ewaste: threepeat

It's time for another installment in ewaste. Up this week is our first three-time offender.

PFU of Japan does not make a Bluetooth version of the Happy Hacking keyboard. That's half of the reason that I keep buying new keyboards. The other half is that the keyboard I keep buying is Apple's Wireless Keyboard (available from Amazon).

My first two keyboards died when their three AA batteries exploded. My third keyboard ran low on battery recently. I undid the plug and the first two batteries came out easily but the last one would not budge. I worked with a skewer and put just one battery back in and worked it back and forth violently to try and free the last. Nothing. I beat the keyboard vigorously on the carpet to free the other one to no avail.

Frustrated and impotent, I did what the proletariat do. I made an appointment at the genius bar and brought the offending keyboard, better to mock the employees and petition for a replacement keyboard.

15 seconds into my appointment I was disarmed completely by the genius. The keyboard has only two batteries. The negative battery terminal is not a coiled spring or folded tab. It looks just like a battery.

I now have an out-of-warranty keyboard which I beat savagely into nonfunction.

Apple revised the aluminum wireless keyboard in 2009. It went from a three battery design to a two battery design.

I've owned a lot of devices with tubular magazines over the years. Most were flashlights or shotguns. One was a pretend snake in a novelty peanut brittle tin (Amazon). It took Apple to finally build a device with a magazine that never seems empty! I now suspect that the original iPod stored only 999 songs in my pocket.

Apple uses barely perceptible grey printing directly on the aluminum body of the keyboard to indicate the number and alignment of the batteries. That patent may not have been litigated as part of the recent spat with Samsung but you can be sure it came up at last week's high-level patent gab between Apple's Cook and Google's Page.

Are you a vendor? Are you bringing a new piece of e-waste to market that you would like me to review? Get in touch in the comments section below.

money

If you're a regular reader, you have probably already noticed that our Creatives and our editorial staff are all out of town on a week's holiday in observance of Labor Day. It's just me here today with Wikipedia and a bottle of gin.

I thought I would use this opportunity to level with you. I'm slowly monetizing you. It's a gradual process and some of the changes happen only imperceptibly. Big Media doesn't like to talk about the downsides of end-user monetization. They are real. I think my readers deserve to know. Don't be duped by the privacy arguments and the talk of the usefulness of targeted ads. That's nothing but strawmen and canards to direct attention away from the real and irreversible physiological changes that you will experience.

Look down at that mark on your waist. You've been telling yourself that it's left by the elastic in your pajamas. It is not. Those crenellations are the start of a milled edge. You tell yourself that you've been wearing that 72%/28% cotton/linen blend suit to beat the summer heat but can you remember the last time you actually took it off? Sure, your flexibility has never been better. Are you sure it's the yoga? Look at the illustration below. That's not snail pose.

This is not snail pose.
Photo courtesy RangerRick (CC-SA)

I may have already lost you. Trust me, you're not looking askance at the screen just now. You're starting to look in profile.

The AMA has issued no clear guidance and the DSM spreads the syndrome across a dozen unrelated illnesses. Monetization is rarely disgnosed correctly as the underlying cause of lockjaw.

There are some simple things you can do to delay the onset of a full-blown hard currency attack. I  usually say that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure but this guidance may cut too close to home with British readers. Close your laptop. Read a book. Take a walk.

If you must go online, try and keep a coinage barrier between you and your keyboard wrist rest or touch screen. Choose coins that offer some galvanic protection. This offers pretty good protection for pennies per day. I find that it takes about six but it all depends on screen size, internet bandwidth, and your weight.

If you read on the go, you might try a combo cell phone/wallet case. I haven't found one that really works so I can't yet recommend one. It's important to distinguish an actual wallet case from new tools like Google Wallet or Apple's forthcoming Passbook. THEY OFFER NO PROTECTION. In fact, these 'services' may actually hasten your monetization by building ever richer records of the patterns of your life. Only your vigilance can keep those patterns from becoming guilloche.

nabobs

Bill Safire died almost three years ago. With his passing the world lost the last man who could write "nattering nabobs of negativism" and sound authentic. I have feelings, though. It still hurts even when hurled by humorless half-wits harboring herpes.

