Some of my favorite quotes…
More to come, later. I just posted this video showing a time-lapse execution of a simple algorithm to use the digits of Pi as a source of drawing instructions.
Clouds are not Tangible
If you can’t hold something in your hand, it doesn’t exist
At first, this statement might seem to deny digital media…
In reality, you can store anything digital on physical media, and “hold it in your hand”.
Why is this important?
Today, digital rights and cloud-delivered services often determine what you “own”.
What if the provider goes out of business? You simply lose all of your rights (and thus all of your purchases).
What if your account gets corrupted? You lose everything associated with your account.
What if your local content fails to sync with the cloud? You lose your local content.
Here is what does work:
BACK UP YOUR DATA TO PHYSICAL MEDIA.
Thus, if you can’t hold the physical media in your hand, then your cloud-based digital rights don’t exist.
DRM Corollary:
If you have a backup that’s encrypted using Digital Rights Management (DRM), then you don’t really have a backup.
Any physical backup should either NOT be encrypted, or should have a permanent decryption key that never expires, and can be used even if the DRM server is offline.
Unless you can DECRYPT your backups, they are useless.
Please note: This has NOTHING to do with pizza coupons nor discount codes. If you want pizza coupons, click here.
Every now and then, I run across the Geek Code, a compact notation for sharing basic profile and personality information.
I recently ran across this again, while looking for something else, and it inspired me to answer these questions:
- Could you define a compact yet robust notation for ordering a pizza?
- Could you order any pizza within an 80-character text message?
- Could you manage a single order with multiple pizzas within an 80-character text message?
Let’s find out…
(Credit to my son, Morgon)
The Next Indiana Jones Movies
- (Raiders of the Lost Ark) Supernatural artifact from God
- (Temple of Doom) Set of supernatural artifacts related to an ancient religion
- (Last Crusade) The most famous supernatural artifact, related to King Arthur, the Knights Templar, and the Crusades
- (Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) Supernatural artifact related to Aliens
- PREDICTION: Supernatural artifact related to time travel
- PREDICTION: Star Wars Cross-over
:-)
The Danger of Artificial Intelligence
AI Done Properly:
“I know that you have selected several items colored red when buying things online. Therefore, I assume that your favorite color is red, and I automatically selected the color red when you asked me to purchase new curtains”
AI Done Poorly:
“I know that you have selected several items colored red when buying things online. Therefore, I murdered 200 people because blood is also red.”
In any major software development project, a broker tier is a critical element.
We’ll examine what a broker tier is, what it does, and several advantages to having one.
Every year, major electronics retailers and discount stores offer “amazing deals” on personal computing devices, such as laptops, tablets, and desktops.
Here are some reasons you should be skeptical, and perhaps avoid them altogether.
Tech Tip: Navigating Tabs
Browsers and other applications use tabs as part of the user interface, allowing the user to multi-task within the application.
Here are some time-saving shortcut keys for navigating tabs within browsers and other applications.
| Hotkey | Action |
| CTRL+Tab | Move to the next tab |
| CTRL+SHIFT+Tab | Move to the previous tab |
| CTRL+F4 | Close the current tab |
| CTRL+SHIFT+T | (Firefox and Chrome) Open the previously-closed tab |
Using hotkeys works especially well when you’re composing in one tab, while referencing material in a 2nd tab. Hotkeys allow you to move back and forth without lifting your hands off the keyboard.
It’s that Turkey time of year again, and with turkey comes leftovers.
Here are some amazing ideas that transcend the turkey sandwich.