Black holes, LHC, Star Wars, quantum uncertainty… if it is of general geek interest, but doesn’t fit into one of the other categories, it lands here.
I recently upgraded my web server hardware and so, in that spirit, it seemed like a good time to refresh the configuration of my blog software. I had previously made several attempts to ‘make it fast’, but with only limited improvement. This time, however, I seem to have made some good progress… read below the fold for some details of my effort.
Apparently this is the year of VR or virtual reality. The Oculus Rift can now actually be purchased by normal (non-developer) user. The Valve/HTC Vive is available as well, and Sony’s ‘Morpheus’ PlayStation VR product is supposedly coming very soon.
This isn’t a review of any of these products, but rather my opinion regarding the current state and potential of VR…
I registered a new domain name yesterday: geekonaharley.org. My current vague plan is to move my motorcycle-related posts from here to the new blog in an effort to make the ‘eclectic’ nature of my posts slightly less so. I.e.: people interested in my motorbike related posts won’t get any cat or politics related posts mixed in.
But that isn’t what this post is about. Instead it is about the scam email that arrived in my email inbox today, the day after registering my new domain.
I have been running a personal blog for many years- arguably since about 1997. I think I switched to WordPress in 2005 after previously managing with a static HTML page and then a PHPNuke website. I started getting comment ‘spam’ shortly after I started using WordPress: like email spam, spam comments are irritating messages that aren’t really created by actual people who have something meaningful to say.
Thankfully, the folks at Automattic who make WordPress provided something called Akismet to ‘block’ or filter spam comments. I activated Akismet, and managing spam became more or less a memory… but the numbers, goodness… the numbers are huge.
Two weeks ago I purchased and started using a Fitbit Flex. It is basically a set of accelerometers, some computing, and a Bluetooth wireless connection bundled into something you can wear on your wrist. This little gadget won’t turn me into an athlete, but I’m hoping it might make me a little more aware of my astounding lack of activity. And in the process, possibly shame me into moving a bit.
I’ve been a geek since before I knew the term existed. I would say it probably started when I was about four or five years old, when my sister started reading me The Hobbit. I didn’t truly “identify” as a geek until I was about 14 or 15, and it was part of a process of realizing I wasn’t alone. I discovered that other people liked Star Trek, perhaps a bit too passionately. There were folks out there like me that read Asimov, Tolkien, Pohl, McCaffrey, Niven, Lackey, Heinlein, and the rest of the pantheon like a form of alternate truth. People who saw the world through a slightly different lens, intensely, with a quiet (or sometimes not so quiet) passion.
Given my long-standing sense of myself as a “geek”, my ears perk up when I see discussions of what the term means. Of who is “in” or “out”. Apparently there is some sort of brouhaha in progress of late regarding whether female geeks exist. Some guys claim they don’t, or that many of those of the feminine persuasion who claim to be geeks are lying. One recent article I read on the topic gave me much food for thought. For that I thank the author, Sarah Kuhn: thinking is something I like to do 😉
The last shuttle mission has flown and, with nothing to replace it, the U.S. manned presence in space has ended with it. The shuttle astronauts in the picture below are the last ones we will ever see.
I watched this video today, and am once again amazed at what "ordinary" humans can do if they put their minds to it: I particularly liked the "open the Pringles…
I was watching a demonstration video of a robotic vibraphone today on Gizmodo. It plays "Flight of the Bumblebee", which is already a pretty fast piece, but does it a…
According to a recent study at the University of Washington, people who aren’t really interested in computing science are even less interested if asked about it in a room with science fiction paraphernalia, games, and soft drink cans. Apparently some of these non-technically-inclined people are women. Glory be, we have a great discovery!
Actually, not really, at least not in my uneducated opinion, with which you are free to disagree…
