technology – Observations Along the Road

📰 Oh, Look, A Package from Amazon

Posted onTuesday, December 25, 2018Authorcahwyguy

Let’s open another package from the news chum tree, shall we? How about this one from Amazon…

Fighting the Marketplace. Increasingly, Amazon is less a seller of goods than a network connecting a buyer and a seller, while pretending that Amazon is doing the selling. I’m sure that you’ve noticed this more and more. But the market isn’t quite so clean as you might think. For sellers, Amazon is a quasi-state. They rely on its infrastructure — its warehouses, shipping network, financial systems, and portal to millions of customers — and pay taxes in the form of fees. They also live in terror of its rules, which often change and are harshly enforced. A cryptic email from Amazon about a purported complaint can send a seller’s business into bankruptcy, with few avenues for appeal. Amazon’s judgment is swifter and less predictable, and now that the company controls nearly half of the online retail market in the US, its rulings can instantly determine the success or failure of your business. Amazon is the judge, the jury, and the executioner.
Counterfeits and Amazon. Another big problem at Amazon is counterfeits, which often benefit Amazon. Mixed in with Amazon’s inventory of authentic merchandise are crude copycats. Some look like the real thing but didn’t include a real vendor’s name. Others bear the name but aren’t made by the real company. Often, there is no way for even the savviest Amazon shopper to avoid the threat of counterfeits. The goods may look real online, but there is no guarantee of authenticity — whether sold by a brand, a third-party seller or Amazon’s direct-sales arm. And the reviews don’t help, because of review gaming.

Perhaps brick and mortar has a purpose after all?

Here are a few more technology items of interest:

Rattling the Sabre. We once had a travel agent at work. No, not on the payroll. He was a programmer, but ran a travel agency and would often book flights for co-workers. He’d access Sabre to do so. Here’s an interesting article about Sabre, and how it changed the face of air travel.
What Happens When You Die? Have you ever wondered what happens to your social media profiles when you die? It’s a big issue. Often they outlast you, and if you are lucky, your relatives make them “in memorium”. The linked article explores some strategies.
Sound Thinking . Have you ever wondered about the sound of old technology? A website called Conserve the Sound has recordings of the sounds made by old phones, rubber stamps, pinball machines, cameras, typewriters, fans, video game consoles, and other products from 1910 onwards.

Dealing with Toxic Waste

Posted onWednesday, June 6, 2018Wednesday, June 6, 2018Authorcahwyguy

The last few weeks have been incredibly busy, what with the election, highway page updates (still in progress), and theatre (always in progress). Through it all, I’ve been accumulating News Chum to discuss, and one collection seemed particularly apt to discuss, as we deal with throwing away our post-election materials: the articles related to the disposal of toxic waste:

Recycling Tech Gadgets. In the old days, disposing of things was easy: you just put them in the trash can. But now, every device has some level of technology in it — meaning PCB circuit boards with rare earth metals and potential toxins. How do you dispose of all this techno-junk. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that Americans generated nearly 3.4 million tons of consumer electronics waste in 2014 and that only around 40 percent of that waste was recycled—the rest went to landfills or incinerators. The U.S. is also a top destination for e-waste from other countries—and in turn, we export much of our e-waste to places like China and India. Here’s a useful start: 7 ways to recycle your techno-gadgets.
Solar Panels. If you are like me, you’ve either put solar panels on your house (or you’ve been thinking about it). But one question we don’t tend to ask: what do we do when the panels start to fail? When we need to replace them? It turns out this is a big question: although the energy is clean, solar panels decidedly are not. Solar panels often contain lead, cadmium, and other toxic chemicals that cannot be removed without breaking apart the entire panel. “Approximately 90% of most PV modules are made up of glass,” notes San Jose State environmental studies professor Dustin Mulvaney. “However, this glass often cannot be recycled as float glass due to impurities. Common problematic impurities in glass include plastics, lead, cadmium and antimony.” Researchers with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) undertook a study for U.S. solar-owning utilities to plan for end-of-life and concluded that solar panel “disposal in “regular landfills [is] not recommended in case modules break and toxic materials leach into the soil” and so “disposal is potentially a major issue.” California is in the process of determining how to divert solar panels from landfills, which is where they currently go, at the end of their life. But it isn’t just end of life: Panels can be broken by natural events such as earthquakes or hail, and then these chemicals can leach out. The link in this post is well worth reading.
Rocket Emissions. We’re all used to thinking about the pollutants that come from our automobiles. But there are other airborne sources. Jet airplane exhaust is more deadly than plane crashes, and at least under the Obama administration, the EPA recognized that airplane pollution is dangerous to people. But then there are rockets. Every time a rocket launches, it produces a plume of exhaust in its wake that leaves a mark on the environment. These plumes are filled with materials that can collect in the air over time, potentially altering the atmosphere in dangerous ways. The risk is less greenhouse gasses, and more tiny particles that are produced inside the trail. Small pieces of soot and a chemical called alumina are created in the wakes of rocket launches. They then get injected into the stratosphere, the layer of Earth’s atmosphere that begins six miles up and ends around 32 miles high. Research shows that this material may build up in the stratosphere over time and slowly lead to the depletion of a layer of oxygen known as the ozone. The ozone acts like a big shield, protecting Earth against the Sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation. However, the magnitude of this ozone depletion isn’t totally known. Here’s an interesting article from The Verge that explores the issue of rocket exhaust pollution; I’m pleased to say that the researcher mentioned is a co-worker (although in a completely different area).
Plastics. Plastics are a big concern to me. Stop and think about how much you depend on plastic everyday, from the cars you drive, the medicine you receive, the electronics you use. We can replace the oil we use for fuels in our cars with electricity, but we really don’t have a good alternative for our plastics. And yet, our disposable society throws away more and more each day; it is hard to recycle, and when you do, you don’t get the same plastics back. Boing-Boing just highlighted a recent National Geographic issue on Plastics. They noted that it shows how America became a plastic-addicted throwaway culture, and how the earth is now paying for humanity’s short-sighted sin. It really makes one think — and perhaps we should before we get that disposable take out container or plastic straw? Perhaps we should be bringing our own reusable silicon take out containers and reusable straws with us when we go out, just as we take our bags.
Dead Lakes. This last news chum piece isn’t something people dispose of, but it does relate to something man-made that is creating health problems as it is being disposed of — The Salton Sea. Here’s an in-depth exploration of the health issues that are arising because of the death of the Salton Sea. As the lake dries up, more and more toxic chemicals are exposed, for the lake served as the terminus of agricultural runoff. It dries, becomes airborne, and creates loads of health issues for those who live in the Imperial Valley (who often are economically depressed and can’t afford to move). Quite an interesting read.

Who Are You? Identify Yourself!

Posted onSaturday, May 12, 2018Authorcahwyguy

Establishing your identity? Seems a simple thing, but it is quite complex. In the past, when our social circles were smaller, you could do it by sight or with a letter of recommendation. But today it is much harder. Here is a collection of articles all dealing with identity, and how it is changing.

Facebook. With Facebook’s recent privacy disclosures, more and more people have wanted to quit FB. But more and more people have discovered that they couldn’t, because their FB identity was tied to so much else. Here’s a real interesting story of one person who tried to leave FB, but just discovered that they could not.
Invisible Identity. More and more we’re hearing that the password is outdated. There is a big push towards invisible identity — identifying users by typing and gestures and such. Here’s an article that explores the question, and asks whether the password is dying and on the way out. As for me, I think password should stay, but be used in conjunction with invisible identity. Passwords provide a great 2nd level of something you know, and with a password manager, you can have unique and strong passwords for every site.
Biometrics for App Logins. Continuing the trend towards biometrics, you’ll soon discover that more and more apps — especially banking apps — will be tying their authentication to your smartphone’s biometrics. What this means is that, instead of having to enter your password for your banking app, you can use the fingerprint reader on your phone as an alternative. More convenient, yes. More secure? Perhaps the jury is out on that.
We Know Who You Are. Ticketmaster is evidently exploring using facial recognition to replace tickets. I’m not sure I like this notion. Yes, tickets can get lost too easily, and are a pain to replace. But it is too easy to fake faces (as anyone who watches actors knows), and how do you handle groups, couples, and people that haven’t bought tickets before. I foresee loads of problems.

Photostat

Posted onFriday, February 9, 2018Authorcahwyguy

At the end of last month, an interesting announcement crossed my RSS feeds: Xerox Cedes Control to Fujifilm, Ending Its Independence. This is a sad passing indeed, and reflects a transition of one of the seminal companies in the office automation field. Sure, the name might live on, but it won’t be the same. It will be a Kodak or a Polaroid — an echo of a company that once was great.

I have many varied memories of Xerox, from their facilities on Aviation Blvd where the ACM ’81 Conference Committee once met, to the Sex manuals around the UCLA Computer Club (which, before you put your mind in the gutter, were the manuals for the SDS Sigma 7, and SDS was later XDS, Xerox Data Systems), to (of course) all the stories about Xerox PARC. But for most of us, the word Xerox is synonymous with one thing: copying and reproduction.

