MS stupidity

Although Microsoft has done better in recent offerings, they still just can't help itself in its dumb and condescending comments and error messages. For one thing, they always sound as if the computer is actually talking to me. Or blaming me! Stop it!

This error message is more like a therapy session!
No, you bozo, I didn't forget. The keyboard repeated, or I hit two keys at once, or whatever.


When you request a receipt for an email, and it comes back to you, microsoft Outlook Express feels the need to put this message on it:

This is a Return Receipt for the mail that you sent to xyz@abc.com

Note: This Return Receipt only acknowledges that the message was displayed on the recipient's computer. There is no guarantee that the recipient has read or understood the message contents.

Duuh? I thought it was guaranteed that the recipient has read every word and understood it. (?) I get replies to emails that prove some recipients don't understand a word I wrote.

Stormy weather memories

Memories come various forms. We tend to think of visual things as memories, but the sounds, smells, and environmental combinations of senses have made their marks on us as well. One such memory of mine goes back to one night in 1964. There was an exceptional spring storm in Pennsylvania. I recall precisely where I was and how I felt. I'm sure I could go back in the records and find the very date of that storm in the record books, since it produced floods and local damage. It was quite an event.

For me it was more than the dark and stormy night referred to in the cheap novels and in the writings of Snoopy. I was overwhelmed.

The rain was driving but not steady, sort of in sheets or dumps like some giant bucket was distributing water from above, thrown in arcs by and unseen giant, spreading it around. The sky was dark and the low clouds were transparently illuminated in puffs of light every time the lightning flashed. There was a magical quality to it all.

The huge leafy trees swayed and howled, seemingly choreographed by the forces to sway in an irregular rhythm. The wind tunnel effect and the downpour made whooshing sounds, accented by thunder. For some reason I felt exhilarated, on edge, maybe on an adrenalin natural high.

I was looking forward to the adventure of going out in this bluster, but I hesitated to drink it all in. The diagonal rain that was already hitting me was not uncomfortable at all, since the rain and air were quite warm. I stood there unable to move.

The wind! A integral part of this sensory memory was the swirling and forceful wind that accompanied the rain. The power and motion of it grabbed me, became a part of me. I remember savoring the pleasure of the moment, almost as if to predict that it would be something I would remember forty years later.

I have that emotional memory of standing, poised in that doorway. I was cocked as if ready to burst out of the starting blocks for a 100 yard dash, anticipating the thrill of the wind and rain. The sounds, wind, rain, fresh smell of ozone, the spooky but overpowering sensation was exciting. I never since have had that same wild and thrilling feeling, right to my very core, but a glimpse of it comes back to me as a memory in some storms today. When the winds whip up and things get wild, it gets my attention.

Understandable history experience

This is a wonderful resource for historical American graphics, sounds, politcal images,
maps and charts, all kinds of sensory riches, all in date categories. I have to show a few
favorites from The Authentic History Center web site:

I actually have this "K-K-K-Katy" sheet music cover.

This navy poster may show the role of women
has changed, but at least they weren't ashamed
to use the subjunctive.





And good ol' Charles Atlas
inspiring the 90 pound
weaklings.

Eight Inch Floppy

This might be a cheesy post, but I just ran across an old 8" Floppy in my file cabinet, qualifying for the dead media award of the week. You can see from the holes that I stick-pinned it to a couple of bulletin boards along the way, but it once had data on it as I recall. Which machine, what format, what language, is lost to the ages. Notice the hole in the lower left, which was usually covered with tape for write enable. Later (but also dead?) 3.5 floppies reversed that, and closed the hole for protect. Also notice the index hole to the right of the spindle hole that was to keep track of the hard sector boundaries. Double sided, double density! Probably held ~200-300K?

