moving on in the age of mobile computing

I made a decision this weekend to shut down my traditional website. I wish I could say that I agonized over the decision, but I didn't. Back when the net was new and the concept of an information superhighway seemed limitless, all the geeky people were learning how to code in HTML 3. All you had to do was put up a website, and you had arrived.

Now, with HTML 5, there are a huge amount of options. And with every new option, comes a new responsibility to keep your page active and up to date. Who has the time? I'm hard pressed to make a blog post nowadays. Hundreds of sites offer commentary. I visit a few, and of course leave comments. And of course get lost in YouTube close to an hour at a visit. And lets be honest. Not a lot of people need to read info that was originally new almost 10 years ago. TED.com can provide any number of geeky futuristic concepts that would take me months to research and post.

I'm obviously not giving up the internet, and anyone that needs to see what I'm up to can easily follow me on Facebook. But as far as a traditional site goes for me, well, it's better off left for the guys that know how to code with CSS on their smartphones with just their thumbs.

If you REALLY want to know what my pages were, check these links:
original Angelfire site
the Geocities site
the current Angelfire site

Be aware that I'm in process of shutting the current site down so it looks 404-ish.

Tablets & Netbooks

It's scary when you can say "I remember when..."

My first computer was a Commodore C64. Nice for it's time. Then I bought a Packard Bell 386 on closeout from Montgomery Ward. (Who? LOL) After that, began my love affair with Dell computers. A GX 100, then a GX 300. And now my Inspiron 1100. But that veteran is getting long in the tooth, even after maxing the memory, and upgrading the hard drive.

I've resisted getting a netbook PC simply because they were too small as PCs, and kind of limited for what I do, which is to mainly surf the web and comment on blogs and the like. Now as anyone knows, or should know, tablets aren't exactly new. Microsoft has been pushing the concept for a while, with mixed results. And now Apple has pushed the market to maturity with its iPad release. Does anyone see the shift happening here? Away from traditional computing, into "on the fly" info management. Mice and keyboards have no use by the geneal public.

I'm hoping that augmented reality will take off within the next ten years, then even tablets will be out of style. But until then, my next purchase is a tablet, I think.

I'm alive!

Not that many people missed me. I just thought I'd post something. I've been reading lots of other news stories and blogs, and have been responding to those. Then I realized I had better put SOMETHING up! So this is the something. LOL!

2012 ponderings

Fractal time and the I Ching

Every once in a while I slip into thinking about "what if". I feel that Fractal time is a fairly good description of what's been happening with the pace of technology. I must admit, I was becoming a bit paranoid about "the end of the world" thing. But I recently read this line from this link pertaining to the recent 2012 movie: "The studio also launched a viral marketing website operated by the fictional Institute for Human Continuity, where filmgoers could register for a lottery number to be part of a small population that would be rescued from the global destruction. The fictitious website lists the Nibiru collision, a galactic alignment, and increased solar activity among its possible doomsday scenarios. David Morrison of NASA has received over 1000 inquiries from people who thought the website was genuine and has condemned it, saying "I've even had cases of teenagers writing to me saying they are contemplating suicide because they don't want to see the world end. I think when you lie on the Internet and scare children in order to make a buck, that is ethically wrong.' "

This pretty much opened my eyes to the hype surrounding a calamity in 2012. Something might happen, but I'm pretty sure the planet won't blow up, or come anywhere near the destruction that's been blathered about by doomsday prophets. As was once shared with me by a trusted friend, "Don't worry. Everything will be alright".

The West is dead. Long live the East.

Copenhagen Travesty.

The title is mine. The link is real. The situation is pretty much written in stone. The western nations, once strong and proud, have been effectively castrated by China. Obviously NO ONE had balls enough to tell these clowns "no, you will comply with these accords".

Don't worry about learning Mandarin anytime soon. They are working on English, so they can explain to us while we're licking our crushed groins that China can defeat ANY opponent in ANY battle. Period.

And we put Obama in office, why, again?

Asimov's Three Laws

Just to refresh the concept, Dr. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics aren't real laws. They are a literary plot device. Dr. Asimov knew that there were work arounds for them. He always found reasons to work around the three laws in his robot stories. What you WILL find to be true is this:

1.Robots are machines. Machines, like humans, age and break down if not properly maintained. A faulty machine will injure or kill the first person that is careless.

2. Any military that uses robots on a field of battle will have some type designed for defensive/offensive combat. If you don't want to be killed by a military robot, stay out of it's line of fire.

3. Hobby robots made out of sturdy plastic will bite your fingers just as hard, if not harder, as metal when you grab them in the middle of program execution.

In the recent movie Astroboy, the robots mention in passing about Asimov's three laws. "You know, a robot may not injure a human, yada yada yada." The laws have no effect on these guys. And if you think they should, you need to stay away from your blender. You might like the number of fingers on your hands.

Micropayments

Here is my reply to an article on the New York Times website about micropayment models. By the time you read it here, it should have cleared the censors on their site.

-"In retrospect, most newspapers had a micropayment system in place decades ago, and never realized it: The corner newspaper box. John Q. Public stood at the bus stop and read the headlines through the cloudy plastic window. (free content). If there was a story that really interested him, he put his coins in the slot, and bought the paper. (micropayment. The cost of a single paper amounts to pennies per story.) Redistribution of paid content also existed then. (some jackass paid his coins, then took ALL the papers in the box and gave them to his friends.) Of course subscriptions are self explanatory.

Advertising models aside, micropayments are the way to go, folks. Give me a headline with a single paragraph. If the story is compelling, I'll click to buy it. I think I can afford a penny or two."