Author: Techly DoRight

See You Later

 

The Department of Energy is proposing to change a rule implemented late in the Obama administration that mandated energy guidelines for light bulbs which would have effectively removed all but Light Emitting Diode (LED) bulbs and Compact Fluorescent (CFL) bulbs from the market in January 2020. Since manufacturers are phasing out CFLs, LEDs would have the market to themselves shortly. Even though manufacturers are turning out more LEDs to replace incandescent bulbs, making the old style bulbs less significant in the market with each passing year, they still apparently chafe at the rule and are behind the push to get it changed.

 

There’s no question LEDs save energy over incandescent bulbs, which waste a lot of energy producing heat instead of light. LEDs also last far longer than incandescents. While the retail price for LEDs had been around ten times higher than the price of incandescents, the price has fallen significantly in the past few years as LEDs flood the market. Unlike the light given off by CFLs, the quality of the light given off by LEDs is every bit as good as that from incandescents, and because there are many options for changing the light from LEDs they are better overall. If Americans are serious about saving energy, it’s difficult to imagine a good reason for not switching over to LEDs sooner rather than later.

First Day of Creation
Separation of Light from Darkness, a 1512 fresco by Michelangelo (1475-1564), painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. The Vatican recently completed an eight year project to install LED bulbs and fixtures throughout its facilities, including the Sistine Chapel, cutting their energy use for lighting by 90 percent.

Energy savings from the indoor market for LED bulbs probably will pan out as scientists predict since people will use about as much lighting as they’ve used before, only they will have switched out the type of bulbs they use. Municipal outdoor lighting, on the other hand, has not proved to save energy when switching to LEDs because officials tend to have more of the new lights installed, negating energy savings as well as increasing light pollution. There are compelling reasons for municipalities to increase outdoor lighting, such as fighting crime, but still it seems a terrible waste of resources that may have more to do with bureaucrats defending their turf from budget cuts which might ensue after energy savings. Luckily, private citizens don’t usually control their own budgets in a similarly wasteful manner.

About outdoor lighting at home, it should be noted that scientists don’t know exactly what type of light is most attractive to insects, or to what extent the heat given off by bulbs is a factor. Some types of light are more attractive than others to some kinds of insects and not to others, and most insects are drawn to heat, but not all of them. There is no truth to the rumor that all LEDs, even bright whites, are not attractive to insects. To avoid drawing insects, the best kind of bulb is still an orange one, usually marketed specifically as a “bug light”, though of course it would more accurately be described as a “no bug light” or a “fewer bugs light”. The LED will be more effective than the incandescent because it also takes much of the attractive heat out of the equation. The absolute worst kind of outdoor lighting to get is marketed as a “bug zapper”, for a number of reasons. There are now bug zappers available which use LEDs as their light source, and that makes the least sense of all, except perhaps to someone who with unwarranted satisfaction feels better about saving energy while unnecessarily luring to their deaths any and all bugs.
— Techly

 

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Leave It to Google

 

People go out of their way to use the Linux operating system on their desktop and laptop computers for all sorts of reasons, and it’s a fair guess that among them is the desire to stay clear of the tentacles of major technology companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Google. Microsoft has never made any pretense of being anything but evil, while Apple has pretended to be above the fray, and perhaps the least trustworthy of the three is Google, which tipped everyone off to their evil intentions by sanctimoniously proclaiming at one time “Don’t be evil”. Any individual or organization professing to abide by moral certainties that should not even be in question is not to be trusted.

 

It’s ironic then that because of some holes in Linux development such as lack of drivers for some peripherals, usually printers, Linux users may find themselves forced to rely on Google services as workarounds. In the case of printers, incompatibility with Linux has become less of a problem over the past 20 years as Linux has climbed in market share to around five percent. Microsoft’s Windows is around 75 percent, with Apple’s Mac operating system at about 15 percent, although it seems no one can agree on the exact numbers. Google’s Chrome operating system makes up most of the remaining percentage in use for desktops and laptops, and because it has access to all Google services built in, including Google Cloud Print, printing from Chrome OS is never a problem even if proprietary drivers are not available from the printer manufacturer.

 

MagpieOS infofetch
Magpie OS is an Arch-based Linux distribution, developed by Rukunuzzaman, a Bangladeshi developer. Screenshot by Kabirnayeem.99. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of different Linux distributions, enough to suit anyone’s preference.