Note the genuine good cheer in today's review.

If you have small children then you recognize the look. Your child gazes just past your shoulder imagining the large salivating therapod that will finally cut you down to size. Watch for their eyes to dart. This is really the only way you'll know if you're about to be devoured in a single bite by an imaginary T. Rex or taken by a pack of Velociraptors of the mind. Make no sudden moves.

Kids used to rely on leaden phlalate-rich plastic dinosaurs for their earliest understanding of the Mesozoic. We may not know just what colors these dinosaurs were but we are now more sure than ever that none had the vibrant chromium and cadmium painted stripes of these simple toys.

Children of a certain age may have had access to 'Land of the Lost', a series of useful documentaries about the Mesozoic. These had a decidedly Cretaceous and anti-communist bent but they were otherwise outstanding. Their rich colors were limited only by NTSC fidelity. Those films have not yet been remastered for Blu-Ray but you may still be able to find a secondhand LaserDisc or one of the numerous SECAM bootlegs taped from Algerian TV in the late seventies.

Those toys and moving images of childhood past seem as archaic as their subjects. Children today deserve access to the latest scholarship and most up-to-date pedagogical technique. In 2012, that means tablet-based dinosaurs.

If you're like me then you've been burned by shady encyclopedia salesmen hawking their wares. See yesterday's 'Rue Britannica' for a recap of my experience. I'm writing today to highlight the better side of the dino-tablet scene. These new apps are family- and family values- friendly. They mostly take no position on troubling topics like evolution and instead remind us all that people, dinosaurs, and tablets may have coexisted peacefully since the time of Moses.

I think the best of the crop is Dinosaurs: An Early Introduction for iPad. This cute app has something for children from about one to five. This should be the model of a 99 cent kids app. No in-app purchases of additional dinosaurs or dinosaur food. No reading necessary. No confusion.

An entire app captured in a single frame
Image from iTunes

This app is more than simplicity. It's beautiful and fun.  Michael-Paul Terranova, the author, is the reigning Eric Carle of 99 cent dinosaur applications until Carle himself turns up. The selection of dinosaurs is as eclectic as the Very Hungry Caterpillar's diet but here the diversity causes no indigestion. 'Dinosaurs' is the best offering from Michael-Paul at Curious Circus but it's easy to imagine new variations on this engaging theme. 'touch-me' fun might be a better name than the advertised 'tickle-me' kind but it might not. More technically accurate in any case.

Aside from the obvious care in the illustration, this app looks like it could have been knocked together quickly with PhoneGap and I think that's a good thing. Interested and technically inclined parents could put together their own apps or their HTML5 equivalents in this style without much work.

Full marks for an app that does what it says on the tin.

rue britannica

Millions of Americans continue to suffer a summer drought. Farmers, certainly, but even ordinary suburbanites chafe under restrictive watering and burning bans. Thousands of residents of Cedar Rapids recently gathered in that city's Seminole Valley park to air their grievances with an enormous bonfire that protestors called the 'Chafing Dish'. Over a thousand pounds of warm brunch foods were distributed to local aid agencies. That's almost ten pounds for each acre that burned when the fire spread out of control.

That scene may not have actually happened yet, but it could. If we criminalize simple summer pastimes, like lighting a dollar on fire just to watch it burn, we criminalize summer. We criminalize the Heartland.

Put the matches back in your kitchen gadget drawer. For as long as this damnable drought persists, you can instead buy Britannica Kids: Dinosaurs from the Apple App Store for iOS. I catch the stray scent of linen and char just thinking about it. 

My review of that app follows:

---------


Do you fondly recall the Britannica of your youth? Do you remember the way each tome used to reach right out at you and ask for five bucks?

If that was you, then you'll want that experience for the next generation. 'Dinosaurs' overcomes its weak Encarta-era interface to teach even the slowest kids a thing or two about dinosaurs. Once you download the 150 megabyte app, you'll have no trouble deciding which dinosaur video to watch first -- there is only one! This video lasts only 25 seconds and should fit within the attention span of even the most ADD addled junior stegosaurus. 

