Google – Page 4 – Geoff Fox: My Permanent Record

Old Laptop – Fresh Install

Yeah, that’s right. A totally virgin install of Vista didn’t properly update using Microsoft’s own tools! Seriously. That’s disgraceful.

I am typing on a 2&#189 year old Dell 640m laptop. Like most computers it has slowed over time. It’s not wearing out. It’s the victim of dozens of instances of poor or sloppy programming! It can be fixed–in fact it has been fixed.

Unfortunately, installing programs in a Windows computer is not as simple as it would seem. Windows (all versions of Windows) depend on a “registry.” Here’s how PCMag.com defines it:

The configuration database in all 32-bit versions of Windows that contains settings for the hardware and software in the PC it is installed in. The Registry is made up of the SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT files. Many settings previously stored in the WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI files in 16-bit Windows (Windows 3.x) are in the Registry.

Over time the registry gets bloated and full of orphan files.

On top of that some programs are just not as nice as they seem! They can take up resources even when you’re not using them!

Most computers also end up with a few handfuls of ‘helper programs.’ These are little applets that run all the time checking of the master program needs updating. They each use a little memory and processor power though they’re seldom really needed.

I might as well point a finger at myself too. Over time I’ve been a software slut installing lots of programs and never uninstalling them when I stopped using them.

Anyway, long story short, I decided it was time. Dell nicely dedicates a portion of the original hard drive to an image of the factory fresh install. I backed up the files I figured I’d need, rebooted and started the journey.

The actual Windows Vista Business re-install didn’t take long. What was tedious was going to Windows Update to get all the patches and fixes–nearly 100. The process was slow and the progress was poorly conveyed by Vista. I often wondered if anything was happening. Some patches wouldn’t even install!

Yeah, that’s right. A totally virgin install of Vista didn’t properly update using Microsoft’s own tools! Seriously. That’s disgraceful.

Dell’s not much better. Their support area has many patches listed for the programs in this machine. Unfortunately, their links lead to an error message indicating the patches aren’t there!

I’ll wait a day before contacting Dell. This seems like the kind of problem they’ll quickly find on their own. Right Dell?

I was surprised by how little of my stuff was on this machine. My photos get pushed to a backup drive. Most of my documents live ‘in the cloud’ on a Google server somewhere.

Vista features the Aero interface with translucent windows on screen. When I first got this machine I turned it off. I originally thought it was a resource hog. It’s on right now because I’m no longer sure shutting it down really does make a difference.

Mostly Aero is eye candy–and not particularly Earth shattering.

I really won’t know this machine’s true state until I start editing photos. My RAW photos from the Canon Xsi weigh in at 16Mb per shot (approximately). Photo editing and manipulation is really heavyweight math. That’s the true test. If the machine performs as it did all this work will have been for nothing–and that’s a real possibility.

My best guess is the job’s around 75% done. There are more programs to load.

At some point I expect I’ll realize something I need no longer exists–inadvertently left off the backup. Hopefully nothing too important.

Using Cars To Help Forecast Weather

Automobiles are already equipped with useful temperature and pressure sensors; simple rain and wind sensors could be readily added.

I’m not sure how I got on the mailing list to receive “Imaging Notes,” but I did. It’s a glossy magazine dedicated to “Earth Remote Sensing for Security, Energy and the Environment.”

It is geek porn as companies and suppliers show off their ability to sense and photograph the Earth from satellites. Spectacular images are the norm.

I was thumbing through my copy yesterday when I came across a small inset on the editorial page: “Sensing severe weather from automobiles.”

The Doppler radar map on the left shows a typical display augmented by data from cars! How simple. How amazingly powerful!

“A distinct change in wind direction is observed by the automobile as it approaches the storm center, indicating inflows at ground level characteristic of tornado formation. This information is not available from either the fixed weather stations or the Doppler radar. Automobiles are already equipped with useful temperature and pressure sensors; simple rain and wind sensors could be readily added. Drawing data from the community of millions of vehicles on the road would complement our centralized satellite and ground-based weather data sources, enabling us to forecast development of severe weather and micro-weather with unprecedented accuracy.

