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Thoughts on Google’s $20 Per Month Laptop

Carl Setzer

So, Google is supposedly launching a $20 per month laptop (per Forbes). This will include hardware and software. What’s critical for the success of this is whether it’s “only” a web appliance or a fuller featured laptop. (ZDNet has a good discussion going on that.)

Personally, I expect it will have at least some offline capacity. Even in the Seattle area, expecting 24/7 web access is just not practical. And I’d like to think Google gets that. Without the ability to port to a coffee shop (yes, there are several without wifi…even around here), etc, the device’s usefulness for students is severely restricted. Heck, a simple power outage turns it into a paperweight brick.

Will such a thing have access to other Linux-like/Open Source apps, or be solely limited to Google apps? Will there be a GIMP, for instance? I would greatly miss a full featured image editor. Don’t know if that would be a deal-breaker, but…

I want to know how Google will deploy storage. Having a significant amount of the devices device’s storage cloud based would be unique, and allow work to be more portable. Especially across platforms. It would really need to be rather seamless, but that doesn’t look like a great challenge anymore. Perhaps that’s how a web device would be billed; you take your notes on the device and edit them on some other device.

Any of you going to run out and get one? Drop a note in the comments.

Favorite Storycorps Interview Yet

Carl Setzer

I’ve been enjoying Storycorps for years. The ones aired on NPR always seem to touch me, either warming my heart and bringing tears. And each one seems to be my new favorite.

I’ve just discovered the little animated bits that they’ve been putting together with the articles. This one (below) follows the tradition of becoming my new favorite. The grandmother of this story reminds me so very much of one of my own.

So, enjoy!

The Sentimental Pitch

Carl Setzer

I sit here watching one of those “save the world and starving children” pitches. You know the ones; watching some child in the ruins of poverty, tears flowing down their face. As I’ve developed a deep and abiding cynicism of marketing of any stripe, these tend to annoy me (and I’m a liberal). Yet, yet I know the reason these tactics are used; it works. It’s what gets people off the couch and to the phone/web. I suppose I should embrace this, the effectiveness. However, I wish that we could become deeper, that we could be reached by the logic and compassion of the need. That we weren’t so numb. I guess I shall continue with that wish for some time to come.

I Will Make It Through This Year

Carl Setzer

With nearly 42% of 2011 completed, I can clearly say that is shaping up into a rough year. Well, at least career-wise. Rough spots, though, are when you get the deepest insights and, for me at least, tend to be the most life changing. Part of what’s telling is the lack of angst I feel right now. The past few years have taught me the value of work and career. Most specifically, that’s it’s not the inner core of my being. There are things far more important. What’s really amazing me is how much better I feel about myself right now. My last two roles, though rather successful on the surface, left me feeling quite empty, and struggling with lingering feelings of anxiety and exhaustion. Those feelings are blessedly absent now.

Oddly, life seems to reinforce the notion of Murphy’s Law. Thus, both of our cars have needed work, medical bills came steaming in, and that sort of fun. Not economic implosion, but certainly annoying.

The absence of call-backs right now is a bit disheartening. Doesn’t make you feel valuable and vital. I worry that, with my career focus on administrative assistant roles, that I’ve been competing with far too many people. As a role that needs “little preparation”, pays modestly well, and is (technically) a growing occupation (per the Occupational Outlook of Snohomish County., I expect that many, many applicants are in this pool. Thus, I am starting to expand my focus, mostly into more project management roles. We’ll see what comes.

John Richard played this tune onKEXP earlier this week. I think I might adopt it as my 2010 theme song.

The Mountain Goats “This Year” from A Bruntel on Vimeo.

Animated Physics

Carl Setzer

Piled Higher & Deeper comics created a great animation to go along with an interview with Jonathan Feng. A fun look at where we in the realm of physics research. If you’re a physics geek, though, you’ll be a bit bored as it’s very high-level. But the animations that go with this are still worth watching.

Dark Matters from PHD Comics on Vimeo.

Thoughts on SSDs

Carl Setzer

Received yet another ad for SSDs (solid-state hard-drives). I’d love to have the benefits: faster boot times, less heat/more battery, longer life. As cool as a solid state drive is, I’m not sure I can justify the costs. Or, to bring the costs in line, lower my used disk space. As I think, though, I can see something of a work-around. Go with the smallest SSD I can justify, but then use the cloud, or an external hard-drive, or both for the bulk of my information storage. Also, bodes the question of “why do I save so much data?”

I do save nearly everything. That goes way back, though. Every so often, I purge my 4 drawer file cabinet. Yet I have years worth of receipts, various miscellaneous files. My data hoarding goes back to hard-copy days. And, perhaps, it’s time for that to end.

I think of the times that that one, random file, saved has been either helpful, or has saved my butt. Producing that email saying “I want you to do ‘x'” was perfect when a manager was yelling at me (during a meeting) about why I had done ‘x’. A few times, yet meaningful. Perhaps the positive response to this reinforced a pack-rat mentality, or the fear that this one document will be the one that saves me. Hmm…fear…an issue in-and-of itself.

More reflection is needed for me to know if this is need for data space, and fear-driven, or simply “I don’t have the cash for buying un-needed technology right now”. Perhaps someday I’ll flesh this out further. Perhaps. Someday.

Conspiracies

Carl Setzer

I just watched part of a show about 9/11 conspiracy theories (click here for more). Now, I’m no engineer (though have a great deal of related training), so am disinclined to argue the facts on either side of this debate. I lean towards to official story, though, My main criteria for this? For such a secret to be maintained would truly be a revolutionary event. These same people who can’t keep secret the next speech are going to keep THIS under wraps? The divergent and conflicting agendas within the federal government will work together in this instance?

Now, if there is some shadow org affecting such actions, the ramifications are amazing. Keeping such secrets with actions that would work across departments is something unique. Perhaps it’s possible. It escapes my observations, though.

Fobs

Carl Setzer

After several attempts to over-generalize my key-fobs functionality (front door >2x, mailbox, store-front, kitchen lights), I started wondering how awesome life would be with remote control of every major appliance. Kitchen lights reflecting on my computer screen? Click! Hands full and trying to get in the house? Click! Mailbox? Yep, Click! Oh, wouldn’t life be so much easier?

Well, no. Imagine the way such could be executed. Either multiple fobs for each action. I’m imagining an electronic age version of the jailers key ring. Or walking with a universal remote that’s more like an iPad. Not very practical after all.

Wait! How about an implant wired to your nervous system? We’re not quite there yet, but we can see the proverbial light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel for this (though faintly). Imagine that world. Need the lights on? Just think it. Etc, etc, etc. But, besides the risk of infection, what other issues would this bring? First, the Revelation/bible based “mark” that would get a significant part of our population in a tizzy. Regardless, I’m unlikely to elect this “service”, if ever offered. Mainly for security. Think how insecure data is right now. And we’re going to let this technology access our minds? Not mine!

Are you going to be at the front of the line to get your mind hard-wired to the net? Going to trade everything in for guns and a cabin in the high woods and wait for Skynet to come online? Or somewhere in between?

Random thoughts on a Sunny Saturday.