A Geek Goes Flying

Just stumbled across this glimpse into the realities of developing for Android:  Our Android App is Frozen in Carbonite . (They’re still developing iA Writer for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Windows...) Reminds me of my Why not Android post from ... 10 years ago (!?). 12,000 different devices. Too big to fail company arbitrarily and capriciously changing the playing field (which, tbf, Apple can do too, sigh). I’d love to see a real, viable, Linux tablet OS with a strong, consistent UX. AFAIK, we’re not there yet, though there are efforts underway . Tower of Babel  

 ... But you knew that. I have more than a few observations on that point, though I think I’ve maybe only blogged about it once before? ( https://flying-geek.blogspot.com/2025/03/when-your-dishwasher-has-to-connect-to.html ) Yesterday I got this notice, that my Kevo would no longer have any app or remote functionaltiy, starting November 15th (so, less than a month’s notice, great): The lock is ~6 years old. I’m on the hunt for a lock that does not require any sort of cloud access, can’t be remotely bricked (essentially; the Kevo will still work as a dumb lock, or even with a fob, but not via a smartphone). Stay tuned. Shit like this is why I figured out how to locally control the HS105 , why I crack DRM on eBooks and keep local copies of the resulting ePub (or whatever), why I have a large collection of physical media ( you can’t stream Battlestar Galactica (2004) anywhere ?! Really?!), why there’s been a rash of recent videos proclaiming streaming dead and heralding the return of ...

A cassette futurism AI (kinda) ... But you knew that. Well, you should have known that. If you didn’t, here’s a few articles that underscore why you shouldn’t: AI chatbots fail at accurate news, major study reveals AI assistants make widespread errors about the news, new research shows AI Not A Reliable Source Of News, EU Media Study Says ... and of course the study itself:  News Integrity in AI Assistants  That said, I’ve been playing with my cheap AF AI workstation  (and low key coveting the $4,000 Nvidia Spark ), and I do see places, narrow places, where LLM type maths can be a boon. But, like, the other day I got a wall of text from a friend (who described it as “a synthesis based on a mass of affirmative data” 🤣) that just got things ... wrong. And a few days before that I’d asked some AI tools to summarize some expedited procedural stuff in a very niche practice area, and each one gave me the same – very wrong – information. When I rolled up my sleeves and manuall...

Samsung Galaxy Tab Active2 Recently picked up a “renewed”  Samsung SM-T390NZKAXAR Galaxy Tab Active2 8" 16 GB Wi-Fi Ruggedized Tablet  (a/k/a the SM-T390) for $54.99. (It seems to bounce between as low as $49.99 and a high price of $74, down from almost $400 a year ago.) For < $60 it was an impulse buy; I kinda want something larger than a phone that I can use in the shower / bath tub, that’s a bit more than an eReader. (My iPhone 16 Pro is IP68 rated, but it’s not an amazing device to read on, or do any sort of “real” work on.)  The Galaxy Tab Active2 is an older device (introduced in October 2017, March 2018 in the U.S.), but it is also IP68 so it should survive such use. It’s still running Android 9 , and fully updated, it’s on kernel 3.18.91-18310738, dating back to fall of 2021. So, definitely not state of the art, but it should do for what I need it to do. As it arrived to me, it had 11.1 GB used, 4.9 GB free, of 16 GB total storage. Apps took up just 290 MB of...

Nine Inch Nails tonight will be the second time in the past ~year I’ll be GA at KIA Forum in Los Angeles. The first was Kacey Musgraves, and we got there about 6 p.m. no wrist bands, and it was fine. (We were on the railing fairly far stage left, but my friend needed the railing, so it worked out.) For NIN I decided to try the wristband thing. Early G.A. Wristband acquired I had to make a court appearance which I did in the car on the way there, and got to the Forum around 9:20 for a sold out show (a scant few pit tickets are still available places like Vivid Seats and StubHub, for > $1,000...). I drove around a little before I found a security employee directing traffic I was able to ask for help; he pointed out the canopy under which the wristbands were being given out, and told me I’d have to “park in the area.” All of the streets immediately around the Forum are no stopping any time, or no parking with 2 hour parking for permit holders: Read the (no) parking signs! I found meter...

I have an old (9 years?!) iPad Pro 9.7" that’s still in immaculate condition. It runs a little slowly these days, and the battery life has degraded, but for getting productive stuff done during random intervals during the day, it’s still a contender. I had it equipped with a Zagg keyboard case ‡ , but after about 2 years of light use, the hinge split on the keyboard part, and I figured it was time to try something else. Priced at $149 when it was a current SKU , the Apple Smart Keyboard for this old iPad is now available for $35 “renewed” on Amazon . Attaching to the “Smart Connector,” it doesn’t require a separate battery to be charged, it doesn’t rely on flaky Bluetooth, and like most Apple tech, it ‘just works.’™ The feel takes a  lot  of getting used to (it’s not a typical “chicklet” keyboard, it’s ... weird ...), but once you do it’s quite serviceable. It folds up to prop up the iPad in landscape orientation at a recline, that makes it a decent writing-on-the-go platform,...

I’m forever trying to find the best solution for staying on task. If I try to use Things on my phone as my “today” list, I’m doomed, there are too many rabbit holes waiting for me to go down, behind every technicolor icon. (I love Things, as a “reliable storage container” to dump things in, but not  for the rubber-meets-the-road act of actually getting those things done.) I have to have a paper list. I’ve gone through several solutions, but at the office it always seemed like I was grabbing the back of an envelope, or using a 3.75x3.75" pad a vendor dropped off, or ... (I still use the blackboard , but only for the Most Immediate Pressing Task I Should Be Focusing On Right Now™.) I found these To Do List cards from Sweetzer & Orange  (that I like more than these  Jot & Mark cards ; the items are spaced just a bit more apart, making it much less cramped and busy), but they come loose. I thought about getting a box, with a little stand for the current list, but tha...