Google’s new traffic data is already integrating realtime data from moving vehicles to enhance the utility of its product. Why not do the same to help initialize our weather models?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked with meteorologist friends about data initialization being a weak link in weather prediction. We just have too few observations to use. It would seem for short term predictions a dense carpet of additional observations might greatly increase our accuracy.

This still doesn’t put more sensors in the oceans or other inhospitable places, so the global and extended range implications seem minor. For thunderstorms, tornadoes and even the development of winter storms this could make a huge difference.

It’s the first I’ve heard of this at all.

Confessions From An iPhone App Slut

They do a lot, but I suspect they would do more if there wasn’t such a stringent approval process from Apple–the controlling psychotic girlfriend of computing.

After a few weeks with my new ~~toy~~ cellphone I am an iPhone app slut. There, I’ve said it. It’s out in the open now.

Apps are the little plug-in programs that extend the functionality of the iPhone. They do a lot, but I suspect they would do more if there wasn’t such a stringent approval process from Apple–the controlling psychotic girlfriend of computing.

Most paid apps cost $.99, though they do go higher. There are thousands of free apps too. In my role as an app slut I hardly ever pay. Of the dozens I’ve installed my total expenditure is still around $5.

Many of the apps take websites and customize their content for the phone’s smaller screen. We’ve got one (a very good one–no BS) at the TV station. The Times, Huffington and lots of other publishers have them too. I also have a few for weather data.

Oh–speaking of that the iPhone has no Flash or Java plug-in. That’s a major deal. There are a few weather applications I use daily which need Java&#185. I am suspicious this too has a lot to do with Apple’s control freak mentality.

Apple also prevents apps from running in the background. That means a GPS logger only logs when it’s the only thing running! Answer a call or look at an email and you have to restart the app. Maybe there’s a technical reason for this, but we’ve all come to expect multitasking and Verizon is heavily promoting it’s Droid’s ability to do that.

When the Google Map product just announced for Verizon’s Droid phone gets ported to the iPhone it will surely need to be downloaded as an app. This will happen. It probably won’t happen until the Droid has received the full benefit of its exclusivity and coolness.

I was playing with using the iPhone as a radio in the car, bringing in the NPR shows I like without the static I now get. My idea was flawed because NPR’s app is horrendously flawed (after using it a minute or two the buttons become extremely unresponsive) and Internet reception can sometimes be spotty.

Even if you lose the signal for just a second or two the NPR stations’ software sees this as a new connection and gives you a pre-recorded underwriting spiel before restarting the program. Sheesh!

On the other hand I’ve taken photos with the iPhone’s reasonably good camera (using an app called Tripod to steady the shot in low light) and had them posted on Facebook (using its app) seconds later. Very cool.

I downloaded the Joost app last night. It’s a video service claiming 46,000+ videos.

Don’t let the numbers fool you–that’s not a lot.

I watched a black and white Lone Ranger episode I’d watched as a kid. Even then I recognized very distinctive rock formations that amazingly showed up in every town the Ranger and Tonto visited. They were there last night! Now, with the Internet, I understand most of the episodes were shot in LA’s Griffith Park.

Joost suffers from what every video site suffers from–bad search. There’s just no good way to search video yet. That’s not an iPhone specific problem. Netflix and Hulu and, to a lesser extent, Youtube haven’t figured this one out.

The iPhone is a very good video player. It’s large enough, with a display dense enough, to make viewing a full show a reasonably enjoyable experience.

My secret friend from the San Fernando Valley said last night, “It’s the best toy I’ve ever had.” That’s a defensible position. This is a lot of fun and a lot of function.

I’m curious if Verizon/Motorola/Google’s entry into the market will force Apple to loosen up a little? I believe there’s a lot of potential being held under wraps, because even though I’m an app slut, Apple isn’t!

&#185 – Java is not javascript nor are they similar (One upper case, the other lowercase). The iPhone does javascript.

In One Fell Swoop Google Makes GPS Units Obsolete!

Probably not a good day to own Tom Tom, Garmin or Magellan stock.