Scientific Facts

NASA's images from space are always amazing, for instance this crystal clear one from the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn. It looks like you can reach right out and grab this moon. The whole scene sort of looks like it could be a work of art thrown on a potter's wheel from clay, the moon spattered with fliks for dramatic effect.
NASA link

BUT have I mentioned I get more questioning as I get older? This wonderful Hubbel image of "Ring Galaxy AM 0644-741" below, is equally great, and I love to see the images, but I question the confident, settled and conclusive attitude of the descriptions of this kind of thing by the astronomers who write the copy.

Not to disparage the scientists, but the explanation is as if they are describing a ham sandwich, it is so certain. Oh, yes, this is 300 MILLION LIGHT YEARS AWAY, and is not even seen with visible light, and we have to reconsruct the data, but we are sure of everything. They casually state that these rings form in the collision of two galaxies, and USUALLY when this happens, the stars don't collide, and Rarely this and that yadda yadda yadda. Yeah, Right! Like they have seen many of these things occur in real time (millions of light years), and these are established scientific facts.

Excuse me, this is all very smart and logical scientific THEORY, not fact.

And the anthropologist knows the shape of an ancient man's flesh from two or three petrified skull fragments, and some leg bones, too. I've seen the sketches, so they must be true.
NASA link

Ancient Music Videos

Here are two memory lane type videos from the world of music. Don't like
external links, but these work better this way, linking over to "zippyvideos".

The first is a Beach Boys thing. Interesting to hear the music, which hasn't
aged at all, but see the faces of these young kids, including Brian Wilson, who looks
so incredibly young. (I want in the comments, the story of my brother John who is rumored to have mixed for them back then. )

The other is Karen Carpenter on the Ed Sulivan show, 1970. Who could not be just bowled over at the first sounds coming out of her mouth? Just breathtaking. You would expect a rich sound like that coming from a Mama Cass size frame person, but how did she do it, especially with her illness which made her even lighter.

Google the new MS?

Headline: (hat tip to scott)
Digital Media Asia: News - NASA, Google to collaborate on 'entrepreneurial space industry'

All these marvelous, surprising and enthusiastic things that Google keeps getting into, and the hundreds of things you assume they are doing behind the scenes in their "labs" as we speak makes me keep thinking about the difference. The contrast between their actions and Microsoft's way of doing things, years ago, and even now.

For example Microsoft often bought out other companies not to have the new idea and do something exciting, but sometimnes in a defensive way, to put a competitor out of business so they wouldn't stop MS and their ho-hum ordinary stuff from succeeding. Suing rivals to slow them down, doing anything to prevail.

Google bursts out with a whole different attitude, like acquiring Keyhole to introduce Google Earth. They knew they could do something great with it, and they did. Microsoft always was predatory, never appreciating the third party software and even hardware (I mean, what was MS, a software company doing making mice or emulator boards for Apple II?) that helped them become the monopoly that they thought they had to be to keep from failing.

Instead, Google seems to have the crazy idea that if they do great, interesting and useful things, people will like that, and that will drive success. I certainly hope they prove that that is the better way to go about things.

Silver Clef Music

One new music publisher, Silver Clef Music, really is out in front, and I hope they are successful. They specialize in sheet music for school, community, and church groups - particularly bands, choirs, and orchestras, and for solos and ensembles of musicians from those types of groups. David Miller started this publisher of printed and digital sheet music to be part of the solution and the vanguard of the future, rather than part of the past.

Copyright laws at the heart, really leave reproduction rights and restrictions up to the owners and the publishers of music as to what is and is not permitted. Traditionally if you copy a piece in any way, xerox, hand copy, transcription, digital, you were in copyright violation because the publisher prohibited it. In practice, people violate this too much, and with the 21st century, it is harder for these copyright laws to be followed. Silver Cleff gives more practical and modern permission while still holding copyright and hopefully getting fair compensation for the sets they sell. Here is their short description:

We offer copyright permissions unique to the instrumental music world . . . . When you purchase music from Silver Clef, you also get the right to make as many copies as you need for the instrumentation or voicing of your group. If you have 32 horn players, just print 32 horn parts. If someone loses their music, or marks it up in ink, just print more. No problem.

