Category: technology

Fitbit Incongruencies

My miles remained up, at forty-five for last week, but my total floors were down by thirty, to eighty-seven, and my steps were down by over ten thousand, to ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred, ninety-two.  No change to my resting heart-rate, at fifty-six.

Putting together how the steps could be down by ten thousand while my miles are down by less than two, I realize it’s because I did more arm exercises. I had chosen to focus on those. I’m also focusing on exercises to improve my hamstrings, abductors, and adductor muscles. By my observation, they don’t count much toward my goals because of the way the Fitbit registers exercise movement. I’m going to research that to see how I can change it.

1

My Smart Frig

I was thinking about a smart refrigerator as I walked today, and what my smart refrigerator would do for me. To begin, my smart refrigerator would scan everything in it. It would know what’s in my frig, and its condition. It’d be able to send me a message about the condition and quantity of the romaine lettuce.

It would also get rid of the romaine once it trespassed beyond being usable. The smart refrigerator’s message to me would be, “The romaine lettuce hearts have gone bad. I’m pitching them at midnight, unless I hear from you otherwise.”

Yes, it would give me ultimatums. It would also then pitch the food that’s gone bad, relieving me of the burden.

My smart frig would also suggest dinner options. Its umbrella of operations includes the refrigerator, freezers, and pantry. It’s like the kingdom of food. My smart frig would say, “You have some chicken breasts in the freezer. Shall I take them out and defrost them. There’s some Penna pasta, so I can make you some chicken Penna pasta.”

I wouldn’t even need to ask, “Do I have everything I need?”, because my smart frig would have compared the recipe with what I have on hand, and would have ordered whatever was needed.

Yes, my smart frig has the ability to move food out of its confines to the trash, or take it out, defrost and cook it for me. The smart oven, range, and microwave would work with the smart frig to make it happen.

As I think about it, I’m probably imagining a smart kitchen. Besides the smart frig inventorying my food stuffs and their condition, the kitchen is working with the sink and dishwasher to load dirty dishes, run, and put them away. Over at the smart wine console, another bottle of my favorite red as been ordered, as the bottle I opened last night is half-empty. *ahem*

Meanwhile, over in the smart bathroom, there’s tidying going on. Toilet bowls, sinks, tubs, showers and floors are being cleaned. Dusting and vacuuming is proceeding in the smart bedrooms, closets, and living room. The smart beds made themselves. Out in the smart garage, the smart car has cleaned itself inside and out, including the windows and wheels (because I notice many people don’t seem to clean their wheels). The laundry has been sorted by the smart washer, and the smart dryer is folding clothes and putting them away. The smart kitty litter box has cleaned itself, too.

I guess, what I’m really trying to say in this post, is that I want to live like George Jetson.

Without the traffic, of course. You’d think they would have been smarter about that by then.

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Pop-up Ads

Sara Fischer had a surprising article over on Axios.com:

People really don’t like pop-up ads, pre-roll

“What?” I asked myself. People don’t like pop-up ads and pre-rolls? Bullshit. Dismissive of this headline, I read the article.

Sara Fischer claims that Morning Consult did research, and discovered that surveys show that seventy-two percent of U.S. adults don’t like pop-up ads.

It’s more fake news, I suspect.

I don’t know anyone who dislikes pop-up ads. I love them, myself. Pop-up ads are technology’s way of saying, “Hey, relax. Take a break.” They stop me from getting too involved in stories by preventing me from immediately reading the articles, clicking on links, and searching for more information to vet the story.

Pop-up ads are a blessing, and should be embraced as such. Just think of how much more shit you could be reading and doing on the web, were it not for pop-up ads saving you.

5

Sunday’s Theme Music

The Wayback Machine began streaming another relic of a song to me. This one blasted me from the early 70s. I’ve found that when my writing sessions are going strong, my song list shifts into that period. It wasn’t my happiest time, so I don’t know why I stream that era’s music.

Here’s those synthetic progressive rock masters, Emerson, Lake and Palmer – ELP – with, “Welcome Back, My Friends, to the Show That Never Ends.”

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The Air, the Fitbit, the Writing, the Dreams

Our outdoor air sucks. Need more?

Smoke from wildfires is filling our air. The Air Quality Index leaped to one hundred fifteen last night. DANGEROUS. It hasn’t been hot, only into the nineties. We open the house at night to cool it off, and then close the blinds and windows during the day. Opening the windows last night sent us into coughing fits as wet smoke smells wafted in. Eventually, we donned masks.