Verizon has been showing off its new Android based cellphone, “Droid.” Today came word it ships with turn-by-turn GPS navigation. If you buy the phone this functionality is FREE!

In other words, that GPS you have built into your dashboard or mounted-by-suction on your window–obsolete!

Google Maps Navigation is an internet-connected GPS navigation system with voice guidance. It is part of Google Maps for mobile and is available for phones with Android 2.0.

Google Maps Navigation uses your phone’s internet connection to give you the latest maps and business data.

Probably not a good day to own Tom Tom, Garmin or Magellan stock.

Word is this will be coming soon (possibly not quite as fully featured) to my iPhone. Apple and AT&T can’t afford not to.

Has there ever been a moment in history when so many game changing/industry changing events have come so quickly.

When PCs Fail

That’s part of what’s happened today and it’s causing me to tear my hair out.

I’ve been working with computers most of my life. My first/only computer course was 1968. For the past 25+ years they have been an integral part of my work life.

Nowadays I wrangle around a dozen machines (see photo) at work which let me produce a forecast and feed it to a bunch of different (buzzword coming) platforms.

Mostly, I get it. I understand how computers work. That gives me a leg up. Often it’s necessary to think along with the programmer to affect a fix.

There are two things which always surprise me.

1) There’s always something that’s not working!

It might be hardware or software or even a bad piece of data which should be a temperature or cloud but ends up being interpreted as a command. The computer stops what its doing. There’s never a time when I can depend on everything!

Google is well known for designing its software specifically to understand hardware will always fail. Those Google guys are right.

2) Computers often continue to work when something’s wrong–though it turns out they’re really waiting to fail at a time less convenient to me!

That’s part of what’s happened today and it’s causing me to tear my hair out.

A hardware failure late last week took out a two hard drive RAID array (two disks which act as one to provide constant backup or, in this case, additional speed). This particular piece of equipment was down for a day while we waited for FedEx to deliver the replacement. No problem. Like Google we understand working around bad hardware.

Once we replaced the drives we had to repopulate them with data. In this case it was an accurate rendition of the Earth’s surface–really. That meant nearly 200 GB of data had to move across our network. It took hours.

By late last Thursday evening we were up and running perfectly. We’d made some accommodations for the new hardware. No sweat.

Saturday was rainy and heavily tested this new configuration which worked nearly perfectly.

It failed this morning!

Why?

Who knows.

What was different between Saturday and today? As far as I can tell nothing!

The point is the computer was working just fine though it obviously wasn’t. There was something still wrong that needed just the right moment… the right set of circumstances… to fail

For whatever reason I was always under the (false) assumption that you needed perfection within these complex system for things to work. Obviously not. And, of course, it makes you wonder what’s next… or if you really can ever fix all the problems.

I’ve still got over two hours of data transfer to go this second time. Time to think about what might be next.

Understanding More About New Media By Using It

A few years ago I had a conversation with a co-worker about the implications of Internet in cars. “Another distraction,” she said, thinking of the Internet only in the ways we’d already seen it used. She doesn’t feel that way anymore.

“This American Life” the hard-to-describe (their description) NPR show is playing as I type this entry. It’s not on the radio. It’s not from a podcast. It’s playing on my iPhone.

Because the iPhone is part phone/part computer I can use the computer part to swoop onto the Internet and stream the show. And now the Internet is in my pocket, not just my house or where I work. This show–any show can follow me anywhere!

This is a concept I’d long understood. It didn’t have the impact it does when you’re holding a working example in your hand!

The Internet will soon be everywhere we are. Think atmosphere. The Internet will be as ubiquitous as the atmosphere.

On my way to work I listen to NPR’s “Talk of the Nation.” It’s on a network of low powered stations none of which provides a dependable signal on my route. I have two buttons set so I can switch frequencies as one or the other gets ratty.

Starting later today I will try replacing those stations with what I expect to be crystal clear reception via my phone.

Is this technology the end of terrestrial radio as we know it? Commercial AM and FM are already in sad shape. How much more will it take to bankrupt the heavily leveraged companies that dominate station ownership today?

