Tag Archives: iPad

iOS 9 Keyboard

Apple, Essay, News, Technology, , , ,

When iOS 9 came out for iPad and iPhone, the default appearance of the keyboard changed. The Mrs is visually challenged and did not like the new look of the keyboard. She wanted the old one back. The difference is that the old keyboard displayed CAPITAL LETTERS all of the time. The new one displays either lowercase or UPPERCASE depending on whether or not the shift key was depressed.

OLD KEYBOARD

 

 
New Keyboard 

 

Although not obvious it is possible to revert to the old keyboard default as follows:

Settings > General > Accessibility > Keyboard > Show Lowercase Keys 

Toggle Show Lowecase Keys off

 
Let me know in the comments below if this was useful to you …

Dictation

100 Word Story, Humor, Technology, , , ,

The Mrs has MS (Multiple Sclerosis), diagnosed over a decade ago. It is what it is. We deal with it.

I got an email from a former colleague who also happened to be the father of my son’s best friend from high school. He and his wife are staunch southern Baptists. “How was [the Mrs] doing?” he asked.

Using the dictation feature of my iPad, I dictated:

“OK, but she is currently suffering from an MS exacerbation.”

  

  

Just before hitting send, I decided to proofread the email and read the following:

“OK, but she is currently suffering from excess masturbation.”

  

###################

 

True story. When I tried to read it back to my wife, every time I got to “suffering from” I would begin laughing so hard I had to start over. It must have taken me a half dozen attempts before it could read it all the way through.

iTextEditors

Apple, Edits and Updates, Review, Technology, , ,

What do you use your iPad (or iPhone) for? 

Ever had a need to edit text files or code?

Brett Terpsta maintains a list of iOS text editors and features that is nothing short of phenomenal. Titled iTextEditors, this webpage lists each text editing app in a dynamically filterable matrix of features.

 

Touching (or clicking on) the app name opens a pop-up window with additional information not captured by the feature matrix. Touching the More info … link takes you to a review of the app.

  
  
I am currently using his page to decide which text editor(s) might be worth adding to my stable of apps. 🙂

http://brettterpstra.com/ios-text-editors/

Upgrade

Apple, Technology,

 

 

  

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

iPad Air 2 

Yesterday I stopped by the local Apple Store and purchased an iPad Air 2, gold, with 128GB storage, and a cellular connection (Verizon). Compared to my old original iPad or even my nearly two year old iPhone 5s … wow. The two benchmarks above are from Geekbench 3 run on my new Air 2. My original iPad isn’t even listed.

I had read the reviews and watched the videos, but they do not do justice to the thinness, lightness, and performance of the iPad Air 2. I am very, very impressed.

Machines at War 3

Essay, Opinion, Technology, , , , , , , ,

MaW3

Do I look like a gamer? Look here. (Don’t answer that)

Ok, so I suck at First Person Shooters. Number 2 son calls me “the turret”.

But I do like head-to-head Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games. My friend and I used to enjoy playing each other on Command and Conquer Red Alert for iPad. That is, until we discovered MaW3. Without a doubt the best military RTS game, bar none, is Machines at War 3 by ISOTOPE 244.

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Available for iOS, Mac, and Windows on the iPhone and iPad App Store, Mac App Store, Steam, and directly from ISOTOPE 244.

I can’t say enough positive about this game. Don’t take my word for it. Read the review links at ISOTOPE 244. This is one amazing and phenomenal game. James Bryant has accomplished a tour de force. It is elegant, masterful, and flawless. It even plays well on a iPhone 5s.

If you like the RTS genre, please – please, check out MaW3.

And now back to skirmish mode … (Roger that Sir! Reinforcements, we need reinforcements. A ha ha ha ha, taste my laser! Oh the humanity.)

iPad Air FAIL – Update

News, Opinion, Technology, , , , , , , , , ,

So back on December 8th I posted my original iPad Air Fail post.

I had suggested reviewing the following thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5532206?tstart=0

It is a long thread
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Despite the glowing reviews of the mainstream press and tech community, there are still many frustrated users out there whose iPad Airs have regular Safari crashes, App crashes, and even full reboots.

Continue reading iPad Air FAIL – Update →

Siri, does iOS 7 crash?

