Dire Thoughts

A new venture with whizzes and bangs and large explosions

Posted by Henry - 18/04/12 at 01:04:00 pm

I am happy to announce I am starting work on a new site, which will be the home of a podcast, run by myself, Alex Forey, Amos Jackson, Nicolas Weninger and a few other people who don’t have websites. More news to come.

So that’s all good. (yes, I’ve been watching Twenty Twelve)

H./

Tools, Machines and Gizmos

Posted by Henry - 08/03/12 at 10:03:28 pm

I’d like to question something today, and I am interested in your opinion, so do either post a comment or tweet me with yours. Partly inspired by the discussion of Algorithms and how they are now so complex, the data they process is indecipherable by most people, and just my curiosity; when does something become a tool instead of a machine or a gizmo?

First, we need to work out what a tool is. If you asked someone in 1012, you’d probably not understand them, but it would likely be ‘simple’ items – an axe, a dagger and a scythe. The Dictionary of Dr Johnson, published in 1755, defines a tool as:

1. An instrument of manual operation

2. A hireling: a wretch who acts at the command of another.

For our purposes, we are not that interested in the second definition, but the first is interesting. Compare it to one of the OED’s current definition:

1. a device or implement, especially one held in the hand, used to carry out a particular function: eg gardening tools.

context

• a thing used to help perform a job: computers are an essential tool| the ability to write clearly is a tool of the trade
• a person used or exploited by another: the beautiful Estella is Miss Havisham’s tool.
• [COMPUTING] a piece of software that carries out a particular function, typically creating or modifying another program.

A machine is defined by Dr Johnson as:

1. Any complicated piece of workmanship

2. An engine

3. Supernatural agency in poems

and the OED as:

an apparatus having mechanical power and having several parts, each with a definite function and together performing a particular task: eg a fax machine.

Interestingly, the next word after machine is machine code, and 2 after that, machine instruction and machine readable – all regarding computer-processable data and instructions. One can see in the contrast between the two dictionaries the changes in technology over around 250 years, but the question remains: when does a gizmo become a machine or a tool, and can something transition from machine to tool, or perhaps vice-versa. “Gizmo” is obviously not in Dr Johnson’s dictionary, but the OED reports it to be

INFORMAL: a gadget, especially one whose name the speaker does not know or cannot recall
ORIGIN: 1940s (originally US): of unknown origin

In my opinion, gizmos are that which we do not know. Once we understand more about them, and open ourselves to them, they cease in our minds to be called gizmos, hence why grumpy grey-haired history teachers who wear blue sweaters and suede jackets call computers ‘confounding fancy gizmos’. So perhaps changing our question temporarily to help us; How do we distinguish between tools and machines; when does a machine become a tool? 

My iPod is, in my opinion, a tool. This is something that agrees with both dictionaries, and succeeds greatly. It is something I carry instinctively, and use to help me with certain tasks; History notes or calculators, or recording an event. It is not a machine. I would view a machine as something like the ENIGMA cracker. It certainly is a complicated piece of workmanship, and it has mechanical power and several parts, all aiming to crack a code. Yet it does, albeit at a much smaller scale (despite being much larger), the same sort of stuff as my iPod. It uses machine code and machine instruction; they may be in different media, but it is the same sort of thing. So why is the ENIGMA cracker not a tool; well, technically, it is. But in the more casual use of the word, is it really a tool? Perhaps not, due to its age and the fact it is now obsolete.

Let’s take a 3D printer. This is pretty close to a cutting edge of tech; something we will see in the future, something that is a common item in science fiction novels. They will be able to print theoretically anything; they’ve managed to build an artificial jaw. It again fulfills both requirements for being a tool or a machine. But I think of it more as a tool. It is something that will facilitate some damn cool stuff, although perhaps it is currently more of a gizmo – but I doubt it is a machine. It is at the edge of tech, it is something that we will properly see a full implementation within 20-30 years. The Pirate Bay is already linking to ‘Physibles’. They describe it as “Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical.” I prefer “Data objects that are Physical and Visible“. Soon. But they’re still tools-to-be, currently gizmos.