It’s not just radio. I’ve got bad news for me. I watched a fantasy football TV show produced by Yahoo! before making my roster moves today, The quality was excellent on my iPhone.

Will we compete with or embrace this technology? Is the inherent business structure of a TV station capable of even playing in this game? Who knows? It’s early.

The iPhone is such a game changer the real impact is difficult to grasp. And the iPhone is just the gateway drug–a proof of concept, if you will.

There are quantum leaps to come with fatter pipes and more robust devices for consumers. Eleven years ago there was no Google. What will there be eleven years from now?

Radio was worried it would be killed off by TV. Movies too. They thought TV was their death knell. They survived. In fact until recently they both thrived.

Will today’s media shift be similar, allowing older providers to adapt while adding new outlets, or is this new technology so radically different and more powerful that old school outfits just don’t stand a chance?

GPS Astounds Me

It says Mohawk Mountain is in Corner of the Pines, CT–probably a name used sometime in Connecticut’s history.

More than any other technology GPS and all its applications simply astound me (Click here or on the image to see a GPS track of Saturday’s photo journey to the Litchfield Hills.

Think about it. You can accurately locate yourself within a few feet instantly then get customized driving directions in seconds. I can’t imagine there is are many tasks more difficult than directions because there’s an infinite number of possible routes.

I’m using a program called GPISync right now. It’s freeware and hosted by Google. It takes the lat/lon info from a miniature GPS logger I carry when using my camera and adds that location data to each of my photos. Totally crazy!

(Found IMG_5133.CR2 …taken 2009-10-10-17:28:54, writing best latitude/longitude match to picture: N 41.821781 ,W -73.296776 : time difference (s)= 1

Geonames: 1.64 Km North-East East Cornwall Connecticut United States US, writing geonames)

The only problem is the overly complete database of placenames using many arcane or historic locators. It says Mohawk Mountain is in Corner of the Pines, CT–probably a name used sometime in Connecticut’s history.

GPS will soon be in nearly anything that moves the way clocks can now be found in nearly anything that plugs in! There are good and bad implications in that.

Rupert Murdoch From Both Sides Of His Mouth

Murdoch blames the search engines, but the truth is the entire business model for advertiser supported information is broken.

My friend Farrell forwarded an article from Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News:

Rupert Murdoch has warned internet search engines the time has come for them to pay for news content.

The News Corp chief executive said sites such as Google and Yahoo, which take content from a range of sources, would soon be charged for the service.

This is totally within Murdoch’s right and if he wants to put his content behind a paywall he should. The New York Times used to do this with much of their exclusive content, like columnists, but later relented.

If taken at his word, Murdoch could implement a change to cut off search engines now.

To stop search engines from indexing your site you simply add a tiny text file to the root directory. It’s beyond simple and can be totally accomplished with one line of code. The Journal, or any news site, could do that in a few minutes.

Not only is that not what Murdoch’s doing–he is doing the opposite!

If you go to the Wall Street Journal site you’ll find many (not all) stories run for a few paragraphs and then stop with “…” Here’s an example I found in a link from the Journal’s home page:

As of July, nearly 90% of U.S. households paid for television either from cable, satellite or phone companies rather …

It’s obvious the story continues, but it only continues for subscribers.

However, if you enter that same sentence fragment into Google you get a link to the full Journal story!

As of July, nearly 90% of U.S. households paid for television either from cable, satellite or phone companies rather than getting it free from broadcast stations, according to Nielsen.

The Google link and the direct link from WSJ’s home page produce the same URL link. I believe WSJ’s website is configured to deliver the full content when the referrer is Google or Yahoo!, etc.&#185

The URL for the Sky News story I quoted at the beginning of this post is optimized to make it more visible to search engines. Many of the story’s key words are embedded in it: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Business/News-Corp-Chief-Executive-Rupert-Murdoch-Tells-World-Media-Summit-Search-Engines-Must-Pay-For-News/Article/200910215402865?lpos=Business_First_Buisness_Article_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15402865_News_Corp_Chief_Executive_Rupert_Murdoch_Tells_World_Media_Summit_Search_Engines_Must_Pay_For_News_.

