i have to admit, i'm not exactly sure how they got my information, nor do i understand why they were interested in me, but sure enough, i got a call from "Out of Area". Thinking it might be my sister-in-law who's phone occasionally comes up like that, my wife answered and was told that the caller wanted to speak to me. That's when a rather tired, low level telephone operator told me to stay on the line for a message for a recorded statement and a one question poll.

That's when i heard the apparent ringleader of this terrorist cell, Dick Durbin, tell me how he is opposed to justice, favors torture, and is seeking to aide overseas terrorist recruiting operations.

Ok, even if that really was the Senator from Illinois, he didn't come out and say any of those. Instead the recording went on about how he's opposed to closing Gitmo, doesn't want alleged torture investigations to continue, and how we're all going to die horribly at the hands of the Unitard-Bomber. Even before he got to the sales pitch about some other "like minded" organization that wants my money to keep the children safe, i realized something. In effect, he was frightening imagery and the threat of personal harm in order to scare me into agreeing with him. He was invoking terror for personal or political gain. He was a terrorist.

i'll note that not all terrorists stuff explosives into articles of clothing and try to set them of at 30,000 feet. Those that remember the IRA battles remember that the vast majority of terrorist activities involved posing the threat or taking credit for an action (often dozens of organizations will take credit for an attack). Often trying to influence folks far beyond the area they can best reach, say, like calling residents of a state a thousand or so miles away and trying to convince them they're not far more likely to die in an accident on the way to the airport than while in flight. (This is why it's important to learn math, kids.)

Still, it kind of saddens me that we have so many terrorists deeply embedded in our media, society and governing bodies. But at least i'm taking a stand against them.

You're also very strictly controlled as to what is and is not permitted within Disneyland. If you break the rules, you're told to leave and not allowed to return. You can also be denied access to Disney if they please because ultimately, Disney isn't real.

Disney is, quite literally, a walled garden. It's a nice place to visit, but i wouldn't want to live there.

Honestly, i don't even find it that interesting a place to visit, but that puts me in the savage minority. There are tons of folks that love Disney and happily consider the fake veneer of reality that it promotes as a wonderful experience. Personally, i kind of like reality more. i like being able to drive around without a rail making sure i don't go out of my lane. i like going on boat trips where the jokes aren't scripted from 30 years ago. i like looking at real castles, built to hold off more than candy stoked ten year olds.

So, why the downer on the land of the mouse? Because i've been thinking more and more about how we seem to be progressing toward a digital Disneyland.

With the advent of the iPad, there have even been a few articles noting the siren call of the walled garden. Why not? They're safe from bad things, work fairly well, and give you the feeling that you're almost real. They're simple, well crafted devices that are fun, much like the happy little monorail that circles the park. Ultimately, they're not real, though, and no amount of wishing on stars or listening to talking crickets is going to solve that.

A few articles have even noted that "this isn't the way of the future" as a dismissal of folks like me that aren't happily lining up for an e-ticket. i'm not so sure about that. If devices like the iPad and it's soon to be progeny are targeted at "casual" users, doesn't that mean that the "hard core" folks that might actually be interested in doing things that are not within the tight control of the company are by definition marginalized? If less that 10% of a device's audience feels it should be able to talk to programs and devices that aren't sold by the parent company, is it really worth that company's time and effort to provide that feature?

That's the other thing that keeps popping up. You do realize that while Google Voice became a web-app in order to bypass the restrictions that Apple had in place, it didn't work with iTouches, right? Why would that be if it's an HTML5 app? You can easily get a mic that works on a touch. The browser and OS level hooks are the same, why shouldn't it work on a Touch? That's because Google Voice isn't really a web app. What Google does when you request an out-bound call is to call your device and then call the remote number. It doesn't work on the Touch because there's no phone for it to call, and no way for the browser to capture voice input.

The Garden doesn't like that.

This means that if you wanted to bypass the Apple approval process, you only get the most minimal subset of the devices capabilities, which could be pulled at any time. Kind of like sitting in a driving game console, where things can be very exciting, but you really aren't going anywhere. Yes, you could create a rich application experience remotely and have your device be a dumb terminal, but even then, you don't really control things, and you could be blocked by an intervening proxy.

i've yet to get a new phone. Not because there aren't phones i'd like out in the market place, but because no matter what i may pay for a given device, it won't be mine, because my carrier may decide to force a change to my device that will remove functions. i'm well aware that Rogers is in Canada and i'm not, but that doesn't mean that US companies can't adopt the practice. For the most part, i'm still at the whims of the carrier to decide to allow my device to update.