My first memory of a copier was at my parent’s office. I don’t remember the brand, but it was expensive, slow, and used rolls of special paper (plain paper copiers were a few years in the future). Nowadays, we have multifunction Xerox copiers at work that can not only copy, but scan and print. So in tribute to Xerox, here are two interesting articles:

How Photocopiers Work. This is an in-depth exploration of the photocopying process.
Why Paper Jams Persist. As long as there have been copiers, there have been paper jams. There will likely always be paper jams, because the problem of solving them is extremely hard. This article explains why.

Technology for the Win

Posted onSaturday, July 22, 2017Authorcahwyguy

Here are three interesting uses of technology that I’ve seen come across my various feeds lately:

Cats without the Litterbox. Do you love cats for the relaxing purr, but hate cleaning litter boxes? Are you allergic to cats but still find the sound relaxing. Problem solved. The Internet has a cat, and it is ready and willing to purr just for you.
Travel Tips. I regularly bemoan the fact that kids these days can’t read maps. They are addicted to their GPS and navigation apps. But here’s a cool navigation thing for when you don’t have real experience: Google Maps will now tell you the best time to leave to avoid traffic to your destination.
Finding Counterfeits. People who operate pawn shops have a big problem: counterfeits. They have no control over their supply chain (no SCRM here), so that Gucci handbag that was brought in might not be the real thing. Luckily, technology helps. There’s now an app/camera combination that can examine a handbag (or other products) to determine their authenticity. Entrupy’s microscopic camera device is used in conjunction with the Entrupy app on a Apple device to take images of handbags, its seams, its inner fabric and any serial number or date code in the bag. Artificial intelligence algorithms analyze the images to determine authenticity, and results are received in real time. Entrupy backs up the authentication service with a financial guarantee. If a bag is deemed to be authentic and later is discovered to be fake, Entrupy will cover any financial loss. Entrupy plans to enter the shoe authentication sector next. Shoes such as Air Jordans, Yeezys and others can fetch hundreds to thousands of dollars on the resale market.

Chum Stew: Interesting Links and News You Can Uze … and a bit more

Posted onThursday, July 13, 2017Authorcahwyguy

Observation Stew I’m home today with a cold, and I have loads of interesting news chum links that have no coherent theme, so let’s just get them out there (h/t to Andrew Ducker for a few of these). Oh, and with each, you’ll get a little bit more.:

Shuls Struggle with Gender Pronouns. In Judaism, one of the traditional honors is to be called up to read Torah. The way you are called is very stylized and structured, and… gendered (i.e., “son of, daughter of” etc.). Here’s a new problem shuls (at least progressive shuls) are facing: How do you call someone who is not gender normative to the Torah? Truly an interesting read. As a little bit extra: Here’s a neat piece on a webcomic on a woman dealing with her transition.
Chemical Elements. There are lots of elements on the periodic table. But how well do you understand your interaction with them? Here’s an interesting graphic that shows the most common way that people interact with each chemical element. As a little bit extra: The Chemistry of Frozen Desserts.
Understanding Amazon Prime. This week brought us Amazon Prime Day, where Amazon was trying to convince everyone to sing up for Amazon Prime. But have you ever really thought about the impact of Amazon Prime? The Verge has, and they have posted an interesting opinion piece on why they will never sign up for Amazon Prime. So has Ken Davenport of The Producer’s Perspective Blog, who sees Prime for what it is: a way to keep consumers using your service. Both perspectives are quite interesting. As a little bit extra: Here’s an interesting non-Amazon purchase: Cirque de Soleil is buying Blue Man Group.
Toxicity. Here’s a real interesting article with a list of the traits of toxic parents. It is something I suggest everyone read: if you are a parent, you can learn about things to avoid; if you are a child, you can learn if there is a toxic parent to which you need to say “Buh Bye”. Remember: It is OK to look out for yourself and fire a toxic parent. As a little bit extra: It looks like everyday chemicals are linked to chronic diseases in men (and presumably women, but they never test that).
Animals. If you’ve ever bought a book from O’Reilly Press, you know the animal woodcuts on the covers. I didn’t provide the history section to the Perl book; I provided it to the Camel book. Here’s an interesting history of the O’Reilly Press Animals. As a little bit extra: What is not quite an animal, and not quite human: The Animaniacs, and they might be coming back.
Compression and Video. The Emmy awards came out today, and many were for TV that was being distributed by streaming services. But have you ever thought about how that video is transmitted? Here’s a great tutorial on H.264, the technology that enabled video to be compressed so that streaming is even possible. You’ll even learn how Color TV works in a way that was compatible with Black and White TV. As a little bit extra: Compressed video takes us to compressed music, and here are 10 Great Music Podcasts (although they miss the wonderful Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour).
Fraudulent Data. We’ve all been taught the mantra: a calorie is a calorie, and if you spend more calories than you take in, you will lose weight. Not so fast. It turns out that almost everything we’ve been taught about the calorie is wrong, and its not so simple (a post based off of the excellent Gastropod podcast). And a little bit extra: Not only are calories a fraud, but our recent election might have been. Alas, it isn’t quite clear what can be done with a fraudulent election after the fact.