News, Technology, , , , , , , , , , , ,

I am an Apple fanboy, some have even called me an Apple apologist. Be that as it may, I am closely following a thread on the Apple support discussion site that suggests that there are problems in the Apple orchard. To wit, iOS 7 has memory management problems that cause the Safari browser and other apps to crash or the iPhone/iPad to crash and reboot. Both cases leave a ‘LatestCrash‘ and/or ‘LowMemory‘ log in

Setting > General > About > Diagnostics & Usage > Diagnostics & Usage Data

(You must have ‘Automatically Send‘ checked)

 

Additionally many experienced folks are suggesting that the mere 1GB LowMemoryof RAM found on the iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Mini with Retina Display is woefully inadequate to support the A7 CPU 64-bit architecture.

The Ipad air low memory crash thread on the discussions.apple.com site had 18,652 views and 280 posts at the time of this post.

I have had a handful of crashes on my new iPhone 5s, nothing too worry about, but others appear to have been less lucky. If you are experiencing problems since upgrading to iOS 7 or are having problems with your new iPhone 5s, iPad Air, or iPad Mini with Retina Display you are not alone.

iPhone Observations

Opinion, Technology,

So … After my first weekend with the iPhone 5s, I have some observations to make:

Keeping in mind that this is my first smart phone of any kind …

  1. I really like the power to investigate anything I want at any time without worrying about finding a WiFi hot spot
  2. The iPhone fits easily in my pocket
  3. I can carry my entire music collection on it @64GB, with room to spare
  4. Most websites are easy to read
  5. But some aren’t
  6. I would not want to have to give up my iPad for the small screen of the iPhone
  7. I wouldn’t want to maintain this blog with the iPhone on a regular basis
  8. The iPhone 5s appears to have a really good camera with many nice features (but no zoom, including a zoom), HD video with slo-mo, burst mode, better low light without flash, better color corrected flash
  9. Taking pictures with an iPhone is less cumbersome than using an iPad (and you look less dorky)
  10. The finger print security is seamless and easier and faster than keying in a code

There has been some hoopla about hackers finding a way to by-pass the finger print security. But when you look deeper, it involves getting both your phone and your finger print and some esoteric process of making a synthetic copy of your finger
print. This is spook stuff (spooks as in NSA, CIA, KGB, MI5, etc.).

In day to day use the finger print authentication is PDA*. This is truly an example of Arthur C. Clark’s “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

The 64-bit A7 chip is blazing fast; all of the usual online experts agree. I can’t wait to see next month’s iPads running on this.

* Pretty Damn Awesome

Bragging Rights

News, Technology, Welcome to the Future, , , ,

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What you see above is (was) my old phone. Your basic 5+? year old bog standard Samsung flip-phone as issued by Verizon. I have been a Verizon customer since it was GTE back in the ’90s. In fact my first product was a pager, not a phone (but I digress).

Anyway, remember back a few posts ago when I said that YOKS (Ye Olde Kid Sister) got me the first generation iPad for father’s day out of pity because the all time geek did not have an iPhone?

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Yesterday #2 son and I got up at 7 AM and drove over to the new Verizon store on the edge of town. I had stopped by the previous evening to confirm that they would have the iPhone 5s in stock. We got into the short line (# 0010) and waited the half hour until they opened at 8 AM. We each got the “Space Gray” 64 GB model. I might have gotten the Champagne Gold model if they’d had it, but as we all later found out, they are in extremely limited supply. Space Gray is fine for me.

We decided to try to get them on release day for fear they would quickly sell out and be unavailable for weeks. It appears we were right. While standing in line I was speaking to the fellow ahead of me and he told me that he had originally gone to a different Verizon store, but the line was already wrapped around the side of the building.

Impressions

Fast, really fast, to quote South Park “hellafast”. At least compared to my gen 1 iPad. But it should be. It has 4x the RAM. The Geekbench overall rating is almost 5x better. I am surprised that the Geekbench number was’t even higher based on pure specs, but maybe Geekbench isn’t optimized for 64 bit CPU. Web surfing is MUCH faster even on LTE. Videos play smoothly on LTE.

The finger print scanner works as advertised. It is very slick.

Although the battery life is probably close to that of my iPad, it feels as if the battery drains a bit faster. It definitely needs to be plugged in overnight.

