I am glad to see more articles highlighting the difference between ML and AI. For example, this one: How machine learning is different from artificial intelligence – IBM Developer.
There is still lots to be done in the field of machine learning, but I think technologists and scientists need to break out of that tight circle and explore AI in general.
(Image: from the article)
A good document on NoSQL database technology can be found here
If you are an infrastructure person and you are trying to ramp up really quickly on Docker and Kubernetes, here are some good links to get you started:
I also have this repo on github that can help.
Is this the last word? Good lord, no. But it can help you stay in the conversation and helps you map all this stuff to networks and processes and files and VMs and services and other tech you are used to.
Here are some good links I have been collecting over time on IT that are still worth reading. They cover AI, the IOT, containers, and more. Enjoy!
I have had a number of white noise devices with some of them costing a lot more than the Mini. They are not hard to set up and once you do you can ask it to play rain sounds or relaxing sounds or whatever sounds help you relax or sleep it work. Plus you get all the advantages of having it to find out the weather, get news, set appointments and more. If you don’t mind having one in your house – and some people do – then you can buy them everywhere, like here: m.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/google-home-mini-charcoal/11615336
That’s been a question I have been asking myself for some time. I felt like the price just keeps going up. And if you read articles like this, it’s easy to conclude it’s true.
But here’s some numbers on the least expensive models over time, taken from this:
iPhone (4GB): $499
iPhone 3G (8GB): $599
iPhone 3GS (16GB): $599
iPhone 4 (16GB): $599
iPhone 4S (16GB): $649
iPhone 5 (16GB): $649
iPhone 5s (16GB): $649
iPhone 6 (16GB): $649
iPhone 6 Plus (16GB): $749
iPhone 6s (16GB): $649
iPhone 6s Plus (16GB): $749
iPhone 7 (32GB): $649
iPhone 7 Plus (32GB): $769
iPhone 8 (64GB): $699
iPhone 8 Plus (64GB): $799
iPhone X (64GB): $999
Looking at that, I have to think that the phones are getting more expensive, but likely they have always been that way. (And note, this doesn’t account for inflation or the improved quality of the phones, including greater storage.)
Occasionally Apple will make a cheaper phone like the 5C or the SE that are essentially remixes of older models. Or they will continue to support a wider range of phones, like continuing to sell the 7, the 8, and now the X. But it seems the high end was never inexpensive and likely never will be.
Is this Setting up Raspbian (and DOOM!) – learn.sparkfun.com
Not only will you be up and running with a working Raspberry Pi, but you can also play a limited version of the original Doom!
Very fun for old Doom afficianatos like myself.
First off, what is it? It’s this, via the About section of the site:
Stratechery provides analysis of the strategy and business side of technology and media, and the impact of technology on society. Weekly Articles are free, while three Daily Updates a week are for subscribers only.
Recommended by The New York Times as “one of the most interesting sources of analysis on any subject”, Stratechery has subscribers from over 85 different countries, including executives in both technology and industries impacted by technology, venture capitalists and investors, and thousands of other people interested in understanding how and why the Internet is changing everything.
Everything I’ve read on it has been insightful and in depth, including this piece on IBM and the acquisition of Red Hat.
From OpenShift Origin vs OpenStack – Red Hat OpenShift Blog:
OpenStack provides “Infrastructure-as-a-Service”, or “IaaS”….
The OpenShift hosted service provides “Platform-as-a-Service” or “PaaS”. It provides the necessary parts to quickly deploy and run a LAMP application:
Concisely:
Companies keep trying to make smart eyewear happen. First Google. Then Snapchat. Now there’s another company making a go at it. IT Business magazine has details on North, the company trying to make it happen here.
I think these are a big improvement on Google Glass. Is it enough? I don’t believe so. I think greater miniaturization needs to occur, such that there is very little difference between the shape of “dumb” eyewear and the shape of “smart” eyewear.
Meanwhile, we are getting closer to that time when there is very little difference. Stay tuned.
This is what the Internet is:
The internet is the wider network that allows computer networks around the world run by companies, governments, universities and other organisations to talk to one another. The result is a mass of cables, computers, data centres, routers, servers, repeaters, satellites and wifi towers that allows digital information to travel around the world.