Many of the fun features in the app are true classics from the days when CD-ROMs rode in caddies. Recall the picture slider game! If you recently made your avatar an animated GIF then this one is for you!

If you tire of these, then you and your kids can head right over to the 21st century portion of this app. Choose 'shop' from the clicky menu thing (don't worry, your kids will find it for you) and start spending!

Many parents worry about configuring apps to best protect their children. This app erases those concerns! It has no parental settings whatsoever to turn off those in-app purchases. Even better, each in-app purchase costs five times the original price of the application. Britannica won't nickel and dime you like some lame World Book app over on Android. It'll hit you for five bucks each time.

Some of you out there may take a literally proprietary view about the sanctity of the in-app purchase experience. You may think that I just don't know how to use the parental control features of my device. You're wrong. I do. What I don't know how to do is explain to my children why apps prominently feature frustrating buttons that do nothing but pop up annoying blue boxes. 'Dinosaurs''s 'shop' tab is no less prominent even when in app purchases are turned completely off.

If you are a reputable publisher, don't put a 'shop' tab on a kids app. You may as well include a button that deletes all data and delivers a mild shock to the child. The fact that in-app purchases can be turned off doesn't make them less frustrating for children.

Apple? Are you reading? Allow us to search for apps that do not have in-app purchases. Thanks.

---------

This review was submitted to the App Store almost verbatim about twenty minutes after I bought this application. Then it was submitted again about 24 hours after that. It still hasn't shown up a week later. It took three tries just to get my inarticulate '1 star' rating to stick. Apple? If you got as far as the end of the review, indulge me one further. No refunds in the app store? That's cool. If I've paid my dollar and taken a chance on some terrible app then let me write my review. You shouldn't have it both ways.

dogged

I spent the weekend again dogged by accusations of plagiarism. The most recent attack came in the comments to Friday's piece 'ewatse'. Anonymous complains:

What a fuc***g crock! I read this same review on the Onion like six months ago.

I folded last week when the first DMCA takedown notice arrived -- see Thursday's 'regret' for more background. I thought then that I couldn't afford to fight. I know now that I can't afford not to.

Let's take Anonymous point by point. First, I do not tolerate sailor's language in the comments. Second, the review in question (here) is for Apple's original iPad and not for the SIIG Windshield iPad Car Mount. Third, that review was from March 2010 -- predating Anonymous' claim by almost two years.

The most troubling part of this cowardly snipe gets right to the heart of the very idea of intellectual property in the new economy. That review was written by a dolphin. You simply cannot plagarize a cetacean, no matter if it is the beautiful song of a Humpback Whale, the clicks of a Harbor Porpoise, or the commentary of a Bottlenose like Beepo the Dolphin.

Did NASA need clearance when they included whale song on the Voyager records? Certainly not.

"The Sounds of Earth" includes whale song without attribution
(Photo credit: NASA)

Many court watchers expect this issue to be put to rest firmly when the Court again takes up Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics  and rules on the validity of gene patents but I think the issue is already decided. Either whale song is a product of nature and therefore not intellectual property or it can become the intellectual property of a human author upon isolation and purification. Neither outcome creates a new IP grant to whales or a new obligation to 'cite' their work.

I hope that puts the matter to rest. Thanks to everyone who stuck by me.

ewaste

ewaste is a new Friday feature that I've been working on for some time. I carefully choose a piece of e-waste from my pile and highlight that portion of the product life cycle just between unboxing and recycling. My pile is a real mix. If I've been to Radio Shack recently then I've probably got lots of new additions to the pile. Mayflies also live just a few days. Devices with non-replaceable lithium ion batteries make up about half the pile. Several were devices that actually enjoyed long and happy lives.

Mayflies have an adult lifespan of only a few days
Photo courtesy Richard Bartz (CC-SA)

Today's featured product isn't properly e-waste but into the pile it goes. It's SIIG's Windshield iPad Car Mount (available new from Amazon). I bought this from Micro Center about a year after the introduction of Apple's original iPad.