That's not freedom. i'm able to update my laptop and workstation at my whim. i'm able to download, run, or build any application i desire. i can customize any portion of the device to fit my needs or desires. Sadly, i don't see that being a growing trend, in fact, i see the opposite soon taking over.

Perhaps i'm being paranoid again. Perhaps, platforms like Apple won't decide that with the run-away success they have with mobile and semi-mobile, simple interface, single use devices, they really don't need to spend quite as much time working on affordable multi-use machines. Perhaps folks will be interested enough in the suite of applications they buy and use to actually try and replicate them. Perhaps my nieces who look forward to visiting Disneyland for every birthday will learn to look for an amazing taquería with a cracked window and worn wooden chairs.

Or perhaps not.

Only time will tell.

i expect the really useful things still won't work with anything other than an iPad.

Naturally, it'll sell like hotcakes and will soon be not fitting in the pants and sliding into ironic messenger bags as folks walk out of Starbucks all over the country.

Still, there's one beam of sunlight to this, at least for me, was an article talking about the opportunity this presents, and he's got an excellent point. Webkit is marvelously well suited for porting to mobile devices, and it's included with no holds barred on Apple devices.

Plus, as Google recently demo'ed, it can get you past Apple's App Store insanity.

Now, all that said, it's completely within the scope of reality that Apple starts blocking useful integration points like the GPS, microphone or other bits, but for a short time, they'll be there, and others will have to support it to be competitive.

Shh, stop with the rational arguments against my blind optimism. It's a dream of mine.

i sat for around fifteen minutes trying to figure out a program that's only on windows/mac program that i can't get on Ubuntu.

Honestly, most of the apps there i can already get "good enough" versions for what i need. i get why they're asking, since they want to have name brands on the platform so that they can get more folks interested in it. Thing is, looking at my windows box, i don't really have a lot of specialized stuff specifically for windows.

i use firefox and thuderbird for browsing and mail; putty for most of my real work; Komodo for editing web pages; gimp and xara (which has an open source version for linux and mac), and rounding out the rest are vlc, vim, openoffice, truecrypt, and a few others. Granted, i'm weird because i spend most of my time programming rather than watching the butt of a digital version of myself, but it's not like i feel less useful on one platform than another. Heck, i could move to a mac tomorrow and be good to go. (Granted, i wouldn't for a whole mess of other reasons, but those are beside the point.)

About the only program i have to use windows for is iTunes, only because that's required by the locked down iPod touch. (Well, mostly locked down. i can use iFuse to mount the iTouch, but i have to goof around with sqlite3 in order to actually get the damn thing to see the music, but otherwise i'm pretty good to go. )

So, what platform only program am i missing?

i intend on remedying that.

To that end, i plan on beginning to use The Universal Word in sentences such as:

"Would you please pass me f@ck salt?"

"Yes, i would like f#ck slice of delicious fruit."

"Excuse me, but is this where f$ck 113 bus stops?"

"F^ck quick brown fox jumped over fuck lazy dog."

This, of course, would inevitably lead to the final achievement, where entire complex sentences can be constructed using only the Universal Word such as "F&ck f*cking fƱckers f©cked f•cks."

i predict that this will come as a huge boon to anyone in the IT or telecommunications fields. Possibly also Physicists depending on what just unexpectedly became critically unstable.

China, always one to… uhm… innovate, has lots of carbon smudged innovations, and there are plenty of Chinese search engines to choose from, including Baidu, which according to an article published in July of 2009, controls 61% of the Chinese market. Google's share was only 29%. That's a strong second, but hardly the 72% market share that Google holds in the US.

So, basically, Google China is roughly the Sino equivalent of Yahoo. How many folks do you think would be terribly upset if Yahoo Search were to shut down in a month or two? Probably about the same number of folks that were upset when they did and switched to using Bing.

So, while i'm glad that Google is taking a hard stance against a fairly large bully, but of the currently 298 million Chinese internet users, around 182 million of them, more than half the population of the US, more than any population but two other countries, won't even notice.

So, taking a stand against a country that causes you nothing but headaches, and where you're not exactly rocketing up the charts may not be quite as noble as you'd think. Something to think about, huh?

More importantly, when viewing it, does it fill at least twenty degrees of your field of vision? Is the image resolution greater than 1080p? If so, Congratulations! You're one of the ten people who might actually be able to discern 3D on such a device. Of course, you're going to have to get rid of it so you can buy a new device actually capable of rendering in 3D. Oh, and you'll have to wear polarized glasses so that you can properly see the image being rendered, and you probably want to sit in a really dark room because by definition, polarized lenses block around half the light available, so things will look a good deal darker.

