Author: smartpeopleiknow

Getting a new iPhone? Maybe you should want to get a new plan too. Read this

This June 2013 article (What’s the best, cheapest Canadian cellphone plan out there? | Globalnews.ca.) has a good rundown of the various cellphone service providers and their lowest cost plan and everything that you get with that. Even if you don’t want the cheapest plan, knowing that can help you negotiate the plan you really need. Highly recommended.

Get the new iPhone (if they have it) and save money on your plans. Good deal.

There’s alot of crappy advice on how to make Minecraft run faster. This isn’t

I reviewed alot of online material to help make Minecraft run faster on my son’s laptop. Much of it was YouTube videos made by nice kids, but most of it was less than helpful. However there was one thing I can across that was actually very useful, and it was this: 25 things you can do to make MineCraft run faster! FULL REDUX!!! Minecraft Blog.

I did most of these things, save put a cat on my son’s laptop, and they made a noticeable improvement in the speed of minecraft on his machine. The more of them you can do, starting from the top, the better  improvements you will see. Highly recommended.

How to make your Internet use more secure and private, 2013 edition

It’s a constant battle, but this article by Sean Bonner (Encryption and Privacy – What I’m Using) is a great rundown of tools you should consider in making your Internet use more private and less exploitable.

He covers a wide range of tools, from Tor to VPNs to duckduckgo, and more. Better still, his article is readable and understandable by people who lives revolve around something other than computers.

When it comes to security, you are always making trade-offs between being more secure and other things you want from technology (e.g. ease of use). That said, try and make your computer as secure as you can: every bit helps.

Need a good place to travel to this fall? Why not consider the U.S. Rust Belt

It doesn’t have the glamour of travelling to NYC or LA, but trips to the great American cities of Detroit, Buffalo and Pittsburgh have lots to offer. (And cities like Detroit could use your tourist dollar.)  Whether you are skeptical or excited about the idea, you should check out Denise Balkissoon’s article on what you need to know to visit these places. 

Check out Rust Belt road trips at The Grid TO and get the details. U.S. Football season is coming: great time to hit the road and check it out.

A bad new trend: buildings that act as magnifying glasses and burn people like ants**

First off there the building above, still being built. According to the Express,  the “half-finished 37-storey tower at 20 Fenchurch Street in central London, dubbed the “Walkie Talkie” due to its distinctive shape, is now being called the “Walkie Scorchie” due to it’s ability to concentrate sun rays and melt cars and singe hair.  Don’t believe me? Read this.

It’s not the first either building to do so either.  The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, designed by none other than Frank Gehry, did something similar.

I find it incredible that architects don’t take this into account when they are designing buildings, given that they take so much into account, such as shadow and wind creation. Then again, these building curvatures are fairly recent creations. Perhaps it will be taken into account now.

More on the Walkie Scorchie building here.

** Slight exaggeration, but still! 🙂

Is all failure good, the way innovators say it is?

I don’t think so.

Innovators who seemingly rejoice at failure have a very limited view of failure. Perhaps the particular way they fail does benefit them, but I believe this isn’t the case for everyone.

As this article shows, there are lots of different ways to fail (Among Six Types Of Failure, Only A Few Help You Innovate | Co.Design: business + innovation + design). While it’s possible that one can learn from all of them, some of them are easier to learn from and recover from than others.  For example, abject failure, where you suffer a significant loss, can take years to recover from. This is very different from predictable failure, when you bounce ideas off coworkers, most of which will be rejected, with little if any loss and no need to recover.  It is worthwhile categorizing failure before you jump into an endeavor, and after that categorizing, performing a cost/benefit aspect of failure that needs to be accounted for.  Don’t accept the idea that all failure is the same and all failure is easy and good.

Is this what Google Glass(es) might look like?

Possibly, at least according to this.

The bigger question will be: will people use it? Google Glass has taken a hit to it’s reputation recently, and there is a chance that it may not recover. My feeling is that such a heads up display will come, but it won’t come from Google. Regardless who does it, years from now, that will be how people interact with computers and the Internet, and when you  see photos of people holding smartphones from this era, that will seem weird. (Actually, it seems weird even now.)

