Technology and geeky stuff Archives - Page 4 of 45

Bringing Meaning to Light

30 October, 2016 by sky Leave a Comment

My latest composition Beings of Light and Darkness is meant to suggest the conflicting information, processes and feelings of being diagnosed with cancer, going through chemo therapy and surgery, and recovering functionality. “Light” and “Dark” are used figuratively in describing events and feelings.

Light, as you know, is energy. Photons flying through space. Our sun, like most stars, emits photons, which rush outward from its surface, and many of them strike the Earth, where they warm our clouds, oceans and surface. But without humans, those photons are just energy transfer mechanisms. They have no inherent meaning. [Read more…]

Backdoors – How Absolutely Stupid!

23 December, 2015 by sky Leave a Comment

I have not written on this subject because I just see everyone else is banging on Congress about how stupid it would be to install “backdoors” in commercial email and software services. But honestly, I’m a bit concerned right now because government pressure is being stepped up.

A “backdoor” is a mechanism that allows a service provider or government to access the contents of a system without knowing users’ passwords and without their knowledge. It is essentially a universal key that opens everything.

We hear government officials crying out that this is the only way they can protect the nation against attack. In other words, the government wants to have universal access to every electronic communication, or we will all die in flaming terrorist attacks.

So just why is this the stupidest idea in the world? [Read more…]

Max/MSP project

20 December, 2015 by sky Leave a Comment

“Max/MSP” is a computer app that implements an on-screen visual programming environment in which you can “wire” together components that make and process sound or logic. You could think of it as programming, but it’s unlike the old procedural programming you probably just thought of. It’s object-oriented, but more than that it includes many components that are paced by a clock. And the “programming” is carried out visually by creating and moving objects on the screen and patching (you might say “wiring”) them together. You might have a metronome beating four times a second, for example, and it could trigger sounds or actions that it’s wired to. [Read more…]

My First Computer

30 November, 2015 by sky Leave a Comment

Well I don’t have a photo, but my first computer was an IBM 709. My next computer, for a very short time, was a CDC 3400, which was soon after replaced by the CDC 6400 that served for roughly 7 years as “my” mainframe. Me and many other researchers, of course. [Read more…]

Unlocking + Tethering

3 February, 2015 by sky Leave a Comment

When I upgraded from iPhone 4S to iPhone 6, I was on AT&T. As a “reward” for upgrading, after being a loyal customer (“We want to thank you for being the best part of AT&T”), AT&T charged me $40 and then increased my monthly data plan by $15. And locked me into the full plan for 24 months. I had a hellish experience but was able to cut my monthly costs drastically by unlocking and then switching to T-Mobile. Here’s how I did it… [Read more…]