Stories for Boys - Frog and Heron

Frog and Heron lived in the same pond but they were not friends.

Heron spent much of his day looking for something to eat while Frog spend much of his day looking to escape Heron’s hungry beak.

One day, after barely escaping from Heron with his life, Froggy went home exhausted and angry.

He plunked down in a soft chair and was reading Froggie Life magazine when he saw an ad:  “Mister Frog, are you sick and tired of being beaten up by all the other critters in the pond?  It’s time for you to get some real muscles!” 

So Frog sent away for the home workout video trainer and began to exercise everyday.  Soon,  his muscles became bigger.  Much, much bigger!  In no time at all, he’d become a very manly looking Frog!  He said, “Let that Heron try to pick on me now!”

He hopped out of his home to face Heron.  Heron immediately spotted him and began chasing him.  This time, instead of running away, Frog flexed his huge muscles and grabbed Heron by his beak!  He swung him around and around until Heron was very dizzy and to finish him off, Frog finally let go and Heron crashed into a tree. Feathers fluttered everywhere.

Heron was in pain and very confused.  How could he allow himself to be beaten up so badly by a critter that was supposed to be his dinner?  How did Frog get so strong?  He limped back home and plunked himself down in a soft chair.  He started reading Heron Life magazine and he saw an ad:  “Mister Heron, are you sick and tired of being beaten up by all the other critters in the pond?  It’s time for you to get some real muscles!”

So Heron began to exercise everyday.  Soon, his muscles became bigger and bigger.  After not too long, he was a very tough looking Heron!  He said, “I’m going to show that Frog a thing or two!”

Frog was surprised the next day when Heron, who had been hiding from him since the day he’d been beaten up, suddenly started to attack him.  They had a terrific struggle, with feathers and frog guts flying every which way.  In the end, they both limped back to their home, battered and bruised like they never had been before.

Frog did a lot of reading while he was waiting to heal from his wounds.  In the next issue of Frog Life magazine, there was a new ad:  “Protect yourself from predators with the Pond Power 2000 machine gun.  Guaranteed to eliminate your enemies!”  So Frog sent away for the Pond Power 2000 and waited for Heron to show himself again.

Frog let out an evil laugh as he targeted Heron and let loose with a long blast of machine gun fire.  ”Die evil bird!” he screamed while the machine gun roared and belched smoke!  Heron dived to the bottom of the pond, shivering with fear.  He was terrified but he had escaped with his life.

 The next day, in Heron Life magazine, Heron saw something that caught his attention:  “Is your pond full of well-armed frogs?  Fight back with the Froggie Death Turbo Pond Boiler!”  The next day at the pond there was another awful battle.

 Then Frog sent away for the Hydralic Heron Hacker and a nuclear-powered personal security device.

On a peaceful Sunday afternoon, a family gathered together their scraps of bread and headed down to the pond to feed the ducks.  It was early autumn, the leaves were red and yellow and the crickets were chirping.  As the family emerged from the woods and reached the pond, a gruesome sight met them.  The entire pond had boiled away, there was nothing left but a burned out lake, full of blackened tree stumps.  It was littered with skeletons and the decaying carcasses of the creatures that used to live there.  In the middle of the pond was all that was left of Frog and Heron!

Windows 9 - Another Failure

I am starting to see a repeat of what happened with Windows 8 with Windows 9.  Everyone is anxious for a new version and are so full of well wishes they are overlooking the obvious flaws.  I say this based on the Windows 10 preview that was made available this week.  If you are a bit confused, Windows 10 is what Microsoft is calling Windows 9.  But it's still Windows 9 in the sense that it's the version following Windows 8.

Maybe we are getting a little tired of everyone running Windows 7 and would like something new but I seriously doubt it's what MS is delivering in Windows 9.  All they really did is add the start menu back but that's not enough by a long shot.  They still seem determined to write an OS that runs on everything from phones to tablets to devices to TV's to desktops.  This is a feature that nobody has asked for.  A lot of people are using Windows, Android and IOS interchangeably without much difficulty.  People complain about unnecessarily complicated, ugly or cumbersome features of an OS but seem to be able to cope perfectly fine with different (well designed) OS's.  So why is one unified OS so important to Microsoft?  Not because people are demanding it.