(Disclaimer: I participate in Amazon's reverse-affiliate program. I get a small credit each time a reader does not buy the linked product.)

The mount comprises a windshield mount with twin suction cups, an adjustable plastic frame that holds the iPad in either orientation, and a stiff gooseneck that connects these pieces.

The single Amazon review of this device says that it's a nice mount for the money. I agree. This mount is much more substantial than similar phone or GPS mounts that sell for only a few dollars less. The gooseneck alone could probably be used to beat back a prospective carjacker. If your iPad or 10" Android tablet were clipped securely into mount at the time then recidivism would no longer be a problem for your attacker. Concealed weapons charge? Hardly! I think the second suction cup is probably worth about ten dollars of the price.

The two suction cups work together to support loads up to about three quarters of the weight of a single iPad while taking up only twice as much windshield as a regular phone mount.

This device isn't just bad news for people who mean you harm. If you leave this device attached to your windshield while your vehicle is in operation or under tow then you will probably die. I haven't seen a worse automotive concept since tinted brake light film (available from Amazon).

The gooseneck is surprisingly stiff. Most of the wild oscillations you'll see come from play in the cheap tab-and-slot mount that connects the iPad bracket. If the iPad/bracket together come free, then the rest of the assembly will likely stay attached to windshield indefinitely. You could use it to spindle parking tickets or impale loved ones. If the entire assembly comes off the windshield together then it will probably fall into the driver's footwell. From there, the EMT should have no trouble pulling it out of the wreckage together with you. I recommend that you use the Organ Donor app available for iPad.

Updated: This app appears to be no longer available from the App Store. Some suggest this may be due to a forthcoming feature integrated directly into iOS 6. Donate Lives is still available for iPhone/iPad but that app does not provide the same live view of your tissue compatibility to first responders.

As with any gadget, carefully check your accidental death and disability policy to see if injuries caused by the device can be covered.

Are you a vendor? Are you bringing a new piece of e-waste to market that you would like me to review? Get in touch in the comments section below.

regret

It has been brought to my attention that the two preceeding articles, now deleted, were lifted verbatim from yesterday's 'Wall Street Journal' and the June issue of 'Freshly Pressed' (the student newspaper of Sisler High School in Winnipeg, Manitoba) respectively. I regret the error.

cable

Benjamin Franklin is widely admired as the father of the modern cable television industry. With a single experiment in Philadelphia, he simultaneously demonstrated the importance of long, conductive strings and the perils associated with outdoor antennas for so-called 'wireless' transmissions. The scientist, author, and future diplomat deftly rebranded wetted kite string into the simpler 'cable' and an industry was born.

cherubs look on as Franklin displays an early version of CableCard

Franklin's experiment was more than a practical demonstration. It was deeply symbolic. The key and the Leyden jar (an early form of capacitor) have come to represent signal scrambling and the set-top box -- pillars of an industry that directly employs almost a quarter of a million people in the U.S. alone.

Scholars have recently argued that Franklin's jar is in fact the earliest ancestor of the digital video recorder (DVR), though this stems from shoddy German translation of Franklin's original correspondence. The key used in the experiment was a 'bit' key for a lever type lock. A period was missed and a key passage was therefore misinterpreted as 'bit storage jar'.

Franklin died long before Nikola Tesla's first wireless television transmission, his 1937 broadcast of game three of the following year's baseball World Series. He was likewise unable to review the HDHomeRun from SiliconDust. I will try to fill the gap as best I can.

I have been using one of these devices since late 2007. That model, the HDHR-US, has been replaced by the HDHR3-US though the original is still available used from Amazon. Within minutes of unboxing my copy of this device, I had it powered, connected to my home network, and plugged into my rooftop HDTV antenna (an amplified box-kite shaped affair from Philips).

It has required exactly zero maintenance in that time. That is remarkable in our day even for a device that does nothing. The HDHomeRun does something and it does it well. Mine takes antenna input into
each of its dual ATSC tuners and dumps raw MPEG2 transport streams in UDP onto my home network. It requires none of the confusing 'media center' or 'home theater' software and drivers that seem to be necessary with more common PCI and USB capture cards.