Obsolescence, Revivals, and Transitions

Posted onFriday, May 12, 2017Authorcahwyguy

While planning for the various theatrical adventures over the summer, I’ve also been collecting news chum. This lunchtime collection is tied together by a common theme: obsolecence, revivals, and transitions. Every article is about one or more of those three things:

Cassettes. By now, most of us have gotten rid of our cassette walkmans, and would be hard-pressed to find a cassette player. Elbow has come up with a fascinating minimalist cassette player: While it grabs the cassette’s spools in its elbow arms, the hinge sits against the exposed magnetic tape. A knob on the device allows you to control playback. It comes with a small magnetic clip, allowing you to attach it to your clothes, or a bag, as well as a 3.5mm audio output, allowing you to connect your earphones, or a speaker to it. It also includes a MiniUSB port, not just for charging the Elbow, but also for allowing you to digitally extract audio from a cassette tape to your PC.
Bluetooth Audio. If you’re an old fart like me, you’re likely using an audio device that doesn’t support bluetooth in a world of bluetooth speakers. What to do? iClever is a small bluetooth transmitter/receiver that solves the problems. It allows one to convert any audio-producing device with a 3.5mm output into a bluetooth transmitter, and to convert any speaker/headphones with a 3.5mm connector into a bluetooth receiver. I’m going to need to remember this.
The MP3. NPR is reporting that the MP3 is dead — specifically, the license for the technology is no longer being issued. The article claims the replacement is the AAC (.m4a). I’m still generating MP3 (although I could switch to M4A), and Amazon only sells MP3s so I somewhat doubt this. Are any digital players no longer proving an MP3 translating CODEC. That will be the death of the MP3, not licensing rules.
Churches/Synagogues. In the musical 70, Girls, 70, the question is asked: What do zoos do with elephants when they die? Where do the elephants go? A similar question might be asked of a church or a synagogue: when they close, where does their stuff go? I ran into two articles address this question: the first looked at finding a new life for Jewish religious objects when a congregation closes; the second asked where does the pipe organ go when a church closes. Of course, technology isn’t all bad: I found an article on how technology can help carry on Jewish traditions.
School Libraries. An interesting article I found explores whether school libraries are on the path to extinction. After all, library staff is expensive, and today’s students don’t research in books. But libraries are an important tool in teaching children to read and think, and funding for libraries boils down to a wealth/class issue: Parents with the means can find the funds to support libraries, so their student have them an do better. Parents without depend on the district, and the district has other priorities. We’ve seen this many times in things like art education and field trips. The article explores how LA Unified is trying to change things.
Hollywood Archives. We all think technology is a boon, but is it really. It used to be easy to preserve films: get good cellulose and store it right. Now? The storage media changes ever few years, everything has to be retranslated, and not everything can be saved. This is creating a gigantic headache for the studios, and means that film isn’t the long-term media we thought it was. We have human art that survived 5000 years. When we look at our civilization in 5000 years, what of our art will still be available?

A Sweet Circular News Chum, with Raisins

Posted onMonday, October 3, 2016Tuesday, October 4, 2016Authorcahwyguy

round challah userpic It’s Rosh Hashanah afternoon (L’Shana Tovah to all), and I’m exhausted from the morning. Yet I have a bunch of news chum to post. Let’s see if we can braid it into something sweet and circular, coming back by the end to where I started. This time, we’ll just give headlines and a few comments.

