internet and don't use the traditional sources.
Friday, October 01, 2010
The lifespan and depth of tweets vs blog posts | cre8d design
An interesting blog post, with links, on the whole question of microblogging vs. traditional blogs.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Setting the Bar
From the Bad Astronomer, a nice piece on barred spiral galaxies.
Image NGC 1365. From the site: “Images credit: ESO/P. Grosbøl”
Functional Programming, from Java to Scala
An excellent blog post by Eric Armstrong September 23, 2010.
Summary: Dick Wall's talk turns out to be a treasure trove of useful tidbits, and a great introduction to Scala that whets my appetite, big time.
Summary: Dick Wall's talk turns out to be a treasure trove of useful tidbits, and a great introduction to Scala that whets my appetite, big time.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Fun With Say
If you have a Mac, try this. Open up Terminal (it's under Applications/Utiltiies) then at the command line type:
You can actually type anything in the second part you want to say.
In fact, you can just type
Then keep typing lines of text. To end it, hold down the Control key and press D (Ctl-D).
There are also many different voices you can play with.
- say -v "Cellos" "Droid"
You can actually type anything in the second part you want to say.
- say -v "Cellos" "Wow, this is really interesting. I did not know you could sound like this."
In fact, you can just type
- say -v "Cellos"
Then keep typing lines of text. To end it, hold down the Control key and press D (Ctl-D).
There are also many different voices you can play with.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
So Long Jack Horkheimer
Age 72, 'Star Gazer' and host of public TV astronomy show. From the Washington Post.
I remember Jack as quite a character at SEPA meetings in the 80s. As far as I know, we were the first planetarium outside of Miami to stage his fantastic show, Starbound, around 1983 I think. We opened it so soon, it was barely ready and they had to send the script, soundtrack and slides to us from Miami via Delta Dash. I still can recall clearly the afternoon when one of our guys drove out to the airport to pick up the package.
Jack Horkheimer, a playwright turned amateur astronomer who inspired millions of people to look a little closer at the nighttime sky with his pioneering planetarium shows and long-running public television show, "Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer," died Aug. 20 in Miami of a respiratory ailment. He was 72.
Mr. Horkheimer served for 35 years as the director of the Space Transit Planetarium at the Miami Science Museum. He turned presentations there from academic lessons into whiz-bang shows that used music, metaphor and animation to explore the night sky and inspire curiosity about the heavens.
I remember Jack as quite a character at SEPA meetings in the 80s. As far as I know, we were the first planetarium outside of Miami to stage his fantastic show, Starbound, around 1983 I think. We opened it so soon, it was barely ready and they had to send the script, soundtrack and slides to us from Miami via Delta Dash. I still can recall clearly the afternoon when one of our guys drove out to the airport to pick up the package.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Quote of the Day
“Programmers work long hours trying to design stuff that keeps them from having to work long hours.”
—David Allen, from Making It All Work
Kindle Update
Used to the flip, now wishing for ragged right.
Since I've been reading Kindle books (yeah, I have a second one) for a couple of days, I've gotten used to the page flipping feature. It's a little more convenient now that I've discovered that I only need to touch the left or right side of the screen and don't have to physically swipe across it.
Currently my only complaint is that the text is left- and right-justified instead of ragged right. I much prefer the latter, especially on the newspaper column-sized display of my phone.
Other than that, the text is beautiful and easy to read.
Since I've been reading Kindle books (yeah, I have a second one) for a couple of days, I've gotten used to the page flipping feature. It's a little more convenient now that I've discovered that I only need to touch the left or right side of the screen and don't have to physically swipe across it.
Currently my only complaint is that the text is left- and right-justified instead of ragged right. I much prefer the latter, especially on the newspaper column-sized display of my phone.
Other than that, the text is beautiful and easy to read.
Serious Vulnerability in Adobe PDF Reader
Avoid opening a PDF file until you fix this! Basically a carefully crafted PDF file can allow an attacker to take over your computer.
If you are a Windows user, it's best not to open any PDF files until you install EMET (see the link below).
From Adobe's announcement for CVE-2010-2884:
From Softpedia
From Computerworld — This is actually a debate over whether this is a return of the so-called “Google attackers” but, in fact, it has a good summary of the attack background and activity.
In this Buzz, Robert Bayardo tells how to go to chrome://plugins and activate the built in PDF viewer that is not vulnerable.
Microsoft has released EMET 2.0 (Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit) which should be installed and which will offer some protection on Windows systems. If you are a Windows user it is important that you install this!
Sophos security advisory APSA10-02
If you are a Windows user, it's best not to open any PDF files until you install EMET (see the link below).
On the Mac (OS X) the Preview app, as far as I've been able to find so far, is not vulnerable. I've yet to find what seems like an authoritative, definitive statement.
From Adobe's announcement for CVE-2010-2884:
A critical vulnerability exists in Adobe Flash Player 10.1.82.76 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Solaris, and Adobe Flash Player 10.1.92.10 for Android. This vulnerability also affects Adobe Reader 9.3.4 for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX, and Adobe Acrobat 9.3.4 and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh. This vulnerability (CVE-2010-2884) could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.Here are some other discussions and important information.
From Softpedia
From Computerworld — This is actually a debate over whether this is a return of the so-called “Google attackers” but, in fact, it has a good summary of the attack background and activity.
In this Buzz, Robert Bayardo tells how to go to chrome://plugins and activate the built in PDF viewer that is not vulnerable.
Microsoft has released EMET 2.0 (Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit) which should be installed and which will offer some protection on Windows systems. If you are a Windows user it is important that you install this!
Sophos security advisory APSA10-02
Thursday, September 16, 2010
I Bought My First Kindle Book
But I haven't bought an actual Kindle yet. I downloaded the app on my Nexus One Android phone and it works quite well. I also downloaded the Windows desktop version. I'll probably soon download the Mac version.
Is there a Kindle in my future? We'll see how this goes. The truth is, except for gadget lust, the phone is all I need. It's where I read nearly everything anyway.
First impressions: After spending maybe 10 minutes with it, I have to say I'd prefer to just have scrolling text rather than flipping screens. Recall that scrolls came before books. With electronic displays, we don't need pages any more. Yes, I only want to see a “page” of text at a time, but there's no reason I shouldn't be able to scroll down as I read, the way everything else works! It's okay if a flip, or some other “next” operation, is used to get to the next chapter or, okay fine, even the next section.
I get that flipping screens provides a convenient way to bookmark something, but a bookmark should easily be able to correspond to a simple point in the text. An actual point, like right there between those two letters.
