Category: Interesting Reads

Sometimes, you are just born too late

According to this post at Modern Mechanix, I was born just a couple of decades too late.  Being born in 1970, I missed out on my chance to get a high-paying career going in guided missile automation.  The July 1957 issue of Popular Electronics has the following details:

Outstanding Employment Opportunities Open to Central Graduates!

No matter what you’re doing now . . . whether you’ve ever had previous technical experience or not, you can begin right now to prepare for a great career in these fascinating, rewarding fields!

Capitalize on the fact that Central’s nationally recognized, proven training methods, top instructors and long record of educational achievement have put Central-trained men in high demand throughout America! . . . that Central’s graduates are periodically interviewed and employed by many of the Country’s foremost industrial giants and leading employers of electronics specialists. Hundreds of radio and TV stations look to Central as a reliable source for competent, thoroughly trained technicians . . . and the nation’s major airlines and aircraft manufacturers have hired hundreds of Central-trained technicians for important communications and electronics positions.

So instead of making my riches blowing stuff up, I have to make my money keeping computer systems running.  I like what I do for a living, but it would be way cooler to make missiles work.

[tags]Missiles, blow stuff up[/tags]

Batwoman and I share a common interest

batwoman.jpgJust got notice of this from a cow-orker. DC Comics has deciced to bring back the Batwoman character. She’ll show up in July as part of an ongoing weekly series. Upon reading the article, folks will probably notice:

The 5-foot-10 superhero comes with flowing red hair, knee-high red boots with spiked heels, and a form-fitting black outfit.

Naturally, some will think that’s the common interest she and I share. But the truth is deeper. Batwoman, reborn after the death of the original in 1979, is coming back as a lesbian. So our common interest is a great appreciation of hot chicks.

DC Comics is resurrecting the classic comic book character as a lesbian, unveiling the new Batwoman in July as part of an ongoing weekly series that began this year.

. . .

The original Batwoman was started in 1956, and killed off in 1979. The new character will share the same name as her original alter ego, Kathy Kane. And the new Batwoman arrives with ties to others in the Gotham City world.

“She’s a socialite from Gotham high society,” DiDio said. “She has some past connection with Bruce Wayne. And she’s also had a past love affair with one of our lead characters, Renee Montoya.”

Montoya, in the “52” comic book series, is a former police detective.

The folks at DC have asked that people wait until the character is seen in the series to pass judgement, though. They are saying this is part of an effort to provide more diversity to their superhero universe. I guess we’ll have to wait a few more weeks to see how the public receives the new character. Personally, as long as she is a great hero, I’m not that concerned with her bedroom preferences. That is, unless they make a pr0no with her and release it for fans’ viewing pleasure – I’m totally downloading the video if that ever happens.

[tags]DC Comics, Batwoman, Lesbian superhero[/tags]

Bellsouth doesn’t want you to know how much it hates customers

(via Slashdot)

Originally, BellSouth simply denied working to support the NSA’s illegal wiretaps of US citizens as fully as possible. Now, a request has been made to USA Today to retract the earlier story.

The telecommunications giant sent a letter to USA Today on Thursday asking it to retract last week’s story that BellSouth and two other companies helped the NSA compile a massive database of records on domestic phone calls.

In other words, originally there was a denial, but with evidence supporting the earlier story, BellSouth wants to simply hide the details so people won’t know how much help the NSA has been given to continue the current administrations illegal eavesdropping efforts.

[tags]BellSouth, NSA wiretaps[/tags]

The Pirate Bay shut down?

When I couldn’t reach thepiratebay.org to see what new TV shows were avialable, I went looking for a reason.  My first assumption was that somehow, despite past failures to do so, companies who have seen their IP distributed on The Pirate Bay managed to get the site taken offline.  It appears Slashdot confirms my first instinct was basically on-target.

My real interest in The Pirate Bay is TV show downloads.  Of course, the industry calls me a pirate for that.  I, on the other hand, have spent a couple hundred bucks this year on DVD sets for television shows that I never would have purchased had I not downloaded and watched so much from the torrent sites.  I am very unlikely to purchase those DVDs for shows I haven’t already seen.  And since I work at night, don’t have a working VCR, and haven’t gotten a DVR yet, that pretty much means no TV DVD sets without torrents.

[tags]The Pirate Bay, Torrent sites[/tags]

Microsoft hoping to replace JPEG?

I don’t know how I ended up finding this article, but here’s a good write-up on Microsoft’s new photo format.  The claim is Windows Media Photo will manage roughly double the compression ratio JPEG has while maintaining or bettering JPEG’s visual quality.  If true, this could really catch on.  Even with high-bandwidth connections more readily available, every opportunity to squeeze more signal per bit through the pipe is welcome.

“One of the biggest reasons people upgrade their PCs is digital photos,” Crow said, noting that Microsoft has been in contact with printer makers, digital camera companies and other unnamed industry partners while working on Windows Media Photo. Microsoft touts managing “digital memories” as one of the key attributes of XP successor Vista.

. . .

Not only does compression save storage space, which is especially important for devices such as cell phones and digital cameras, a smaller file can also print faster, transfer faster and help conserve battery life on devices, Crow said. “Making a file that is smaller has all kinds of benefits.”

Will this catch on?  As I said above, I can see the appeal, and if it works out as well as Microsoft is saying it will (read the article formore details of the intelligence in this format), I can only see problems if licensing costs are prohibitive or if Microsoft hate beats out throughput and image manipulation ease concerns.  Even the Microsoft rep realizes that:

Licensing details for the technology are still being ironed out. These could be a concern, Crow acknowledged, but “the philosophy has been that licensing should not be a restriction” to adoption, he said.