Stupid thing is that i'm also old enough to remember what it was like when Color TVs made it big. Let me say up front that Color TV was a bigger deal. Color introduced something that wasn't there, that was decidedly lacking, and was overused to the great detriment of fashion and interior design for a decade. (Wonder why avocado, red and gold were big colors for rugs and appliances? Because they showed up great next to green pants suits on color TVs of the time.) With 3D images, you get… well, lied to.

Having tried a 3D monitor recently, i got to see what the hype was about. Items in the foreground were in crisp focus while items in the background were not. Fairly cool, at first, but then, i couldn't shift focus to those items. (i could shift focus slightly to things that were just in front or just behind the main focus, but things that were several feet away were still blurred.) In effect, i got the amazing 3D sense of seeing my hand above a keyboard but still not able to focus on the screen. What's more, moving from side to side didn't "turn" the image. Not horribly surprising since it's not a hologram, but still fairly disappointing.

Basically, in the upcoming years, you're going to have to spend a whole lot of money to get an ultra-sharp, deeply rendered equivalent of an SCTV skit. What's even worse is that with the rush to put "3D" shows out, we're going to have a lot of rocks being thrown at our heads. (Seriously, aren't most 3D extravaganzas basically excuses for trying to virtually poke your eyes out?) Kind of the focal equivalent of earth tone shag carpeting. And who doesn't love that? (Other than anyone who can remember the 70's?)

Yeah, no wonder all the top tech geeks are so excited by this huge boon.

Every year, i look forward to the electronic Christmas pageant that is the Consumer Electronics Show. Not actually attending mind you (i had to do that a few years ago when i was asked to pimp Yahoo! Mobile 3.0 which was thankfully dragged behind the barn and beaten with a shovel), but reading about all the nifty toys that are going to be coming out Real Soon Now.

Most of them are crap, of course, but there are usually a few gems in the mix, with one overriding theme as companies desperate for a big hit latch onto anything that seems remotely marketable. This time: The iTablet. Apple's long rumored slab based device that will bring peace to the Middle East and rainbow sprinkled unicorns to children of the world. It has yet to exist, mind you, but that didn't stop folks from releasing dozens of iTablet killers in shiny glory.

And i bet they still won't sell.

Tablets aren't new. They've been around in various incarnations for coming up on a decade. They're expensive, tend to not really work terribly well, and are great for a tiny fraction of folks that want to live the dream of being a character in Star Trek: The Next Generation. If you wanted one, you could drop $500 and pick one up on amazon today. Heck, you could even scrape out the installed OS and load up osx86 on it and wait for the unicorns to show up. Granted, even if you don't, what you've got is still going to be better than a pure tablet.

The problem with all of these is that you're basically walking around with half a laptop, and unless you're highly proficient with a mouse, you're going to discover in pretty short order how much text entry you really do in a given day. You're also going to discover that walking around with half a laptop isn't really as much fun as you'd think it'd be, unless you happen to have a good sized purse or rather large pockets. Even then, you're probably going to realize that a laptop is just a bit thicker than what you're currently wandering around with, and has a keyboard, which not only allows you to type at a slightly faster rate, but does things like protect that big-ass scratch magnet from your car keys and loose change.

The biggest problem with tablets is that they seem like a good idea, kind of like how people think flying cars and mechanized walking battle armor are good ideas. They're not. In fact, they're down right horrible ideas if you actually try to use them. (Thus the amazing lack of ambulatory champions on BattleBots.)

It just doesn't feel like this year's show had anything all that exciting. Just the same stuff as before only now with 3D capacities taped on like some bad 1950's World of Tomorrow short. (i wear my sunglasses at night, so i can see two people talking to each other for ten minutes IN 3D! It's like being at a play! Except the focal distance is still fixed and it's not like i can actually shift my focus to SEE something in the background! OOooooh.)

Sigh.

Guess this Christmas was mostly socks and underwear.

Here's hoping your New Year is just a little random.

Probably the most surprising event in the past decade was the great privacy backlash of '12. Hard to believe that prior to that year, people were not required by law to update their current location and activity to one of any number of federally recognized "Personal Notification Sites" such as Twitterbook or Google Omni. There was a lot of protest against this move (even from myself, i'll add), but once the Homeland Security Representatives informed us that it was not only to prevent terrorism and save the children, but that those opposed to such legislation would face a minimum of three years in Suspicious Activity Relocation facilities, i soon saw the merit of adding that free download to my Android. Now, for the benefit of our peaceful society my every waking and non-waking move is tracked and coordinated by friends, family, random strangers, and government officials. Thank goodness that there are strict laws in place to prevent felons from using this publicly available, non-encrypted, constantly updated data stream from not carrying their Android while committing misdemeanor acts, otherwise they'd face stiff penalties of up to $100 per incident.