Some printer makers still do not provide drivers for Linux, and in cases where generic drivers won’t work the Linux user is confronted with either turning their incompatible printer into a doorstop or falling back on workarounds like using Google Cloud Print. It’s an efficient service that comes in handy. It’s also free. Free often comes at a price, however, and in the case of Google, like many other technology companies, that means turning the user of the free service into a product sold to marketers. Google is perhaps no worse in this respect than companies like Facebook, only more pervasive by its utter ubiquity. It’s nearly impossible to escape Google entirely and still get along in today’s technological world. Google’s Chrome OS may bring up the rear among major desktop and laptop operating systems, but its Android OS for smartphones leads the next highest competitor, Apple’s iOS, by a huge margin at around 85 percent to 15 percent.

Printer manufacturers appear interested mostly in configuring their drivers for the two biggest desktop and laptop operating systems, Windows and Mac, and Linux is generally an afterthought. Chrome can fend for itself, and to some extent Linux can as well, but not without having to resort to using Google services occasionally. Linux developers are volunteers, and they can’t keep up with the myriad of proprietary configurations for all the printer models hitting the market each year. Much of the proprietary nature of printer drivers has nothing to do with actually making the product perform its basic functions, but rather with marketing gimmicks like greeting card suites.

Al Pacino in The Godfather: Part III, a 1990 film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Not that large technology companies are necessarily comparable to the Mafia, but to some people their grasp may feel similarly inescapable.

Now more than ever people need a reliable printer at home. About the only way left of obtaining tax forms is to download them from the internet and print them at home. Using the internet and printing out web pages has become a major factor in children’s schoolwork, and their parents need to print out receipts and coupons or run a home office. Getting along without a printer, or having to jump through hoops in order to get one to work properly, can no longer be part of how most people cope with the modern world. For most people, the 90 percent who use either Windows or Mac computers, compatibility problems are rare to nonexistent; for the 10 percent minority, and particularly those who wish to go against the flow with Linux, incompatibility between operating system and printer should no longer be an issue if manufacturers want to sell their wares to all consumers and ensure the same ease of use long enjoyed by the majority. It’s about time for proprietary drivers to go into the desktop trash can.
— Techly

 

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Changing Partners

 

Video subscription service Netflix is increasing prices across the board early this year as the company finances its ever increasing production of original content. For about 4 million customers who still receive discs by mail, down from a peak of about 20 million in 2010, being asked to pay more to subsidize internet streaming content they may not want or, in many cases, be able to access, is a bit dispiriting, as if Netflix has forgotten the wisdom of the old saying “Dance with them what brung you.”

 

For most of this decade, Netflix has continued its disc-by-mail service as a legacy option while it focused on its streaming service and on offering shows produced in house. Customer service remained excellent even as the catalog of older movies and television shows available on disc steadily diminished. The large catalog of content from the mid-twentieth century and earlier is where Netflix really shined ten or more years ago. Blockbuster never offered as much, even in its belated transformation to Blockbuster Online. Redbox has also never had much to offer customers interested in anything other than the latest releases. Filmstruck had an extensive catalog of older, less widely popular content, but it closed shop last year.

WLEX-1928-BOSTON-POST
Clipping of a news story from the May 4, 1928 edition of The Boston Post, announcing the start of television broadcasts by station WLEX in Lexington, Massachusetts.

For people in rural areas, streaming is often not an option because they have no broadband service or service that is limited either in speed or data usage. There are probably some Netflix customers who simply prefer a disc over streaming, but the majority of the remaining disc-by-mail customers are likely people for whom streaming is not a viable option. It has become a niche market, to be sure, and one that Netflix will sustain only as long as it generates enough profits to supply cash for the rest of its business. That window is closing.

Next generation television, which will increase the opportunity for local broadcasters to open more sub-channels offering niche content such as old movies and television shows, is at least another year away, and probably two or three before widespread adoption. Next generation television is a voluntary standard for broadcasters to send a 4K signal accompanied by internet data over updated and more expensive transmitters. Home viewers will need a 4K television as well as a next generation tuner, known as ATSC 3.0, and an internet router in order to take full advantage of the new broadcast technology. Viewers can still watch programs broadcast in 4K without setting up to receive the internet portion of the signal, though it’s not clear now if broadcasters will encrypt some of their signals to make them available on subscription or only for those who have enabled the internet signal.