So what is a tool, in my opinion? A tool is, generally, something that is not obsolete – can the same task a machine does, be done better in a more useful form, faster, practical, and cheaper, for the general public, and is integrated and made well enough that it is something that you naturally think of using; and something you have knowledge about and are open to. But it’ll probably eventually become a machine, unless it is truly unique; the wheel for instance is something that is always a tool.

A machine is something else; something deprecated and left behind, something that could be replaced but is kept either for history or a small amount of people are using; the rest have moved onto the tools.

A gizmo is in a fresh new unknown state, something that is alien to the system.

These definitions well may change, as they did between Dr Johnson and the latest OED.  But they’ll do for now; they’re not machine words, but tool words.

H./

@direthoughts

 

 

 

Muppetry

Posted by Henry - 14/02/12 at 03:02:12 pm

The House of Commons; but improved

In the time between my latest post and this one, I would like to draw your attention to something what like I made; direthoughts.com/house – unfortunately, you won’t have any success using it as of 14th February, as the House of Commons returns at 2:30pm, Monday 20th. But when that time comes, I thoroughly encourage you to go onto that site.

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Fratricide

I’m working on a project, a short film adaptation of Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, with some people like Alex Forey, Nicolas Weninger(author of thecompblog) and Amos Jackson We’re trying to restage it to take part in a school, due to social constraints barring us from parts of the book, such as the romance, prisons and being 16/17 year olds. What’s more, we’re shooting it on Canon EOS 600Ds, which I have to thank Nicolas and Roo Reynolds deeply for, and my way of paying them back, being taking photos and publishing the good ones under a creative commons license, can be seen as they come out, once a week for a year (and possibly beyond) on my flickr. At some time I’ll move them over to direthoughts to avoid the compression. We’re also borrowing a large amount of stuff from the school, including a rather large heavy tripod and a steadicam. Our pace of film making is rather slow, but I guess that it’s not too bad at 3.5minutes of footage for 5 hours work on a cold Friday. There may be some proper production stills put online, but for now you can look at this rather awful instagram photo of the tripod, Alex’s 600D and me bending over…

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The Muppets

Your reading experience of this post will be greatly improved and enter you into the environment if you hit this lovely play button. Probably, anyway.

On with the review; I dragged along my friend Alex to watch this film, and in his opinion it was hell. Mine, however, was not the same. Fair enough, the town of Smalltown (Population 102) coincidentally has a dancing routine that the entire town goes to, and once it had finished they all collapsed from exhaustion, but it had the fourth wall breaks, such as Stalter and Waldorf saying “Hey do you think we should repeat this important plot point” (I paraphrase, but that was the gist). The film was, in fairness to Alex, a bit too dancy, but the variety in jokes and music sequences was highly amusing, in an almost cut-away sequence style. Also, Walter (the muppet protaganist) had his human counterpart played by Jim Parsons (Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory), which was highly amusing. It did what I think it was supposed to do, which was to give the 3rd greatest gift of all time; Laughter.

NOW GIVE ME MY PIXAR FILM DAMN IT I NEED TO CRY.

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To finish off, I will be writing my next blogpost on a subject of your choice. So either tweet me or comment what INTERESTING topic you’d like me to write about.

H./

On the subject of Libraries,

Posted by Henry - 28/01/12 at 01:01:47 pm

Returning to a blog post forced upon most of my fellow school compatriots, in this course, I’d like to talk about Libraries. I am currently partaking in the DofE Bronze course, something that I will talk about at a later period, probably after I have completed it, due to my opinions on the true nature of it and perhaps how those comments might be taken in a way not beneficial to my completion of it,  and as part of my volunteering, I am working at a homework club, after school. This is a rather simple task, where I sit there and help children with their homework, and attempting to impart my knowledge to them in an interesting way without them vomiting profusely. But this has brought something back to me; the fact that Libraries are darn useful. I can recall myself, sitting in a library and reading books about Physics and History at the ages of 6 and 7. But Libraries are now an endangered species. They are at risk of cuts by local councils, bottlenecked by old systems and ideals for running the libraries. But as the internet is becoming more and more powerful, libraries are being sidelined. The extra services they provide over the books, such as the homework clubs, or use of the computers are required for some people, and indeed help to flourish people and their skills. But I think that for now, libraries are to stay – for the sole reason the internet is not fully open. Libraries represent the diversity of knowledge and the freedom of that knowledge currently does not exist fully on the internet. It is possible that if several censorship laws are passed, knowledge previously garnered from the internet would have to be found in a library, a nostalgic experience for many. Thus, I think what has to happen is we use libraries as our backup, for the possible burning of the modern day Library of Alexandria; the hub of knowledge that is the internet. We require an equilibrium between the two. This may simply be the case however in countries with more wealth, but I think that in poorer countries struggling to make the jump, knowledge is what is needed, and the library can provide that. But libraries have to be supplemented by the great hive-mind of the Internet, to allow the extra services and knowledge that the library provides become a small amount compared to what the internet provides, but have enough force to show the governments that Libraries are here to stay.