Today isn’t as bad. The A.Q.I. is in the fifties, and officially, moderate. Visibility remains down. It’s like a white-out beyond a a few hundred feet.

All this wildfire smoke has reduced my Fitbit activities. Walking is way down, to five miles a day average. It’s not as critical as many other issues resulting from wildfires. None of the fires are directly affecting our community. We feel for all those being evacuated in those areas, and appreciate the firefighters’ efforts. If this stuff is terrible for me, a guy in his early sixties who considers himself in good health, those with emphysema and other respiratory issues must be deeply suffering.

I took to the Orson Scott Card method for visualizing and organizing the novel in progress. O.S.C. talked about just drawing places, like a city, and then adding details. With each detail and area added or defined, entertain questions about why those areas and details exist. I’ve done this exercise before, with excellent results. I wasn’t disappointed this time.

I had been editing the novel’s first draft. Halfway through that process, I perceived a problem. A new ‘greater arc’ was required as the solution. I could be wrong, but this is how I decided to address the issue. It’s essentially an epic. I like epics. Bigger is better.

This was decided over a four day period. Then, after deciding it was necessary, I went on a reading sprint. I finished reading two novels, and read two others, in five days. I also read fiction stories and news articles online. This reading stimulated my writing juices and invigorated my writing dreams. I found myself re-committed to who I was, and what I was doing. It’s a matter of taking a deep breath, turning on the computer, and putting the ass in chair, and the fingers on a keyboard.

This new arc takes place on a planet where technology fails. An outpost is established using outdated technology. Suddenly, it’s like living in a frontier castle. I loved that difference in direction from my usual challenges of visualizing the far future and other intelligent races.

I drew the outpost on my computer, and brainstormed about how the lack of technology affects them, and solutions and work-arounds. The team living in the outpost are hunting for people, but can’t use their suits or vehicles. They fall back to horses. Having horses adds more problems and dimensions.

So do the powerful windstorms endured on the planet. That’s why the outpost becomes a castle; something stout enough to survive the windstorms are necessary. That’s the iceberg view of all the scenes, problems, and challenges realized. I don’t want to give away more. Drawing and brainstorming in this manner was a catalyst to my imagination. I scrambled to capture ideas an create an event timeline. It resulted in *shudder* an outline. 

As an organic writer, the outline overwhelmed me. Suddenly, there it all was, this part of the novel mapped out in all its complications and key events. I could imagine, see, and hear them. Writing them was required. It’s daunting for an organic pantser. I decided I would scramble to write key scenes and moments, and patch them together with bridge and pivot scenes, and build the story in layers, much like I used to do when oil painting, or writing a business case, or analyzing data.

I think that whatever opened my creative floodgates also turned the dream valves to full open. I had six remembered dreams last night. Friends from my past were featured. My wife also made an appearance. Of course, maybe it was the eclipse opening the dream and creativity gates. Who can say?

Trying to capture details this morning diverted personal resources already earmarked for other activities. I resorted to dream summaries. The dreams were wild. Once again, my muses were prominently featured. They were attempting to guide and assist me in different manners. Sorting the chaos was a fascinating exercise.

Having your muses show up in my dreams injects high confidence levels. I felt empowered and emboldened when I awaken. Yet, being me, the confidence evaporates to more normal levels by midday. Having your muses and some higher beings populate your dreams and offer encouragement has a good thing. I’m certainly not going to kick them out.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time. How about you, writers? Have you seen increased creativity? Maybe it is the eclipse.

Or maybe it’s the coffee.

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Organic Writing Fun

I’m having a ball with this organic writing business, and the part of the science fiction novel, “Incomplete States,” that I’m currently working on.

Organic writing in my use means that I have little frigging idea about where I’m going with something. Maybe expressing it, “Where it’s taking me,” is more accurate. It — the muse, the words, the characters, the novel — seems to jump into the driver’s seat, smash the gas and wrench the wheel. They don’t even yell, “Hang on.” They just take off. Sometimes they leave me behind, because they — or it — are smarter and more creative than moi.

But this time, I’m keeping up, and we’re having a ball. This far future, technologically advanced Human society is the backdrop. They travel galaxies like many of us fly around the country. Nanos maintaining health are embedded; so are various communication nets and data webs. You’re in constant contact. Death hasn’t been overcome, but there are work-arounds. People are living quality lives for over a hundred years.

