How Long Would YOU Survive?

Created by The Oatmeal

Microwave-Free Zone

The title of this post in no way means I believe there is anywhere not being bombarded by radio frequencies. The entire universe is awash in radio waves in a variety of lengths from natural sources. Here on earth, radio waves do everything from track our airplanes to hooking us to the Internet via wi-fi. No, instead I am speaking of cooking with a microwave oven. Or not.

The Lovely Spouse and I moved into this house about 16 months ago. There was not a built-in microwave oven, unlike the past places we have lived for years. We have actually had a microwave oven in our homes since the early 1980s. So our initial thought was to buy one. At first we thought of buying a counter top oven, but then considered that maybe we should just purchase one to mount under the counter over the stove. In the meantime, as we wrestled with this dilemma, we continued to cook, and found out that we were doing okay for now, so the purchase could wait. As time moved on, we realized two things. One, we were doing fine without one; and two, the food we prepared by more conventional means was better!

With the Lovely Spouse, it became a contest to see how long could we hold out buying a microwave oven. As it turns out, indefinitely. And then there's the quality of the food. Meat reheated in a microwave tends to get overdone and dry. Potatoes don't have the same consistency as conventional oven-baked ones. As I am writing this, I am eating some delicious tamales I bought frozen. In the past, I would have popped them in to the microwave for about 3 minutes and eaten them. Instead, I put a pot of water on the stove to boil, topped it with a covered steamer with the tamales inside for about 25 minutes. I can attest, the steaming produces a moist, tasty and hot product; whereas microwaving them would have made them hot, but less evenly heated and much drier.

There are many times that we would have used the microwave in the past that we now use the toaster oven. Quick and efficient! Between that applicance, the stove and the regular oven, we are doing great. One of my sons was over shortly after we moved in, and he asked? "Where's your microwave?" In my best hillbilly voice, I replied, "Don't got one!". His reply was priceless. "How do you cook?" What he was trying to do was heat some water. We introduced him to the good old tea kettle.

Are there times I miss having a microwave oven? Sure. But only occasionally. Most of the time, I don't care anymore. The food is tastier, and it doesn't take long to fix either. If you preplan just a little bit, you will enjoy flavorful, moist meals with little fuss. Now the question is do we go even further with the retro lifestyle? Do we dump satellite TV for over the air broadcasts? Do we kill the cell phones and just use the home line? In these hard economic times, maybe this is all part of a simpler, more frugal lifestyle.

Intelligent Political Discourse in America - R.I.P.

I have to wonder, has some members of the Republican Congressional Delegation been taking some really bad drugs lately? Nutty right-wing conspiracy theories seem to me to be at an all time high. Some of the ideas being tossed about on the Internet make the whole business about President Obama's birth certificate look rational by comparison (and no, I believe that one is pretty insane too). Now we have Congressmen picking up the conspiracies and telling their constituents via town hall meetings and appearances on right-wing talk radio, that the Democrat's health care reform proposal will cause the government to talk to the elderly about how they want to die; and that the plan will end in the government putting seniors to death. Then the talk radio loonies throw about comparisons to Hitler and Mao (Godwin's Law anyone?).

Is this the way American political dialog should be conducted? I think not. If these Republicans could come up with a viable plan of their own, they could talk about that. But no, they would rather continue to purvey fear upon our senior citizens, and everyone else too. What is sad is that so many buy it. I never thought I would see this country on such a downward slide so as to reach this low point in political discourse.

Rachel Maddow on MSNBC has examples in the clip below.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Little GUI That Could

A look back at a piece of computing history. Audio player and transcript below.






Back in 1990, the world of personal computing was divided into two camps; IBM Personal Computers and their clones running the ubiquitous MS-DOS, and Apple's Macintosh and its Graphical User Interface, or GUI. Text-based DOS ruled the business world, while the Mac had established a beach head in the graphic design, desktop publishing, and educational markets. But it was becoming clear that the future was a graphical one. Microsoft, the purveyor of MS-DOS had made early attempts with an environment called Windows that ran on top of DOS, but it was not very useful at that stage, and very few programs required it.

There were other attempts to bring DOS into the graphical world. Digital Research had tried to get its GEM Desktop accepted, but it gained very little traction in the marketplace. Part of that was because of an infringement lawsuit against Digital Research filed by Apple. Yet just when Microsoft was about to release its first really usable version of Windows, version 3.0, another program hit the shelves, that was in many ways superior to the Microsoft product. That program was called GeoWorks Ensemble.