Of course, it's not like there was any where one can go. As you recall, with the rise of terrrorist and terror-like activities, Homeland Security pushed through legislation banning all forms of travel in '13. Of course, with the various attempts by the Ear Canal bomber, Rectal bomber, Teeth bomber and Richard Freese, the man that tried to bring down Flight 419 by giving every passenger a vicious Indian burn (Thankfully thwarted by the quick actions of Hassan "Purple Nurple" Sadri), pre-flight security procedures required being at the airport a minimum of 72 hours before your flight (96 hours for international flights). Americans (and those wishing to travel anywhere near America) soon grew weary of spending most of their week long vacation standing in lines and being repeatedly and invasively screened.

Fortunately, there was always home entertainment to while away your non-employed hours, and with the introduction of TotalDRM legislation from the RIAA and MPAA, they were finally able to close the "Digital Hole" in '14. The "Analog Hole", having long ago been dealt with by releasing equipment that only supported "Trufidelity" audio and video. The new TotalDRM v2160p video standard produced amazingly life like picture and audio that burst into flames within 12 hours of purchase, requiring the purchase of an entirely new, Applesoft self-contained home entertainment/explosion containment system after watching any Personal Media. Personally, i'm not terribly comfortable with the newly proposed solution the "Memory Hole" issue that the RIAA/MPAA are now trying to get addressed by legislative means. i don't really see where i should have to pay them a royalty every time i recall a scene from a movie or (God forbid), have a song get stuck in my head. Still, if it does pass, i suppose i won't really resist having my mind wiped immediately after watching or hearing new Personal Media. Just need to make sure i write down somewhere that i watched it.

Of course the cost of the new Trufidelity systems finally dropped to the affordable price of $2000 per release in '15, and was heralded as the dawn of a new age for Digital Content. Sadly, that was the same year that we had to spend nearly $4 Trillion bailing out the struggling US music and movie industries. i remember listening to hours of testimony from beleaguered executives bemoaning the rise of pirate technologies such as "cassette tapes" and "acapella singing groups" that were killing off the efforts of the artists they decided we should listen to.

Personally, my proudest moment for the species was the Great Lesson in Math back in '16, where a group of rogue statisticians and math teachers set up guerrilla classrooms to teach people fundamentals of statistical analysis and scale. Hard to believe that so many individuals had no idea just how big things were and just how unlikely a good many things they were fretting about would happen. Things like pointing out that if your living room was twenty by thirty feet, the U.S. was roughly 105,659,136,000 times as large, or that they have a greater likelihood of being six degrees from Kevin Bacon than being involved in a terrorist event. It was wonderful when folks realized that when a talking head frets about how some program will cost taxpayers one billion dollars, that even back in the depths of the Recession of '09 people spent over 9 billion dollars at Starbucks Coffee, and nearly 37 billion dollars on Apple computer products, and that a program that costs one trillion dollars works out to be a cost of about $9 a day for every citizen. Kinda made individuals realize that spending $9 for a public option for health care was a better deal than spending $40 bailing out the parties that brought us Britney Spears Vegas Comeback Tour, and Twilight XVIII: Revenge of the Were-Chihuahuas, but i'm hoping that went into the "painful lessons learned" category.

i also wasn't horribly surprised by the huge political shift in this country around the recent mid-term elections. Americans finally had enough with the established parties and turned to the one thing they trusted to do no wrong. Google had long held a position of trust and people had gladly turned over their federally required personal information to the white hat wearing black hole. The rise of the Google Mobile System, which let people record their position as well as track others, lead to the widespread adoption of the Google Phones as the only option. It was only natural that people elected the guys responsible for this boon to society to powerful positions of authority and thus the rise of the Android Party in '18. It quickly ousted established Democrat and Republican interests with Androids. Granted, it was a bit surprising to find out that the beings put in office were actually sentient, hominid shaped machines, but thanks to their overwhelming position of authority, they quickly passed amendments which ensured that they were legally allowed to serve in office and that those wishing to dissent would be relocated to S.A.R. camps while their case waited hearing.

Ah well, soon it will be my legally mandated turn at the Green Energy Manual Dynamo Processing Center. That program sure did a lot to solve the obesity problem, what with the mandatory 12 hour shifts under the watchful gaze of the Cyber-Encouragers. With any hope, my death will come swiftly.

If not, see you all in a decade!