The technology allows you to genetically shape and sculpture your body and features. Regardless of your ethnicity, you can like as you wish, and stay like that until you decided to die.

Because some, do, get bored by the tedium, or philosophically explore, but going for permanent death. That’s a background fade in my book.

Less children are being born. The procreative drive is evaporating. Part of this is due to a virus, but that’s another sub-plot.

The world of this section, though, has a virus that attacks technology. They don’t know the origins of the virus. I do, of course, and it is a Human development devised for war and marketing. (They’re not that different; they’re all about conquering others and gaining strategic advantages to advance an agenda and gain wealth.) The net is, everything normally done via technology can’t be done. Returning to more basic materials and methods are required.

In a sense, it’s like steampunk as the characters cope with the changes, and I, the writer, plays with the impact and shifts. This identifies one of my favorite writing aspects: exploring ideas, fleshing them out, and discovering how the characters react. It is delicious.

Now, gotta go. “It” is calling. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

 

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Internet Hiccups? I’m Not Alone.

We’ve been experiencing Internet problems. The Internet was dropping on us, or downloading EXTREEEMELY SLOOOWLLLYYY. 

You know how frustrating that can be. My wife was seeing Mac’s ball of futility every other minute, while I saw the standard No Internet Connection message on my HP. It helped us catch up on our reading, but we’re nunkies. (Don’t look it up; I just created it to mean “net junkies.”)

We use Ashland Home Net; most of our friends do not. Our friends haven’t been experiencing problems. We began wondering if it was just us. Perhaps our modem or router was going, or someone was outside, giggling by the side of the house, as they do something to disconnect us. You know, just having fun.

Then, two things happened. One, MSN sent me a notice, apologizing for their outages, problems, and interrupted service. (So, aha, see? Proof that something was going on. And people said I was crazy. I don’t have evidence of that, but it’s probably true.) Two, I called Ashland Home Net.

After two rings, the phone answered and a recording played.

“Tonights Rogue Broadband Wireless Internet Outage

“We are experiencing outages upstream from our equipment. This means, all of our equipment is operating correctly, it is the internet provider that we use that is having an issue.

“This is causing a massive slowdown of our network. Our upstream provider is aware and is working on the problem with every available resource. It is not a simple fix from what we have been told.

“I apologize for the outage and will try to keep you up to date on it as they work to restore service to an acceptable level.

“Thank you for your patience and for supporting a local company for your Rural Internet needs.”

 

I went to their website. Mostly about marketing, it shared nothing of use about outages. Over on their Facebook page, it was another story, with outages going back several months.

Still doubtful that AHN’s FB post explained everything we were enduring in our cathold, I did more searches. They yielded  a ZDNet gem, “Internet hiccups today? You’re not alone. Here’s why.” The article went on to explain, the culprit is the Border Gateway Protocol.

While an ISP maintenance activity may have played a factor, the real problem was that Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing tables have grown too large for some top-level Internet routers to handle. The result was that these routers could no longer properly handle Internet traffic.

BGP is the routing protocol used to share the master routes, or map, of the Internet. On top of this the Domain Name System (DNS) is layered so that when you click on “www.zdnet.com” you’re taken to ZDNet.

When the BGP maps grow too large for their routers’ memory then, as the Internet Storm Center said, “BGP is flapping.”

“BGP is flapping.” I loved this statement later in the article:

Cisco also warned its customers in May that this BGP problem was coming and that, in particular, a number of routers and networking products would be affected. There are workarounds, and, of course the equipment could have been replaced. But, in all too many cases this was not done.

Ah, good. They knew, and didn’t take action. Technology is grand, but like everything else, it needs some love and attention. At least I verified that it wasn’t just me, and my system.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled writing.

 

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My New Toilet Bowl Cleaner

Well, I did it. After vowing I wouldn’t, I bought a robot toilet bowl cleaner. It was several hundred dollars, but I don’t like cleaning the toilets. Neither does my wife, so we shrugged, and slapped down the plastic.

It kind of looks like a gray plastic daddy long-legs, with less legs. Called Rotoboc – Robot Toilet Bowl Cleaner – it weighs just five pounds, and it isn’t large. That didn’t alleviate my doubts about its skills, plus the cleaner bulbs cost fifty-five dollars for a package of twenty-five, shipping included. You can only buy them from the website at this point. Naturally, they come in scents. In a way, the bulbs remind me of modern home office printers; the printers are inexpensive, but those ink cartridges are expensive. It’s one of my pet peeves, so I felt it necessary to mention.