My device does not handle the encrypted digital signals that are common on US cable carriers. This is no problem if you plan to use the device for over-the-air broadcast with either antenna or metalized kite.

SiliconDust details the device protocol and a control library for their devices is available from them in source form. I alternate between their minimal tuning application and a bash script that produces the same effect. It just works. The popular VLC player does a great job with these streams.

With this device, I can bring Sesame Street from Queens to any computer screen in my home. I have replaced each home machine twice since the HDHomeRun arrived and I've essentially never had to do anything. I've never been prompted for a password or a reboot on behalf of this little box. Nothing is recorded. Nothing is transcoded. Nothing is torrented. Nothing fills up. No cable company required. Everything works. Even Tesla would be amazed.

I have no personal experience with the more recent products, especially the HDHomeRun Prime, from SiliconDust. I am deeply skeptical that any box, however magical, can somehow transform a cable company feed into a pleasant viewing experience. Users of an iOS app compatible with the Prime seem to agree.

frogger

Blogging is surely over. How can we tell?
A recent search for 'blogger' in Apple's
App Store for iOS provoked the response:

Did you mean frogger?

Normalcy has been restored.

privacy world

Terry Gilliam? Are you reading? Have
I got a concept for you!

An ad for 'Privacy World' on the back of a bus

The idea of Privacy World is almost a
reality TV show all by itself. If we
could get this property managed by a
totalitarian despot's sovereign wealth fund
and add your absurd dystopian touch it
would be solid gold. Bullion preferably.

Have your people get in touch with my
people. I'll be in the Howard Hughes
suite at Privacy World.

a bad habit

There are a couple of weak points in my coffee shop etiquette. Worst is that I use power outlets for my laptop. I am hardly alone.

Lisa Waxman built her PhD thesis around a study of coffee shop usage. She noted that access to a power outlet was a major factor in the public's use of space in the cafes at the Borders chain.

Outlet usage is not a major topic of her work but she references a set of small pink signs installed in Borders that read:

"As a courtesy, we request that you take into

consideration that other café customers may need

café seating for brief periods of time. This is

especially important during periods of high volume.

Additionally, to avoid safety hazards, laptops may ONLY

be used next to available outlets.

Thank you, Borders Baristas.”

Sadly, Borders' high volume days are behind it. This sign jibes with my experience that outlet usage is a topic usually addressed only by exclusion. Also the acceptability of modern outlet usage is tied to the laptop.

I don't know when I started using power outlets in coffee shops but I'm sure it was for a laptop. I think my habit must have started in an airport.

Like most other refugee camps, airports never have enough power. The dominant etiquette is the etiquette of scarcity. Ingenuity is rewarded. Discreet hoarding is accepted in a way. The rules are deliberately uncelebrated.

Airports have always been strange places. Dulles Airport, near Washington, D.C., is a formal and imposing place. Why does it have the relatively plentiful outlets that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial seems to lack? The Memorial opened twenty years after the airport. Both are gems of American architecture. Dulles serves over five times as many visitors a year (about 15 million) as the Memorial but scale alone is not the likely reason.

I think the reason is carpeting. In the thirty years since it opened, the Memorial has never been properly shampooed and vacuumed. Dulles has been. I always guessed that airport outlets were provided mainly for this reason.

Those outlets were usually easy to find and are very rarely free any more. More exotic were the outlets for TDD in larger clusters of payphones. Though the phones themselves were line powered and armored, the TDD would often plug into a 110V outlet directly under the phone.

Please accept this as a long introduction to the following bent gadget. There is no polite way to justify it. The power outlets at my local cafe have been so ravaged by the needy horde that they lack the strength to retain any of Apple's standard chargers with their compact folding-blade plug. Fortunately, those plugs pop right off. Just as Tycho Brahe may have worn different noses for different occasions, I have fashioned a crooked proboscis for my gadgets to use in public.

a bent proboscis

It works well though it probably contributes to the further deterioration of the outlet and Western society.