The Internet is a network of networks. Much of what people believe the Internet is actually runs on top of it: the Web, social media, email, gopher, what have you.People often say “I liked the Internet when..”. They are talking about the platforms they use on the Internet. Things popular on the Internet now — hello Facebook! — will be a relic in the future. Technologies running on the Internet come and often go, but the Internet itself is relatively constant and changes slowly.
The quote highlighted above is from this article: What is the internet? 13 key questions answered | Technology | The Guardian. It’s a good introduction to the Internet at a basic level.
I saw this in Best Buy the other day, Amazon Fire 7 8GB FireOS 7″ Tablet With MediaTek MT8127 Quad-Core Processor – Black : Android Tablets – Best Buy Canada, and after reading some reviews and other articles (see below), I decided to get one. The $59 price tag had a lot to do with this.
My first thought was to try to use it as much as I could out of the box without making modifications to it. I set it up according to instructions, which were simple. I think you really want to have an Amazon account/userid to do this. I did and so things went smoothly.
The Amazon Fire has a modified version of the Android OS, which means it’s like an Android tablet, but not exactly. Likewise, Amazon has an App store, which is a limited version of the Google Play App store. You can get a number of apps from the Amazon App store, but not everything you can get on the Google Play store.
I wanted this device mainly as a place to consume media. Good news is it runs Netflix, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mail, Texture and a modified version of YouTube. I was especially interested in Texture, which allows me to read magazines like New Yorker, Bon Appetit, Wired and others. I have been trying to read them on my phone and the experience was poor. On the tablet, the experience was much better, and the resolution was good. Likewise, YouTube videos are better on the tablet than the phone.
Downsides? First the device is slow compared to my iPhone 6. You notice it with things like Twitter and Instagram. You don’t notice it for things like Texture because there is more reading time and less scrolling. It’s not terrible, but it is noticeable if you have a newer device. If you have an up to date phone or tablet, you will notice this.
Another downside is the limited number of apps, especially media apps. I could not get the New York Times, Guardian or CBC app for it. It comes with the Washington Post, not surprisingly.
The browser that comes with it is slow. You cannot download other browsers without hacking the device.
One upside is you can get quite a few apps working for it. I downloaded Remember the Milk (for todos), Simplenote (for notetaking), WordPress (for blogging), Dropbox and more. I mainly want to use it for media consumption, but those things make it better.
To summarize: for $59, I think it is a great device for media consumption and basic functionality. If that’s all you want, I think you’d be happy with it. I’m glad I got it. Some reviewers said it is better to get the Fire 8 or 10, but for the money, I think the Fire 7 is surprisingly good.
P.S.Originally I was going to hack it to make it more like an Android tablet, but for now I think I’ll leave it as it is. If you did want to hack it, here’s some links to articles along that line:
P.S.S. This is not sponsored content.
This says Pi 3 but it should work for pretty much any Raspberry Pi: How to set up and use a Raspberry Pi 3 with a Mac – Macworld UK. Also, it says Noobs 1.9, but just go with the latest and greatest.
Do what this article says: The New iPhones Look Fine. But My Old One Is Better Than Ever. – The New York Times
One way is to read this: How to become a Git expert – freeCodeCamp.org. There’s a lot of good pages on how to get started on git, but if you are joining a software project, you may be expected to know more than the basics. You may be required to know the kind of things that piece talks about. Of course you can ask people on your team for help, but why not get as much skill as you can first and then ask better questions? There’s always something new to learn when it comes to git and software management: learn as much as you can by yourself and increase your skill set and your value to the team.
Then this is a good page for them to go to: How I Learned How To Code Using Free Resources | Home | Bri Limitless.
There’s plenty of good links to information, and they are all free. I can vouch for a number of them, such as Codecademy and Coursera.
One problem people run into is: why should I learn to code? One obvious answer is to learn a set of skills to help them gain employment. Two other reasons I have:
For #1, being able to build a website is a great way to promote yourself and show yourself to the world. As for #2, that’s the main reason I still keep coding. There’s lots of information I want to process, personally and professionally, and coding is the best way to do that.