Assuming that the new iPads are based on the same 64 bit A7 chip, I will absolutely be   getting a new iPad or iPad mini later this year. Whereas the iPhone fits in my pocket, the screen is too small to work on all day long (I am still posting this from my olde iPad).

Oh and I finally have a camera again. I used the iPhone to take the pictures of my old phone. By all accounts it is a good camera. Standby for cat pictures …

iPhone lovers: you can hate me now 🙂

Apple haters: you can continue to hate me. BTW the iPhone 5s appears to be the fastest mobile device of any kind as of today (Source: AnandTech)

PS
“And I’d have given anything
To have my own PacMan game at home.
I used to have to get a ride down to the arcade;
Now I’ve got it on my phone.”
Brad Paisley, Welcome To The Future

As promised in 2001, I now have 2001 A Space Odyssey on my phone. I also downloaded PacMan. 🙂

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Bloggers' Rights at EFF

Why I like Apple

Essay, Music, News, Welcome to the Future, , , , , , , , ,

Any sufficiently evolved technology is indistinguishable from magic. – Arthur C. Clark

Usually I compose offline, read / edit / reread / edit … POST / reread / “how did I miss that?” / edit / POST / reread / aaarrrggghhhhh! / edit / POST / reread / [expletive deleted] / edit / POST …

This time I am doing it live. So what you read … NOW … may be totally different from what you read …
…
…
…
NOW.

So as you read this, don’t assume that you are reading the final version.

Now if you follow the web at all, especially if you follow the geek tech sites, you know that the world is in the midst of another “Apple vs …” kerfuffle. I really should strive to use kerfuffle more. Anyway this time it is Apple vs Samsung, or perhaps Apple vs Google, since the Android operating system used by Samsung is made by Google. Last time it was Apple vs Microsoft.

Now perhaps forty-eight percent of all Internet traffic is devoted to Apple, Apple vs Samsung, Apple vs Google, Apple’s innovation or lack thereof, AAPL stock price, Apple’s cash horde, Apple this, Apple that …

OK I just made up that forty-eight percent figure, but you get the idea.

I am not going to tell you why should like Apple. I actually don’t care what you like. That sounds callous, maybe there is a better way to put this. If you like Samsung, Android, Google, Microsoft, or even if you HATE Apple, that’s fine. Just don’t reply with a flaming attack on me or Apple because I will just delete it. I am not here to pick a fight. AND it is my blog. Ready? OK Let’s go!
 

Why I Like Apple

Ignoring for a minute that I have always liked Apple, I probably like Apple most for all of the reasons the Apple-haters hate it. It is a closed ecosystem. What do I mean by this? Apple makes the whole thing. Well OK they design all of it and have many of the parts made or assembled by other international subcontractors, but they control the entire process. They make the hardware. They make the operating system, they vet the apps, they sell content. The end result of this kind of cradle to grave design to delivery system is that, by and large, it just works.

I work with non-Apple hardware and software all day long every day usually trying to figure out why it doesn’t work (it’s my job). When I get home at night I just want to use something to surf the web, read and respond to email, watch videos, listen to music, read a book, maybe play a game, write fiction or essays, and update my blog. I do not want or need an open system that I can hack, jailbreak or otherwise reconfigure. I just want it to work.

 
Enter the iPad

Too make a long story short, my kid sister, who is now on olde woman (she is so going to kill me, Muahahaha), got me an iPad for father’s day three? four? years ago. The very iPad upon which I am typing now. Did I mention that I maintain this blog 100% on an iPad? It is a very olde iPad by iPad standards. It is first generation. Next month or so, Apple will announce the fifth generation iPad in time for Christmas. Every generation of iPad has roughly doubled the performance of the previous generation, so my olde decrepit iPad is truly an ancient outdated slab of uselessness. And did I mention that I just downloaded 2001 A Space Odyssey onto it? And I maintain all of my finances, bank, 401k, stocks, etc. using it?

OK let’s make a short story long. So my sister who had an iPhone (I still don’t have an iPhone, I have an olde battle-scarred Samsung “dumb as a stump” flip phone) called me a few years back to tell me she just got the new iPad. Mrs and I had her on speaker phone so we joked with her thanking her for getting me an iPad for Father’s day which was coming up. Well she felt so sorry that the all time geek of the family didn’t even have an iPhone, that she got me an iPad for father’s day. This iPad. Woo Hoo!

