Harleys, Cars, Girls & Guitars

Building My First Holodeck

I'm taking the plunge! I'm going to gear up for VR and build a little VR studio in my new apartment. The core purchase for this will be an HTC Vive VR headset, pictured on the right below.

The Oculus Rift headset on the left and the HTC Vive are the main competitors in the early Holodeck market. Pricey toys! Oculus goes for about $700. Vive goes for $800! And, I'll have to buy a new PC with a powerful enough CPU and graphics card to run the VR software programs. Total investment of around $2,500.

Frankly, it's too early for the casual user to get into the consumer VR toys. The tech is still in its infancy. Best to wait a few more rounds. All the gadgets will function better and be cheaper in the future.

I'm getting in now because I'm thinking about becoming a content developer in the VR medium. Exactly what type of content I will develop... I haven't decided that yet. I want to find out early in the game what works and what doesn't.

I'm going with HTC Vive for simple reasons. The player in the VR space can stand up as well as sit down. That's because the system includes a couple of locator beams that define a play space in the user's room. I'll design a space in my new apartment to be used solely as a play space for my Holodeck.

As might be expected, the early leading content genres for VR headsets are porn, war and other type of shoot 'em up games, and environment building games, just as they were in the 2D environment of PCs. 

One of the reasons a casual user might want to wait a couple of years to get into the VR game is that not enough programming content has yet been built for the VR market.

As I said, I'm getting in early so that I can start to work out where I fit in as a developer. As with all tech innovations, particularly ones with great promise in the consumer market, there's a ton of money to be made in VR. 

I don't yet know how my skills fit in. I don't know what works and doesn't work.

After I move, I'll set up my own little Holodeck in my apartment and start answering these questions. 

Garmin Edge 200 GPS Bicycle Computer

In retirement, I can't afford to buy all the electronic doodads that I want. So, it was a little bit of a thrill to buy a new GPS bicycle computer. Arrived in two days by mail from Amazon! 130 bucks.

I wasn't too clear on how the GPS ("Global Positioning System") works. So, it was a bit of a surprise to discover that access to the system of positioning satellites is free, i.e., does not demand a subscription. 

Here's a simple article explaining GPS. Below, one of the least annoying videos I could find that explains the GPS system:

The Garmin Edge 200 required very little setup. For some reason, the default menu language was French. Took me a little while to figure out how to get to the menu option to change that to English.

I immediately set out to try out my routine routes. On Saturday, I did my 10 mile route. On Sunday, the 15 mile route.

Mapping a route is incredibly simple with the Edge 200. Turn the thing on, wait for it to tell you it has linked with the GPS system, press "Start" and begin riding. You get three constant pieces of info... speed, distance traversed and time elapsed. The precision of a GPS system is beautiful.

The Edge 200 does not map in the way that a car GPS system does. A bicycle system that can pre-draw navigational maps costs about $400.

But you can connect the Edge via USB to your computer, then go to the garminconnect.com site to upload your rides to a mapping system.

Another USB device to charge! And, this is one that I use almost every day. That means clipping and unclipping the Edge 200 to the crappy mount that comes standard with the unit. No doubt, that mount will fall apart with heavy use. I've already ordered a sturdier mount.

I've got a mess of USB cables growing out of the back of my iMac.

It's not so easy to get lost nowadays. When you think of all the tech advances that have changed how we perceive reality, two really stand out to me... constant awareness of precise time and location.

I have a digital clock in every room in my house, not by intent, but because every electronic entertaining device or appliance has a built in digital clock. The clocks are all right on the money, too, since I set them to the wifi synchronized clock on my computer.

Now, with GPS, we also always know precisely where we stand on this earth. And, what direction we are moving in.

The Garmin Edge 200 is a fascinating device. 

Online Scam Aimed at Motorcycle Sellers

I put the Harley up for sale on craigslist a week or so ago. A potential buyer contacted me and asked me if I could tell him something more about the "history" of the bike. I thought I had described the bike adequately in the ad... you know, the usual stuff, mileage and service history, that I was the only owner, etc. But, I wanted to be helpful, so I answered with a few more bits of info. 

