Catching up

So it’s been a weird week here. It doesn’t seem like I did a lot, yet I’ve not had time to do the dozens of things I’m supposed to accomplish.

The worst of these things undone is a project I’m involved in that I think everyone will like – and until it’s done that’s about all I can say about it. Other than the fact my current stage was supposed to be done Wednesday and here it is Saturday and still sitting on a corner of my (virtual) desktop. It’s worst because others are twiddling their thumbs till I get done.

The biggest time sink has been my leg, still. I went from cast to boot (yay). I am still not allowed to put any weight on it, but I can now wash and allow it to air out. I’m also supposed to be working the ankle with various stretches and movements so as to rebuild flexibility. Strength comes after I can put in some weight. I’ve got this list of things I’m to do minimally, some more as opportunity arises. Being still unemployed (boo) I have a lot of time to do the opportunity tasks. As a result I work that ankle a lot. Unsurprisingly that means I’m in more pain than I have been over the last two or three weeks which means I’ve used more of my pain pill than I have since the first two weeks. Those have a bit of codeine in them, and voila we know where the time went. mutter.

My books and my sculptures lay half-done. I’ve puttered about in lists and found myself re-reading posts, papers, and books without realizing I’ve done them before.

The good news – and what seems to have sparked my re-engagement – is that I’ve had a couple of calls about employment. Not offers, but possibilities. I find, looking at it now, that I rather dread retirement for fear of becoming an utter slug.

So, I’m in the process of trying to catch up, and this post is part of that. Hopefully you’ll all see just a little more from me than you have recently.

A no-touch touch-screen fix

ok, one of the minor frustrations using Windows 8 on the desktop is the fact the screen is touch screen focused. You can use the mouse but it’s not the same, and as I said in the previous post one of the goals of Win8 is that you use the same commands and gestures regardless of system.

I’ve played with a few work-arounds and want to share two – each has advantages and I’m not real certain which will turn out to be my preference.

Method one: attach a motion reader. At this point all I’ve got is a kinect, though someday when I can afford it I want to try a leap motion. Regardless, with the box linked in and configured you don’t have to actually touch the screen. Which in turn means you don’t have to lean way forward at your desk. The biggest disadvantages I’ve found deal with alignment, most often in picking up gestures from places you didn’t want them. Like your wife standing behind you, talking with her hands, shutting down the article you were in the middle of writing. (grin)

Method two: using a mobile system as a touchpad. There are actually a few ways to do this, but I found one to be the simplest and most useful. I established a Remote Desktop connection between the pad and the desktop. Actually, I played a bit so I could do it as a one-touch app and it would initiate the vpn, follow that link to the desktop, connect, log in, and sync. Anyway, I connect and, well… it used to be a joke kind of thing you could do, where you could do things “over a person’s shoulder”. Starting things, moving his mouse, talking to him, that sort of thing. See, when the RDS is set up it doesn’t turn off local, it’s just another input. So what you’ve got with your mobile set up this way is a touchscreen mirror of the desktop screen. So all the swiping and everything is done on the mobile. You only go for the mouse for the times when it’s the right tool for the job. With a smartphone that means when you need fairly precise cursor placement (like placing the cursor for a block of text), while with a tablet I almost never use the mouse.

As a by the way and referencing something from W8 below, I’m finding this rather useful for my own little cloud. I had to add a little wake-up protocol (well, borrow one someone else wrote), but now I can control when I switch from tablet to heavy processor (aka my desktop box). One of these days I’m going to try something heavy, like loading a modern game, and see if I can remote terminal play it. No, let me be more accurate. See if the inevitable lag and such make it unplayable – I know it’ll work.

See, the major weakness of the RDS/C connection is that it uses some of the processor – there’s just no way around it. Yes it’s just one more thing, but in the end these days that’s what kills the computers – one more thing over and over. That tale of the straw that broke the camel’s back really comes home.

But anyway there are two methods that work, both of which make up for the lack of a standing touchscreen for the desktop. Just a little practical tool.

