Category: Computers

Strap It On

Well, it’s been a week since we strapped them on. I had mentioned buying them in passing about a year ago. Like a volunteer seed, it took root in my wife’s thinking. After a year, we finally  took action. Now I can provide some feedback on what a Fitbit has meant to me and my life, at least one week of it.

My Fitbit is a Charge 2, worn on my right wrist. The Fitbit informs me that I walk an average of twelve thousand steps and five miles a day. My highest miles walked were five point six, measured out in fourteen thousand steps. My resting BPM is fifty-nine, with a low of fifty-five and a high of one hundred thirty-nine, reached when I walked up the equivalent of thirteen floors of steps while doing an urban hike. I averaged seven hours and fifty-seven minutes of sleep per night, awakening three times. I’m usually restless twelve times per night, with a high of seventeen.

All interesting stuff. I’m dubious about its accuracy. It seems to think you’re sleeping if you’re reclined and not moving. But my wife and I both note, yeah, we’re in bed, but we’re not always sleeping just because we’re not moving.

I’m pretty pleased with my walking activity. We’ve endured many days in the low mid to low twenties and high teens where built up ice encumbered walking. I’m also recovering from wrenching my right knee while on the ladder, cleaning smoothie off the kitchen ceiling.

The Fitbit seems very dependent on arm movement. Don’t move your arms, you don’t get credit, it seems. It also sometimes seems to work in blocks. Yesterday, crossing the house to attend the cats, I checked my steps: twelve thousand, six hundred forty. I found the cats, petted them, provided them with catnip fixes, went around checking on doors, poured and drank some water, refilled the water pitcher, and took out the recycling. Then I checked my Fitbit.

It still registered twelve thousand, six hundred forty.

I knew I’d been moving around, and I swung my arms when I was walking, if I didn’t carry anything, so I knew – what? That the steps hadn’t registered. But was it a question of yet? 

Indeed it was. After sitting down at the computer and turning on Sneaky Pet’ on Amazon, I checked my Fitbit, and my steps had jumped. It had a full charge, done earlier that day, so I put this down to a system flaw.

Despite these things, I like the Fitbit. I installed the app on my iTablet or whatever it’s called and the two synchronize whenever they’re near one another. What I like is that it tracks and counts a great deal of information. Even if it’s rudimentary or flawed, it provides a sufficient structure to encourage me to do more and be more mindful about what I’m doing. The Fitbit buzzes every hour to remind me to move around, something I appreciate. My wife and I often make a game of that, first marching around to ‘Colonel Bogey’s March’, and then chasing each other around the furniture until one of us needs to go pee.

Once I have three weeks of averages, I can establish goals to move around more. The biggest thing is that I want this as a companion, and not a master. I don’t want to become obsessed with counting steps or miles and reaching higher and higher levels, but to use it to enhance my healthy practices.

Of course, part of me thinks into the future, when the Fitbit’s technology is improved and replaced. Then I expect to find it in a drawer, forgotten, and take the opportunity to write, “Do you remember Fitbits? We used to wear them to count our steps.”

Who knows what we’ll be using by then?

 

7

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, ARPANET. Without you, we would be lacking the Internet.

Some will whisper, this is an anniversary, not a birthday. Maybe they’ll make such a remark on the Internet.

Few realize how long people worked on ARPANET and its principles and processes and what its success actually represents. Like Philo Farnsworth and other inventors, their work is used but rarely remembered and celebrated. Most ARPANET and early Internet pioneers worked in teams. They’re remembered but no celebrated but they had some nifty ideas. Their accomplishments helped drive Internet development. Without them, we’d not have bloggers sharing opinions, dreams, hopes, frustrations and cat photos and videos, and complaining about government, politics, manners and movies. WordPress would probably be a lot smaller and less successful.

Where would Amazon and eBay be without the Internet? What would Facebook be without an Internet?

Seriously, take a moment to imagine a Facebook without an Internet and the web.

I need not add the rhetorical amendment asking where the rest of us would be and what we would be doing, but I kinda did.

Going back to my early Internet and computer learning reminds me minicomputers once roamed the electronic frontier. Remember the Burroughs Corporation?

Sure, some remember. Some also remember the Nash Rambler.

Such is the case with inventors, engineers and their work. Their ingenuity shapes our lives but we remember few of them. As always, the winners shape the marketing we refer to as history.

