Category Archives: Gadgets & Apps

Crime Wiki

Posted on by

“A Wikipedia is impossible, but here it is.” This was one of many insights from Kevin Kelly’s The Inevitable that has stuck with me. I think he’s saying that with enough people using the right technology, anything is possible. I like that idea and agree that Wikipedia is a perfect example. Against that backdrop, I’m imagining a crime Wikipedia. Anything and everything you might ever want to know about crimes and criminals. I’m tempted to limit writing and editing to the criminals but we should probably let law enforcement types participate.

Wouldn’t you like to read what professional burglars have to say about breaking and entering? There would be page after page on locks alone. Think of all that could be learned about robbing banks, from the really smart bank robbers… and the ones that got caught. Of course there are many crimes that are so horrible and unspeakable that you and I wouldn’t want to read it. But for this thought experiment, in for a penny, in for a pound.

And let’s ignore all of the reasons why a criminal might not want to share his/her best tricks. I’m just imagining a prison full of knowledge and expertise in a Wikipedia format. Who would benefit most? Young crooks-in-training? Or law enforcement?

The question that brought this on was: Would a burglar be less likely to hit a place at the end of a dead-end street? As a civilian, I’d be inclined to say “not enough information” to answer the question. But a thousand experienced burglars would know what those are and could probably come up with a useful answer.

TraffickCam

Posted on by

Smartphone users in the United States can try to help catch sex traffickers with *a newly introduced app designed to identify hotel rooms where victims are held*. The app, TraffickCam, asks users to upload photos of hotel rooms where they may be staying and compares those to photos by law enforcement that depict suspected sex trafficking. […] TraffickCam uses an algorithm that matches hotel rooms by comparing features such as carpeting, furniture and accessories. (Reuters)

Let me see if I have the right. I’m staying at the Day’s Inn in Pissant, Kansas. I take some photos of my room with this app. Up they go to cloud where they’re compared to photos some sick fuck has posted online. If there’s a match, authorities at least now know where those were taken. I do love me some Big Data. Like any tool, can be for good or evil.

How I use Google Calendar

Posted on by

Barb recently started the process of transitioning from MS Office to Google apps (Gmail, Calendar, etc). I’ve been using Google Calendar for years (I’m hardly a power user) so I made this short (9 min) video. If you’re already using Google Calendar you probably won’t find much new here.

LibraryThing (update)

Posted on by

Screen Shot 2016-06-20 at 11.09.48 AMI started using LibraryThing to manage my library in 2005, about a month after the service launched. I was using a spreadsheet for this task but quickly fell in love with the tools and features LibraryThing provided. I find their smartphone app very handy.

I have 740 titles in my LibraryThing long ago gave away most of the books. Someone calling themselves eandino2012 has more than 81 thousand titles in her/his LibraryThing.

If you’ve considered using a service like LT or Goodreads but dreaded the task of uploading all your book titles, LT has a good import tool (see below) and their smartphone app can scan ISBN barcodes. Neither of those were around back in 2005 so I entered mine one at a time.
import

LT does some fun stuff (total cubic feet of your books; how high if stacked, etc) and some useful (to me) stuff: list of all characters in the books in your LT.

height characters

I know of no better use of my time than reading. Books are important to me. LibraryThing is a way to extend the pleasure I get from books.

iPhone SE: Something smaller in my pants

Posted on by

iphone6SI purchased the iPhone 6 in September of 2014 and traded it in for the 6S a year later. Now, just seven months later, I’m trading up/down/over for the new iPhone SE. The review below touches on most of my reasons. I always liked the smaller versions of the iPhone but they kept putting must-have (for me) features in the larger phones. With the SE, I can get those features in a smaller phone better suited to my Trump-like hands. But the change that sealed the deal for me was putting the on-off switch back on the top of the phone… WHERE IT BELONGS! A day doesn’t go buy that I don’t accidentally turn my phone off while adjusting the volume (see image below).

I thought the days of smaller (perfect) phones were forever gone. Thank you, Apple. Here’s some more money. This review mirrors my thinking on this.

Ruckus Cruiser

Posted on by

ruckus-bike

“The cool bike is a throwback to when time moved slower and bicycles were fun things meant to take you to a happier place. The extra-long custom lounge seat with room to fit another passenger brings the social back to bicycling. Available with drivetrain options that include one with an electric motor.”

UPDATE: Someone just pointed out this bike is priced at $1,000. Hardly the bike for everyman. Nevermind.

We are data: the future of machine intelligence (2015)

Posted on by

“Artificial Intuition happens when a computer and its software look at data and analyze it using computation that mimics human intuition at the deepest levels: language, hierarchical thinking — even spiritual and religious thinking. The machines doing the thinking are deliberately designed to replicate human neural networks, and connected together form even larger artificial neural networks.”

This is from an article by Douglas Coupland. Maybe one of the more frightening things I’ve read about data collection. Let’s start with a few of one-liners:

“Amazon can tell if you’re straight or gay within seven purchases.”
“Doug’s Law: An app is only successful if it puts a lot of people out of work.”
“The amount of internet freedom we have right now is the most we’re ever going to get.”

He starts his piece with a description of an imaginary app called Wonkr. I had to read this a few times to decide if he was serious or not.

“You put Wonkr on your phone and it asks you a quick set of questions about your beliefs. Then, the moment there are more than a few people around you (who also have Wonkr), it tells you about the people you’re sharing the room with. You’ll be in a crowded restaurant in Nashville and you can tell that 73 per cent of the room is Republican. Go into the kitchen and you’ll see that it’s 84 per cent Democrat. You’ll be in an elevator in Manhattan and the higher you go, the percentage of Democrats shrinks. Go to Germany — or France or anywhere, really — and Wonkr adapts to local politics. The thing to remember is: Wonkr only activates in crowds. If you’re at home alone, with the apps switched off, nobody can tell anything about you.”

“Wonkr’s job is to tell you the political temperature of a busy space. “Am I among friends or enemies?” But then you can easily change the radius of testability. Instead of just the room you’re standing in, make it of the block or the whole city — or your country. Wonkr is a de facto polling app. Pollsters are suddenly out of a job: Wonkr tells you — with astonishing accuracy — who believes what, and where they do it.”

“Wonkr is a free app but why not help it by paying say, 99 cents, to allow it to link you with people who think just like you. Remember, to sign on to Wonkr you have to take a relatively deep quiz. Maybe 155 questions, like the astonishingly successful eHarmony.com.”

If you’re busy, put this aside until you have 10 minutes. It’s packed tighter than cocaine mule’s carry-on.