Since the FCC has made the switch voluntary, broadcasters have much wider latitude in how they implement the new technology than they did during the transition from analog to digital, and the power of the new technology itself makes more options possible. The question is whether home viewers will tolerate the targeted advertising enabled by the internet portion of the signal, looking on it as no different than any other internet service.

Fahrenheit 451, the 1966 film adaptation by François Truffaut of Ray Bradbury’s novel, here with Julie Christie and Oskar Werner, is the kind of movie that all but disappeared from broadcast television lineups in the past 30 years. With the possibility of more sub-channels becoming available after the 4K broadcast rollout, perhaps broadcasters will once again air movies like this.

For people who already have SmartTVs and use them for internet streaming there will probably be no difficulty in adjusting; for those people in the niche market of getting their video entertainment by way of a disc in the mail and then being left to enjoy it in peace, having to cope with only minor nosiness about them on the Netflix website, the adjustment may be a step too far into creepiness. It will be interesting to see if next generation 4K broadcast television and its improved reception in rural areas, combined with a wider range of content, fills the gap being left by the general move toward internet streaming and, if it keeps broadcast television free, whether it will be an improvement over most of those services, though it is hard to imagine a local television station going as far as devoting a sub-channel to obscure art house films.
— Techly

 

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The Path of Least Resistance

 

There are a confusing amount of options for protecting home electronics from power surges coming both from within the home and outside it. Within the home, surges can come from refrigerator or air conditioner compressors turning on; and outside the home, surges can come from electrical storms or power company lines. Looking for answers on the internet is only slightly helpful, since there appears to be a dearth of black and white information from reputable sources, while there is a wealth of arguing shades of gray on forums.

 

CyberPower-SurgeProtectors
Surge protectors of the kind most home electronics users will find convenient and affordable. The one in the middle includes coaxial cable connections. Photo by Stevebwallace.

This post does not propose any definite answers to the trickiest questions about surge suppression because there is a strong element of safety at issue, both to electronic equipment and to a home and its inhabitants. When it comes to solving electrical problems, there is no substitute for calling in a trustworthy and knowledgeable professional electrician. Clerks at electronics stores may or may not possess those qualities. Their primary quality lies in selling electronics, which doesn’t necessarily negate the other qualities, but the wise customer regards their advice skeptically so as not to end up like the customer played by Albert Brooks in the running store scene from his 1981 film Modern Romance, in which his brother, Bob Einstein*, plays a store clerk who ruthlessly upsells Brooks.

The first thing to know is that a power strip is not a surge protector. The second thing to know is that if a surge protector has coaxial cable connections for television or internet service, it is not absolutely necessary to use them. This is a matter of some controversy, and a researcher can end up floundering in internet forums looking fruitlessly for a black and white answer. Mainly it is important to understand that the best protection for electronics from surges traveling over coaxial cables coming from outdoors is proper grounding of those cables, preferably with a metal gas discharge tube integrated into a grounding block. Grounding is a complex subject and as such should be addressed by a qualified electrician when there is any doubt about it.

There is the question of signal loss when using a plug-in surge protector’s coaxial cable connections, and despite all the argument about it, throwing around of terms like “insertion loss”, difficulty of determining said insertion loss from manufacturer’s specifications, or use of expensive diagnostic equipment, the simplest answer comes from taking advantage of the signal diagnostics included within the settings menus of all modern televisions. Check the signal strength and quality with the surge protector connected in the cable loop and then again without it connected. A decent plug-in surge protector should show negligible signal loss. Signal is signal, and therefore the same diagnostic results for a particular plug-in surge protector should apply to internet signal. Length of cable runs and quality of the cable and its connectors will usually be the more important factor affecting signal loss.


The last thing to consider when using the coaxial cable connections of a plug-in surge protector is whether it creates a ground loop. That’s a subject which can make anyone but an experienced electrician dizzy, and for those folks who are hopelessly confused and have thousands of dollars invested in home electronics, it would be best to consult an electrician. For everyone else, it is best to understand a ground loop is not inherently dangerous, as long as everything is indeed grounded. A ground loop caused by differences in electrical potential between pieces of equipment introduces a buzz or hum of interference, and the easiest and cheapest way to minimize the problem is to clamp ferrite beads, or chokes, on the ends of coaxial cables and power cords.

