YTechnology

Kevin O’Leary — multi-millionaire and host of Shark Tank — is backing the Stratos Project in Utah. A planned AI data center, it’s big, expensive, power hungry and wastes precious water. Read more about this in The Salt Lake Tribute . Meanwhile, feel free to add more verses.

Back in 2005, I wrote " Yam Technology? ", a light hearted article pondering my company name.  Today, the "technology" part of the name has proliferated, and I am sometimes mistaken for someone or something else.

A fun narrative has Elon Musk really being from Mars and badly wants to go home. In my imagination, I add that Elon, having watched the movie E.T. , realizes that if he directly sought the help of space capable governments, he would likely be captured, imprisoned, and eventually dissected. Clever Martian that he might be, Elon would parallel the real life story of One Red Paperclip , where one man started with a single red paperclip and through 14 trades, ended up with a two story farmhouse. And so goes Elon, first with Paypal and selling it to eBay for more than a hundred million dollars, then using that fortune to start SpaceX (2002) and Tesla (2003), and later Starlink (2015), all in the hopes of amassing enough money and technology to get him home. Also in my fevered imagination, Elon is BFF with Bernie Sanders and AOC, because addressing the looming menace that is climate change is really that important. That they approach the climate threat from opposite ends -- private business ...

Steve Wozniak continues to support Apple in unexpected ways. His book, iWoz , raises my iMac 27" 5K Retina Display computer to a comfortable eye level.  Long time users of the iMac will recognize this setup, as the stand is not height adjustable. I confess I have not read Wozniak's book, and no, I did not buy the book simply to adjust the height of my display. Rather, I purchased this book for my son in 2006, who needed a subject for a grade school book report.  Wozniak's goal was to share the thrill of engineering with young minds, and he succeeded. His hardcover book serving as a monitor accessory was a bonus. When Apple recently announced the Apple Studio Display with a height adjustable stand, my Apple Watch betrayed my heart rate. It was everything I wanted for my next computer:  display separate from the CPU 27" 5K Retina Display with native 2x resolution beautiful construction a height adjustable stand At $1600 I wouldn't hesitate.  But add $400 for the he...

An electrical engineer received a custom Monopoly set from her company, STV . The bespoke tokens include a soldier, hard hat, bridge, space shuttle, rail vehicle, and school building, and you would be correct if you guessed STV was in the business of engineering, architecture, and construction management services.  The engineer writes: the picture in the center of the Monopoly board is the Coney island parachute jump. STV was involved in restoring it back in 2002.   An editor at the American Chemical Society recounted the Covid lock-down in early 2020. A travel book can be a source of strength to see the pandemic through, and ACS gave their employees a photo-rich coffee table book from National Geographic: Journeys of a Lifetime, Second Edition: 500 of the World's Greatest Trips . Now as we wrap up year two of Covid and Omicron, the book takes on a darkly humorous tone, highlighting beautiful locations we just can't get to... yet. Hoping 2022 will be a kinder new year.

The scientific among you might see a water molecule (H₂0), but Philip Yam, former editor of Scientific American, writes that the magazine handed out these balls to explore the science of juggling . Back in 1995, Philip also got a souvenir from the late James "The Amazing" Randi while interviewing him at a hotel over breakfast.  In Philip's words: "the magician had in particular made a name for himself by going after grifters and debunking claims of paranormal ability, especially by Uri Geller, who claimed he could bend spoons using the power of his mind. Randi pulled the same illusion on me over breakfast — in fact, he bent two spoons, breaking one. I pocketed the spoons so that our waiter wouldn’t notice them." Continuing on the theme of magic, Philip received a trick pen from Martin Gardner: " I visited Martin Gardner, the longtime Mathematical Games columnist for Scientific American, in his home in Asheville, NC, to do a profile of him in the 1990s. He...

We're well into holiday season, and my thoughts have turned to "corporate" toys; stuff given to employees that were unusual, interesting, and go well beyond the branded T-Shirts, pens, and mugs. I've collected some over the years. This can of Coke was distributed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange with Coca-Cola ringing the opening bell. I drank it with lunch that day, but the can will not go into the recycling bin! On November 25th, 2016, Target rang the opening bell and handed out their mascot, Bullseye. My family shops at Target, so this was a fun and relatable gift. I estimated its value at the time to be around $15 to $25, but Amazon and ebay show the price moves between $40 and $100. Note that this is the early Funko #05 edition, and not the later ones (#32 and #118). The dilemma is whether to open the box or not!  Lastly, here is a paper weight from the Federal Reserve Bank of NY thanking employees for getting the company through a serious event. On Au...