We are more than a little too hung up on the old book paradigm. (Look at the iPad book reader which is the worst with it's animated flipping pages. Good grief!) The book paradigm should be left behind! If we're going to do this electronically, we should go all the way!
Oh, and by the way, I've been reading scrolling text on electronic screens for over 33 years!
The skeptic might ask, And you don't ever use the space bar for more(1), or the space bar to page down a web page, or the PgDn key? Okay, yes, I have used them and still often do. Granted, paging is okay or even desirable sometimes but it shouldn't be required. In fact, the Kindle app could allow free scrolling and then page up or down when you swipe left or right. Why can't it do both like that?
With that rant out of the way, for now, I can say that everything else works fine. With clearly rendered text, with black letters on a white background, and with a nice font at the appropriate size, all else is well.
Here's an update.
Is there a Kindle in my future? We'll see how this goes. The truth is, except for gadget lust, the phone is all I need. It's where I read nearly everything anyway.
First impressions: After spending maybe 10 minutes with it, I have to say I'd prefer to just have scrolling text rather than flipping screens. Recall that scrolls came before books. With electronic displays, we don't need pages any more. Yes, I only want to see a “page” of text at a time, but there's no reason I shouldn't be able to scroll down as I read, the way everything else works! It's okay if a flip, or some other “next” operation, is used to get to the next chapter or, okay fine, even the next section.
I get that flipping screens provides a convenient way to bookmark something, but a bookmark should easily be able to correspond to a simple point in the text. An actual point, like right there between those two letters.
We are more than a little too hung up on the old book paradigm. (Look at the iPad book reader which is the worst with it's animated flipping pages. Good grief!) The book paradigm should be left behind! If we're going to do this electronically, we should go all the way!
Oh, and by the way, I've been reading scrolling text on electronic screens for over 33 years!
The skeptic might ask, And you don't ever use the space bar for more(1), or the space bar to page down a web page, or the PgDn key? Okay, yes, I have used them and still often do. Granted, paging is okay or even desirable sometimes but it shouldn't be required. In fact, the Kindle app could allow free scrolling and then page up or down when you swipe left or right. Why can't it do both like that?
With that rant out of the way, for now, I can say that everything else works fine. With clearly rendered text, with black letters on a white background, and with a nice font at the appropriate size, all else is well.
Here's an update.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Dutch Monkey Doughnuts
@dmdoughnuts, The featured Road Warrier site on Fox 5 Atlanta today, Dutch Monkey Doughnuts is now at the top of our next-destination list.
Place page
On Twitter
Place page
On Twitter
The Rise and Demise of Tales of the Okefenokee
At Six Flags over Georgia, since it came up in conversation recently, the currently-named Monster Plantation has an interesting history recounted here on-line at dafe.org.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Still Using Twitter Exclusively Instead of RSS
It's working great!
I don't recall how long it's actually been, but for some time now I've been using Twitter exclusively as a source of news and reading, having completely abandoned RSS (e.g., Google Reader, etc.). So far, it's been working great.
I have a finely tuned set of a few less than 300 Twitter accounts that I follow. Adding more usually just adds noise. Occasionally, I'll try additional accounts but end up removing them later. I take that as a sign that my list is just right. It's also important to note that this set of tweeters are almost all people (or robots) that repost links. There are almost no “Now I'm eating a donut” posters. A number of the accounts are for official sites like @mashable or @slashdot. Instead of going to some destination web sites like I used to, I just read the summaries on Twitter, then click in to read the links (stories) that are interesting.
I also have a set of lists so I can read just News, Tech stories, etc., if I don't want to read my complete stream. The most important thing that lists do is allow reading back farther than just the past few minutes. It's a characteristic of the real-time nature of Twitter that, if you read during certain times of the day, you get a particular sample of your list of followees. That sample limits who and what you actually see. However, reading back through a list, e.g., through a news list, allows reading past that “latest” horizon and results in a better sample of the news of the day.
I don't recall how long it's actually been, but for some time now I've been using Twitter exclusively as a source of news and reading, having completely abandoned RSS (e.g., Google Reader, etc.). So far, it's been working great.
I have a finely tuned set of a few less than 300 Twitter accounts that I follow. Adding more usually just adds noise. Occasionally, I'll try additional accounts but end up removing them later. I take that as a sign that my list is just right. It's also important to note that this set of tweeters are almost all people (or robots) that repost links. There are almost no “Now I'm eating a donut” posters. A number of the accounts are for official sites like @mashable or @slashdot. Instead of going to some destination web sites like I used to, I just read the summaries on Twitter, then click in to read the links (stories) that are interesting.
I also have a set of lists so I can read just News, Tech stories, etc., if I don't want to read my complete stream. The most important thing that lists do is allow reading back farther than just the past few minutes. It's a characteristic of the real-time nature of Twitter that, if you read during certain times of the day, you get a particular sample of your list of followees. That sample limits who and what you actually see. However, reading back through a list, e.g., through a news list, allows reading past that “latest” horizon and results in a better sample of the news of the day.
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Mt. Wilson One Year After the Fire
From Sky and Telescope. Most people don't realize that Georgia State University operates the CHARA Array, one of the world's most powerful optical interferometers on historic Mt. Wilson outside of Los Angeles. Mt. Wilson is the location of the legendary 100-in telescope, the largest telescope ever constructed when it was built, where Edwin Hubble first observed the expansion of the universe.
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Amiga 25 Years Later
From Technologizer, 23 Jul 2010 was the 25th anniversary of the Amiga premier. I was priviledged to use two exciting and revolutionary computers over the years. The first was the Amiga and the second was the NeXT machine.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Trans-Neptunian Scattered Disk Objects
I was reading this morning about Eris, the infamous object that caused all manner of trouble for Pluto's status as a “planet.” I thought Eris was a Kuiper Belt Object but apparently it's a trans-Neptunian scattered disk object. Who'd have thought.
The solar system refuses to be simple. I like this diagram though and these linked-to Wikipedia entries are nice.
Oh, and I guess we're now calling Eris a dwarf planet. (Where now is defined as 2006).
“It's headed toward that trans-neptunian scattered disk object.”
“That's no trans-neptunian scattered disk object. That's a space station!”
Image link and credit
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
What About Comments (Updated)
You may ask, “What if I'd like to write comments about posts on Monolith149 Daily?”
