My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on August 27, 2012

I spent part of Sunday afternoon checking on tropical storm Isaac and watching some sailing (America’s Cup Preliminary races in San Francisco Bay). The sailing racing associated with America’s Cup has certainly changed in recent years and I’m not sure I’m happy with giving up the 12-meter monohulls this past decade?

As for Isaac, the storm ran over the Florida Keys after a deadly pass over Haiti and Cuba. It hit as a tropical storm with strong winds and heavy rain, but not the hurricane damaging winds associated with an elevated higher category storm. Unfortunately after the last bit of island land, Isaac is predicted to build as it makes a northwest trek towards the gulf coast of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Hold onto your hats!

And since the radar images indicate that this storm is very wide, I checked a couple images from the marina and inlet where we keep our boat.

 
Harbortown Marina-cam and the breakwall at Ft. Pierce Inlet on Sunday afternoon.

Category: Sailing, Weather | No Comments »
Tags: hurricane, isaac, weather

Posted By RichC on August 26, 2012

Neil Armstrong  was not only the first astronaut to walk on the moon, but a brilliant science minded and steely-nerved pilot who’s skills were the envy of his peers … as well as this small town Ohio boy. He grew up in Wapakoneta, Ohio, went to Purdue University in Indiana, flew 78 combat missions in the Korean War and was selected by NASA in 1962 to be trained as an astronaut.  

Armstrong was quoted, “I am, and ever will be, a white socks, pocket protector, nerdy engineer,”  and after teaching at the University of Cincinnati from 1971 thru 1979 retired to his Ohio farm. Armstrong was well known for shunning the limelight and his reluctance to talk to reporters. “As much as Neil cherished his privacy, he always appreciated the expressions of good will from people around the world and from all walks of life,” the family said. He will always be remembered for his first step on the moon quote, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Category: Aviation, Obituary, Space | 1 Comment »
Tags: armstrong, moon, nasa, obit, space

Posted By RichC on August 25, 2012

It’s no secret that I’m a long time Apple user and have done my part in supporting the company as computer and gadget buyer and as an $AAPL shareholder, but I’m also rebellious when their eco-system boxes out competitors. I dislike Apple telling me what software I can and can’t install on my computer devices and particularly dislike them going out of their way to keep components from working with their hardware – noticeable in recent spats with Adobe and in the restricted way users are encouraged to use online Apple and iTunes stores in order to add software, apps, etc.

Grumbling about Apple aside, I was glad to know that late Friday evening a jury has decided Apple’s innovation and product patents aren’t going to be copied without penalty (WSJ link). Those following technology in the last several years know instinctively, without even hearing the evidence, that the iPhone and iPad are being copied. Several companies have been doing this without much success up until a couple of years ago; the imitators were almost always of lessor quality (and marketed at a lower price). BUT … in the last couple years one company, Samsung (with the help of Google’s Android OS), has managed to duplicate and perhaps even improve in some areas on the Apple’s iPhone, to the point the South Korean company has tremendous sales momentum and is making billions of dollars on very similar looking and functioning phones and tablets. Having both an Apple iOS product and Samsung smartphone in our home, it seemed to me pretty obvious that one company, or the other, was copying something – it wasn’t hard for me to guess which one was the innovator and which one was the copier.

In a decision, sure to be appealed, the jury in the U.S. case awarded Apple $1.05 Billion in damages … about the same time a court case in South Korea rule partly in favor of their country’s company.

Samsung infringed all but one of the seven patents at issue in the case—a patent covering the physical design of the iPad. They found all seven of Apple’s patents valid—despite Samsung’s attempts to have them thrown out. They also decided Apple didn’t violate any of the five patents Samsung asserted in the case.

Hmm, the iPhone running Apple’s iOS and Samsung Galaxy running Google’s Android (above)

—

Here’s an email from Apple CEO Tim Cook to his team:

Team:

Today was an important day for Apple and for innovators everywhere.

Many of you have been closely following the trial against Samsung in San Jose for the past few weeks. We chose legal action very reluctantly and only after repeatedly asking Samsung to stop copying our work. For us, this lawsuit has always been about something much more important than patents or money. It’s about values. We value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth. And we do this to delight our customers, not for competitors to flagrantly copy.

We owe a debt of gratitude to the jury who invested their time in listening to our story. We were thrilled to finally have the opportunity to tell it. The mountain of evidence presented during the trial showed that Samsung’s copying went far deeper than we knew.

The jury has now spoken. We applaud them for finding Samsung’s behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right.

I am so very proud of the work that each of you do.
Today, values have won and I hope the whole world listens.

Tim

Category: Cellphone, Financial, Tablet, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: aapl, apple, galaxy, ipad, iphone, patent, samsung

Posted By RichC on August 24, 2012

Brenda’s sister, Chris Skinner, escorted her father, Fred Howard, on an Honor Flight this week and visited “his” WWII memorial in Washington DC. Having had a chance to take my dad with a group of veterans in 2010 gives me insight as to what a special trip this was for them. We are getting together tonight and are looking forward to celebrating Dad Howard’s 87th birthday as well as hearing about the trip — BTW, show your appreciation and thank a veteran today. — Cincinnati’s WCPO story  and a video clip below.

Category: Millitary, Personal, Video-TV | No Comments »
Tags: father, flight, honor, Washington DC, ww2, wwii

Posted By RichC on August 23, 2012

I’m still amazed at the notable improvements in cellphone cameras since my Palm Pre was release a few years ago. Here’s an attempt (after a slight crop) to see how images look when a close up was taken with my wife’s new Samsung Galaxy S II Epic. I can see Brenda and I are not too far away from using smartphones as our primary point and shoot cameras.  I can guarantee Brenda is not going to be toting around the little waterproof Kodak camcorder anymore … a least for snapshots; we might as well leave it at the boat. I’m even wondering just how often I’m going to slog my Canon DSLR and bag around once I get a new phone … especially when traveling by plane?

Hmm, the desktop computer has given way to the laptop and notebook computer, the notebook to the ultrabook and in many cases the tablet. The walkman was replaced by the iPod which has merged with the PDAs and cellphones. Now those three have added the point and shoot camera and camcorder and are today’s smartphones … make multiple computers and tech gadgets obsolete. So why again is my computer bag so full? </p

Category: Cellphone, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: camera, macro, photography, samsung, smartphone

Posted By RichC on August 22, 2012

Since our nation’s oil and gas industry has expanded its capacity to produce natural gas in recent years, it only makes sense that we take advantage of this plentiful, clean, and low cost energy resource. It sure sounds like a sensible way to keep the United States an economically competitive place to build and expand business (creating jobs). On top of that, we would be more independent when it comes to our reliance on imported oil, therefore making the never-ending unrest in the middle east less critical to our economy.

But … our policies continue to favor less proven energy sources that do little to help American industries with the high cost of transporting raw materials to their facilities and shipping finished goods to market; small electric-only and hybrid vehicles might help urban and suburban folks when it comes to their daily runs to the grocery store or work, (if they aren’t unemployed [snide comment]), but electric vehicles do little to help in the manufacturing cycle of getting the crops from the field and transported to every step along the way that eventually ends  up in that local store. We fork over millions of tax dollars to develop wind and solar, EV car companies and infrastructure charging stations while clean natural gas sits in storage facilities and is barely profitable (for the record, I’m pro-clean renewable energy and an “all of the above” guy, but see too much crony capitalism abuse with our tax dollars).

Instead of encouraging our nation to use our abundant natural gas, we are almost forcing NG companies to ship it overseas where China and the like will pay a premium to import it. To make matters worse, we then import a much more expensive, and far dirtier, resource — crude oil – which we then use to power U.S. farm equipment, trucks and trains … and then grumble about pollution, the cost of energy and consumer prices going up. Am I the only one seeing this as insane? I guess I’m not alone since the Picken’s Plan has been around for at least 4 years and is ignored in Washington … here’s a short audio (mp3 snippet) exchange with T. Boone Pickens this morning on CNBC.

CNBC — T. Boone Pickens on Squawkbox 8/22/2012 (snippet)

or listen (mp3) / watch the entire 14 minute interview.

CNBC — T. Boone Pickens on Squawkbox 8/22/2012 (14 min)

==

Category: Audio, Energy, Video-TV | No Comments »
Tags: cnbc, energy, natural gas, ng, oil, pickens, squawkbox

Posted By RichC on August 22, 2012

As expected, tropical storm Isaac has formed in the tropical Atlantic, about 500 miles east of Guadeloupe in the Lesser Antilles. The storm is expected to intensify into a hurricane Thursday or Friday in the Caribbean.

Category: Weather | 1 Comment »
Tags: hurricane, tropical, weather

Posted By RichC on August 21, 2012

Lame subject line … I know, but one of the issues for those of us who regularly wear boat shoes is that the insides wear out (or just smell bad) before the leather shoe gives out. Thankfully the older I get, the longer my shoes last … probably because my pedes don’t sweat as they did when I was a teenager?

Still I would like to find quality insoles to replace the removable inserts that are now in several of my aging Sperry Topsiders or an evolution of them. Sperry is  “thee” name in consistent quality boating shoes year after year, but they unfortunately do not make it easy to “self renew” a pair of their shoes. Sure I can go out an buy Dr. Scholls shoe inserts or pick from several of the other brands of foam, rubber or gel pads, but I’d like the original stitched insert of old or would settle for the recent (last decade) Wave Comfort System insoles. The ones in my shoes have degraded and the fabric separates from the cushion … to the point that repeated gluing won’t keep the “liner” in place. It would be so much easier to just buy a couple of the pre-lined foam inserts. I have tried a web search and called Sperry, but for now I’m coming up empty. Can anyone point me in the right direction or am I being too picky?

While on the topic of sailing and sailboats, I’d like to plug one of the best written and edited sailing blogs – check out Windtraveler. Congratulations Scott and Brittany on your baby girl Isla AND on your new home … another sailboat of course, but a bit larger in order to support their “future deck swab” (their term, not mine). Keep me updated.

EDIT: Giving the SofSole product a try and will report back (LINK). So far, they are excellent, although I’ve heard the insole has been changed for 2013?

EDIT 2: Follow up post about a year later LINK

Category: Misc, Sailing | 4 Comments »
Tags: boat, boating, boatshoe, boatshoes, insole, sailing, shoe, sofsole, sperry, topsider, topsiders

Posted By RichC on August 20, 2012

Our Tivo records the 30 minute weekend broadcast of the Journal Editorial Report (JER) and I enjoyed hearing from the team that manages the Wall Street Journal’s editorial content. Generally the week’s review is a rehash, but the conservative oriented look at what was in the news is something I look forward to each weekend

Kim Strassel is a long time WSJ Editorial Board member who’s comentary that both Brenda and I enjoy … opined on NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s recent concern over bottle vs breast feeding. She commented that if he is really concerned with the health of NYC babies, perhaps he should encourage they move out of the city.

After receiving a little heat for targeting NYC restaurant serving large soft drinks, he is now going after new mothers questioning their decision to bottle feed formula. Hmm, really Mayor, don’t you think this should be left to parents and their doctor? Are you really that bored running the City of New York that you need to micro-manage moms and their newborns?

Category: Audio, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: audio, bloomberg, editorial, jer, mp3, opinion, Politics, strassel, wsj

Posted By RichC on August 19, 2012

Ah yes … Brenda is working night shift hours this weekend so it gave me a chance to monkey around with her new Samsung Galaxy S II Epic … purloined it while she was sleeping today. One of her ploys to keep me from playing with her new smartphone was to add the new protective case in a feminine color … and while this may keep me from using it in public, it has little affect on me at home.

So far I found Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) — Android 4.0.4 — easy to use, even for someone resistant to learning something new. Still there are things I like and dislike coming from WebOS (Palm Pre) as well as using iOS on the iPad. In time though I suspect that one adjusts to the change as Android has come a long way and is improving everyday. I’ll probably resist rooting Brenda’s phone since the extent of her use is pretty basic. Her biggest complaint so far has been the lack of a physical switch to stealthily turn off the audible ringer.

After updating and installing a few apps from Google Play, I tested the weak 4G (WiMax – not 4G LTE) Sprint connection at the house. My daughter’s EVO 4G had trouble, but it looks like using it will be do-able on the Samsung (perhaps there has been some tower tuning?). Nevertheless, a house 4G connection isn’t all that important with wifi available – unfortunately she doesn’t have wifi or 4G at work.

Included the speed test as a macro photo from the excellent 8mp camera. Nice!

Category: Cellphone, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: android, samsung, smartphone, sprint