K-Squared Ramblings

All it Needs is an iPod

Seriously: this Starbucks VIA stand-up looks like it could use an iPod #

Outer Planets: Viewing Neptune

This morning I saw some wavy clouds that reminded me of the patterns you see in pictures of Jupiter. I started thinking about gas giant planets, and had an odd moment of realization: when I was a kid, astronomy books didn’t have actual photos of Uranus or Neptune. They couldn’t have — there weren’t any! There were nice photos of Jupiter and Saturn from the Voyager missions, but Voyager 2 didn’t reach Uranus until 1986, or Neptune until 1989.

The really weird thing, though: modern astronomy books do have photos of Neptune — but the ones for general audiences probably all use the same picture I got as a framed poster when I was in high school. We haven’t been back in 20 years. Jupiter and Saturn have gotten a lot of attention, partly because they’re a lot closer and partly because their ring and moon systems are so fascinating. So we have a more continuous view of those planets and how they change over time.

Neptune? One snapshot (metaphorically speaking) of the planet from 20 years ago. Everything before and everything since then has been done with telescopes. Even the Hubble barely has the resolution to tell that the Great Dark Spot broke up sometime between 1989 and 1994. That’s something that maybe shouldn’t have surprised anyone, given how quickly storms form and dissipate on Earth, but back in 1989 it seemed so much like Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (going on 400 years or longer) that it was easy to think it too would be persistent.

It’s a good reminder that the universe beyond Earth does change with the passage of time…even on a human scale.

GeoCities / Com & Line

• GeoCities lingered for a day, but has shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. # Over at Speed Force, I wrote a piece on GeoCities, RIP: Fandom’s Lost Pages.
• Interesting typo seen on a mailing list: “com and line option.” (command line) #

G1: No Android 2 for You!

Okay, I get it. By buying the first device of its kind (i.e. an Android-powered smartphone), I’m an early adopter. In a sense I was helping out in a massive public beta as Google, mobile phone carriers, and handset manufacturers worked out the kinks in the design and realized things like, “Oh, we really do need more memory than that, don’t we?”

But it’s still annoying to read the early reports that Android 2.0 “Eclair” won’t fit on the G1.

We have done this dance before, when rumors surfaced that the G1 wouldn’t be able to handle Android 1.6 “Donut.” Fortunately, engineers managed to squeeze it into the space available, and T-Mobile sent out Donut as an OTA (over the air) update to MyTouch and G1 devices alike. But I’ve had time to think about the issue, and my thoughts basically come down to this:

• New software eventually reaches a point when it can no longer support old hardware. You can’t run Snow Leopard on a G4 or Windows 7 on a Pentium II.
• When the hardware is usually tied to a fixed-term service contract (in this case, 2 years), the provider really ought to fully support it for the length of that contract. The G1 launched 1 year ago with (in most cases) a 2-year contract.
• Even if this is the last major update, my phone is still better now than it was when I bought it.

It will be very nice if history repeats itself, and Google and/or T-Mobile finds a way to cram Eclair onto the G1. Even if it means dropping the convenience of OTA updates and instead requiring you to download it to a PC and update over a USB cable. More likely, though, they’ll freeze the G1 on Android 1.6 except for bugfix and security updates, and it’ll be up to unofficial distributions like cyanogen to bring a newer OS to the older phone.

Because I don’t really want to mess with rooting my phone and installing a third-party distribution, if this is the end of the line for the G1, well…Android 2 has some really nice features that I’d really like to be able to use, but nothing that screams “must have!” The only real worry I have at this point is that app developers might start requiring newer versions of Android.

The other option: buy a newer phone. I’ll probably want to do that anyway in a year or so, but I’m not there yet. It still feels like I just got this one.

Droidmark

I wonder if Lucasfilm will try to assert trademark over the Motorola/Verizon Droid? #

Misandroid

Oh noes! A computer environment designed for smartphones isn’t a good fit for a netbook? Stop the presses! #android #

Books on Nooks

With Barnes & Noble’s new eBook reader, you could read a Nook book in a book nook. #

Audio, Social Worker Spam, & Prius Hatch

• Fedora 12 claims PulseAudio improvements. Here’s hoping sound will actually work after suspend+resume again. #Linux #
• Also: iPod train wreck of the morning was the Cardcaptor Sakura theme followed by Garbage’s Supervixen. #
• What’s with all the “Be a social worker!” spam lately? It’s a change from the usual porn, pills, watches & software, but out of left field. #
• Future reference: Though there’s no lever to pop the hatch on the Prius, unlocking the doors allows someone else to open it from outside #

SCOpe

• About time! RT @brionv: After 6 years SCO finally dumps the exec who ran Caldera’s Linux biz into the ground. #
• Doozy of an update in the copyright case over Shepard Fairey’s Obama “Hope” poster. (via @ThisIsTrue) #
• RT @sans_isc: Backed up, lately? #
• Found a pack of screen protectors while cleaning yesterday & replaced the one on my phone. HUGE difference in clarity! #

Making Sense of Macho Watch Spam

I’ve been seeing spam with subjects including, “Every macho should have a cool watch” and “Look like real macho with that trendy watch!” I’ve also been seeing spam saying things like, “Don’t miss your chance to become a real macho and by that we mean increasing your male dimensions.” At first it was funny that two spam campaigns were using the promise of machismo to hawk completely different products for completely different purposes.

Then I thought: what if they’re not different purposes. What if they’re saying that once you’ve “increased your dimensions,” you’ll be able to wear another watch?

Follow more humorous spam observations at lol_spam.

Moz-something

A good tech support one-liner from (The customer is) Not Always Right: A Flock Of Explorers On A Safari Singing Opera.

Microsoft Dinner

RT @ThisIsTrue: Humor: If Microsoft Invented the TV Dinner. #

Teh Internets Wait

This seriously (srsly?) needs to be a lolcat caption. RT @lol_spam: Spam subject of the day here! “Teh internets wait” #

Ads Should Not *Break* Streaming Video

After finishing season one of Leverage on Netflix, we’ve started watching season two on TNT’s website. Netflix’s streaming video has been great, and TNT’s has been decent enough aside from dropping out of full-screen for commercials…until yesterday.

Last night, while watching “The Order 23 Job” on our MacBook, we got to the final commercial break — and TNT popped up an error saying that the content required Windows to play. The episode played fine. Previous commercials played fine. But this one? The DRM wasn’t compatible with the player on the Mac.

Yeah. The DRM for the commercial wasn’t compatible.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if TNT approached it the way Hulu does when a commercial fails to play, which is to blank the screen for the duration of the ad (typically 30 seconds) and admonish you for not watching the commercials. Unfortunately, the episode didn’t pick up again.

As near as I can tell, the player was set up to continue the episode when the ad finished, and didn’t account for the possibility that the ad might not play. To make matters worse, the scene selection thumbnails don’t work right in Safari, so we couldn’t jump straight to the final act.

Because neither of us wanted to spend a lot of time troubleshooting, we just went into another room and brought up the Windows box to finish the episode. I suspect the scene selection would have worked in Firefox on the Mac, but haven’t tested it yet. I did go back later to see where I could report the problem to TNT, but the wording in their FAQ suggests to me that they’ll just ignore any reports of Mac problems.

I don’t mind watching reasonable ads to get a free service, but if the ad breaks, it shouldn’t take the actual service down with it. You don’t kick people out of a movie theater because the previews didn’t play, and you don’t send them home part way through an event because one of the sponsors’ banners fell down.

Frustrations (And a Few Bright Spots)

• Hard disks should not sound like buzz saws. #
• Slashdot article “FOSS Sexism Claims Met With Ire & Denial”…gets met with ire & denial. *headdesk* #
• Listening to lightsaber sounds from across the office. I think my coworker w/ the new Android phone found an app for that. #
• Vertical Horizon’s Burning the Days is growing on me, but I think Vienna Teng’s Inland Territory is my favorite new album this year #MusicMonday #
• TNT, its nice that your video streams are Mac-compatible, but when your ads require Windows, don’t prevent me from finishing the episode! # (I’ve gone into this in more detail.)