Apple Macbook trackpad button and Internet radio
After a childhood of working with PCs, I bought a Macbook Pro for my college computer. Overall, I definitely like more than most laptop PCs, though one thing struck me as very odd, the trackpad has only one button under it! I was like, how on EARTH can Apple, allegedly one of the most advanced computer firms, limit functionality so much by having only one button! Whatever happened to right-clicking?! My shock soon disappeared though, when I figured out that you could configure the laptop to right-click when you put two fingers on the pad at once and click. Yes! I thought, you CAN right click on macs! But why, I thought, would they ever put such a basic functionality embedded so deeply in the system settings?
Well, I got my answer in October. The new line of Macbooks now no longer have a button; the whole pad is a button, you can tap on it, click it, and slide your fingers across or vertically over it all with 1 to 4 fingers to do different things. In the context of where Apple engineers were driving towards, it makes perfect sense to exclude a second button. Apple users have all had to accustom themselves to using multiple finger combinations on the pad itself to perform crucial functions; thus when the new trackpads came out, instead of being hailed as failures because they've gotten rid of buttons, etc. etc., there was praise all around.
Similarly, I was once angered by the fact that iPods don't have FM or AM radio. In fact I even bought a non-iPod last year because I really wanted to have radio. I thought, just like I thought with the trackpad, that how on earth could Apple leave out such a basic, useful, and relatively in demand feature? Well, I now think the answer is that once iPods become Internet enable (a direction Apple handheld devices and such devices in general seem to be going) FM and AM radio is going to become obsolete. And when that point comes, Apple doesn't want a few sticks-in-the-mud to be party-poopers and decry the loss of the (theoretical) FM and AM capability. Apple wants there to be praise all around.
From a marketing perspective, Apple is definitely one of the smartest companies around. They know how to advertise their product, they know how to drive sales, and they know how to maximize customer satisfaction. Although from a technological perspective, leaving useful features out merely for future marketing reasons can seem regressive (or at least anti-progressive), ultimately, what drives technological progress is demand for it, and maximizing demand for it by means that may even seem regressive is a good long-term plan for technological development.
Posted at 06:20PM Dec 06, 2008 by advargas in General | Comments[1]
Dune
Since the syllabus says that we are allowed to discuss technological movies in our weblogs, I'll take it that I can talk about good books as well. I first encountered the Dune world when I was sent Dune: The Butlerian Jihad by some friends in the US while I was living in Spain. The book was very big, so I don't think I made my way through the entire thing. It was only until last year that I found the first book of the original Dune series in the local library. I devoured the book and all of its sequels and also the later Jihad and House series. I liked them as much as I did because the world takes a very unique approach in futuristic science fiction. Many series show technology making humans invincible, some have technology overtaking humans and laying waste to them. Dune, on the other hand, takes its own approach: it has humans making perfect computers (called machines), being overrun by them, conquering control back from them and being layed waste in the process, rising from the ashes with a religious hate of machines, and finally coming to terms with technology as a legitimate form of intelligence.
I think many lessons can be learned from the Dune series. One of the most important is that no matter what technology does to humans, there will with almost certain probablity always remain a human remnant. If worse comes to worst, oh well, time and life go on; it's not the end, there's always more! Also, the series deeply analyzes the interactions between social groups. It has the Bene Gesserit sisterhood, the Tleilaxu flesh merchants, the Spacing Guild, the good and the bad nobility, the Fremen of Arrakis (aka Dune), and many other groups. It does it an exquisite job of weaving plots within plots, setting a science fiction standard that has rarely, if ever been reached. I highly recommend the series if you like good plot and a treatment of technology from a non-fatalistic (but neither a fawning) perspective. (!Warning: the series is significantly graphic in several parts)
Posted at 12:07AM Dec 06, 2008 by advargas in General | Comments[0]
Covetousness and Humanity
Well, I'll confess, I caught myself looking through stuff I really didn't need again. I like, technology, I kinda always have, so it's nice to spend hours looking through prices for the new macbook pros, seeing what they have done to the prices of the old macbook pros, browsing for a new mp3 player that I don't need, pondering whether I should buy VMWare Fusion and leave Parallels behind (I haven't fixed that problem yet, FYI), tracking prices for micro-SD cards, all sorts of stuff. But then I stop, and I'm like, whatamadoin'? I don't need that stuff, I can't use that stuff, I shouldn't really be buying that stuff, so, what the heck?
