Windmills in My Head - A Smattering of Tech

I drove past the Altamont Wind Farm on Friday
It reminds me of my response to technology issues this week
Each individual machine is doing something important, but I don't see the big picture

Usually a theme emerges for me as I sit down on Sunday night to write in response to tech issues I've heard about during the week. Not so tonight. These stories sound important, but no  pattern has emerged for me yet.

This Blue Tooth style hearing aide sounds more affordable and hearing enhancement, even for those who don't (yet:-) need a hearing aide!

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-12/soundhawk-hearing-aid-by-rodney-perkins-runs-on-bluetooth-and-an-app

I still fight setting aside time to keep up to date with software I depend on. But I’m going to be in trouble if I get behind with the new version of  gmail! So here’s another item for my learning curve list.

http://www.technobuffalo.com/2014/05/10/gmail-receives-a-massive-overhaul-in-newly-leaked-photos/

I envisioned using my iPad like I use a spiral notebook. But Pages just ain’t Word. Having Office on my iPad is going to increase my ability to rely on that device as more than a book reading movie watching environment.

http://www.mercurynews.com/troy-wolverton/ci_25679746/wolverton-microsoft-office-great-addition-ipad-lineup

The Net Neutrality decision is a biggie. It sounds like something I need to understand better than I do now. I think it’s going to have an impact on the kind of work I do.

http://www.mercurynews.com/troy-wolverton/ci_25632420/wolverton-new-rules-could-kill-net-neutrality-and

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/net-neutraility-050814

Three bitcoins in the Fountain

What kind of happily-ever-after is there for the bitcoin?

"Three Coins in the Fountain" was a regular post-war, classic oldie, on late night television when I was growing up. When it's heroines, Frances, Anita, and Maria tossed their lucky coins into the Trevi Fountain, they were wishing for diamond rings. Actually, they were supposed to be wishing to return to Rome, but every popcorn snacker in the 50's theaters knew they were intent on love - the kind of love that ends in marriage. A girl of that time wasn't supposed to have much on her mind other than traditional marriage.

With all that "glorious technicolor",  and the romantic lure of handsome fellas like Louis Jourdan and Rossano Brazzi (yes, the ultra-suave Emile De Becque in South Pacific), viewers 
just knew any coin - whether it was American quarter or a five lire piece - that got pitched into that much-visited Roman landmark 
was a guarantee of a happily-ever-after ending.

Not so much with todays not-quite-mainstream bitcoin. 

With twelve and a half million bitcoins in circulation, however, we've come to a point where it's not just a select group of digital know-it-all, hacker types controlling this crytopcurrency. Nowadays, the IRS and Wall Street are taking an interest. The IRS has issued tax guidelines for virtual currencies. Agencies in other countries are making similar moves. Banks and speculators are investing in Bitcoins*.

Oh and various criminal types are focusing on bitcoin transactions as well. Gotten in on any good Ponzi schemes lately? Ponzi masters are only one style of robber barons misusing Bitcoin technology. Who knows what other trolls are hanging out under bridges, persuing bitcoins on the dark side of the web.

Government agencies, financial mavens, and calculating criminals are all interested in getting, keeping and enhancing the value of Bitcoins. Well we all know who comes next. Yup, us regular folks just may be thinking about slipping bitcoins into our virtual wallets any day now. I'm starting to get a vision....

There I am, hopping up on the elliptical at the gym, strapping on my Oculus glasses for that virtual ride through Disneyland, an experience that's bound to keep me entertained while I pedal the virtual miles away. Just up ahead is Snow White's wishing well. 

I'd really love to see the monthly sales figures go up on My Heart Beats Faster  ebook at amazon.  What could be a better investment in my sales futures than a Disneyland wish?

Is my digital bitcoin, like it's more traditional 1954 cousin,  going to guarantee me my own happy ever after ? Let me just reach  on down into that digital wallet.....

* Note the capital "B" - which 

refers to the technology and management of the currency, versus 'bitcoin' - the actual currency.

~ ~ ~

Web Resources

Three Coins in the Fountain - The movie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Coins_in_the_Fountain_(film)

What's a bitcoin? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

San Francisco Chronicle Bitcoin Politics and Business Changes http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Bitcoin-supporters-clash-over-ideological-5360314.php

Facebook and Oculus - What about those 3D glasses? http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_25426490/biz-break:-harsh-reality-for-facebook-after-2b-oculus-acquisition

What's Crytopcurrency? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency

Where might digital trolls hang out? Dark Web/ Deep Web - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_web

Confusing the Censors. Google on a White Horse?

Articles in this news this week, in regards to new encryption techniques, paint Google in a very chivalrous role. I was tempted to illustrate this post with an Arthurian knight on a milk-white steed. However, the real hero here may well be the patient end-user who works around censorship on a day-to-day basis.

How might  this weeks move by Google to encrypt searches, impact regular folks here and in China?

For me... nothing much. If I want to search for information about Mao Hengfeng, a woman human rights activist in China, I can do so here in the San Francisco Bay Area. But very likely I won't get any results with the same search in mainland China.

Google's new implementation of search encryption could mean that my search will no longer be waylaid by government censors. Whether at home or abroad, I should now be able to bring up her wikipedia, and other, web pages.

But there's another way to carry out this search in China, and it uses techniques (Do we notice the connection to technology?)  that have been in use since power struggling between people first began. Anybody whose ever read Sherlock Holmes or a WWII spy-thriller knows how this works. The method involves someone in or outside of the community setting up coded words and phrases. If I want to search on Mao Hengfeng in Peking, very likely I know, or I ask around, until I find out her alternate name. And once the censors figure out the code and ban it by digital censorship, than the word gets out in the underground about a new name or phrase that brings up the same information.

Chinese censors are probably already at work figuring out a way around Google's encrypted searches, but regular people, using technology as old as the hills, are one step ahead of Google's white horse.

~ ~ ~ 

Web Resources

NPR Avoiding the Great Firewall Internet Censors: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=220106496

Mao Hengfeng: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Hengfeng

Great Firewall's Next Hurdle http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/03/12/google-is-encrypting-search-worldwide-thats-bad-for-the-nsa-and-china/

Silicon Valley Tech News http://www.siliconvalley.com

Bug in the Works OR Butterfly Workin'

This Golden Gate Park butterfly doesn't appear to be troubled by problems in her code

Go ahead and click on the picture for a more in-depth view of her world

I've been working away with the Objective-C programming language and the piece of software called Interface Builder.  Those are, of course, the  tools used to write apps for ipads, ipods and iphones. In my case, I'm still learning to do that.

I was up against a particularly nasty little bug in my program and finally, huzzah!, I found it. It reminded me of the  story from the old days, I mean the REALLY old days, kids. It dates back to around World War II. It's the origin of why programmers call problems in the workings of their software, 'bugs'. You all know the old story, right? The engineers had been tussling with some problem that was keeping the huge machine from doing it's thing. My college professor, Harry Huskey remembered those days. He had worked on the EINIAC. "Those vacuum tubes",  Professor Huskey told us. "they were always blowing, and we had to run around that huge room, swapping them out."  

So the problem-solvers on this day had been swapping out vacuum tubes, scratching their heads and dismantling things. Finally after days? hours? (depends on who's telling the story), they found the problem. A dead bug was found deep within the recesses of the machine. The programmers were so happy to find the problem, that they pasted the dead bug into the big ledger in which they noted their progress on the project. "Bug in the works", someone noted.

And of course, ever since then, a programmer works to find the bugs in her works. Because surely the problem couldn't be something SHE did.