Let's face it, they might never get any serious traction with their phones or tablets.  They've already fired half of the Noika people they got from the merger and have taken billions in losses from their tablet after burning all their partners.  But on the servers and desktops, MS still rules.  So why mess up a perfectly good desktop with all the baggage from their failing mobile business?

Okay, in a nutshell this is the problem:  with Windows 8 they broke compatibility.  The last time they did this was with Windows Vista and that was a disaster.  But it's important to note that with Windows Vista, they broke compatibility only on the device driver level.  That is to say with the software that talks to things you attach to your computer.  Things like graphic cards (for gaming), printers, scanners and the like.  So when Vista came out, everyone was annoyed that they either had to wait for new drivers in order to use their existing equipment or to replace their existing equipment with something that had Vista support.

With Windows 8, they broke compatibility at the application level.  Applications written from Windows 8/9 won't run on any other version of Windows.  Windows 8 applications can't be installed, they are only available at the Windows Store and, up until Windows 9, can only run in full screen mode.  That's the other big fix they added to Windows 9.  So we've waited two years to get the start menu back and to be able to run applications in a window.  I think that's pretty weak.

The big problem with W9 (Windows 9) though is that it's still confused between Windows 8 tablet applications and all the legacy applications.  Even the new start menu reflects this confusing mix.  Has anyone really asked to run their tablet applications on their desktop?  So how is this an improvement over Windows 7?  It only adds a layer of confusion.

Let's pretend we are a software developer and we have an idea for a desktop application.  Would I write it in the traditional manner so everyone with any version of Windows can run it or would I tie it to only Windows 8?  The dismal sales of Windows 8 hasn't helped.  Then there's the problem with the Windows Store--it demands 20% or 30% of all your receipts in exchange for... what?  It's a license to steal for Microsoft.  So there's not much incentive for developers to write for Windows 8/9.

I don't see any way out of the corner they've painted themselves in.  They should split their OS's into a mobile and a desktop version like Apple has done but that train has left the station.  Perhaps it would help to make the Windows Store optional.  Microsoft has gotten to the point where is starting to be dysfunctional and if they are going to recover it's going to take a long time.  Maybe they'll get it all straightened in another couple of years when the next Windows 10 comes out but if I held any stock in Microsoft, I'd sell it soon.

Man Cave in a Pocket

Yeah, I'm a nerd.  Everybody knows what a nerd looks like now but only true nerds (of a certain age) know what nerds looked like forty years ago, before computers were everywhere.  Instead of computers, they were into electronics.  Often belonged to ham radio clubs.  Knew morse code and how to replace the tubes in your radio or tv.  And they were aspiring audiophiles.  It was a widely accepted fact that the most lavish stereos on campus weren't owned by the party crowd but the electrical engineering students.

Audiophiles would listen to music a lot and were very particular, especially about the equipment.  The goal was the "ideal listening experience."  This would usually consist of very expensive speakers and a receiver of at least 100 watts (rms!) placed in a rectangular sound-proofed room.  The speakers would be placed at one end of the room, the listener at the other end, facing the speakers.  I took this seriously and in my youth I dreamt of having enough money set aside to someday have a room like that to listen to music as much as I wanted.  These setups nowadays are called man caves.

 

The sound proofed man cave never happened and I recently realized that such a setup is no longer necessary due to technological advances.  Pictured above is an ideal listening experience, within reach of most people which you can carry in your pocket.  It's actually a system which consists of three particular parts:

1.  Klipsch S4 in-ear headphones.  These headphones are so delicious that on their website, there's a logo warning you of counterfeits.  I know that some of this is personal preference, some people simply do not like headphones that feel like earplugs.  But the big advantage is that they block out other sounds so you only hear the music you want to hear.  No need to sound proof your room.  However, this particular model feels great and sounds great.  They run about $75.  Now you can get pretty darn good earphones for much less but they all have the same weakness particular to all cheap speakers:  bass response.  If you look at computer speakers, the minimum setup is two small "tweeters" and a gigantic, power sucking bass boom box that sits on the floor.  I am happy to report that the bass response on the Klisch S4 is fine.  They're a delight to listen to.
2. iPod.  This is the little device that revolutionized computing.  The iPhone was built on it.  The main problem is that it's $300.  But it's a great music player.  You can buy them with different memory configurations and the interface is great.  The only reason I plunked down $300 is because it was about the only music player on the market with over 4GB of memory.  The best thing about it though is that besides being a great music player, it does a ton of other stuff like internet, email and apps.  So you tend to keep it charged and in your pocket. 
3. Rhapsody music service. The wonderful thing about Rhapsody is that you don't have to buy anything, just pay your subscription and you can download anything.  Fill your memory with as many artists as you want and carry it around with you.  They boast they have "millions" of songs.  I suspect they lost count but they really do.