Honestly, I’m hoping Microsoft doesn’t pull an Apple and over-price this.  I’d like to see a better image format soon.

[tags]Microsoft, JPEG, photo format[/tags]

PC World’s 25 worst tech products

Thanks to a couple of cow-orkers who shared this with me. It’s so hard to pick a favorite, as there are so many disasterous products. Let’s try popping up this sample:

7. Microsoft Bob (1995)

No list of the worst of the worst would be complete without Windows’ idiot cousin, Bob. Designed as a “social” interface for Windows 3.1, Bob featured a living room filled with clickable objects, and a series of cartoon “helpers” like Chaos the Cat and Scuzz the Rat that walked you through a small suite of applications. Fortunately, Bob was soon buried in the avalanche of hype surrounding Windows 95, though some of the cartoons lived on to annoy users of Microsoft Office and Windows XP (Clippy the animated paper clip, anyone?).

Mostly, Bob raised more questions than it answered. Like, had anyone at Microsoft actually used Bob? Did they think anyone else would? And did they deliberately make Bob’s smiley face logo look like Bill Gates, or was that just an accident?

[tags]PC World, Tech disasters[/tags]

The effects of total isolation

(via Modern Mechanix)
Printed originally in Mechanix Illustrated in 1962, this is a brief account of one man’s exposure, so to speak, to an environment of solitude, weightlessness, darkness and silence.

EXPERIMENT IN LONELINESS

IN an underground “sensory deprivation chamber” at the VA Hospital in Oklahoma City sits an eight-foot-deep tank of water. It is part of a project designed to examine the mental stresses—especially hallucinations— that may afflict persons in environments of solitude, weightlessness, darkness and silence.

When Sid Ross, a free-lance writer, heard about the tank he contacted project director Dr. Jay T. Shurley and offered his services as a “tank volunteer.” The next thing Ross knew he was donning a pair of shorts as an assistant fitted a soundproof, lightproof mask to his face. Ross entered the water and floated face down. Weightless, deprived of his senses, his fantasies began . . .

Soon a giant frog loomed up.

[tags]Loneliness, solitude, Mechanix, Isolation experiment[/tags]

No .xxx domains for now

(via Freedom-to-Tinker)
Well, for now, ICANN has said no to .xxx domains.

ICANN had decided, some time back, to move toward a .xxx domain for adult content. The arrangements for .xxx seemed to be ready, but now ICANN has pulled the plug. The reason, apparently, is that the ICANN board was worried that ICM, the company that would have run .xxx, could not ensure that sites in the domain complied with all applicable laws. Note that this is a different standard than other domain managers would have to meet — nobody expects the managers of .com to ensure, proactively, that .com sites obey all of the national laws that might apply to them. And of course we all know why the standard was different: governments are touchy about porn.

Honestly, aside from making it easier for perverts like me to find good pr0n, I really don’t see the use of this domain. ICANN (nor any other organization) can force an adult site to use the domain, so it’s not like implementing this and then letting site providers, parents, ISP, and so on block it would stop adult sites. At best, it would block adult sites that try to play by the rules and make themselves easy to limit access to.

In the end, apparently ICANN decided the domain would not fit their purposes coordinating allocation of domains and numbers.

Read the full article – it’s lengthy, but full of good information about the organization and about decisions that go on behind domain creation and allocation.

[tags].xxx domains, ICANN[/tags]

Some good news for fathers everywhere

According to Snopes, it is true that more collect calls are placed on Father’s day than any other day. So it might cost you, but you probably have a better chance of hearing from your kids…

According to Hallmark, “Father’s Day is the fourth-largest card-sending occasion with nearly 95 million Father’s Day cards expected to be given this year [2006] in the United States.”

Yet it is another statistic related to the day that is more impressive: While Mother’s Day is the biggest holiday for phone calls, Father’s Day is the busiest for collect calls. (The overall busiest day of the year for phone calls is the Monday after Thanksgiving.)

In 1998, Dave Johnson, a spokesman for AT&T’s corporate headquarters in New Jersey, said, “Father’s Day is our biggest day for collect calls, not just the biggest holiday, but the biggest day of the year.” These calls are inclined to be longer than the average, too. “The difference between Father’s Day and Mother’s Day and a typical Sunday is that calls on the holidays tend to be three to four minutes longer,” said Johnson. “A typical long distance call is eight minutes long. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day calls average elevenminutes.”

More information can be found in the full story.

[tags]Father’s day, Snopes, Urban legends[/tags]

MAKEzine blog link dump

Here’s a big collection of projects from MAKE that I’d love to have time to do.

NPod – portable Nintendo

npod_small2.jpgBen Heck is at it again – this time he’s built a custom portable NES. His work on making classic consoles into modern portables is amazing. I’ve posted links to his stuff before, and I’m sure I’ll post links to it again. If you like the stuff you see on his web site, pick up his book Hacking Videogame Consoles (also in digital format). He’s done some wonderful work with other systems. I just happen to be most amazed by the NES work.

[tags]NES, Ben Heck, Portable Nintendo, Portable NES[/tags]

Make/Do magic tricks

(via MAKEzine blog)
Here’s one just for the kids.  Well, in my case, I’m interested in it just to show my kids, and perhaps to teach them.  Learn how to create and do your own magic tricks from MightyIllusions.  And as long as you are looking at this kind of thing, go to the associated optical illusions site and see some pretty cool eye tricks.

[tags]Magic, Optical illusions, DIY[/tags]