Here are some options:
Buzz
You can reach me on Buzz via my profile here: stargate149 on Buzz
Twitter
You can tweet comments to @stargate149. They can include links to comments you've posted somewhere and/or links to the post you are commenting on. This is the simplest, easiest to access, most public and most direct method. (Often I'm slow to see it, though).
Facebook
If you are reading these posts on Facebook, you can comment there. If you aren't reading this on Facebook now, you can find them here facebook.com/monolith149discuss.
Here are some options:
Buzz
You can reach me on Buzz via my profile here: stargate149 on Buzz
You can tweet comments to @stargate149. They can include links to comments you've posted somewhere and/or links to the post you are commenting on. This is the simplest, easiest to access, most public and most direct method. (Often I'm slow to see it, though).
If you are reading these posts on Facebook, you can comment there. If you aren't reading this on Facebook now, you can find them here facebook.com/monolith149discuss.
Leo Laporte Gets Buzz Back
“It is fixed. Thanks so much to the Google Buzz team which tracked down a pretty nasty bug in Buzz that had made me invisible for 17 days…” Leo reports on his blog, Leoville.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Leo Laporte's Buzz Kill
“I was shouting into a vast echo chamber where no one could hear me because they were too busy shouting themselves. ”
Leo Laporte blogs about Buzz breaking and the failure of social media.
Leo Laporte blogs about Buzz breaking and the failure of social media.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Check your Facebook Privacy Settings Early and Often!
The new Location feature has been turned on for you by default. The default setting is limited to friends but you'll need to turn it off if you don't want it on at all.
Location lets any of your friends tell all the rest of your friends and family where you are, or even the whole world if you allow it. Oh yeah, that's another brilliant idea.
Location lets any of your friends tell all the rest of your friends and family where you are, or even the whole world if you allow it. Oh yeah, that's another brilliant idea.
Amazing View of 1999 Made in 1967
This video predicting 1999 from 1967 is amazing to watch. It was made by Philco. In case you didn't recognize him, the dad there is Wink Mortendale.
Here's more about the video including links to the whole thing.
(Thanks to Wayne for passing this on!).
Here's more about the video including links to the whole thing.
(Thanks to Wayne for passing this on!).
Monday, August 16, 2010
Check your privacy settings early and often!
I log onto Yahoo this morning (yes, I still have an active Yahoo account and I only log in to keep it active), first to see this picture. Then, second, I quickly notice that Yahoo has attempted to turn itself into sort of FaceYahoo (I guess that's what the picture is). Finally, and most importantly, I quickly discover that I have a Yahoo profile, and they've decided to share my information with all of my “connections.” Even better, spammers have decided to comment on my various profile entries. I don't think they can see them because I don't actually have any connections yet, but apparently they can see that some of the particular items in my profile have changed.
So this is the latest brilliant assault on one's privacy by deciding the the thing I'd just forgotten to do myself was share as much information as possible with the world, and helping me out by doing it for me.
I'll be slightly fair. All of the defaults that share anything are to Connections Only and there aren't any connections until I create them. Okay, so they switched the power on but nothing happens until I actually plug something in. I'd much rather the power be OFF, since that was my tacit assumption, until I turn it on. I consider that a much safer and saner approach. Maybe that's just me.
If you're a regular Yahoo user, you'll already probably know about this. If you're an occasional or casual user, you'd better log in and carefully see what's going on.
So now we add Yahoo to the list to which this advice applies:
Check your privacy settings early and often!
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Learn Programming and Python
This free, PDF book looks very well done. If you want to learn computer programming and/or the Python language (recommended for programming in general), check out Learn Python the Hard Way.
I actually set off to write something similar once upon a time and this work echoes my effort almost verbatim, as far as I went anyway.
The author has even created a proposed exercises wiki.
Even though I've only spent a few minutes looking at it, I recommend this book and the process it presents.
For many years I worried about a suitable programming language for starting off and learning to program. It seemed like the cupboard was bare. I've now concluded that Python fills that void quite handsomely. I'm excited to hear that Georgia Tech and other schools are now switching to Python for their intro courses.
I actually set off to write something similar once upon a time and this work echoes my effort almost verbatim, as far as I went anyway.
The author has even created a proposed exercises wiki.
Even though I've only spent a few minutes looking at it, I recommend this book and the process it presents.
For many years I worried about a suitable programming language for starting off and learning to program. It seemed like the cupboard was bare. I've now concluded that Python fills that void quite handsomely. I'm excited to hear that Georgia Tech and other schools are now switching to Python for their intro courses.
Sunday, August 08, 2010
The Windows Shortcut Vulnerability
Be sure to update Windows XP to SP3. If you haven't ever done this, now is the time. The Windows shortcut vulnerability gives malware a wide open door to attack Windows systems.
Microsoft Security Advisory (2286198)
Trend Micro
Microsoft Security Advisory (2286198)
Trend Micro
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Scientists Watch an Atom’s Electrons Moving in Real Time For the First Time Ever
From LBNL: For the First Time Ever, Scientists Watch an Atom’s Electrons Moving in Real Time.
An international team of scientists led by groups from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) in Garching, Germany, and from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley has used ultrashort flashes of laser light to directly observe the movement of an atom’s outer electrons for the first time.
“With a simple system of krypton atoms, we demonstrated, for the first time, that we can measure transient absorption dynamics with attosecond pulses,” says Stephen Leone of Berkeley Lab’s Chemical Sciences Division, who is also a professor of chemistry and physics at UC Berkeley. “This revealed details of a type of electronic motion – coherent superposition – that can control properties in many systems.”
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
MacPaint
Many of you will remember MacPaint as being one of the applications bundled with the first Macintosh computers. Apple has made the source code available via the Computer History Museum. It was written in beautiful Pascal (the wonderful language that I loved!) by Bill Atkinson.
Enjoy!
(If you want to read more Macintosh history and anecdotes, check out Folklore.org by Andy Herzfeld).
Enjoy!
(If you want to read more Macintosh history and anecdotes, check out Folklore.org by Andy Herzfeld).
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
The Big Bang One More Time
I heard the question: “What came before the Big Bang? What exploded?”
Here's an attempt at a brief explanation.
Einstein's general relativity explains gravity in terms of geometry. Instead of a force, objects move they way they move because mass changes the geometry of spacetime.
Taking the earth as an analogy, we understand the geometry of a ball. By studying the geometry of the surface of the earth we can easily conclude that we live on a sphere. Along with that comes the inescapable conclusion that the earth has a center. We can't go to the center of the earth, but we know its there.