  Second chances. I refer not to the car manufactured by American Motors Corporation, but to the movie theater company AMC Entertainment. Like a gremlin, AMC stock mischievously defied fundamentals hitting a high of $72.62 last week after being left for dead around $2 back in January. Financially,  AMC's second chance comes from deals with professional capital management firms , but the amazing amount of attention AMC garnered can be credited to Wall Street Bets (WSB), a trading group on Reddit. They are often portrayed as rough and tumble individuals, with names like " Deep F-ing Value ," but they aren't too different from the professional traders I've met working as a software developer in New York's financial district. Sometime in the 80s, a few of us were having lunch at a restaurant with a name I can no longer remember. Glancing up, I noticed a jungle of neckties dangling from the pipes and fixtures. The trader explained that it was a tradition here. When...

Those wearing their Apple Watch at midnight were treated to a digital fireworks display. It was fun, thoughtful, and shows how a small detail can engage the fan base. I imagined 2020 as the year of perfect vision -- normally a good thing -- but looking back, my eyes still hurt. A friend and colleague wrote "sometimes, it's best to not see what's ahead." 2021 might be a more fortuitous year, as it ends with blackjack.  When I wrote Pi and Free Will , I proved, at least to myself, that the future was fluid rather than pre-determined. The nature of Pi is irrational, going on forever without repeating, and thus making determinism simply not possible because determinism requires 100% accuracy, or perfect knowledge. I neglected to mention that Pi isn't alone, and it's noteworthy that Pi has a lot of irrational friends: the square root of 2, Euler's number, and the Golden Ratio, to name three of the more famous ones. I also forgot about the Heisenberg Uncertainty...

As difficult as 2020 was, and still is, for many of us, I think we can all find something to be thankful for. We might just have to look a little harder. And do it apart. Below is an old Yam joke circulating on the internet. Those who like bad puns will enjoy it most, but I hope it brings a smile to every reader.   A girl potato and boy potato had eyes for each other. They eventually got married and had a little sweet potato, who they called "Yam." Of course, they wanted the best for Yam, and when it was time, they told her about the facts of life. They warned her about going out and getting half-baked, so she wouldn't accidentally get mashed, be called "Hot Potato," and end up with a bunch of tater tots. Yam said not to worry; no spud would get her into the sack and make a rotten potato out of her! But she wouldn't stay home and become a couch potato either. She would get plenty of exercise doing potato rolls as she was determined not to be skinny like her ...

Lunch time. It was raining, and the company cafeteria was crowded. Waiting in line at the short order station, I overheard the cook remark how busy the place was.  "It's because of the rain," I interjected. She looked at me wryly, and said "You're not supposed to say that." She added, "You're supposed to say how wonderful the food smells, and how good it looks." She was right.  I smiled and offered my only defense: "But I'm a computer guy." This was little better than the rude waiter who defended his behavior as just being "French."   And yet, if you think French waiters are rude, try talking to a sysadmin. Computer folk are notorious for being blunt. That's partly because when working with computers, we know we can't coax the machines to run faster by offering compliments and blueberry muffins.  Clever managers, however, know they can use compliments and blueberry muffins to coax developers into wo...

Just 3 weeks ago, we welcomed the 2020 New Year.  For some of us, our resolve regarding New Year resolutions might be wavering, but on Saturday January 25th, we get another chance.  Let's welcome Chinese New Year and the Year of the Rat. This could mean Mickey Mouse and Disney will have a good year.  But let's not forget Jerry Mouse of "Tom and Jerry," Speedy Gonzales, Pinky and The Brain, Ratatouille, and Mighty Mouse (yeah, that includes Apple's mouse).  They all could be in for a fantastic year. Because this is 2020, I'd like to think those born the year of the rat will have perfect vision and enjoy exceptional clarity this year, not just in tech, but in all aspects of life. Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Maybe we programmers take ourselves too seriously.  How else do you explain the infamous Google Manifesto written by James Damore linking programming ability to gender?  Or   Levandowski being charged with stealing Waymo's intellectual property and fleeing to Uber?  Or the growth of the tech-bro culture ? If only a sense of humor could be tested as part of the interview process!  I've found humorists and comedians to be remarkably intelligent, as a good sense of humor requires imagination, a strong grasp of wordplay, and the ability to read a room. To help with the upcoming holiday gatherings, I've collected a handful of programmer jokes.  Use at your own risk. Q: How do you get rich with C++? A: Inheritance! Q: Why is C a rude language? A: Because it has no class. Q: Why do Java programmers wear glasses? A: Because they can't "see sharp."  (C#, developed by Microsoft, gets grudging respect as Java done right) The one-liner below is...

