Category Archives: electronics

electronics: the return of the VCR!

Posted on 2013-11-15 by skierpage

I don’t pay for cable or satellite TV. I use a cutting-edge technology that delivers dozens of HDTV channels, wirelessly: the technical term for it is “rabbit ears.” It’s great, but the feature we lost in the transition to all-digital … Continue reading →

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computers: William Gibson and brain interfaces

Posted on 2013-11-04 by skierpage

Slashdot breathlessly summarizes a rather weak project combining virtual reality headset and a brainwave reading device with the editorial. Consumer level brain computer interfaces are still primitive these days, but it doesn’t seem too far off that we’ll have virtual … Continue reading →

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skiing: better gloves

Posted on 2012-03-26 by skierpage

My replacement Swany Flexor FX-15 gloves were terrible, so I got new gloves, as did a ski buddy. They’re both Gore-Tex with leather palms and fingers. They both have leashes so you can’t lose a glove. The Dakine Rover gloves … Continue reading →

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software: how Live CDs can close the deal

Posted on 2011-06-09 by skierpage

I tried out the some new operating systems by booting them off a USB flash drive, including Fedora 15. Fedora 15 seemed to work fine on my hardware and looked promising, but it wasn’t dramatically better in a few fumbling … Continue reading →

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computers: trying new distributions

Posted on 2011-04-25 by skierpage

I’m still running the Kubuntu flavor of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, now up to version 10.10. It’s lovely that Linux distributions get steadily better for free, and thanks in a small part to my bug reports and testing.  The glitches … Continue reading →

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computers: one billion bytes of RAM isn’t enough

Posted on 2011-04-25 by skierpage

I’m typing this on a Falcon Northwest top-of-the-line desktop computer. It’s from 2004. The Athlon 3000 dual core CPU can keep up with most of my needs, the 100GB disk has enough space, the audio is fine, the video can … Continue reading →

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computers: I want to be browser-based

Posted on 2010-12-10 by skierpage

Google’s ChromeOS “nothing but web” replacement for the heavyweight PC environment is nearing release, though overshadowed by Android’s unstoppable rise for smart phones and tablets and Google TV. I wish Firefox and the Linux distributions would proceed with similar initiatives. … Continue reading →

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audio: a Walkman down cassette land

Posted on 2010-10-25 by skierpage

I was present at the birth of the Walkman and its pre-history. Continue reading →

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