Ah, it’s all ancient history, way back, like a long time ago. Here we are, on the Internet, clicking, scrolling, and googling away the morning.

Happy New Year.

1

Today’s Theme Music

Back into the wayback machine for this choice – which puts in mind the fantasy, wouldn’t it be cool to have a wayback machine? “Yes, but the paradoxes, what you would do to time,” naysayers moan. Yeah, let’s suspend logic; suspend physics, quantum mechanics, all the thinking and all the relative theories. Just pretend you’re a child and play with ideas of all the time travel variations possible.

Here’s one.

Just about every house is getting one. It’s the hot holiday gift, and it’s on sale in dozens of places. You, disliking crowds and cold weather, and feeling bored, restless and wanting a change, surf the net and turn to Amazon to check out the offerings and read the reviews. They come up immediately: Wayback Machines. They’re priced at just under six hundred dollars. If you order today, sites claim, “Receive this by Christmas with Free Shipping!”

Okay, but six hundred eggs. Cards are already heavy with spending for the season for toys and clothes, dinners out. But you’re intrigued. You read.

“What’s included: computer interlink, two bracelets, headgear and software.” You skip into the specs and the system requirements, bringing up your system’s information and running a mental checklist.

You have the computer speed, the computer power, an approved OS, the USB ports, everything needed. Well, hell, you should, you blew a wad on this laptop just a year ago for your own special Christmas present because, WTF, you deserve it.

“This is not virtual reality,” a review says. “This the real thing. You are there.”

Yeah, you’ve read the ads, seen them on television during football and baseball games for half the year, talked about them at work while waiting for meetings to begin, swapped information with friends over wine and beer. You know what it’s supposed to be, what it can do.

So you order your Wayback Machine.

Three days later, it arrives. Boxes are in boxes. You’re usually so organized about opening and unpacking boxes, especially things like this, but you’ve become really excited about what it can do.

“Where the fuck is the quick start?” you ask, and it’s right there, the very first thing you pulled out after opening a box, a DVD. There are cables and the headgear, which looks like one of those half-helmets, the small console, the size of your first Roku, resembling a blue and black cigarette back, and the silver and black bracelets.

It’s a clean set-up and install. Breathlessly you power everything up, starting as the program booms, “Welcome,” even thought it’s a soft female voice. Lights are green. The program shows up on your laptop’s screen. You’re sweating and trembling. Well, the heat is running. It’s snowing outside. The wife, children and grandchildren are all out shopping. Then they’re eating somewhere and going ice-skating. You tell your phone to turn down the heat.

Snow falls more heavily outside past the windows. Inside, it’s just you. Your anticipation amazes you. You hope you won’t be disappointed. You put on the bracelets and headgear. The system checks you out. The Wayback program asks, “Do you want to sync with your Fitbit and smart phone?” Hell, yes.

Thirty seconds later, that is done. “Select a year from your life,” the program says.Feeding off a memory, a hope, a dream, you select 1964.

Then shoves now aside. It feels a little violent, more violent than the reviews said it would be like. Your pulse breaks out into something appropriate for finishing a hundred yard dash. Your body –

Oh, my god, you’re back in it, you’re ten years old ago. You’re so skinny. Jesus. It’s amazing how much you look like your grandson, Yuri.

Your young entity is reading a book. The pages swim into your understanding: ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’.

You tear your attention from the page. You’re back in your parents house, Jesus, a place they sold during their divorce in the mid-1970s, back in the wood-paneled game room, built from the finished basement downstairs. In the corner is your father’s bar, positioned back there where he can see the television or play pool. You’re on that leather sofa he and your mother bought for the room. You remember, “This is where the dog barfed,” a disgusting moment that will happen in another year. You won’t even have the dog for a few more months.

There’s the big console TV. Brand new, the huge Zenith can broadcast in color. Taking over your young self – he doesn’t seem to notice – you pick up the remote control, amused at the differences between the technology of your youth, when color TV was new, and the technology of your life, using a computer to come back here. How the fuck is that even possible? You want to explore but you begin carefully, by turning on the television.

There is a show on in black and white. OMG, it’s the Kinks. Jesus, are they still even alive?

Then, releasing everything but enjoyment of the moment, you’re ten and watching the Kinks in your basement in black and white. Everything old is young and new, and you are free to believe that you can change the world.