When we we try to determine the geometry of the universe, we find that it's space-time “shape” implies a center, but one that is in the past. At this center in the past, the scale of space goes to zero.
We can also use the earth as a different analogy. If people set out from the equator in the Americas, in Europe and Asia, all travelling north, they will arrive at the north pole. It doesn't make sense to ask what is beyond the north pole, if you are travelling north on the surface of the earth.
In the same way, the question of what comes before the big bang doesn't make sense in light of the implied geometry of the universe.
There's not an explosion in the they way most people think of. If you go back in time in the above model, space is smaller and densities are higher. The temperature and energy density are necessarily higher and, mathematically, go to infinity at the “center.”
That high-temperature past serves a useful purpose for physicists. It provides another way to answer questions about high energy states of matter and its structure in addition to the large accelerators we've built.
From the point of view of creation, there's nothing that says God couldn't create a full-grown universe as described here just like he created full-grown people.
Here's an attempt at a brief explanation.
Einstein's general relativity explains gravity in terms of geometry. Instead of a force, objects move they way they move because mass changes the geometry of spacetime.
Taking the earth as an analogy, we understand the geometry of a ball. By studying the geometry of the surface of the earth we can easily conclude that we live on a sphere. Along with that comes the inescapable conclusion that the earth has a center. We can't go to the center of the earth, but we know its there.
When we we try to determine the geometry of the universe, we find that it's space-time “shape” implies a center, but one that is in the past. At this center in the past, the scale of space goes to zero.
We can also use the earth as a different analogy. If people set out from the equator in the Americas, in Europe and Asia, all travelling north, they will arrive at the north pole. It doesn't make sense to ask what is beyond the north pole, if you are travelling north on the surface of the earth.
In the same way, the question of what comes before the big bang doesn't make sense in light of the implied geometry of the universe.
There's not an explosion in the they way most people think of. If you go back in time in the above model, space is smaller and densities are higher. The temperature and energy density are necessarily higher and, mathematically, go to infinity at the “center.”
That high-temperature past serves a useful purpose for physicists. It provides another way to answer questions about high energy states of matter and its structure in addition to the large accelerators we've built.
From the point of view of creation, there's nothing that says God couldn't create a full-grown universe as described here just like he created full-grown people.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Perpetual Calendar
I had a subscription to Popular Science around 1970 for a few years and, I think, as part of that had this little perpetual calendar on a card that I carried in my wallet for decades. It was only recently that I removed it and today I found a photocopy I'd made of it.
Here's the same calendar as part of an on-line auction. It's good through 2059.
Here's the same calendar as part of an on-line auction. It's good through 2059.
Facebook Friend Suggestions
Arg! Facebook strikes again, i.e., it's just another day. I thought I was accepting friend requests when, in fact, I was clicking on friend suggestions and ended up sending out friend requests.
It's not a huge deal since they were people I know. My usual practice is to just receive requests. Then, if they are from folks I know, I'll usually accept them. However, I rarely send them out.
The moral is, always pay attention to the labels. Yes, they are clearly marked, actually.
It's not a huge deal since they were people I know. My usual practice is to just receive requests. Then, if they are from folks I know, I'll usually accept them. However, I rarely send them out.
The moral is, always pay attention to the labels. Yes, they are clearly marked, actually.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Jupiter's South Equatorial Belt is Gone!
I was looking at some of the amazing images on Brian Combs' web site and noticed that Jupiter's South Equatorial Belt is gone! The article in Sky and Telescope mentions that this has happened recently, to a lesser degree. I know that Jupiter's clouds change over the years, but didn't remember an equatorial belt completely disappearing.
One nice side effect is that the Great Red Spot is now easier to see, maybe for the first time since the 70s (when it was very red).
Article at Astronomy.com
Image linked to at Sky and Telescope
Froyo's Color Trackball LED
Heh, when I received Google Voice mail yesterday, my track ball flashed green! That's the first time I've ever seen it any color other than white. That's another small but neat feature of Froyo.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Blogs to Facebook (Update)
Removing and re-adding the import seems to have fixed it. What a pain.
Let's see if this one appears.
(Update) Yep, it worked. I suspect they wanted me to click the policy/agreement acceptance check box and click the Confirm button again, but I don't recall ever receiving a request to do that. It just quit. Ah, well.
Let's see if this one appears.
(Update) Yep, it worked. I suspect they wanted me to click the policy/agreement acceptance check box and click the Confirm button again, but I don't recall ever receiving a request to do that. It just quit. Ah, well.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Blog Gateway to Facebook
It seems that my blog posts are not being picked up by Facebook again. I wonder why. Let's see if this one works. Maybe it eschews the shortened links I include sometimes.
Stellarium
Amazing starry sky, planetarium in your computer software!
It seems I've never mentioned Stellariium here. This free, open source software is amazing! It's as nice, and as nice looking, as any planetarium program I've tried.
It seems I've never mentioned Stellariium here. This free, open source software is amazing! It's as nice, and as nice looking, as any planetarium program I've tried.
Friday, July 09, 2010
TWiT Cottage Studio Rewired
Here's a neat time-lapse video of the TWiT cottage studio being rewired.
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Friday, July 02, 2010
Those Annoying Horns
Didn't we have these horns, years ago in high school, at football games and such? It seems like they were sort of red and plastic. Of course we didn't suffer everyone blowing them incessantly.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Froyo
Hooray! My Nexus One told me this morning it had downloaded Froyo (Android 2.2) and was ready to reboot and install it when I was.
The only thing that doesn't work so far is Advanced Task Manager, which is made a bit obsolete since the OS itself how supports killing off any task. ATM would kill any task, actually, but seemed to have trouble killing itself.
The only visible change on the screen is that the app menu is now joined by an icon for the web browser to the right and an icon for making a call to the left. That's a bit redundant since I have those two icons on my center screen anyway. I suppose I can replace them with something else now.
I'm most looking forward to trying out the wifi hotspot feature that lets my phone be a wifi hotspot for any nearby devices while it's using it's 3G connection. That means that, e.g., while on a trip, everyone in the vehicle can log onto and use my phone as their wifi source for their laptops, phones, ipads, whatever. Then they can all browse the Internet, watch video, etc., at will. I've heard that you really want to have it plugged in to extra power for this, but that's not a problem in the car. Currently T-Mobile doesn't charge any extra for this.
My enthusiasm is a little lower for support for Flash on web sites. I'm sure there will be many times when I'm glad it's there. It's supposed to be pretty CPU-intensive and thus battery-draining.
A nice video about Froyo features.