I guess I'm not really getting to a point other than technology is never going to take our human nature out of us. We can "engineer stuff to standards that don't even exist yet" but we can't take care of simple coveting, pride, laziness, etc. I just think it's interesting that one of the promises that technology makes that it is making humanity better and better is nothing more than something humans make up to make them feel good about themselves. Regardless of what you think of technology, you have to make sure you have other focuses in life, to balance yourself out and give yourself a real outlook on life.
Posted at 12:18AM Dec 05, 2008 by advargas in General | Comments[0]
Rosetta Stone
As I've mentioned before in my blog, I will be doing (or at least have have every intention to do) a Linguistics minor during in my undergraduate studies at NC State. I thoroughly enjoy languages and linguistics, speaking English, Spanish, and French, and having significant intelligibility of Arabic, Latin, Portuguese, Italian, and German, and a cursory knowledge of many other languages and dialects. Anyway, I first became interested in languages when, as a missionary kid in Spain, I met many college students from all over Europe and America doing study abroad at the University of Salamanca. I was fascinated that some of them spoke five (5!) or more (more!) languages; I frankly thought it was awesome, but more than anything, I think being around people like that prepared me mentally to recognize that multilinguilism IS an attainable feat.
But then I took Latin. Y'all know what I mean. Two years of excruciating rote memorization of nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative case endings, past, perfect, future, present and every combination of the above verb tenses, and lorem ipsum, yada yada yada. I still remember much of what I learned, but that's beside the point; learning Latin was not enjoyable. Fortunately, however, and this is where the technology comes in, I began taking French in ninth grade using the multimedia program Rosetta Stone. Compared to Latin, learning French was a picnic complete with cake and some water tubing. The program provided such an effortless, fun, and effective way to learn that I really don't see how I ever learned a even a smattering of Latin. A specific application of technology makes a task that has always been difficult so much simpler. Even fifteen or twenty years ago, the multimedia technology that Rosetta Stone needs didn't exist. I think that as programs like this one become more and more used and more and more improved, being global (i.e. being bi/mulilingual) will become easier and more practical just as other technologies make it more and more necessary and imperative.
Posted at 10:14AM Dec 03, 2008 by advargas in General | Comments[0]
Simple engineering
As average Americans, my family tries to minimize our energy bill. Not only is it good for the environment, but we also like to save as much as we can. Anyway, over the summer, one of the things I did was to thoroughly insulate the the one floor in our house from the crawlspace under the house. Yes, it was a pain, but that's not the point; the point is that last year our energy bill(s) for the month of September, for example, was over two hundred dollars, and this year, we only spent about seventy dollars. We used technology at hand, nothing fancy or state-of-the-art, and we sliced off nearly two thirds of our spending.
I think this relates readily to the book The Shock of the Old. I am sure our house is not the only house in the area, even on our block, that could have used better insulation. If everyone were to simply use the technology (insulation) we do have, an "energy crisis," such as the one we find ourselves in now, would be laughable, and no one (no politician, at least) would ever think to cover the expenses of, for instance, the proposals of President-elect Obama. Ultimately, when presented with a problem such as the enery crisis, we need to recognize that research is not the only answer. From the viewpoint of "human advancement," however, it probably is the most appealing, but from a simple economic viewpoint, effeciently using stuff that we already have in ways that we already know is considerably more than just another option.
Posted at 12:08AM Dec 03, 2008 by advargas in General | Comments[0]
not really, engineering, but...