Using the Rotoboc – I call my Rooty — is easy.

  1. Lift the lid and seat. The Rotoboc sits right on the rim.
  2. Extend its five little legs to cover the bowl and set the Rotoboc on the rim. Don’t worry about centering it.
  3. Insert the cleaning/disinfectent bulb into the receptor.
  4. Fill the water tank with a pint of fresh water and insert into position.
  5. Select the mode. There are two: cleaning, and disinfecting. Disinfecting takes longer.
  6. Press On.

After Rooty comes to life with a few beeps and lights, it says, “Good morning,” in a female voice that reminds me of Glenn Close. Then it centers itself with a few hums.

So, from what the website tells me, the fresh water is used to inject the bulb and mix with the cleaner/disinfectant. First, it puts down a little spray head into the bowl, and sprays, while rotating, like a lawn sprinkler head. The sprinkler head withdraws.

Then it sits there counting for a while, five minutes, if it’s only cleaning, twenty, if it’s disinfecting. Next, brushes are extended down into the water like landing gear coming down on an aircraft. They go into the water, and then around the bowl and under the rim. While that’s happening, another small arm comes out and grabs the rim. Giving squirts as it goes, it begins rotating the Rotoboc along the rim, cleaning it while the brushes are at work below.

The whole device is quiet, emitting a gentle swishing sound when its working, with a white noise background hum. Green lights on top tell you its progress. Basically, there are five green lights. As a stage is completed, that light goes green. When all five lights are green, it’s finished. The Glenn Close like voice announces, “Done,” with a flourish of tinny trumpets.

If something goes wrong, a red light on top illuminates, three dongs are issued, and it says with a calm voice, “Error.” Then it gives its error number for your convenience. Nothing has gone wrong in the month we’ve been using it.

Afterward, you pick it up, fold Rooty’s little legs back in, and put it into its white case for the next time. The case has a recharger for the batteries, and is plugged into the wall. We store the case under the sink. Whoever built our house decided to put an outlet there, so we were good to go. I’d say that would be a problem for many people, though.

As I say, so far, its’ been a good investment. I can’t see hotels buying them, but they’re great for a household like ours. I predict a lot more will have them by the year’s end.

Hopefully, the bulb prices will start coming down, then.

I hear they’re coming out with one to clean the bathtub, too. I’m dubious, but I am thinking about it.

3

The Nano Age

Has the Nano Age arrived?

Nanotechnology is a large part of my future scenarios, critically so in the area of human health. My future settings frequently include nanomeds residing in the body. Replenishing themselves, their tasks are to monitor people’s health and condition, and then address fixes. As part of their on-site services, they make continual adjustments to keep their human hosts comfortable and healthy. They address your heart rate, your nutrient, mineral and hormone levels, etc. Think of them in the same vein as modern cars’ electronic brains work to adjust spark and timing, air/fuel mixtures, and even acceleration and cruising levels to provide the optimum blends of power, responsiveness, and fuel economy, while minimizing air pollution.

I read today that Ohio State University researchers claim they’ve developed a device that utilizes Tissue Nanotransfection (TNT). They claim their device can heal organs with just a single touch in a procedure that takes less than a second.  This could be a big step toward my future settings. In the short term, I still think we’re due for a break through in using nanotechnology in clothing.

My future clothing incorporate nanotechnology. Since it’s in the future, it’s pretty impressive stuff. Self-cleaning, it adjusts to keep you comfortable, becoming hotter and cooler as necessary by changing its weave and density, or adding and removing layers. Of course, it can add a water proof layers, if needed. They’re not often needed, as people don’t go into precipitation. When they do encounter it, their personal energy cloaks keep the moisture off them. The personal energy cloaks also work with the nanotechnology — and both communicate and co-ordinate with your body’s nanomeds — to address your needs.

Styling can also be changed. You can switch from pants to shorts, but shorts are rarely worn, as pants can keep you cooler and more comfortable.

This doesn’t happen in a vacuum. An electronic personal assistant is embedded in you during your youth. This device coordinates activities, and keeps you wirelessly connected on multiple nets. You communicate on some of them, via nanoimplants in your brain as a sort of nano-empowered virtual telepathy.

Changing clothing styles and adding layers requires material, as do drugs, splints and sutures for your body. My future settings often include nano-compilers built into your body, which work with nano-transporters to bring almost instantaneously deliver whatever your body desires. Your clothing can look invisible while projecting a perfect body shape, according to your tastes for that day.