The only thing that doesn't work so far is Advanced Task Manager, which is made a bit obsolete since the OS itself how supports killing off any task. ATM would kill any task, actually, but seemed to have trouble killing itself.
The only visible change on the screen is that the app menu is now joined by an icon for the web browser to the right and an icon for making a call to the left. That's a bit redundant since I have those two icons on my center screen anyway. I suppose I can replace them with something else now.
I'm most looking forward to trying out the wifi hotspot feature that lets my phone be a wifi hotspot for any nearby devices while it's using it's 3G connection. That means that, e.g., while on a trip, everyone in the vehicle can log onto and use my phone as their wifi source for their laptops, phones, ipads, whatever. Then they can all browse the Internet, watch video, etc., at will. I've heard that you really want to have it plugged in to extra power for this, but that's not a problem in the car. Currently T-Mobile doesn't charge any extra for this.
My enthusiasm is a little lower for support for Flash on web sites. I'm sure there will be many times when I'm glad it's there. It's supposed to be pretty CPU-intensive and thus battery-draining.
A nice video about Froyo features.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
My Monitor Died
I was using my desktop workstation yesterday and suddenly the monitor slowly faded to black. It's almost like the power-saving mode involuntarily kicked in. Alas, it seems to be dead.
This is kind of sad. It's the last glass CRT in the house, at least on a computer. I'm sure there's a replacement out in the garage. However, now that everyone is using Macbooks nearly all the time, they are lobbying to get rid of the last computer workstation downstairs.
I think it would be a good idea to keep it around for quick lookups. Well, okay, most of us use our phones for things like that. What about visitors who want to check their Facebook account and such? I think it would be good for that. And if nothing else, I think the LCD monitor, keyboard and mouse should stand by for a laptop to be connected when more screen space is wanted.
In any event, it's pretty clear that the desktop computer is on the way out at our house. This is certainly a sign of the times and the day that we knew was imminent. The desktop computer is disappearing. They'll never be gone. There are many applications where a big screen, keyboard and mouse (well, I think) are needed. They might just be connected to your laptop or who knows what.
Ah well, in any event, I'll be replacing the old, gigantic CRT on my desk with an LCD panel which is long overdue anyway.
This is kind of sad. It's the last glass CRT in the house, at least on a computer. I'm sure there's a replacement out in the garage. However, now that everyone is using Macbooks nearly all the time, they are lobbying to get rid of the last computer workstation downstairs.
I think it would be a good idea to keep it around for quick lookups. Well, okay, most of us use our phones for things like that. What about visitors who want to check their Facebook account and such? I think it would be good for that. And if nothing else, I think the LCD monitor, keyboard and mouse should stand by for a laptop to be connected when more screen space is wanted.
In any event, it's pretty clear that the desktop computer is on the way out at our house. This is certainly a sign of the times and the day that we knew was imminent. The desktop computer is disappearing. They'll never be gone. There are many applications where a big screen, keyboard and mouse (well, I think) are needed. They might just be connected to your laptop or who knows what.
Ah well, in any event, I'll be replacing the old, gigantic CRT on my desk with an LCD panel which is long overdue anyway.
Email Quiet
Hmm. My inbox on Gmail is strangely silent this morning. All my messages are read. Granted, I've been thinking a lot more about GTD in the past 24 hours, which includes the concept of inbox zero, but I didn't expect just thinking about it would produce such dramatic results. Are all of the spammy commercial vendors (which I basically expect to get email from, i.e., it's of some relevance or from vendors I use) are tired after the Father's day barrage?
I checked my domain names. None have expired or expire any time soon. I checked whois and I still own them all. I used dig to check MX records and they are all in order. I tried to connect to MX servers and couldn't but that's (I'm sure) due to ISP restrictions on directly originating email, a good tactic to discourage spam-generating viruses.
I tried an email message from Yahoo mail to my domain address and it worked. Looking at the original message and the headers, there was a seven-minute delay as the message was relayed on internal Google servers.
But the quiet is weird.
I look in my spam folder, which I usually *never* look at. It's probably been months or years since I actually opened up the spam folder. Well, probably. There are surprisingly few messages in there and nothing that looks interesting. In fact there is only a grand total of 14 messages for all of June so far.
Hm.
I tried another message to an address on another one of my domains. This one relayed through with only a small delay, 39 seconds from start at Yahoo to finish at Gmail.
Still, it's quiet. Too quiet....
I checked my domain names. None have expired or expire any time soon. I checked whois and I still own them all. I used dig to check MX records and they are all in order. I tried to connect to MX servers and couldn't but that's (I'm sure) due to ISP restrictions on directly originating email, a good tactic to discourage spam-generating viruses.
I tried an email message from Yahoo mail to my domain address and it worked. Looking at the original message and the headers, there was a seven-minute delay as the message was relayed on internal Google servers.
But the quiet is weird.
I look in my spam folder, which I usually *never* look at. It's probably been months or years since I actually opened up the spam folder. Well, probably. There are surprisingly few messages in there and nothing that looks interesting. In fact there is only a grand total of 14 messages for all of June so far.
Hm.
I tried another message to an address on another one of my domains. This one relayed through with only a small delay, 39 seconds from start at Yahoo to finish at Gmail.
Still, it's quiet. Too quiet....
Sunday, June 20, 2010
In the Shadow of the Moon
Whether or not it was one of the defining motifs of your teenage years, but especially if it was “before your time,” everyone should watch this amazing and beautiful film, In the Shadow of the Moon.
Main web site: http://intheshadowofthemoon.com/ with trailer.
Main web site: http://intheshadowofthemoon.com/ with trailer.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
What is a ton of AC?
This explanation by coldfuse on the web site onlineconversion.com looks quite good.
Re: Ton of air conditioning
by coldfuse on 02/06/02 at 20:53:16
Just wanted to provide background on the derivation for tons of refrigeration, and provide information on the similar SI standard.
The latent heat of fusion for ice is 144 BTU/lb. For one ton, that is 2000 lb x 144 BTU/lb, or 288,000 BTU. Refrigeration's roots are in the ice making industry, and the ice guys wanted to convert this into ice production. If 288,000 BTU are required to make one ton of ice, divide this by 24 hours to get 12,000 BTU/Hr required to make one ton of ice in one day.
This is simply the requirement for the phase change from liquid to solid -- to convert +32 deg F water into +32 deg F ice. As a practical matter, additional refrigeration is required to take city water and turn it into ice.
