Climbing Glass Walls

You may have heard that the Apple Mac is supposed to "just work" without a lot of muss and fuss. Largely, this is true. When you need to do something on a Mac, all the commands are straightforward and clear.

Yet, beneath that beautiful face that Apple shows to the world is a beast. It's like you learn that the cute blonde cheerleader is also a vampire hunter.

And not lame pursuer of sparkly metrosexual vampires. A hard-core sort who'll drink Professor Van Helsing under the table then go on to stake the most powerful vampire on the continent.

My latest brush with the beast in cheerleader clothing happened this evening when I went to print a draft of "Gallows Pole" a story in my upcoming anthology Grimm Futures. I didn't want to print using my Ink Jet printer, and I had a Laser Printer I wanted to use.

So, I queued up the print job and nothing happened.

I kicked the printer and it was happy and healthy. The Wireless Print Server less so. Somehow its DHCP settings got bolluxed up so I couldn't set it on my network. This unit has been a pain since I bought it years ago. I tried a factory reset and couldn't get it to talk to my Mac, my work PC, or an ancient XP laptop.

He's dead, Jim.

So, I went googling for a solution. My first stop was a USB to Parallel port cable. It might work, but Apple warned of compatibility issues preferring I use a network printer. I googled network adapters that had a parallel port and I saw my solution on the web for sale at $230. But, hey, I recognize that device in the printer, someone gave me one a few years back and it's sitting in my junk box.

Then I went about finding the darn thing's power supply. It took some looking.

I got everything hooked up and managed to ping the print server.

Then came configuring the thing. When you print on the Apple, you use something the Unix boys put together years back called CUPS. It's a very powerful printer management tool. And Apple doesn't want you to see it, so they hide it in the attack like an autistic savant who embarrasses the family. But I have the knack.

I goto CUPS and it tells me that Apple has shackled, and where the key to the handcuffs are. So, I unlock the CUPS Web Interface. Ah, yes, I remember you old friend from configuring my Linux boxes a decade ago.

Five minutes later, I've created a new print queue, and moved the print job I'd started four hours earlier. And the print job comes out. Huzzah.

The lesson is that all that hard Unix stuff lies beneath the OSX surface. Apple does a good job of hiding all the really powerful--and dangerous--functionality. But every once in a while, particularly when configuring a 20 year old printer with a 15 year old print spooler, that Unix stuff is invaluable.

I'm Camping

I'm in my pop-up camper. Its only flaw is a lack of air conditioning. And the fact that I failed to set up the canopy outside the front door before it started raining. (The picture is from Labor Day last year or the year before that.) But I've got electrical power and wifi, so all is well with the world.

I have backpacker friends who will sneer and say this isn't camping.

Packing this time was enlightening, as in lightening, as in lighter. Years back I got my first laptop. It was a beast. A laptop has gone with me on every trip, big or small, ever since.

This has generally entailed a backpack wherein I'd keep the laptop, and its power supply, and various books I'd haul along. Packing was generally a Big Deal because I'd go through my bookcase and agonize over which books to bring along. I'd invariably bring along books I never opened and pined away that the books I was in a mood to read were sitting at home. Or I'd bring them all and that backpack would weigh a ton. Same goes for the CDs I'd pack along to listen to while driving.

Then I got a Kindle and packing changed to "what electronic gizmos will I take along." And that raised its own logistical issues because gizmos invariably need to be recharged. And that meant I had to pack along several cables and chargers in that backpack.

This year I packed a simple black nylon folio, roughly 8.5x11x2.5 in size with a shoulder strap. It has my MacBook Air, Kindle DX, and iPad. My smartphone, camera and iPod are in the side pocket. All the cables and wall warts went into a drawstring bag in my overnight bag. (I feel like a Luddite packing the camera when my smartphone has a perfectly serviceable camera.

I think that packing this much kit in such a small, light space is the best part of living in the future. The sheer complexity of such miniaturized gimmickry boggles this Engineer's mind. I'm grateful to live in such a time and wonder what marvels the future holds.

