A Life For Itself

Category: ideas

  • All Day Writing – 9 March 2021

    Today’s inspiration:

    R&B and Soul music. Specifically, 80’s and 90’s R&B and Soul. The stuff I grew up listening to. I’ve been keeping a running list of essential 80’s and 90’s R&B and Soul love songs and writing from that list. I need to get back to my play-in-progress, but it was enjoyable spend all night listening to some of the music I love and writing.

    Today’s joy:

    I started writing as soon as I woke up this morning and spent as much time as I could, writing. No resistance, no writer’s block, nothing. That felt good. Plus, it feels like spring is close. By this time next week, it’ll be lighter longer, ushering in my favorite time of year.

    A Past joy:

    The chicken parm at Trattoria E Pizzeria Da Enrico in Columbia, Maryland, is still probably the best chicken parm I’ve ever had. When I was dating somebody out that way years ago and we’d order food, that was by far my favorite. I might roll out there and get carryout one of these days.

    I wrote last night and this morning about some resistance I had to being vulnerable in my writing. And yet, by the time afternoon rolled around and I’d been inspired some, I was able to get down what I needed to get down. I’m on the fence about how much, if any of that stuff, I’m going to share here. I may later in the week after I’ve had some time to reread and edit some of it.

  • Five Things – 2 August 2020

    Twitter Hackers Caught

    There’s a scene at the beginning of “Ocean’s Eleven,” where Danny Ocean and Rusty Ryan are trying to talk Ruben Tishkoff into joining them in their planned casino robbery caper. Ruben is hesitant at first, but is happy to join in once Danny and Rusty explain that they’re planning to rob the casinos of Ruben’s nemesis, Terry Benedict, who had recently bought Ruben’s hotels from under him and was planning to demolish them “to make way for some gaudy monstrosity.”

    Despite the good feelings engendered by Ruben’s joining the plan, he makes an important warning. Stealing from Terry Benedict like this is especially dangerous. “At the end of this, he better not know you’re involved, not know your names, or think you’re dead, because he’ll kill you, then he’ll go to work on you.”

    Since the movie is older than at least one of them, almost as old as the other two involved, I guess the young men who pulled off the Twitter hack had never seen it, or at least that scene. And perhaps nobody told them leave their names fully out of online activities like that. And that means anywhere along the lines.

    What’s the point of using a “hacker alias,” a VPN, TOR, an airgapped machine, Kali Linux, or any of that other stuff, if you’re going to use your real name on your bitcoin account that you use to receive stolen Bitcoin?

    I only ask because that’s apparently how guys in the caper got caught. They’re described as the middlemen, but, if you’re the kind of person who involves themselves in such activities, you’ve probably taken a lot of other precautions, such as the ones listed above, to protect your identity, as much as possible. They might even use burners phones and such. But if you’re going to be receiving stolen bitcoin, why on Earth would you receive it in such a way that can be tied back to you? There are ways to transact with Bitcoin anonymously and I was surprised to hear that this is how law enforcement was lead to the two.

    In Ocean’s Thirteen, when discussing that film’s caper, the specialist Roman Nagel asks Danny and Rusty possibly the most important question of any caper, “what’s your exit strategy?”

    These guys must not have given much thought to theirs. Now, they’re facing multiple felonies.

    President bans TikTok

    The other night, Twitter was ablaze with the news that the President of the United States planned to ban the short-form video content creation app, TikTok. If you’ve been living under a rock or perhaps spend the majority of your social media time on Facebook and therefore don’t know what’s going on, TikTok has been controversial because it is owned by a Chinese company with ties to its government and the app has come to be considered to be spyware. India’s government has banned TikTok, but they’ve also been having other issues with China this year.

    This, and perhaps other issues (like, really, who even knows?) have prompted the President to make the move to ban the app in the United States. But, if the comments on Twitter are any indication, there might be some trouble enforcing that.

    As a baseline, the government would need Google and Apple to remove the app from their app stores “in the U.S.” Even so, the moment the app is removed from those locations, what’s stopping someone from hopping on a VPN and changing their location to another country, like say, Canada, which has not banned the app, and getting the app?

    It’s possible on both Android and iOS without rooting, and it’s super easy on Android.

    But even so, for those who might be unable or unwilling to do that much, there are alternative app stores out there. And even if one does not trust those, what’s stopping people from going to other websites and getting the app(s)? It’s pretty easy to sideload an Android app. And while it doesn’t seem as easy to me to do the same on iOS, it’s possible. A quick web search will reveal a bunch of possible ways to do so.

    As this tweet says, pretty much nothing sort of the government building a “Great Firewall” is going to stop the app from coming into the country. They’d have to enlist every ISP, including cell phone companies and home Internet providers. Would they do it by blocking the DNS of known places where the app might be? Still, people can use DNS in other countries and even Cloudflare, whose 1.1.1.1 DNS service is encrypted. VPN providers have their own DNS servers, so if someone connected to a VPN, if that VPN provider were outside of the country, then they’ve already circumvented things. They’d have to ban VPN services.

    Then, what’s stopping someone two people, one inside the US and one outside, away from known VPN services, from setting up their own site-to-site VPN and just sharing the app between themselves?

    All of that aside, it’s being reported that Microsoft could buy the American arm of TikTok and I guess that, along with making sure the apps aren’t like … spying on people, will could make this issue go away? Hopefully, the kids will take their lessons on Internet privacy seriously, regardless of what happens.

    MLB Still Going

    Pleasantly surprised is a good way to describe how I feel about this MLB season, so far. Despite coronavirus diagnoses on several teams, MLB is pushing through. Now, Rob Manfred has told the union that too may more players testing positive would mean he’ll have to shut it down, and has told their television partners to get ready for that possible eventuality, but so far, they’re pressing on. And the O’s are near the top of the AL East. I do want baseball, not because I have this sense that it’ll be providing “normalcy.” Normalcy would be the season starting early spring when it’s cooler and fans would be in the stands and no fan noise would be piped in. But, baseball does bring me joy like few other things in my life, so I’m happy to have it. But, if the health situation becomes unmanageable, then it’s time to shut it down.

    NFL Better Pay Attention to MLB

    The NFL needs to be paying as much attention to how things go with MLB. In fact, while I’m pretty sure they’d never do this, were I in control of the NFL, I’d have done my best to have health and operations officials from my league working closely with some counterpart in MLB to monitor the situations and the decisions being made, to relay that information and to help us make better decisions moving forward.

    The two leagues are in similar situations, in that they both decided to contest games in each team’s home stadium. However, while no fans are present in MLB games, the NFL has decided to leave the question of fan capacity, ultimately up to teams and local governments. The Ravens announced several weeks ago that M&T Bank Stadium would have a capacity of no more than 14,000 fans (PSL holders were given priority ticket purchase rights since they wouldn’t all be technically able to use their PSLs this season), but ultimately, the decision is up to the City of Baltimore to decide whether that number of fans will be allowed into the ballpark, or fewer, or none at all.