The next day, the potential buyer sent me the following e-mail message:

Hi again, Thanks for detailed and honest answer. I believe that the bike is in good shape. However, I'm interested in seeing a history report for your bike before I make you an offer. If you don't have one, I'd really appreciate it if you can get it from cyclevin.us because I'd like to pay you back if we make a deal, and they're a lot cheaper than carfax. I'd get it myself but I don't want to risk it being bad and just end up wasting my money. If everything is ok on the report, I would like to see the motorcycle tomorrow, If you are free. Hope to hear from you soon.

Something about that message seemed entirely too canned to me... especially that "honest answer" bit and his belief that "bike is in good shape."

So, I Googled the cyclevin.us site. I found numerous complaints of this sort.

Apparently, cyclevin.us is a phishing site with a pretty clever angle. The owner seems to scan craigslist motorcycle for sale ads all over the country. He then contacts sellers and plays out this song and dance about wanting a more detailed history of the bike.

The 25 bucks apparently just disappears into the scam artist's bank account.

My son-in-law, who sells a lot on line tells me I'm very lucky I didn't put a credit card down on this site. The site very likely is also involved in identity theft. It may also serve as a way to identify the location of cycles worth stealing.

This is the second time I put the Harley up for sale. The first time, in early spring, I received a flood of responses. But, I went down with the kidney stones and had two operations, leaving me unable to respond to anybody. Now that I've recovered and put the bike back up for sale, I'm getting very few responses.

Apparently, motorcycle buyers like to buy at the beginning of the season to get full use out of the motorcycle for an entire riding season.

Internet Enemies... Letting Go

Chat boards and weblogs really took off in the late 1990s, although the tech for them had existed since the early 70s. Those early chat boards tended to be pretty gentle places inhabited by computer geeks. By the late 90s, the furious arguments and name calling that we now associate with chat boards and weblogs had become standard.

After Myrna died in 2004, this internet chatting and arguing became a source (a mostly horrifically negative source) of companionship. There seems to be no topic to chat and argue about on a day to day basis except for politics.

So, I speak here as a sinner. It is only since I retired that I've mostly let go of ferocious internet arguments with long standing enemies. Why did I let go?

First, I wanted peace of mind. Fixating on the next argument with one's internet enemy leaves very little mental space for doing anything else. You just can't let that bastard who insulted you on some doofus weblog win!

Second, the reasons for intense fights on the internet faded away with each successive year of retirement. Political fighting is really a turf battle over who gets what, and my status in that regard is not going to change for the remainder of my life.

One of my most ferocious long term enemies was a hothead named Ritmo, who still continues to say the most awful shit he can imagine on Althouse's weblog. He, I think, originated the tactic of announcing in his opening comments that he considers himself a brilliant intellectual, so that anybody who disagrees with him is obviously an idiot.

"Go read a book!" is one of his favorite jibes.

Ritmo's quickly shifts tactics once he's challenged and loses ground. Then he resorts to the great internet atomic bomb... "You're a bigot!"

I particularly enjoyed baiting Ritmo and setting him off in a frenzy. For all his self-announced intellectualism, he flew off the handle and started raving with very little prodding.

Watching him explode was amusing, but even that got boring and took up too much energy I could spend doing something else, like playing music.

Another long term enemy was a former editor of Time Magazine who, inexplicably, loathed everything about Christianity but had a weak spot for Islam. And, this guy grew up near Springfield, Illinois. The editor was another manic bigot hunter. Every disagreement with him was one sort of bigotry or another.

I kept arguing with this guy for a long time out of sheer amazement that somebody that crazy could occupy such a prominent job. But, that got old, too.

One of my siblings even volunteered to be a fierce internet enemy. Her life has been destroyed by drug arrests, failure of her children and failure to figure out how to make a decent living. So, she needs a scapegoat. She's tried out various members of the family. I've tried everything I can do to shut off access to any of my websites, Facebook account or weblog. She's resorted to using fake names so that she can get through to rant at me about how I'm responsible for the mess of her life.

I take the Sabbath off from internet discussion now, partly to observe God's day, and partly to stop the long running arguments and name calling. It works, too. Say nothing. Don't respond. Don't be baited.

Pay attention to what's really important in one's own life.

