Dept. of Excellence Elsewhere

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This great post and thread at MetaFilter covers my early computing life rather thoroughly.

Apple had effectively no presence in south Mississippi in the early 1980s, but Radio Shack was there. My friend Rob had a no-shit TRS-80 Model 1; my friend Paul got a TRS-80 Color Computer soon after. Eventually, I got a Color Computer II, which was the first machine of my own that I wrote code for — before this, I’d written some BASIC on other oddball micros over at USM.

That CoCoII — which I think is in a closet here in Houston as I type this — had no disk drive. Instead, I stored programs and files on a cassette drive, which was WAY cheaper. And, of course way more prone to failure. Interestingly, the word processor I used all through high school was cartridge-based, like an Atari game, which had at least one advantage over floppy-based programs in that the cartridge bus was many times faster. I didn’t realize this was a Thing until later, when I was first using a dual-floppy PC at the high school and couldn’t figure out why the word processor took so long to change between modes…

I left the tiny computer world in 1988, when I bought an AT clone for college, but parts of my nerdy heart will forever belong to Tandy and their computing family, first introduced now 35 years ago. Ouch.

(Oh, and I still have one of these somewhere. I took notes on it in college. Back then, laptops were prohibitively fiddly and heavy, but this little bastard ran for weeks on AAs. I’d transfer the files to my desktop with a null modem cable, since back then there was no wifi and there were no SD cards.)

Money is ugly

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Specifically, our money. Other countries have perfectly attractive currency. Why can’t we have cool looking money? I mean, sure, people might quibble about Obama and FDR (though it’s not hard, I imagine, for even a die-hard Teabagger to admit the historical significance of Obama), but putting a cool graphic of American accomplishments in the 20th Century on the $20 bill is genius. Not to mention way cooler looking than what we have.

Here’s another thing: In common circulation, our currency honors no one and no concepts any younger than FDR, who graces the dime. Common paper money honors nobody more recent than Lincoln. Sure, Grant’s on the $50, but ATM culture ensures we mostly never see anything but twenties and hundreds — and Grant’s only marginally more recent than Honest Abe. (Yes, currency nerds will note that McKinley, Cleveland, and Wilson used to be on bills, but not in recent memory.)

Not to take anything away from these seminal and significant 19th century figures, but shouldn’t we stretch a bit and think about the incredible contributions of 20th century Americans? Who not extend the honor to our scientific or literary or artistic heritage, even? Who wouldn’t want to pay for dinner with a Faulkner, an Armstrong, and a couple of Jimis?

What “Papers Please” Laws Get Us

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A native-born American citizen in Arizona was arrested and jailed for 4-1/2 months, and charged with forgery, because the cops and prosecutors refused to admit her drivers’ license and birth certificate were genuine. As a consequence, she lost her job, her home, and her car.

More here.

Again: Shit like this will not stop until the individual humans who make choices like this can be held civilly and criminally liable far more easily. End immunity. Now.

Dear United:

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You lost a little girl? Really?

It’s really amazing how quickly you chuckleheads have turned a good airline into just another cog in the ongoing customer-hostile shitstorm that has always defined United. Good timing, too, as Southwest is flying more and more flights from Houston!

A note re: Paul Ryan and his Randroidism

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Via John Rogers:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

What the Intarwubs spat out this morning

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Like many folks, I enjoyed more than my share of the Doors as a teenager. And, like most, I outgrew them. One thing, though, that’s always sort of fascinated me about them was that Morrison’s father was an admiral, an in fact is Wikipedia notable in his own right.

Anyway, what popped up randomly this morning is this 9-minute video of Read Adm. Morrison and his daughter being interviewed about Jim at some point in the last several years. It’s clear the admiral really had no idea how big Jim was, or how influential, or really even what the appeal of the music was, but that’s more or less to be expected; the man was born in 1919.

Still: Interesting.

Dept. of Narrow Interests

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I have, as most Heathen know, quite a few pix available over at Flickr.

Sometimes, I get an email notice that someone has made one a favorite. This is almost always a friend or relative expressing enjoyment of a photo of some other member of our extended family or circle of friends.

Almost.

Today, I got a favorite notice from a name I didn’t recognize at all, for a relatively odd picture from a clown-themed fundraiser a few years ago:

366320084996

The user has no photos of her (?) own to peruse, but checking her list of favorite pictures was, well, revealing:

Screen Shot 2012 08 10 at 2 34 01 PM

Very well then. Carry on.

Posted in Pix

This is awesome

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So, here’s the sequence:

  1. The Obama campaign runs an ad that, perhaps unfairly, accuses Romney of being responsible for the death of a woman who, after being laid off due to a Bain buyout, lost her health insurance.

  2. A Romney functionary quite justifiably tries to deflect this by pointing out that, had the woman lived in Romney’s Massachusetts, she’d have had access to many more health care options thanks to Romneycare!