    The challenge of preventing a breakout in any team’s locker room is magnified for the NFL, as NFL rosters are basically double the size of MLB rosters this season. NFL teams pretty much always have more coaches than the typical MLB team. More players play in closer quarters on every single play in any game, than in MLB. The NBA and WNBA have distanced players sitting on the bench, so it’ll be interesting to see how the NFL deals with that particular issue because there are a lot more players along the sidelines at any time during an NFL game than there are in any basketball game.

    It’s a logistical challenge and I think the NFL should have decided upon sequestering players, officials, and such in one or more places across the country and I’m surprised they did not. The NFL had lots of time to think about it. They planned and executed a physically distanced, and quite fun, in my opinion, draft in a relatively brief time.

    Now, on the chance that both the MLB and NFL seasons successfully complete, I do hope the O’s and Ravens do end up on top. I usually do, obviously, being from Baltimore and having been a fan for such a long time, but want to see the win for Mo. Baltimore superfan and child cancer patient, Mo Gaba, passed away this past week. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an outpouring of love or care or concern for anybody in the Baltimore sports community. Tweets came from current and former Baltimore players. Even whole sportscasts have been dedicated to him and his memory. Understandably so. He didn’t just love Baltimore sports, but that was part of his love of life. In spite of all of the challenges he faced. I never met him, but like so many of us, was touched by him and his story. The Orioles put him into their Hall of Fame hours before he passed and I hope that gave him peace and joy in his final hours. I’m glad the O’s and Ravens, and others, did so much for him, rallied around him. These are my home town teams, but we’re also part of a community that I’m grateful to be part of. At least one championship would be a great tribute to a life lived briefly but bravely.

    Isaias

    Tropical Storm Warnings have gone up in this area, and we’re hours from the forecast arrival of Isaias. Hopefully it will be just a Tropical Storm when it arrives in this area. From the looks of it, the storm will be here with us from sometime late Monday night through Tuesday afternoon/evening. It’s done quite a bit of damage down in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, but thankfully lost some intensity last night and was downgraded. But tropical cyclones are anything but fully predictable, so we’ll have to wait and see how things turn out.

    Baltimore City is offering free sandbags for local residents on a first-come, first-served basis.

    Providing these bags is a great service, but I think in future storms, this needs to be done on the basis of living near one of the City’s waterways. The City has neighborhoods that flood almost regularly, like Canton and Fells Point and ones right next to the Patapsco like Cherry Hill and Westport. Those neighborhoods, and ones like Clipper Mill, which sits in the Jones Falls valley, and Mount Washington, are the most at risk when a storm threatens to rain hard and consistently for hours. There are also other smaller waterways, which can become hazardous during a huge rain event. These are the places the city needs to focus on, as well as areas with poor drainage. The City knows about these issues and can focus resources better itself than relying on citizens, who might come from neighborhoods at less risk, and come more out of fear than out of a sense preparedness. With the pandemic going on, city agencies like schools (yeah, yeah, I know how it runs and how its funded, but it serves Baltimore children and it’s located in Baltimore) have faced logistical issues in serving people. The last thing we need is people unnecessarily showing up places for something they probably don’t need. Hopefully, the City will correct this and do a better job in the future. This isn’t a condemnation, but advice, as I know that Baltimore, like pretty much everywhere else, is under unprecedented pressures at this time. Whatever happens in the next couple of days, I hope that we make it through, as unscathed as possible because the logistics around sheltering people during the pandemic would be a major challenge. I know the City has many good people working for it, but again, there’s a big strain going on.

  • How to Fix Baltimore

    Baltimore Magazine recently published an article by senior editor, Ron Cassie, with some bold proposals to, as the title says, fix Baltimore.  The article recounts some of the historical reasons for why Baltimore has come to be in the position that it’s in.  It’s not what most people would think, especially outsiders, who most likely think the issue is crime, because they’ve watched The Wire; they’ve maybe even binged it during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.  It’s true that Baltimore, as it is now, is a product of the decisions made about its governance.

    Whether one agrees with the ideas presented in the article, the article is a great starting point for discussions about what Baltimore needs to become in a post-Covid-19 (hopefully) world.  The office of Mayor is up for grabs this year with a bunch of candidates.  There are other offices up for grabs, though right now, those are not nearly as powerful as the Mayor’s office, which is touched on in the article.  Yet, these ideas need to be on the forefront as leadership changes in the City. 

    One of the ideas presented in different ways in the article is that there needs to be more regional governance.  I agree and I’ll be discussing the ways in which I agree, below.  For that reason, I think this is an important read, not just for residents of Baltimore City, but of the entire Metro area, not just because some of the ideas, if ever implemented, would bring changes to the lives of non-residents, but also because the Baltimore suburbs, long intended to be bulwarks against urban ills, are experiencing some of those same ills and because the way that other areas around the country and the world are developing, the lines between Baltimore City and the surrounding Counties, are hindering, not helping.  Baltimore specifically and Maryland in general, are stuck in 1950’s thinking in 2020.

    Below are my responses to a few of the ideas presented.

    Knock down I-83

    This gets a hell yes from me.  I first came across this idea a little over a decade ago.  If I remember correctly, it’s been discussed on the old Envision Baltimore listserv I lurked on for a long time.  As the article states, the idea entails knocking down the elevated portion of I-83, which spans several blocks before it terminates at Fayette Street.

    While Baltimore might lose the charm of having its farmers market underneath the JFX anymore, it is past time to get rid of this.  As local business captain MJ Brodie, is quoted as saying in 2007, “Let’s plan now to demolish this elevated, archaic section of I-83.”

    People who work in more northerly reaches of Baltimore City, as well as those who live in the suburbs, would probably lose their minds at the prospect of not being able to speed into, and out of, Downtown (or crawl, whichever the case may be), 83 is a scar Downtown.  Getting rid of it would not just re-stitch together neighborhoods, as the article says, but doing so might also help lead to two more changes in the urban environment that might lead to some good: daylighting the Jones Falls and figuring out something with the stretch of I-83 adjacent to Woodbury/Hampden and Clipper Mill.

    Yes, a river flows through the middle of Baltimore, but you’d miss it if you didn’t know it’s there, because once it passes by the Harbor, it gets encased in concrete all the way through to parts of North Baltimore.  But that’s a topic for another blog post.

    With respect to that more northerly stretch of I-83, they need to do something.  There seems to always be an accident there; traveling northbound, there are major curves and the speed limit drops to 50, but drivers often ignore this, which leads to the accidents.  And on the southbound side, we’ve even had cars leaving the highway and dropping into the valley below.  Maybe once we’ve figured out how to live without the highway stretch of 83 south of Penn Station, we may figure out what to do with that stretch, which leads to congestion and delays so frequently because it’s so dangerous.

    Other cities are learning how to live without some of their highways and freeways.  As the article discusses, San Francisco’s Embarcadero Freeway suffered damage in the Loma Prieta Earthquake and then they tore down the rest.  Seattle buried their Alaskan Way Viaduct.  Boston’s Big Dig built a highway partially underground at its start.  Will Baltimore follow?

    Car-Free Streets

    One of the days that New York closed Broadway to cars, I was there.  I loved it.  Plenty of space to move around and not be close to people (that sounds like something that we may want to do moving forward for at least a while anyway).  Restaurants set out extra tables.  There was so much life on the street.