The only thing you're not allowed to do is to give (sell, lend, transport, telepathically deliver) it to another group. Let them buy their own copy. But you'll never have a lost part again. You'll never have to forgo playing a wonderful Silver Clef arrangement because all the trombone parts are missing, or because all the viola parts have crumbled to dust.

Hopefully other publishers will follow this lead as we go further into the digital age. It is so practical and wonderful to have a .pdf file containing all the perfectly done parts for each instrument, or voice, and print it out when you need it without feeling like you are doing something wrong. Or in the future, maybe those parts will appear on a networked digital screen stand rather than being printed at all.

Just one more wonderful thing that Silver Clef is doing. They have started "Project Sousa", the "Project Gutenburg" for the music world, making whole arrangements of public domain pieces available to the public at no charge. The first music they completed were John Philip Sousa's own band pieces and marches. FREE! All in pdf! Amazing.

Future thin client computers?

I start this thread saying that desktop computers have evolved so they are too complex for their own good. Windows has tried to be all things and add multimedia, support for all sorts of content and hairy programs, making it vulnerable to viruses and other inherent problems just because it is trying to do so many complex things seamlessly, connected to the internet pipeline, subject to any kind of input.

In a nutshell, if you really try to DO something with the computer, it slows down, crashes, stops working the way it used to, and is a royal pain. Even power users have probably unacceptable levels of updates, repairs, re-boots, reformats, and typical users don't want to, don't have the time, or can't cope with the daily problems that seem to pop up. Time and expense.

The solution may not be yet another version of Windows, or OSX, or whatever.

The industry newsletters reported this Microsoft insider story:

Jim Allchin, a senior Microsoft Corp. executive, walked into Bill Gates's office here one day in July last year to deliver a bombshell about the next generation of Microsoft Windows.

"It's not going to work," Mr. Allchin says he told the Microsoft chairman. The new version, code-named Longhorn, was so complex its writers would never be able to make it run properly.

Well maybe they got beyond that, maybe they didn't, but are you betting that Longhorn, now called "Vista" will be the solution?

What is the possible solution? "Thin Clients"

In the 90's Citrix invented a system which takes all of the hassle of maintaining a PC away! A central server has all the goodies. Many clients simultaneously log on remotely from terminals, and use it as if it were there own. Slower computers and networks slowed acceptance back then, but Microsoft at first licensed the software from Citrix, then tried to steal the idea, but were stopped by a lawsuit, which lead to "Terminal Services" that Microsoft provides, but pays Citrix for the code. I know this because I knew someone who worked for Citrix in those days and told me about it. Microsoft was predatory, according to him.

I use my laptop that way. It's older, but not ancient, and I couldn't and didn't want to replicate all the programs on my main PC. So I set up just the bare bones, and wirelessly connect by Terminal Services to my main computer in the cellar, which acts as a sort of server. All that is transmitted is the keyboard and the screen ( thin client). It is so fast and responsive that I can hardly tell I am not on the other machine. Some video and sound is not perfect, but would be with even faster connections.

All my settings, updates, software, bookmarks, text files reminders are there, because actually I am there electronically.

Well imagine your PC just connected to the internet with who cares what minimum client operating system, pay a monthly fee to be connected to a server. It has all the programs you want. You don't have to worry about slowdowns, updates, viruses, conflicts, just use the computer. Of course some registry of settings would be stored for your individual setup, but that might not even be local.

If you have used a "Blackberry" or cell phone or such device to get on the internet, you get the idea. Just put that on a big screen with a keyboard, and there you have it. No license of windows necessary (sorry, Bill). No need to troubleshoot or wrestle with technical troubles. That burden is shifted to a server somewhere, where hundreds of clients can log in simultaneously as if it were their own personal setup.

