Napkin Notes

Yesterday was rather taxing. Too much of Nawth Alibam’s Shining CIty on the Hill – and its less than competent motorcar drivers. The sad thing is that they estimate their skill by how well they survive and not by how well everyone survives. And the intriguing part is where does the difference arise? In Greater Metropolitan Arab the opposite is the case; most of the drivers are concerned about general flow, except maybe during rush hours when they do try rather heartily to kill themselves and all those they collide with.

The other day, I ran across [Link]

this cartoon and it struck home.

Well, not literally. My father never wrote notes on napkins or otherwise, and my mother would have summarily executed us on the spot for doing so. But the behavior has become part of my behavior after I became an adult. At least chronologically.

Back when I was in shule this was not a problem since I always had a notebook or several with me, and in the early days of working I had a briefcase or a notebook. And I never did this at home because the place was littered with notebook and notepads. But when I went out to restaurants or socially such were not really smiled upon. So I wrote on what was available, which were usually paper napkins. And despite the folk tales, one never writes on table cloths. You have to pay exorbitantly for them or lose the information and regardless you incur the unhappiness of the proprietor. I have been banned from several restaurants before I learned the lesson. Besides the rise of chain restaurants has killed off table cloths.

Those places that use paper place-mats are good. The place-mats are usually blank on the backside so one can turn them over and have much writing space. Of course that means the meal orts end up on the table and make the bus boy unhappy but they don;t have banning privileges.

After I got to the point where I couldn’t carry a notebook because I was a manager, I took to carrying those special 7.5 x 12.5 cm^2 cards in a leather pocket case. These are not very good for real note taking because they are too elegant. Now that I am ORF I carry a very nice Japanese spiral bound pocket pad. It works quite well. Apparently the Japanese understand this much better than we Amerikans.

Some people try to take notes on their cellular telephones. I don’t because it is klutzy. One has to use a keyboard, one can’t do maths or diagrams easily, and the medium is too low resolution. But then the same is almost true of real computers as well. That may be what is destroying our society and civilization. Not only are the bogs a calculate but the nerds can’t write stuff down. And without stuff written down, things don’t happen.

humans, behavior, paper, notes, exinction

Chaotic Stupidity

Mundane day is back. And joyously! No noise pollution courtesy of the city parents, and the gym was delightfully sparse. The podcast was another episode of the CBC’s “Best of Ideas” series on secularity and it was quite good, finally getting around to the advancements in society being directly the result of increasing secularity and the inherent controlling nature of organized religion. And the evil (?) of fundamentalism. There was even a bit of humor about the latter which is rather refreshing for one who lives in the religionist pig pen of the old Confederacy. They even talked about how the obsession with end times is a direct fallout of reconstruction.

On a more intriguing azimuth I ran across an article [Link] about the half-century anniversary of the beginnings of the study of chaotic behavior. Unlike James Glick and others I am not quite comfortable with calling it Chaos since the origin of the term is non-STEM. I also had to reflect that much of the original maths development, especially with the classic logistic differential equation, was simply bad maths. That was always a problem for me, on the one hand the finite difference maths types talking about error propagation and instabilities of too large a step size and the chaotic behavior folks talking about BOOM! behavior at step sizes far beyond the stable. Why, I wondered, couldn’t they get their stories straight?

Also intriguing is an article [Link] about an academic study that indicates human intelligence has decreased since the reign of Victoria. This is another brick in the wall that suggests that technology makes us stupid. Not that we didn’t know that, but it is nice to have it made sorta official.

Now we just have to wait for the politician to pass legislation that makes it illegal for us to not be stupid.

humans, maths, intelligence, civilization, technology

Noise Pollution

Ice cream day and it is hoped to be less than yesterday. Last night was a horror, noise pollution from the nearby park, hours and hours of unwanted music of the most irritating form. Doubled my affection for folk.

On a more positive note I ran across this article [Link] yesterday. At last a W8 tablet that I would consider buying. And why would I buy a W8 tablet? Because I didn’t have to boot it. I am not a strong fan of Swiss Army knives. I own several, both branded and, perhaps, generic. The best is one issued by the German army and, I believe, made in China. Other than a hideously poorly designed spring in the scissors, it is vastly superior to any of my other multi-blade knives.