Cable end
The end of a USB (Universal Serial Bus) cable with a ferrite bead, or choke, included along the line. Many cables for electronic equipment are manufactured with such ferrite beads molded in place on them, a good indication they actually work as intended. Photo by Stwalkerster.

Again, the best safety feature of any home electronics setup is proper grounding of coaxial cables and power cords, giving a path of least resistance for power surges, whether they arise from inside or outside the home. Add a quality surge protector to prevent damaging current from traveling the live wire into sensitive electronics and it will save them most of the time as long as dangerously high current has a path out of harm’s way.
— Techly

* Bob Einstein, most well known for his persona as daredevil Super Dave Osborne and for his role as Marty Funkhouser on the TV show Curb Your Enthusiasm, passed away on January 2 at the age of 76. R.I.P.

 

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Charge It!

 

At Christmas time, the imperative phrase “charge it!” can mean one of two things: either buying a gift on credit, or making sure a battery powered gift is ready to go once the recipient unwraps it. Buying on credit has never been the best idea and can be a sign of financial distress, while using batteries to power toys and electronic devices of all sorts has gotten better over the years, with battery technology currently poised for another great leap forward.

The Flintstones Bedrock City IMG 0132
Flintstones Bedrock City in Williams, Arizona, in September 2018. Photo by Don McCulley. That appears to be a stripped down version of the Flintstones’ human – or cartoon character – powered vehicle under the sign.

 

The need for batteries on Christmas morning made itself known in earnest after World War II, when the first battery powered toys arrived on the market. Those batteries were not rechargeable and lasted only a few hours at most before depleting and then becoming trash. No recharging, no recycling. The batteries themselves might have been relatively inexpensive, but replacing them time and again was not.

Now batteries are mostly rechargeable and mostly recyclable, and more importantly they have become vital to powering far more devices than toys, from communication devices almost everyone uses throughout each day of their lives to personal transportation that is moving toward similar ubiquity. And batteries play a big part in storing electricity generated by renewable sources such as wind and solar, and that electricity can in turn be used to recharge the batteries people use every day.

ElectricCarText
A cartoonish look at the works of an electric car. Illustration by Welleman.

All that burgeoning interest has attracted research and development dollars, the incentive being the production of batteries that run longer on a charge, are made of less toxic materials, are cheaper for consumers, and are lighter in weight and in environmental footprint. The race is on, and with many more things in everyone’s daily lives being powered by batteries than there were 70 years ago, the stakes are bigger than simply making toy cars go faster on Christmas morning.
— Techly

 

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Listen Up

 

The vinyl record revival that started after the turn of the century continues to this day, and is even picking up momentum as younger people discover vinyl record albums anew. It’s encouraging to see renewed enthusiasm for the old format because it means manufacturers will produce new equipment for playback of 33 and 1/3 long playing albums, and some record companies will also press new albums in the format. The 45 revolutions per minute format has fewer adherents, and consequently there will be less quality equipment made for its playback.

 

In the 1950s, 60s, and even into the 70s there was a large market in 45 rpm records with a single song on each side. Typically 45s were played by teenagers on cheap portable record players they kept in their rooms. Those record players were capable of playing LPs, but their owners more likely used them for the cheaper 45s. Sound quality was not the biggest concern with those portable players. Now fast forward 50 years and there is a glut on the market of relatively cheap, poorly made portable record players with retro designs meant to evoke the teeny bopper record players of times past. There lies a dead end to the vinyl revival.

X5683 - Radiogrammofon Granada III - Gylling & Co - foto Dan Johansson
A Swedish made Radiogrammofon Granada III. Photo by Dan Johannson. It was not uncommon in the mid twentieth century for well made stereo playback equipment to be housed in well appointed pieces of furniture such as this console.

The main point of the resurgence in interest in recordings pressed on vinyl is that it is driven by audiophiles looking for better quality sound than can be found on digital recordings. A secondary point relates to maintaining playback equipment for old vinyl record collections. That by itself is heartening news, because there are unfortunately too many people with media files of one sort or another they are unable to play back because manufacture of the appropriate equipment has been discontinued. Vinyl at least has new life in that regard.

Just don’t expect younger people to understand the reason for the revival and the superiority of vinyl in the ears of audiophiles when their only experience of it comes from a shoddy portable record player. Using such poor equipment, its appealingly retro design aside, misses the point of the vinyl revival. In the old days, some people had no choice but to use cheap record players. There were no other options such as compact disc players, MP3 players, cassette decks, or even 8 track players, bad as they were, until later on in the 70s. In the middle of the twentieth century, for the majority of music lovers vinyl record players covered all the options from high end to low end for all but the few who used reel to reel tape decks.