The Journal and Sky probably do this because search engines drive traffic to their sites. Without the search engines wsj.com and sky.com would see a lot fewer hits. They are making money from those hits–though certainly not as much as they want nor probably not enough to survive in their current business model.

Murdoch blames the search engines, but the truth is the entire business model for advertiser supported information is broken. The type of journalism the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and other ‘classic’ news sources provide is dependent on selling high cost advertising.

Unfortunately, the same eyeball on the net is worth a lot less than in the paper or on TV. It’s a matter of supply and demand. The Internet has opened up the supply so there’s nearly an infinite number of places to run your ad.

Murdoch will grouse and yell and flail like the bully he’s always been–but he’s screwed and he knows it. He’s not in that boat alone. Mass media as we know it is terribly ill.

&#185 – My research on this is less than voluminous. How they do it isn’t as important as the fact they do it.

Google Maps Enhances Traffic Reporting While Scaring The Crap Out Of Me

They know where you are. And by they I mean Google and anyone holding a subpoena!

Have you ever checked out the traffic using Google? In the past few weeks a major change has totally transformed the experience making traffic reporting on Google so good I am petrified of the technology behind it!

When you choose to enable Google Maps with My Location, your phone sends anonymous bits of data back to Google describing how fast you’re moving. When we combine your speed with the speed of other phones on the road, across thousands of phones moving around a city at any given time, we can get a pretty good picture of live traffic conditions.

They’re reading the GPS on your cellphone. They know where you are. And by they I mean Google and anyone holding a subpoena!

The cool part is being able to aggregate the GPS data from many phones. Right now Google shows some slowdowns on I-95 in Fairfield County, but they also show Whitney Avenue in Hamden running well with discrete green lines for north and south. There are some minor secondary roads you’d never expect to see tracked which are!

Sometime very soon technology like this will integrate with the data in your GPS to seamlessly route you around traffic in real time. The upside potential is great. Think of the savings in worker productivity and gas consumption.

The scary part is this is one more way we’ve lost any semblance of anonymity.

I’m not sure why I care, but I do. I’d like my thoughts to be my own. I’d like my route… my travels to be my choice without question or oversight.

Who am I kidding? That ship has sailed.

I’ve Just Gone Over Two Million Page Reads

It’s taken 2243 days, a little over 6 years, to reach this milestone. It’s an amazing number to me. No one expects to put a personal site on and hit numbers like that.

It’s tough to read large numbers without commas. Here: 2,000,008. That’s two million and eight. I just took the number on the screenshot off my website.

It’s taken 2243 days, a little over 6 years, to reach this milestone. It’s an amazing number to me. No one expects to put a personal site on and hit numbers like that.

The counter is triggered by some simple javascript. That means it only counts humans and not the myriad robotic crawlers who hit websites hoping to glean some content they can turn into cash. Javascript slows them down so they turn it off.

It’s not 100% accurate. Nothing is. That’s a surprising part of running a website. Everything is digital, yet this counter shows many fewer hits than a tracker from Google I also use. Anyway, this is the one I’ve traditionally chosen to follow.

This blog has never been promoted except on the Internet. I have never mentioned it on TV. That’s not to say I don’t do things to maximize the impressions–I do. It’s not a business and it’s not run like one.

It’s been mentioned by me a million times, but this blog turned me into a writer. I’d never enjoyed writing and had never found the discipline to do something on a daily basis.

I like rewriting. I constantly rewrite. No blog entry is as it was the first time I typed it. Often, if I reread an entry, I’ll go back and punch up the prose. It doesn’t matter how long ago it was posted.

Thank you for reading my stuff.

Now I Really Have Seen Everything

My content is there but it’s been strangely changed to be the same while being different!

There is a great deal of content on the web which is stolen. I’m not talking about links or quotes–this is out-and-out thievery! Usually the process is automated without human intervention.

I’ve seen it before with sites taking whole entries from my blog and reposting them. The goal is to get noticed by Google thereby getting traffic and ads. Find dozens of entries with he same keywords and all of a sudden your site looks like an expert on that topic!