    Not that I discussed the idea with too many people back home because Baltimore is often dismissive of outside ideas (aside from former Mayor Martin O’Malley, who seemed like he couldn’t get enough of them and the people who had developed them), even ones that could be adapted to make Baltimore better, so married to the status quo are so many Baltimoreans.  And any idea that threatens car culture in Baltimore is going to be especially derided.

    Yet, as the article reports, Councilman Ryan Dorsey suggested closing Charles Street to cars.  No matter what the benefits may be, it’s an idea that would probably need a ton of support because those voices afraid of losing every single inch to speeding up to the County would be loud.  But still, I think it’s a good idea.  Not just because I think the City needs to be focused more on the needs of its own citizens until such as time as true regionalism is achieved, but because there are some stretches of Charles Street with restaurants and all that could use the freedom to expand into the outdoor environment, especially in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, but also because doing so might bring some life to those parts of Charles Street.  Now, ideally, Charles Street would be closed to cars and the once-proposed Yellow Line light rail would run on it, but the Yellow Line is another topic for another blog post.  Or, perhaps another section of this one.

    Charter Reforms to Mayoral Power

    I could just say “Healthy Holly” and be done with an argument for why this is good, but it goes further than that.  I agree that the mayor in Baltimore’s system has too much power.  Cassie outlines some of the ways in the article, but I want to add that Baltimore needs to get rid of the Board of Estimates, which puts way too much spending power into the hands of too few people.

    While we’re at it, I agree we need ranked choice voting.  Anything that’s nonpartisan.  A lot of people complain that Democrats have had too much power for too long in Baltimore.  This is only a surface read.  Baltimore’s politics don’t always follow national trends.  There are people registered Democrat whose politics don’t necessarily follow the center-to-left-center (or even left-leaning) politics most associated with national Democrats.  It’s a hodge podge and some of this is probably attributable to the desire of people in some circles desiring to be close to power and some not wanting their vote to be disregarded entirely, since other political parties are marginalized in Baltimore City.  Baltimoreans need to hear from other voices and some other form of elections would help to make that a reality instead of the Democratic primary more or less deciding most elections within the City.  

    Long term, I think Baltimore needs a City Manager, in conjunction with a Mayor (out of the norm of either governmental form, I believe).  In this scenario, the city manager would be in charge of the day-to-day management of the city and the Mayor would focus more on “big picture” things.  Ideally, the City Manager would be elected on their own.  Perhaps, if we were to maintain partisan elections, the City Manager would legally come from a party in opposition to the Mayor.  Just an idea.

    Build the Red Line

    Fully in support of this.  The City needs to have an east-west, fixed-rail transit line built.  Regardless of what Larry Hogan might have thought when he canceled the line, transportation planners thought it was needed, not just in 2002, but in the late 1950’s (probably the only 1950’s era Baltimore idea that I do like).  The reason cited to cancel the line was because of the tunnel under Boston Street, even though other alternatives had existed.

    I think this project may be more crucial than ever.

    The Maryland General Assembly has been recently working hard to craft the future of commuter/regional rail in Maryland.  Among the ideas presented are service to Delaware to meet up with SEPTA Regional Rail and service into Virginia.  Also presented is the need to connect the MARC Penn Line, which runs along Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, and the MARC Camden Line, which runs along parts of CSX’s Baltimore Terminal Subdivision and Capital Subdivision.  A connection between the two lines could conceivably take the form of the proposed East Baltimore MARC Station as well as some other connection that could possibly route Penn Line trains into Downtown Baltimore. 

    If Penn Line trains were to meet their Camden Line counterparts, the connection would probably be right at Pratt Street, right at the Convention Center and Camden Yards.  Red Line conceptions had the line traveling right along Pratt Street and meeting the current light rail line there.  If I remember correctly, there were plans for it to run either in a tunnel or on the street.  One of the reasons for the anger surrounding the cancellation of the 2002-planned Red Line was that the line was meant to, among other things, give people on the west side better access to jobs on the east side.  But, with the Penn Line possibly making an appearance in this part of town, alongside the Camden Line, then a revived east-west line would give west side residents not just better access to the east, but improved access to the Penn Line (at two stations) and the Camden Line.

    Overall, a new hub for fixed rail transit would be a net good for Baltimore as a whole.  As the money and city’s focus has moved more towards “Inner Harbor East,” making a transit hub closer to the traditional Central Business District would bring relevance back to that area.  It’s difficult to consider the idea of Maryland finally offering commuter trains that terminated in Downtown Baltimore the same way that it offers ones that terminate in Washington, D.C., and not support it.  Especially if there were more connections to other areas of the City and surrounding areas at that point.

    Cassie also mentions the Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition’s push for a regional transit authority.  It’s my position that the only way that a new Red Line, or any other line, will ever be built, is if it’s done in a regional transportation authority.  The decision can’t be left up to Annapolis, no matter who the governor is.  We rightfully decried Larry Hogan for cancelling the project, but it also sat for years under Democrat Martin O’Malley while he was governor.  And while he was mayor of Baltimore.

    This also goes to the regionalism necessary to make the project worthwhile.  The Red Line didn’t end at the Baltimore City line, but extended to the park and ride out in Woodlawn.  The history of transit projects is fraught with NIMBYism and outright racism but, before the Red Line’s cancellation, there was support from Kevin Kamenetz before his death.  The next line will need to regain that support.  A line that possibly terminated at Security Square Mall would help bring some relevance back to that area as it struggles to find some new use.  A park-and-ride at the mall with access to the line would not just help get people from the western suburbs to get Downtown, but the mall there could become a real center of activity like it used to be before the growth of Owings Mills.

    Any proposed RTA also needs to consider that we don’t need just lines, but a system.  So, if the state is considering planning an East Baltimore MARC Station, then any future transit line on the east side needs to connect with it.  And while we’re at it, if they’re going to build such a station, it would be nice if the current subway could be extended to it, since it terminates so closely to the Northeast Corridor.  Ten years ago, we could have quipped about Joe Flacco being able to throw a football from the Metro station to the Amtrak tracks.  These days, we can quip that Lamar Jackson could run from one to the other in a matter of seconds.  Or throw the ball, since he has some arm too.

    Create a Metro Government

    The City and County of Baltimore?  I need to think about how I feel about it more, but I’m confident that even if I lived to 120 years old, I would not see it.  However, that does not mean that in the meantime, we can’t think and act more regionally.  That needs to be done on transit and transportation.  The City needs to reconfigure some of its streets to serve its immediate residents, but that doesn’t mean that the two can’t collaborate on common solutions like a regional transit authority and such.  They’re already collaborating on crime along I-95.

    But creating a metro government?  I don’t know.  Baltimore is not a big city now and whole areas are being ignored.  I can’t imagine then adding in, not necessarily places immediately adjacent to the City like Woodlawn, Catonsville, or Parkville, but places like Hereford and Middle River, and expect those places in the city currently that are ignored now to improve.  The resources would be there, but along with that, would still be residents of those places that wouldn’t be keen to give up part of their way of life to live in those places.  And to be honest, I’m sure there are more than a few who live out there, specifically because they don’t want to be inside of Baltimore City.

    Maglev

    So far as I know, it’s going to be built and it’s out of the hands of City leaders.  Outside of the possible construction jobs, I’m not seeing much benefit, at least in the short term, until the full line is built.  Some folks, who are able and willing to pay prices that may rival Amtrak’s Acela Express, will commute on it, depending on convenience, etc.  

    From what I understand, the station will be located in South Baltimore, if it’s not located at or near the Harbor.  That may be a problem for those in other parts of the city and other areas that may want to use it for their commutes.  It would probably be convenient for people living in or near Cherry Hill, Westport, or Port Covington, and Port Covington may be the target for their choice of location for the station.  Commuting from, say, Parkville, might not even be an option.  It would probably be easier to just hop on 95 and drive from there.  If Port Covington ends up being built as envisioned –and with the pandemic, who even knows if it will be?– and the current Light Rail receives a spur across the water to Port Covington, then that may help with people coming from outside of the immediate area.  But, this is a ways off and there are lots of questions other than what might happen with the current Light Rail.

    Also, the stated goal of at least Northeast Maglev has never been travel between Washington and Baltimore, but Washington and New York.  The phase to Baltimore, as I understand it, was meant to be the demonstration phase.  If and when the project expands and moves towards full production, I don’t know if it’s clear what Baltimore’s role will be in the service.  I think it might be a “nice to have” option for the area, but I think, at least in the near future, steel wheels on steel rails will be the way we go in the Baltimore region.

    As I said before, I think the article is a great starting point for conversations about Baltimore’s future, along with ones about what’s going to happen in the neighborhoods, including municipal WiFi.  Digital Harbor Foundation is working on that right now with their Project Waves, so hopefully that will be the start of a larger network around the city, since they’re handing Chromebooks to students these days.  No one person or group knows how to fix Baltimore, so hopefully, it’ll be a large discussion.

     

  • Godspeed, AIM (or, what AOL could have been)

    AIM Logo

    AOL was not the Internet.  In the early days, the late 80’s and early 90’s, they sold it to you as such, but it wasn’t.  You could get access to Usenet, and eventually to the larger Internet, but that’s another story.  Still, using the online service could be a fun experience and perhaps no part of the service outside of the iconic “You’ve Got Mail” sound was more popular than IM.  Before there were Twitter followers and Facebook “friends,” if you were on AOL, you had your buddy list.  Unless you used IRC or ICQ, bulletin boards, or some type of instant chat via a Unix system, chances are, you used AOL.  If you weren’t a techie, you almost certainly used AOL.

    Still, the presence of services like IRC or ICQ became a problem for AOL.  Before then, if you were an AOL user, you paid for that privilege.  AOL IM was part of AOL’s “walled garden,” its own content and subservices inside of the service.  IRC and ICQ allowed users to chat with anybody on the Internet.  Eventually, the noise from both AOL users and non-users to bridge to the Internet became too loud to ignore and in 1997, AOL opened up its IM service in the form of AOL Instant Messenger, or, AIM.

    Now, people on the Internet could chat with paying AOL customers.  Despite becoming the most popular chat service on the web over its rivals Yahoo!’s Pager (Messenger) and eventually, Microsoft, this represented a subtle shift for AOL, as they were essentially hosting non-paying users in their service (AOL would also buy ICQ in 1998).  AOL’s business model still involved people paying primarily for access to information and experiences hosted on their servers.  They were good at it as they still had tens of millions of paying subscribers, too, by the late 1990’s, let alone AIM users.  By 2000, AOL would merge with Time Warner, as the latter had seen the future and wanted to move into the online world, the former, into media.

    AIM soldiered on, even as its parent company declined in status, becoming more or less a division within Time Warner within a couple of years.  AOL would finally shift the whole company towards a more open service, away from their “walled garden” in the next several years, even opening up AOL Mail to non-paying users.  They’d also add XDrive, an online backup service, to their offerings.  None of it stemmed the tide away from AOL.  

    AIM itself wasn’t immune to shifts in technology and how people organized themselves online.  AIM itself would begin to fall away as a service as people would begin to move to SMS messaging and more importantly, social networking sites and Google Chat, itself released in 2011.  And only now in 2017 is AOL shutting down AIM.

    If I could have projected my 15, 20, or 25 year old self out to now, I would have recognized AOL, but under the name Facebook.  Stick a blog with comments onto an AOL/AIM profile and make the whole service — groups, messenger, AOL Hometown/Journal, business listings, etc — available to anyone and not just paid users and you have back then, a proto-Facebook service.

    I might recognize AOL as Box.com, Dropbox or Google Drive.  Only Box.com was around at the same time as XDrive.

    I might even see it as Hulu.  AOL, through its merger with Time Warner could have lead streaming, given how much content it controlled or nominally had access to, with all the shows from HBO, TNT, and the other Time Warner-owned networks under its umbrella by 2000.

    Yet, it wasn’t meant to be.

    AOL, for whatever reason, never figured out in AIM’s heyday what organizations like Facebook seemed to know when they launched: in the coming era, users weren’t necessarily the customers, but they were often the product.  AOL insisted on keeping paid subscribers long after they should have shifted to the attention-based model we see today.  Google, Facebook, and others raced by and left AOL reeling.  They would eventually open up more of the service and only charge for Internet access, but by then, things were too far gone.

    And with respect to the kind of content AOL should have monetized, by the time that Netflix and Hulu came around, AOL was well depreciated from its former self.

    AOL isn’t the only tech company that’s held onto its buggy whips as the rest of the industry moves towards the combustion engine.  

    Microsoft ignored mobile.  It’s not even a player in that space.  They had enough time to put together Office 365 and improved Sharepoint and OneDrive enough before Google Drive/GSpace could become a truly viable product.  They’ll still be  a player in cloud in the corporate space going forward.  They were also able to take enough cues from Apple (design) and Google (transitioning to a leaner, more cloud-focused OS) to keep Windows 10 relevant.  Unfortunately for AOL, they had the pieces (I didn’t even mention AOL Music or AOL photos), but never could put them together at the right time in the right ways.

    As I get ready to let go of my old Buddy List of over 100 people, I do have memories like I’ve seen expressed on Twitter today.  I’ve either met or kept up with a lot of people on AOL and AIM through the years.  Old girlfriends. Writers.  Early bloggers and online journalers (from the Open Diary days, wow that was so long ago, and maybe a few from BlackPlanet, too).  Some moved to GChat with me.  Some are long gone from my life.  Some even dated back to when I was in high school.  I’m sure I shared my grief over my mother’s death over AIM.  My giddiness when the Ravens won Super Bowl 35.  And many other moments and emotions between in days long passed.

    I’m also reminded that in tech, tools come and go.  I’ve used WordStar, ClarisWorks, WordPerfect, Microsoft Word, and Libre Office to do the same thing.  ClarisWorks, Pagemaker, and Publisher to do some of the same things.  AOL, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Mesesenger (Windows Live Messenger), and Google Talk (Google Chat/Hangouts) to do the same thing.  And on and on.  Something else may eventually succeed Twitter and Facebook after some change that the future managers there didn’t see coming.  At one time, people thought AOL was the Internet and then the Internet passed it by.  Today, many people think Facebook is the Internet.  What will people think the Internet is in 20 years?

    Just like the story in Acres of Gold, the answers are sometimes right under your feet.  AOL had the pieces of this part of the future in its control and now all of those tools are have been and continue to be realized by other groups.  Yet, they held onto the world as it was, for too long, and when the world moved on, they couldn’t catch up.  Creativity, openness to new ideas, and the willingness to take a few risks are the way forward.  The former world can pass away so quickly these days, it’s often hard to hold onto.  Especially in tech with so many people sitting behind compilers these days, probably far more than the first time I ever sat in front of a C compiler back when AOL was the Internet.

  • NaBloPoMo 2016 – Day 2 (Blunt Force Politics)

    I get it. The media is selling us an election as much as they’re covering one. It’s not as much that they’re putting time and energy into covering something in the public interest as they’re engaged in a race and a fight themselves for eyeballs and advertisers. That’s the news game and between the uncertainty of print and online, I get the push to make the most money, the quality of the information being disseminated — not always the most important consideration. It’s feed for the growing fetishization of politics in America.

    Perhaps if the majority of information I see coming at me were about policy as much as pussy and who’s saying it and who’s grabbing it; if it were as much about ideas as ideology and not the same staid politics and talking points, it might not be as loathsome. It might not feel like I’m being constantly beaten over the head with the same talking points over and over.

    My mentor emailed me the other day talking about the election and his thought that Trump might win. I replied because I’ve always enjoyed talking about a wide range of subjects with him, including politics, but a wave of gladness and gratitude washed over me when, after a while, it came to me he probably wasn’t going to reply about it. I’m just tired of it all. I was tired months ago when he’d come to my desk to offer his latest prognostication.

    Next Tuesday can’t come soon enough. At least then, the commercials will be gone, even if the fallout from the election will be just starting, whatever form it takes. My mentor and I can get back to mostly discussing ideas, which are far more satisfying.

    I’m looking forward to local elections, specifically the mayoral election in Baltimore. Sheila Dixon, still convinced she does or will have a mandate, regardless of the outcome of the Democratic primary, is mounting a write-in campaign against Catherine Pugh (D), Joshua Harris (G), and Alan Walden (R). (I saw a huge setup for her over at Northern Parkway and Park Heights).

    The next Mayor will be the first to deal with the long-term ramifications of Freddie Gray, the loss of the Red Line, and the acceptance of the Port Covington TIF, among many other issues facing the City. I know personality will enter into the election, but ultimately, the choices that we have aren’t being tainted and tarred by scandals and soundbites, but solely about which direction the City should move in. But here at the local level, there’s no large scale advertising to be sold, no race to the bottom for TV ratings. It’s truly a relief.

  • National Book Lovers Day

    National Book Lovers Day. Going to answer some questions I saw on Twitter earlier.

    The Fire Next Time.

    I always find myself talking about this book. Each time I’m asked what my favorite book is or if someone asks for a book I think they should read, for whatever reason, I always come back to it. Specifically the Letter from a Region of My Mind.

    I think it’s one of the best essays ever written, if I may humbly say so. Baldwin not only sketches a broad picture of Black life in the early 1960’s, he places himself and his particular life and pains and joys in this world, creating a more complete and vibrant image of it was like to be Black back then. One that is still relevant today.

    But the policemen were doing nothing now. Obviously, this was not because they had become more human but because they were under orders and because they were afraid. And indeed they were, and I was delighted to see it. There they stood, in twos and threes and fours, in their Cub Scout uniforms and with their Cub Scout faces, totally unprepared, as is the way with American he-men, for anything that could not be settled with a club or a fist or a gun. I might have pitied them if I had not found myself in their hands so often and discovered, through ugly experience, what they were like when they held the power and what they were like when you held the power.

    http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1962/11/17/letter-from-a-region-in-my-mind

    My favorite part, and probably my most favorite sections of any book, ever, is when he has dinner at the home of Elijah Muhammad. I was going to talk about why I love it so much, but you have to go read it, if you haven’t. Perhaps, you’ll like it to.

    The last book I read cover to cover? Probably a play. I can’t think of one right now, since my books are scattered between here and home. I often read a book, jump to another book, come back, go back and read previous chapters. So I haven’t really read one in a long time. Even on my “Now” page, I’m not reading the books whose titles I post there, cover to cover.

    I should read a book cover to cover.

    Genre is one of those things that’s more suited for the bookstore than for the bookshelf at home, but I will say Essay. If that’s not acceptable to you, consider it to be Creative Nonfiction, even though that encompasses several genres. Otherwise, put me down for drama. Then poetry.

    It’s like recommending a way to prepare chicken, but I’ll give it a try just the same — Reality Hunger by David Shields. Ask me another time of day and I’ll give another title. How about Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones? Book of Days by Lanford Wilson? (I did a scene from that in an acting class. Had a ball).

    I think I’ll do some reading tonight. Perhaps Baldwin’s Letter.

  • Five Things – 16 June 2016

    1.

    With iOS 10, Apple has made the phone carrier less necessary than ever

    Apple desperately wants to wrest as much control of the iPhone from the phone carriers, and with iOS 10 it has taken another important step to making those network providers into dumb pipes.

    Source: www.imore.com/apple-ios-10-goodbye-carriers?utm_medium=slider

     

    Caught this after the initial news about WWDC. The way it’s going to function, I really like. I hope this functionality reaches the iPad, since I often use mine to make and receive calls.

    But I moreso like the statement that this new functionality makes. Apple is turning their iPhone into a phone for all voice services, not just calls made over your provider’s “voice” network. If you want to use Facebook Messenger or perhaps, Viber, or some other 3rd party VoIP service, you can do that more or less the way you do now with “regular” calls over your provider’s “voice” network. Those services work now, but they’ll be more integrated into the usual ways calls are made and received.

    VoIP used over data-only plans is the future. In a world where you’re Tweeting and Facebooking, watching video on YouTube or Vimeo, and perhaps FaceTiming or Duo-ing (I really am stopping here, I promise), privileging voice “minutes” will be a ridiculous and unacceptable way to pay for the usage of a smartphone (or tablet). Voice will be just another type of data that you’re consuming, not a separate and more important usage of your device.

    I don’t expect the carriers to change overnight, but change they must. I imagine quite a few people my age and older (and perhaps some younger) consider the idea of paying for talking minutes to be perfectly reasonable, probably because we’ve done it for a long time and we’re used to it. Remember how we used to pay for long-distance calling? Do cell phone payment plans remind you of something?

    However, much younger people (and older folks who have adapted) who have grown up on first, unlimited calling to cell phones (remember that, too?) and then, pretty much unlimited minutes to any phone, and then on top of that, all manner of video and voice chat over both cell phone data and Wi-Fi, don’t have any fond memories of opening up their telephone bill and flipping to the long distance section. Or of buying calling cards. They’ll probably consider the idea of buying a certain amount of voice minutes as ridiculous as I do now because they’re not spending most of their time talking on the phone as such. The data they use to post status updates and Snapchat is what they’ll be interested in. Cell carriers will have to adjust accordingly.

    What Apple is doing now in iOS 10 is portending this future. Cell carriers will become data pipes, just like ISPs, which is probably why we see so many of them now jumping into the content generation business because soon, the real money and power will be in driving you towards their content, not just giving you the means to get online.

    Even the idea of having a telephone number is becoming anachronistic to me. I was talking to a loved one a few weeks ago about giving up telephone numbers entirely. I don’t think telephone numbers will fully go away anytime soon. How will you be able to dial 9-1-1 and how will your older relatives who know dialing telephone but not using Hangouts get in contact with you? But folks of a certain age, who may or may not even use SMS, won’t give it much importance at some point. I hardly do. I just can’t get everybody to message me on Hangouts or iMessage. Which brings me to …

    2.

    Seems I’m not the only one who wants iMessage on Android.

    An Apple exec explains why it won’t happen. And not everyone else thinks it’s a good idea.

    Apple makes a ton of money selling you hardware. And they make money selling you music subscriptions, but you can get that on Android (not that I want it, regardless of platform). The Wired article makes a business case for Apple to bring iMessage over to Android. Part of the argument is using iMessage as an enticement to come fully over to Apple. I’m not sure it would work that way –I hope it would– but I’m not sure.

    I do have an alternate thought. Apple keeps iMessage inside of their walled garden. I’m sure they’d love for me to ditch my Android devices, Chromebook, and Windows laptop and gear out with a Macbook and iPhone. I might get a Macbook, but I’m never getting an iPhone as I hate them (for whatever reason). But I’m also not giving up my iPad. I’m a sort of inbetweener, platform agnostic.

    I like to think of myself as a good case for iMessage on Android. Yes, I have an iPad and I would like to have one for the foreseeable future. I regularly communicate with folks in iMessage. But I don’t want to carry my iPad around everywhere. So it would be nice to be able to stay in communication in iMessage, regardless of which device I’m using. I know others who have just iPods and use those to iMessage and FaceTime their iPhone user friends and relatives, instead of being able to just pick up their Android phones. It seems like most of the people I know who don’t have iPhones or Macs but use iMessage still have some gateway device that’s brought them inside of Apple’s walled garden. Could Apple use iMessage on Android to keep you buying at least one Apple device even if you don’t want others? I don’t know. I just know they’re not thinking that way. They want you all the way in. And they’ve made billions doing that, so I don’t expect them to necessarily change.

    Besides, with them now giving 3rd party apps the same sort of privileges of the phone dialer, I have to wonder how much longer messaging will be important to them in any way. Even as the messenger wars heat up. It’s hard to tell right now. But if Facebook can make the kind of money some think they might make being cross-platform, maybe that’s something that will change Apple’s mind.

    3.

    I had to look up how to format a form/block letter. Might have been a brain fart, but I was drawing a blank. I should format email that way just to stay in practice. Writing formal letters might also be a fun writing exercise.

    4.

    Tough news coming out of Flushing.

    I’m still thinking about it and trying not to think that this is the end. If so, it makes losing last year’s World Series that much more painful. I’m sure I’ll have more to say on it later.

    Ravens cut Eugene Monroe. Really welcome to Baltimore, Ronnie Stanley. You’re definitely starting.

    Up off exit 16W (see, Jersey folks, I can speak your language a bit) in the swamp, Jerry Reese couldn’t see fit to do business with Ozzie and trade someone to get Monroe, so he just waited for the inevitable cut to go in and try to make a move. And that’s good for them. Their offensive line’s been trash, even if some of their fans take everything out on Eli. Two titles haven’t bought him the benefit of the doubt, unfortunately.

    And the Giants are cool with Monroe’s weed advocacy. That’s always a plus. In New Jersey.

    Back at Birdland, the O’s are still mashing dingers (baseball lingo). AJ had one tonight in Boston. It’s a good season to be an O’s fan again. My birthday gift to myself may be another O’s hat. Or perhaps this fine hat that also happens to have my initials as the logo.

    5.

    Off to a writing conference next week. My regular blog topics, aside from Five Things, are on hold until I get back, but I will be blogging from there. I have to get up everyday at like 6:30AM, so there will definitely be something to write about.

    Bonus:

    It’s been a tough stretch of days in Orlando. Even if you’re not a praying person, please continue keeping a good thought out for that area. Same for the family of this little girl killed earlier, run over by a stolen car.

  • In Love With TIF

    In middle school, some of my classmates insisted I had a crush on a girl named Tiffany. Though this Tiffany was indeed cute, I did not have a crush on her. One could say I was in the initial throws of falling in love –as much as someone 13 years old or younger can– with someone else.

    Some twenty-five or more years later, someone has indeed fallen in love with Tiff. Or rather, TIFs. That someone is the very City of Baltimore.

    #

    Tax increment financing. What is a TIF? How do TIFs work?

    Back in the Land of Pleasant Living, the most recent TIF, as I alluded to in my last post, has gone to Michael Beatty’s Harbor Point development. In a nutshell, the City floated $107M in bonds to pay for infrastructure improvements at Harbor Point, which, among other things, is the new home for Exelon, the owner of the local electrical utility.

    Beatty himself bought a bunch of the bonds, therefore he’s benefiting from the interest paid on said bonds. So the City is, in a sense, taking out a loan to pay for infrastructure from his project, and by purchasing some of the bonds, Beatty has become one of the loaners of this money. Baltimore will be paying him back with interest for infrastructure the City has paid and will be paying for, on this project.

    Well, not all. Baltimore Sun and Baltimore Brew are reporting that there have been even more payments made from the City to this project. $29M worth of cost overruns. And the talk among those in charge is that the City will have to dip into General Funds, or in other words, straight up taxpayer dollars, to cover shortfalls in the TIF.

    I say straight up taxpayer dollars because ultimately, the property taxes generated by the Harbor Point development are supposed to cover the principal and interest payments on the bonds themselves. But until and unless enough property taxes are generated, somebody has to be on the hook to bondholders and it is the issuer of the bonds. The City of Baltimore. Or, more bluntly, the taxpayers of the City of Baltimore.

    And again, Beatty is a bondholder.

    Imagine that Baltimore is instead playing stocks or options. It’s low on cash (or so it says). So, it buys some stock or options on margin, betting that sometime in the future (in the case of this TIF, by 20 years out) the value of the stock or options will go up and they’ll make money for the whole city.

    That’s the expectation. They’re borrowing now with the belief that the future ship will come and cover the floated bonds and eventually, contribute money to the City for the usual other things that the City pays for. But if they’re wrong; if they don’t take in as much as they’re expecting, they still owe the brokers, the bondholders. And in this case, Beatty is one of the brokers.

    They also baked in some language to demand that the project pay for some general civic improvements that don’t necessarily benefit the project, but we’ll see how that goes.

    Still, the project was sold on the premise and promise that no taxpayer dollars would be used. That’s certainly true, if the future property tax projections pan out.

    That was, until the cost overruns and while it’s appalling (yet not surprising) that they’re talking about dipping into general funds, they’ve now assumed so much risk that they can’t turn back. They’re in too deep. The City needs the project to work because it has an expectation that somehow, dollars will come in to cover the initial outlay paid for by the bond generation. In a sense, the City has become a partner with no equity, just a need for everything to work out and hopefully go as smoothly as it can in the future with minimal additional cost overruns.

    We’ll see about that.

    Here’s the crazy bit. They want to do it again.

    The Port Covington TIF. Just like the Harbor Point TIF, but on the proverbial steroids, because this one weighs in at a hefty $535M. As the Sun reported, with interest, all told, it could cost over $2B. And in this case, Sagamore Development, the development arm of Under Armour founder Kevin Plank, would buy some of the bonds itself and thereby benefit from the interest on said bonds.

    The vote is up to City Council at this point. The Mayor supports it. The quasi-governmental Baltimore Development Corporation supports it. Of course BDC would certainly put its stamp of approval on the TIF. They’re not elected, so they’re not responsible to the taxpayers and voters of Baltimore. If things don’t pan out with the property taxes on Port Covington and the City is on the hook and has to cover parts of bond repayments (because who else is supposed to? The state? That’s funny), nobody at BDC has to go into districts and neighborhoods one day and explain why there’s no money for parks or rec centers.

    Again, they plan to bake language into the TIF so that there will be public benefit. And yes, the renderings look amazing, but looking at recent history with Harbor Point, it looks like the City is going in way over its head. It looks like the City is about to partner again with no equity. And if cost overruns occur this time, will the City have to dip back into general funds to cover?

    Plank has sold this project on, among other things, the number of jobs it’ll bring to Baltimore (and specifically to Baltimore residents) as well as on improving Baltimore’s image. The price tag on Baltimore’s image is listed above.

    To put it into perspective, in 2014 dollars, the City and Baltimore County pledged $280M ($230 and $50 respectively) towards the building of the since-cancelled Red Line light rail project (with Maryland and the Feds picking up the rest of the nearly $3B project). So the City is willing is thus-far willing to float bonds in excess of double that amount for a project in one section of the city.

    Sure, Sagamore is floating jobs projections now, but other cities like Denver are realizing actual development gains from the increased mobility. I’m not saying the Red Line was cancelled because of Port Covington (or Harbor Point) because it wasn’t, but if the City is interested in borrowing money they think they’ll be able to pay off with future property taxes, wouldn’t projects like light rail that have had the effect of creating new development and raising the value of pre-existing property, especially in places like Minneapolis, be more preferable to ones like the ones they’re financing?

    (It’s also not Beatty or Plank’s fault that such an idea would never get off the ground because of the classism and racism through which public transit is viewed in the Baltimore area, making new projects hard to support. Look at the amount the County was willing to contribute to the Red Line. Shows exactly the degree to which their citizens value mass transit. Also Google “baltimore loot rail” if you really don’t believe me.)

    People around the City government like to throw around the name Freddie Gray, but when will the economic conditions that created the overall situation he lived and died in, be reasonably addressed? When will the people of Freddie Gray’s neighborhood see the benefits from Harbor Point or Port Covington? 20, 40 years from now? Ever?

    #

    It’s not all doom and gloom, though.

    I enjoyed the article in City Paper concerning the idea of developing a City-owned retirement fund for people, using interest paid on some of the Port Covington bonds. Start a special benefits corporation, buy the bonds, collect the interest.

    I like the idea.

    I like the idea of regular Baltimoreans who can afford to do so, buying the bonds. If the City is going to float them regardless of the will of the citizens, the only thing left is to buy them and receive whatever benefits you can. Which, even though they’re running ads everywhere, seems like it’s going to be the case.

    Relatively not that many would be able to take part, but what else is there, if you’re not an “insider”?

    #

    I was 14 when I really first fell in love. I didn’t get the girl, but I got the lessons. Those were free. I loved again, several times over.

    I hope Baltimore gets their proverbial girl in the form of property taxes sometime 20-40 years from now. I’ll be nearly 80 towards the end of the Port Covington TIF, so hopefully they’ll put some old folks stuff up with the money.

    If the City doesn’t, the lessons will be infinitely more painful. A much lowered bond rating. The City on the hook for whatever amounts of money. And the things that were supposed to be paid for, not there. Maybe they’re thinking they’ll do some development in Sandtown with the money one day. Will they be able to? (And we won’t even talk about the supposed “game-changer,” the Horseshoe Casino and the money that was supposed to contribute to Baltimore. I’ll admit to not doing my part, since I haven’t gone there and played video poker, yet. They have that in there, right?)

    If it doesn’t work out, what will the City do to recover? What lessons will it learn? What do they say when the next developer wanting a TIF shows up to 100 North Holliday? Will it fall in love with someone other than TIF if TIF doesn’t work out?

    Well, someone other than PILOT . Been there, done that.

  • Five Things (About Google I/O) – 19 May 2016

    1.

    Google Home

    Won’t be running out to get one of these. I didn’t rush out to get an Amazon Echo and I’ll probably sit this one out, too. With all Google’s Assistant functions presumably also coming to the app I can interact with on my phone, I don’t have any real reason to buy one of these, should I decide to start talking to my phone (I don’t talk to Google or to Siri on my iPad.)

    Besides, I enjoy interacting with my Chromecast the way I do now. I just queue up a bunch of videos and watch. Lots of train videos. And water slide videos.

    2.

    Google Daydream VR

    Didn’t care at first, but when they showed just the logo of MLB.tv in the demo, I became interested. I’ll want more reason to shell out money when this is released in the fall, but being able to watch baseball games in a VR environment is definitely a strong enticement for me. Your mileage may vary.

    3.

    Android N Updates

    I decided against cobbling up some pennies to buy a Galaxy Gear S2 and that decision may hold up even as the next generation of watches come out (I’m definitely not buying an Apple Watch.)

    I did like the security and performance updates coming to Android N. But I do have Samsung hardware, so I might see these improvements. And I might not.

    4.

    Allo and Duo

    So exactly how many Google messaging apps do I need? I’ve been using GChat/Hangouts since it first came out. I got Google Voice when it first came out. I survived the aborted marriage of the two, thankfully unscathed.

    Now, Google has two more chat apps coming out. The only feature from Allo that I can say I like is the encryption. I really don’t care about the other stuff, even the search. Plus, it’s tied to mobile and I use my Chromebook a lot.

    Duo is the Facetime-for-Android app that I never wanted because I never wanted Facetime on Android. I was perfectly happy with Hangouts and its ability to handle both one-on-one and group video calls. In fact, I still am. Again, best feature is the encryption.

    I do admit that some folks will be happier using these new apps instead of their predecessors as these apps will be tied to telephone numbers, making them easier for some to use than the friend-list/invite based Hangouts.

    However, some folks brought up a good point about Duo’s screening feature being possibly abused.

    5.

    Android and ChromeOS convergence

    Google Play and Android apps are coming to Chromebooks. Just not my Chromebook. My HP Chromebook 14 isn’t on the list of supported hardware. It is an older machine, but I already do run the previously supported Android versions of Evernote and one or two other apps. So while the announcement is really cool, it’s personally disappointing. My book runs really well and I don’t have much interest in upgrading right now, the new functionality notwithstanding.

    I did flirt with the idea of upgrading, but that was because the screen wasn’t working properly. Well, the third one. Once I fixed that, the idea of going to a different Chromebook went completely away. They may be forcing the hands of those who may really want Android functionality on their Chromebooks, but they’re not necessarily forcing mine. As of now, it’s a want, but not a must have.

    The irony, though, is I may wait until fall and get a Chromebox that run Android apps, if this functionality ends up being too appealing. In the meantime, I’m not going anywhere unless something happens to my current machine.

    On a less personal note, I think this is a win for Google. They may not have been totally right about the web browser being all one needed outside of the phone and tablet form factor spaces, but I think they’re still right that you don’t necessarily need a full-blown operating system, (i.e. Windows or MacOS) all the time, for every case. Today’s announcement feels like a compromise and a step forward for ChromeOS.

    Time will tell, but if once Android Instant Apps reach circulation, and Chromebooks have the ability to run said apps the way phones and tablets can, well, and in ways that satisfy enough use cases, Google will still have been ultimately right overall. In 5-10 years, we may think that the Chromebook was ahead of its time now, and for a world with a mix of fully downloadable and on-demand apps, the right tech for those times when you really need a keyboard and mouse. We’ll see.

    #

    In the more now space, I was excited by the announcement of the nComputing Chromebook CX100. As my employer has used nComputing devices to deliver (oh, God, I’m getting into tech marketing babble) a full Windows desktop for students at the alternative high school it operates, I’m familiar with nComputing’s thin clients and software, which have been pretty rock solid. That they were putting out a Chromebook was really exciting because one of the complaints that has been raised in recent times is students being tethered to the thin clients in the computer labs to get work done.

    My employer had tried Windows laptops, which ended up being a disaster for reasons I won’t go into now. Since then, they’ve thrown around the idea of using iPads or other laptops to fill this need of mobility around the school, but haven’t settled on anything.

    But when I saw the CX100, I thought all their problems had been solved — the school could have the mobility they wanted along with access to Windows without all the extra maintenance (blood pressure rising) a set of Windows laptops would require. (And yes, I know there are a ton of tools out there for managing Windows machines and if you’d like to donate to my employer to pay for that, I may make a link available).

    And when I saw the nComputing app that makes it all possible in the Chrome store and compatible with my own Chromebook, I got happy (blood pressure lowering). The school might not have to specifically use the nComputing hardware, but could probably get any Chromebook (serotonin release).

    Now with the announcement of Google Play and Android apps coming to ChromeOS, I’m fighting to think of any reason why, for use in the school environment that I have to support, a Windows laptop or an iPad would be necessarily better than a Chromebook with access to both Android and Windows apps via nComputing software. I just can’t. And that’s what the future could be.

    It may take some time for Android app developers to standardize their work for Chromebooks, but with a combination of Chrome web apps, Android apps, and Windows apps available at the expense of only lower-cost Chromebooks, I can’t think of a better situation to be in. My employer could continue to leverage the investment (more tech marketing babble, oh no) it’s made in Windows and still get mobility (I promise to write a poem to make up for all this talk) and a wider selection of apps with Chrome and Android.

    A few years ago, my employer purchased a good number of HP thin clients for employees to use to connect to remote Windows virtual machines. I’m struggling to come up with a reason why, as those need to be replaced, they can’t be with Chromeboxes, should they decide to use nComputing software on the corporate remote end like it’s done for the school.

    It’s a very interesting time for tech, especially on the educational side.

  • A Genius of Prince

    I didn’t understand Prince when I was 7-8 years old when Purple Rain came out. All I knew was most of the talk I heard surrounding Prince was that with all the frilly, purple clothes, blouses, and such, he was too effeminate to be straight. Too effeminate for the real men I’d hear talking about him. Same for the boys talking about it at school and other places.

    Didn’t matter how many women around adored him and wanted to be with him and whether or not he got the girl in the movie and whether that was his girl in real life –because the rumors were always there– Prince had to be gay and gay == bad.

    Even if you liked the music, which by the way, wasn’t necessarily for us, it was said around me a lot, because it was laden with rock guitar.

    Let’s go crazy. Let’s get nuts.

    I didn’t know enough not to join in.

    #

    I wasn’t quite there in my teenage years, either.

    Even if songs like “Adore” and “Diamonds and Pearls” weren’t just fun to sing, they told the stories of my growing infatuations with the girls I’d have feelings for or outright fell in love with.

    Love is to weak to define
    Just what you mean to me

    Even if “Scandalous” and “Insatiable” and often mirrored the puberty-driven thoughts I would have in the later hours.

    I got a jones, Martha.

    Prince was still supposed to be too weird. And that weirdness, with the dress and the symbol and all of that, was still supposed to be too much. Especially with all the other reasons added in. Especially with a more religious-based homophobia that I’d added..

    I still wouldn’t listen to my own conscience about the man.

    #

    At some point, once I became interested in my own art; and quite frankly, when I developed enough confidence in myself to not follow the pack and try to fit into what others did or thought, is when I discovered what I think is one of his greatest geniuses.

    It wasn’t the fact of his musical virtuosity. Playing 27 instruments on an album says enough, but it wasn’t that.

    It wasn’t even the blend of sexuality and sensuality and spirituality in his music. Historians and musical historians will probably write volumes about the introspection and investigation of sexual identity in all the various forms that it manifested in his music and where it crosses with his notions of spirituality and love. Prince is one of the only artists who could merge the vulgar and the sacred to the point where you had to question for yourself where, if anywhere, the line of demarcation was.

    But that’s not even, for me, his greatest genius.

    As I think back to all of us talking about him, making jokes about him, mocking him and what we thought about his sexuality, there he was, not just making great music, not just beginning to change the world, but he was doing something that none of those people back then, I think can say they were doing — Prince was living life on his own terms.

    As folks went back to their crap jobs and their crap coworkers and hated the whole thing, Prince was living his life by his own rules.

    Yeah, look at the frilly blouses. Where was Prince’s supervisor or employee handbook that told him he could or couldn’t dress that way? Where was his compliance officer or HR director to ensure his pants were tight or purple enough?

    Nowhere. That was just him. No bullshit. Sure, in a sense, he performed off-stage as well as on, but that was how he decided to live. Prince wasn’t being told when he could get off or go on vacation. How to dress. How to keep his hair. None of the same bullshit people had to do to get by. Looking back, that looks like it was always his plan.

    Hell, he changed his name to a symbol to be able to continue to do his work the way he wanted to. Up until he died, he was working to get control of his masters.

    He even redecorated Carlos Boozer’s house to suit himself and when he was finished renting it, he changed it all back the way it was. Regular people might ask why Prince would spend the money to do something like that, but he had a vision for himself and his life and compromise wasn’t part of it. How many compromises do many of us make before noon on any given weekday?

    I wish I could go back and tell my child self to look closely — there was someone who knew who he was, knew his worth and value to the world, and lived that. He didn’t follow others and he didn’t try to fit in. He was who he was and anybody that didn’t like it, too bad. My child self could have used that lesson. Many of us now could use that same lesson.

    Do I believe in god? Do I believe in me?
    Some people want to die so they can be free
    I said life is just a game, we’re all just the same, do you want to play?
    Yeah, oh yeah