Kitchen low-tech

This seems so trivial, but Martha Stewart is out, so I will do it in her honor.
It has been a while since I went into one of those kitchen gadget specialty shops, but we used to laugh because no matter how complete, they never had the three things I thought were the best things in our kitchen. "Oh, we at Kitchens R Us have, or can get anything.", they say, but I get the last laugh because they don't ever have them. These were made by somebody once, because we have 'em, but they must have lost the molds, because you never see them for sale.
1. The best ladel ever made made. Not available now.

Not to go too crazy here, but the flat edge is great to scrape the last of the soup or whatever out. The pan is flat. Why do they make ladles all rounded and oval shape?
2. A simple plastic ring transforms any common plastic waste basket into a better functioning and trim holder for a liner or a paper bag.


3. The third one I don't have a picture of because I wore out both of these I used to have. It was made out of very flexible plastic or nylon, and was about the length and shape of a big 12" carving knife. Sort of a long thin spatula. I used it to make scrambled eggs or an omlette in a frying pan. The flexible blade would bend under and scrape the sides and the bottom at the same time. Can't describe it any better, but it beat anything else.

Chinese Inflatable Spam

I almost deleted it, but somehow it had a curious look to it, so I clicked an unsolicited email from a Chinese company which sells huge custom made inflated plastic "toys".

"We manufacture high quality and good price inflatable products in any size or style, please browse the inflatable products sorts."

Bouncers______Castles_________ Sports __________ Slides_______ Fun City


This, unlike 99.999% of spam, was an interesting ad, from an honest company with a Real Product , They gave their real location, and legitimate contacts, opt out click, etc.. In short, if all our unsolicited mail were like this, we could tolerate it! I mean how long are we, as smart mail consumers, going to put up with these fake mortgage, drug ads, scams, not to mention the viruses, that we have to find ways to filter out?

But spam discussion aside, I love these things and the company ad with its pretty-good English. Althought they never mention the prices, which they quote when you inquire, I bet they range form 200$ up. The shipping alone is estimated at ~$250 if you only order one. They come with electric fan blowers that keep them up, and a repair kit. I don't mean to sound like an infomercial, but they are interesting! (Just think of Richie Rich's birthday party) Some of them are huge - 30 feet high - and complex. You've probably seen them as grand opening displays, on top of shopping centers for promotions, etc., but they have hundreds of them, and will custom make one to your design if you want!

Internet vs Katrina

My internet hosting company, DirectNIC had an intereting challenge last week. You can see from my sitemeter graphs here that there was a bite out of page views mainly on friday and saturday. DirectNIC offices and servers are in an office building in New Orleans. One of the owners has had media attention with his blog during the hurricane and aftermath. He put out pictures and stories from the streets when others were escaping to high ground. When the power went out, the city shut down, support service companies left, and everyone advised them to throw in the chips, they stuck it out and with luck and hard work, never lost connectivity, even though they admitedly had problems and loss of some activities. They ran on deisel back up generators, as did the company next door who supplied the OC3 line to the internet. They waited for resupply of fuel that was promised, but not delivered on time, they kept tech support up for existing customers, and this is not a trivial thing, since they are one of the major internet hosting companies in the country.

Interestingly enough, my web sites were available at first when the hurricane went through, but finally went out on fridayand saturday, but bounced back quickly. I was impressed that they sent me a quick response to my email and let me know what was happening.

Here was an entry in the "Interdictor" blog yesterday:

The city really does look like a ghost town. It's so bizarre to see streets which are normally highly trafficed having such a limited flow of vehicles. And at night it's weird to see all these high rises with no light coming from the buildings. No street lights, no traffic lights, the clock on the Whitney Bank building on Poydras and Camp -- a widely recognized feature -- is stopped. The debris is still everywhere. Cars abandoned all over the place. Abandoned and trashed. And the quiet. Aside from the occasional vehicle, this place has no sound. Every piece of glass that used to be a high rise window which hits the ground can be heard blocks away.

