Peter's Blog

Just commenting on things that interest me

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Patriots Day

June 18, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Speaking of terrorist attacks (as I was in my last post) I watched the move Patriots Day very recently. It stars Mark Wahlberg and covers the bombing of the Boston marathon on April 15, 2013 , when three innocent people were killed, including an eight year old boy. Hundreds of people were injured, including 16 who lost limbs.

Although based on the events of the day, and the few subsequent days, it is obviously not a documentary. And even though you know what happened, it does make compelling viewing.

One of the things which comes across very strongly in the movie is the unified way the people of the city reacted to the atrocity. The phrase “Boston Strong” began to be used, and almost immediately became a popular hashtag on Twitter. For me this reaffirms what I was saying in the last post: if the intention of these attacks is to frighten people and weaken their resolve, then it actually seems to have the opposite effect.

There seem to be a number of differences between this attack and the recent ones in the UK:

  • The two attackers (whom I will not name) were brothers
  • The elder brother was married, with a young daughter
  • The two attackers had no intention of being killed in the attack. The investigation uncovered lots of CCTV footage of the two men, and one shows the younger brother running away from the scene
  • The attackers intended to continue their campaign, and were apparently intent on going to New York to commit another atrocity

Three days after the attack, the brothers killed a MIT policeman, and the elder brother was killed, having been shot several times by policeman and (incredibly) run over by his brother.

The younger brother remains on death row.

Terrorist Atrocities

June 17, 2017 / / 0 Comments

I would like to blog about my usual trivial topics, but I cannot in good conscience do so with addressing the terrorist atrocities which have taken place in the UK:

  • March 22 2017 London: An attacker mowed down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, killing two men and two women and injuring about 40 more. He then crashed his car into the railings outside Parliament, got out and ran into New Palace Yard where he stabbed a brave police officer to death. He was shot dead by armed police.
  • May 22 2017 Manchester: An attacker killed at least 23 adults and children and injured over a hundred others at an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena.
  • June 2 2017 London: Three attackers killed eight people and 48 more on London Bridge and in nearby Borough Market. They were shot dead by police after mowing down pedestrians on the bridge and going on a killing spree at pubs and restaurants at 10 pm.

Like right-thinking people everywhere, I was sickened and saddened by these depraved acts. I can’t even imagine the impact on the people who were injured, and the friends and families of those killed and injured.

While all three attacks are contemptible, the Manchester one is the most shocking because of the huge number of people who were killed and injured and the age profile of those people.

The Manchester attacker (I have no intention of naming any of these sick individuals) decided, using some kind of warped thinking, that there was some justification for attacking a pop concert which would be attended by children and young people, and by their parents. And indeed the dead included ten people under 20, the youngest an eight-year-old girl.

There are two very specific elements which mystify me about all of this:

  1. These suicide killers seem to believe that there is a place in paradise for them because of these acts? I cannot imagine there is any version of God who would welcome anyone whose last act was to murder innocent men, women and children
  2. I cannot understand what these attacks are supposed to achieve? Are they hoping to frighten people, to keep them away from concerts, off the street, and locked up in their homes? This is simply not going to happen. Surely Ariana Grande’s subsequent One Love Manchester Concert was ample evidence of that? Are they hoping to affect the behaviour of the UK government? Again this is not going to happen.

To my way of thinking, these acts are not just horrific, they are also senseless.

Here is a picture from the Mirror newspaper of the 22 ordinary, innocent people killed in the Manchester attack. My heart goes out to their families and friends, and all of those who were affected by the attack.

The 22 people killed in the Manchester attack

Hilarious Robot Video

May 18, 2017 / / 0 Comments

A company called “Boston Dynamics” has built a very impressive robot called “Atlas” and has made the following video to demonstrate some of its capabilities:

Then some genius came along and added a new soundtrack to make this completely hilarious video. Funniest thing I have seen in ages. Enjoy!

