Author: fheald

I’ve been noticing a lot more standard USB cables lately. Instead of putting their own proprietary cable on their devices (so you have to buy a new cable from them), gadget manufacturers are using, mostly, the tiny 5-pin USB connector. This means I can just leave a connector on my computer (or on more than one) and plug the device in without having to search for its’ specific cable. This is true for my SportBrain pedometer, (which I recently lost, d’oh – it had a tendency to fall off my belt) (but it used to only come with a dock for telephone connection), my Nikon camera (the old one came with a proprietary USB cable that’s almost but not quite the same, and tended to be too tight in the connector), and my GPS (the old one had only serial port connection). The iPod still wants its own cable for USB, tho I have an older iPod which uses the standard firewire connector. Phone – still a bizarre proprietary connector, and I have no reason to use it since they don’t have address book sync and the Sprint data connection is flaky. I got rid of my Palm, but it had its own connector (which is one of the reasons I didn’t dock it all that often, having to mess with the cable), and I always said that was one of the problems with the Newton, lack of USB (tho it was just prior to USB being standardized).

There’s still the problem of software, though. Most of the manufacturers don’t support Mac or Linux, so you have to rely on either Apple or the software writers out there to provide drivers or other operating software. The phone has none for the Mac and only aftermarket for Windows. The GPS has only shareware for the Mac or Linux. The palm had crappy sort-of-supported abandonware on the Mac. iPhoto is marvelous enough that I wonder why Nikon bothers to make a Mac photo program, tho they do.

I got in trouble once again last night for questioning why schools are only open nine (or so) months of the year. I was in no way suggesting that teachers don’t work hard enough, or that they’re paid too much, or that I disrespected them in any way. I just don’t understand why (other than historically) the academic world should run on a different schedule than the rest of the world.

The response I seem to get from teachers is “because it’s a really, really hard job and we don’t get paid enough”. “If it weren’t for the time off you’d lose a lot of teachers.” Somewhere down the line, it’s suggested that students need some time off in order to process what they’ve learned, tho as far as I know (which isn’t much) there aren’t a lot of places that have true year-round schools, so how do we know this – and even if it’s the case, then shifting the schedule so they’re studing something different for a few months would do the trick just as easily. Do they really benefit from sitting at home watching TV and playing video games, or from hanging out a the mall? Traditionally this was time off because the children were needed on the farm to help with planting and/or harvesting – parents wouldn’t have given their school-aged children months off to waste.

I’m sure that managing a classroom full of children is very, very difficult. More difficult than managing the same number of employees? I don’t know, but I suspect not (if you expect those employees to actually get anything done). Smaller classes would be a great idea. Paying teachers an appropriate wage would be a good idea as well – and if we don’t have enough willing to work, then obviously the wages should go up. More money on schools, less on weapons systems and nation-building? Of course, and I’m sure it pays off as a country in the long run.

And of course all of these factors are different for elementary, middle school, high school, and college students. Many high school and college students (myself included) spend most of the summers working, if they can find employment. What do teachers do during the three months a year when they’re not in class – I’m sure they can’t be working on lesson plans the whole time.

No doubt there’s also some affect in the fact that (again in my limited knowledge) many elementary teachers are women, and these women are still expected to support family at home, often twelve months a year. At the same time, some parts of the system are based on the entirely outdated assumption that one parent, usually the mother, would be home all the time for when kids weren’t in school – and most likely performing “home schooling” of some sort during that time.

Naturally I think the teachers’ union is a scam. Why, for example, should teachers get full-ride health insurance, but other people in society (I don’t know, how about software engineers) don’t get any? Why should they get pensions when people working in manufacturing jobs don’t? Why, with tenure should they have bulletproof job security when other people don’t? It just doesn’t seem fair to me – and I’m not arguing that we should take these benefits away from teachers – it just seems that “because they’ve got a powerful union and you don’t” isn’t a good enough reason. It’s also not fair that teachers end up having to buy their own supplies, and spend a lot of “off” time working on grading papers and writing lesson plans.

With so-called “year-round” schools, of course, the system is recognizing that wasting massive amounts of prime real estate for 1/4 of the year isn’t efficient; but this means that teachers in “tracks” no longer have fixed classrooms and have to “float” for at least a portion of the year. It also means we can cram more people into the system, though since both the students and teachers are idle (non-tasked?) for a portion of the year, something is being lost to efficiency. And of course it puts a burden on struggling parents as well, who then have to work around their young childrens’ schedules, or produce “latchkey kids”.

The most paid vacation I’ve ever had was two weeks a year. I understand that in Euro, Australia, and other parts of the civilized world, a month is standard and two months is not out of the ordinary. I think vacation is a good thing, tho I believe it’s better taken in small pieces – say no more than a week or so at a time – with an extended sabbatical every few years. But in the U.S. because of the capatalist work ethic we squeeze every last working day out of our employees – oh, except for teachers.

Mainly I think it’s interesting to question things like this that we take for granted. In this morning’s LA Times, there’s an editorial by Bill Gates that says we should be preparing all of our students for college rather than expecting most of them to conveniently slip through the cracks and occupy an ever-shrinking working class. Despite the fact I think he’s just using this as a platform to sell more faulty software, he has a certain point. According to him, up to fourth grade our students are far better than world average; then by twelfth grade they’re far worse. Wouldn’t we do better if we put our kids in school all the time?

Last night before going to bed, I went to turn off my cellphone, and I noticed when I picked it up that it was in “Sleep Mode”.

This means, of course, that the phone is “asleep” – display dimmed, waiting for a call – but it’s certainly from a phone-specific reference. Why doesn’t the phone have a mode for when I’m asleep? I could set it to activate automatically from, say, 10pm to 8am. Failing technology from the phone company to determine which calls were “emergency” and which weren’t, it could be set so two calls from the same number within a minute would be considered “urgent” and the phone would ring – otherwise it would just send the call to voicemail. And I wouldn’t have to remember to turn the phone on and off all the time (sometimes I just turn the volume down, but then I don’t remember to turn it back up.)

And of course it would be too much to ask, for voice commands – pick up the phone and say “phone, sleep” and “phone, wake”. By the way, I never tried Sprint’s voice dialing because it always cost extra – tho I did have a friend who programmed his phone to call different friends depending upon how he said “dude”; but then he forgot which one was “Duuuuude” and which one was “Dude?” but of course not which was “dudedudeDUDE”.

Whenever a computer exploit, or a suspected exploit (say, a windows-based virus) appears, the media and the general public refer to the peretrators as “Hackers”. But within the techno-anarcho-engineering circles, 2600 and the like, the whine comes back “They’re not hackers, they’re Crackers – hackers like us are just intelectually curious, we’re not trying to destroy or steal information.” Crackers are supposedly the ones who get in and break stuff and steal credit card numbers for the fun (or is that “phun”) of it. The original phone hackers at some point were given the name “Phreakers” – possibly subsequent to the coining of “Hacker”. Then there are “Jackers”, named after car- and hi-jackers, who are deliberately trying to commit crimes.

I say, Tomay-to, tomah-to, let’s call the whole thing off. Just accept the fact that everybody thinks that a Hacker has malicious or possibly criminal intent, and coin yourselves a new name. Tweaker won’t do, as it’s identical to “Tweeker” (usually referred to with the adjective f’n as in “f’n tweeker”) – one who consumes methamphetamine. “Tinker” doesn’t exactly sound heterosexual (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

I prefer more elegant appelations. It’s not vandalism, it’s “real estate improvements abatement.” They’re not homeless, they’re “urban campers”. How about “improvised engineers” – or is that too close to Disney’s “Imagineers” – or maybe that’s a good thing? “Freelance technologists”? “System security verification volunteers”? “Authentication bypass specialists”?

The other day one one of the many e-mail lists I’m on, someone accused the group of not being open-minded. As you can imagine, this is a pretty damned open-minded group. Here was my response.

Open minded means whatever someone tells you they’re into, you tell
them it’s marvelous. It means being supportive and encouraging to
people, even if you disagree with them and think they’re vile horrible
monsters. In fact it may even mean changing your opinion of them
instantly, and even possibly indicating you’re interested in what they
are, even if you might have previously believed, erroneously, that it
was sick and wrong. It means standing up for and advocating acceptance
of f’tards. After all, how can you love your enemy if they won’t lie
down? I’m fairly certain open minded is not the same as “Zen Mind” –
but then, someone could probably convince me otherwise if I were truly
open-minded about it. In fact, now that I think about it, perhaps
open-minded equates to brainless. Or at least mindless, egoless, and
even possibly selfless, heartless, toothless, backless, hairless,
spineless, crotchless, dickless, speechless, thoughtless, spiritless,
sexless, bloodless, colorless, stainless.

I returned last night from the (13th Annual!) Boulder City, NV Albatross fly-in. What a great trip.

Drove out from here, because the plane I was supposed to fly, N26132, had a 100-hour inspection that went long. Would have taken me a lot less time to fly – about six hours driving each way versus around 2 1/2 hours flying, I calculated.

Obviously, I like planes, and for some reason I really love floatplanes. I have, so far, only a single hour of flight instruction in floatplanes, about ten years ago in Sausilito. I have no reasonable need for a floatplane (or arguably any plane at all, but that’s another matter!).

But of the floatplanes, the Albatross is certainly my favorite. Okay, well, maybe if I could get a Sikorsky S-38 (link, link) like the one Howard Hughes was shown teaching Katherine Hepburn to fly in Aviator – but they’re apparently nonexistant. In any case, I really like the style of the Albatross. Someday I really do hope to take lessons in one.

Dennis Kuhn is actually living one of my dreams – his company, American Warbirds, ressurects Albatross from the Tucson “boneyard” (which I have pictures of, somewhere!) and brings them back to flying condition. There were eight Albatross on the flight line at various times this weekend, ranging from bare metal to dolled-up, but all flying. Two from the competing surfwear companies, Billabong and Quicksilver – the Quicksliver plane of Bill Da Silva was the one I was lucky enough to ride in out to the picnic.

“With that camera you’ve got, you’ll want to ride up in the nose,” Bill told me. Up in the cockpit, under the dashboard, is a little door to the bow hold, which apparently used to house the radar dome (black, in the above picture), but now is capped by a plexiglass bubble, so (like T.S. Garp the nose-gunner) I got to lie on my belly in the very front of the plane as we flew in a 4-plane formation, over the airport and out over Lake Mead. Down through a slot canyon, only a few hundred feet up, which I heard the pilot say was flying stop-to-stop on the controls as he weaved through, then out over more lake and hills and down to “Big Sandy”, a long beach out at the east end of the lake. After a low fly-over of the beach where several of the pilots had camped out the previous night, we landed on the water and did a fast step-taxi back. Riding in the nose of the plane was truly like being able to fly.

Five or six of the planes ended up out there, along with a Widgeon, a Cessna Stationair (206?), a DeHaviland Beaver, a Super Cub, a pair of Republic Seabees, and two Lake Buckaneers. Note that there’s a difference between a “floatplane” – the Cub, Beaver, and Cessna – that sit up on pontoons, and “flying boats” like the Albatross, Widgeon, and Lake, and I guess the Seabee as well.

An excessive number of pictures are now on my gallery page. I’ve created a best of album as well, in case anyone doesn’t actually want to see all 203 of the pictures I took.

“You can’t always get higher just because you aspire…” – The Who

I’d like to start an aircraft company, making replica classic aircraft. Especially flying boats like the Grumman Widgeon, Goose, and Albatross, PBY, and the Sikorsky S-38. These planes were designed and flew with technology from 50 years ago, so with a little computer analysis and new materials…

Uyuh. These are the sort of thoughts I get after a day flying. I went down to San Diego today, my longest and best flight so far, or at least recently. Yep, Sidney Nebraska was 3.7 hours Sidney is apparently where the new round-the-world nonstop flight is based, though I can’t find information about it at the moment. I did several other long cross-country flights while I was in Denver, though I barely remember them. Pueblo and Lamar. Goodland, KS. At least it was a way to build up time. I did a few nght flights – or, at least one. I should probably practice some more of that; I came down the other night in almost-night conditions. I’d really like to get some seaplane time, but I don’t know where to get it other than Sausalito. I may run out next weekend, to Boulder City, to watch and take pictures of an Albatross fly-in.

I was looking up info on cameras, and came across this site, offering prices that were just too good to be true! And it turns out, they are too good to be true.

Did a web search for the company name along with “retailer reviews” (or “better business bureau”) and was then entertained by consumer horror stories about the company (this is a good one). In this case, their M.O. is to send an email saying you need to call to confirm your order; they then try to upsell you warranty, battery, charger that aren’t included with the camera because they’re “international versions” – and if you don’t order the upsell, surprise surprise, your camera is backordered, possibly indefinately. Not sure how they get away with this obviously criminal behavior.

I’m at a lot to explain to non-programmers what it is I’m working on. And I’d also like to make some form of public announcement, since there seem to be web searches pointed at this blog. So here you go.

I’ve been doing all the documentation of what I’m doing as html (actually php) documents.

App Framework This is the application framework for the other projects I’m working on. I’m having a very slow time with this, because I’m not really sure if I should be doing it the way I am. But so be it. I’m creating a generic application framework that will allow me to build new web-based applications with a lot less work than creating them from scratch in php. It uses a database of fields and forms, and so dynamically creates data-based web pages. I think it’s cool, but I may be reimplementing the wheel. In any case, it’s good php practice.

Oscar Open Source Call Accounting And Reports. This is an open-source implementation of the call detail reporting system I know so well.

Flytrack Flight Tracking system. This is an example application for the application framework, but it might be a worthwhile application of its own.

I’ll go on to explain these more, but for the moment you’ll have to read the documentation (what there is of it – I’ll also be expanding on that). If you have any interest in these, please email me. And wish me luck.

…and in this morning’s dream I was in Denver (as I seem to be in occasional dreams) and had to be back in LA by the evening. But instead of driving, I decided to take my bike, since I heard there was a bike path that went part of the way. Kip’s house was a few miles out.

No particular reason I’m documenting my dreams here, aside from having remembered them the last few days.