So that's it.  The iPod pretty much replaces the expensive high end stereo receivers of yesteryear.  Electronics have just progressed so far that just about anything perfectly recreates an input signal.  And since you're only driving a set of headphones, the massive power supplies and heat sinks are all gone.  Just a scrawny lithium battery is all you need.

The sound proofed room with a pair of speakers at the other end is replaced by just the headphones.  Perfect stereo separation since each ear has its own feed and there's no reflections from walls to worry about.  And talk about decorating the room.  I can create beautiful outdoor landscapes or blue skies just by going somewhere, laying down and putting in the earphones. 

In actuality, the sound proofed room with speakers, if it was really implemented, would require a huge rack of CD's or vinyl or whatever for you to listen to.  Thanks to computers, I can carry around "millions of songs" with me in my pocket.  All my dreams have come true.  Did I vote for Pedro?

The Brief Elaboration of a Tube

Take a look at this video and you can see my hero Leonard Cohen singing one of his news songs off of Old Ideas.  Listen to (or read) the lyrics and see if you can figure out what the heck he's talking about.  A word of warning, he's a serious poet and his meaning is at times difficult to divine.  But I'll tell you.

In the song Going Home, he is singing about... I guess you might call it his creative process.  Where his ideas come from or where his inspiration comes.  There has been a lot of speculation so in my defense, I offer the following quote from the author:

Look...you know the songs are inspired.  I don't pretend to be a guide.  I do pretend to be an instrument for certain kinds of information  at certain moments.  Not all moments, and it has nothing to do with me as a guy.  I may be a perfect scoundrel...as a matter of fact, I am...just like the guy on the scene.  But there are moments when I am the instrument for certain kinds of information.

 So I've been thinking about this a lot lately, what he's saying.  He sees his talents, his gift so to speak as something outside of himself and he's...almost a spectator.  Maybe a caretaker and it's a duty for him to either neglect or attend to.  It's a very humble point of view.  Amazingly humble. 

Frankly my mind sort of boggles at this perspective.  I always thought of myself, at least in part,  in terms of what I like to do and my accomplishments.  But if your talents are just something that are given to you and you have no say in what they are or how much you get, all I am is either a dutiful or neglectful manager of them. 

In his song, Leonard Cohen points out that proper use of his gift is casting aside his own desire and being faithful only to it--to keep it pure.  To not interject any of himself into it.  I would think for a poet and a writer that the opposite would be true?

Little Sisters of the Poor - Enemies of the State

 

The Little Sisters of the Poor is a charitable and spiritual organization of Catholic Sisters who have dedicated themselves to humble service, companionship and service to the elderly poor.  They are bound to their service with a vow of chastity, poverty and obedience to the Lord.  According to their public statements, they offer their personal talents and gifts, possessions and will—all that we are and have—for His glory and the salvation of souls.

 

They have recently made the news because of a (Supreme) court ruling in their favor and against provisions in Obamacare that they be required to be offered birth control.  Now when you see people in court who are in there for murder, organized crime, conspiracy or other heinous crimes, you don't feel sorry for them and are usually glad that they were caught and are now receiving justice.  But what does it mean when the people you are facing in court are nearly Holy Saints who have bound themselves with an oath to lifetime of good works?  Shouldn't it be a signal to you that something in your own life has gone terribly wrong? 

Windows 8 - A Farewell to Windows Desktop

Earlier, sometime before the release of W8 (Windows 8), I posted a cautionary blog about the failure it would be.  Since then it was released and has instantly become Microsoft's most widely hated release, even surpassing Vista in terms of its ability to incite user anger.  It's widespread criticism is accompanied by record breaking low adoption rates, a much more objective measure.  By every measure it's an astounding failure.