If you are a young man looking to build up a wardrobe, study this

The Essentials, at the MR PORTER web site, has a long visual list of items you should have in your collection of clothing. Even if you don’t buy them from this site (which is not cheap), you should use this page as a guide of what to acquire elsewhere.

My only quibbles are these:

  • I would go with a longer length for men’s shorts
  • skip the cargo pants
  • Introduce colour via accessories

That said, the list is great and well, essential, if you are building up your wardrobe.

Some thoughts on twitter, and blogging, and blogging again

I like twitter. Simply stating I have over 42,000 tweets should be enough to prove that.

I like blogging too. I’ve been blogging on this blog since 2007, and on other blogs since around 2005.

Like many bloggers, somewhere along the way I went from blogging alot, to a bit, to hardly at all. Meanwhile, tweeting has more or less stayed the same.

It hasn’t helped that a number of tools that I used for blogging and to make blogging easier have died off, but it would be wrong to blame the tools. It’s simply that tweeting is easier and writing blog posts, even simple blog posts, is much harder.

I plan to try and reverse that over the next few months, or at least make an attempt. I have been inspired by some people I follow on twitter, much better writers than I, who manage to tweet good stuff while blogging really good posts on a regular basis. While their tweets are fine, I get so much more out of the longer blog posts that they write.  I don’t know if the same goes for me, but I hope that will be the case for at least a few people who follow me on twitter as well.

I also miss the “log” part of my blog. I always find something when I look back over older blog posts. Tweets, in comparison, just roll on.  I hate the thought of losing the good things amongst the things I share. Blogging also forces me to think harder about topics, at least the ones I care about. Tweeting is conversational for the most part. Finally, I have gotten good feedback on some blog posts, feedback that has been rewarding and encouraging. I miss that too, and with some luck, I hope to regain it.

Elysium is like Blade Runner (and other reasons I really liked it)

If you were to read the reviews of Elysium in places like Rotten Tomatoes, you might think it was going to be mediocre at best. Instead, I think it is brilliant and will be appreciated more as time goes by. Here’s some random notes jotted down on why I liked it very much.

It follows the same pattern as Blade Runner: the longer I watched Elysium, the more it reminded me of Blade Runner. It is a immersive, dystopian world centered in Los Angeles. Only the poor live on earth, while the better off live off world, tended to by robots. In Blade Runner, the lowest form of life (the replicants) are in desperate need of expert attention to survive. In Elysium, it is the poor who need medical attention to survive. While they are trying to get help, they are being chased by killers trying to stop them.

While there are similarities in the story lines, there are also similarities in the reimagining of Los Angeles.  Ridley Scott imagined LA as a dystopian mixture of punk club and Japan, all cast in darkness. Blomkamp imagines it as a sunbaked shantytown with no end. Both are bleak places, and both represent a vision of the times they are in even as they are cast into the future.

Like Scott, Blomkamp has a great eye for detail. In particular, with the wealthy. There are all sorts of details, from the Versace healing beds, to the watch Jodie Foster wears to the luxury vehicle that Matt Damon’s character attacks midway through the film. The wealthy live in neat, opulent spaces while the property of the poor is caked with dirt, dark, piled up and messy, and Blomkamp does a great job of setting the stage with a high level of detail.

Overtime, the influence of Blade Runner has grown and grown, as has it’s stature as a film. I predict that as Blomkamp makes more films, he has a chance to have his films seen the same way. Elysium may not gain the following that Blade Runner has, but over time, I believe it will be appreciated more than it currently is.

It’s an big budget action film: District 9 was impressive in that it managed to be embody many genres, from Science Fiction, documentary, horror, buddy film, action film, with lots of politics and even romance throughout. (Watch it again: it is dazzling to see it all come together.)  Elysium is a big budget action film, and while that gives Blomkamp freedom in some ways, it restricts him in others.  I think some viewers were let down by those restrictions and were expecting something closer to District 9. I was happy that he got to make another film like this that had a good chance of attracting a similar audience. Why?