One BTU is the heat removal required to lower the temperature of one pound of water by one degree F. In SI units, kilocaries are used. One kilocalorie is the heat removal required to lower the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree C. One ton of refrigeration is equal to 3024 kilocaries per hour. It is basically the 12,000 BTU/Hr divided by pounds per kilogram divided by 1.8 (to get from degrees F to degrees C).
I hope this explanation hasn't been too cumbersome and will be helpful for someone out there! I'll :-X now!
Friday, June 18, 2010
About Cousins
In case you find cousin relationships confusing, here are the basics.
All grand children are first cousins. All first cousins have the same grand parents. (Except some are sibllings).
All great-grand children are second cousins. All second cousins have the same great-grand parents. (Except some are first cousins and siblings).
If your grand parents are someone's great-grand parents, then they are your first cousin once-removed. They are your kids' second cousin.
If your grandparents are someone's great-great-grand parents, then they are your first cousin twice-removed.
It keeps going but that's probably enough to get the idea.
All grand children are first cousins. All first cousins have the same grand parents. (Except some are sibllings).
All great-grand children are second cousins. All second cousins have the same great-grand parents. (Except some are first cousins and siblings).
If your grand parents are someone's great-grand parents, then they are your first cousin once-removed. They are your kids' second cousin.
If your grandparents are someone's great-great-grand parents, then they are your first cousin twice-removed.
It keeps going but that's probably enough to get the idea.
Vuvuzela
I thought the vuvuzela were insects and that they were just really bad at the soccer games. There's no question about the fact that they are equally annoying.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Android (particularly Froyo) Advantage Explained
And the resulting threat to the iPhone. Sam Pullara on his Java Rants blog discusses how Android's Java implementation is much improved with Froyo (Android 2.2) and the advantages it has over iPhone's Objective-C.
I'm also coming to understand more how much the garbage collector (GC in the quote below) and over-allocating data from the heap or failing to de-allocate (memory leaks) affects Android performance. Chances are, if your Android phone seems slow or choppy, you're waiting for garbage collection.
I'm also coming to understand more how much the garbage collector (GC in the quote below) and over-allocating data from the heap or failing to de-allocate (memory leaks) affects Android performance. Chances are, if your Android phone seems slow or choppy, you're waiting for garbage collection.
Up until Android 2.2 (Froyo) the JVM (really a Dalvik JVM for licensing reasons) on the Android platform was playing with one hand tied behind its back. Different from desktop/server Java, the JVM was still an interpreter, like the original JVM back in the Java 1.0 days. It was very efficient interpreter but an interpreter none-the-less and was not creating native code from the Dalvik bytecodes that it uses. As of Android 2.2 they have added a JIT, a just-in-time compiler, to the stack that translates the Dalvik bytecode into much more efficient machine code much like a C/C++ compiler. You can see the results of this in the benchmarks of Froyo which show a 2-5x improvement. As they add more and more JIT and GC features that have appeared in HotSpot, JRockit, etc, you will likely see even more improvements over time — without having to change or recompile the 3rd party developed software.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Sky and Telescope article on CHARA
Tony Flanders writes about Georgia State's observatory on historic Mt. Wilson in Sky and Telescope.
Almost 80 years after Michelson's experiment, Georgia State University's Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) arrray became operational atop Mount Wilson. It consists of six one-meter telescopes scattered across the mountaintop. The light from the separate telescopes is brought to an optical laboratory where it is mixed together with exceeding precision and care.
The CHARA array claims a resolution of 200 microarcseconds, 250 times better than the Hubble's theoretical limit of 50 milliarcseconds.
Andy Ihnatko on the iPad One Month Later
As usual, his review is well-balanced and well-said. I finally got around to reading Andy Ihnatko's column in the Chicago Sun-Times on the iPad after one month of use. It's quite good.
Monday, June 07, 2010
Bruce Artwick, Creator of Flight Simulator
Robert Scoble interviews Bruce Artwick, the creator of Flight Simulator which we mostly know as the MS Flight Simulator.
I own and enjoyed the first version on the Amiga 1000, before MS bought it. I've always been a huge fan of FS.
I own and enjoyed the first version on the Amiga 1000, before MS bought it. I've always been a huge fan of FS.
Watch for Comet C/2009 R1 (McNaught)
It should be visible in the pre-dawn sky. Details are here at Sky and Telescope in their Observing Highlights section.
Note that this comet should not be confused with “Comet McNaughts is C/2006 P1, also known as the Great Comet of 2007” or any of McNaught's 52 other comet discoveries!
Note that this comet should not be confused with “Comet McNaughts is C/2006 P1, also known as the Great Comet of 2007” or any of McNaught's 52 other comet discoveries!
Monday, May 31, 2010
The Allman Brothers Big House Museum
I knew this was a project being worked on, but I didn't know the Big House Museum was open!
Ribbon Cutting Video
Ribbon Cutting Video
Quadrotor Helicopters, Drones
Coworker Brian first told me about these a few days ago. I find them amazing, fascinating, and a little disturbing.
http://goo.gl/V8uU
http://goo.gl/QvpQ
http://goo.gl/aiaW
http://goo.gl/V8uU
http://goo.gl/QvpQ
http://goo.gl/aiaW
Monday, May 24, 2010
Using Google Wave In Your Work Group
http://goo.gl/22C4 This is a nice, concise video (2m13s) on how Google Wave can help a work group interact! Excellent!
Lost?
I never became a fan of Lost. It looked interesting and I watched a handful of episodes, but as soon as I saw a dark cloud flying around and doing things, I became much less interested. It seemed that the writers were creating a world with no rules, where they could make anything happen whenever they wanted, and that's just not interesting to me.
I guess this is why I like science fiction. A little magic is always okay. You know, faster-than-light travel, space travelers that aren't weightless, time travel. Even creating a new universe is okay if the new rules are explained. But, please, not like The Matrix where the explaining seems to go on for hours! In my favorite review of The Matrix, the author said it was like someone sitting down to explain a new card game and an hour later they are still going over the new rules.
Sometimes, when watching media today, it reminds me of when we were kids, playing. Someone would say, ``Wait! I know what we can do. You can be this and you can be that, then we'll....'' I get the feeling the film makers are out on location literally making up the story as they go along. I'm not saying that kind of spontaneous creativity is necessarily bad, just that it shouldn't show.
When those two things are combined (or seem to be), then that's not a show that will hold my attention. To be fair, though, even a good show may not hold my attention for long. I tend not to watch any TV show for more than a season and a fraction. There are notable exceptions to this, of course!