(standby more to come … later … It is 1:21 AM here… Will pick up tomorrow … See it isn’t finished yet)

[8:12 AM Wed. … Just a quick addition, adding the A. C. Clark quote at top and a few more lines below]

Where was I? Oh yes, the iPad. So my sister got me the first iPad not long after it came out. It was the perfect example of “it is interesting, but do I really need it? would I really use it?” I was skeptical. It was really really cool and all, but just how useful would it be? I certainly never would have bought it for myself.

I CAN NOT LIVE WITHOUT THIS THING. I use it for everything. Well at least everything that it is capable of doing (it can’t cook or clean house, but I would use it for that if I could). In no particular order: I maintain this blog. (using it now). I check email (personal and business), I get my news on the web, I get my weather, (with the help of Google, Bing, Wikipedia, WordPress) I ask it questions and it gives me answers I can use, I read articles and videos about how to do stuff, I listen to music, I watch TV, I watch movies, I read books, I learn, I satisfy my curiosity, I take it with me everywhere, it runs all day long.

(uh oh … Gotta run … Later … More to come)

[updating off line now]
I manage my finances, pay my bills, actively manage my 401k, manage my stock account, track prescription drugs and medical EOBs, play games usually in versus mode with a friend. Now obviously Apple doesn’t provide all of these services, but the iPad easily and seamlessly accesses all of them.

My friend who is dyslexic, uses his to read web articles to him. He stated that this has allowed him to learn more faster than ever could before.

 
Wife’s iPad

Eventually the Mrs discovered my iPad. And by discovered, I mean she confiscated my iPad for her use. Last year I got her an iPad of her own, a gen 3 “iPad with Retina display”. It blows mine away in terms of performance and image quality. Apple released the gen 4 last fall and will release gen 5 this fall. Wife’s iPad has 4x the performance of mine. Gen 5 iPad should be 4x performance of her’s. Which would be 16x the performance of my poor olde iPad.

I had her iPad engraved at the sweatshop factory.

[Wife’s name]’s iPad
Keep’a yo hand’s off

She loves it. I put her favorite game, Mahjong Solitaire on it. Loaded her favorite music to it. We soon discovered that she could stream SiriusXM oldtime radio to it. Then we discovered free podcasts on iTunes of all of her favorite oldtime radio shows. I got her a set of the Bose over-the-ear noise-canceling headphones. I set her up with a Google news icon. Just this weekend I set her up with a playlist of her favorites. She frequents the hospital monthly to bi-monthly, so she takes the iPad and headphones to keep her company.

The Mrs is the poster child for technophobic anti-computer Luddite. Yet, she loves her iPad. She recommends it to everyone she meets. She follows the news from Google news. Checks and replies to emails. Talks to me via iMessage, keeps her doctor appointments on it. Tracks her temperature on it. Follows the weather, listens to music and radio drama.

 
iLove iTunes

Much of what I have discussed isn’t unique to Apple. iTunes on the other hand is Apple. This is where A. C. Clark’s magic really begins. The iTunes store was announced ten years ago in April. Recently it surpassed it’s 25 billionth song download on February 6th, 2013.

Click on the image above to see detailed download history.

iTunes Match debuted on November 14th, 2011. With iTunes Match, all of your music is available all of the time on all of your devices, whether or not you purchased your music from iTunes. For a small annual fee, Apple provides access to all of your music. If you did not purchase your music from iTunes and iTunes identifies a better quality version on iTunes, you get access to the better version. The beauty of iTunes Match is that you can download all or part of your music at anytime to any of your devices … or you can stream your music via WiFi or a cellular connection without downloading it (or any combination thereof).

I subscribe to iTunes Match. Mrs and I have full access to all of our music and playlists anywhere, any time we have WiFi access. This is seamless magic.

Did I mention instant gratification? … What was that song by you know who? … Oh yeah, that’s the one. … iTunes has it? Downloading now …

 
Apple App Store

Similar to iTunes Match, any app you buy at the Apple App Store, is always available for re-download. So if I need to clean out some space I can delete apps knowing that I can always download them again.

 
iBooks and iTunesU

Similar to iTunes and App Store. Delete books to clean up. Download again as desired. Nice backlit reader with fully adjustable text. Good for olde eyes.