The owner of this Sanyo Hi Fi manufactured in the 1970s and built into its own furniture enclosure was good enough to share his enjoyment of it on YouTube and, admirably suited to showing off this mid-twentieth century ensemble of hi fi with wood cabinets is the owner’s selection of “Early to Bed”, a swinging tune by Elmer Bernstein from the movie soundtrack to The Silencers, the 1966 entry in the Matt Helm series of spy movie spoofs.

Now the situation is different, with many more options for listeners. Buying a cheap, poorly made record player now misses the point, pleasant as it may be to imagine teenagers listening to individual pop songs on 45s played through tinny speakers in their room rather than blasting the rest of the family out of the house with a more powerful system. Those days are over. The vinyl revival now is for audiophiles and record collectors, probably nearly all of them at least in their twenties. To play vinyl LPs now and enjoy them for what they’re worth it’s necessary to spend the money for high end playback equipment. Otherwise, with many easier options available, what’s the point?
— Techly

 

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10 Questions for Today’s Driver

 

Driverless cars will be ready for the mass market within a few years, though the question remains whether the mass market will be ready for driverless cars. There’s an incredible amount for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) behind driverless cars to learn, and for years Google has enlisted the help of internet users who train Google’s (now Waymo’s) driverless car AI whenever they tick the boxes on a reCAPTCHA relating to things seen on or around roads. Google owns reCAPTCHA, and for years has been using it for double duty as a security measure and as an AI trainer for its various projects.

1930s HU STUDENTS
Students at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, take final exams in the 1930s. Photo from the archives of Hamline University. Surely this driving test, which calls on knowledge affecting the safe passage of millions of people on the nations’ roads every day, can be taken as seriously.

 

What follows is a test to help you determine if you’re ready for a driverless car.

1. The rules of the road are for –
A) Lesser mortals
B) Drivers paying attention to such things
C) Sticklers and fussbudgets
D) All of the above

2. Using your turn signal is –
A) An inconvenience because your hands are otherwise occupied
B) Unnecessary because other drivers can divine your intentions
C) For losers, not an important person like you
D) All of the above

3. Using a phone while driving is –
A) Compulsory
B) The best way to update friends and family on every detail of your life
C) A good way to multitask for a superior driver like you
D) All of the above

4. Proper procedure when merging is to –
A) Come to a complete stop and wait for clear sailing on the main thoroughfare
B) Tootle along at your own speed and trust other drivers will make way for you
C) Use the opportunity to demonstrate your aggressive driving skills
D) All of the above

5. Waiting at a red light is a good time to –
A) Become engrossed in your phone and oblivious to the light turning green
B) Fiddle with your belongings and not notice when the light turns green
C) Creep forward every few seconds because you can’t wait for the green light
D) All of the above

6. When following another vehicle, be sure to –
A) Get as close as possible no matter how fast the other vehicle is traveling
B) Tap your brakes often because you’re following too closely to slow down using the gas pedal
C) Make impatient gestures to inform the driver in front of you of your displeasure
D) All of the above

7. Staying within your lane is –
A) Not interesting because there is no element of danger
B) Hard to do when you’re texting
C) A boring way to go around blind curves
D) All of the above

8. The speed limit is a –
A) Suggestion
B) Lower limit to speed
C) Thing only for old fogies
D) All of the above

9. Continuing to drive when very old –
A) Tests your deteriorating reflexes
B) Gives your clouded judgment a workout
C) Maintains your independence at the cost of everyone’s safety
D) All of the above

10. Driving defensively is –
A) A sign of weakness
B) Something requiring more attention than you have time for
C) Hitting the brakes frequently rather than modulating speed using the gas pedal
D) All of the above

English comic actor Rowan Atkinson as the selfish Mr. Bean.

