February 2012
8 posts
4 tags
6 tags
A free ride to US content? Sorry, no.
The world wants a piece of America. Not the real America mind you, with its ugly highways, guns, and inequalities, but fantasy America. US entertainment is a highly desirable commodity that is denied even to international netizens. Access to services like Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, and Spotify is stymied by an invisible Copyright wall where the wrong IP Address leaves you out in the cold.
...
5 tags
How to write well
One thing writers like to do is teach others how to write well. There are several such instructive books that I highly recommend: Stephen King’s On Writing, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, and William Zinsser’s classic On Writing Well.
Kurt Vonnegut, whose book I reviewed recently, also has some sound advice in this short piece. Here is a summary:
1. Find a subject you care about
...
6 tags
The wolf parable
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.
“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
He continued, “The other is good - he is joy, peace,...
6 tags
Find your niche... in the washroom
The New York Times recently reported that 91 percent of Americans aged 28-35 have used their mobile devices while on the toilet. Disturbingly, 20 percent of men and 13 percent of women have participated in a conference call from the john. Never before has the MUTE key played such an indispensable role.
Yet, while these statistics may leave you shaking your head in disgust (or not, if you’re...
5 tags
What kind of phone do you have?
I was reading an interview with Limor Fried, the alpha-geek who founded the DIY electronics company Adafruit Industries, when I was struck by one of her answers:
What kind of phone do you have? I do not own a cell phone; however, I have designed a cell-phone jammer.
Limor’s response was intriguing to me because of its dichotomy between technological know-how...
5 tags
7 tags
Rise of the book thieves
I love Apple. Especially Apple hardware. And I’m glad they’re doing so well. But one area where they really messed up is in e-book pricing.
Steve Jobs wasn’t an avid reader. According to Isaacson’s biography, he just read the same Zen Buddhist book over and over. That kind of explains what happened. You may have heard the sordid tale, or read about it in the biography:
...
5 tags
January 2012
15 posts
3 tags
Review of Breakfast of Champions
I picked up this short book as a Kindle Daily Deal for a buck, so thought I’d give it a read.
Breakfast of Champions features Vonnegut’s alter-ego Kilgore Trout as he journeys to an arts festival. He is destined to meet a disillusioned car salesman. At the fateful meeting, Kilgore triggers a psychotic episode in which the salesman thinks everybody in the world is a robot, except for...
6 tags
The shame of being a jock
Anyone who grew up in the 80s will remember Revenge of the Nerds. The movie made ruthless fun of nerds, while offering them an olive branch in the form of Hollywood catharsis. My, how times have changed.
Now, social awkwardness is endearing. Comic-book movies are cool. Gadgets, gaming, and tech are in. Kids want to be programmers and engineers. Their parents want them to do well in math and...
5 tags
5 tags
Virtual Windows 7 - free!
Here’s a recent offering that didn’t get much press as it should have, but it’s really cool. As you may know, OnLive is a cloud-computing company that allows you to play games on your underpowered computer by streaming the content to your screen. All the grunt work is done on their servers.
They’ve now expanded into the enterprise market by offering a free virtual Windows...
6 tags
Pirate's sanctuary?
Last month, the Swedish government recognized The church of Kopimism as an official religion. The central tenet of this church is that the exchange of information is holy. The church has its own constitution, symbols, and even hymns. Worship consists of a digital service in which files are shared. Of course, to avoid litigious persecution, participants in “worship” must encrypt their...
6 tags
The real textbook dilemma
Yesterday, Apple announced the arrival of interactive textbooks on it’s new iBooks2 platform, as well as an online course delivery system through iTunesU. Thus fulfilling Steve Jobs’ dream to take on the textbook industry and relieve students everywhere of their back-breaking packs filled with dead trees.
A digital textbook seems like a great idea, but that’s where it ends -...
5 tags
Transparency - the new aesthetic
One of the coolest kinds of fictional tech has to be the transparent window, as seen in Minority Report, and by extension, the transparent tablet, à la Avatar. How long will it be before these futuristic interfaces become a reality? Not too long at all, it seems.
Science looks to science fiction when identifying an aesthetic that resonates with people. And it’s becoming apparent that the...
5 tags
Why every CEO should watch Kitchen Nightmares
I’m quite enjoying Kitchen Nightmares (UK version) on Netflix. At first, I thought it was a typical cooking show, or merely a culinary car crash where Gordon Ramsay cuts down hapless cooks with his exceedingly foul mouth. And yes, there is a bit of that. But, surprisingly, Kitchen Nightmares is more a crash-course on effective business management.
It’s tough to make it as a...