Cell Phones and National Decline

I grew up dreaming of space ships, and watching the rocket launches of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo projects. All heady stuff. America was the greatest country on Earth and only the Soviets challenged us with little more than maskirovka and compliant propaganda apparats in the New York Times. Nevertheless, we knew the USA was the world's alpha male big dog. And that knowledge might have even been true then.

Now, less so. The technology coming out of Silicon Valley propelled us forward so far and so fast, a description of a typical day in my life today would seem incomprehensible to my younger self in grad school. I was a SciFi fan then and things now are more advanced than the SciFi I read then.

That inspired a little aside in my story From Greenland's Icy Mountains (in Finding Time): "This 'hollow gram' uses technology that makes time travel seem like child's play."

I intend to describe some other technology that makes time travel seem like child's play, too.

Most technology we use today is unexpected and miraculous. Yet there are surprises: cross the border into Canada and your mobile data quits working: that Google Map application on your phone just falls over. And when you get off the airplane at Heathrow in London, your mobile voice data quits working, too. The first denial of service is merely a surcharge for international data roaming. The second is technically more difficult.

Cellular telephony has been subject to technical progress over the last two decades. There used to be none. Then there was analog cellular. And more recently digital cellular. This digital cellular has been deployed at different times in different locales using different technologies. I'm a technologist and I get boggled by the details. Yet, I can grasp a few rudiments. If you're in the USA there's two technologies enabling cellular telephony: CDMA and GSM. These are acronyms standing for Code Division Multiple Access and Global System for Mobile communications, respectively.

The USA, being first, built out a system that works fine for the consumer using CDMA. The rest of the world has deployed GSM technology with some exceptions. GSM has been deployed in the US, too. So, today if your cellular provider is Verizon or Sprint, your phone will use CDMA to talk to the cell towers that pepper the landscape. And if your cellular provider is ATT or T-Mobile, your phone will use GSM.

Should you never leave the USA, these considerations are completely irrelevant. Your phone will use CDMA or GSM and "just work" with your cellular provider worrying about the details.

Meanwhile, technology has become so advanced, and high powered computer chips so magical, that many phones have hardware that'll work with either GSM or CDMA. There's no need to buy a special "International phone" at least from a hardware perspective.

If your head is spinning from all the technology changes, remember that human nature--particularly human greed--does not change.

Thus the magical capabilities of the hardware are HOBBLED by the greed of the cell phone operators. Yes, the iPhone 5 bought from ATT is designed to work on both GSM and CDMA, but they've disabled the CDMA and will never let you reenable it. Even after your contract with them expires. Same goes for Apple when you want to buy an unlocked iPhone 5 directly from them. This prevents you from ever taking an iPhone 5 and your business to either Verizon or Sprint. Unless you buy an iPhone 5 from Verizon or Sprint in which case they've disabled the GSM and will never let you either unlock the phone or enable CDMA to take your business to ATT or T-Mobile.

Half the magic of the technology is disabled by some corporate entity or another to their gain and my hurt. Despite the fact that I bought my phone with my money, they won't let me use its full capabilities.

Screw that.

I bought an unlocked Samsung Galaxy. It came with documentation written in French, but I managed to get the battery charged before I left the States. After I arrived in London, I went to an "off license" store and bought a Virgin Mobile SIM card with 10 Pounds on it.

It made a big improvement over my last trip to England. Whereas last time I'd aimlessly wander lost among the maze if twisty London or Oxford streets, this time I could get lost, fire up Google maps, and see exactly where I was and how to get where I wanted. And I new I could summon aid at all times, too.

I think I got a bargain and I intent to use this Samsung phone next time I venture beyond the borders of the USA. And lend the phone to any friends travelling internationally.

When you travel internationally, you get a chance to see how other people live. Most of the similarities between people you never notice. Trivial differences get noticed. I thought the city of London showed its age.

Solving the should-be-simple problem of getting a smartphone working overseas showed me how the rest of the world has leap-frogged the US technologically. Samsung is a Korean firm and I'll wager the phone was built in China. The only contribution of US companies to this story are speed-bumps.

Congress is considering a law to make it legal to unlock one's cell phone. The fact that it is currently illegal to do so infuriates me. This is not the America that put a man on the moon.

Why SciFi?

My wife doesn't read Science Fiction. So, she asked me why I do. And why I write it.

