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In some ways: it’s kind of fascinating how far our species has come, and how depressing how far we may have yet to go.

Dealing with Misty’s blister problem has made me think increasingly often about a scene from Star Trek 4: where Bones meets a patient waiting for kidney dialysis, and wonders if this is the dark ages–because it kind of is. And then they proceed to go rescue Chekov from having holes drilled in his skull by a crack team of ’80s brain surgeons.

We live in a world where science and reason has come a long way: yet much of our medical technology hasn’t evolved as significantly as our practical knowledge of medicine. We understand better how and why things work, but our influence is often limited.

In science fiction, such as aboard star ships named Enterprise: we see a world where what is broken can be repaired. Fixing broken bones is easier than welding metal. Bandaids and sutures replaced by repairing tissue and arteries. Tools that our chemists and biologists could only dream of for understanding the world around us.

Yet we live in a world where our only options are essentially medieval, compared to our dreams. We have to suture and staple people back together, because this is often the best our technology can do.

Hell, can you even imagine how much the equipment for an MRI costs, or how much it weighs, or how much our technology had to evolve to make that possible? From a pure technology standpoint such equipment is a miracle, a magical marvel. One we’ve only just begun.

I feel in many ways, we’re benefiting from the rise of science, and the ease at sharing collective knowledge. Our doctors know a lot more than in centuries past, and that’s a good thing. But the technology we’ve managed to develop for them? It’s far slower to evolve: tools and technologies take lifetimes to evolve.

On the other hand, in some ways the world we live in has been travelling like a rocket ship as marvelous technology is stacked upon marvelous technology, and knew knowledge refines our perceptions of the possible. When my grandparents were young, the concept of a transistor exceeded what we could construct. When my own parents were young, a long road made such things possible. As I sit here typing this, I can’t even fathom how many transistors were involved in making this journal entry. By the time I die, perhaps to a younger generation: the microchips of my computer will look like the capacitors and tubes in my great grandparents radio do to me.

It’s like, we managed to shoot man to the moon in a tin can using sticks and stones, compared to what our electronics have become since. Much as Apollo, surely would have been to Jules Verne, a lot of cool shit has happened since man took to the stars . But in many ways, our technology is still very primitive to what we can imagine.

Wouldn’t it be damned awesome, if we lived in a world where people created technologies that help man kind, far more than we spend writing buggy assed software? At least nerds can dream. Hmm, I wonder if androids would dream….

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The one thing about Martin Luther King Jr.’s greatness everyone keeps missing

If such a thing could be true of most people’s skills as a listener, it might be a better world overall.

Calling King a great listener isn’t the typical praise that people shower on him as the country celebrates the holiday in his honor. Instead, commentators invoke images of King as a solitary hero behind a podium, delivering speech after speech that changed history.

Things I find oddly amusing

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Things I find oddly amusing: thought I’d give defrosting the fish in the bag a go, ‘cuz why not?

Shortly after turning on the water works, the bag made like Yosemite Sam after a shootout.
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Next U.S. Navy aircraft carrier to be named after African American Pearl Harbor hero
https://flip.it/6Dlhwg

That is pretty damn cool. Didn’t think we would see a carrier not named after a president, shy of experiencing another conflict on the scale of the war in the Pacific.

Thoughts on Xbox Game Pass and SteamLink

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One of the perks of Steam, is the ease of continuing from anywhere.

Most games on Steam with more than ten cents worth of effort, support cloud saves. Most that don’t tend to be very old, or games that shouldn’t. Which makes it pretty easy to continue from another machine, or even the same machine from some future reinstall of the game. Many games on Xbox also support cloud saves, and it’s usually less famous titles that lack them, like indie titles.

At least when you’ve got a solid graphics card, and aren’t struggling to run the game to begin with, Steam’s in home streaming actually works great. So transitioning from /dev/desk to /dev/couch is more to do with input devices.

Microsoft’s Game Pass is pretty sweet, and ultimate makes sense if you were already paying for Live. But the trade off I think is the portability.

When I play a game on Steam: principally, I give little mind to whether I’m playing from my couch or in front of my computer. The decision is typically driven by how much precision mouse/keyboard work is required. The only game that’s been otherwise is Final Fantasy 15, as my CPU struggles to run it locally, unlike 99% of my other Steam games.

When I play a game on Game Pass, principally my thought is “Do I want to play at my xbox?”.

As much as I applaud Microsoft’s record and stream tech, I really love that they made it available, the truth is that I find the stream quality from my Xbox to my desktop to be inferior to my 780 GTX to my SteamLink over the same network and locations. There’s more visual glitches and even set for quality, the encoder can’t best the encoder on my nVidia card.