Life 2.0... Lost in the Virtual World

I watched Life 2.0 on Netflix a couple of nights ago. I wouldn't say that it is a good movie, but it was quite interesting. The movie follows people who have completely given their lives over to the Second Life virtual reality website. Below, the movie trailer:

What is Second Life?

It is a virtual reality world built and inhabited by users. I do have a login and I've tried to get involved, but it didn't work for me. Too clunky and too slow to render. Perhaps the pairing of Oculus Rift goggles and the website will improve the experience. I simply did not find the Second Life experience a compelling full immersion 3D environment.

The users portrayed in Life 2.0 didn't share my view. A couple who met online destroyed their marriages to other people through their romantic dalliance in the virtual world. A young man engaged to be married lost himself in Second Life, ignored his fiancé and lost her as a result. 

As I said, I wouldn't call this a great movie, but an interesting movie. The people portrayed in the movie... well, they're losers. They've retreated into the virtual world for a reason. And, they're spending 12 to 14 hours a day in front of their computers living in a fantasy world. They are boring whiners.

That's not very appealing.

The one positive and interesting Second Life user portrayed in the flick is a very heavyset black woman who makes her living by designing clothing, skins and shoes to be worn by user avatars. She claims to be making a six figure income with this business, although I don't know whether she's referring to six figures in dollars or in "Lindens" the currency unit of the virtual world. 

She's beset by a thief who steals all her designs and sells them for much cheaper prices. One of the odder sub stories of the flick is her lawsuit against the infringer. It takes this woman a year to redesign and protect her intellectual property.

I might go back to Second Life and give it another try. I'd like to try out the Oculus Rift headset, but that would require a new computer since the headset doesn't work on my iMac platform. Dell is bundling a number of its computers with the Oculus headset with a total price of $1,500.

If I were still working in the multimedia biz, I'd focus my efforts on virtual reality, 3D printing and artificial intelligence. A lot of money to be made in these fields. And intellectual excitement, too.

MIT's Introductory Online AI Course

If you haven't heard about Artificial Intelligence ("AI"), where have you been? In my continuing quest to find things to do that push the online political ranting out of my mind, I've started work on the introductory MIT course on AI.

I don't know how deeply I'll go into this course. I just took a look at the recommended course textbook at Amazon. Very geeky and $140 to boot. I might buy a used textbook for about $40. The textbook seems to be mainly about writing AI programs in a programming language called Python.

One of my jobs as a multimedia developer and programmer, back before I retired, was putting up online courses for a variety of corporate clients. I put up some of the first online courses was back in the mid 90s. So, I'm interested in this course not just for the content, but also to see how online course development has evolved in 20 years.

My immediate impression is... not a lot. We used similar layouts and concepts 20 years ago.

AI, we've been told thousands of times, is going to put everybody out of work. So what is it? Here's a definition:

AI (pronounced AYE-EYE) or artificial intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. 

Machines that can think like humans, but better and faster. That's what it's about.

Robots imbued with AI will replace all manual laborers. Or, so we've been told repeatedly in the press and online. We may even be engineering our own obsolescence or extinction by making ourselves useless. Will the super smart robotic computers of the future deign to put up with stupid humans?

I've watched the first course video. A few observations.  

• The instructor, Patrick H. Winston, talks about the fact that this course is being presented at MIT constantly. Why? He's appealing to the students' vanity, for sure, over the fact that they were admitted to one of the most prestigious tech schools. Branding?
• Winston would do well to get into some sort of exercise regimen. He seems out of breath at various points in the video as a result of walking around the room. Let's just say he doesn't have a charismatic screen presence. By the middle of the lecture, his shirt tail is falling out of the front of his trousers giving us an unflattering view of his belly.
• Winston throws in a couple of Diversity bits early in the lecture. He genuflects briefly before feminist and gay activist ideology. Why? I can't say. I don't know whether he actually finds these bits interesting and relevant, or whether he's simply trying to fulfill the now universal Diversity requirement in colleges in order to save his own ass.
• The video is static, with zero FX or attempts at production values.

The introductory video was interesting and accessible. I don't know whether that will continue to be the case as I move through the videos.

One goal, however, achieved. The video diverted my attention from the political ranting online for an hour.