If anyone gives you one answer and says it is the only reason, they're wrong. So, this is a non-exhaustive treatment.

The reasons for reading or writing Science Fiction include all the ones for other fiction: It's a pleasant way to pass a gray, rainy day. It provides distraction and amusement while going through unhappy circumstances. Reading is cheap entertainment. If you have straightened means, you can freely check out books from a library, or just let me know and I'll give you a copy of what I've published.

Science Fiction can be very mainstream or very genre. The lines get blurred. Action thrillers can easily include a SF gizmo with which the super-villain holds the moon for ransom. Romances may develop between dashing Civil War cavalrymen and time-travelling maidens.

I've explored elsewhere the relationship between Science Fiction and Fantasy as well as two broad themes of Science Fiction. And all that applies to this discussion of why one reads and writes SF.

Science Fiction prophesies about the Future

Ours is a technological society and the fruits of science and technology surround us. Science Fiction can cushion us against future shock. If I were to describe a typical workday to my teen-aged self of the 1970s, he would say it sounds like science fiction--because it does. I have an iPod, an iPad, an Android phone and a MacBook Air. Maybe I'll get an iPhone for my birthday. These devices are marvels of technology and I love living in the 21st Century.

But SF is a false-prophet. We haven't been back to the moon since 1973. We don't have jet packs. We don't have flying cars. Nuclear fusion power is still 30 years away. (Meanwhile I've gotten a half-dozen robo-calls today from various skeezy outfits. What fool does business with these companies? How do they stay in business?)

Despite the unexpected course of development with less progress in aeronautical or nuclear engineering, and more progress in telecommunication and electronics, we get glimpses into what the future will be like and get to play what-if with ideas like cloned replacement body parts.

Science Fiction lets us play what-if -- with things

Science Fiction is fiction because it often describes inventions that don't exist. There are no artillery pieces that will hurl a projectile from the Earth to the Moon. But if there were, what would it be like to use one? Or suppose I had a device that would transport me from anyplace to anyplace instantly?

Everybody loves unwrapping a new toy on Christmas morning and then seeing what it will do. Geeks and Engineers may also take things apart to see how they work.

Frankly, that's what I like about SF. I like inventing stuff that doesn't exist. I like coming up with a plausible-sounding explanation for why you want to fly into the sun and why the hyperspace drive works better there.

Doing real science is hard and so is making things work. But it's a lot easier when it just has to sound plausible. This may explain why Science Fiction doesn't predict the future perfectly. Flying cars are plausible, but iPods weren't plausible even when Steve Jobs announced them.

Science Fiction lets us play what-if -- with people

Are you scandalized when the old dude shows up with a trophy wife who's half his age? But what will happen when the dude is 900 years old and  the trophy wife is 450? And a girl young enough to be his daughter would be 875 years old!

Or how about the starship pilot who's been in stasis for 80 years and he's thawed out by his great-grandson who has the same apparent age? How does that family dynamic work out?

Let's suppose you can clone replacement body parts. Sure, there are people who need heart transplants, but look at how much more money is spent each year for boob jobs? There's probably a lot more money to be made in upgrades of a cosmetic nature. And there's not as much liability if the replacement breasts fail. 

Or let's suppose someone invents a device that tells when a politician is lying, and also when he won't keep a campaign promise. We might be surprised by politicians' creative responses to this challenge.

How would wars be fought if we only let robots do the fighting? Would we have more wars or fewer?

Science Fiction lets us grind axes

Star Trek was infamous for doing this. They ran into some alien whose skin coloration was ebony and ivory. And this alien was possessed of a murderous hatred toward the other alien whose skin coloration was ivory and ebony. Oh, i wonder if there was a message about racism in this episode?

Strangely, they never beamed down to the Planet of the Over-promising Santa Clauses, or Planet We-just-ran-out-of-other-people's-money. Do you think we should go on the Gold Standard? You can have enterprising spacemen from there show up to End The Fed.

But Wait! There's More

The reasons for reading and writing Science Fiction encompass more than what I've said so far. Ferinstance, I didn't say anything about giving you a good scare. So, tell me, why do you read or write Science Fiction?

