Posts by Dr. Ellen

There is one slight problem...

For many years, my dentist has offered headphones, to play music of my choice. And then, at least once a minute, "Turn your head to the left." "Open a bit wider." "Are you doing okay?"

What good is something carrying your mind off to a soothing place, when you get dragged back to reality dozens of times during the process? I've given up on the headphones.

Cheating?

The emissions testing rules said "this is how we will test your car" and "here is what we expect to see when we do it." So the carmakers gave it to them. This is called "teaching to the test" in schools, and while it's bad form, it probably isn't illegal. Unless, of course, you do it to the government.

The perfect is the enemy of the okay.

My ears are far older than the MP3 codec. Perfection would be wasted on me. Nor am I alone in this situation.

The chorus to ALL the songs in the papers.

World ends tomorrow! Women and children hardest hit!

Starve the beast

A much easier way to avoid ads is to avoid Windows 10. I'm happy with 7, and getting practiced with Linux.

Evil Twin of AI

Artificial Intelligence may or may not exist. Artificial Stupidity has been around since the first bureaucrat.

Major Technical Mistake!

That's a Commodore 128. (I know. I had a VIC-20, a C-64, and a C128. Sequentially, not all at once.) Of course the 128 had a C-64 under the hood, but it also had a CP/M machine. Who knows what they were up to, in there out of sight?

It may have a 64 sticker on top, but a REAL 64 didn't have that ledge on the back.

Pale Grey

What IS this nonsense about pale grey typefaces on graphs (as in this article), and in other places? Why should I have to magnify the screen and squint just because some wally thinks it's elegant?

Name Your Poison.

If you own an Android device, Google knows what you're doing. If you own an Apple device, Apple knows what you're doing. Windows, Microsoft knows what you're doing -- and with Windows 10, they'll know even more. Have a Kindle or shop online, Amazon knows what you're doing. I'm not so sure about Ubuntu, but who knows?

As these things go, I'll take the Amazon surveillance with the most grace. They are making money off me *directly* and would probably just as soon not screw up the relationship. As for the others -- if something is free, YOU are the product being sold. Since I have a Kindle and use Windows, Android, and Ubuntu, and am not involved in plots, I content myself with feeding the spies I know, and trying to avoid the ones I don't know. It's the price we pay to be part of the technological world. I don't like paying it, but I'd like getting rid of all my gadgets even less.

Why, when I was young ...

I had a blind friend who was using an IBM XT286 to write -- stories, letters, keeping lists. He had it set up with a speaking word processor. He'd learned it, he'd liked it, and he never had much luck with updates. So I maintained that puppy for him until he died in 2012. I think he got it in 1987, so that would be 25 years. Had to replace the clock battery once, and get him a few new printers -- and put in a 3.5" drive so I could get data in and out. (Not that big a job with a 5 meg HD and a 1.44 meg FD.)

If something does a satisfactory job, keep it going.

Curse you, McAfee!

I don't know how many times I've unchecked the box that says "install McAfee such'n'so" while updating programs (including Flash). I wasn't paying sufficient attention, and this time they got me. Constant Vigilance!

Bosses

Bosses do not want to hear what they do not want to hear, and they have a regrettable tendency to take vengeance upon the person who says it. No amount of rule- or procedure-changing will affect that.

Trouble?

There is no denying it: building something as complicated as a Mars-capable rocket is beset with troubles. Civilian rocket? engineering, fabrication, explosions, and the economy. Government rocket? engineering, fabrication, explosions, the economy, the President, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the bureaucracy, public image ...

It's simple. Unless somebody (like Russia, or perhaps China) threatens their pride, the government will never do it. If you say "yes", you're liable for anything that goes wrong. If you say "no", the whole thing is somebody else's problem.

Bah, humbug!

Google installed most of those flaws themselves. Every app I get wants access to everything on my tablet. It wants the microphone, it wants the camera, it wants the wi-fi, it wants to be able to modify the contents of the SD card. Google did that so *they* could get at our data. All those other guys are just unintended (but unpatched) consequences. Google wants our data, and they weren't even competent enough to keep it to themselves!

With great power comes great hazard.

The more energy you stuff into an object, the more trouble it can cause if it gets loose. Since batteries are good at rapidly letting loose the energy, that ends up being either a fire or an explosion, depending on the details. The batteries of tomorrow will be even better at holding energy -- let us hope they are better at holding on to it as well.

It doesn't matter if you remember the past - you're condemned to repeat it anyway.

Back when there was effectively one phone company in the USA, there was a saying: "We're Ma Bell. We don't have to care." This attitude always develops as a company thinks it has the world by the short and curlies. Microsoft? Comcast? Your friendly national government? Of course it applies to Apple.