What would really make the PC side of that coin mean something, is if it were possible to share the same saves between my desktop and my Xbox. I.e. the decision would be like open Outer Worlds on my desktop, and continue from the same save I made on my Xbox. I’d call that a win.

By contrast the decision works out that I started playing on my Xbox, and need to stream to my PC if I want to play at my desk. Which means a loss of image quality, and the occasional wtf/freeze/lag; on the flipside Outer Worlds seems to do that less often than Halo 5 when I stream.

Likewise, I don’t think Microsoft offers the inverse. I.e. that I could stream my desktop to my Xbox, if I had started with the PC, I’d not be able to stream to my Xbox. Although it might be possible to horse wrangle something with my SteamLink. By contrast, Steam’s streamy goodness is basically from anything to anything, especially when you account for needing a Direct3D PC for most games anyhow.

Thus, I am finding that Game Pass is very worth it for the Xbox side of the catalog. On PC, it’s more like a “Meh”, because the only benefit I’m really seeing there is good odds of playing on desktop with a mouse, a game I wouldn’t want to play on console with a controller. To be fair though, my decision was based on the cost comparison of Game Pass + Live versus Game Pass Ultimate; that is to say on the dollars required.

Beyond the lack of PC <-> Xbox crossover, I’m finding Game Pass to be very worth it. For a while, I’ve actually considered dropping my Live subscription because Games with Gold doesn’t bring that many games of interest down the pike, versus how little multiplayer I tend to do on Xbox. Where as Game Pass delivers the content, and probably curtails much of the need to buy games outright.

I’m also pretty sure that if Valve offered something like Game Pass on Steam, I’d probably hand Gabe Newell my checkbook and be done with it, lol.

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You know, if I was really smart: I’d be at least half as comfy as these three goonie birds with fur.

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Upsides of Friday: being able to have a cup of coffee at 2000, and not feel guilty.
Downsides of Friday: being ready to snore loudly by 2200, despite coffee.

On a mostly positive side, having had pretty daily visits to the vet thanks to blistering, Misty’s next appointment is Monday. For what will probably be a very trying day for all of us. But for her, I expect it’s been least fun.

Also on the positive side, the side with the blisters, aside, she’s been doing pretty well from her dental surgery.

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So far I’ve been using an ESR for iPad Pro 11 Case with a surprising level of success. When I ordered it back in October, I found several similar ones, which likely means same thing from the same place with the branding of whoever is paying for the batch, lol.

Generally, I’ve tended to keep my devices naked. Tablets are already too damned hefty for my tastes, and most generic cases add considerable weight. First party ones tend to be ridiculously expensive, and likely due to litigation happy Apple, somewhat hamstrung into sucking.

Pretty much I wanted to solve two problems:

  1. Better protection at work, and some screen protection while its in my work bag.
  2. Be nice for writing position on my desk.
Most of the generic cases I’ve had for my Android tablets, failed because they’re too heavy once you make the generic adaptive frame and affix the cover. Most first party cases, traded cost for weight by using lighter plastics but suffered the same problem. It’s just the first party result was more like sewing pads together than a one piece plastic mold.
As someone who takes care of their overpriced electronics, my interested in cases tend to be less about drop protection and more about utility. If you’re going to toss a tablet out the back of a truck, or have risk of it being pierced by something dropped on the screen, by all means: get a highly protective case. I’d even recommend Otterbox for that.
But for me the protection factor is more like having my laptop and tablet in the same section of my bag, or my tablet laying on a work bench where things may get shuffled around a bit: but even a scratch or crack is like more a worse case scenario. I’ve only managed one damaged screen despite having used tablets since Honeycomb.
The trick that’s made this case sick are really down to the design. It’s magnetic connection allows it to be a very thin, lightweight case rather than one that tries to prevent catastrophe. Plus or makes our very easy to remove without scuffing or stressing the device, so when I want to use my iPad without the case: that’s so easy, I don’t worry.
Throw in how useful it is to have a kick stands like function along with the basic screen protection, and I’ve ended up sticking with it. By contrast, I don’t think I’ve ever managed to get more than a few weeks before discarding other cases I’ve had for past tablets.
The catch, I think has less to do with the cost of integrating sufficient magnets: and more to do with Apple’s inclination to sue the pants off other tablet vendors if they made the same style of folio case. Or least that’s been my feeling since Samsung almost nailed this problem with the Tab S2, but fell shy due to weight and using metal “Snaps” instead of magnets for attaching the case to the tablet. But that’s probably cheaper than dealing with their legal department, never mind actual circle jerking over the idea.
A notable side effect is for generic cheap ass cases like this, for most tablets you’re stuck adapting some kind of plastic frame or similar system. In the case of modern iPads, the magnet thing seems suitably generic amongst iPads at this point.