It’s agitprop: I think it is amazing that Blomkamp got to make an agitprop film. A big budget agitprop film, with big international stars.  Underlying all of the action and drama of the film is the message that immigration and health care restrictions are bad, and that the wealthy need to have a responsibility to share and help the less fortunate, not shun and ostracize them. To emphasize this, Matt Damon’s character is an ex thief and working class, and the woman he loves is a nurse, while his chief adversaries are cut throat politicians, CEOs, and the henchmen that do the ugly work on their behalf.

It’s not Costa-Gavras, but in this age when most big budget American films are based on cartoon characters, it is both extraordinary and influential. Maybe not influential for viewers who think about these ideas all the time, but for many people, this will have more influence on them than any serious documentary (which they would never go to) would have. Agitprop needs to go where people live, speak to them in their language: not have them come to it, speaking down to them.

It is the present dressed up as the future: watching Elysium, I was struck by how close this future is. LA is not a shantytown, but shantytowns exist everywhere.  There is no city in space, but in much of the world there are resort hotels and resort cruise ships which may as well be in space for the people that live there.  There are no flying cars or drones yet, but the drones are practically here and autonomous, if not flying, cars are just a few years away. It is a dystopia, but not a far off one. As well, immigration and health care are big topics of discussion in the United States of America right now: that they are a big part of Elysium can be no accident. Like much good SF, the future is near and drawn from the Now.

It has flaws: overlook them. There are a fair number of flaws with Elysium, but I felt that was because Blomkamp was taking current reality and moving it into the future, flaws and all. Or he was focused on illustrating a point. All SF has flaws — anyone who ever watched a SF film with time travel will tell you that. And to insert ideas into a fast paced action film risks introducing more flaws.  But to write off the film for those flaws is to miss out on a lot.

It nicely pays homage to other SF, including District 9, Wall-E, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, and no doubt more. SF fans can enjoy watching the film just for references.

Why the Surface RT Failed and the iPad Did Not (Not)

Nick Bilton tries to explain the failure of the Surface with one cause, here: Why the Surface RT Failed and the iPad Did Not – NYTimes.com. While I think this is one potential reason, I also think there are many reasons why it failed. Here are some more:

  • Too expensive: comparatively to other tablet devices. Even if it was alot better, customers would be more likely to go with the equally impressive and less costly iPad or Android devices.
  • No need for the product: if the other tablets lacked in some capacity, perhaps the Surface would have taken off. But the needs of tablet users was more than met by what was in the market.
  • Network externalities: what used to work for Microsoft now worked against them. It’s not enough to develop a tablet: you have to develop all the things tablet users expect and support that as well. Otherwise you have to go to the commodity market.

Invalid reasons would be:

  • Microsoft can’t do hardware: Microsoft can do hardware. Their XBOX line in particular is nowhere near the weakling of the Surface or Microsoft’s earlier hardware failure, the Zune.
  • No one can compete with Apple: Google in conjunction with Samsung and others are doing a good job of competing with Apple.
  • There is no room for more hardware in the market: again, Google and others have shown it is possible to compete in this space.

I don’t think Microsoft is done in this space. But I think they may approach it differently. We’ll see in the next two years.

Some thoughts on online calculators that save you money

I like this site: Washing Machines: Cost per load of washers — Ask Mr. Electricity

It gives you an online calculator and shows you how much you can save by changing the way you do laundry.

A good exercise would be to have an entire list of such calculators, run them all, and total up how changing a few simple behavoirs can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars. The accumulation would really impress people, I think.

Dedicating a tree or bench in Toronto

The City of Toronto has a great program that allows you allows you to pay tribute to someone or some event by purchasing a park bench or tree for installation in a public park through their Commemorative Tree and Bench Program. The details are here. It’s a wonderful way to be remembered, I think. Check out the link to find out more.

(Blog post text partially taken from their site.)

Father’s Day Gift Ideas….