More instant gratification. Think about book … Find book … Downloading now …

 
Bluetooth

More magic. You just read a review of the Bose Mini Bluetooth speaker. It connects easily and reconnects automatically, or at worst at the push of a button. Same with Bluetooth in my car. I can set up a music playlist, leave my iPad in my brief case, and automatically start listening when I startup the Prius.

 
WiFi

Access to the Internet is automatic with our iPads. Whether at home or at the hospital, or Starbucks, or our local breakfast cafe once set up the iPad remembers and automatically reconnects when in range.

Although I am doing my part for global carbon dioxide production by going paperless. I sometimes need to print out coupons, so I bought a cheap HP WiFi printer. Connection of the iPad to the printer was seamless and easy. Yet more magic.

 
No Worries Mate

Is your antivirus software up to date? Would you know? One the things that iPad (actually iOS) haters hate about iPad is the “app sandbox” design concept. This is what I love most about the iPad.

If you use a computer, and if you are reading this you are probably using a computer, you know that you can use a file browser (Windows Explorer) to view / copy / paste / delete files just about anywhere on a Windows computer. Same is mostly true for the Mac. If you can view / copy / paste / delete a file or executable, so can a hacker, virus, worm, spyware, etc. The iPad is different. Each application runs in its own dedicated storage space. Take for example the web browser Safari. It and all of its data all live together in the same directory. It can not get out of its prison. Viruses can not install themselves on an iPad. It just can’t freakin’ happen.

I don’t have, need, or use antivirus software on the iPad. The only danger is a rogue developer writing a malicious app. That is where the Apple iOS App Store comes into play. This is again a sore point with Apple Haters (haters gotta hate). Apple has strict and draconian control about what can be published on the App Store. This means that an app gets tested by Apple to confirm it is not malware or spyware. I like this. I have enough to worry about. Yeah, yeah, every so often you hear that someone has snuck something snarky onto the Apple App Store to prove it can be done, but really … no worries.

An iPad can be “jailbroken”. This is a process whereby the owner can be granted full access to the underlying OS as the “root” user. However you can now no longer download from the App Store and will need to find a different site. There are many sites, but making sure that you are now getting safe apps is your responsibility.

If you want to poke around in your iPad, monitor storage space, performance, memory utilization, etc. I highly recommend System Status by Jeri Techet, available at the App Store. 20130821-195836.jpg

 
In Conclusion

iPad … Cat-Beard Tested, Momma Approved

Be seeing you …

[Final upload Wed. Aug. 21, 2013 @ 7:15 PM … While drinking wine at the bar of a neighborhood Italian restaurant waiting for my take out order … final (?) edit 8:03 PM … Three glasses of wine … Final proof read by Mrs at 9:00 PM … Final upload at 9: 40 PM]

[Woke up unexpectedly at 4 AM On Thur. Aug. 22nd, 2013 … adding more edits and thoughts]

… or what you read … NOW

 
Next >> Wrestling with Worry

Momma’s got tunes

Music, Welcome to the Future, , , , ,

Bose SoundLink Mini

Cat-Beard Manor is rocking’ the kasbah. Over the weekend I surprised the Mrs. with a new toy. She recently discovered playlists on her iPad, and, being a shut-in, having access to her tunes and/or oldtime radio podcasts (or SiriusXM oldtime internet radio) is critical. Last year I got her a set of the Bose over-the-ear noise-canceling headphones (which we both love). But she doesn’t always want to have to wear headphones and the single speaker on her iPad is a bit anemic.

The sound on this new wireless Bluetooth battery-operated speaker is really good. It fills the room and the whole house with plenty of volume.

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Click on the image above to go to the Bose website or click the video below to watch a CNET review.


Cat-Beard recommended, Momma approved.