And that is what this tablet is, a three blader – Ubuntu, Android, and W8. And it comes with a keyboard. So I can probably change the Unity GUI to something utile like XFCE or LXDE – not sure I want the overhead of KDE on a small RAM, limited CPU slab – and use the Ubuntu for “work” and the Android for “play”. And the W8 is there if a bog colleague is in need of rescue, purely as a social insurance thing.

The Ubuntu (real (?) Linux) tablet has been promised often and never, that I can see, delivered. So I am not holding my breath on this one. And it is hideously expensive. I can go buy a laptop workstation (almost) for this price. Or a really good laptop from a Linux house.

On which note, I also ran across [Link] an avowedly partial list of Linux GUI. This is the Linux equivalent of the Grand Canyon, an awe (?) inspiring sight. You have the great, colorful depths, like KDE and XFCE, the shadows like LXDE, and the cess pools like Unity and Gnome 3. And unlike the tyranny that is W8, choices. That is what counts.

And lastly, from England, [Link] the un-news that PC sales are down and tablet sales are up. But the telling stat is

“In the same three-month period, 2.3 million PCs were sent into channels, possibly to moulder in unsold piles, representing a decline of 15 per cent. This included a 20 per cent fall in portables and a six per cent decline in desktops.”

Note, pray, an 0.2 decline in lap boxes and an 0.06 decline in desk boxes. The article claims this is because lap boxes are more amenable to replacement than desk boxes. I would say that what is done with lap boxes is fundamentally different from desk boxes. Simply put, desk boxes are used more for creation and work than lap boxes which are used more for consumption and entertainment.

humans, music, computers, tyranny

Puritan Heat Death

End of week in. No gym. Slept in till 0430. Must be Friday?

On which azimuth I ran across an article yesterday about the end of work. [Link] The idea is that robots/computers will take over so much of the work load that our current situation will be turned head over heels.

Right now we have about 0.1 unemployment, rough order of magnitude. It appears this is pretty well a magic number that has to exist for society (and civilization) to operate. But as is, it is a matter of great political and social hand wringing and garment tearing. Whether due to our Puritan work ethic or just New Deal propaganda, we have the idea that everyone should e employed. Every adult, that is. Except the retired. But not the infirm or mentally or physically unable. They;re just slackers and parasites.

Now let’s turn that upside down. How about 0.1 employed? That’s 9 of 10 without work responsibilities. The very idea brings Hobbesian shudders to the average Amerikan. They can’t imagine how society will function without honest labor. How can anyone live without earning money. Horrors!, everyone on welfare. Everyone white/black/… trash.

I have to admit I can’t imagine it very well either, but I can’t buy the idea we are all going to become gentlemen/lady philosophers/academics/crafters/……. Mostly because 0.9 of humanity are bogs and bogs don’t do those things very well. They especially don;t do intellectual things. So can we expect an increase in violence, gratuitous pursuits, and shortened lifespans?

Probably.

This is a good topic. Lots of room for cognition. Not clear it is good for the species.

humans, behavior, unemployemnt, disaster

Phone Religion

Mundane day again and week in. Happily back to gym although the podcast, an episode of the CBC’s “Best of Ideas” in their series on secularism was too PC, trying to press the idea that religion should be more than an individual matter. All they managed to do was further the argument that religionist organizations are all about control and only pretend to be about religion.

On which azimuth, I see [Link] that MegaHard is going to recant their stupidity – which demonstrates theirs is less than Canonical’s? – and reinstate the START button with their first major update of W8. Or could it be that they have discovered that they have a product without a market? Stats I have seen indicate box users are avoiding W8 like Vista while sales of slabs and smarts are well below the cut-and-run level.

What this does tell us is intriguing, especially in light of the whole ‘it’s the apps, not the OS’ theory. Evidently the OS does matter if it keeps you from running the apps. Gee, who would have guessed?

