Geek Stuff category archive
Vim with Vigor 0
I have a new podcast up at HPR about how to check your spelling in Vim.
You too can podcast at HPR. Do you have something to say? Say it.
Light on Lumos 0
At Science 2.0, Brandon T. Bisceglia tries to shed some light on Lumosity. Reacting to the FTC’s levying a significant penalty against Lumos Labs, Inc, Lumosity’s owner, for false advertising clams, he takes a critical look at that advertising.
He is not impressed.
A snippet:
The company has long used scientific terms in a dubious manner to increase its cred among potential customers.
(snip)
But Lumosity’s pitch goes beyond this (that is, in the vernacular, that practice makes perfect–ed.). Its central argument is that its regimen of simple games is broadly transferable to other skills, and that those games are better than other forms of activity.
Seen in this light, the company has a tougher row to hoe. In real life, we don’t suggest that learning to ride a bike will make you better at driving a car.
If you want to learn to drive a car, you drive a car.
Full Disclosure: I got no dog in this hunt.
No Place To Hide 0
The EFF reports on Senator Al Franken’s attempt to investigate Google’s business practice, in particular their tracking of school students’ activities on Chromebooks. Here’s a bit from the story. Read the rest, then you can join the EFF at the link on the sidebar, over there.————————————>
Yet without parental consent the company tracks and records students’ online activity in certain Google services and feeds it into an ad profile attached to the students’ educational accounts. Is there an educational purpose in that practice? Senator Franken has asked Google to explain why it collects this information, and as we raise in our FTC complaint, whether “Google [has] ever used this kind of data for its own business purposes.”
Bits Byte 0
The Guardian reports that Mike Hearn, “a longtime senior developer on bitcoin and the former chair of the bitcoin foundation’s law and policy committee, announced in a blogpost that he would be selling his coins and quitting development on the project,” because he has concluded that bitcoin is a failure.
Of course it is. It’s been a mug’s game from the start, a Ponzi scheme open only to techies with full pockets of real money, an elitist hipster con, suckering those who think that they are k3wl and l33t just because they understand “blockchain,” an electronic Enron enticing economic illiterates enamored of their magical computing boxes.
Here’s a short piece from the article:
But the main reason why XT never took off was the failure of the other major bottleneck: the miners.
Bitcoin is supposed to be a decentralised currency. Anyone can download the entire history of bitcoin transactions, and devote computing power to verifying future transactions (called mining). For a change such as the switch to XT to succeed, more than half of the computing power on the bitcoin network has to support it by updating their own software accordingly.
But very few people bother to mine for bitcoin. It’s expensive in terms of computer hardware, time and electricity so it is very difficult to beat professionally equipped outlets in the race for rewards. Those amateurs who do mine largely do so as part of pools, who share both computing power and rewards. Those pools, however, are also centrally controlled. As a result, Hearn points out, just two individuals control more than 50% of the power of the network. He adds that “over 95% of hashing power was controlled by a handful of guys sitting on a single stage” at a recent bitcoin conference.
Afterthought:
Ask me nicely, I’ll tell you what I really think.
No Place To Hide 0
You will be are being assimilated.
The boxes, sold by OccupEye as a way to monitor how long staff are at their desks without relying “on coffee cups and coats on chairs,” were installed in the offices of The Daily Telegraph. Staff weren’t told anything about the installation and soon kicked up a storm of protest.
The devices were installed under the desks of journalism, advertising, and other commercial departments. There’s no word if HR got them too.
The Last Wind-Up 0
A Swiss company is fighting back against the Apple Watch.
(snip)
“It will let you reconnect with people by getting out there, meeting your friends, and spending time with your loved ones,” said CEO Edouard Meylan.
“So get a life, upgrade to a mechanical watch.”
Facebook Frolics 0
“I don’t understand how Facebook works” is not an excuse for stupid. It’s an admission of stupid.
Really, now, if you don’t know what you’re doing, that’s sort of an indication that maybe you shouldn’t do it.
Make TWUUG Your LUG 0
Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source. Learn how to use computers to do what you want, not what someone else wants you to do.
It’s not hard; it’s just different.
What: Monthly TWUUG Meeting.
Who: Everyone in TideWater/Hampton Roads with interest in any/all flavors of Unix/Linux. There are no dues or signup requirements. All are welcome.
Where: Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital in Norfolk Training Room. See directions below. (Wireless and wired internet connection available.) Turn right upon entering, then left at the last corridor and look for the open meeting room.
When: 7:30 PM till whenever (usually 9:30ish) on Thursday, January 7.
Directions:
Lake Taylor Hospital
1309 Kempsville Road
Norfolk, Va. 23502 (Map)
Pre-Meeting Dinner at 6:00 PM (separate checks)
Uno Chicago Grill
Virginia Beach Blvd. & Military Highway (Janaf Shopping Center). (Map)
Join the forums.
Patently Absurd 0
You can’t make this stuff up.
Twits on Twitter 0
Twitter promises to deal with trolls. A snippet:
Twitter reportedly plans to introduce measures that spell out to trolls that their undesirable communications have an effect in the offline world, as well as on the internet. By making it clear that trolls’ actions exist “in the real world” and encouraging victims to expose their abusers by publishing their names, it hopes to eradicate trolling and improve its brand.
Little boy. Thumb. Dike.
Great Moments in Tech Support 0
You don’t have to make this stuff up.
3D Printing Goes to Sea 0
3D printing has been mainstreamed.
The miniature fabrication labs have been placed on two ships: the aircraft carrier Truman and the amphibious assault ship Kearsarge. Both Norfolk-based ships are deployed to the Middle East in the fight against the Islamic State.
Much more at the link.
The Cycle of “Sharing” 0
Yes, there is such a thing, and it doesn’t have to be–er–improper photographs.
Mark Leigh, 54, of Failsworth, said his two bicycles – worth £500 ($750) and £1,000 ($1,500) – were nicked shortly after he made his address and details of his bikes public on the popular biking app Strava, the Manchester Evening News reports.
The app includes an optional privacy setting that conceals the exact location of your home, but Leigh was not aware of this switch when he shared details of his bike rides via the software.
There’s a reason I keep the GPS in my cell phone turned off. Putting aside outlying possibilities such as the above, it’s nobody’s business which grocery stores I use.
There’s an App for That 2
If you use Firefox or Chrome, you might be interested in this.
“It’s All about Me” 0
Scientific Blogging looks at how narcissism is driving marketing is driving narcissism is driving marketing . . . .