Posts - Page 2

  • Apple versus Facebook - Will the Winner Be Our Privacy?

    Feb 26th, 2021 - Category: Apple

    How much “spin” can the world take? Well Facebook is doing its best to find out with its recent spin on their argument that “Apple’s changes are aimed at benefiting iMessage and harm small businesses.” What terrible changes are they referring to? Brace yourself because Apple will soon require iPhone and iPad apps that sell users’ personal data to ask the user for permission first. This personal data includes information like what websites we visit, our location, and much more.

  • Higher Education and the Leadership Crisis

    Jan 23rd, 2021 - Category: Communication

    I enjoy commencement speeches. When I come across particularly good ones, I write about them in this blog, save highlights in my clippings folder, or watch the videos online. The latest one, “Solitude & Leadership,” came to my attention thanks to the website Library of Scroll. It was a speech given to the plebe class of West Point in 2009 by William Deresiewicz and was later published on the American Scholar website.

  • Leaving Wordpress after 10 years and almost 400 posts

    Dec 24th, 2020 - Category: Miscellaneous

    Wordpress 2010 Back in 2010, Wordpress was widely hailed as a breakthrough for creating modern websites and ElephantTech jumped on the bandwagon with Wordpress “Thelonious” (all their versions are named after Jazz greats). The default theme was so beautiful, a long tree lined road leading off into the distance. It was easy to get started with their famously advertised “five minute install” and they even had a handy list of hosting companies. We chose one called ICDSoft that got great reviews. They were based in Bulgaria but who cared, it was the global internet right? And the price was right, only $5 a month.

  • Homesteading on the Internet

    Nov 30th, 2020 - Category: Communication

    From Wikipedia: “Homesteading is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency.” Most people’s experience with the Internet these days is far from the concept of self-sufficiency. Google News is a one-stop website for everything from global to local news so why bother with the BBC, New York Times, or a local paper? Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and TikTok are where people share the stories, photos, emotions, and videos of their lives (and unfortunately sometimes get their news as well). Netflix has largely replaced theaters and network television for many. Amazon provides access to millions of sellers around the world and includes helpful reviews (mostly) from actual buyers of products. More and more going online today means accessing an information service curated by some of the largest companies on the planet. Even those who want to publish their own website are immediately greeted on Google by a wide variety of “website builders” like GoDaddy or Squarespace where “for only $9.99 a month” you can have “everything you need to grow online.” And if you don’t like Squarespace, there are dozens of alternatives like Wix, Weebly, WordPress.com, Duda, Portfoliobox, etc.

  • It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

    Oct 30th, 2020 - Category: Change

    This famous quote should be familiar to anyone who played early computer games. It comes from one of the most famous classics from the 1980s, Zork. While Wikipedia has a good description of its history, I found this article from MentalFloss captured the spirit of the game much better. It’s hard to believe that a game without any graphics could have had such a major impact, but it did. So much so that I remember my first moments playing it on a mainframe in an office building in downtown Los Angeles. I had been hired by a friend’s parent to help with a data entry job and before we started she said, “I’ve got a quick errand to do, you might find this game interesting” and with those words she introduced my friend and me to the incredible world of Zork.

  • Microsoft Flight Simulator Through the Decades

    Sep 27th, 2020 - Category: Change

    The most recent version of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator was just released and highlights how much computing has evolved over the decades. Interestingly, Microsoft didn’t develop the first version, but licensed it from Bruce Artwick’s company, SubLogic, in the 1980s. The whole fascinating history can be found here and here, but to give you a visual idea of its beginnings, here is a screenshot from the very first version:

  • Is Apple Playing With Monopoly Money?

    Aug 17th, 2020 - Category: Apple

    During the last several months, people have taken up some interesting hobbies while in quarantine: bread making, gardening, art, and most recently questioning the monopolistic practices of trillion dollar companies. Facebook must be breathing a digital sigh of relief. The spotlight isn’t on them for a change. No, this time it’s Apple’s turn and the argument roughly is: “they charge developers 30% to be on the App Store; this is completely unfair; how can developers survive; it stifles competition because developers have no other choice; the walled garden has given Apple monopoly power.”

  • Your First Reaction is Usually Outdated

    Jul 16th, 2020 - Category: Communication

    Over the last several decades, mainstream thinking has become more and more influenced by a deluge of online information and opinions. It started with a trickle in the 1980s when CNN became the first 24 hour all news network. In the 1990s, personal computer ownership increased to 35% and services like American Online (AOL) became popular communication tools. Next, AOL and their Instant Messenger (AIM) inspired the first mass messaging services and “chat rooms.” In the 2000s, these services matured into the massive global communication tools we use today like Twitter and Facebook. At each step, more and more of the general population gained access to a platform that could reach the entire world. We now have instantaneous access to information from every field and every part of the planet. However despite all this information, even when a person tries to focus only on information from confirmed “experts,” there still seem to be major disagreements on basic scientific “facts.”

  • Greatness: A Blessing or a Curse?

    Jun 22nd, 2020 - Category: Change

    Some people seem to be clearly destined to change the world even in the face of difficult circumstances. Isaac Newton and Leonardo da Vinci were both geniuses who changed the world during the Great Plague. Steve Jobs was fired from Apple before coming back to create the world changing iPhone. Albert Einstein changed the world before, during, and after two devastating world wars. Others are driven by personal or societal reasons: Linus Torvalds who created Linux “just as a hobby, nothing big or professional” (90%+ of the Internet runs on Linux), Elon Musk who obviously can’t help but invent (PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, etc.), and J.K Rowling whose idea for Harry Potter “came fully formed” into her mind during a long train ride.

  • Are You Earning a Living or Living an Earning?

    May 27th, 2020 - Category: Change

    I love to work. My first paying job was in high school typing detailed football statistics on a manual typewriter. After 40+ hours of work, I was surprised to get my first check for $73, icing on the cake. This was an all-boys, Carmelite high school that was a decade behind in technology yet they jumped ahead and purchased one of the first IBM PCs. Then they created a computer lab which I worked in for free for the rest of my years there, including summers. Fast forward a decade and I was managing a whole team of sales and support engineers, all of us working from home offices. There was never a question of “monitoring productivity,” we all loved what we were doing, helping customers solve difficult technical problems with advanced measurement systems. Another decade later and now I have my own business and when I’m not working on client projects, I’m volunteering at the local Maker Space fixing 3D printers and teaching basic electronics; or supporting our local First Robotics Competition Team; or studying how X, Y, or Z works. Yes, I enjoy non-work activities as well: nice evenings with my wife sharing a good bottle of wine, a video game now and then, tennis, and working in the garden or around the house. All this means that being “in quarantine” has not radically altered our day to day life or resulted in boredom.