I like the tweet by @Ihnatko:
I guess this is why I like science fiction. A little magic is always okay. You know, faster-than-light travel, space travelers that aren't weightless, time travel. Even creating a new universe is okay if the new rules are explained. But, please, not like The Matrix where the explaining seems to go on for hours! In my favorite review of The Matrix, the author said it was like someone sitting down to explain a new card game and an hour later they are still going over the new rules.
Sometimes, when watching media today, it reminds me of when we were kids, playing. Someone would say, ``Wait! I know what we can do. You can be this and you can be that, then we'll....'' I get the feeling the film makers are out on location literally making up the story as they go along. I'm not saying that kind of spontaneous creativity is necessarily bad, just that it shouldn't show.
When those two things are combined (or seem to be), then that's not a show that will hold my attention. To be fair, though, even a good show may not hold my attention for long. I tend not to watch any TV show for more than a season and a fraction. There are notable exceptions to this, of course!
I like the tweet by @Ihnatko:
So long as Bob Newhart remains alive, ending any series with him saying "Emily...I just had another weird dream!" is an option.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Martin Gardner 1914--2010
Martin Gardner, the author of Mathematical Games in Scientific American died yesterday at age 95.
When I was in high school, during my senior year I ended up with an hour to spend in the library every day. Among other things I loved reading Scientific American and I particularly looked forward to Gardner's Mathematical Games column each month.
There are some games he featured there that I still remember to this day. There were some variants of Nim including one called Chomp. He also introduced me to Robert Abbott's New Eleusis (a few years later) which I still enjoy teaching people and playing from time to time.
When I was in high school, during my senior year I ended up with an hour to spend in the library every day. Among other things I loved reading Scientific American and I particularly looked forward to Gardner's Mathematical Games column each month.
There are some games he featured there that I still remember to this day. There were some variants of Nim including one called Chomp. He also introduced me to Robert Abbott's New Eleusis (a few years later) which I still enjoy teaching people and playing from time to time.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Number Trick
Take the a number x and multiply that by 2; add 5; multiply by 50. If you've already had your birthday this year, add 1760; if not, add 1759. Subtract your four-digit birth year. You should end up with a three-digit number -- the first of which is the number you started out with and the next two are your age.
How it works
Start with the number x. Multipy by 2, add 5 and multiply by 50.
(2x + 5) * 50
100x + 250
Now we've already multipled the first number by 100, shifting it over by two digits.
Now we just need to get your age into the last two digits.
If y is your birth year, then your age a is
a = 2010 - y
What we want for the final answer is:
100x + (2010 - y)
but we need to get rid of the 250 we already have:
[100x + 250] + [(2010 - y) - 250]
The first square brackets is what we have so far and the second square brackets are what we want to add.
2010 - y - 250 = 1760 - y
So, finally,
[100x + 250] + 1760 - y
The last part puts your age into the last two digits.
Putting that all together.
(2x + 5) * 50 + 1760 - y
How it works
Start with the number x. Multipy by 2, add 5 and multiply by 50.
(2x + 5) * 50
100x + 250
Now we've already multipled the first number by 100, shifting it over by two digits.
Now we just need to get your age into the last two digits.
If y is your birth year, then your age a is
a = 2010 - y
What we want for the final answer is:
100x + (2010 - y)
but we need to get rid of the 250 we already have:
[100x + 250] + [(2010 - y) - 250]
The first square brackets is what we have so far and the second square brackets are what we want to add.
2010 - y - 250 = 1760 - y
So, finally,
[100x + 250] + 1760 - y
The last part puts your age into the last two digits.
Putting that all together.
(2x + 5) * 50 + 1760 - y
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Now Facebook Has Stopped Posting My Blog Entries
The subscription/gateway seems to be gone. And I can't even find where I set it up in the first place. I probably lost it when I refused one of the force-you-to-go-public settings. I'll just cross-post via Twitter then.
Bah!!
Update 2010-05-24: This seems to be working again and no posts were apparently lost. I'm not sure why. Maybe a long delay. It seemed like it was more than a day. Maybe Facebook misconfigured their own privacy settings.
Bah!!
Update 2010-05-24: This seems to be working again and no posts were apparently lost. I'm not sure why. Maybe a long delay. It seemed like it was more than a day. Maybe Facebook misconfigured their own privacy settings.
Friday, May 14, 2010
My Solution to the Gulf Oil Leak:
Whoever first contains the leak owns the well and can pump and sell the oil. This should work to strongly motivate later accident prevention along with preparedness (by multiple, competing entities) for rapid response to fix a problem.
Facebook: My finger is poised over the deactivate button
The only thing that stops me is the fact that I barely use it in the first place. Knock on wood, there's not that much at stake for me. Maybe. Still, Facebook has become the intense, flaming nucleus of the social-network-crazed cluelessness that's running rampant on the Internet.
It will be interesting to see if they can pull out of this steepening dive in time, or if they will crash in fiery self-destruction. If Facebook does recover, I'm not sure I'll ever trust them. But will I trust them enough to keep the accounts open and continue to (carefully) use the service? That's the question.
It will be interesting to see if they can pull out of this steepening dive in time, or if they will crash in fiery self-destruction. If Facebook does recover, I'm not sure I'll ever trust them. But will I trust them enough to keep the accounts open and continue to (carefully) use the service? That's the question.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Friday, May 07, 2010
GTD Project Planning
Recently, I've found the GTD approach (as I've understood it so far) to project planning to be extremely useful. I probably do this around two times a week and it only takes 15 or 20 minutes. After that time I have a much more clarified idea about what to do about something.
Note that the first time I read the GTD book, I barely even noticed the project planning component though it's a key part of the book. On the second reading, three months later, the project planning part was crystal clear and practically leaped from the book. That's mainly to say that it does seem to be very important to re-read this book at least once.
Some of you will recognize this as essentially the same approach we used for planning in our facilitation processes from years ago so, yeah, there's nothing strikingly new here. This is fundamental planning.
Also, you can and should apply this to any planning effort, including for large group projects. But lately this is useful for taking some things that need to be done and organizing them into a project. For example, yesterday I took a magazine out of my in box, an old one, and realized I really don't have a system for dealing with old magazines. I've haven't received any magazines for years, but read everything on the Internet, so there are only old ones. So in 10 minutes or so I sketched out a project plan for dealing with all of the magazines.
To start, I open up a new Google document for the project plan. I usually write out the bullet list of the steps at the top so I can remember what it is I'm doing.