I write this blogpost inspired by, and hoping to share awareness of Save Our Libraries day, occuring on the 5th of February. I thoroughly encourage you to spend some time in your library that day, and perhaps help out with spreading this post, and Save our Libraries day.

On 2 interesting library related notes, firstly, has anyone seen my hardback copy of Snuff, by Terry Pratchett. And secondly, the library I volunteer at, well I owe them about £1350 in late fees for a book I “borrowed” when I was 5. It was about trains. Yeah…

H./

Hong Kong

Posted by Henry - 28/01/12 at 01:01:41 pm

As the factories of Foxconn manufacture the technology of today, some of it isn’t travelling very far – simply over the border, to Hong Kong. At one of many bus stops (where people wait in immaculate order), the majority of people will be reading the news that day. Say there are 20 people waiting – probably 15 of them are reading the news on their phones, 2 or 3 will be reading the newspaper, and the others simply waiting. Technology is big in Hong Kong. And it isn’t just private use – there is public use of technology. The MTR system (the equivalent to the tube in London) has, at the colour coded stations (THEY HAVE THEIR OWN COLOUR), iPads (which cannot be hacked) show information using a custom firmware, displaying information about status of the MTR and a map, and a system to determine the fastest route! This is quite frankly amazing, and in some cases surreal. On the trains themselves there are ads for the MTR app – for Android. It is indeed a multicultural country in the sense of technology – a plethora of devices flock the area, from the old orphaned Android tablets to the mollycoddled iPhones.

On the financial side, there is a system that goes beyond the call of duty. It is called “Octopus”. It is a card, much like the oyster card, that can be used for public transport, but the great addition is that you can buy things with it, in a shop. So very simple, but so useful – no longer do you have to get your wallet out, choose the right amount of money, but you can simply tap your wallet on the reader, and pay for your items. This speeds up the entire process of buying and selling, increasing numbers for revenue.

Another stark difference between London and Hong Kong; wi-fi. In the stations, even at the deepest levels, waiting at the platforms, there is Wi-Fi. What’s more, it is fast AND free (8MBps). And whilst walking about, every single telephone box has a wifi network connected to the telecommunications system, and that too, is free. Connectivity and information sharing is at the very heart of Hong Kong, and Hong Kong is probably where the “Internet of Things” can be seen the best currently. Unfortunately, they STILL haven’t got Apple TVs. I’d like to apologise for the lack of pictures in this post – I had some but I was a stupid and went and wiped my iPod without taking them off. So just take my word for it.

My god this post was reedited time and time again,

H./

A short broadcast

Posted by Henry - 05/01/12 at 05:01:05 pm

A short blog post on a variety of things here. Starting off, Thank you. This has been quite amazing, and I hope that the new viewers will stick with me. I am doing a follow up post, and I am currently on holiday in Hong Kong, where I went on the iPads, which I am pleased to say can also be bypassed in the same way. Sadly there were no Apple TVs in this Apple Store, so I instead did a bit of digging which deserves its own post. I’ll also be reviewing/comparing the two Sherlock things that have been going on recently (Sherlock 2, Sherlock Series 2 (BBC)). There will also be a post about Hong Kong, and technology in it; it is amazing. If any of my viewers come from or have been to Hong Kong, do comment on this post if you have something to add. I’ll try and make a start on the Hong Kong post, and I may do another very long post about the iPad bypass and the firmware on it, after I make a visit to an Apple Store in the UK with a friend (I don’t think I’ll go for Westfield Apple Store though…).