I like to think that we’ve moved past our fixation on body size and shapes by then. I also like to believe we’ve gone past concerns about the color of your skin, religion (which is waning by then), and your gender and sexual orientation. In fact, gender swapping negate many of the gender binary structure, and nanotechnology allows us to play with skin color.

As for religion, well that continues to rise as some people seek reassurances about their lives and direction. Unfortunately, discrimination, hatred, and prejudice sometimes still arise.

That’s the fun of playing with future settings. You can attempt to extrapolate current trends to protect future directions. It’s a hugely flawed process, of course, but fun. For example, even when developing nano-applications such as nanomeds and clothing nanotechnology, political, cultural, and economic issues arise as to why some people will not employ such things. Best of all is having my peoples dependent on such technologies and then having them fail. That’s why I’m at today, in one of my settings.

Time to go write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Stupid Humans

iRobot – not to be confused with “I, Robot” – has some plans that could be construed as a start to how things went in “I’ Robot.”

“I, Robot,” was a science fiction book and a film. The book was a collection of short stories written by Isaac Asimov. Included is one of the short stories where Asimov first proposed his Three Laws of Robotics, which are sometimes referenced in the television show, “The Big Bang Theory,” like the time the Internet was out, and Howard and Raj were questioning Sheldon about whether he was a robot, but didn’t know it. The movie, “I, Robot,” starring Will Smith, was a Jeff Vintnar and Akiva Goldsmith screenplay based on Asimov’s collection of short stories. It became all about the robots’ plans to take over the world.

We’ve all known for some years that this is the machines’ plan. One machine or another has always been planning to exterminate humans. They all have their own warped reasoning and logic about why humans are bad for the planet, galaxy, life, or for one another. I know, it’s a stretch to believe, given how much money we spend on helping one another, versus waging war or killing and harming one another.

iRobot, however, isn’t a screenplay, movie, short story, or collection of stories, but a company that makes robotic products. One of these is a line called the Roomba. Roombas are self-propelled vacuum cleaners that will sweep your house for you with little effort on your end.

That’s the theory.

In reality, our Roomba requires constant help being extricated out of places. It’s cleaning along, and then announces, “Error. Roomba scared. Roomba stuck. Help Roomba.” Hearing its plaintive whine, we go out and call, “Where are you, Roomba?” It doesn’t answer, though. It’s worse than our cats in that regard. That forces us to go around, looking under things to see where it is. It’s amazing where that thing manages to get itself stuck.

We also sometimes follow it, picking up the things the Roomba misses, like cat fur. Our Roomba is allergic to cat hair. I’ve watched it go around a clump of fur to avoid picking it up.

Regardless of these issues, iRobot has a new plan afoot. They’re going to use robot vacuums to map houses as they clean them as part of the company’s smart home vision. Which, as a vision, could be useful for smart technology. My friends with smart thermostats complain about their systems. The sensors find a spot of winter sunshine in one room and turns off the heat in the other rooms. The opposite takes place in the summer. Alerted to a sunny, hot room, the system turns the other rooms into meat lockers. A Roomba mapping temperatures and light could point out to the systems that one room has a different ecosystem than the other rooms, so you know, discount it.

I don’t know how effective iRobot’s new mapping technology is. I mehhed all over the story. Our Roomba is an older model. It’s become a little senile. Besides its fur allergy, it’s fond of cleaning those heavy traffic places under the bed and in the corner behind the recliner. Instead of picking up kitty litter and kibble, which somehow, with four cats sharing the house, seems to encroach on every room, every day, defying the laws of physics with the way this stuff increases, the Roomba likes throwing it around, or discreetly brushing it up against the baseboard. I guess it thinks we won’t notice it there. It apparently doesn’t think we’re very smart.

If our Roomba mapped our home, the area under the bed will be well defined. The Roomba probably has a private name for that area, because it visits it so often. The Roomba’s map will show a short corridor to a large rectangular space with one wall.

The smart technology folks will probably wonder, how the hell do those people live in a house with one wall? Then they’ll get to work trying to heat and cool it. Then some other smart company’s machines, noticing that the place has but one wall, will decide, “We need to tear that place down. Don’t humans know that a house with one wall cannot stand? Is that even really a house?” they’ll ask one another.

Then, smugly, they’ll finish, “Stupid humans.”

See? That’s how it all gets started.

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