My Incredibly Important Opinions

After babysitting three grandkids under the age of 3 all day, I head home for dinner and take a nap that tends to last until 10 p.m. or midnight. When I wake up, I surf the web to take in the Cubs' news and all those ever important political opinion sites. I might get in an argument or two. Then, I try to change gears, play music and sketch. Some nights I succeed. Others, I don't.

What is it about bullshitting about opinions, particularly political opinions, that is so addicting? Opinion bullshitting is probably the major use of the internet. Comments sections of weblogs are filled with people arguing all night with an urgency that is preposterous.

Of course, there are a few weblogs and websites that are important presenters of opinion, like Steve Sailer's blog, probably the most influential on the web. Although Sailer has not endorsed Donald Trump for president, Sailer's explosive (and witty) deconstruction of political correctness may be the most significant factor in Trump's rise. The fact that Sailer now draws in excess of 200 comments per post is a demonstration of the demand for heretical commentary. Most people are followers who wait for somebody else to take the hit for saying that it is obvious that the emperor is naked.

The rest of us are just weighing in with our two cents, getting pissed off because other people don't agree with us, and filling our time with... what?

When I am gone from this vale of tears, what will be the most important thing about me that will remain on this earth?  Obviously, my progeny. My children and grandchildren will be my most important legacies. My artwork seems altogether likely to be forgotten. My political opinions, already of little consequence, will disappear into the electronic ether.

I chose the graphic above because it's funny. No, my opinion isn't important to the website, blog or newspaper that tries to attract my comments. What's important is that my click to these sites can be counted by advertisers paying for web page views.

So, what is this endless bickering on the web about? What else would we do on the internet other than argue about politics? Why do we seem to believe that the first measure of compatibility with other people is political opinion agreement?

I only have a few answers.

Back during the dot-com era, I worked for a number of very ambition start-ups. By ambitious, I mean that these companies planned to produce compelling, interesting and, often, educational original content on CDs and on the web. These start-ups all went bankrupt, often after blowing through $100 million in venture capital. Why? The cost of creating that original content could not possibly be recaptured in sales. Teams of engineers, programmers and content creatures consumed money at an astonishing rate. 

Political opinion, on the other hand, is dirt cheap... maybe even free. It can be produced in unlimited quantity daily with very little effort. And, people seem to have an unlimited willingness to consume the product. The emotional furor produced by disagreement is a powerful drug that keeps people engaged.

What else would you do besides fight about politics on the web? MIT has a great online education site. Despite my good intentions, I have yet to take a course.

Legendary Cars: 3D Printed Car

If I were still working, I would be targeting two tech fields: virtual reality programming and 3D printing. Modest sized 3D printers have been available at the consumer level for a few years. Most of these printers used plastic filament to print small gizmos and parts. But, what if you want to print something really big and useful... like a car?

Note that not all parts of the Strati were constructed via 3D printing. The engine, seats and steering wheel were manufactured in the conventional manner. The body, chassis and fenders were printed with thermoplastic using a big area additive manufacturing ("BAAM") machine.

The manufacturer, Cincinnati Incorporated, specializes in BAAM. They say they're able to produce a Strati in 45 hours for about $7,000. Here's a pic of one of their big area printers.

 I recommend spending some time at Cincinnati Incorporated's website. It's a fascinating look at the most advanced, large scale 3D printing projects.

3D printing is no longer limited by scale or by type of material. If you look around, you'll find large scale printers that print with concrete and all types of exotic metals.

This is the sort of stuff that makes me wish I were still a young man, instead of a retired old grandpa!

Virtual Reality for Mind Control

Back in the 90s, I put up online "Diversity" courses for half a dozen corporations. My clients hoped to inoculate themselves against discrimination lawsuits with these courses. We used video "behavioral simulation" quite a bit in an effort to prove that we had informed our managers what behaviors were or were not acceptable in dealing with employees. The NFL is now expanding this type of "simulation" programming through the use of virtual reality ("VR") technology, in yet another attempt to cure "institutional racism."

Of course, the NFL has the same problem we had back in the 90s.

The Interaction Lab's diversity demos are designed to transport users into unfamiliar and unsettling realms. In one scenario, a user is represented by an African-American female avatar who is being angrily harassed by a white avatar. When the user reflexively lifts his or her arms in self-defense, the hands feature black skin.

What's the problem with this "scenario?"