I noted yesterday in an eNewsLetter that sales of FaceBookFone are even worse than those of W8. Isn’t it wonderful that MegaHard now has something to brag about?

On which azimuth, I see [Link] that the Ubuntu phone is eminent. Wonder how big a thunk this one will make? But the really big question is whether Canonical will come to their senses and get back to being an OS and not a disaster?

I hate to say it, much as I dislike Gooey, but at least they are a secular organization to Apple’s religionist one.

computers, cellular telephones, OS, nonsense

Discovery

Child proof packaging is dangerous – for ORFs!

Too much, Too late

Thor’s day and am I happy to put the hammer down. My sally to Nawth Alibam’s Shining City on the Hill began with a visit to have the bandaging from the oral surgery so now I am in the mode of flouridizing the newly exposed roots so I can once more eat/drink stuff slightly different from body temperature. Coffee was DEFINITELY an adventure yesterday!

The gym was happily thin this morning, which rather matched with my absence of energy from the joy of food and drink yesterday. I listened to an episode of the English Ubuntu podcast and aside from the skit had little to gain from it. But it is noise of distraction.

Before I forget, today is the anniversary of the birth of Richard Feynman. I shall celebrate his memory. I may even draw a few diagrams or drag out the bongos.

And in typical Feynmanesque humor (maybe) I note an article [Link] entitled “10 reasons why Canonical and Ubuntu will connect the masses with Linux”. My colleague Magnetic Inductance Force shared with me and my discussion will largely follow his comments.

The thesis is that Canonical, via Ubuntu, will glue together userdom. The list is sadly stuttering but that goes with any list. It’s the sort of thing that defies good composition but is attractive to humans, even the majority who suffer dyscalcula.

I fear I have to put this prediction in the same pile as Laplace’s (?) that the seas would turn to lemonade. What Canonical now seems fated to do is flop. For several reasons:

1. First of all, there is Unity, Canonical’s tile GUI. This abomination has been billed as the common interface for box/slab/phone. It does that, but as with most Swiss Army Knives, not well.
2. Second, Unity works for people who either do not work or who work sequentially as opposed to cumulatively. For those of the latter, Unity is something to to avoided or, as in my case, blown away with some useful GUI like XFCE or KDE.
3. Third, Unity is a tile GUI, just like Gnome 3 and whatever MegaHard calls ‘Metro’ this week. So all the folks running screaming in terror from W8 are not going to run to Ubuntu. One of the derivatives with a workable GUI maybe, but not Ubuntu.
4. Four, the Ubuntu tablet is probably never going to be anything more that a niche market. Consider the abject dismality of MegaHard’s tablet sales. The average tablet user – mostly consumerist – doesn’t care about OS, only about app. Which means that they ain’t gonna learn a new OS that has few apps when they are already comfortable with Apple or Android.
5. Five, the Ubuntu phone is probably a non-starter. Look at W8 phone sales. Same as with tablets but squared. The marketplace is pretty well dominated by Apple and Android and Ubuntu isn’t a camel to sneak into the tent.

That isn’t ten but it’s enough. I would be pleasantly surprised if Ubuntu does any good in the tablet or phone markets. I hope it does. I would like an Ubuntu tablet that I could do something useful on. After I replaced Unity with KDE, which already has a tablet and a tablet interface. I’m not sure about the phone. Maybe. That way I could get decent (maybe) email and calendar apps. If Thunderbird will work on a phone.

humans, behavior, corporations, computers, OS, stupidity

Etheric Insight

One of the primary causes of obesity in Amerika is electronics.

humans, behavior, physics, corporations

Jargon Stream

Hectic weekend, what with the dowager maternal parental element in hospital and the precipitation. And still recovering from oral surgery myself. Gad! I am coming to hate mashed potatoes.

So as a diversion I shall clear a few tabs. First, a rather deepening article [Link] from the Tsar of Tsmart Ass, Alan Alda. The article is an admonition from Alda, who is doing some sort of popular science program on PBS, that in dealing with the public scientists not use “jargon”. Since I wanted to make sure the ramifications of the word, I looked it up

Jargon 1. Confused, unintelligible language; gibberish. “A barbarous jargon.” –Macaulay. “All jargon of the schools.” –Prior.  [1913 Webster]

I have to admit that after reading this and trying to place it in Alda’s context, I was quite confused. Then I realized that I had to put this in the frame of a communication model. The confusion is not on the part of the scientist but the other side of the conversation.