 

Expect more, and a belated Happy 2012. I look forward to another year of tech lulz and random stuff.

 

H./

@direthoughts

 

So I was out on a walk…

Posted by Henry - 29/12/11 at 12:12:58 pm

2 short videos recorded and edited with a potato (iPod). Off to Hong Kong. May blog. May not. I am mysterious in my ways.

Derp

H./

How to annoy Apple (and Think Differently)

Posted by Henry - 22/12/11 at 09:12:38 pm

I’m sure that most of my readers have entered an Apple store, or at the very least know of Apple. Those of you who have entered an Apple store will therefore be able to share my experience and knowledge, that I garnered today at the Apple store in Westfield Shepherds Bush, London. Having been doing the typical post-movie teenage thing of loitering around doing nothing, I tried to see what I could do with one of these:

from the Telegraph

These iPads have a special app on them, and disabled home button keys, so they can only be used to display the information about the product – I believe that most, if not all Apple Stores now have these. They are charged and thus need no touching by staff, so they are locked into the glass. But thanks to the Apple design, which is so pro curves, I discovered that if you put enough weight on the top left corner – where the lock button is (I put my elbow on it), you can lock it. You can then either turn them off – at which point it makes it a pain, until the store staff work out how to turn it on, or you can simply enter the main screen – the dashboard where all the apps are. These iPads are peculiar enough, having some apps to have the display and some “remote login” app that I didn’t want to explore but no doubt can be googled. But they are connected to the Wifi in the apple store, so that they can be remotely updated using the new fancy shcmancy syncing that iOS 5 brought us. I managed to navigate into settings, where I found the wifi network – it’s “hidden”, but that doesn’t particularly matter – a simple scan that bypass’s “hidden” wifi networks would find it. But I then went onto Youtube, via Safari (the Youtube app didn’t exist on this special store edition). I discovered to my surprise that the Wifi network the iPads were connected to was the same as the Apple TV’s. I wanted to check though, so I got up “Retarded Running Horse”, a personal favourite, and hit the play button. I then hit the Airplay to Apple TV, randomly choosing one. And I then looked around to see the Apple TV belting out “SHUGAHANUNAHARAHUNAH” and an image of a 2 legged horse. The “advisor” at the Apple TV looked awfully surprised, but didn’t really pay any attention. We tried it out on the entire desk of display iPads (for the iPods), and they were all connected to the same wifi. I then figured that I could connect to that wifi network via my iPod, or possibly a Linux laptop. Now a Linux laptop, with the help of ChronicDev could possibly allow me to hijack every single Display iPad in the store – 60 odd. And as the staff devices were on the “staff” Wifi, I’d have those too. I would be able to Airplay to 80 devices – and Airplay is unstoppable – the audio will keep going and it overrides the music/video/safari capabilities. They would have to turn off all the devices – and when the iPads are in a glass case that I doubt many people know how to switch them off, they’d have a hard time. You could play ANYTHING on them. Pro-Android ads, the Windows 7 ads. Hell – the “Genius” bars monitors could be changed to something pro-Microsoft, anti-Apple. Now me being the lovely grey-hat I am, I find the nearest “advisor”, wearing their lovely festive red apple t-shirts. I explain to her, and demonstrate how to do this – she asked me for my age, and my friends’(who blogs at the Aftermatter) who was with me. Apparently we knew more about the store and the wifi setup that she did, although she had only been there for a week. I guess that’s the Apple rigorous employee training for you! She gets her manager, as she is rather confunded by how we do this. I explain to the manager, who is not entirely sure what I’m on about and keeps on going on about “hidden wifi”. I explain to him the prospect of Wireshark, but this doesn’t seem to cheer him up, and he says we would be banned from all Apple Stores if you were to do that – he was very condescending and patronising, if I may say so, in contrast the chirpy female advisor. He then backed up, claiming the Apple TV magically switched Wifi networks, but I retorted to that, and I think he lost that train of thought. Nevertheless, we left, like kind teen-hackers, to bide our time. I don’t think he likes us anymore

Here’s your simple 6-step guide on how to hack a Display iPad

1. Find an Apple Store. There will be a Display iPad
2. Put down some weight on the top left, until you either get the lock, or the power.
3. Either turn off to simply do the basic troll, on reboot.
4. Once you have rebooted, go to Safari – then youtube. Choose a video! To demonstrate, we used Retarded Running Horse and the Stormtrooper. Then airplay to an Apple TV. Repeat on other iPad’s if wanted.
5. ????
6. PROFIT!!

