Morse Code

One of the skills I have wanted to learn is that of Morse code. When I was younger, I had one of those inexpensive Archer walkie talkie sets that were popular in the 1970's. It had the Morse code alphabet on the front along with a button for sending it. I never had the patience to sit down and learn this new language of dits and dahs but I thought it would be a lot of fun.

Later as a teenager I wondered how cool it would be to know the code so I could communicate with classmates in the middle of school. Once again, none of us ever had the patience to sit down and learn the language of dits and dahs.

Now that I am a licensed ham radio operator, I am intrigued by the idea of learning Morse code. One of its advantages is that it allows you to communicate over very long distances using a minimal amount of power. It also doesn't require such a complicated radio or antenna.

There are a number of software programs to help you learn Morse code. One that I am working with is for Linux and is called Morse. All it takes is about 16 hours of practice over the course of a few weeks, according to some. My problem now is finding the 16 hours.

New Electronic Toys

I left the break room at the office and headed back towards my office this afternoon when I ran into a couple of coworkers carrying a somewhat-large box. I could tell from the extreme grins on their faces that they had a new toy to play with. Considering I work for a video game company, it takes a really special toy to make those coworkers grin that much. I stole a quick glance of the box and it was one of those small remote-control helicopters like I mentioned in my 2012 Christmas list.

There are a number of remote-control helicopters on the market and I have heard quite a few stories about how much fun they are. My son living in Romania picked one up as a Christmas present to himself. Actually, I bought it for him, but as it is easier to send money overseas than actual gifts, he was able to use the money to get the helicopter. It took him a while to figure out how to fly the thing and he managed to beat it up pretty badly. His advice to me is that the gears get stripped when you crash land the helicopter on its side and then try to take off. I will have to remember that.

I was up at Snowbird on Saturday and there was a father who brought his new remote-control helicopter. It wasn't inexpensive. Instead it was one of the deluxe models with 4 rotors and a video camera. The father's plan was to have the helicopter hover above the training course and use it to take videos of the racers practicing. It was a good plan until the toy crashed into the side of the ski hill and couldn't take off again. Luckily the owner was able to retrieve the pieces before they were run over by a skier.

Some of these remote-control helicopter are controlled by your iPhone. A friend was telling me about his experience. It took him awhile to get the hang of hovering and steady flight. He found it frustrating though because he could never get the toy more than a couple of feet off the ground. He almost gave up on it until his iPhone announced that he had logged enough hours to unlock full control of the helicopter. It was like Christmas all over again for this grown man. Instead of being limited to his garage, he brought it to a large warehouse where he worked and had fun ten minutes at a time. Why ten minutes? Because that is all the flight time you get before the battery requires recharging. He spent the day flying the helicopter, working for an hour or so while it charged, then flying it some more.

Smart Watches

My first introduction to Kickstarter was from a coworker who committed money to the Pebble watch. He should be able to get his watch soon as they started shipping today. There are a number of other smart watches on the market from companies like Sony and a slew of no-name companies trying to make their mark. I like the idea of Kickstarter, but am more intrigued by this new fad of smart watches.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of my children's generation is that they don't wear watches. There is no need because everyone just checks the time on their smart phones. If someone was to pitch me on the idea of a smart watch that connects to a smart phone, my first thought would be that it is a stupid idea based on my kids' friends adoption of previous watch technology. However upon further reflection, it may not be such a bad idea. Perhaps the watches of yesterday just don't appeal to kids today because they have such limited functionality.

The second-screen experience is becoming more ubiquitous. You can use your tablet as an overgrown remote for your television as well as to see the director's commentary about the movie you are watching. Why not extend the second-screen for your phone? When you hear it ring, don't worry about taking it out of your pocket, just check your watch to see who is calling. If it is your friends texting you to go to the movies, you can see the message with the twist of your wrist. Maybe there is something to these smart watches. I may have to get me one.

Lost Without a Mobile Phone

I got to the Salt Lake airport this morning and ran into one of the 30 or so regulars I normally fly with on Monday mornings. We both had the day off yesterday and were making our weekly trek to the Bay Area on a Tuesday. He asked me if I have ever forgotten my phone. I have once or twice and told him so. He asked what I did and I recounted the options in my previous post on the subject. I emphasized that if he bought a cheap prepaid phone, he could use it to prank call the President as long as he didn't call anyone else. That at least got a laugh from him.