The point is that the folks on the other side, when one is talking to the “public” are mostly bogs, hence lacking any knowledge of the discipline. But my colleague went on to say that the hard part is not learning this, it’s obvious to anyone who observes, but rather the hard part is knowing what words to use. He claims, and I agree, that a certain minimum commonality of terms is necessary for any effective communication and if one side lacks those words, communication is impossible.

I am not sure why this is so unapparent to Alda.

On a rather less frustrating azimuth I see [Link] that the Google Glasses are being implemented to take photographs with a wink. I have to admit that I consider this whole Google Glasses think jargon. Why would anyone other than a voyeur want them? And if they take photographs with a wink how do they tell it from a blink? And does this mean that society will evolve into something where everyone appears to have palsy?

I shall admit to being ORF. And I am slowly warming to my barked shin (smart) cellular telephone, especially in dealing with situations when I am distanced from a real computer. I am also increasingly alienated by the shitty nature of the software and the opacity of the OS. I find it rather crippling to have to go find a REAL computer to find out how to make my phone do what I want it to.

And it is hideously time consuming. With my desk boxes I only lose time when the power is out or I need to do a system reboot. With the barked shin phone I seem to spend a quarter of my time fiddling with unruly software and another quarter charging it. Is battery technology really THAT bad?

And followingly, an article [Link] on the most reliable box to run Winders on. Seems the result of the study, small data set, is an Apple lapbox. In fact, only lapboxes were considered. Strange. That restriction, that is, lapboxes are much less reliable than desk boxes. But then consider that the primary issue of recovery is not so much the OS but the user. Hence, given the elitism of Apple and the uberboggish nature of their user demographic, that an Apple box is reliable is no surprise. And that the average Winders user cannot recover is the same. That’s one of the reasons we call using Winders serfdom – ignorance is exalted.

And lastly, I see [Link] that Winders Ate is being rescued – by Linux. Seems that the KDE folks, who have rescued Linux from Canonical’s Unity and Gnome’s Gnome Tile GUIs, are developing a version of KDE for Winders. BOOYAH! This is a true mitzvah. Not that MegaHard or most of its serfs will recognize it as such, of course. But at least it offers a means for Winders users who can do so or have access to a wizard get some relief from the insanity that is whatever MegaHqard calls its tile GUI today.

humans, stupidity, communication, computers,

Me Either

I don’t own an iPud either. [Link] It’s not so much a purity of music sound thing though. I have the integrity to acknowledge that the music I like – 50′s and early 60′s folk, pipes, and military bands – are not the finest of musical purity and quality. They do however speak to me in ways that the classical performances of great symphonies didn’t in my youth. So the dubious quality of MP3 is adequate to resonate with both my corpus and my mentus.

There’s another reason. This music, if I may call it such, isn’t readily available on iTunes. I get it the old fashioned way by buying physical media and converting to MP3 myself. That is a bit of work but it makes it all the more dear to me.

Besides, iTunes works like merde on Linux. Never have understood Apple in this regard. The Apple boxes all run bastardizations of the progenitor OS so why so inimical? Could it be insecurity?

Anyway, I own three MP3 players: an old Creative that I started with and which was on almost last legs when I moved its files off and now keep as a momento of better, simpler days; a Sans Disk that houses the music collection; and a Conow that houses the podcast episodes. Both the Sans Disk and the Conow are file based devices that act like USB storage devices. That way I can do what I want with moving files and not have to wait on a  religious experience like iTunes. The Sans Disk contents are very stable, almost no deletions and only occasional additions now. I fear my taste in music is becoming antediluvian with Bobby Horton being the epitome of contemporary artists. The Conow’s collection changes weekly as old episodes are discarded and new ones added. And, of course, quality of sound in podcasts is a joke.

humans, behavior, music, quality, modernness