Note that the first time I read the GTD book, I barely even noticed the project planning component though it's a key part of the book. On the second reading, three months later, the project planning part was crystal clear and practically leaped from the book. That's mainly to say that it does seem to be very important to re-read this book at least once.
Some of you will recognize this as essentially the same approach we used for planning in our facilitation processes from years ago so, yeah, there's nothing strikingly new here. This is fundamental planning.
Also, you can and should apply this to any planning effort, including for large group projects. But lately this is useful for taking some things that need to be done and organizing them into a project. For example, yesterday I took a magazine out of my in box, an old one, and realized I really don't have a system for dealing with old magazines. I've haven't received any magazines for years, but read everything on the Internet, so there are only old ones. So in 10 minutes or so I sketched out a project plan for dealing with all of the magazines.
To start, I open up a new Google document for the project plan. I usually write out the bullet list of the steps at the top so I can remember what it is I'm doing.
- Principles
- Vision
- Brainstorm
- Organize
- Next steps
Principles
Then the document should have a section created for each part. Under the first section (obviously with the Level 2 title, Principles) I write a bullet list of principles that I (and maybe others involved) hold, that are important to the project. For magazines, I want all unneeded ones gone: either thrown out, sold or given away. For those that are kept, if they are worth keeping for some reason, they should be organized, labeled, and reasonably preserved.
Vision
Next comes the vision. This is a short paragraph (for me) of what the final state will look like. I sat there for a few seconds an tried to imagine what this project would look like when done. What would I see? What are the characteristics? A few magazines stored in containers, out of the way, the stack well with clear labels. Something like that.
Brainstorming
Then brainstorming. For this, I re-use an approach from Lakein, that is still very much a part of me. I set a timer on my phone for two minutes and write down ideas as quickly as I can. I don't even use bullets, but just write lines of text, each idea on a new line.
When the two minutes are up, I set the timer for two more minutes and either clean up the existing ideas some, maybe clarify something that came out as gibberish, or add any more ideas I can think of.
Organization
Many of you will also recognize this step. I either copy the whole brainstorm section down into this section, or just rewrite the ideas from the brainstorm. The point here, though, is to take the useful idea from the brainstorm and organize them some how. The quick and natural way for me is to organize them under headings. Each heading groups a set of ideas together. Here the ideas are bullet lists. One section might be about magazine storage.
For example,
Storage
- Search the internet for storage solutions
- Go to Lowes or Office Max and see what they have
- Check into using old file boxes
- Label with Brother label maker
Next Actions
Finally, the last section, and last step is to look at the organized set of ideas above and choose a handful of next actions that need to be done. This is a short bullet list of what those are. Then at least one or more of those should go onto your next actions lists.
Conclusion
So, at the start I was holding an old copy of Sky and Telescope, wondering what to do with it. After 15 minutes or so I had a fairly solid plan and a couple of next actions.
This approach is useful for solving a simple problem like that which has more than a few next actions, and it's also useful for some effort that will take a quarter to complete. It should probably be the structure of a major planning session, which might span an hour and a half to two hours.
Allen has much more useful information on this topic in his book, and there's much more in the web sites and other resources that orbit the GTD solar system.
Finally, the last section, and last step is to look at the organized set of ideas above and choose a handful of next actions that need to be done. This is a short bullet list of what those are. Then at least one or more of those should go onto your next actions lists.
Conclusion
So, at the start I was holding an old copy of Sky and Telescope, wondering what to do with it. After 15 minutes or so I had a fairly solid plan and a couple of next actions.
This approach is useful for solving a simple problem like that which has more than a few next actions, and it's also useful for some effort that will take a quarter to complete. It should probably be the structure of a major planning session, which might span an hour and a half to two hours.
Allen has much more useful information on this topic in his book, and there's much more in the web sites and other resources that orbit the GTD solar system.
Monday, May 03, 2010
Facebook Privacy and the Holy Grail
It's like trying to give instructions to the two guards in The Holy Grail, Facebook Privacy that is.
Facebook: “Okay, we'll reveal all of your private information to all web sites you visit!”
Me: “No, please only reveal my info to my friends.”
Facebook: “Ah, okay, we'll only reveal your personal info to your friends, and to our advertisers and all web sites you visit!”
Me: “No, no! Only to friends I specify!”
Facebook: “Okay, only to our advertisers and your friends. And we'll reveal your Events to everyone!”
..., etc.
Facebook: “Okay, we'll reveal all of your private information to all web sites you visit!”
Me: “No, please only reveal my info to my friends.”
Facebook: “Ah, okay, we'll only reveal your personal info to your friends, and to our advertisers and all web sites you visit!”
Me: “No, no! Only to friends I specify!”
Facebook: “Okay, only to our advertisers and your friends. And we'll reveal your Events to everyone!”
..., etc.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Social Graph
I'm tired and more than a little annoyed at everyone wanting to build out my social graph for me. It's like having spiders in the house building webs. Where's the bug spray?
Fixing Facebook Privacy Settings
I just went to Facebook and did the following:
Accounts > Privacy Settings > Applications and Web Sites > Instant Personalization Pilot Program
At the bottom was a box to uncheck to disable this (otherwise automatically enabled for you) “feature.”
Then you may want to check:
ccounts > Privacy Settings > Applications and Web Sites > What You Share
From there click on Learn More. Nearly hidden down at the very bottom is the link This page.
Go to that page and under each applicationi will be Edit Settings. If you haven't changed them, they are probably set to share with Everyone.
The most restrictive setting in the list is Only Friends which is probably okay. If you want them to be more restricted, then you have to choose Customize where you can finally set them to Only Me if you wish.
Accounts > Privacy Settings > Applications and Web Sites > Instant Personalization Pilot Program
At the bottom was a box to uncheck to disable this (otherwise automatically enabled for you) “feature.”
Then you may want to check:
ccounts > Privacy Settings > Applications and Web Sites > What You Share
From there click on Learn More. Nearly hidden down at the very bottom is the link This page.
Go to that page and under each applicationi will be Edit Settings. If you haven't changed them, they are probably set to share with Everyone.
The most restrictive setting in the list is Only Friends which is probably okay. If you want them to be more restricted, then you have to choose Customize where you can finally set them to Only Me if you wish.
Peace is Our Profession
“if you rely on deterrence as a strategy, your threat has to be believed. No one doubted that LaMay, given the order, would have carried out whatever SIOP the President chose, and do so without hesitation; and that SAC, the organization he had created, would do as ordered.” Jerry Pournelle discusses LeMay and a recent WSJ article.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)