Microsoft had a lot invested in W8, it was supposed to bring Windows to tablets and cell phones.  CEO Steve Ballmer said they would "bet the company" on Windows 8.  Silly Ballmer, if you are going to bet the company, don't bet it on such a weak hand.  Technically, the execution of W8 went well, they did manage a tablet/phone OS that at least works.  They added a few nice features to the desktop as they do every release.  For developers, they released an API (Application Programming Interface) for writing apps for the new OS. 

But strategically they made a number of horrific errors.  First and foremost was the idea that this new OS had to look and work the same across all three classes of devices:  phone, tablet and desktop.  This lead to the ill fated decision to make the desktop look like a tablet where everything has to run full screen and removing the Start menu.  Software you could buy and install was replaced by the "Windows Store" which badly alienated Steam and everyone else who was already running a store.  Lately, Steam has been working hard on a Linux based console and offering a selection of Linux based games in response. 

When it comes to developer support, in their quest to go after the cell phone and tablet market, they introduced confusion over what tools they will support in the future and anger over old tools that were discontinued.  The only clear path forward MS offered was a way to write Metro style applications for Windows 8 but since they're not backwards compatible with any other OS, it's understandable that response was tepid.

Microsoft should have seen it coming, they certainly had been warned enough.  And everyone else could see it coming.  When they undercut all their former hardware partners (e.g. Acer, Dell and Asus) and started manufacturing their own tablet (the Surface), it was inevitable that they would soon be the only ones doing so.  MS charges $30 for each tablet OS license in a business with very thin margins.  That plus the poor reputation of Windows 8, high prices and a general lack of availability of decent software continues to discourage partners like Acer, Dell and Asus from offering much in the way of Windows tablets.  Or phones.

Most frustrating was MS's refusal to acknowledge any problems with Windows 8 and a stubborn determination to "stay the course" regardless of how reckless or wrong it was.  This story could have ended very badly except for the MS board of directors.  Once it was announced that they would take a $1 billion markdown on all the Surface tablets that nobody wanted, they demanded CEO Steve Ballmer's resignation.  They had already sent Steve Sinofsky, the architect of W8 packing about a month ago.  This bold action was followed by a purge of many top level managers associated with the grand failure.  MS is now in the middle of a new CEO search but they're not finding too many takers.  This is probably the best news I've heard for a long time, people had been calling for Ballmer's head for a long time.  And all the failures were management failures.

Rumors of MS's new directions seem encouraging.  I expect by Windows 9, they'll have recovered from their worst missteps.  There are rumors that they'll restore the beloved Windows 7 desktop and allow their wretched Metro applications to run from the desktop.  They still need to fix and unify their developer tools.  I hope they make it.

Microsoft panicked and acted foolishly but the threats to their livelihood are real.  How long they can continue to charge for Windows is coming into question because they are being seriously challenged by Google's Android.  It already runs most phones and tablets and is not only free but open source so anyone (i.e. Samsung) can modify it for better consumer appeal.  Google does this because it makes its money from its search engine.  Android is just incidental to its business of putting the internet everywhere and you needing Google to search it.  Well, it might have undermining MS as one of its goals too, I dunno. 

For a long time, the Linux desktop and server has been predicted to take over the space that Windows once occupied.  On the server that has largely happened and many web site servers are powered by Linux.  At first people were wary of Linux because of a lack of stability in the versions available.  But gradually companies formed to provide support to specific distributions.  One of the more conspicuous examples is Intel's adoption of Red Hat which is now a major Linux distribution in the US. 

So Microsoft has formidable competition on the server, still rules the desktop but is barely noticeable for tablets and phones.  The botched rollout of Windows 8 hurt the desktop and drove consumers to alternative solutions, which is to say, Apple or Android phones and tablets.  And everybody is waiting for Google to release a free desktop version of Android.  They're very close with their Chromebooks which are selling well.  I don't know what is keeping Apple back from releasing OS X for non-Apple desktops.  That would be a blow to MS but the point is that one day, Windows may well become a much smaller market.  MS will still have Office and the Cloud and a bevy of other products.  Plus they still have the capability of creating so much more if they can only first conceive it.  That's what the new CEO needs to bring.  Steve Ballmer's solution was to adopt the Apple model, to make money off of running the Windows Store (where a hefty 30% commission is required of each publisher) and selling hardware.  But I think they need a new vision.