 

6

Things I Don’t Miss

Didn’t need to scrap ice off my car this morning because it’s garaged. I felt for the neighbor out there de-icing his vehicle. There, I thought, is something I don’t miss, which launched me into musings about what else I don’t miss.

I don’t miss lite beers in any shape or vintage. Thank the gods for micro-brews and craft beers!

I don’t miss saving and counting pennies to buy a bag of pretzels as a treat or to go the movies. My years of extremely tight budgeting taught me the value of budgeting and saving but I enjoy indulging myself now, and I don’t miss those days at all!

I don’t miss military recalls, deployments and twelve hour shifts. I don’t miss midnight shifts, either, or pressing uniforms and getting haircuts all the time. Mission success was satisfying and I met some excellent people and saw the world, but I don’t miss all those other military accouterments.

I don’t miss cable television. Cable was cool and fun for a while but as it developed into a commodity and charged more and more while offering me less and less, it became a huge weight of disappointment. The smart television, Roku and streaming services aren’t perfect but they’re better than cable.

I don’t miss all those company meetings. Six AM, 9 PM…on some days with IBM I was on telephone calls and sorting and answering emails for hours. Don’t miss them at all, nor the annual performance report rituals. I really don’t miss completing expense reports. Just like the military, I enjoyed the company of some great people while I was with IBM (and the companies IBM absorbed, NetworkICE and ISS). Them, I miss. I also get a little misty eyed about the absent paycheck and its company.

I don’t miss old technology.  Take my old floppies – please (badaboom – tish). You can take them to where the IBM Selectrics and my Brother portable typewriters are buried, along with my old KayPro 10 and Zenith 150, and my clunky SVG and EVG color monitors, and 4.87 and 10 megahertz operating speeds.

It’s a short list of what I don’t miss. I had a good time through it all and came out fortunate in the end.

What don’t you miss?

 

 

8

Twelve Percent

Here I am, storming away, out of coffee, typing as fast as I can, unable to keep up with my mind’s streaming words until my fingers call, “Time out.”

Sitting up and stretching, massaging my fingers, I see how the coffee shop has changed since my arrival. I see my mocha is gone, that I drank it all. I think about getting another. But my laptop’s battery power is down to fourteen percent and I didn’t bring my power supply today. It’s going to be warning me soon that I need to shut down.

Putting it all together, I realize I’ve been writing – thinking, typing, editing – for almost ninety minutes with but a few pauses. I remember checking the time once and seeing it was 12:15. Now it’s 1:01.

Spending time with my characters and exploring their lives and situations was mesmerizing. I’m sorry that it’s ending. I think, maybe I can go power up at home and continue. But I know that’s not how ‘it’ works for me. Time to stop writing like crazy, pack it up and head home. The rain has stopped and the sun is shining, and I have some yard work planned, anyway.

Also, I just realized, I didn’t eat breakfast or anything, and I’m becoming very hungry.

And there is the laptop’s warning: twelve percent. Time to go.

5

Sometimes….

Sometimes, you want an outlet. Or a second opinion. For me, this usually comes when computer and connectivity issues crash my plans activities.

Because I’m left wondering, is it me? What is causing this? Is it Google, Chrome, OS, the Internet connection, the web site, computer security, plug in failures, or one of the add-ons, or some misplaced value, or an update running ‘transparently’ in the background? And then I go through each of those, looking for answers about why this is happening, but not finding any. I track to sites like isitdownrightnow.com. By the third incident on one -day, exasperation is spilling over into my tranquil writing-like-crazy processes. Worse, this is the third day in a row….

My evil twin whispers, “Yes, but wasn’t this week of the monthly updates?”

Yes, yes, my evil twin is correct. Update Tuesday, when Microsoft unleashes its fixes and updates and sometimes called Patch Tuesday (please don’t confuse it with Patch Adams) was this week. Microsoft’s updates trigger a tsunami of other fixes, which often include a software entity whose updates or fixes don’t work. Or, some organization doesn’t update its software and now is out of compliance, aka, broken.

Of course, as Wednesday follows Tuesday, Exploits follow Updates. The released updates reveal what needed to be fixed. As all systems and orgs don’t immediately update their systems or launch a corollary fix to address the revealed issues, exploits are quickly developed and deployed.

Yep, anything can happen after Update Tuesday. It drives me mad because here I am, alone on my desert island of computer use, wondering, WTF is going on?

