Claude Shannon

Every digital device you use operates on a string of ones and zeroes, the binary "yes/no" decision at the foundation of modern computing. It's a concept so fundamental to our modern day that we rarely stop to wonder where it came from. But it's all the work of one man: Claude Shannon, whose fascinating story you've likely never heard.

The name would mean nothing to me, either, if it weren't for this gorgeous little video essay from Delve. Shannon, a mathematician, electronic engineer, and cryptographer, was the first person to understand that any form of data could be transferred in the most basic packets: bits, nothing more than a slew of yes and no toggles. As Delve explains, that idea forever changed the way we communicate.

Shannon's work earned him little fame, but the first principles he theorized make every digital thing we do today possible. As we type, tap, pinch, zoom, dictate, download, message and chat our way through every day, it's hard to imagine what life would be like without his innovations.

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Note: Claude Shannon was written about in the first chapter of Fortune's Formula.

OTA DVRs

Aereo promised a breakthrough service for cord-cutters: the ability to watch and record over-the-air TV without the hassle of an antenna or additional hardware for $8 to $12 a month.

Wednesday's Supreme Court decision against Aereo means the company's current service is effectively illegal. (CBS, the parent company of CNET, is one of the companies that brought the suit against Aereo.) But that doesn't mean that cable cutters are out of options. Over the last year, several compelling over-the-air recording solutions have hit the market, making it easier for cord cutters to supplement streaming video services like Netflix with traditional network television, as long as you get reception.

I've reviewed most of the major over-the-air DVRs and the good news is the options are far better than they've been in the past. Each solution has its strengths and weaknesses, so which one is best for you will largely depend on your budget, viewing habits, and level of tech savvy.

Let's take a look at what's available.

TiVo Roamio: The best, if you're willing to pay

Channel Master DVR+: No-frills recording at a budget price

Nuyvvo Tablo: Innovative option that's best for techies

Simple.TV 2: Improved, but with competition

Other options: Skip the DVR or roll your own (Hauppage HD PVR)

*** [6/7/16 inspired from a scribbled note written who knows how long ago.  I looked at this before but I guess I never wrote about it here in this blog.]

Another option is the Silicon Dust HD Homerun Prime.

It's not an OTA DVR, but is a possible replacement for the DVR from your cable company.  It accepts a cable card.  However it doesn't connect directly to your TV.  It connects to your computer which can be connected to your TV.  Currently works with Windows 7 media center.  Alternatively you can use an XBox 360 as a Windows Media Center Extender to watch on your TV.  I don't know the current compatibility with Windows 10.

The homepage says "QAM - Live US CableTV with DRM Support (CableCARDtm conditional access) streaming Premium cable channels throughout your home."  So maybe you can just connect your cable directly to it?  [Well, the HDHomerun CONNECt apparently can.]

Check out Lon Seidman's youtube videos for more info.

Silicon Dust's OTA DVR product is the HDHomerun CONNECT.

You connect your OTA antenna to it and attach it to your router.  Then any computer on the network can access the signal and play and record TV.  Apparently it supports the Fire TV?

And coming up (hopefully), the HD Homerun DVR which would reduce the need for the convoluted hardware setups (and Windows Media Center).

I recall I saw the HD Homerun mentioned on twit.  Don't think it was this episode.  Or was it this one? (which mentions Clear QAM and tuners with CableCards).  Yeah, I think this is the one.

Android TV

Android TV is one of the myriad new things that Google announced this year at I/O, and the platform is very different from Google’s previous effort with Google TV, a project announced in 2010 and updated continually since but that still hasn’t managed to become a significant part of Google’s lineup.

Google is looking to change all that with Android TV. It’s a brand new platform, designed with simplicity and relevance in mind, with an interface that puts a strong emphasis on content first, and then offers up apps ordered based on your usage patterns and focuses finally on delivering top-quality Android games right to your big screen.

Content, apps and games; that’s it, and it’s a smart move by Google to pare down and focus on the core experiences that matter to TV watchers. Over and over, the company spoke to its new desire to provide the right interface for the right situation on the right device, and Android TV is a great example of that theory put into action, at least based on our early impressions.

It’s similar in many ways to what Amazon has done with the Fire TV, but Google’s interface is better-designed and less confusing, and it probably will have a better time incorporating content sources from third-party providers than will Amazon, thanks to its developer tools and the advantages devs have by building apps that work across Android wherever it happens to appear.

*** [10/29/14]

Google announces its Nexus Player.  It reminds the cordkillers folks of the Amazon Fire TV.

the AND car (Elio)

NEW YORK — Some time next year, a company called Elio Motors claims it will begin building a car in its Louisiana factory that will get 84 miles per gallon on the highway and that will sell for a base price of $6,800.

Yes, $6,800.

It won’t be a tiny little deathtrap, either. It’ll have a five-star crash safety rating. At least, that’s what Elio is promising.

That sounds like the wish-list of someone with zero contact with reality, but Elio Motors executives insist it’s possible thanks to the car’s odd lay-out and the complete lack of any new technology. Yes, these folks actually brag that their car has nothing new on it.

Paul Elio, who founded Elio Motors from the crumbled remains of his auto parts design business, said this car isn’t intended to replace the family car, and by the looks of it, clearly it’s not.

“We want to be an ‘and’ not an ‘or’” he said.

The Elio Motors car — it has no model name and they plan to keep it that way — is a three wheeler. There are two wheels out front, separated from the rest of the body, and one back wheel. The engine — 3 cylinders producing 55 horsepower — rides in the nose driving the front wheels.

The weird three-wheeled shape optimizes aerodynamics by cutting way down on frontal area and giving the car a nearly ideal “teardrop” body. Having only three wheels also allows the Elio car to be, in legal terms, a motorcycle.

That should let the company skate by on much looser safety requirements. But, Elio insists, they don’t plan on taking advantage of that loophole. The car will be tested in regular automobile crash tests and, they insist, it will get top marks.

Elio Motors says it’s keeping prices low and chances for success high by keeping things simple. All the parts are being made by established automotive suppliers. The cars will be built in a factory that used to make Hummer H3s and Chevrolet trucks. Even the manufacturing process has been simplified, company executives say. The cars will be built with no options. Most options will be added on after the car is built.

The Elio reminded me of another car: the now defunct Aptera.

The Aptera was an electric car that also used a three-wheel design. It looked like a private aircraft fuselage that was driving itself to the airport. I drove the Aptera back in 2010. That was after years of starts, stalls as the company tried to actually produce its revolutionary new vehicles.

Then, less than a year after I tested the car, Aptera went down for the final time, never having made it to market.

On the other hand, while the Elio car seems crazy and weird, Tesla seemed like a long shot to me once, too. The fact remains, though, start-ups in the auto business have a tough road ahead of them.

*** [8/16/14]

Phoenix-based Elio plans to start making the cars next fall at a former General Motors plant in Shreveport, Louisiana. Already, more than 27,000 people have reserved one. Elio hopes to make 250,000 cars a year by 2016. That's close to the number Mazda sells in the U.S.

Supreme Court rules against Aereo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that online TV service Aereo Inc, backed by media mogul Barry Diller, violates copyright law by using tiny antennas to provide subscribers with broadcast network content via the Internet.

In a 6-3 ruling seen as important to the future of television for media companies and consumers alike, the court handed a victory to the four major TV broadcasters and cast Aereo’s immediate future into doubt.

The court said the service constitutes a public performance of copyrighted content. For the networks, the victory protects the estimated $3 billion in so-called retransmission fees that broadcasters get from cable and satellite TV systems.

Justice Stephen Breyer said in the majority opinion that the ruling should not spell trouble for cloud-based content services in which personal files - including TV shows and music - are stored remotely on the Internet on servers from companies such as Google Inc , Microsoft Corp , DropBox Inc and Box Inc.

Aereo had argued that cloud services use the Internet in the same way as it does to store and transfer copyrighted content.

The case came before the court when Walt Disney Co's ABC network, CBS Corp, Comcast Corp's NBCUniversal and Twenty-First Century Fox Inc appealed a decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in April 2013 that denied their request to shut Aereo down while litigation moves forward.

Aereo, backed by Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp, charges users a low monthly fee to stream live broadcasts of TV channels on mobile devices using miniature antennas that the company hosts. Aereo does not pay the broadcasters. It was introduced in 2012.

During oral arguments in the case in April, the Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical about Aereo's position in the copyright dispute with major broadcasters, but several raised concerns about how a ruling against the startup could affect cloud computing services.

Some broadcasters such as CBS Corp had even threatened to cut off their free-to-air broadcast signals or create their own low-cost Internet feeds of the channel were Aereo to win.

[11/21/14] Aereo files bankruptcy

13 pioneers

that forever changed consumers' lives

Apple
Facebook
Google
Netflix
Craigslist
Amazon
Wikipedia
TiVo
Pandora
Square
Magellan
Blackberry
Tesla

No, eBay?

[via facebook]

inside the mind of Elon Musk

When Robert Downey Jr. found out that he was going to play Iron Man in the movies, he said, "We need to sit down with Elon Musk."

That's because Musk — colonizer of Mars, transformer of cars, shepherd of solar panels — is the closest thing we've got to a superhero.

Born in South Africa, he sold his first software — a game called Blastar — when he was only 11. He went on to found and sell a startup to Compaq for $300 million in 1999, and parlayed that into a major stake in PayPal, which eBay bought for $1.5 billion in 2002.

With that dough, he got into three world-changing companies: Tesla, SpaceX, and Solar City. And though Tesla and SpaceX nearly went bankrupt, each of the companies is now shifting their industries.

Yet Musk — with his 100-hour workweeks, estimated $11.7 billion net worth, and habit of never taking a note in meetings — remains enigmatic. So we went looking for clues to his vision, goals, and thinking process.

Here's what we found.

[via facebook]

FreeNAS

an operating system that fits on a flash drive (and more)

The Steve Jobs of Toilets

Yoshiaki Fujimori wants to be the Steve Jobs of toilets.

Like iPhones, app-packed commodes are objects of desire in Mr. Fujimori's Japan. The lids lift automatically. The seats heat up. Built-in bidets make cleanup a breeze. Some of them even sync with users' smartphones via Bluetooth so that they can program their preferences and play their favorite music through speakers built into the bowl.

Three-quarters of Japanese homes contain such toilets, most of them made by one of two companies: Toto, Japan's largest maker of so-called sanitary ware, or Lixil Corp, where Mr. Fujimori is the chief executive.

Now Mr. Fujimori is leading a push to bring them to the great unwashed. In May, Lixil plans to add toilets with "integrated bidets" to the lineup of American Standard Brands, which Lixil acquired last year for $542 million, including debt.

While bidets have often served as a byword for Old World debauchery in the U.S., Mr. Fujimori said Americans would welcome bidet-equipped toilets into their homes once they see them sold under a familiar name. Few people realized they needed smartphones until Apple's (AAPL) iPhone came along. So it will be in the U.S. with American Standard's new toilets, Mr. Fujimori said.

"Industry presents iPhone -- industry presents shower toilet," Mr. Fujimori said in an interview at Lixil's headquarters in Tokyo. "We can create the same type of pattern."

Toto and Kohler, a U.S. manufacturer of bathroom fittings, have been selling toilets with bidet functions in the U.S. for several years. Beyond a niche market of Hollywood celebrities and early adopters, however, they feature more prominently in American bathroom humor than American bathrooms. The price, which can range up to more than $5,000 for high-end models -- more than 10 times the price of some conventional toilets -- is only one reason.

In a 2011 appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," the actress Whoopi Goldberg called her Toto Washlet "the greatest invention on the face of the earth." Homer Simpson, on the other hand, merely looked bemused when, during a 1999 episode of "The Simpsons" that was set in Japan, a hotel toilet announced: "Welcome. I am honored to accept your waste."

power cord labels

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Windows 8.1

finally decided to upgrade the Windows 8.0 on my notebook
took a while to download
it ran in the background as I was doing other things (didn't even realize it was downloading)

complete installation / it requires you to have a Microsoft account (I used my hotmail account)
now has a new desktop background
a start button on the desktop (which goes to the Metro desktop)
and a power off button near the top right of the Metro screen

OneDrive must now be part of Windows 8.1 as it is being installed automatically

now asks for a password on startup (your Microsoft account)
set it so it logs in automatically

just noticed it boots to the desktop instead of the Metro screen
seemed to take longer to boot up now though (at first anyway)
I also see an option to x out of Metro apps (in addition to dragging them down)

tried accessing some files on OneDrive.  at first it didn't work.  In my case, I tried running editpad, but it errored out because the .ini file wasn't available.  So I clicked on it and it came up in notepad.  I guess that made the .ini file available because editpad worked after that.

I see now I could have right-clicked to make it available offline (which I assume downloads it to the computer).

I also now see that Windows 8.1 requires a password after entering sleep mode
Changed it to not require a password on wakeup

Particle Fever

I suppose I should be interested in this movie.  Maybe it'll come to Netflix or RedBox and I'll can watch it.

In the meantime, you can watch this (which might be just as good or better - it seems really good after watching the first minute or so).

see also The Footprint of God for more on the Higgs boson

[10/6/14] Particle Fever currently streaming on Netflix.  Apparently arrived in July.

Turing Test finally passed

Judges in England were fooled into thinking the computer program they were conversing with was a human on Saturday — making the it the first to pass the 65-year-old Turing Test.        

"Eugene Goostman" is not a 13-year-old boy, but 33 percent of the people who partook in five minute keyboard conversations with the computer program at the Royal Society in London thought it was, according to The University of Reading, which organized the test.

The Turing Test is based on “the father of modern computer science” Alan Turing’s question, “Can Machines Think?”

If a computer is mistaken for a human by more than 30 percent of judges, it passes the test, but no computer has accomplished the feat — until now.

“Eugene” was created in Saint Petersburg, Russia, by software development engineer Vladimir Veselov and software engineer Eugene Demchenko, according to the University of Reading. The computer program was tested along with four others during Saturday night’s event, but was the only one to thoroughly imitate a person.

“Our whole team is very excited with this result,” Veselov said. “Going forward we plan to make Eugene smarter and continue working on improving what we refer to as 'conversation logic.’”

GameGavel

Another place to buy/sell video games.

This guy is selling his world record collection of 11,000+ video games.  Bid is up to $230,000 with 8 days left.

[6/19/14] Last week, Michael Thomasson put his record-setting video game collection up to auction. Thomasson has amassed the largest video game collection in the world, with almost 11,000 unique games. It's now gone to the highest bidder for three-quarter of a million dollars.

Thomasson sold this collection, along with the Guinness World Record he received in 2012, for $750,250. That's about $68 per game. Many of the games in his collection are originals, still in their packaging. He began this collection in 1998. Years of working for a game resale website and managing a gaming store allowed Thomasson to create a unique and impressive collection. Now, someone can proudly display all the titles or resell them individually at a profit.

The auction received over fifty bids, including two from Oculus Rift creator Palmer Luckey. A bidding war between two users began around the $500,000 mark, increasing the price a quarter of a million dollars in about seven hours.

whose line is it?

When you look at the lines on a utility pole, you may notice there are several sets of lines.

Most of the utility poles on Hawai‘i Island are jointly owned and may carry electric, telephone, and cable TV lines.

As you’ll see in the photo at right, higher voltage electric lines are situated at the very top of the utility pole, with lower voltage lines directly underneath. Telephone and cable lines are located farther down the pole.

P.S. Don't call the phone number in the document as I think the pdf is the Maui edition of the insert and lists the Maui number.

P.P.S.  Ah, here's the Oahu edition.

bing vs. google

I did a search for the following text which was in the Hawaiian Electric insert that they include with the bill

"when you look at the lines on a utility pole, you may notice there are several sets of lines"

when I entered it in bing, I didn't find the document I was looking for

but when I entered it in google, I did

Then I entered it in bingiton and it came out with the result I was looking for.

So why is the result on bing and bingiton different?  Hmm.

Now I started bingiton fresh and entered the search, and bing doesn't have it.  Hmm again.

...  Funny when I enter the search phrase without the w of the when, Bing finds it.  That's because the W in the pdf file is actually a graphic W and not a text w.  So google appears to be smarter.

(But I still use Bing because they give me 15 cents a day to do 30 searches.)

free anti-virus

[10/1/14] Panda tops rankings of anti-virus software

[6/1/14]  I routinely install Microsoft Security Essentials for people's computers.  Because it's free and it's from Microsoft.  So you wouldn't think you could go far wrong.

But is it the best choice out there?  Techlogon.com put the top free anti-virus programs to the test.

The results?  Avast is the winner followed by Avira, AVG, and MSE.

But then they tried ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus.  And liked it better than the other four.