Regardless of your reason, if you want to learn to code, check out Bri Limitless’s web page.
When it comes to insurance and wearables, I think the effect of these devices will be limited. I think this because:
So in short, I don’t believe people or insurers will get much benefit from wearable tech. People will not get breaks on their insurance, and insurers will not be able to reduce their risk substantially with the use of wearables.
I’m a fan of mindmapping tools in general. One I’ve been using and enjoying lately is MindMup 2.
Two things I like about it:
Mindmup_2 is a good tool. Go map your thoughts.
According to EFF, not very confidential. To see why, read: Between You, Me, and Google: Problems With Gmail’s “Confidential Mode” | Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Nope. And this piece, Machine Learning Vs. Artificial Intelligence: How Are They Different?, does a nice job of reviewing them at a non-technical level. At the end, you should see the differences.
(The image, via g2crowd.com, also shows this nicely).
Possibly, but as this article argues, there are at least three areas where robots and suck at:
Creative endeavours: These include creative writing, entrepreneurship, and scientific discovery. These can be highly paid and rewarding jobs. There is no better time to be an entrepreneur with an insight than today, because you can use technology to leverage your invention.
Social interactions: Robots do not have the kinds of emotional intelligence that humans have. Motivated people who are sensitive to the needs of others make great managers, leaders, salespeople, negotiators, caretakers, nurses, and teachers. Consider, for example, the idea of a robot giving a half-time pep talk to a high school football team. That would not be inspiring. Recent research makes clear that social skills are increasingly in demand.
Physical dexterity and mobility: If you have ever seen a robot try to pick up a pencil you see how clumsy and slow they are, compared to a human child. Humans have millennia of experience hiking mountains, swimming lakes, and dancing—practice that gives them extraordinary agility and physical dexterity.
Read the entire article; there’s much more in it than that. But if your job has some element of those three qualities, chances are robots won’t be replacing you soon.
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This piece explains the logic behind getting certain relatives a Chromebook so as to relieve you of being tech support: I bought my mom a Chromebook Pixel and everything is so much better now – The Verge.
Now your mom may be tech savvy and not need a Chromebook (my mom was). But for some people’s moms or dads or children, it can be a very good solution. Especially for people who don’t travel much with their computer and who have a stable IT environment (e.g. the networking set up doesn’t change, the printer is good).
Chromebooks may not seem good value. You might compare what you get from a Chromebooks vs a Windows laptop and think: I get more from the Windows laptop. If you are good with computers, that true. But that’s not how to look at it. Factor in the cost of the relative’s computer plus the time you spend solving problems with it. When you factor that in, the benefit of the Chromebook jumps out.
If you are skeptical about the greatness of the iPhone 6s, this piece makes a good argument for it: Reasons you should buy an iPhone 6S instead of an iPhone 8 or iPhone X – Business Insider. If money is a prime concern, you can find refurbished 6s phones for a fraction of the cost of a new iPhone 8 or X.
If you want an iPhone and you are fine with refurbished — and some places give good warrantees on such phones — then consider making an iPhone 6s your next phone. Or get a new one from your mobile phone carrier or buy one outright from Apple.
I lost my keys the other day and I figured they’d show up but after a few days I concluded they were lost. Luckily I didn’t have to do a search of the house because I had a Tile attached to them. (Yes I should have used it right away.) So I opened the app and figured it would tell me they were in the house, but it said they were up the street, approximately half a kilometer a way.I used the app to go right to the location was: a gas station where I was getting my bike tires pumped up a few days earlier. The keys must have fallen out when I was doing this. Great! I went inside and asked if someone had turned them in. Clerk says: nope! I was sure they were there. I start the app and get it to play music on my key fob. I can hear them! Another clerk comes over and opens a drawer with a bunch of keys, including mine! So no thanks to the first clerk but thanks to everyone else including Tile.
Some thoughts on this:
Kubernetes networking is a non-trivial thing to understand, but if you are going to get into the use of Kubernetes, then you need to understand it. This trio of posts is a good way to do that. Highly recommended.