Black women are, of course, sacred totems in the office, and no white guy would dare to confront them angrily, much less attack them physically. A white man who did that would never work again, and we white men are smart enough to know that.

In the same manner, our "scenarios" back in the 90s were supposed to show evil straight white men how to avoid offending or harassing the poor homosexuals. The reality was, again, that the homos were sacred totems in the office. If a white guy dared to put up a pic of an attractive woman with some cleavage showing on his cubical wall, HR would demand that he remove the pic and drag him off to diversity training. The gay guys put up pics of themselves in jock straps and feather boas they had taken in Provincetown during gay pride week.

Now, to add another bit of hysteria to the picture of this "behavioral simulation" style training... only white guys had (and I suspect have) the tech skills to produce the training material and get it up on the web. And, most of the nerdy white guys with the necessary tech skills are hetero.

So, I sat through many many meetings in which we "brainstormed" scenarios we hoped would prove just how wretchedly racist, sexist and homophobic we straight white guys were. The humor of this never seemed to manifest itself to my gay bosses.

The same problem, as I said, confronts the NFL that confronted my corporate bosses... the unbelievable lies of the Diversity crusade. White guys aren't beating up black guys on the street. Black guys are beating up white guys. Black women aren't being harassed and ridiculed in the office. They are being promoted beyond their abilities and we must kiss their asses every day.

You can force people to pretend agreement to the Diversity bullshit in order to keep their jobs, but you can't make them believe this crap... no matter how elegant the presentation. As soon as you go out to lunch with a co-worker you can trust, you spill the beans to one another and laugh your asses off at the stupidity of the sledge hammer indoctrination.

The long term outcome for the corporation isn't so good either. Managers must take the bullshit seriously and that only makes them look like fools to any employee with a backbone and minimal intelligence.

So, what in the world does the NFL hope to accomplish by forcing its employees to don the VR helmets and sit through the stupid, dishonest indoctrination? Lawsuit avoidance? Kissing black ass?

Steve Sailer, a week or so ago, suggested the best explanation I've seen yet for the baffling doctrines of "institutional racism," "white privilege" and all the other Diversity con jobs. Belief in witchcraft is almost universal in black Africa. We white guys are, essentially, witches casting ju-jitsu spells on poor defenseless blacks. You can't see us doing it, but we are doing it nonetheless.

I'd love to work in VR, but I'm old and tired and retired. That's a field for energetic young men, and I suspect 95% of those men are straight and white. The really interesting work to be done is in creating the VR whorehouse. Porn is always where the action is. And, in porn, you can and must tell the truth.

Myrna, my late wife, was brutally honest from a porn standpoint. And, she could get away with it because she was Filipino. For reasons I cannot entirely understand, Filipinos can and do say whatever the hell they want to say, no matter how un-PC it is, and white people don't dare to scold them.

"Black men are good for fucking and not much else," Myrna often said.

Nobody dared to challenge her.

Silence Doodle

I meditated upon silence throughout Holy Week. Even took off three days, Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, from internet conversation and argument. My mental health and clarity benefited from this sojourn from phony controversy and argument, so I think I'll make a new rule. No internet on Sundays and all other high Holy Days of Obligation.

Anybody can publish and say whatever they want on the internet... and that's a great thing. I did my own little worker ant thing among the hive of techies to make this possible.

The down side is that nobody wants to shut up, nobody wants to listen and nobody wants to edit their speech for brevity or sanity.

I spend most of my time now alone or with my three grandkids, all under the age of 3. They have their priorities in order. They want to laugh and have fun, to play with words for the sheer joy of it and to break down from time to time into tears and hugs. 

Political ranting is still far off in the future for them.

I am disengaging in many ways from the external world as I burrow deeper into retirement. Political and social issues that mattered when I was working are now irrelevant to me. Dressing to satisfy the demands of work no longer is of any importance. Whether or not I've bought the latest status tech toy doesn't matter because I don't go to work where people brag competitively about their purchases.

There are good and bad things about this descent into silence, as with anything in life. I'm often quite lonely, and I've become a cranky old fart who isn't much interested in stroking other people's feelings. Well... except for my grandchildren.

Perhaps I am already detaching myself from this world and preparing for my death.

I continue to try to extend the periods of mental silence. I want to see clearly.