Living In The Future

Just got back from the Apple store.

When I bought my MacBook Air, I knew I was spending a lot more than I would for an ultrabook computer running, say, Linux. I take a great deal of pride in my geek status and that makes the Linux alternative seductive.

I also like the total control Linux gives me.

Nevertheless, I bought my MacBook just so I could make an appointment, stroll into the Genius Bar and make pointing motions and grunting sounds whereupon a pleasant young person (when you're my age, everyone's a young person) will discern my intent and then do something marvelous like reformat the laptop's drive, wipe out all my personal data, and reinstall the operating system for the low, low cost of FREE. Which is what the guy just did. Bravo.

Granted, I could have dropped in on the Grand Rapids Linux User's Group and found a pleasant True Believer in Linux who'd do the same thing. But if I were to do that, I'd have to learn a lot more about what we were doing. And because the process has a lot more visibility into what's going on, I'd likely see something questionable to make me worry that I'd Done Something Wrong. And since we don't do this sort of thing every day, that would be much more likely. A lot more anxiety, sturm und drang!

Total control does have its disadvantages.

No. I paid a few hundred bucks more up front to get some predictable, reliable hardware, and FROM THEN ON I can visit the Apple Store, feign ignorance, (It's getting so I don't have to pretend as much nowadays.) and they make the software Just Work.

Steve Jobs set up systems that Just Work and whenever I deal with Apple, or when I use their products, I may be paying more, but when I do I'm living in the future. I like living in the future.

My 2013 Mac

You must remember I'm as old as dirt. And I've forgotten more about computers than young whipper snappers like you will ever know... he said shaking his cane. The Macintosh computer was invented by Apple so that geezers like me can quietly pass into senility without any need of any of that useless information we've got rattling around our noggins.

The thing about a Mac is that it has a learning curve that is nice and gently sloped upwards until it terminates in a sheer ice cliff. You want to go further than that? Get your crampons and climbing gear. Beneath the friendly, happy bunny face of Mac OS X "Mountain Lion" is a snarling, feral Unix kernel and all its attendant terrors for the uninitiated.

When you buy a new MacBook Air like I did after Christmas, it has this wonderful Migration Assistant that I cannot praise highly enough. It is as smooth as silk and everything you'd ever want when migrating all your stuff from one machine to another. You just hook the two machines together, answer some prompts and wait for all the files to go over from old to new. Walla!

When I went to check how things did, the results were impressive. I couldn't find anything that hadn't been successfully migrated. Bravo Apple. I went on thinking the migration had been flawless until just a little while ago when I went to print something.

It didn't migrate my printers. OK, I can click thru dialogs and redo the printer setup. The two HP inkjet printers that I'd bought in this century were happily configured in mere moments and ready to go.

But then came my HP LaserJet 4. It dates back to when I rebuilt Unix kernels for a living. And it's hooked up to a wireless print spooler that's somewhat less than user-friendly. Set it up perfectly, and all is perfect. Do otherwise, and you are in deep kim chee.

I hadn't sold my old Mac, so I expected to just copy by hand the settings from one bunch of dialogs on the old machine to the same dialogs on the new one. Simple, right?

Well, those printer setup dialogs show all the parameters except the ones you need when you're adding a printer via IP. You need the IP address of the print spooler. You know, the set of numbers you should write down on a sticker and put on the spooler, except you didn't. And you can't see the IP address on the old Mac's dialogs. Grrrr.

The answer was to get out the ice-climbing gear and start stabbing the problem with my ice-axe.

1. First I went into terminal. 
2. Then I went into google to find the right conf file in the CUPS subsystem. It wouldn't show me /etc/cups/printers.conf. 
3. Then I remembered sudo cat /etc/cups/printers.conf | more

Joy of joys, the DeviceURI is lpd://192.168.1/101/L1

Back to my new machine, add IP printer address shown above, and the L1 queue.

That didn't work. Cycle power on printer. That didn't work. Ping 192.168.1.101. No response. That's a clue. Cycle power on spooler. Wait. Ping starts responding. Try to print again. Walla!

So, people say that Unix is not user-friendly. This is not true. It is just very selective about who its friends are.