I wonder how things will be different in this city when this is all behind us.

Update: On cam, way down the street, you can see what appears to be an armed military foot patrol. First one I've seen.

Oh, yeah they have a live web cam: Web Cam

Arthur Ashe Commemorative Stamp Unveiled

Here's a story that has a few twists and turns. I have a Google news alert sent to me for three or four things. One is "Richmond, VA" since I lived there so long. Today I got a news clipping that the Bangkok Post(!) was reporting that The US Post Office was honoring Richmond VA native Arthur Ashe with a commemorative stamp.


I feel close to the Arthur Ashe story, because I followed his presence, though I don't think I ever actually saw him, in Richmond --- well maybe in a parade. I passed the tennis courts often where he had been excluded as a youngster, I followed the battles of the area snobs and worse who finally had to accept a wonderful statue to him on Monument Avenue, the great divided boulevard in the fan that was previously only lined with bronze Robert E. Lee on horseback and other Confederate heroes.

I saw his funeral pass me at work in 1993. I was standing at our counter, looking out the plate glass windows, and I happened to be talking on the phone to a supplier in California at the time, who was so interested, she had me tell her the story and describe the details as he passed.

Past Topics

I did a little cleanup on my archives. Some of the posts from 2002 were linked to storage places that don't exist anymore, and they were identified by dates rather than title, so it was russian roulette to look at old entries. The result is a title list in the left column, linking to previous posts by name.

I had forgotten about this post June 2002 that linked to some family pictures and some design pictures. Also, the snaps of the Lego display when it was in Hartford also in 2002.

template fugit

Just a little tweaking in the template for a change.

Tech support Wizard?

Tech support?
A good friend of ours said that their 20-something daughter in Florida needed help because she didn't know how to get her new printer to work with her laptop. I figured I could walk her through it on the phone (to Florida) since I have set up hundreds of printers and drivers. I was not prepared for this, though. It took about 30 minutes for 5 minute's worth of actual work.

The daughter, I will call her "Jane", is a teacher, and I figured would be somewhat savvy. NOT! I asked what the problem was, and she explained the printer was still in the sealed box, she was afraid to open it, but she thought that the "wire thing" (USB Cable) that her mother sent was the right one probably. Now at this point, I should have told her I would call back after she had it set up and connected, but I was on their phone, and wasn't going anywhere, so I gritted my teeth and grinned, and said, "First, take it out of the box and take all the packing and tape off of it." This took her many minutes with me coaching.
Jane, "What is this little cube box thing that says Ink Cartridge on it?"
Me: "It is an ink cartridge. Take the tab off it and put it in the printer."
"Where in the printer?", said Jane.
I said I had never seen the printer, so she would have to figure it out. This went on and on. . .

About 98 % of my frustrating step by step process was through, and all there was was to send a test print to see if we had succeeded, she denied me of this pleasure as well. All of a sudden she unfolds a big quick start instruction sheet and says, "Hey, this has all of this stuff on here that we have been doing!" And she starts READING IT TO ME! 1. take tape off 2. unwrap black cartridge, pull tab, etc. etc.... EEEEKKK! I had to laugh, because I had to stop her from going over this back to me, but she didn't get it. Finally, I got her to print a test page, which would have been automatic if she had read the instructions.

Then I get ten minutes of praise and nonsense from her and her mother about how smart I am for doing this , as if it were a wizard and they were mere muggles. "Oh, it was nothing", I heard myself saying, If they only knew how true that was.