If you are afraid of Facebook tracking you and you use Firefox then you want to consider this: Facebook Container Extension: Take control of how you’re being tracked | The Firefox Frontier.
If you are comfortable installing extensions you really want to consider this.
The next time you see a scary robot video from Boston Dynamics, remember this: Marine Corps Shelves Futuristic Robo-Mule Due to Noise Concerns | Military.com. When you see the videos of their robots, they seem so impressive. In fact there are serious limitations with them right now, as the article shows.
Boston Dynamics makes impressive videos. Whether or not their robots are impressive in the field is not certain. You be the judge.
Just how bad is it to have your house filled with smart devices? Kash Hill attempted to find out by connecting many of them up in her house and then track all the data that they sent out. The results are fascinating. Some of them send the data out in the clear, which is terrible. But even the ones that encrypt your data and leaking things about you via metadata.
Essentially whatever value smart devices provide — and some of that value is doubtful — they are monitoring equipment that you set up yourself. Just how much they monitor can be seen here in her study: The House That Spied on Me.
It’s a great read, and for some, it will be a great revelation.
Image via Home Depot’s web site.
While all the hype might make you think that Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency, there are a number of alternatives out there and this piece in Fortune outlines what they are: 5 Bitcoin Rivals That Are Rapidly on the Rise.
While this piece lists a handful, I expect that there will be a flood of such things in the future as financial markets look to capitalize on this mixture of money and technology.
The Fortune piece is also not bad in summarizing some key facts about Bitcoin if you still find it hard to get your head around it.
I expect Bitcoin to crash to a much lower level, but I don’t see cryptocurrencies going away. Knowing more about them, especially because they could have a major impact on global economies, is worthwhile.
According to CNET: Delivery robots face strict rules in San Francisco.
I like that picture above. Often when I see delivery robots in photos, they are by themselves on an uncrowded street. In the photo above, you can get a better sense of how it will be a problem if swarms of these things start taking over the sidewalk. The idea of sidewalks becoming more crowded by these tiny vehicles is a maddening one.
I’d be fine with them if city planners can come up with a way these robots can roll around and not impede better uses of the streets such as walking and cycling and public transit. Until then, the less robots crowding the sidewalks, the better.
Like drones in the air and autonomous cars on the roads, robots are coming to the sidewalks. City planners need to start planning for that now.
I thought this piece was great: This ex-trucker has some questions about the Tesla Semi – Autoblog.
It punctures the hype behind Tesla’s new truck in the best possible way, by carefully and methodically asking questions and bringing up real life experiences that show the limitations of the truck.
Too few tech reviews come with this type of analysis. I’d like to see more of it. Most tech reviews are positive summaries of features. Or there are a small number of pieces that say such and such will never work because I say so. In either case, the person reviewing it comes from a technology background. I’d like to see more non-technical reviews of technology.
If you are interested in Tesla or the direction of automotives, it is well worth a read.
IBM (my employer) has a great page that will get you up to speed on Blockchain. If you are interested in Bitcoin, crytocurrency, or just hot areas in IT, then you want to visit: What is blockchain? – IBM Blockchain
I am unexcited about the direction in Smartphone design. The key design idea that less is more in a phone is becoming Less is a Bore. Perhaps that’s why this design of a Blackberry got me thinking about it. While it still has a gorgeous screen, the phone itself is worthy of looking at and touching. It strikes the right balance. The phone as a design object is worthwhile.
It would have been good if Apple had struck out in a new design direction with the iPhone X. Instead they went with Less is More. Instead we have a phone with the Notch and a camera on the back that sticks out. It’s as if Apple would have preferred not to have these cameras and sensors, so rather than design the phone to incorporate them into the design, they stick out, figuratively and literally. In a few years from now when Apple has gone in a different direction, Apple fans will look back and exclaim how poor that aspect of the phone design is.
As for now, we live in an age where the screen dominates design, from TVs to smartphones. In the future that may change and the technology that we interact with will be contained in objects that have noteworthy design in them.
For more on this beautifully designed phone, see If BlackBerry Ditched the Keyboard | Yanko Design.