W8

(Hey, it’s flurry day. Multiple posts all at once. Sorry, gotta write when it’s time to write.)

I find I’m a bit of an outlier in that I like Windows 8. Mostly.

Quite seriously, the situation reminds me of XP. Same complaints, same ‘almost’, same… ok, yah, the complaints also existed for ME (shudder). But here’s the deal. XP was an attempt to bring together and expand existing trends, while ME was mostly about dumbing the system down to the lowest user. Windows 8 is, like XP, about chasing where the present seems to be aiming.

Let me start by reminding people that XP, when it first came out, sucked. When it came out the library for which I was the Computer Guy was mostly NT, with some 2000. (And a little *nix and a handful of Mac boxen, but I digress.) Because the state paid for it we pushed XP onto a lot of our system, and I spent lots of hours “fixing” things.

Frankly, XP wasn’t good till SP1. It wasn’t great till SP2. But SP1 and SP2 happened, with 1 fixing the problems and 2 tying things together and bringing in the pieces that should have been there but weren’t. And, well, while I’m no longer the computer guy at that library I have one computer in my possession that is still running XP(SP3). Because it works.

So my very first thing to note about Windows 8 is that it’s almost certainly going to be mediocre at best till SP1 comes along. That’s the patch that’ll fix a lot that’s broken. Maybe even add some of the minor things previously not included. On the other hand, unlike XP raw, I am not having much trouble with Win8. Though I know a lot of people who are, so I can understand calling it W8 (wait) instead. Maybe.

Before I go onto praising it, however, I’d like to point out a bit of the obvious – or apparently not so obvious. Windows 8 isn’t just Win7 with a touch-oriented start screen. It’s an operating system that includes Win7 just as XP built on NT and 2K – not so much an extension as generational advancement. The biggest problem I think Windows 8 is going to have is that Win7, unlike NT/2K, is actually a well-rounded and good platform. This makes it hard to be willing to advance to the next stage. Digression – if’n I were Microsoft, I’d consider offering the Win7-Win8 upgrade discount again in about a year, or shortly after SP1 rolls out. Whenever it looks like it’s time for remorse to settle in. Anyway, on to praise.

Here’s the thing I think Microsoft did. They looked at some major trends in the computer world and decided they were going to continue, and the current progression of Windows type operating systems would get squeezed out as inapplicable if they did. So rather than being forced to jump after competitors showed it could be done, they decided to grab first. Their sheer size means that it’s likely most competitors will wind up having to say how they’re different, thus reinforcing Microsoft’s strength. So the major trends…

Increasing mobile systems at the expense of desktops. Desktop sales, whether home, school, work, enterprise, or whatever, are flattening. We won’t quit buying them, but they’re not going to continue to sell at increasing rates. In fact there are some indicators that they’re going to drop below replacement levels. There are several reasons for this, of which one key is the power of the small processor. Back in 1983 my first personal computer was a KayPro II. Pretty much any cellphone on the market, to include pretty much every “disposable”, has more memory and a stronger processor than that box did. Put it another way. If you have a smartphone, you have more memory and a stronger processor than what was minimally required to run Windows 3.1, and probably more than enough to run Windows XP. Yeah, that software I was just praising could run on many of today’s smartphones. And tablets and, well, you get the picture. So if you can take a desktop with you why do you want an actual desktop? Well, monitor, physical connection, maybe a keyboard or specialized entry system. And some businesses need the power that is crammed into today’s desktops – the modern tablet just isn’t enough. Keep that in mind, but for now it’s the reason desktops are going away. Notice that these are exceptions, however, because for most others the mobile systems are “just as good.”