There is only one right answer to all of the above, and if you checked it off for every question then you are ready for a driverless car, and everyone else on the road is ready for you to have one, too. Congratulations! At least our good friend AI doesn’t feel it necessary to eat a burrito and text a friend about it, all while piloting one or more tons of metal hurtling down the road.
— Techly

 

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Enough Is Never Enough

 

Amazon.com, the internet’s everything store, recently announced it will be opening two secondary headquarters, one in the New York City borough of Queens, and the other in the Arlington, Virginia, area near Washington, D.C.. City and state officials in both locations offered Amazon enormous benefits at taxpayers’ expense, though the exact amounts are unknown because officials claim they have a competitive advantage by keeping their bids secret.

 

Nonsense. It’s the taxpayers’ money and they have every right to know how officials spend it. The whole nationwide competition for Amazon’s secondary headquarters was a yearlong sham and circus, the kind of municipal debasement and looting that has become far too common as states and cities are pitted against each other for the dubious prize bestowed on them by corporate behemoths relocating or opening new places of business.

Caricature of "Organized Big Business Interests"
Caricature of “Organized Big Business Interests” illustrated by John Miller Baer (1886-1970) for part of the November 17, 1919 cover of The Nonpartisan Leader. Nearly one hundred years later, a caricature of a big business interest is more likely to appear trim and fit, wearing jeans and a turtleneck or other informal clothing.

Amazon is to labor practices and corporate citizenship as an internet business as Walmart is to labor practices and corporate citizenship among brick and mortar stores, which is to say they are leaders in their respective fields in abusing their lowest tier workers and siphoning funds away from local communities. Both Jeff Bezos, head of Amazon, and the Walton family at the head of Walmart are obscenely rich. They got that way because of their cleverness at exploiting the properties mentioned above, not because of their own virtuousness and hard work as they would have everyone believe. There are millions upon millions of people who are every bit as virtuous and hard working as Mr. Bezos and the Walton family, probably more so, and they are not obscenely rich, or even well off.

 

La2-buynothing
Buy Nothing Day demonstration in San Francisco, California, in November 2000. Photo by Lars Aronsson.

Mr. Bezos and others like him are obscenely rich because they are, among their other qualities in starting and running a business, both good and bad, obscenely greedy. Shoppers visiting the Amazon website cannot be blamed for taking advantage of the low prices and good service. That would be a kind of “blaming the victim”. Besides, it is all too easy for shoppers to forget about or remain ignorant of Amazon’s bad labor practices and exploitative corporate citizenship since it does those things mostly out of sight and therefore out of mind, a benefit it has as an internet company that Walmart does not have as a brick and mortar outfit.

Shoppers might fairly ask themselves, however, that even if they are not entirely complicit in sustaining Mr. Bezos’s greed, perhaps their own much smaller proportion of greed is something worth examining. It is a form of greed that drives most purchases from Amazon. Amazon sells some necessities such as groceries, but then so do stores at neighborhood shopping centers throughout the country. Most of what Amazon sells are not necessities. They are convenient luxuries, great or small, delivered to the shopper’s door. With the enormous emphasis on shopping around Thanksgiving all but swallowing up the holiday and its meaning, people might want to step back from the shopping cart, both real and virtual, and reflect on how their own petty greed feeds the monstrous greed of Jeff Bezos and his fellow billionaires and millionaires, while around the world millions upon millions of decent people go hungry.
— Techly

 

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Voting Should Be Easy

 

Over 75 percent of the American people have smartphones, and since voter participation in elections hovers around 50 percent of eligible citizens, the idea has come around to increase voting by making it possible for people to use their smartphones for that purpose. This year, West Virginia is trying out smartphone voting on a limited basis. The biggest concern with this practice is ballot security from smartphone to tabulating facility, usually a government office such as in a county courthouse. The medium used for that transmission would, of course, be the internet.

Smartphone Zombie Girls (15773553090)
Pedestrians in the Rahova neighborhood of Bucharest, Romania, on October 27, 2014, days before the first round of the Romanian presidential election on November 2. Photo by J Stimp.

 

Now the internet is many wonderful things, but numbered among them is not airtight security for the general user. Some users haven’t the faintest idea about or concern for the security of their system, whether it be on a desktop or laptop computer, a tablet or a smartphone. It’s clear that the integrity of internet voting by smartphone or any other device would need to be maintained by a third party, since the users themselves are unreliable.

The voting system would have to be capable of freezing out “man-in-the-middle” hacks, which have historically been the greatest vulnerability of internet communications and the most commonly exploited by hackers. Think of it as the postal system, in which Party A mails a letter to Party B by entrusting it to Party C, in this case the United States Postal Service, with the understanding that in between point A and point B no one will intercept and read it, save perhaps a Postal Inspector who can show probable cause.