As the title says “now I really have seen everything” because a site has taken one of my entries, copied it, and run it through a thesaurus! Synonyms are used, but without seeing if they’re appropriate.

My content is there but it’s been strangely changed to be the same while being different!

Original: I understand this move to the center as a strategy, but I am left feeling unclean and used. Don’t use me to make your boyfriend jealous.

Copy: I take it this inspire to the center as a master plan, but I am socialistic vehemence emotions unclean and habituated to. in the effort Don’t expend me to emanate your boyfriend unsatisfied.

This kind of bizzaro ripoff goes through the entire entry.

Original: Good deeds should be rewarded. Bad deeds should be punished. Governmental rules should encourage good behavior.

Copy: Good deeds should be rewarded. in the effort Bad deeds should be punished. in the effort Governmental rules should copy doughty behavior.

The website itself is registered to an Australian–though that’s easily forged. The site is hosted in Texas. I suspect, by virtue of telltale Cyrillic text left in areas of the site, it’s really Russian.

Just because I’m being ripped off in a scummy scam doesn’t mean I don’t admire the originality and cleverness involved. Someone really had to think about this.

I’m not including the URL because that will only help the site in Google’s eyes!

Is The Throgs Neck That Special?

Seriously though, is the Throgs Neck or other MTA bridge more of a target than the storied and iconic Brooklyn Bridge?

As Matt and I drove over the Throgs Neck Bridge this past weekend we noticed the signs prohibiting photography. Why?

The MTA, which runs the bridge, has a spot on their website for submitting questions. So I did.

I am curious about the prohibition of photography on the Throgs Neck Bridge. I drove over the bridge on Saturday on my way to the Brooklyn Bridge (I understand it is not MTA) which hosts thousands of walkers with no photography restrictions. In fact I was going there specifically to take photos.

Can you point me to the underlying regulation which enables this prohibition? I looked but could not find it and I know MTA has no such restriction in the subway.

Has MTA ever published a justification or other explanation for this rule.

All the best,

Geoff Fox

Hamden, CT

I’m not sure when an answer will come, but it probably won’t be fast. Their email acknowledgment admonishes: “You will receive a response as soon as possible; however, some responses can take up to 15 business days.”

Seriously though, is the Throgs Neck or other MTA bridge more of a target than the storied and iconic Brooklyn Bridge? And isn’t it a little late to worry? A quick Google Image search of “Throgs Neck Bridge&#185” shows about 11,100 photos and pictures.

Who is being foolhardy: New York City which owns the Brooklyn Bridge or the MTA and their spans?

I’ll post the response when it’s received.

&#185 – By putting my query within quotation marks Google only returns the exact phrase “Throgs Neck Bridge.”

With Computers Nothing Goes Smoothly

I could feel it as the mouse pointer began to lag behind the mouse. Then audio came out as if a 78 rpm record was playing at 33 rpm (old reference–I know).

The new PC fired up the first time! Windows 7, thought not a painless install, also went in pretty easily. Of course, being the consummate pessimist I waited for the other shoe to drop.

5 – 4 – 3 – 2- 1 Bingo! The computer to begin to crawl.

The mouse pointer began to lag behind the mouse. There’s an interesting connect here because you feel something you’re really not feeling! Then audio came out as if a 78 rpm record was playing at 33 rpm (old reference–I know).

When something like this happens Google is your friend. If you can enter the right terms you’ll find someone else who’s felt your pain and, hopefully, found the solution.

I could find nothing!

The problem doesn’t come on at boot. It waits before happening.

The voltages and temperatures seemed fine. The CPU was running OK. My power supply is very beefy with more than enough power to run this machine (and a small town). It was all very puzzling.

Maybe it was a problem with Windows 7? I reformatted the hard drive and loaded Windows XP SP3. Time consuming, but painless. I’ve installed and re-installed this OS dozens of times.

Things started fine but withing a few minutes I realized I’d pissed away my time. The machine was crawling.

I think (but still am not sure) the problem is an internal card reader bought for under $10 on eBay.

Once I get this problem stabilized and eliminated I can begin to optimize the BIOS and get this thing screaming. I did run a short benchmark and the results were stunningly fast.