2

Five Points

Getting ready to walk and write. Writing dominates my thoughts but other matters press in. Cats. Home improvement. Trips. Phone calls I owe people. Beer night this week, and whether to go or not.

But the walk and writing are the current play.

1. Pen; check. Ink is a little low. Take an extra pen. Notebook, check. Half full. Should be sufficient.
I’m still on paper, with my laptop returning to me tomorrow.

2. Naturally, zombies also worry me. Multiple species exist. I don’t know which zombies inhabit my region. What if I’m attacked during my walk? What will I do? They never addressed zombie attacks during my twenty years in the military.

I haven’t heard about any attacks. But the US POTUS election is underway. The Olympics are happening, and there are a million celebrities eating, drinking, farting and divorcing. Plus business news, and new movie releases. Zombie attacks might not make wide news coverage.

3. Received a royalties payment. Enough for a week of beer. That’s something. Haven’t done any advertising in July. Haven’t checked any sales reports. Awaiting the computer’s return.

Haven’t done anything with the website, either. It also awaits the computer’s second coming.

4. Five points is of major concern. I’m writing a short (5K) story to occupy me with writing until the computer returns. The short story is Merger. Science fiction. I’ve come to the point where I realize four different endings for Merger. (See, I’m on one path, and I’m coming to a point where the road splits into four directions – five points…in case you didn’t catch that.) By endings, I refer to the climax and denouement. Considering it today, I think, why not write all four endings? That would be fun.

5. The nature of my novel writing process prevents me from pursuing writing them. Two sequels are in progress. I’m eager for the laptop’s return so I can return to them.

And I also need to type up the short story.

Not having the laptop increases my awareness in the different types of writing and my approaches to each. Novel writing is a complex, organic process involving a lot of ongoing revision, like painting with oils. Short story writing is also complex but more like sketching with pencils. Emails are less complex and easy. Blog posts are generally barely edited stream of consciousness spewing. So I can do that on the iPad mini (with its keyboard cover). Not much movement and back and forth is needed for my blog posts, unlike the novel and short story writing.

6. Another novel concept’s topography is developing in my mind. I’m picturing a science fiction detective thriller, and it’s exciting to embrace it. Can’t wait to start writing it. There are always so many writing projects.

But for now, it’s pen to paper. I have my quad shot mocha. Time to write like crazy, one more time.

3

MG6

 

image

My new version, Michael Gen 6, has been released to exciting reviews. Lighter, leaner, more mellow, here are some product highlights.

1. Computer issues plagued Michael G5, triggering blood pressure increases and often fracturing his calm. With the computers temporarily shelved, MG6 is a more mellow, tolerant and jovial person.

2. Carrying an iPad mini 4 and 100 sheet composition book and pen is much easier than trucking the computer in the bag with whatever support gear and accessories were packed. Losing them means MG6 weighs 15 pounds less than MG5. The lighter load has unexpected collaterals ramification. Packing less weight has resulted in MG6 having greater energy over MG5. The enhanced energy levels are being proven with increased optimism, exercise and activity levels.

3. With less frustration and irritation exhausting him, MG6 sleeps better and awakens with a greater life zest. MG6 has even planned a coast vacation.

4. Writing in a notebook with a pen has bounced MG6 to a higher creative cycle. More primitive and elemental, rawer, torrents of words pour out, although there is a shortcoming with this output, as it still requires typing.

5. As MG6 is less stressed than the previous version, less comfort food and drink are consumed. Money is saved and body weight has been reduced.

Some things didn’t change with MG6. He still answers the cats’ purrs, cries, meows, paw swipes, head butts and rub bys, doing whatever they order, from feeding to treats to catnip to extended petting sessions as they roll around, and offering a lap for napping when demanded.

MG6 still obtains most calories from organic food, having a wonderful grilled vegetable quesadilla with guac, salsa, and sour cream for dinner last night, with additional input coming via beer, in this case, a shandy of lemonade and Ashland Amber.

And though it’s a notebook, and the result isn’t tidy, MG6 still drinks quad shot mochas and writes like crazy.

0

Just More

I figure I should rename this blog to Just More BS, because it’s all just about me, baby.

Three days I’ve not written. I feel like those cat satires, whereby felines record how their captors taunt them while keeping them imprisoned. Oh, such a miserable life.

Life is not at all mis for me now. I’m rising, again, but will set again. I’m a creature of cycles and spectrums. But while I’m up —

I recognized stages today, of coping with not having my computer, and not being able to write like crazy each day, and of being limited to writing on the butcher roll paper of my mind. I complained (fuck!) and whined (why me, universe, didn’t you always tell me I’m the chosen), and then accepted (okay, I can do this, I will do this). (Clarification, I’m creating blog posts on the iPad mini 4. I’ve managed to miniaturize my hands so I don’t feel like the Jolly Green typing on a Selectric but I worry about enduring the rest of my Earthly existence with tiny hands. Yes, I’m a handist.)

Yesterday afternoon, tho’, whilst grilling veggies, I speculated, can I go back to writing in a paper notebook? Challenges and obstacles rose through the mists of hope. My writing is organic. I’m like a kid jumping through and around puddles of scenes, plot setting, and characters. I wouldn’t be able to do this, and I didn’t print out the works in progress. Still, I convinced myself I can write some scenes and insert, edit and polish them after the Computer Returns.

Pondering this, I grew hopeful. This morning, I considered, maybe I can just write a short story, hey, hey?

Sure. Whatever. Deciding I needed to write and was going to write, I found an almost blank notebook. The few written pages were perused. Ah, a draft of a performance report, I recognized. They were part of the structure of a past existence and have been banished to the admin vortex where they belong. Tear them out!

Now the notebook is blank and ready. Short story or novel, and which novel, Long Summer (sequel to Returnee) or Personal Lessons with Savanna (third book in the mystery series)?

I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I’m in my coffee shop office. I have my quad shot mocha and a pen at hand. Because, when I summarize what I want, what I do, and who I am, I want to write, and I write. To not write is to give up. Why should I assume this will not work out? Perhaps this change will inspire a new spring of creativity. Maybe this is a reboot, Michael G6.

Yeah, that’s all words, justification, rationalization, clarification. I just want to write like crazy. Time to do it, at least one more time.

2

Reset

Tsk. I’d forgotten about the reset button.

I knew I had one. Every human has a reset button but I think most of us find using our reset button is like using ice cubes as charcoal briquettes. Speaking for myself, the biggest problem with my reset button is that it’s not clearly marked and easily reached. Be wonderlicious if my reset button was labeled to my navel’s left, “Press here to reset.” I’d even deal with it if I had to reach down on my bottom and thread a straightened paper clip into a tiny hole to find and press a minuscule button. But my reset button isn’t that easy.

Yet (sigh) a reset was indicated. The computers are freezing me out. I’m like a cave man, except I’m hairier, live in a house, don’t hunt, gather food at stores and markets, wear shoes, have electronic fun stuff and the electricity for them, and I don’t drive as well as a cave man. I’m reduced to not writing or writing in notebooks. I decided not to write in notebooks, except for notes, as the muses intended.

But it’s a painful withdrawal, not to sit and back space and click across a keyboard. Scenes bloom like red algae in my head. I tell myself, “Remember this to write later.” But my brain is an express lane. Only five items are permitted. Putting in notes to remember to write later bumps out my name, address and telephone number. Once they’re gone, matters like other people’s names and where I’m going have as much chance as an ice cube on a hot grill.

Took several days to remember the reset button. I owe it to Amazon. Entertaining myself, I watched a show, “All or Nothing,” about the Arizona Cardinals and their efforts to win the NFL championship. Someone made a big boo boo on the field and another player encouraged him, “Hey, that’s done. Reset.”

Yes, reset. Drop those past frustrations, errors and irritations like soiled underwear. Forgive and forget what I would normally be doing (writing) if my computer was here and working (sob). It’ll be back in two weeks, so reset.

Yes, reset. One lesson I once learned a dozen forty times is that vacuums don’t work for us as humans except when we can apply that technology to suck shit up. So I set to mind sucking that shit up and out. The other thing is that it’s not enough to proclaim that I’m resetting, dumping negative energy and going forward with a glowing positive aura. No,the things that provide me that delicious negative energy that I feast on must not only be rejected but needs to be replaced. See, that’s where the vacuum thingy comes in. Dumping the negative stuff creates a vacuum. See? Follow? Create a vision for going forward, I tells myself, as I’ve tolds myself eleven million and eleven times to the power of eleven before. That’ll bring in positive stuff to replace that negative stuff.

So, yarp, here I go again, on another day, hitting the reset button like it’s my existence’s snooze button. Let’s do this.

But first, some coffee.

0

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