 

The internet has never been even as secure as the postal system. More often it has been like the party lines that used to exist on some phone systems around the country. Until the security problems can be fixed, smartphone voting is unlikely to see widespread use. The safest system for voters is still paper ballots filed either by mail or in person at a polling place. Voting should be easier, not more difficult, as all the voter suppression laws passed by Republican controlled state legislatures have made it, with the idea that low turnout favors their candidates.

Voters wait in line to cast their ballots in the US presidential election in Philadelphia 14200A
Voters wait in line to cast their ballots in the U.S. presidential election in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 8, 2016. Note how some are looking down at their smartphones, a common sight in public places now. Photo by Voice of America News.

Relatively few people are motivated to spend a long time waiting to vote in a queue that may keep them outdoors in bad weather, though some do appear willing to endure similar conditions in order to purchase the latest iPhone. Smartphone voting is a great idea for increasing participation in elections, but sadly it is one that needs work before becoming wholly viable, if it ever does. Until then, voters can still bring along their smartphones to their polling places to keep themselves entertained while they wait.
— Techly

 

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Cursing the Darkness

 

There are some people who are so afraid of change that they would rather curse the darkness of their current situation than light a candle to change it. Such people curse an onerously expensive Comcast or Charter cable television and internet bill and the infamously poor customer service of those companies, and yet when they are presented with alternatives they hem and haw and drag their feet about contacting a competitor to the large cable television and internet providers. Part of the problem is fear of change, and part of it is the desire to continue having all of everything, all at once.

 

People living in or near cities have choices of providers for their television and internet services, while choices for people living in the countryside are far more limited. Nevertheless, while choices may be limited, they are available to people everywhere in the United States who are willing to forego having daily access to obscure specialty channels on cable television or to hundreds of GigaBytes (GB) of data each month for streaming content over the internet. People have to be willing to give up the passivity of slouching on their couches and letting Comcast do everything for them. If that’s what they want, then fine, but don’t expect everyone else to be sympathetic to complaints about high monthly bills for lousy service. Curse the darkness to yourself if you’re unwilling to light a candle to help yourself.

Paris - A waiter lighting candles in a bar - 3418
A waitress lighting candles in a bar in Paris, France, in 2008. Photo by Jorge Royan.

For everyone else, there is research to be done, most likely over the internet, a job for which it is very well suited. Research options for internet service providers other than the large companies. You may have to make sacrifices in one way or another when changing to a local, small scale provider, but that is part of cutting the cord. It’s like changing from buying most of your groceries at a national or regional chain grocer to buying them from a local farmers’ market or independent grocer. City dwellers will of course have more options when it comes to technology than country folks, but the important thing to realize is that there are options, as long as people ditch the idea of having all of everything done for them all at once.

The same thing applies to television service, which starts with cutting the cord without bothering to find a new cord provider. Get an antenna! Local television stations are adding digital subchannels every year, and receiving them with an antenna costs nothing. The two key things to remember in buying an antenna are that there is no such thing as a digital or high definition television antenna (an antenna is an antenna, built to receive electromagnetic frequencies regardless of whether the content of those signals is analog or digital), and that resolving digital television content requires a slightly more powerful antenna than in the old days of resolving analog content. Where a rabbit ears antenna may have done the job before, today an outdoor antenna may be necessary for adequate reception.

A nice story from the actor, Jamie Farr, about his early days struggling to make a living in Hollywood. Documentaries like this are much easier to find now on the internet than on cable television.

Some folks who are fortunate enough to have hundreds of GigaBytes of internet data available each month at a reasonable price can do away with cable or antenna television service altogether, and instead use their internet service for viewing television. Do your research! Ask questions of yourself first about what it is you watch most and can’t do without. How many different ways are there to receive that programming? Chances are there are multiple ways of receiving your favorite content, and continuing to rely solely on companies like Comcast and Charter is a disservice to yourself and a way of continuing to curse the darkness. To take documentaries – serious documentaries, that is, not Shark Week documentaries or anything involving Guy Fieri – as one example, it is obvious that cable television offerings have been replaced in the past ten years by what’s available for free on YouTube and by subscription on services such as Netflix. Don’t keep sitting in the dark – light a candle, just don’t expect it to vanquish all the shadows in your life.
— Techly

 

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