  3. The conservative base has a giant freakout because, you know, improving health care options for Americans is EEEEVIL.

I don’t think you need anything else to declare the modern GOP completely worthless. I really thought this Onion story was satire, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t look exactly like this situation.

The cloud comes with risks. Behave accordingly.

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First, let me preface this by saying “behave accordingly” doesn’t mean “eschew the cloud.” Networked, connected computing can give us far too many benefits to abandon as a concept. However, as is often the case, new paradigms mean new risks and new ways of protecting yourself.

Now, read this terrifying article. The subject of the hack is a tech journalists who should have known better, and could have ameliorated the damage done with some very simple steps. That he did not have backups of his primary machine is, frankly, mind boggling — especially when it was the only place his digital photos of his newborn daughter were stored. (Really? On a Mac, with Time Machine as an option? WTF?)

If you’ve read the whole thing, either now or before, you know the drill:

  • Bad guys got his Amazon, Apple, GMail, and Twitter accounts easily because all were connected.
  • They were particularly savvy at exploiting what amounts to an inadvertent security hole that exists only because of complementary policies at Apple and Amazon.
  • They locked and remotely wiped his phone and laptop.

They did all this because they wanted his Twitter handle, no shit. What they could have done, but did not, was extend their nefariousness to his financial life; after all, they had full control of his email.

Hey Chief Heathen, What Should I Do?

Lots.

  1. First and foremost, if you use Gmail, enable two-factor authentication on your Gmail account. This sounds complicated, but it’s really not. Basically, after you configure it, you can’t log into your Gmail account from a random, other computer without ALSO having access to your phone, because Google will insist on texting you a security code you must provide as part of the login process from a non-trusted computer. This makes compromising your email WAY harder. (This may sound familiar if you bank with Chase; they do something similar. If your bank doesn’t, find another bank.)

  2. If you use a Mac, do NOT use “Find my Mac” until Apple secures it better. (Two-factor would make a big difference here.) This is not to say a stolen-laptop service like Prey isn’t a good idea; they are. It’s just that Apple’s combination of approach and (lack of) security here is what allowed the bad guys to remotely wipe the victim’s machine. Oops.

  3. DO NOT USE THE SAME LOGIN AND PASSWORD ON ANY TWO ACCOUNTS ANYWHERE. Yeah, I know this sounds onerous. Trust me. It’s important. Using a good password assistant program, and it’s much easier. The nice ones include browser plug-ins that will fill logins for you, so you don’t even have to remember passwords anymore. I like 1Password which, as a bonus, has a simple password generator built in. It costs money, but is well worth it.

  4. Finally: Backups, backups, backups. I’ve talked about this before, and my methods are still the same: Time Machine, Super Duper, CrashPlan, and Dropbox. Yes, all four. Trust me. I know things.

HOWTO: Catch up on a pop culture phenom you missed

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Breaking Bad is racking up the praise at this point like nothing since the Wire, so I’ve been meaning to dive in — but, at this point, with four seasons in the can and another one in progress, that’s a rather daunting prospect. Especially when it’s exactly the sort of show (violent, bleak) that Mrs Heathen wants no part of. (We are sometimes accused of un-Americanism because we have only one TV.)

However, she’s out of town this weekend, and I have the first 2 seasons on DVD on loan from a friend. So, since Friday evening, I’ve watched the entire first season (only 7 episodes) plus over half (8 of 13) of the second season. It’s network TV, not pay cable, so each episode is only about 47 minutes, but that still means it’s been a pretty serious binge.

It started simply, which is fitting for a show about meth: I watched the first two episodes on Friday night before I stepped out for a party.

Then I went a little nuts. On Saturday, after lunch, I sat down and watched SEVEN EPISODES IN A ROW — over six hours of this bleak cancer-and-meth extravaganza. And I only quit because I wanted to go catch a band. Then, when I came home, I watched ANOTHER episode.

Today, I spent the bulk of the afternoon doing something really incredibly geeky with four other people, but I got back from that at about 7. It is now 11:47, and I’m still up because I have a con call with Abu Dhabi in 13 minutes. But for that con call, I’d still be watching Breaking Bad, but as it is it appears that I’ll have to content myself with only five episodes today.

For devoted fans, I’ll note that my latest episode is the 8th of season two, which is where we’re introduced to Bob Odenkirk‘s character, Saul Goodman. Who is AWESOME. Also awesome: the entire “wrong bald guy” sequence.

The show is not the equal of the Wire, but I can absolutely say that Bryan Cranston has deserved every nice thing said about him here — and more. The evolution of Walter from the first episode is astounding. His ability to channel that prior Walter becomes more and more unnerving as the choices he makes take him further and further into damnation.

Dept. of Amusing Statistics

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I noticed earlier that conference realignment in the SEC has put an end to one of my favorite little stats: the fact that Alabama has a winning record against everyone in the SEC. Missouri and Alabama have played only 3 times, but Mizzou took 2 of those games.