…can be found at many places online, but Pinhole Press has some really good ones. Since a lot of father’s are into beer making these days, why not make Dad some sharply branded labels for his best concoction, such as these?

At this link,

Cheers To Dad | Pinhole Press

, you can see they have labels for beer, wine, and more.

Pinhole Press makes great looking products. Even if you don’t have a Father in your life, I recommend it.

How some on the right wing distort the discussion on Health Care in the United States

First off, here’s Avik Roy’s recent article in Forbes, proporting to show how Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is terrible: Rate Shock: In California, Obamacare To Increase Individual Health Insurance Premiums By 64-146% – Forbes. I know about this, because I read Paul Krugman on it, here: We Are Not Having A Serious Discussion, Obamacare Edition. Between that and this piece by Ezra Klein, here (The shocking truth about Obamacare’s rate shock), you can see how the right uses distortions to argue against the ACA.

It is good to be skeptical and concerned about big changes in government programs. And despite what the left might say, there is sufficient waste to be gutted, such as these conference expenses, Report finds IRS spent $50M for conferences, according to House panel, not to mention things listed here, Government Spending Waste: 25 Wasteful Items – Business Insider. But critics should be honest and forthright in their criticism. That is in everyone’s best interest.

Healthcare is a complex topic. It’s important to get it right and to explain it clearly. I think that even with the ACA/Obamacare approach, Americans aren’t going to have the best system in the world. But it will be better than it is before, and the way to it improve it and keep it in check is with honest disagreements, not distortions.

My latest technical paper on Cloud Architecture is here on developerWorks #geekish

The paper, Select the correct cloud adoption pattern, was co-written with a very talented IBMer, Tina Abdollah.

As cloud architectures get more complex, patterns can help cloud architects communicate what is needed. If you are looking to develop more complex cloud architectures, take a look at the paper and see if it helps. Thanks.

 

 

My favourite movie trailers

Most movie trailers are mostly advertisements for a film, and while they are well edited, they are often just teasers composed of alot of short clips. Some trailers, though, are small films in themselves. Two such trailers are this one, for the movie, Comedian.

And this one, for the film, Somewhere.

Both of these can easily stand alone as things that can be watched in themselves.

You can find them here (Comedian Movie Trailer – YouTube) and here (Somewhere Movie Trailer Official (HD) – YouTube).

My favourite IBMer is the Cookie Monster

From the technologizer blog is the story of how Jim Henson made quite a few short films with some familiar faces before he went on to make Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. They were made between 1966 and 1976, and include such classics as this:

(Note the teeth: a feature dropped later on.)

For more videos and more on this story, check out the blog.

(Video: Cookie Monster for IBM – YouTube)

A better way to change the size of your instance on Amazon EC2. #geekish

Let’s say you have a micro instance on Amazon and you want to make it bigger, either because it is too slow or you don’t have enough memory. You want to change it from a micro instance to a small instance.

One way to do this is to stop the instance and then right click on it and select the action: change instance type. If you see the new size you want, you can select it and then start the server.

However, that won’t work for all instance types. (For example, if you want to go from an m1.medium to an m1.large). In those cases, try the following approach. First, create the small instance. Make sure it is in the same zone as the micro instance. Indeed, try to keep as much the same as possible, including using the same AMI ID, security groups, key pair names, etc.

Second, once it is up and available, write down the instance and the instance ID and the volume IDs of all the volumes attached to the old (micro) instance and the new (small) instance. Also note how each volume is attached to the instance.
Third, stop both instances
Fourth, detach all the volumes from the small and the micro instance.
Fifth, attach the micro volumes to the small instance and the small volumes to the micro instance. In effect, you are swapping the volumes of two instances. Make sure you attach them properly.
Sixth, start the small instance and the login to the instance to make sure all the volume are attached properly and operational. Start up any processes or software you need on the new small instance and make sure it is working properly.
Seventh, if things are not working, stop the instance and swap the volumes back. If things are working, after a period of time, you can delete the old instance. Make sure the volume associated with it is gone too.

Finally, the other way to do this is create a small instance and then set it up the way you did the micro instance.