Next major trend, “the cloud”. I’ve complained about the cloud a time or two, but let’s get serious. “The cloud” is actually several things, and all of them are becoming more and more common. The start is distributed storage. There’s also distributed processing. These two things mean that provided your personal connection is set up to use them, you can have a much larger virtual computer with you for the times you need it. So you play with large games but your tablet’s only got room for one at a time? No problem. Or videos you want to watch, or music library, or… But wait, there’s more. (sigh)

See, “the cloud” can, and sometimes does, mean vpn connections as well, and with those connections acting as terminals on virtual systems. OK, time to go back in history again. Used to be you had one server that did all the work, and it switched between all the users at dumb terminals – terminals that at most recorded some of the keystrokes. Smart terminals were great as it meant a lot of basic processing could be done at the desk, and the server only did the heavy lifting. Well, we’re coming back to that. You can see hints where users can have their system act as virtual smart terminals for either a main computer (desktop) of their own or a virtual system on a shared “server”. (That’s in quotes because some people will have actual servers and others desktops that hold one or two virtuals.)

So here’s what we’re looking at. People using their mobile most of the time, and if they need more processing they can have their mobile act as a smart terminal for a larger system or they can just go to a larger system.

Enter Windows 8. First, it works the same regardless of whether it’s on mobile (to include smartphone) or desktop or even small server. Everything is the same. So now the user doesn’t have to learn different strokes or moves for each system. Even better the user doesn’t have to remember to use different commands when the system is acting as main or as smart terminal.

Add the second – syncing. We already have systems that do it, but it’s built into Windows 8. If you start a couple of websites in the background and get partway through a couple of projects on your tablet, then get to work and open your desktop, the system knows you had those two websites open and were partway through those couple of projects. So not only can you use all userboxes the same way, you can switch between your userboxes at your convenience.

Win8 is designed to work and sync across the cloud and across multiple types of actual user systems. Or to rephrase it: The ultimate goal of Win8 is to ‘just be there’. And from my point of view it seems to have gotten a great deal of the way to that.

One last bit of discussion, dealing with the MS vs Apple vs *nix discussion. Until games – popular games – are regularly released on Apples and *nix boxes, Microsoft will dominate the individual user market. Simultaneously, until Apple gets serious about enterprize operations instead of individual blackboxing, it will continue to be prized by individuals and businesses working as cooperatives of individuals. In other words, the dominant operating system of the computer world of two to four years from now will be Microsoft’s product. And Microsoft has decided to jump to the future instead of being dragged there with everyone else. Barring niche products, if you’re in the computer world and not learning and mastering Windows 8, you’re behind the curve.

Back When

So the 10 year anniversary of our entering Iraq has come and gone, and there are posts everywhere in examination – both self and of others. My turn.

I’ll say first that I wasn’t sure offhand what position(s) I’d held. I know I have changed, I’ve grown, learned, and a number of other things and could not recall for certain where I’d been. Fortunately, I’ve been blogging for a while. Oops, earliest blog was the beginning of 2004. Well, I still have emails going back – holy cripes, I do save a lot of junk. And with certain private list discussion groups at that. (which means I’m not sharing, sorry.)

Simple view first. I thought our action in Afghanistan was right. Looking back, I still do. I thought our action in Iraq was… ok, here’s where things get messy. See, I was uncomfortable with it. I had a lot of things on the side with which I was massively uncomfortable (get there in a minute) but I hadn’t quite reached the stage prior to the invasion of accepting that My Government’s Leadership was lying to get us into a war. No, let me go further.

I trusted the bureaucracy.

See, unlike a lot of people I like bureaucracies. Yes, they keep things from moving fast, they’re resistant to change. That’s their strength in an extremely powerful system – they’re what keeps nuts from racing to doom. This time, however, they failed. I’m not sure why. No, really, I do not know why none of the brakes worked. If I had to guess, however, I’d guess it was the same thing driving a lot of the rest of us: fear. We’d been OMG HURT.

Two lies. First, Saddam had nukes – or rather an active and soon-to-mature nuclear weapons program. Second, that Saddam had been actively involved in the attack on us.

Now I was uncomfortable with the actual invasion. First, I expected Iraq’s military to be a lot more effective in the fight. I learned a lot about analysis in that result – things to look at to try and identify a paper tiger. (digression: North Korea – paper tiger. Iran – not a paper tiger.) But I “knew” the attack was going to be a lot more difficult.