Be hearing you …

 
Next >> Why I Like Apple

2001

Essay, History, Music, Science Fiction, Space Travel, , , , , ,

I started this essay a while ago, but I never finished it.
If you haven’t read Welcome to the Future, I suggest that you start >> HERE <<

Excerpted from Welcome to the Future

In 1968, a year before Neil and Buzz first frolicked on the Moon, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released Stanley Kubrick’s epic 2001 A Space Odyssey. I begged and pleaded with my dad to take me to the Miami showing which debuted in 70mm ultra-widescreen Cinerama – the IMAX of its day. The 142 minute long movie was unique in its realistic depiction of space flight, with ground breaking special effects and a powerful musical score. It was equally unique in its use of long periods of silence to portray the vast distances and length of time required to travel to Jupiter. The original showing even had an intermission. 2001 opened to mixed reviews. My dad and I mirrored the critical and public sentiment. He thought it was long and boring. I thought – and still do – that it was the greatest science-fiction movie ever made. If you have seen 2001 A Space Odyssey you know what I am talking about, if not Wikipedia, the Internet Movie Database, and numerous fan sites do a much better job of describing it than I ever could. If you like science-fiction and have never seen 2001 you really owe it to yourself to see this film.

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Recall that in the ’60s and ’70s there was no such thing as VHS tapes, DVDs, or digital downloads. If you wanted to see a movie you either went to the theater to see it, or hoped it would be shown – cut and commercial-filled – on TV. Fortunately 2001 enjoyed frequent returns to theaters after its 1968 release, albeit in 35mm format on a much smaller screen. It enjoyed a cult following in part due to the spectacular light show at the end of the movie. I saw 2001 A Space Odyssey every time it came back to the theater, often multiple days in a row, often multiple showings in a row. I lost count of the number of times I had seen it after my twenty-second viewing. My dream was to someday be rich enough to have my own home theater and a film copy of 2001 that I could watch whenever I wanted.

2001 A Space Odyssey depicted the video phone, video tablets, and the quintessential sentient computer, HAL 9000. The technology may not have existed yet when I was a kid, but the ideas did and I wanted all of it. I dreamed of video phones and personal communicators. I dreamed of having my own computer that could answer any question I posed of it. I dreamed of the future.
2001

Despite the Y2K (year two thousand) “panic”, the new millennium did not actually begin until January 1, 2001. That is because there was no year zero. The current calendar starts with year 1 A.D. (alternatively C.E.). Thus 2001 marked the beginning of the new millennium. This is why Kubrick and Clark chose the name 2001 A Space Odyssey.

As a teenager in 1968, I envisioned the year 2001 to be the dawn of a fantastic new world. In 1968 the world of 2001 was thirty-three unimaginable and somewhat frightening years in the future. Who would I be in 2001? Where would I live? What would I do? Would I be married? Would I have children? Would I be alive? What would the world be like? Would we have permanent settlements on the Moon? Would humanity even be alive?

If you could have somehow teleported my teenage self from 1968 to 2001 (perhaps via a souped-up DeLorean), I would have been amazed at how much had changed. Yet I would have been even more amazed at how little had changed. Listen to the Merry Minuet by the Kingston Trio, circa 1959:

First notice how little has changed since 1959. Second despite the dark humor, please realize that fear of nuclear annihilation was ever present throughout my teenage years. I personally think that global nuclear annihilation is less likely now than it was fifty or so years ago, but I am less optimistic regarding localized nuclear engagements or terrorist attacks. I actually think that although our fears have subsided, the real danger may have increased.

I plan to address Negrophobia and U. S. race relations more in a later post, but I think it is safe to say that much has changed both in the U. S. and around the world since the 1960s. For some folks, things are better, for others maybe not so much. Still I remain hopeful and optimistic. Much more to say in future …

Epiphany

I’d have given anything to have my own PacMan game at home.
I used to have to get a ride down to the arcade. Now I’ve got it on my phone.
Brad Paisley, “Welcome to the Future”

A month or two ago I had an epiphany while driving into work (possibly listening to some obscure “teenhood” song playing on my iPad streaming via Bluetooth to my Prius sound system). The epiphany was that everything I could have hoped for as a kid had come to pass. I have my own human-enhanced computer database that can answer any question I put to it (so does everyone else, but I will gladly share). I have near instant access to any book, song, or movie from my childhood, teenhood, present, and just about any other era. I have my own computer/vidscreen/music player/communicator that I carry with me at all times. I have HAL 9000 as the wallpaper of my iPad.