Two telephone related rants

Two phone related rants: a.) Can't dial and listen. b.)Phone times out too soon.

a.) Most phones now, cell and standard have the dialpad in the body of the phone, not like the old days when you could look at the dial and listen too. This would be fine, except the phone company and corporate automated phone systems (eg. . . hit 1 for sales, 2 for customer service, etc.) still think you can do both.
So I hit 2 for customer service, for example, and not being a magician, I take the phone from my ear to do this. By the time I get it back to my ear, the message has already started on instructions for the next level, so I have to wait for the next cycle to repeat.
Or you have to enter your 10 digit id, and a digit doesn't register, but of course you don't know this until you have put the whole thing in there. Then when you finish the whole thing, you realize that if you could have listened, you would have known sooner.

b.) But the most sinister thing that has changed on the phone systems, and I swear I am right on this, is that they don't give you as much time - or enough time between digits. I first realized this when Martha's mother started slowing down a few years ago, and she couldn't dial any number out of town because it started beeping if she delayed more than a couple of micro-seconds between digits.

Even today I get so mad when I am looking up a number, and key in the area code, glance down to my listing and find the rest of the number, and before I get my attention back, it has timed out. Bah Bah bah bah The phone nazi has said "No dialing for you! Too slow!" Not an earth shaking problem, but makes phones harder to use and I know they were not this way years ago. And who is responsible for this? Ma Bell? ATT? it is a nationwide thing, it looks like, so there is nobody to complain to, nobody who would care.

emminent domain revisited

There is a chance, albeit small, that the worst supreme court decision in memory, Kelo vs. New London, affirming the forced acquisition of private property for more profitable private, not public use, could be re-heard.

Perhaps the justices will have seen the flurry of cities now emboldened to act on this, making plans to take private property for malls, golf courses and wall-marts, and have had second thoughts.

Institute for Justice: Property Rights Cases: New London, CT, Kelo

BPL

BPL technology makes sense if it turns out to be profitble to develop. Broadband over Power Lines! The wires are already there! Makes sense for rural areas, for sure. Hard to get cable or DSL out to the boonies. Turns out it is not as simple as plugging an adapter in the wall. There are distribution problems, costs of repeaters and bypasses to transformers. One architecture being tested has the final signal come in from the power pole by Wi-Fi.

It's faster than DSL and Cable, and though there is a nagging interference problem with with short wave radio signals, that could be overcome. Everybody is running tests, (IBM, ATT, Google, AOL, Yahoo, and smaller players) and there will be issues of control and distribution, but it looks like it is coming on. Broadband is really dragging its feet in getting cheap and available. I would have thought that satellites or other wireless internet would have been the next technology to get practical, but we should be used to cloudy crystal balls by now. A lite discussion of BPL here and a heavier 2004 white paper here.

Oh, by the way, I just read that AOL is going to stop its subscription service. Have to redefine themselves. But what am I going to do with the left over "free trial" discs that they sent me?

Paul Winchell

I had no knowledge of Paul Winchell's voice in Disney movies, as is being reported, but I sure remember his best friends, Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smith (or was it Smiff?). I always was a sucker for ventriloquists. You feel like a dummy yourself each time you realize you are accepting the dummy as a real character. I also read a witty statement that Jerry and Knucklehead were probably more important inventions than his artificial heart. I gotta read a bio somewhere about him. How could an entertainer/ventriloquist also be a artificial heart inventor? Bet it is a great story.


Update: I did go to the Vent Haven Museum of Ventriloquists that Leah suggested in the comments. By coincidence, their 2005 convention is going on as we speak. One thing that I got straight finally was that Edger Bergen had Charlie McCarthy, Mortimer Snerd et. al., easy to confuse with the Winchel/Mahoney/Smiff team.

RE: The inventor Winchell: from this web site:
Something of a renaissance man, Winchell was also an inventor who held 30 patents, including one for an early artificial heart he built in 1963 and then donated to the University of Utah for research. Dr. Robert Jarvik and other University of Utah researchers later became well-known for the Jarvik-7, which was implanted into patients after 1982.

Among Winchell's other inventions were an early disposable razor, a flameless cigarette lighter, an invisible garter belt and an indicator to show when frozen food had gone bad after a power outage.