Star Trek: The Animated Series

May 18, 2017 / / 0 Comments

in 1973 and 1973, most of the actors from Star Trek were reassembled to make an animated version of the show. Season One had 16 episodes and Season Two had a further 6.

This was between the finishing of the original series (1969) and the making of the first movie (1979).

I had seen bits and pieces of the series over the years but when it appeared on Netflix I decided to watch all of the episodes.

Well I find this very hard to believe, but there is hardly a single episode in the whole series which has even the slightest merit.

IMDB rates the episodes between 6.1 and 7.4, with the single exception of the second episode, “Yesteryear”, which has a rating of 8.2.

This episode was written by D.C.Fontana and features time travel and “The Guardian of Forever”. The episode also sees Mark Lenard reprising his role from the original series as Sarek (the only time he did so in the animated series).

Here is a still from the episode showing Kirk and Spock:

startrekanimated

 

New for fans of Star Trek

May 18, 2017 / / 0 Comments

In this post I talk about a number of updates for fans of Star Trek.

The first relates to “Star Trek Continues” I which I mentioned previously.  That series is now up to 8 episodes! The most recent episode (“Still Treads the Shadow”) provided an interesting acting challenge for Vic Mignogna who plays Kirk.

The second relates to the upcoming office Star Trek show: Star Trek Discovery. While I wouldn’t normally have much excitement about this kind of show (I don’t think I watched a single episode of Star Trek:Enterprise) I am excited to see that the fabulous Michelle Yeoh has joined the cast and appears in the new trailer:

The show will be released in the Autumn and will be available on Netflix the day after it premiers in the USA.

The third is about a new spoof show called ” The Orville” which will was created by and will star creator Seth MacFarlane, and will be directed by Jon Favreau.

While the trailer is far from hilarious, it does look promising.

Another Big Apple (Steve Jobs) Mistake

April 30, 2017 / / 0 Comments

In my last post, I mentioned a small mistake made by Apple/Steve Jobs.

Here is a much bigger one, and one which has never been rectified properly.

The reason I don’t have an iPhone, and don’t ever plan to but one, is that it is too “closed”.

I have an Android phone and I can program it using “MIT App Inventor“. This simple tool (which I teach kids in CoderDojo) allows you to create apps, to transfer them to an Android phone, to debug them interactively, and to create apps which can be uploaded to the Google Store.

App Inventor is not available for iOS because Apple (and I believe this to be a Steve Job legacy) doesn’t want people developing code any way but the “right” way. And the right way involves Xcode, Objective-C or Swift, a Mac, possibly other tools, and registering as (and paying to be) an iOS Developer. And for the longest time they didn’t want you to do any kind of coding on an iPhone/iPad (this restriction has been eased more recently with things like Codea, ScratchJr, Pyonkee and “Swift Playgrounds“).

I mentioned this restriction previously in my old blog when I spoke about “Cargo-Bot“.

So until this is addressed, I’ll be sticking with Android.

Another Apple (Steve Jobs) Mistake

April 29, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Here is another (very small) mistake which Jobs made: He thought a mouse should have one button (so as not to confuse users, apparently). He did not want users to have to “right click”.

So Lisa, IIGS, Mac, etc. all came out with a single button.

To me, this was just wrong.

Over time, Windows mice had two or three buttons and maybe a “wheel”. This obviously gives the user more power.

And then he endorsed the idea of a mouse with no buttons! This article claims that this came about through a misunderstanding.

I guess the problem was addressed eventuality with the multi-touch “magic mouse”. But I don’t know for sure as I have never used one.

Here is a picture of original Macintosh mice:

Mac Mouse

Apple’s Biggest Mistake

April 29, 2017 / / 0 Comments

I mentioned the Apple IIGS in my last post.

I came across an interesting video on YouTube entitled “Apple and Steve Jobs’ Biggest Mistakes Ep 1 – The Macintosh”.

