Category: Tech

H I A B L M

Gary Lockwood as the ill-fated Frank Poole

I’m back on Watch TCM, except it’s only a computer screen this time, not the projector, and I’m in AZ, not MA. I never tire of seeing “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Even 50 years later, it’s a stunning achievement.

Keir Dullea as the ?-fated David Bowman

In a recently discovered interview with Stanley Kubrick, he revealed the original concept behind the “Star Child” evolution of Dave Bowman. Although Arthur C. Clarke’s name isn’t mentioned, he most certainly was involved with how the enigmatic conclusion of the movie is presented.

The closest that IBM has come so far in creating a real HAL computer is its Watson system, which performed so well on Jeopardy!, defeating both Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. The decision was made by IBM to devote Watson to medical intelligence, but that hasn’t worked out as hoped, and there have been a lot of layoffs.

Speaking of computers being used for medical records — which was how I made my living for 36 years — one of the earliest visionaries in the field, Dr. Warner Slack, died a couple of weeks ago.

A Turner Original

As I prepare yet again to return once more to Phoenix to do Trustee work, I have TCM’s streaming video app running on an Amazon Fire TV stick. After an extended rough start, with annoyingly choppy playback, TCM has the technology figured out, and its streaming service works great. It’s now in HD, so it doesn’t matter that the station is in SD on my Verizon FiOS TV service. What matters is I have the channel in my cable package, and that gives me access to the streaming service.

Almost two years ago this was my plan for TV watching in retirement on the porch, when I returned one of my two cable boxes and replaced it with an over-the-air TiVo DVR. It’s finally all working as it should, and as of this month the TiVo DVR has paid for itself.

This weekend I watched two MGM favorites from the 50’s — “Forbidden Planet” and “North by Northwest” — and they played perfectly. Not having a Blu-ray copy of either movie, I was knocked out by the picture quality on Watch TCM. “High Society” is playing right now, but I’d better turner it off, as Grace Kelly has always been very distracting to me, and I have a lot to do on this 4th of July!

Facelift

I recently saw a shorter version of this video played as a commercial at the AMC Surprise Pointe 14 theater in Arizona. It’s the sort of public relations message that a corporation produces as damage control when it sees the potential for serious, perhaps permanent, harm to the company.

My first thought was that a lot of what’s said in the video borders on being patronizing, in particular the Data Science Manager’s chart of The World of False News. But then I decided that these people, who are undoubtedly extremely well paid, are sincerely struggling to figure out what they’re doing.

The catch is that in any company everything comes down from the top, and I do not believe that Mark Zuckerberg has a sincere interest in cleaning up his mess. The only thing that will scare him straight is a mass exodus of users.

Today it’s being reported that Facebook’s secret sharing of user data goes much further than previously revealed. Like the Haight-Ashbury Hippie Movement in San Francisco that started out optimistically with the Human Be-In, only to crash and burn during the strung-out Summer of Love, Facebook has turned into a bad trip.

About Face

As explained previously, I deactivated my Facebook account due to a slew of offensive spam ads in my newsfeed. When Prue suggested watching a video on Facebook, I went back in to take a look. (I originally joined Facebook at Prue’s request.)

To my surprise, I was able to log in as if I hadn’t deactivated the account, which I don’t think is how it’s supposed to work. But at least I didn’t see any of those really stupid ads.

Scrolling down the newsfeed I spotted a happy accident, like the one I posted last year, where two items, presented one on top of the other, made a visual joke. Both examples also happen to have comic book connections. In this one the Marvel Comics X-Men character Storm, as drawn by the late Dave Cockrum, comes to life in the face of Mindy Kaling.

Selling My Soul

Speaking of the Korean Peninsula, after my father died I had the title and registration of his 2014 Kia Soul transfered in my name. Tomorrow I will be selling the car to a Phoenix area dealership that, according to Kelly Blue Book, is offering me a fair price for a cash deal. I make tremendous deals. The very best deals. 😉

After my father bought the car four years ago, he called me to say how pleased he was with his purchase, and now I know why. Being a Honda-Toyota guy, I had my doubts about Kia, but with the Korean brands Samsung and LG taking over the HDTV market from Sony and Panasonic, I was interested in driving the Soul myself; which I started doing 18 months ago, sad to say only after my father had a stroke. But I was, and continue to be, very impressed with this little car that’s part subcompact, part hatchback, and part mini-SUV.

Dad bought the base model, and that seems to me as the way to go. A more expensive, full-featured trim would make the Soul less of a bargain than it is. I’m surprised that it has Bluetooth integration and voice recognition, but it does and they work well. Seating comfort and the action of the various controls are, if anything, superior to my 2017 Toyota Camry XLE.

There isn’t much cargo space in the back, but that’s actually a good thing because the height is excellent, and perfectly suited for someone who has trouble bending forward and/or down to get bags of groceries loaded and unloaded.

With the many Souls I see here in Sun City West, I’m wondering if this is another example of a car that was originally intended for young buyers and instead found its market with Boomers and retirees. That’s what happened with the Honda Element, and unfortunately it killed that particular model, but the Kia Soul seems to be selling very well.

The bottom line is that I like this little car so much that if I needed a car myself I’d keep it and make a road trip out of driving it back home to Massachusetts.