Second, I kept being bothered at how we were ignoring what Blix was saying. We were simultaneously getting the message that Blix was lying, incompetent, and in collusion. So we changed investigator and got the same result. It made me wonder about the evidence for a nuke program – but again I wasn’t quite ready for “they’re lying to start a war.”

Ironically, it was in the middle of the actual invasion that I got, not necessarily proof but strong confirmation that the government was lying. As I mentioned there were a few other fronts on which I was adamantly against the government action. There was the rush to secrecy, hiding all the formerly publicly accessible information that let us know who our government was an how it worked. There was the dilution of the Geneva Conventions, creating the false “third category”. And there was the USAPATRIOT ACT.

In the middle of the engagement itself I realized that some librarians with which I regularly corresponded were no longer discussing that act. Any discussion that brought it up saw them just disappear. Now take a minute and think of your friends. Think of the one that talks ALL THE TIME, and has an opinion on everything. Now, suddenly, on this and closely related subject they just suddenly go silent. They don’t try to change the subject, they just hang up, leave, disengage.

And rumors filtered in the library community that we’d been served – several of us. “Hi, we’re the FBI/DHS/Secret Service. We want to look at all your computer records. Oh, and here’s a gag order – you cannot appeal this, you cannot tell anyone about it, you can’t discuss it in any fashion.” Ashcroft got up and said the rumors were false – specifically, “We have never served a library.” Turns out Ashcroft lied, just like Wolfowitz and Cheney and Bush and the rest.

So here’s the deal today. I generally trust my government, still. But it’s no longer total. And never when it’s “just trust us” or “that’s classified” or “we’ll tell you later.” Because the thing is while it was mostly the Republicans that were doing this, there were Democrats complicit in it. And there are, I think, Democrats taking advantage of the openings made under the Republicans.

So this rush to war with Iran? Really untrusting. Continuation of the USAPATRIOT ACT? No trust. The government wants to use an extension of that act to examine financial records? I’m voting no. You get the idea.

Because back then I didn’t say no, I said, “Well…., I guess.” And I got burned.

The really sad thing about me saying “I guess?” I had specific point objections to a wide range of things that should have had me saying no. I just didn’t want to… I am a vet. Some of the bureaucrats, some of the officials speaking were people I knew, either directly or at first remove. I LIKED some of them, trusted them at levels due to shared experiences. I did not want to put the evidence together. It makes me rather surly, sometimes. Because I knew enough and had the skills to put it together and didn’t. Wouldn’t. Whatever.

So, that’s my mea culpa. I was lukewarm, neither strongly for nor against. Both sides can rightly condemn me for my stance – never mind how I stood on other issues. I was wrong, and I’m sorry, and it won’t bring a single damn person who died back to life.

These days I’m seeing a push for Iran. My resistance is part of my apology. Oh, I’m trying to watch to see I don’t go wholly stupid the other way, but… yeah, I don’t think so. It’s the same handwaves, the same smoke and mirrors. Associations that turn out not to be so, production that turns out not to exist, activity that isn’t, and a constant “we have to before they do us” drumbeat of… fear? excitement? I can’t really get my head around it, I just know it’s there.

I just don’t want to add to this particular mea culpa.

Cloud Reading

I have a bunch of posts I should be doing as I sit here recuperating: editing and publishing, posting some recipes, updating my medical situation, so forth, but none quite got me going till this. Go figure.

Google is retiring a bunch of its programs. One strikes home for me: Google Reader.

I use it constantly. I can log onto a computer and check one page and see which of the over 100 sites I read daily (often more than once a day) has posted something new. I can scan down the list to see if I want to go to the site and read in depth, or just scan and go on.

I could turn this into a rant against the “RSS is dead” crowd. Might, even, let’s see how this meander goes. See, there’s this major sideways jump to something that to me is even more significant.

This is why I, and a lot of people I know, do not trust the cloud. Read back to my third paragraph. I can log into A computer. Not the same one, any computer. And Reader knows what I’ve seen already wherever I was and marks appropriately. Now I’m going to have to jump through hoops to find a replacement.

