Why Analog Matters
In reply to a thread on CNet about Record Store Day, I laid out a long reply to the idea that buying vinyl these days is pointless, especially if the artist records digitally. The poster implied that the CD format was the gold standard and that prompted my reply. It was too long for their system so here's the whole thing:
The issue with the cd format is not that it's digital, it's that it's 16bit/44k digital. This is not even close to the full analog sound as produced in nature. This number was chosen because it was all the data they could cram through the DAC's built in the late 1970's. The "CD format" as you know it is the best digital audio format that computers (actually IC's) could handle 32 years ago. Anything else a 32 year old computer is "good enough" for these days?
So why do most people think CD is actually the top standard, and that mp3 is "good enough"? Brilliant engineering, understanding commerce, and counting on people's horrible (and often damaged) ears. Let me explain:
Smart, Very Smart
Building walls based on animal skin. Cool & Smart. We will never run out of better models and better design when looking to nature. Considering that the buildings we build account for over 50% of the pollution we poison ourselves with, it stands that it will be builders and architects that can most effectively address our efficiency issues.
8 Bit Goodness
I present the first computer I purchased and still a favorite of mine, the 8 bit goodness of the Atari 130xe. Commodore people were everywhere back then (like Windows now), waiting 23 minutes to load a game, but my Atari rolled fast and stable. I had a disk drive, a modem, and probably a whole 512k of RAM. Plus leatherette cases!
The whole system. I had a 1200 baud modem to access the FreeNet, the BBS's, and the Gopher servers. Hook into any TV set and phone line and off you go!
So what could this thing do? It had a nice soundchip for the time and could get pretty funky midi going (for 1985). If I had my studio then I would have been producing music on this thing, for sure, but I was just a snot nosed 12 year old.
Sandbots!
Imagine if each tiny little block of something was actually a smart object (meaning it has a CPU, input & output), and that these blocks worked as a group to reposition themselves. Sort of like lego's that build themselves. Cool huh? Real.
Granted these things are not 'sand sized' yet, with some serious miniaturization still needing to take place, but the fun work of the low-level system logic and control design is underway.
The idea is much like a replicator on Star Trek, in that you could provide this system with a 3D item to scan, or a wireframe image of one, and it would send the design to the sandbots. The software in the sandbots would work to position and lock themselves into place, ultimately creating a reasonable facsimile of the object's shape.
What It Says About Us
Nailed it. Too much information just waving in the wind, waiting to be exploited over and over again. Screaming to be exploited, just for attention.
Stop Using Facebook To Login To Other Sites
If you love or hate Facebook, never visit or live on it - that's fine by me. Waste your time however you see fit. But please don't contribute to Facebook ruining the internet as I know it. Using a Facebook login to access other sites is a huge security risk. Big surprise, huh? (same thing with Google+ and other shared-login concepts).
Not only can your private information get stolen by unknown 3rd party 'advertising' companies (something you probably don't care about if you are using Facebook in the first place), but from my perspective, it's much bigger than that. The issue is not about your indivdual Facebook security, it's about Facebook's attempt to become the defacto 'internet ID' that we all need to use the world's information networks.
Some of you might be fine using one profile tied directly to your legal name, your family, your job, and your life as you surf around the world wide web, but this is not how the system was designed and not how it grew to such prominence. Anonymity, or at least misdirection, is an important part of information sharing on the internet.
The only way to stop a bandwagon is to jump off it. It might still crash and burn down the road with some riders, but you'll be safe and sound with just small scratches.
So don't use your Facebook login to interact with other sites. Doing so will ultimately kill the original purpose of the internet and turn the whole thing into a big, even less secure, Facebook. Not to mention all of your posts, likes, and views during all of your browsing exploits -- even that one night where you drank that whole bottle! -- will be available for future employers to review. Think about it.
A single internet ID, controlled by anyone (Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc.) will kill the internet. Do not kill the internet.
Tech Titans
The market speak for computer companies during my geek-life:
My First glance: IBM = titans, Microsoft = nerds, Apple = hippies, Atari = artists
My High school: IBM = clumsy old titans, Microsoft = business nerds, Apple = misguided hippies & artists, Atari = dead
My College: IBM = business nerds, Microsoft = titans, Apple = hippies on life support, NeXT = futurists
My 20's: IBM = researchers, Microsoft = clumsy old titans, Apple = colored plastic iMachines hiding futurist code, NeXT = artists, Be = futurists
My 30's: IBM = futurists, Microsoft = business school, Apple = titans & artists, NeXT & Be = long gone
My point? I've seen most of these companies grow, shrink, dominate, follow, and some even disappear. It's been a wild ride watching it, and as Apple sits seemingly at the top of the mountain again (arguably the first time since 1978) I felt the need to show this cyclic nature. You younger geeks out there can get a little context.
Creepy Commerce
OK I've been ranting about this possibility for about three years now, and this is actually the primary reason why I have avoided Facebook: Walmart just bought their way into your Facebook 'timeline' data. Yep, all of your life's most precious (or not) moments, ready to be exploited by corporate america's computers. I bet we are right around the corner from the day where your posting on facebook triggers direct contact from several 'friends' selling you 'personalized' products commemorating your amazing moment that just happened.
Complete digital masturbation circle jerks, coming soon, exploding all over your facebook, suckers!
Solar Panel Breakthrough
Solar panel made with ion cannon is cheap enough to challenge fossil fuels. Good news on the alternative power front -- anything to help us get some nearly free energy.
Seems to me that anything that gets us using energy gathered from the sun, the wind, or the water in a more affordable way is good, and I'm glad progress is being made here.
An Update On The Human-Robot Competition
Hello humans. I have two items I'd like to brief you about. As always - be vigilant. Robots are not to be trusted.
The Squishy Robot has no skeleton and can crawl (shimmy?) underneath small spaces.
Then there's this scary monster that can solve Rubik's Cube in 5 seconds, using a smart phone as it's processor and a bunch of specialized arms.
Perhaps we get these two together for a robot night out and make a baby bot that would crawl under the bed and solve the puzzles it finds?
More Than Lip Service
Here's Steve Jobs demoing his NeXT Computer running the OS NextStep from the early 90's. He calls it "Interpersonal Computing".
What's amazing to me is how 20 years on most of this demo holds up. There are things the NextStep OS was doing then that Windows and Linux still don't do today. Of course MacOSX inherited most of those features when it grew out of NextStep in the late 90's.
The graphics power, the inter-app services, the rich-media, the text handling, the networking concepts - history has justified Steve and the NeXT team. He saw in the 80's that higher-powered chips would allow workstation-like tasks and multimedia on every personal computer, and set about building the system to take UNIX power to the people.
It's not in this video, but there's cool video online with Steve circa 1999 talking about how using his Next box, he put his home directory 'in the cloud' in the early 90's. He explains how every machine he uses has access to his networked home directory, and because of this setup, he has not done a single backup nor lost a single bit of personal data in over 10 years.
Password = 123456
The worst passwords of 2011. If you are on that list prepare to be hacked.
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