The man who threw his lot in with Donald Trump continues to sink in the world. Case in point: Y Combinator Quietly Ends Relationship With Peter Thiel.
July, 2021: Here is a piece on how he exploited Roth IRAs to make a fortune and pay no taxes. Just a bad guy.
February, 2022: Further news on Thiel: he’s stepping down from Facebook’s board and going full time MAGA. He’d be tragic if he wasn’t so malicious.
July, 2022: this piece is on the “enigma” of Peter Thiel, but it’s becoming clearer the guy is a fascist.
If you are using Google’s DNS services (i.e., you are using 8.8.8.8 for DNS services), then there is a new provider on the block you should consider: Quad9. The following links detail why you might want it, as well as how to set it up.
We need all the help we can get in dealing with malicious people and computers on the Internet. Glad to see my employer has a role in this.
And you can get it here: blm849/supersimplehardening: A super simple way to harden your server.
I create a lot of Ubuntu test servers, and I find that as soon as I create a Ubuntu server on a cloud environment, it gets immediately attacked by automated software. This is obviously a concern. A bigger concern is that when I went searching for recommendations on how to harden such a server, I found a wide variety of recommendations! It can be hard to know what to do. Still, I needed something. As a result, I created this package of scripts. The scripts do a number of things:
This is just a very very limited number of things to prevent attacks. But it is better than nothing.
If you install Apache, PHP, MySQL or other software on your machine, there are even more attacks that will be launched against it. I recommend you get a firewall up and running and at least run logwatch on a regular basis to look for potential attacks being launched against you.
Finally, if it is important for you to secure your server, don’t stop with my scripts. Go out and consult with IT security specialists right away.
Good luck!
Here’s an assortment of 42 links covering everything from Kubernetes to GCP and other cloud platforms to IoT to Machine Learning and AI to all sorts of other things. Enjoy! (Image from the last link)
Here’s a really good piece highlighting a big problem the Frightful Five / Big IT have right now with user generated content: YouTube’s messy fight with its most extreme creators – Vox.
Some background is in order. For years, content creators on Youtube (part of Google/Alphabet) have been jacking up the extremism in their videos to get more views. Extremism in all senses of the word, including political extremism. Some do it for Fame, but many do it for Fortune. This was going well for them until….
In March this year, 250 advertisers pulled back from YouTube after reports that ads were appearing on extremist content, including white supremacist videos. As a result, YouTube demonetized a wide range of political content, including videos that didn’t include hate speech but might still be considered controversial by advertisers. Creators called it “the adpocalypse” — they saw their incomes from YouTube evaporate without fully understanding what they’d done wrong or how to avoid demonetization in the future.
And this is the problem for Youtube and other platforms…how to maximize both traffic and profit. For a long time the formula was simple: more extreme videos = more traffic = more profit. Now they are hitting a wall, and advertisers and consumers are fed up.
The question big IT will be struggling with is: how to draw the line? In case you think the line is easy to draw, I recommend you watch the video by Carlos Maza of Vox. He makes a case that it is very difficult, even if at first glance it should be obvious what should be removed.
I don’t think there is a simple answer to this. If anything, it is going to be one of the major political debates of the first part of the 21st century, as global IT companies deal with national laws and policies.
WIRED has a good review of the latest product from Sonos, here: Sonos One Review: Amazon’s Alexa Is Here, But It Still Has Some Growing Up to Do
What makes this development significant to me is that it signals that Sonos is concerned with Apple and others coming and taking away market share. Sonos has a great line of products already, but Apple is threatening to take a piece of that with their new home speaker with Siri/AI capability. Sonos has beefed up their AI capability to meet the challenge.
I expect that the next big thing in IT will be the vocal interface tied in with a speaker system in some form. I expect we will see them everywhere. Perhaps not for extended communication, but for brief and frequent requests.
If you are an IT person, I recommend you learn more about chatbot technology and how it will integrate with the work you are doing. More and more users will want to be able to communicate with your systems using voice. You need to provide a vocal interface for them to get information and send information.
Most homes will have one device acting as an aural hub. Sonos wants to make sure it is one they make, and not Apple.
Smart People I Know 