Now, reader is not really the cloud, but to a layman it’s a very good representation. RSS isn’t going away (yet), but the foretaste message is that if I leave everything “out there” to be handled there is a solid chance – perhaps an inevitability – that what is “out there” becomes inaccessible. Mine becomes no longer mine.

It’s a reminder, a wake up call. And the response includes an erosion of trust.

Google is giving three months warning. Reader goes away on July 1. Every time I access it, it tells me this warning. Every. Time. I’ll leave just so I can escape the pop-up.

And it makes me wonder… should I be looking for another email host, something that…

isn’t in the cloud?

Minor Status Change

The pictures, then the thousand words.

That’s my right leg.

I was cutting branches off overhanging trees. I set up an extension ladder and it had two feet extending past the branch. Put in an anchor line to control the pop-up.

When the branch popped up, the anchor line let go and the branch rose three feet, or one foot past the end of the ladder.

I instinctively set for a PLF (parachute landing fall), never mind it’s been 30 years or so since the last time I did it. And I did pretty good, except there was mud down there — my right foot sank, and when the rest of my body rolled the foot stayed right where it was.

Now, I had an interview earlier this week, another yesterday, and one earlier today. But an interview is not a job offer, and is therefore not insurance. This shall be fun. As I learn new things of the process of uninsured medical care from the inside, I figure I’ll share.

I can start by saying that the admissions clerk at the ER thanked me for being honest (to include the fact I’ve been unemployed for a while) and said she’d start on the paperwork for people0 in my situation so I could hopefully go through less financial pain. No yelling, no badgering, just straight-forward and courteous performance of duties. For the record that’s Willowbrook Hospital in Houston.

It’s in a fiberglass splint for now as they had to re-align it and suspect some ligament damage. So I get to see an Orthopedist Monday – who also knows the situation up front. There will be news, whether praise or venting.

But for now, much of what was going to happen this weekend is being delayed a bit. IN fact, I think I’m off to sleep soon. If I can get the dogs and cats to quit thinking the open lap is for their pleasure…

Spanish Rice

Made a spanish rice dish by guess and gosh last night. Today everyone says I need to write that recipe down because it was good. So trying to rough through my memory. I need to go back to making a cooking log, I guess.

The overview. Made rice in the microwave. Sauteed a chopped onion, tossing in some chopped (not minced) garlic at the last. Made a spice mix, and added it all plus a can of diced tomatoes and some green chilies to the rice. Stirred well and put in a 350 oven for 15 minutes. Added a thin layer of cheddar/jack/mozzarella cheese, baked for five more minutes, served.

The detail.

RICE. one cup of rice, two cups of water. Combine in a 2 quart microwave safe dish. Microwave for 11 to 12 minutes (depending on power of machine). For the 1200W I use now I go 11:30.

While rice is going, start oven to 350.

Start onion. One whole onion, chopped medium. Put into lightly greased, hot cast iron skillet. Cooked till beginning to color.

Add garlic. Enough cloves to make 2 tablespoons of medium-fine chop. Add to onion and cook for another minute – the garlic will be softer and pick up a slight browning. If rice is not yet done remove from heat, don’t forget to stir every minute or so till the rice is done

While browning onion/garlic, prepare spice mix. Here’s the guess and gosh.
2 teaspoons cocoa powder.
1/2 teaspoon cayenne powder.
1/2 teaspoon thyme powder.
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley leaves.
1/2 teaspoon salt.
1/2 teaspoon rosemary leaves, crushed.
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon powder.
dash cloves.

Ready one 15 ounce can of chopped or diced tomatoes.
Ready 1 to 2 tablespoons (about 1/3 of the 4 ounce can) green chilies.

And it took approx 1/2 cup shredded cheese .

When rice is done, remove from microwave and add everything but the cheese. Stir thoroughly, bake (350 F) for 15 minutes. Add cheese to thinly cover top, bake for 5 more (till cheese is melted, not quite bubbly.)