5 tags
Dry and dorky
I came upon this recently - perhaps you’ve seen it in your neighbourhood? Nah, didn’t think so. This atrocious umbrella is a fantastic example of great engineering, but poor design. Terrible, insufferable design.
The Nubrella has a spec sheet that would make a meteorologist drool: aerodynamic, ergonomic, hands-free, and will never invert in a hurricane-force gale. But the trade-off...
4 tags
Steve Jobs bio review
Cover from Whole Earth Catalog
This isn’t a book for fanboys who are looking for a insider’s view of Apple or the tech industry. The author, Walter Isaacson, is very much an outsider looking in. As such, he granted Steve Jobs a cool respect, but was never drawn in by Steve’s Reality Distortion Field.
As a result, this biography is extremely well researched. Isaacson gives us...
4 tags
Bollywood comes to Netflix Canada
Netflix Canada’s strategy is to work the multicultural angle to make up for their poor selection of blockbuster hits. While they’re a bit short on the Hollywood, they’ve just loaded up on the Bollywood with about 60 new movies that’s sure to pique the interest of any fan of the genre. And with quirky titles like Mashaal, Dhoom, and Fraaandship, how can you go wrong?
My...
4 tags
Going email free
Resolution #27: Sort through the 250 unread emails in my inbox.
That dreaded resolution sound familiar? How about taking it one step further and eliminating email altogether? A few weeks ago the IT firm Atos made waves when they revealed they were phasing out internal emails in favour of other networking tools. That got me thinking that email is dying a slow death for personal use as well.
Email...
3 tags
December 2011
3 posts
3 tags
Which kindle is the best?
Answer: None of the above.
Back when the Kindle came out in 2007, it cost $400 and I didn’t think anyone would want one. But these days, a Kindle starts at $79 and is highly affordable. There are also more options to choose from.
If you’ve been buying e-books from Amazon, then you’re pretty much locked into their ecosystem. You may be wondering if it’s worth upgrading...
2 tags
The old site is dead. Long live the new wordbit!
Visitors to wordbit.com may be surprised to see that everything has changed. I decided it was time. The days of traditional personal blogging have long since waned for several reasons:
The rise of social networking and micro-blogging.
The tenacity of spammers who bypass all known spam-blocking plug-ins.
The ghost town of most blogs that don’t have a cross-platform community.
The...
3 tags
November 2011
6 posts
4 tags
Game of Thrones review
You may be wondering if I’m talking about the book or the HBO series. Well, I read the book first, so the TV show paled in comparison, as is usually the case. I was optimistic at first, mostly because of the glowing reviews and comparisons to Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson undoubtedly won the hearts of purists and lovingly captured the spirit of the books. Unfortunately, the Game of...
4 tags
No rest for the dead...battery
My recent article on Battery Recycling is now available in the November issue of alive. I wasn’t aware of this before researching this topic, but you can recycle both single-use and rechargeable batteries in British Columbia.
Personally, I’m a big fan of eneloop batteries. I believe the batteries Apple uses in their wireless mouse and keyboard are re-branded eneloops.
4 tags
5 tags
2 tags
4 tags
The iPad in 1988
In 1988 students from the University of Illinois were tasked with imagining the computer of the year 2000. What they came up with was a tablet computer that bears a striking resemblance to the iPad. From the report:
Our machine will have the same dimensions as a standard notebook. It will look like an 8″x11″ monolith from the movie 2001, and be reminiscent of the Dynabook. This...
October 2011
4 posts
4 tags
Occupy Hastings Street
The world’s top 1 percent of wealthy people are being discriminated against! Let’s band together and fight for the rights of wealthy citizens without whose economic and philanthropic contributions, the world will be a poorer place.
The fact of the matter is, not everybody on this planet can live in a mansion, drive a Ferrari, and eat caviar every night. The world’s ...
4 tags
Remembering the man who changed everything
Steve Jobs passed away yesterday. What is there to say about a visionary who changed the way we interact with our computers, communicate, listen to music, or even appreciate the beauty of typeface. There is so much to say that has been said more eloquently by others. I am greatly saddened, as are so many others, by the loss of such a powerhouse in the tech world.
Yet, although he has left...
4 tags
A revolution nobody cares about
So, yesterday the iPhone 4S was announced and the general sentiment was that it was a huge letdown. Even the media jumped on the bandwagon with news reports on CBC about how disappointing the whole deal was. Most sane observers will tell you the truth of it though: people get hung up on a name. An iPhone 4S sounds like a spec bump whereas an iPhone 5 sounds like a major upgrade, despite the...
4 tags