A friend posted this image, and naturally, I laughed.  I shared it with other friends, and they laughed too.  That this situation was so widely recognized, however, made it cause for crying rather than for laughing. Stating the obvious, estimates are not deadlines, and buffers -- proper spacing between milestones -- are needed for good  project management.  In practice, this advice is lost, and the result is bad software. Failure to implement buffers ignores the unexpected: people leave, requirements change, a show-stopping bug is found. Without buffers, one unexpected problem cascades to all the milestones downstream. Some project managers play it "close to the vest."  They really do have buffers in the schedule, keep them a secret, and hope the developers continue to work hard to meet the original deadlines.  The hazard here is that the developers will make (unnecessary) compromises to meet them. "Do we have time to add an extra field in the dat...

Einstein : So Mr. Simpson, what makes you say the universe is shaped like a doughnut and is expanding?  Homer : Mmmm, expanding doughnut. Einstein : Do you think the expansion is due to dark matter and dark energy? Homer : Dark matter? Oh, you mean chocolate. There's lots of energy in chocolate. Einstein : Hmmm, chocolate? Homer:  Mmmm, chocolate.

The Borg were a fearsome adversary introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation.  With a collective hive mind, they assimilated entire worlds, stealing their technology and enslaving the population to serve as drones.  Able to adapt to and neutralize any defense thrown up by their victims, the Borg were relentless. While much has been written about the Borg, here are some little known facts about them. Earth's first Borg was Earnest Borgnine. His name should have given him away, but he looked human and was very likable. A very distant descendant of his was Annika Hansen, better known as Seven of Nine. Earth did eventually succeed in capturing and containing the Borg.  Below is a monument to this achievement. And turning the tables, we see Christmas has assimilated the Borg. Happy Holidays!

First iPhone, iPhone 4S, and iPhone X Current iPhones are just too large.  I saw one -- an iPhone 6 perhaps -- squeezing out from the front pocket of a young woman's stretch jeans.  With each step she took, the iPhone slid a little further out.  But she couldn't save it as her arms were full with two trays of sheet cake. Walking past her, I made eye contact, and then looked down to her pocket.  She smiled and asked, "Could you?..." I gently pushed the phone back into her pocket.  She thanked me and I continued on my way. When I recount this tale, the guys would, in mock frustration, say "Mike, what's the problem?  Why are you complaining that phones are too big?  Did you at least get her number?" Okay, this particular situation made for a fun blog entry. But being serious, a phone should fit in your pocket comfortably and be properly sized for one handed operation. The iPhones that came after the 4S pushed past those boundaries, delaying my...

Opening a drawer in my hotel room in Toronto, I found this.  I worship at the altar of tech, but I imagine the reaction between two priests might go like this: Mormon Priest:  "At least we're wireless!" Catholic Priest: "And from the very beginning too!"

A recent project had me fitting my Mazda3 with a cloaking device.  The  goal was just to learn, as speeding without being seen is arguably more dangerous than speeding while visible. Here is a photo sequence of the cloaking device in action.  There was absolutely no photoshop trickery! Photo 1: Mazda3 Photo 2: So'wI' chu'  (Engage cloaking device) Photo 3: Qapla'! (Success!) The most difficult part of this project wasn’t the installation, although I did need special tools, including a phase coil resonator.  Nor was it the additional power requirements; I simply advanced the engine’s spark timing and switched from regular gasoline to premium.  No, the difficult part was locating the parts.  eBay and Craigslist were dead ends.  Inquiries on various car forums went unanswered.  And I sniffed around several junkyards to no avail.  The last junkyard search ended like all the others — in...

Growing up in New York City gave me plenty of opportunities to observe roaches.  I remember the first ones I saw run away from me in a straight line.  Despite their speed, they were easy to chase down and step on. A later generation of roaches learned to zig-zag as they tried to escape.  Those were much harder to catch. Then there were the roaches I spotted on the wall.  They were fairly easy pickings, but a later generation startled me.  As I closed in for the kill, they let themselves fall to the floor and then scurried away.  Their ability to learn and evolve was little bit frightening. I was a child then, and now, as an adult living in the suburbs, haven’t seen a roach in quite a while… until recently at Grand Central Station.  That day, like all the days before, morning commuters slowly, quietly, somberly, shuffled off the train toward their places of work.  But the woman in front of me suddenly broke stride and jumped and tw...