I enjoy fundamental physics. I have read many books on relativity, string theory, quantum mechanics, multiple dimensions, and the like. Anyway, there is something that puzzles me. Before I say it, though, I'll give a word of explanation. There are several known fundamental forces, the gravitational, electromagnetic/weak/strong nuclear forces. Gravity, as we all know, acts upon the mass that matter has; more mass, more force. This also applies to the electromagnetic force, just switch out mass for charge and account for opposite signs. Also, gravity and electromagnetism both induce acceleration and motion by acting on their respective properties. What bugs me though, is why electromagnetism is allowed to cause a change in the mass distribution of the universe, and gravity a change in the charge distribution. Why can gravity move a charge, albeit indirectly? Maybe it's a stupid question, but it feels fishy.
Another thing I just thought of: one of the insights that Einstein had was that being stationary in a gravitational field is analogous to being in constant acceleration in outer space, or equivalently, being in freefall in a gravitational field is analogous to being stationary in outer space. Would it be possible to construct a valid thought experiment wherein the earth is a very large ball of protons and the object in question is a parcel of electrons; making a Generally Relativistic Theory of Electromagnetism? Of course, a ball of protons the size of earth could not exist (it would blow apart with the force of many, many, many, many, many atomic bombs), but theoretically, such a ball of charge is acceptable. Would the parcel of electrons "feel" acceleration as it races toward the prearth, or would it not be able to detect any such acceleration?
I'm glad I still have decades of life ahead; I can't wait what kind of answers the physicists/cosmologists/mathematicians come up with!
Posted at 05:29PM Dec 01, 2008 by advargas in General | Comments[0]
Phased Array Optics
When I applied to NC State last year, I pretty much only knew that I wanted to major in engineering. It was a promising field, and NCSU is such a good school and blah blah blah, but that was all I really knew. Early on, though, I decided to go for a Materials Science and Engineering major. (Materials Sci is basically just solid state chemistry; they look at the chemical and physical properties of matter at a small scale and stuff: Nanotechnology) Anyway, while investigating that major I came across a very interesting field within MSE, phased array optics. Phased array optics is the technology that tries to recreate a wave front of light in a specific cross-section of space. In other words, say you've got a window, but instead of glass, you've got a layer of material that creates rays of light that would mimic what would actually be going through the window if it was really glass. Instead of every point on the material being of a certain color and intensity (like in a TV screen), every point on the material emits a different light ray for each direction. If you've had any experience with Magic Eye or similar things; you should automatically tell that such a material would be able to make 3D images (true 3D images--not like those computer OSes that claim to be 3D). Also, PAO screens would theoretically be in full color by default, unlike holograms which really don't allow for full color. Such screens however, would require much more processing power than is presently possible (not only does every pixel have to addressed, but also every direction from every pixel), so PAO remains a nascent field.
An ability to create a wave front would be applicable in a myriad of ways. Besides the obvious enhancement to simple entertainment (although creating cameras that capture wave fronts is another task in itself), desktop computing would benefit from the added dimension; you might actually be able to move your head to be able to see around the window your working in now. Also, the technology would be applicable to education; med students, for instance, would be able to see organs and the human body as a whole in 3D, and unlike methods available now, they would potentially be able to look at it from different perspectives as they walk around the screen. One big different between convential screens and PAO is that, with sufficient resolution, getting your face really close to the screen does not make it hard to focus (like if you put your finger an inch from your eye, you can't focus on it); with sufficient resolution, the screen would effectively be invisible. Which brings us to another application, cloaking; a building surrounded by PAO screens that display plain grass, etc. would be invisible, and if the light displayed by those screens was extended to radio waves, it would also be invisible to radar. Also, PAO screens could project images in front of themselves, if a table was covered with a screen, it could display a 3D meal in perfection (at least viewed from above). The list could go on and on, phased array optics, once computing power becomes sufficient, is going to make plasma screens, LCD screen, basically every single kind of screen used today (and likely all of those produced within the next decade(s) ) completely obsolete. This is where visual technology is going
Posted at 08:25AM Nov 26, 2008 by advargas in General | Comments[0]
Boot Camp and Parallels
Boot Camp is a set of drivers and stuff that lets you run Windows XP or Vista on a Mac. What you do is partition your main hard drive, that is, split the hard drive in two so that it can function like two distinct hard drives; and install your copy of Windows onto the new partition after you have created it in Mac OS X. Boot Camp ultimately allows you to run both Windows and Mac at different times on the same machine.