I’m sure this is something Alabama will fix as quickly as possible (they play this year, which should at least even it up, but scheduling voodoo is such that it may take a while to get the third win), but it got me wondering: Who has a winning record vs. Alabama nationwide?

Turns out, not many folks do. This site and this site both have lists, but (somewhat amazingly) the first one misses Texas, and therefore makes a completely incorrect assertion by stating nobody who’s played Bama more than six times comes out ahead. Texas was for years 7-0-1 vs the Tide; they didn’t lose to Bama until the 2009 title game, but they’re still way out ahead.

Anyway, if we look at both lists and eliminate the 1-game-wonders (as statistically meaningless) as well as any team that no longer exists or plays football, we’re left with ten squads:

  • Boston College: 3-1 – last game was 1984.
  • Louisiana Tech: 2-3 – last game was 1999.
  • Michigan: 1-2 – last game was 2000.
  • Missouri: 1-2 – last game was 1978.
  • Notre Dame: 1-5 – last game was 1987.
  • Oklahoma: 1-2-1 – last game was 2003.
  • Rice: 0-3 – last game was 1956.
  • Texas Christian: 2-3 – last game was 1975.
  • UCLA: 1-2 – last game was 2001
  • Texas: 1-7-1 – last game was the 2009 BCS title game played in 1/2010

Alabama opens against Michigan; there’s a strong potential to even up the record there. As I noted above, they will play and probably beat Missouri on October 13. I can’t imagine Alabama scheduling any of the rest of these teams on their own, so those records, like the Michigan record after this year’s game, will likely stay where they are until the Magic Bowl-Scheduling Hoodoo produces another matchup. But it’s a pleasantly short list that’s pleasantly short of meaningful gaps. Perhaps Alabama should slot in a rebuilding Texas and perennially hapless Irish to fix those two records after all.

Sic transit gloria mundi

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I’m sure Gore Vidal hated it when people called him gloria, though.

(Seriously, you don’t get many obituaries as much fun as this one. I’m sorry it omits the oft-repeated anecdote of Vidal’s response to Norman Mailer’s literally knocking him on his ass at some party: “Words fail Mailer again!”)

It begins.

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The preseason coaches’ poll is out. LSU’s on top, followed by Alabama, USC, Oklahoma, and Oregon in that order.

FIVE of the top ten are SEC squads.

If Alabama wins their opener against #8 Michigan, look for them to slide into the top spot. LSU’s slate is front-loaded with serious creampuffs; they don’t play in-conference until Auburn on September 22. They also don’t play a ranked nonconference team all season.

“Seven Minutes of Terror”

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You may have heard that we’re sending another probe to Mars.

Once it hits the Martian atmosphere, it takes about 7 minutes for it to reach the surface.

Mars is far enough away, though, that messages from the lander take 14 minutes. Ergo, by the time we hear it’s hit the atmosphere, it’s either safe on the ground or a pile of junk.

How they plan to manage this is a pretty interesting story. Make time for this today. (Here’s a permalink if you miss it today.)

The Curiosity rover will touch down — or crash horribly — on Monday, August 6, at 12:31 AM.

h/t: The Mant.

HEY CHIEF HEATHEN! Should I buy a new iPhone?

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No, not yet.

Apple is widely believe to be preparing the next iPhone (and let’s be clear; they won’t call it the iPhone 5 — expect it to be “the New iPhone” just like the 3rd iteration of the iPad was simply “the new iPad”) for release very soon. While they’re notoriously tricksy and secretive, we can divine at least a little information from past behavior and market realities.

Above all, Apple is certain to want at least one if not more than one new product in hand going into the holiday quarter.

Second, we can look at the release dates and “life spans” of the prior iPhone versions:

Iteration Release Date Duration to next version
Original iPhone 6/29/2007 378 days, or 1.04 years
iPhone 3G 7/11/2008 343 days, or 0.94 years
iPhone 3GS 6/19/2009 370 days, or 1.01 years
iPhone 4 6/24/2010 477 days, or 1.31 years
iPhone 4S 10/14/2011 ?

Third, we can pay attention, just a little, to the rumors circulating now about a September release date.

Many times when we try to read the tea leaves, we get conflicting information.

This is not one of those times:

  • To get product in the channel for Christmas, Apple needs to release the phone in September.
  • The past release cycles strongly suggest Apple prefers to have a model be top dog for about year — n.b. that the 4S release date was basically acknowledged as a delay, and that Apple’s intent was probably to release the 4S in the summer as well. The 4S’ release date? Just about a year ago.
  • Finally, actual rumors are circulating that also say “September.”

So, your iPhone is messing up? Battery life sucks? Screen broken? Tough it out. Mrs Heathen’s battery doesn’t last a whole day anymore, and my home button only works about half the time. But neither of us are at all interested in buying a 4S within 60 days of its replacement, and neither should you be.