Remove, serve.

Going sideways

Tasers. I’d really like to see tasers enter this whole discussion.

I have a proposal that is only slightly tongue in cheek:

Mandate every adult be train to use and then own a taser. Carrying one is optional, but they have to own one. No restrictions on where they can be carried.

For those people who dream of overthrowing the government tasers are pretty much worthless. On the other hand so are rifles and shotguns and pistols. Violent uprisings in our nation keep being put down, from Shay’s Rebellion through the Indian Wars. It takes not only arms but logistics, strategy, and political support – and as the American Civil War showed it takes a lot of those.

On the other hand when the question is self-defense tasers become a serious contender. Many of their weaknesses are surprisingly similar to those of pistols, to include people who keep on coming after being shot. There are, however, some peculiar weaknesses that need addressed.

Range, for self-defense, is immaterial. For what it’s worth I’d not be surprised to see ranges extend if tasers became a primary defense weapon.

The vast majority of tasers are single-shot. Again I’d expect this to change for reasons similar to range.

Tasers would be extremely subject to abuse. After all, severe “non-lethal punishment” is a god-send to some people. Yes, you’re not supposed to use them on children and on pregnant women and on people who might have heart conditions (read elderly), but as you can see by a number of police officer abuses this gets ignored too often. Ironically, I think making tasers a standard individual and home defense weapon would just happen to increase the controls on police as well.

Taser-proof clothing is easier than bullet-proof clothing. On the other hand the other person has to be wearing it for it to work – a problem today with bullet-proof clothing.

With the self-defense argument set aside, the resistance to tyranny looks even more ridiculous. It leaves hunting and sports, both of which have a variety of regulation in place already.

Short response to Correia

Larry Correia’s written a long post on the gun control subject (short version: fewer controls, let trained carriers carry anywhere including schools). Since Larry’s a professional writer it reads well, and whether you agree or not it’s worth reading just for seeing the points in readable fashion.

I’m not going to object to his use of strawman positions. Firstly because almost everyone posting without a debating partner is doing it, and secondly because I’ve heard one or two people say them. Kind of the same reason some of the pro-gun positions should hold their tongues – just as there are extreme no-gun/knife/anything people, there are people who think it should be legal to have stocks of explosives and major military weapons. (In other words there are extremes to the position on each side.)

No, I’m going to object to two of his “facts”. I see them a lot, and I don’t know where they came from, but they’re wrong, and therefore what they buttress is hanging in the wind.

The first “fact” is that mass shootings always happen in gun-free zones. Actually, Larry’s statement was that over the last 50 years of mass shootings only one was not in a gun free zone. Sorry, Larry, but no. Not unless in addition to excluding incidents where many were wounded though fewer than four (besides the killer) died, you excluded killings on freeways and killings in the parking lots of gun free zones. Oh, and killings in homes (both of families and of others. Oh, and if a county having strong prohibitions means every business in the county is gun-free (even though CCWs are issued, and hair salons are not on the absolute prohibition list). Yeah, sensing a trend here?

Killings in gun free zones make more splash, largely for the reason they’re gun free. My suspicion – note not a “fact” but just an opinion – is that people who want to do mass killings go there not because the targets can’t shoot back but because that’s where the masses of targets exist. You go to banks to steal money because that’s where the money is.

Anyway, I said two ‘facts’ were wrong. The second is that 80% or so of mass shooters were on or grew up on psychotropic drugs. Sorry, Larry, but no. Just flaming wrong. Go through the list of known mass murders, one by one, and you’ll discover that the drugs are confirmed in fewer than 20% of the cases for the past 50 years. There are some assumptions that another 20% or so may have used them while younger but even if those unsupported assumptions are valid we’re under half.

So does this weaken Larry’s main argument? Directly, no. Indirectly, yes.