I leave it to your brain to work out what to do further if you were to do anything nefarious or “naughty”.

Anti Apple: 1

Pro Apple : 0

Has an iPod, and is probably going to be raided by the Apple Police and hopefully isn’t banned , (I mean where am I meant to get free Wi-Fi!!)

H./

Edit:// PROOF: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfPuEPRurBc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Many thanks to @mrphoenix for suggesting “Think Differently”.

You disgust me, sir.

Posted by Henry - 12/12/11 at 11:12:37 pm

What is your idea of hell? An inferno of screams and cries, with the earsplitting sound of torment deafening your ears, as you thrash before the red hot iron presses down on your skull? All of those you love being cruelly killed by your hands, taken over by some alien force? A lifetime of work destroyed?

Mine isn’t any of the above. This is my idea of hell.

That’s right. Comic Sans, the most despicable of fonts, made even worse with a “lovely” purple and star fill. Now before you leave, taking me for a snob, allow me to take you on a journey in the worlds most hated font, that despicable piece of trash tha- I am getting carried away.

Comic Sans was made by Microsoft, alongside the other pieces of trash they have made (we’re looking at you, Microsoft Bob and Microsoft NT). This particular typeface was based upon the  fonts used in comic books, apparently. It is a casual script, made by a man who had never looked at a comic book, but probably at a lot of hallucinogenics, and hopefully a jail sentence for crimes agains- apologies. Interesting enough, the font came about due to Microsoft Bob, in a way. It has been forced down the throats of Microsoft users since Windows 95 (but Microsoft were so kind to give a ‘warning’ by making the font come in with an ‘expansion pack’). It then, much like a parasite, slowly crept into the system, joining the default fonts for Internet Explorer (another simply brilliant piece of software I couldn’t live without). Now, with people being the stupid type of people that we are, Comic Sans lost the “casual” tag and won the “put it on anything that bloody moves” tag. It assimilated my primary school sheets, engulfing the letters home informing us all of the school fayre (which were all awful), and the interesting trip to the park that requires 6 forms to keep ‘elf and safety happy. In my life, it then vanished, occasionally showing up on godawful websites (*cough* myspace *cough*), and for some strange reason, The Sims, apparently. But in the great institution which is my school, a school that is half a millennia old, it has arrived. We’ve started off by seeing it in the biology department, feeding on the gerbils, until it snuck into the brains of my teachers, forcing them to write in Comic Sans. And it has spread to the Geography and Ancient History departments. I can only hope that the English department barricades themselves in with Times New Roman (Ol’ Faithful), Calibri (Professionally Unorthodox), Verdana (Concise and accurate) , Arial (Brutal and blunt) and the power that is Garamond (read a book, dumbass). I despise Comic Sans.

EDIT: Ed Conder informed me of this great picture.

In other news, at that institution where I apparently garner knowledge, my school, we had a “Students V Teachers challenge”, which consisted of, to start with, Just A Minute, with 2 boys vs 2 formidable members of the English department, one of whom is a published author, the other a comic singing genius (sadly he uses Myspace, but he has Youtube too!), led by the-scarily-good-at-doing-an-impression-of-Nicholas-Parsons-that-comic-genius head boy. We then had Universally Challenged, hosted by none other than Jeremy Paxman. One of the greatest political videos on the internet is that of the interview between Boris Johnson and Paxman; I thoroughly encourage you check it out. The teachers, surprise surprise, won. That’s all.

I see we are drawing close to Christmas. Some time before Christmas I’ll write a thoroughly dull boring post about Christmas to make you all depressed. That’s my present.

Actually not being sarcastic,

H./

VLOG

Posted by Henry - 24/11/11 at 11:11:26 pm

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