TwoPennies

Reinventing the Wheel

After a solid 20+ years of being a staunch IBM PC-compatible kinda guy, I've been thinking recently about (gasp) maybe getting a Mac, too.  The problem I have with that is they're so darn expensive for what you get... just yesterday I was browsing the Mac store on-line and saw the "top of the line" MacBook Pro 17" model for just under $2900, while a comparable model from Dell (same processor, memory, display, hard drive, etc.) was just under $2200.  To be sure, I could find a 17" Windows-based laptop for significantly less than that even, but I wanted to try to compare... well... Apples to Apples, so to speak.

Anyhow, news comes today that Apple has just unveiled the NEW version of the 17" MacBook Pro, with the same nifty sleek design as was previously only available on smaller models.  And it's got a supposedly wonderful long-lasting battery.  It's definitely the coolest-looking big laptop that I've seen.

And it's still $2900, which is just too damn much for a computer that I'd then need to buy a bunch more software for in order to make it useful (as opposed to simply transferring my existing Windows software).  So, no MacBook for me, at least for the foreseeable future.

But lo, what's this I see?  It appears that Apple recently introduced the Next Big Thing in user interfaces, so I might just need to Think Different about my anti-Apple bias (big tip o' the hat to my main man Voltaire):

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Business Comments

I've been remiss in failing to post these earlier... what happens when business situations are attended by internet commenters... NOT SAFE FOR WORK!

Quote of the Day

Even more appropriate now in a time of worldwide blogging than when he originally said it:

"Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar."

-- Edward R. Murrow

FSX Screen Caps

As I mentioned a few days ago, I've been flying my new toys quite a bit.  After some nagging from a friend, I've finally organized a series of screen shots to show off the graphics of Flight Simulator X.

Note, these are direct screen caps from my setup, which is 1920x1200 resolution.  FSX creates screen caps in BMP format which is uncompressed; the source BMP files are nearly 7MB each!  I've saved these in the somewhat more compact (but still lossless) PNG format so that you can still see exactly what I see, without distortion.  Those images range from a little over 1MB to about 4.5MB depending on the complexity of the scene.  So be forewarned!  Also note, if you simply click on the images to view them in your browser, you may need to turn off "automatic image sizing" in your Internet options to view the full resolution pictures.

Each of the images in this page (click on the "Continue Reading" link below) links to the full size source image.  I welcome your comments or questions.  If there's a particular part of the world that you'd like to see in FSX, let me know and I'll try to record some pictures for you.  Enjoy!

Busy with Work

I haven't been able to spend as much time blogging as I'd like of late, mostly due to a fairly intense few weeks at work.

When I started this job about 20 months ago, I was working on back-end server software for my company's casino gaming products (essentially slot machines, but technically they're not -- long story). 

But about 6 months ago, I started to work on the games themselves, helping out with some of the internal utility work (accepting money for credits on the machine, printing tickets when the payer cashes out, etc.)  Then a few months ago, I started working more on the presentation portion of the games -- the spinning reels of the machines, managing the user interface, etc.

And a few weeks ago, I started working on the internal "math models" of our games.  So I've gone from having nothing to do with our games to having just about everything to do with our games in less than a year.  It's been an exciting and very educational journey.

This latest phase, working on math models, has been fascinating.

More on the iPhone

Steve Jobs describes the capabilities of the new iPhone on SNL's Weekend Update:

Kids Today

I'm working late tonight, trying to finish up some critical components for our latest products due for release soon.  The stuff I'm working on at the moment has to do with getting the various pieces inside the machine to talk to each other, which involves hooking up my laptop to both our proprietary processor board and a separate touch screen monitor, both using normal serial RS-232 communications.

I had been able to communicate with one device or the other, but not both, because of the length of cables I had available.  But at this point in development, I need to be able to connect to both to make sure everybody plays nice together.  So, given that nobody else is around the office (it is, after all, fairly late on Saturday night) I figured I'd pop down the street to Fry's Electronics to grab a simple RS-232 extension cable (pictured at right) and I'd be set.

So I popped down the street.  And I wandered the aisles looking for the cable I needed.  There were plenty of telephone extension cables, and network patch cables, and cables of all different colors and connections.  But no RS-232 cables.  So I stopped to ask one of the helpful sales staff.

The kid, who appeared maybe to be all of about 19, was bent down tying his shoes when I approached him.  And perhaps the fact that he seemed to be having some difficulty accomplishing this task might have clued me in to how helpful he would be with my question.

So I explained to the guy that I was looking for an RS-232 extension cable, could he please tell me where I might find one?  The ensuing "deer in the headlights" look on his face was a bit puzzling to me.  Granted, we were in the networking area of the store, but this was not exactly a complicated request.

"Uh.... R... thirty two?" he offered weakly.

"No, RS-two-thirty-two, you know, a serial cable?"  I prompted.

"Oh.  RS-232.  Uh...."  long pause.  "Is that, like, coax?"

"No, it's just a normal serial cable.  It's not a network cable.  Just old-style serial cable.  Like for connecting to modems and stuff."

"Uhhhhhhhhhhh.......  I have no idea what you're talking about, but if you go to that podium over there, that guy can answer your question."

So I trudge over to the "info" podium (which I hadn't noticed earlier, else I'd have surely tried there first).  I ask one of the two guys standing there to direct me to the RS-232 extension cables.

Podium Guy #1 repeats my request, looks a bit confused, then nudges Podium Guy #2.  "Do we have RS-232 extension cables?"

Podium Guy #2 (standing literally 12 inches from Podium Guy #1 the whole time):  "What kind of cables?"

Er......   Who's on First????

Anyhow, the story has a happy ending, they did send me all the way across to the other side of the store, where the cables I sought were plentiful and cheap.  Fry's is a great place to go for electronic stuff, they almost always have what you need.

Except help.

Ah well.  They're hardly alone in this regard.  Unhelpful sales staff is so common these days, it's hardly a blog-worthy topic.

But the thing that really struck me was, who the heck in the computer world hasn't heard of RS-232?  Or at least "serial communications"?  I mean, sure, the average home user these days doesn't have any need for such things, but I'd expect anybody even remotely professionally connected to computers to at least have heard of the technology.  It was clear that two of the three people I talked to this evening didn't have a clue.

I dunno, maybe I'm just getting really old.  (Er.... in professional terms, that's actually "Highly Experienced"...)   :-D

iYawn

So Apple finally unveiled their latest gadget, the iPhone.  Some people think it'll be the next iPod in terms of product success/market domination.

I think, not so much.

First off, a disclaimer.  I am apparently the one person in the world who doesn't think that the iPod interface is just the best thing ever.  I absolutely HATED the Macintosh interface when it first came out (now more than 20 years ago) because it guessed wrong when it thought it knew what I wanted to do.  So I don't get all "oooh and aaaah" over Apple interfaces in general.  Eye candy is nice and all, but I'm more concerned with functionality.

So at first glance, the iPhone does have an interesting interface, but what does it do that's really new?  Put another way, what does it do for $500 that you can't get with any other phone?

The answer:  run OS X.

That's it.

All of the actual functionality of the phone, marketing hype aside, is available in other phones.  Hell, my 2-year-old Treo already does everything -- EVERYTHING -- that the iPhone does.  Play videos?  Check.  Play MP3s?  Check.  Check my e-mail accounts, allow me to send e-mail and SMS messages, all with an actual QWERTY keyboard?  Check, check, check.  Browse the web, including Google maps?  Check and double-check.

Oh yeah, and my Treo will even make phone calls, too.

And I don't have to wait another six months before it's available.

And perhaps the very best feature of my current phone versus the iPhone?

I don't have to do business with Cingular to use it.  I will never, EVER do business with Cingular again, even if they are the "new AT&T" as a recent TV commercial proclaimed.  But that's perhaps a story for another blog.

Anyhow, that last bit may be fixed in the next 6 months, so I won't actually hold it against the iPhone now.  But my point is, for all the marketing hype about how revolutionary the iPhone is, it just isn't.  According to their website, "Apple reinvents the phone."  They haven't.  It's nice, but it's not a market-changer the way the iPod has been.  It certainly won't be a market dominator.  Is the phone overpriced?  Maybe a little, but show me an Apple product that isn't.  Is there anything especially wrong with the phone?  Probably not, at first glance.  Will everyone simply have to have one?  Absolutely not.

So it'll have good sales based on the Apple cachet, but in the cell phone/PDA world, it's just another option that can easily get lost in the crowd.

Intellectual Property

There is a trend in our society towards establishing intellectual property rights, and a creeping extension of them.  I think user licenses should only be legally binding if they are established as a contract at the time of purchase.  I don't think it is right to sell me something and then slap a license agreement on it after the fact that I wasn't able to read before the purchase.  I bought it, it is mine, why should I need a license to use it any otherwise legal way I want to.

So of course I avoid buying products that rely on the goodwill of a company to continue to work.  I tell my friends they are foolish to convert all their CD music to proprietary formats from Apple or Sony or Microsoft, or buy their music from a service with a user agreement that can be revised at any time.  Some friends reply that the agreements aren't that restrictive and Digital Rights Management isn't that big of a deal.  To which I reply, "Sure, today.  What will the agreement say tomorrow?  What if the next mandatory update turns off features you paid for?"

To which they roll their eyes.  And today I have a concrete example.  As usual, I hate being right.  I feel a bit like Laocoon sometimes.  Not the sea serpents part, just the unheeded warnings part.

Experiencing Technical Difficulties...

I got a new toy a few days ago, and I've been a bit busy setting it up (or rather, trying to set it up) so I've not had time to post.  Fortunately Phriedom has been filling in nicely.  We should be joined shortly by a third regular contributor, to lend another perspective to things around here.

Meanwhile, setting up a home network, while still protecting all PCs from outside threats, is a major pain in the ass.  I'm just sayin'...

I got the laptop to print to the shared desktop printer, which was quite an accomplishment.  And from the laptop, I can see the shared folders on the desktop, but I can't actually access them (it tells me that I'm not authorized to view them).

Aaaargh.

And I still haven't gotten the laptop set up quite the way I want it.  The thought was, if I have a portable PC that I can keep with me while traveling, I could use it for my primary apps (e-mail, banking, and browsing) and maybe development work as well.  Then I could free up the desktop as a gaming machine.

Of course, the desktop is old enough (about 3 years or so) that the brand new laptop is actually a substantially better gaming machine, too (I paid a little extra for the nifty ATI X1400 video card).  So now I've got an itch to update the desktop... it's a vicious cycle!

Hopefully I'll get a chance to post soon about a few topics that I've been mulling over recently, but until then watch for more activity from the others here.

They put their butts on the line every day

Found on my caller ID this evening (click for close-up):

Ethanol now?

I don't remember where I first came across a link to this presentation about ethanol, but the video dates from late March '06 and I first saw it about a month ago.  I've been thinking about finally letting go of my 26 year old Saab (can't find some replacement parts) and one possible replacement would be a dirt-cheap Taurus of which many also are flex-fuel vehicles.  So that led me to watching this video again today and the second viewing conviced me that it is something everyone should see.

I'll warn you right up front that the video is 68 minutes long, but the best parts are in the first half.  If you only watch the first quarter you will probably have learned more than you can digest in one sitting.  I didn't know who Vinod Khosla was the first time I watched the video, but I gather he is a pretty big deal.  It doesn't matter, the material is impressive regardless of the reputation I was ignorant of.

I have to say that it gives me some hope, which has been sorely lacking for about 6 years now.

Blogging on Blogging

Cruising the Pew Research blog feed, I came across this report profiling bloggers.

What I found most interesting was the comparison of bloggers' news habits compared to the general population of Internet users.

Fully 95% of bloggers get news from the Internet, as opposed to 73% of all Internet users.

47% get news from a blog, whereas only 9% of the general Internet population does.

Slightly less than half of bloggers prefer getting their news from unbiased sources, while a larger-than-average group prefer getting news from sources with an opposite viewpoint from their own (24% for bloggers compared to 18% for the general population).

Rag Doll Physics

My friend Gyorgyi sent along a link to a demonstration of Rag Doll Physics -- which happens to use our Commander-in-Chief as the "doll".

It's pretty fascinating to play with... you can click and drag the President if he gets stuck.

UPDATE:  Please note, there's supposed to be an embedded window directly below this text, which contains the aforementioned demonstration... if you don't see it, please check your browser settings to make sure that you can view Flash/Shockwave content!

Nerd Gaming...

One of my favorite online humorists has this report from Reno, well worth reading.  As an "industry insider" I've often wondered what the HELL people were thinking when they came up with some of these slot machine themes.  (Heh... and I ask the same thing of the designers at my company sometimes, too.)  Lore, as always, provides cogent observations for the smart-assed among us.

I've been a fan of Lore's since the good old days of The Book of Ratings, and on to Lore Brand Comics.  He's just got a certain sense of humor that I connect with on a deeply superficial level.

An Apple A Day...

More fuzzy logic in the news again... perhaps not quite as egregious as last time, but still a story that doesn't quite fill in all the details.

It seems that a computer security firm in the UK is suggesting that people concerned about virus attacks and such might want to switch to the Apple Macintosh instead of a PC.  This analysis is based on the fact that of the top 10 "most commonly found pieces of malicious software" (otherwise known as "malware") targeted Windows machines, and none of those could affect the Mac.

Well, duh. 

According to the latest figures I could dig up, the Mac has less than 4% market share in the U.S., and about half that internationally.  In other words, less than 1 in 20 computers in the U.S., or about 1 in 40 computers worldwide, is a Mac.  It stands to reason then that even with an equal distribution of software worldwide, if you picked 10 items completely at random, all ten would "target" Windows and none would target the Mac.  So the "most commonly found" software of virtually any kind is certainly going to be Windows-exclusive.

Which is not to detract from the basic security point -- there's an awful lot more malware waiting for you in the Windows world than on the Mac.  So for now, you really might be better off using a Mac if that's your main concern.  The key there would be in actually using the Mac operating system, not running Windows on it (which is the "latest thing" in the Mac world, but would sort of kill any security advantage you might otherwise get).

But if everybody followed that advice, and somehow miraculously the market share was reversed so that Windows only held a 2-4% market share, the article would be talking about how the top 10 pieces of malware only targeted the Mac. 

It's really, truly more a function of market share than technological superiority.  Who's going to waste their time writing a virus for the Mac, when there's such a vastly larger target "market" waiting out there on Windows?  As soon as the Mac's market share gets big enough that it isn't a waste of time, expect to see a dramatic rise in Mac-oriented malware.

And whenever a news article reaches conclusions based on surveys or other statistics, take a look behind the numbers to see if they really do support that conclusion.