(I know I sound like a commercial, but bear with me.) =)
And Parallels is a program that lets you start up Windows within a window while Mac OS X is still running, allowing you to run both operating systems at the same time. However, every time that Parallels runs Windows off of the Boot Camp partition that it's on, it alters some very critical system files, files that, if not returned to their correct state when you close the program Parallels, do not allow you to run Windows all by itself.
Well, that happened me.
What a pain!!!!!!! Fortunately, I had a backup of the Windows Boot Camp partition. So, I dutifully reformatted the Boot Camp partition and then put all of the files back onto it. But doing so caused the partition to be marked as unbootable; ergo, it still could not start up all by itself; problems, problems. Finally, after reformatting and repartitioning too many times and starting up Windows Recovery Console and reinstalling Windows and, and... well, you get the picture, I'm in the last steps (hopefully) to get Windows back and running; I'll post back to tell you whether it ended up working or not. I definitely hope programs and OSes and everything else computer related begin to be more universally cross-compatible. I've had enough of BSOD's (Blue Screen Of Death) and SBOD's (Spinning Beachball Of Death) to last me a long while. One prediction I can make, though, is that with the advent of the Internet, computing is becoming less and less hardware based; so maybe my wishes will become reality in not that many years.
Posted at 07:34PM Nov 15, 2008 by advargas in General | Comments[0]
Paperclips
I was reading Gooday's article linked from the Essay 2 assignment page (http://courses.ncsu.edu/sts302h/lec/002/gooday.pdf), and in the course of his argument, he mentioned the development of paperclips. Now paperclips are one of those things that you just don't ever really think about; you use them, you lose them, you move on. But, my curiosity was piqued, so I google the list of kinds of paperclips that Gooday gives: Gem, Gothic, Niagara, and Rinklip to see if I could find out some more about them, and I pulled up this page: http://www.officemuseum.com/paper_clips.htm. Wow, there used to be at least 43 kinds of paper clips! I've only ever used about 2 or 3 kinds, and it just tickled me that something so banal as a paperclip has so much history.
Learning about paperclips reminded me that engineering has really gone into everything we use, and much that we take for granted hasn't always been around. When we imagine going back in time, we usually think of being deprived of telephone, weather forecasts, computers, washing machines, etc. What we often fail to remember is that there use to not be indoor plumbing, readable lighting after dark, no advanced math or physics (some of you might not care!), no plastic (think of everything plastic you'd have to do without), no discardable eating ware, no liquid soap, no indoor plants (many fewer species, at least), no way to record sound, no well-cut clothing, no good mirrors, no artificial cooling (refrigeration or AC), ... , the list goes on. Modern society has so many new things that earlier civilizations couldn't have even imagined. Just imagine (or try) all things that are yet to come!
Posted at 10:35AM Nov 03, 2008 by advargas in General | Comments[0]
clel pohne dteah
My cell phone died today.
It's happened before, what with occasionally neglecting to recharge it, using too much juice playing games (Blackjack!), etc.... But today I just really needed to call my sister to arrange/finalize carpooling (I guess that's what we get for the various siblings going to UNC, DTCC, and NCSU, and all commuting!). The way it goes is that I got out of my first chem lab way early; so I was, like, cool, I'll buzz her, have her take the Robinson bus an hour earlier instead of waiting around at UNC, pick her up at Duke (!?!), get home early and we can all take a nice, hour longer of a nap. Well, RIGHT, like that's gonna happen. I opened up my phone and, bam!, I got blackscreened. No vida; dead as a doornail. So, I rather disappointedly plopped down in the Fox lounge, cracked open my Mac and started typing--you got it--this blog entry for the next hour.
I think this just goes to show how much technology has changed communication and all our lives through that change; even ten years ago, plans were plans, they couldn't be readily changed, and no one (beside the cellphone engineers, of course) really cared. I believe we can expect even more similar changes to occur as the Internet becomes available whenever and everywhere and as live information is made available to a wider audience.
Posted at 02:49PM Sep 05, 2008 by advargas in General | Comments[1]