Connectivity — bah!

I use Gmail when I’m on the move. I also have a 3G dongle from Three which is supposed to give me connectivity on the move. But for some reason, Gmail is unreachable via this connection. Twitter works (though slowly). In fact, everything is slow — see this ping testing the connection to Google.com.

Pinging Google via supposedly '3G' from Three.co.uk

Pinging Google via supposedly '3G' from Three.co.uk

Quentin uses a T-mobile USB modem and seems pleased with it. Maybe it’s time I tried another network. Or got a proper 3G phone that I could use as a modem.

Bush’s last days

Many people have been forced into having their own verbal and intellectual lenses for explaining the behaviors of George Bush.

He can’t just be insane, so — what is it? What explains his behavior?

Today, as Congress fished around for money to save the U.S. auto companies, in a pickle because they had not invested earlier in alternative – energy projects, George Bush gave a speech, suggesting that Congress take the money from alternative energy projects to prop up the dying carmakers.

Is he really an idiot?

Some day, in the not so distant future, several things may happen:

1. As laid out in Harper’s this month, the President, the Real President (Cheney) et. al may face domestic or international criminal charges for war crimes.

2. Not that George can not pardon himself or others for international crimes, as in the Nurnburg Trial. Even if he escapes domestic prosecution, he may end up like Pinochet, hounded worldwide by courts elsewhere, kidnapped, dragged around, arrested and jailed elsehwhere, etc.

3. The simplest way to understand the entire Cheney/Bush regime is to assume that family ties to the Saudis were more important than catching bin Laden, that oil in general was more important than anything Bush swore to uphold on that Bible during his inauguration, and that Bush et. al (the heading on future lawsuits, ad infinitum) were embarked on an intentional, planned, consistent program of looting taxpayer monies for their personal and private benefit.

It is impossible to forget: We still have a month and more to go. There are plenty of miscreants on a master scale who would like to have a parting shot at screwing everything up for normal people in return for private gain, at the cost of a single large check to the Bush Library (Bush doesn’t read books; what a joke).

Bend over, and Get ready. George never cared for us then, and he still doesn’t today. He serves only his family, and a few close “friends.”

Source: Mark Anderson.

Going out with a bang

First there was the Palm Pilot. Now comes the next development in PDAs — the Palm Pistol.

A small arms manufacturer in the US is taking deposits for a gun specially designed for elderly and disabled people, who may be able to get it on prescription.

The Palm Pistol is the world's first ergonomic firearm, according to Constitution Arms.

The single-shot 9mm weapon is grasped in the palm of the hand, with the barrel pointing out between the fingers.

Instead of pulling a trigger to fire the gun, users press their thumb on a button at the top.

"Point and shoot couldn't be easier," the New Jersey-based company claims on its website.

And it goes on to say: "It is ideal for seniors, disabled or others who may have dexterity limitations or difficulty sighting and controlling a traditional revolver or semi-automatic pistol."

The Palm Pistol has been certified as a Class I Medical Device by the US Food and Drug Administration, Constitution Arms said.

Source: Yahoo! News UK.

Thanks to Glenna for spotting it!

Only connect…

Stephen Fry’s experience with Vista networking.

For those who think I was being unfair on either Vista or Sony, I should explain that I wasn't trying to set up a new network, I wasn't doing anything even vaguely complicated. There was a WEP security-enabled network in the room already to which a G1 phone, 2 Blackberry devices, iPhones, an iPod Touch and two Macs were all happily connected. A hotel room.

I introduce a brand new computer, fire it up and try to get it simply to connect to this already existing network. If it was tricky to create a network, to alter a router's parameters, to change SSID's Ð anything like that, I would buckle down and do it, certainly not blaming Vista, for it is always tricky to set up new wireless networks. What was so extraordinary in the year 2008 was that an expensive new piece of kit was unable to join a simple 40 bit WEP secured network. It saw the network, it agreed with me that it existed, I clicked to connect and it failed. Not surprisingly, as at no stage in trying to connect did it ask me for a password or offer a field in which to insert one. It offered to 'diagnose' the problem. Its diagnosis being that I was unable to connect. 'Doctor, I have a headache.' 'Mm. My diagnosis is that you have a headache. Leave your cheque with my secretary.' Bleugh.

Stephen’s posterous – Home.

The iPhone as a munition

AMONG international outrages, depriving citizens of personalized maps seems far down on the list.

Still, that was the condition put on the introduction of Apple’s 3G iPhone in Egypt. The government demanded that Apple disable the phone’s global-positioning system, arguing that GPS is a military prerogative.

The company apparently complied, most likely taking a cue from the telecom companies that sell the phone there, said Ahmed Gabr, who runs a blog in Egypt, gadgetsarabia.com, and wrote about the iPhone’s release there. “The point is that using a GPS unit you can get accurate coordinates of any place and thus military bases and so on could be easily tagged,” he wrote in an e-mail message.

NYTimes.com.

The mouse that roared

This morning’s Observer column.

The computer mouse was a key element in the icon-based interface that we now take for granted, and it was a great success in its day (though Engelbart did not make a cent from it). Last week, for example, Logitech, a leading computer accessories manufacturer, announced that it had shipped its billionth mouse. ‘It’s rare in human history that a billionth of anything has been shipped by one company,’ Logitech’s general manager Rory Dooley told the BBC. ‘Look at any other industry and it has never happened.’

Up to a point, Mr Dooley. What about paperclips, Bic pens and Faber-Castell pencils, to name just three? But it may be that the mouse has had its day. It’s not much use with an iPhone, and no good at all when it comes to controlling a video wall. The industry is moving towards new interfaces controlled by touch, gestures, voice and maybe even eye movements. In 40 years, Logitech’s latest gesture-based MX Air Mouse will doubtless look as quaint as Engelbart’s wood-encased wheel-mouse does today.

Not that he will give a damn. Mr Engelbart has always viewed technology as a means to an end, not an end in itself…

On this day…

… in 1941, Japanese warplanes attacked the home base of the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, drawing the United States into World War II. More than 2,300 Americans were killed.

It was also the day in 1995 when Bill Gates issued his famous email to Microsoft saying that the company had to put the Internet at the heart of everything it did — and that he wanted a browser to compete with Netscape. (And that he wanted it by yesterday.)

The worm turns

From this week’s Economist

BATTLEFIELD bandwidth is low at best, making networks sticky and e-mails tricky. American soldiers often rely on memory sticks to cart vital data between computers. Off-duty, they use the same devices to move around music and photos. The dangers of that have just become apparent with the news that the Pentagon has banned the use of all portable memory devices because of the spread of a bit of malicious software called agent.btz.

This is a “worm”, meaning that it replicates itself. If you have it on, say, the memory card of a digital camera it will infect any computer to which you upload photos. It will then infect any other portable memory plugged into that computer (the cyber-equivalent, one might say, of a sexually transmitted disease). On any computer hooked up to the internet, this variant tries to download more nasty stuff: in this case two programs that access the hard-drive. Was it a humdrum crime of trying to steal banking details? Or something more serious? The trail has gone cold.

In any case, the malicious software (malware in the jargon) penetrated at least one classified computer network. The problem was severe enough for Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, to brief George Bush on it. Officials are saying little more than that…

The article goes on to say that at least one bank has blocked all the USB ports on its staff computers with glue, just to protect against this simple threat.