This interesting video claims that the original Mac was a mistake. I don’t think anyone would disagree with that. The YouTuber (“The 8-Bit Guy“) goes on to make a compelling argument that Apple should have promoted the Apple IIGS and dropped the Mac.

Here’s the argument:

  1. The IIGS was superior to the Mac in a number of areas (e.g. better sound and graphics)
  2. It was more extendable (slots for cards)
  3. It was a lot cheaper

And the amazing (and cool) thing about the IIGS was that it was able to run most of the Apple II software. So there were hundreds upon hundreds of software products available for it! (Compare this with the Mac which suffered from a horrible lack of software).

He argues (and I agree) that Apple should have been pushing the IIGS rather than the Mac (he blames Steve Jobs for this decision which, based on everything we know about how Jobs was behaving at that time, seems reasonable). But instead they reduced the CPU speed of the IIGS on purpose to make sure that GUI (which was very similar to the Mac’s but in colour!) was sluggish and unable to match the Mac!

Wikipedia tells us that ” The machine outsold all other Apple products, including the Macintosh, during its first year in production”.

We are left to wonder how things would have turned out if Apple had not crippled the machine and has pushed it instead of the Mac. They might have been able to avoid all of those years in the wilderness. Maybe it could even have given the IBM PC a run for its money! Imagine if we were all running machines now which were descended from the Apple II rather than from the IBM PC!

The video includes “Ep 1” in the title and “The 8-Bit Guy” says that he plans to talk about other mistakes which Jobs made but I can’t see any sign of such videos.

You can see the video here:

Steve Wozniak – Genius

April 28, 2017 / / 0 Comments

In my last post, I spoke of my admiration for a man who build a computer because he did both the hardware and the software.

I cannot leave this without mentioning my undying admiration for Steve Wozniak.

“Woz” designed and built both the Apple I and the Apple II (the first computer I every owned). As if that wasn’t enough, when you look at the “Apple II Reference Manual”, you can see from the listings that he also wrote the following programs in assembler:

  • The operating system (“System Monitor”) with Allen Baum
  • The Mini Assembler again with Allen Baum
  • Integer BASIC
  • The Floating Point Routines
  • The “Sweet16 Interpreter”

He also wrote some of the BASIC games such as Breakout (which he didn’t put his name on) and Mastermind (which he did).

He went on, of course, to design printer interfaces, serial interfaces, the floppy drive and later contributed to the Apple IIGS.

I found his book iWoz in the local library some time ago. It is a very enjoyable read. I found myself very jealous of the place and time where he grew up.

There are lots of views featuring Woz in YouTube. Here is his appearance on Conan in 2016:

 

Building a REAL Computer from Scratch

April 27, 2017 / / 0 Comments

In my last blog I spoke of my admiration for a man who built a simple working computer using TTL chips. This computer is fantastic for teaching/learning how computers work.

Imagine, therefore, my admiration for a man who built a REAL computer using TTL chips. By “real”, I mean that it:

  • Runs a port of the MINIX operating system
  • Is multi-user and multi-tasking
  • Is connected to the Internet
  • Has a front panel with loads of LEDs and switches (like me, Bill believes that this is crucial)
  • Users can Telnet on to it over the Internet!

The creator, Bill Buzbee, is a genius. He did both the hardware AND the software. He says that he did it because he wanted to learn more about hardware. He certainly did that, including learning how to “wire wrap”.

The software includes:

  • C compiler, Assembler, Linker
  • TCP/IP stack
  • A set of utilities
  • A set of games

Bill had to do EVERYTHING – even creating his own instruction set! It’s an amazing accomplishment.

Only one user can Telnet onto the computer at a time, but I managed to do so the other day. It’s incredible to think that that I was running a game on a computer which someone has built and programmed all on his own!

Here is a video of the computer “coming alive” (as Bill puts it) in 2004.

And here is a link to his YouTube channel.

And here is a long (almost an hour) video where Bill explains everything about the computer, which he calls “Magic-1”:

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