We all boarded our flight and I took my usual 90-minute nap. We got to the Bay Area and I had another regular frequent flyer drive me to my office. We talked about our buddy forgetting his phone and how important they have become in our daily lives. My chauffeur confessed that he was late getting to the airport last week because he had left his phone in the car. He had to run back and get it before boarding the flight back to Salt Lake.

I would like to think that I could go a weekend without my phone but probably would have gone back to get mine as well. What did we ever do before the days of mobile phones?

Apple Blue Screen of Death

Friday night I was at the airport in Oakland headed back to Utah when my MacBook Pro's screen went blue and stayed that way. I was hoping it would fix itself, but it didn't. I had to turn it off so I could get on the plane. Needless to say I wasn't happy to have my Mac crash like that.

All I could do on the flight home was worry about what went wrong. I have been working on a number of projects and if my solid-state drive (SSD) went bad, I would have to recreate everything. I was also headed to Utah for the week and if I couldn't get my Mac back from the dead, I had no way to log into the servers back in my office.

I got home and used another computer to do a search on the Internet trying to figure out how to do a hard reboot for my Mac. Normally I would unplug the laptop and remove the battery. Unfortunately these new MacBooks don't have a removable battery. A quick search told me to plug in the laptop and then press the shift, control, and option keys at the same time as the power key. That resets everything on the computer.

I followed the instructions and then turned the computer back on. It booted right up and was back from the dead. The whole reason I moved from Microsoft Windows to the Apple Mac was because of Window's blue screen of death. Now I am getting it on the Mac, albeit not nearly as often.

Logical Thinking

Today has been a very emotionally charged day. I was awoken early this morning with some relatively bad news from home. Nobody died or anything quite that tragic, but it still had me thinking with my emotions instead of logically. One nice thing about dealing with computers every day is how emotionless they are. One plus one will always equal two on a computer. When you are dealing with humans, sometimes you get different numbers and that can be confusing.

Unfortunately I am not the only one that thinks emotionally sometimes. I don't think politicians know how to make decisions that aren't emotionally based. That can explain all of the bickering that is taking place in the US congress right now. Sometimes I wish they would think like a computer every once and a while and make a decision based on logic instead of which party proposed the idea. A democrat or a republican could propose the perfect solution and the other party would vote it down simply because it came from the other side.

I was listening to a commentary on the radio just after Congress passed an emergency measure to keep the country from going off the fiscal cliff. If we go back to the original tax cuts that President Bush proposed, the democrats opposed them but they passed anyways. Now the democrats think they are a good idea and just couldn't agree with the republicans on which cuts to keep. From a logical perspective, it doesn't make sense.

Listening to all of the politicians in this country makes me glad that I work with computers. It provides my life with structure an logic. Now if we could just pass along some of that to Washington D. C. we might be able to solve some of the real problems facing our country. I'm not holding my breath though.

Winter Driving

I don't know how I managed to stumble across the video on YouTube showing some of the worst 2012 truck accidents caught on video. Once I started watching though, I couldn't stop. You only need to watch about half of the video as the second half is full of repeats. The first accident on the video shows how important it is to pay attention while driving in winter conditions. One lapse in judgement can send your car sliding out of control and into oncoming traffic.

When I am in California during the week, I don't really have to worry too much about winter driving as there is never any snow or ice on the road. Tonight it is supposed to get down below freezing, but anyone who drives in the snow knows that a couple of hours below freezing is not likely to create treacherous conditions. No, I have to worry about winter driving on weekends when I am back in Utah.

Last week I managed to contract an ear infection. I was glad to get on a plane Friday evening and have the weekend to recuperate. I thought about forcing myself to ski for a few runs on Saturday, but I just wasn't up to it. Instead I stayed in bed all day and watched the Ice Road Truckers marathon with seven episodes all in a row. If you think it is tough keeping a car on an icy road, try doing it in an large truck with 80,000 pounds of cargo.

As winter driving will be with us for the next few months, I thought I would gather some links to sites with a few suggestions:

Caltrans Winter Driving Tips
AAA Winter Driving Tips
The Weather Channel Winter Driving Tips

My motivation for passing these along are purely for selfish reasons. I know how to drive in the snow. I don't want someone else running into me and pushing me into a head-on collision with a large long-haul trucker. That would really ruin my day.