A few more days–I hope.

Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome

At 2:30 Rhinebeck held an airshow. Imagine an assisted living facility talent show… but for airplanes!

I don’t know how I knew the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome was there. I just knew there was a grass strip airport over-the-border in New York State that featured classic airplanes. That’s all I knew when I asked my friend Harvey Kliman if he wanted to go?

Harvey knew less than I knew!

We both knew it was a photo op. For Harvey that means video with his HD camcorder. For me stills–lots of stills.

Sunday was forecast to be beautiful so we planned to meet around 10:00 AM for the two hour top down drive. The automated routemakers from Google and Garmin wanted us to drive the fast way but I had other ideas. We headed up Route 8 to Winsted, then west-northwest through the corner of Connecticut and into New York.

With less than three miles to go and no other automotive aerodrome traffic in site my GPS turned us onto a neighborhood street which quickly became a gravel road. Before Harvey and I could get a handle on what was going on the gravel turned back to pavement and a small sign assured us we were on the right path.

Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome is what the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum might aspire to, if it could just use the Washington Mall as a runway!

Rhinebeck is a museum of the living. Its home is an idyllic strip of land nestled between the trees. A few handfuls of very old planes sit adjacent to a grass runway. These planes fly!

I walked to a cotton rope which separated the hoi polloi from the exhibits. A man dressed as a mechanic circa 1935 said I could come in and take some photos.

Good God, flying was different back then. These planes were simple–yet intricate. Simplicity meant a minimum of adjustments and controls. What was intricate were the cables and spars and fasteners that held it all together.

Safety was never a design consideration. Pilots were outside and exposed to everything the plane had to take.

For $65 I got to climb into a 1937 New Standard D25 and fly a few circuits over the Hudson Valley.

I have flown in everything from an F/A-18 to an ultralight. This was a totally new experience.

With four passengers and a lone pilot the plane taxied to the end of the runway and up a tiny rise. That little molehill provided a extra speed for our lazy takeoff. On this calm day there was more connection to the atmosphere than I expected as we clumsily lurched skyward.

Beautiful doesn’t begin to describe our view. We flew low and slow toward the Kingston-Rhineclif Bridge. The sky was blue. The air was warm. Beneath us were farms and the huge homes of rich city folk who sometimes bought them. There were mountains in the distance in nearly every direction.

It was loud in the open cockpit–and windy! I held Clicky tight, wrapping its strap around my arm.

The trip didn’t last much more than 10 minutes, but that was enough. I was convinced.

At 2:30 Rhinebeck held an airshow. Imagine an assisted living facility talent show… but for airplanes!

One-by-one small crews of men gingerly coaxed the engines to fire. There was smoke as propellers began to spin. Sometimes the engines made it clear by their sound there was only so much they were willing to do! The planes taxie to the runway’s end, turned and then ran toward takeoff.

For the oldest few takeoff meant a few feet up before setting back onto the turf. I heard someone say they don’t fly “higher than the pilots would want to fall.”

Most rolled down the runway at full throttle then eased off the ground and over the trees.

Wow.

Really.

Google Changes Everything With The New Google Chrome OS

Price out Windows Vista (or soon-to-come Windows 7) or Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard and see how they stack up against free! Google’s new OS will be open source which means free.

A little after midnight Google made a startling announcement. Late next year Google will roll out an operating system–Google Chrome.

Price out Windows Vista (or soon-to-come Windows 7) or Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard and see how they stack up against free! Google’s new OS will be open source which means free.

Some of you reading this are more technophobe than technophile so here’s a quick explanation. An operating system connects the programs you run with the underlying hardware that is your computer. Different operating systems interface with programs differently. Software must be written or rewritten for each OS. That is why my Mac friends kvetch so often about applications they want not being available for their machine.

Google’s OS promises to untie applications from a specific OS.

The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

Actually there are lots of promises starting with security and speed.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

This is a huge announcement. Microsoft and Apple stock will plunge this morning. As of now their business plans are suspect.

It’s more than just a tech thing. This is a seminal moment in the history of communications, computing and media.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: