My Talks at DragonCon 2010
DragonCon starts next week!
Once again, I've been invited to speak in both the Space and Science tracks (which are over in the Hilton, across the street from the truly crazy stuff). I have three presentations: [Read more...]
Posted August 28th, 2010, 1:23 pm EDT by stephenfleming
Notes on China: Tourist Technology
Cheating
It's easy to despair of the language problem. And, indeed, I didn't find anything that would help me with reading the pictogram language. But I found a way to cheat in trying to converse with people.
I downloaded a bunch of utilities for my iPhone. [Read more...]
Posted August 22nd, 2010, 9:38 pm EDT by stephenfleming
Thoughts on the iPad
When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad yesterday, my first thoughts were "Ooooh! Shiny! I want one!"
Then I read the orgy of criticism that washed over the blogosphere last night about all the device's perceived failings and, on mature and considered reflection...
I still want one.
(Maybe two, so I don't have to fight with my wife over it.) [Read more...]
Posted January 28th, 2010, 10:38 am EST by stephenfleming
Why a Tablet?
The Apple faithful are all a-twitter about the possibility of Apple introducing a tablet computer at the end of this month. [Read more...]
Posted January 3rd, 2010, 10:09 pm EST by stephenfleming
Boingo at Hartsfield
This is too long to tweet...
At Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, Boingo contracts with the airport for Wi-Fi carriage. That means they don't control their own infrastructure.
I run JungleDisk on my Mac, which continually backs up selected directories to Amazon S3. I highly recommend their service. But, if it detects an Internet connection, it will silently start chewing up bandwidth to back up the files that have recently changed. So I connected successfully using my Boingo password, started to check my mail, got a few messages, then BOOM. Blacklisted.
Posted September 16th, 2009, 9:11 am EDT by stephenfleming
Posted from Seat 4B…
...just because I can! In-flight Wi-Fi is cool.
Posted August 4th, 2009, 12:14 pm EDT by stephenfleming
It’s Electric!
For a month or so now, I've been enjoying my newest toy. It's a Wentz electric bike... which is a bicycle with a built-in motor assist. [Read more...]
Posted June 15th, 2009, 9:26 pm EDT by stephenfleming
Augmented Reality at Georgia Tech
Interesting article on Augmented Reality research at Georgia Tech here. One of the linked videos demonstrates a Virtual Pet application on a current generation iPhone. The iPhone overlays an animated image of a dog on realtime video input from the iPhone's camera. The result is a pet that appears to reside in the real world in front of you.
One of the reasons I love what I do... getting to hang out with cool guys like Blair McIntyre!
Posted April 9th, 2009, 4:20 pm EDT by stephenfleming
American Maglev
Jeff Foxworthy said once, "If the directions to your place include the phrase 'Turn off the paved road,' you might be a redneck."
I'm not sure if American Maglev would appreciate the comparison, but it's apt. A little ways off Thornton Road in Powder Springs, about twenty miles west of Atlanta, down an unpaved road, is a glimpse of the future. I got a chance to visit them yesterday.
[Read more...]
Posted March 27th, 2009, 2:11 am EDT by stephenfleming
Wanted: Macintosh Archaeologist
Here's the situation. I have about three cubic meters of obsolete computers, peripherals, and other electronic crap sitting in storage. A couple of ancient Macs (including a pair of PowerBook 2400c "netbooks"). Miscellaneous printers and scanners. Disk drives. A fax machine. At least one stereo system. A handful of Handspring/Palm Treos. Probably a dozen wireless phones. Other stuff. And cables. Bozhe moi, the cables. I could tie down King Kong with the cables. Mostly pre-USB... Apple ADB, and power cables, and SCSI cables as thick as your thumb.
Most of this stuff worked when I put it into storage a couple of years ago. (A couple of the Treos have display problems.) It offends my soul to just take it all into an electronics recycling place. But I certainly don't have time to do anything else with it.
So... I need an archaeologist to (1) take it all away, (2) sort through it and figure out what's what, and (3) post it all on eBay. You keep half of the net proceeds after shipping; I get half.
This would be a great task for a slightly-geeky high school student wanting some cash... or for anyone in the tech business between jobs right now. It'd be nice if you knew something about Macs in the 1990s to make the writeups easier, but if you don't, Google knows everything.
Any interest? Email me.
Posted March 22nd, 2009, 7:52 pm EDT by stephenfleming