See, part of the ‘allow trained gunholders everywhere’ argument (which by the way is a slightly unfair simplification of Larry’s position, but let my strawman stand for a moment please) is that the target-rich environment encourages the shootings. Reduce the number of environments that are target rich and the shootings will decline. With the discovery that shootings happen where guns are allowed, too, the argument is much weaker.

The other part is, well, Larry intelligently said he’d avoid the mental health discussion. But drug use is a narrow portion of the mental health issue – if they weren’t on drugs or damaged by drugs they’d be less likely, goes the implication. FWIW, I still havent’ figured out how that particular slice fits in Larry’s argument. However I’m still going to counter it because even though it doesn’t support Larry’s position it pops up in other pro-gun arguments supporting those positions. Apparently some druggies aren’t deterred by human decency or reasoning or something so they go for fame by mass killings. And for some reason making guns available everywhere is supposed to counter this. If it’s not just druggies — worse, if the majority aren’t druggies, then this argument is a waste of everyone’s time.

OK, so I’ve killed 600 words or so correcting a pair of errors in his article, one of which is a major keystone to the position. That’s too short, really, for one of my posts. But I really don’t want to parse and pare the rest, most of which is either statement of credentials or opinion. So as filler, an address of the elephant in the room that he ignores.

Mass killings are horrendous. They’re attention grabbers. And annually they account for less than half a percent of deaths by gunfire in the US. IF we managed to stop them we’d have no real effect.

I grew up thinking guns were OK. I still do, if they’re in the hands of responsible people. The problem – and it’s a huge one – is that our system as it presently operates gives access to a lot of unreasonable people.

The more I dig the more I know there really isn’t a simple solution. It’s yet another Mencken situation: to every human situation there is a solution which is neat, simple, and wrong. Total bans and total access both hit the “wrong” button.

I want a network of solutions that get guns out of the hands of the irresponsible. I suspect that part of the solution is actually enforcing laws and regulations already on the table. I suspect that part of the solution will wind up requiring national databases of firearms or firearm owners or people prohibited from owning weapons. I suspect that part of the solution will mean freer access for the responsible owner. I suspect that part of the solution will include closing private trader loopholes.

And I accept that a perfect solution is not only unattainable, but that as we close on it the costs may become unacceptable.

It’s just that right now we’ve got 30,000 deaths per year from handguns, and that number needs to go down.

Christmas was good to me

So I got something for Christmas, as a gift, that I’d been saving pennies to get. I got Nuance’s Dragon SpeakingNaturally. (missing space is intentional) Oh, and I also got Windows 7 on my main computer. It is going to become windows 8 within 6 months – more on that in another bit, but for now…

I’ve played with voice control and voice input on computers for a few years. I’m aware of the weaknesses and difficulties. However, most (not all) of those are either immaterial or relatively insignificant for my particular case.

See, sometime in the next five to ten years I expect to lose fine motor control of my hands and arms. Not a big deal, and if I get lucky it’ll be much longer than that. But I’ve got this sorta arthritis that’s in my spine, that simultaneously degenerates the vertebrae while building bone spurs in the spinal channel. I had surgery a few years ago (blessed relief) and do what I can in the way of exercise and diet to delay the problem, but it will happen. Some of my fat-fingering of keys happens when the pinky and ring-finger of either or both hands are feeling a bit numb. (Not really. More tingly, and I can feel pressure. Basically they move and feel like they’re “asleep” and on the verge of waking up.)

So I’ve had my eye on ways to do what I do with the computer for a while now.

The bad and the good news about DNS is that pretty much everything you’ve heard about it is true. It’s still not perfect. It sometimes doesn’t hear you. It takes hours (and hours and hours) to train to better than 98% accuracy (and let me tell you, 98% turns out to be frustratingly low when it’s a matter of typing). There are foibles. ON THE OTHER HAND, you can pretty much run Microsoft (the OS, IE, and Office) without touching keyboard or mouse. Even better (in my opinion) is that it’s expanded to allow a lot of operation with other programs that run on Windows. Not everything, but a lot. Add the macro capability of some of the more expensive versions and, well, it’s good for me.

