fuzzyraygun

I noticed this news story about Microsofts “Revolutionary” touch screen called “Surface”.

The only problem being that it is in fact old technology. Hell the Apple iPhone will be out in an actual product in a few weeks using a technology that Microsoft can barely get out of the lab.

How about this use from a few years ago
Here is the presentation of the technology by Jeff Han last year in February at the TED conference.

How about this one using Linux

How about a nice comparison of Vista vs. UBUNTU BERYL

I often get mad and these pathetic puff pieces because the people writing them, if they actually wrote them, missed the most obvious stuff in sourcing the story. I mean they write about technology for a living! Could they miss the fact that this is not Microsoft’s idea at all. In fact, its a crappy half assed version of an idea from PHd students at a University. This is all the big gorilla can make? A lame ass coffee table?

I don’t write technology pieces and I was able to go too YouTube and type in “Multi Touch” and find all these references that looked better than Microsoft’s “revolutionary” lightable. Not to mention the fact that in 2 weeks Apple will come out with an actual working product.

Maybe I should have a section of my blog titled angry technology ramblings. I think that would fit better.

At Least News.com did a little bit of digging

Check out this funny video by Sarcastic Gamer

This is one of lots of news stories about this guy and his amazing invention. How long will this story take to get on regular news around the US. These stories were posted on YouTube days ago.

Youtube Video

Maybe we can use all that rising ocean water for fuel?

Alanna and I have been together 7 years and counting. Sometimes we’re both amazed at how much fun we still have together. The little day to day stuff sort of piles up around us, but we have a great way of seeing through that and being thankful to be around each other. To enjoy each other everyday.

From what I have seen, Adobe doesn’t have much to worry about with Silverlight.

As is typical with MS products these days, they bring them out to early and with all the fanfare of an tarted up over age hooker at a McDonalds birthday party. Same pig, different lipstick.

I found some of the Mix demos kinda funny in that weeks later Microsoft announced that it bought the company “Avenue A Razorfish” (Aquantive) that did all the demos for them. I guess if you are worried about people adopting your new platform buy a company in the industry and make them use it. Worked for there game platform didn’t it? They will have no problem with people having the runtime because they will use Windows Update to make sure everyone has it, while making it harder for the Flash plugin to work. Anti-Trust problems anybody?

This is Microsofts answer to Flash. This is Flash for their Visual Studio developer crowd. They have a base of developers that were feeling a little left out in the cold by Flash and Ajax and this is their answer. Most of the articles that I have looked at talk to VS developers who are very excited about being able to re-use their coding skills to do Ajax and Flash type stuff. They are not really talking to Flash developers about it. We’ll see how it all plays out.

Name me one successful MS product launch in the last 5 years besides the Xbox? Zune? Windows Live? Vista? Some people think this is just a Fire and Motion strategy by MS to keep the ground moving under peoples feet.

If you really think about it, an 800lb gorilla will collapse under its own weight.

Apollo is Adobe’s Flash based knock off/competitor to the .NET Framework while Silverlight is Microsoft’s .NET Framework based knock off/competitor to the Flash platform.

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life

I never thought I would run into software activation problems with such a big company, but I guess that is the way it goes.

I recently bought an upgrade to my Reason 2.0 software. Reason is made by Properllerhead which I thought was one of the most computer savy and with it software makers to make audio software. But I guess I was wrong.

What I ran into was this. If you buy an upgrade you need to verify the software. In order to verify the software you have to have an account. If you do not get the verification email from Propellerhead you are SOL until you hear from them.

Their entire software platform is dependent upon their email servers receiving and answering “Verification” email. Talk about the weakest link the chain. If this is not an automatic process, they are seriously more fucked than I thought.

So here I sit. I have paid Propellerhead $600 for software and upgrades that will not work simply because their email servers are down. Does that sound right?

And how about this. In order to see the forums, to maybe try and find some help, you need what? That’s right “Account Activation”!!!

A nice kicker to this is that after hours of waiting for the activation email, when it come and I am able to try and register my previous product so that my new upgrade will work, I am unable to register my old product because it informs me that someone else has my serial number. SWEET!!!

My box of Reason has been sitting on my shelf gathering dust for years, and I thought it was a waste of money. The minute I think maybe I should use it and buy an upgrade, I am faced with the exact “Reason” i probable stopped using it to begin with.

Update:
————————————————-
Well it turns out that its “User Error“. Propellerhead sent me a nice email informing me that I actually have registered my product back in 2002 under a different user name. I have since moved all my computer stuff over to a MAC so I have no record of my registration or any emails from Propellerhead. Although this does not change the fact that it took them a few hours to get me an account activation to find any of this out

There is a funny interview with Trent Reznor with the Herald Sun in Australia. He talks about people stealing music, including himself, and about how the major labels are ripping off his fans.

I think he has part of it right with the idea that more people would pay for music legally if it was priced affordable. His idea to use other methods to get people interested in the his music, like the ARG (Alternate Reality Game) he built around the album just shows how far in front of the labels he is.

Hey Trent, maybe you should be running your own label?

Link to Article >>

Link to Trents Blog >>

There is a great piece running at SFgate about the summer of lover in SF. It’s really good to see them taking a fresh look at the mythology surrounding San Francisco in the mid to late 60s.

When I moved into my building in the mid 90s the building manager told us about how the Haight Ashbury had turned into this crime ridden dope den and that it was a hangover from the summer of love. He told us stories of people passed out in the halls. Drug dealers lighting curtains on fire.

We heard other stories around the neighborhood from these total assholes who talked proudly of setting up crash pads for all these people who were invading the city. They would rent a place for just about nothing and then get money from all these kids just to sleep on the floor. He laughed about all the money he made off of the dumb kids. I guess love was free, but a floor to sleep on and a bowl of rice would cost you.

If you take a stroll down the Haight today you will see a lot of people who are still looking for that elusive summer of love that was never really here.

Link to Article >

Alanna and I got ourselves out of bed around 9am on sunday to go out and watch all the crazy people for a little bit. There were some good costumes as well as some good floats.

I think the money system for the event is kinda screwy though. So the mens and womens winners each get $7k and the Hayes street hill is worth a prem. of $5k for the men and the women. But the first person to cross the finish line gets $25k.. and the women get a 4:40 head start?

John Korir, 31, crossed the finish line at Ocean Beach with a time of 34 minutes, 44 seconds. He got $7,000

Edna Kiplagat, also of Kenya, in 38:55. But she got $37,000…

Does that make any sense? Why does so much of the prize money go to the first person to cross the line? Is this supposed to be a man against woman race? How about just giving the mens and womens first place finishers more money?

We had a great time at our party Saturday. Lots of people came out, we had a bunch of food and beer and wine. Some people from our building came out as well. It was great to see so many people from years past.

We had just enough. Just enough food, just enough tables, just enough chairs, just enough beer, just enough sun. It was sweet.

People kept talking about how we should have a movie night out on the patio where we project movies against the big back wall. Sounds like lots of fun. Hope we have some warm nights this summer when we can do that.

Here are some pics

I went to my Orthopaedic (Is that really how you spell that?) surgeon to follow up about my arm. I guess it’s sounds pretty bad when you start talking about your Orthopaedic surgeon like he is someone you talk to all the time. Like the mail main or something.

Looks like I am going under the knife once again this summer. This time to repair the ligament damage between my ulna and radius. I forget the name of the procedure they are going to do on me this time. I think it is the “Hack & Saw” procedure.
(That is a little surgeon humor.)

Here is a picture of all the metal that is in my arm from the last surgery.

Wrist Procedure: Sauvé-Kapandji