The O shaped iPod? On Rosh Hashanah, you dip Apples in Honey, so where else to start but with a circular Apple product. This article describes a new circular design for the iPod Shuffle that is quite cool, if a Shuffle has enough storage for your needs.
The Taxonomy of Tech Holdouts. As we’re talking about iPods, here are the nine archetypes of planned non-obsolecence, from the Anachronist to the Careful Curator. I think I’m the latter.
Navy scuttles sailors’ enlisted rating titles in huge career shake-up. Moving from holdouts to non-holdouts. The Navy is holding on to specialist ratings no more. Effective immediately, sailors will no longer be identified by their job title, say, Fire Controlman 1st Class Joe Sailor. Instead, that would be Petty Officer 1st Class Joe Sailor.
New college at Onizuka Station pays homage to the ‘Blue Cube’. Moving from the Navy to their sister service, the Air Force. Those in the Bay Area might remember the blue cube, the former Onizuka AFS. It has been converted into a local college, but still plays homage to its history. The walkways leading from the parking lot to the campus are speckled with flecks of blue paint harvested from the cube. Once inside, there is the Onizuka Cafe for hungry students and the Satellite Lounge next door for relaxation and study. Two murals that previously had been inside the cube are now hung in campus hallways. One features the Challenger shuttle with a memorial poem. The other is signed by many former employees of the Onizuka Air Force Station and coincidentally features a large owl—Foothill’s mascot—with a lightning bolt in its talons.
An Abandoned Hospital in West Adams Has Been Filled With Fine Art. Moving from an Abandoned Air Station to an Abandoned Hospital, although this one is still abandoned. The LA Metropolitan Hospital was one of the first black hospitals, but it close a few years ago and is pending redevelopment. However, for the next month, there is an interesting art exhibit in the abandoned hospital.
Texas prisons ban books by Langston Hughes and Bob Dole – but ‘Mein Kampf’ is OK. A hospital is a pubic service building, and so is a prison. So here’s an interesting prison story: prisons in Texas have banned books by Bob Dole, Harriet Beecher Stowe or Sojourner Truth. But inmates are more than welcome to dig into Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” or David Duke’s “My Awakening.” The rationale: they ban offensive language or violence or sex, but not offensive ideas.
Palestinians’ Abbas seeks British apology for 1917 Jewish homeland declaration. Moving from Hitler to another group that doesn’t like the Jews: the Palestinians. According to the Palestinian President, Britain should apologize for its 1917 declaration endorsing the founding of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and should recognize Palestine as a state.
Your Samsung washing machine might be about to explode. Moving from explosive ideas to explosive washers. The problem it appears, is a defective support rod that is causing washer tubs to separate, potentially launching wires, nuts and other parts. Boom!
The one step you shouldn’t skip when cooking with your cast iron pan. Moving from the Laundry Room to the kitchen, here are some tips regarding use of cast iron pans.
Fat Flora? Gut Bacteria Differ in Obese Kids. What do you cook in a cast iron pan? Food. And what happens if you eat too much food? You get fat. Researchers have found that obese children have a different population of microorganisms living in their intestinal tracts, compared with lean children. These microorganisms appear to accelerate the conversion of carbohydrates into fat, which then accumulates throughout the body, the researchers said.
Attack of the plastic eaters: Can mushrooms, bacteria and mealworms save the planet from pollution? Speaking of bacteria, it runs out they may be the solution to accumulating plastic. As it turns out, nature might offer us the solution to our man-made problems. Scientists around the world are harnessing — in test tubes, under glass domes, and within large bioreactors — the power of living things that can digest plastic without suffering harm.
Inside Arizona’s Pump Skimmer Scourge. Of course, if you’re in Arizona, you should keep a close eye on your plastic — not due to bacteria, but criminals that are doing a lot of skimming of gas and other credit cards.
Why the Hallmark Card Company Owns Thousands of Priceless Artworks. Plastic, of course, refers to a credit card, and who is one of the largest purveyors of greeting cards? Hallmark. Here’s the history of Hallmark, and why the company owns lot of priceless art.
UC Berkeley mascot Oski celebrates 75th birthday. Of course, you send greeting cards on an anniversary, and it just so happens that Oski, the mascot of UC Berkeley, is celebrating an anniversary — his birthday.
Horses can communicate with people using symbols. Oski is a bear, and another type of animal is a horse. It turns out that twenty three horses learned to tell trainers if they wanted to wear a blanket or not. Subjects were shown three symbols: a horizontal bar to say “I want a blanket”, a blank square for “No change”, and a vertical bar for “I don’t need a blanket”. They learned the meanings in a day or two and using them to convey if they were too warm or too cold, building the case for self-awareness.

Of course, a square is a simple polygon, and if you keep adding sides to a polygon infinitely, you end up with a circle. An a circle, of course, is the shape of the new iPod Shuffle, which permit us to spiral back to where this post began. Of course, circles and spirals are the shape of a round Challah, which we dip in honey as we wish EVERYONE a happy and healthy new year. May you all be written and inscribed for the happiest of years.