And I could stop there, but why should I? (grin)

See, as I said a bit earlier I’ve played with voice stuff before – back before DNS belonged to Nuance, before it belonged to ScanSoft, before L&H, back when it was Dragon Dictate (which is and is not the Dragon Dictate which Nuance offers for the Mac). And I played with the competitors. And even then I saw the potential but neither needed it then nor was I willing to have something that wasn’t at its potential. Now?

Simply stated, it’s most of the talking computer of science fiction of the 1960s and 70s. It’s not self-aware (yet another subject I may get to someday). But a LOT of the things that used to be dreams are available – just a little different in design. I can start the computer, ask it to check the news and the weather, have it call a friend (skype), start some music in the background. I can load up a book to read or one of the ones I’m editing – or trying to write – and work on it while I lean back and pet the cat or bounce the ball for the dog. Let me re-emphasize that. I DO NOT NEED the keyboard or the mouse, so my hands can be busy doing other things.

Future steps, and edging into the Windows 8 stuff, are integrated systems. See, I can run DNS while wearing a good bluetooth headset. (The really important things are high bandwidth and a directional, noise-cancelling microphone. the latter is the more important of the two.) And I can use a remote desktop connection on a surprisingly low-power tablet to ‘see’ what’s on the main system’s monitor. So that bit I said above? I can also wander to the kitchen or lay in bed. The only range restriction on this package is that of the microphone. Exercise (and support programs), cooking, cleaning, etc. I am chained to a screen (the tablet) but not to the chair.

Now I’d like to say I’m excited about the google glasses or other monitors-in-glasses. I’m not, however. That’s because I’m becoming an old man, and with age comes presbyopia. For the one or two youngsters out there, it means it doesn’t matter how sharp it is, if it’s less than 4 inches from my eyes I cannot focus well enough to see it — and that’ll likely increase as I get older. On the other hand give me a visor of flexible LCD and I may become overjoyed. (Yes, it’ll be obvious. OTOH I think I won’t care.)

Two more things that are on the edge of being out, and then I’ll pull it together to show you one of the ways I think we’re connecting to the future. The first is the open gesture. Think touchscreen in the air. I thought one of the game systems was going to get there first (the kinect or playstation’s vita), but it looks like the good bet right now is Leap Motion. Oh, sure, a lot of people talk about it for games, but frankly my arms would get tired if I had to keep them in the air all the time as a controller. On the other hand, used as a mouse while my voice replaces my keyboard? oh, yeah. Touch it, move it, and the MotionLeap recognizes all fingers on both hands? Go back to a lot of those SF movies and futuristic ads where the virtual information is brought up by voice and then pulled, twisted, and so forth by the grasping and twiddling of the fingers.

I said two things. The other – and here the first shall return – is windows 8. My opinion, I know, but I like W8. I think Microsoft decided to get a jump on the future and succeeded – instead of their very long history of finding others who’ve jumped to the future and buying them or stealing from them as the case may be. Look at what I listed above, and then realize that W8′s underlying expectation is reduced keyboard manipulation. touch, voice, that sort of thing.

So you put W8 on a pocket tablet that displays on a visor (or if you’re young enough, g-glasses) and a big box. You set up a vpn. You run DNS mini on your tablet for lightweight use and have virtual overlay of the world. For the heavy lifting you link into your Big Box – either as a supplemental process or using your tablet as a remote desktop connection – and process. … actually, I’d not be surprised to see the vpn link be the default with the tablet processing only when it’s out of network for some reason. Add a deferral program for anything the tablet can’t process right then that it takes care of when the link’s re-established. Walk and talk, and use an on-screen keypad with your fingers poking at it in virtual touchscreen mode when that’s what’s required.

It’s just missing a personal holographic projector to be The Future. Well, that and brain plugs. Which, well, brain-plugs are now reality (at least for output).

So I’ve got DNS for the future, for both my personal need and the general expectation. And from just the experience of the last week, the future’s so bright I’ve gotta wear shades. (Yeah, sorry about that.)

Go have fun.