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And just because I can … I now have 2001 A Space Odyssey on my iPad.

By the way, the stock symbol of the company I work for is … HAL. I’m not making this stuff up.

Headers

My Headers post got three likes and three votes (one from my wife) for A (sunrise over the Earth). As you can see by the header at the top of the page, I am really partial to the sunrise over the Earth header. Hmm, I wonder why?

And as icing on the cake, number one son graduated high school in the Class of …DUN DUN DAHHH, DA DANH … 2001. I mean seriously how cool is that.
Next >> Momma’s got tunes

Who

About, , , , , ,

Having covered the why and what of Contrafactual, I will now address the who. This turns out to be an interesting dilemma for me. I have always been a very private person, my wife even more so. When I told her about this blog she emphatically insisted “Don’t tell them my name.”

I have never been a big fan of social media. Don’t get me wrong. I just never felt that it was for me personally. Although I have a Twitter account, I could never imagine why anyone would dote on my every activity. So needless to say I don’t post on it. Same for Facebook. I got an account to see what my son was up to. He rarely calls, but he posts daily. It was the best way for me to follow his actities, especially when he was living abroad. Finally there is LinkedIn. Yeah got an account there too, solely for business contacts.

I am not a joiner, never have been. Yet here I am on a mission to write something everyday and submit it to the world for critique. As they say in the spy movies, what I tell you will be on a “need to know” basis. (They also say “I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you.” This would however be a bit extreme in this case.) If your web sleuthing skills are good and you must know all about me I certainly can’t stop you. If and when this blog makes me a rich and famous celebrity, I will deal with the inevitable lack of privacy.

My real name is Christian Bergman, I go by Chris, and often sign emails with cb. I have a day job that pays well, but it is irrelevant in the context of Contrafactual. I have read many times that one’s profession or job does not make the person. I fully subscribe to this. The job does not and should not define the person. I strive to have a life outside of nine-to-five that is distinctly my own.

I have been married to the same woman for over thirty-five years. I have two children: sons. One lives three hours away by car. The other lives at home. I also share my home with four cats. Three of them claim me and/or my wife. The fourth claims my son. Stories and pictures of the cats will be shared in the near future.

Authors I have read and enjoyed over the years:

  • Richard Dawkins
  • John Scalzi
  • Kim Stanley Robinson
  • Douglas Adams
  • Michael Crichton
  • Douglas Hofstadter
  • Robert Heinlein
  • Arthur C. Clark
  • Roger Zelazny

2001 A Space Odyssey (Kubrick / Clark) the movie and the book and Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein) were watershed events of my teenage years.

I am a child of the Space Age, who grew up south of the Florida Space Coast. My early memories include the original Mercury Seven launches. I still remember the little Mercury Capsule model that came with my Science Service (now Science News) subscription. Throughout the 1960’s, I watched every mission, fixated on our black and white TV. Later when I was a teenager, my dad took me up to see one of the early Saturn V launches (9?, 10? … the mission not my age). As soon as I had my driver’s license, I drove up to watch the Apollo 16 & 17 launches from a point on the coast eleven miles away. A few years later, a stroke of luck put me at the main press site three miles from the launch pad of the final Saturn V launch (Skylab) … forty years ago. My final trip occurred on summer break from college when I drove up to watch the last Apollo launch, the US half of the US-Russian Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Even today I continue to follow private and government space programs. I have a keen interest in SpaceX. I also follow most unmanned missions as time permits.

I play chess. I have just discovered Frozen Synapse for iPad. I am excited by the sneak peak of Morning Star Alpha for iPad. I follow the trials and tribulations of Apple with great interest and I even own a few shares of AAPL stock. One of my other fantasies is to become an iPad game developer. Contrafactual is actually written and maintained using a first generation iPad.

I love scotch. I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch. Single Malt Scotch.

  • Bruichladdich
  • Port Charlotte
  • Octomore
  • Aberlour A’bunadh
  • Ardbeg Uigeadail
  • Laphroaig

Sipping only and not to excess.

Recently watched (all or up-to-date):

  • Doctor Who
  • Breaking Bad
  • The Prisoner (1967)

So, now you have something about me to chew on for a while. Be seeing you …

cb