GeoWorks was created by a small company named Berkeley Softworks, that had created GUIs for other computing platforms, such as the Commodore 64 home computer. GeoWorks was written in assembly language, making it extremely fast and responsive, even when running on an Intel 80286 chip. Like Windows, it still needed MS-DOS underneath its pretty shell, but it claimed several advances that Windows didn't yet have. These include filenames longer than the eight-plus-three format that DOS required, scalable typefaces, WYSIWYG desktop publishing, and a scalable interface. For neophytes, GeoWorks had a basic, iconic interface option, somewhat akin to the modern iPhone screen. For more advanced users there were two steps up, that resemble modern GUI design.

So why are we not all using GeoWorks 9.0 today? I see at least three reasons. First, although Geoworks was sold with several great applications, such as GeoWrite, GeoDraw, and GeoDex, it initially lacked a spreadsheet application. At at time where Lotus 1-2-3 had set the bar for financial modelling, a spreadsheet was a must. Secondly, the developer's kit for GeoWorks was prohibitively expensive, dissuading software coders from developing for the platform. Finally, it was a pure case of being outmarketed. With the DOS cash cow, Microsoft could easily bury the smaller firm in an avalanche of advertising and public relations noise.

Over the years, GeoWorks was sold twice...first to NewDeal Software, and then to BreadBox. But development remains stuck at least a decade in the past, and the niche markets that have been identified for the product have failed to respond.

How great it would be to see someone buy the rights who really cares about GeoWorks. It could be given modernized graphics, drivers for new hardware, support for OpenType, and perhaps even run on top of the Linux kernel. After all, Google's new operating system, Chrome, will use that kernel as its basis, and Linux is a solid base. Then perhaps we would see some real competition!

Still, that will remain only a dream. I doubt there is any chance of that becoming reality. But for those of us who found GeoWorks a viable, and advanced operating environment, it will always remain the little GUI that could!

A Walk Around Downtown Parker, Colorado

Here is a short walking tour around the downtown area of Parker, Colorado; known as Old Town Parker.

ProtoPod

Think Apple invented the iPod in the 90s? Think again. A British visionary inventor came up with a startlingly accurate view of the future...in 1979! Kane Kramer invented the idea when flash memory was prohibitively expensive and could only hold 3 minutes of audio. Check out his web site HERE.

What Next? Disco Balls to Return?

The band, Cheap Trick, is releasing a new collection of tunes all these years after they were topping the charts. But they are really pulling a trick with this. The album, entitled The Latest, is being released not only on Compact Disc, but also on vinyl LP, and yes...even on 8-track cartridge!

Get yours HERE.

Food Oddities & Miracle Cheetos

Here are some odd and miraculous food items I found in my kitchen. I did make one narration mistake...Rodney King's beating was not associated with the O.J. Simpson trial, but I am too lazy to redo the soundtrack.

Nine Gadgets

MSNBC.com contributor Winda Benedetti did a feature HERE about

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31800716/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/

We, too, possess the heart of an early adopter but the wallet and wary sensibility of a cautious consumer.

Winda Benedetti, contributor msnbc.com

iPhone 3G S

Flip UltraHD

GeForce 3D Vision Kit

Squeezebox Boom

Kindle 2

Roomba 562 Pet

Dream Cat Venus

Transport bed

Touch Watch Phone

Death by Chocolate

A man who worked in a chocolate factory that makes raw chocolate to be used by other candy companies, died when he fell into a vat of melting chocolate. This story out of Camden, New Jersey. Twenty-nine-year-old Vincent Smith had only worked at the factory for a few weeks. Story HERE.

The City of Brotherly Hate

Let me check my calendar...okay it says 2009. So why do some folks in Philadelphia think it is 1959? I might have expected a story like this fifty years ago, but not now. A day camp for kids paid The Valley Swim Club $1900 to allow their campers to swim there. The club is private, but advertises open membership. When the kids arrived, pandemonium broke out. What was the issue? The kids from the camp were mostly African-American.

One of the campers quoted a woman at the club:

"I heard this lady, she was like, 'Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?' She's like, 'I'm scared they might do something to my child,'" said camper Dymire Baylor.

Reports are that when the black children got in the pool, all the Caucasian kids immediately left. Horace Gibson, a parent of one of the day camp kids said:

"The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately."

The day after this happened, the camp was told their money would be refunded and they could not come back. The Valley Swim Club's president, John Duesler, said that the concern is that the kids would "change the complexion...and the atmosphere of the club".

Yes blatant racism is alive and well in America, and it is not only in the South. And what a sad thing for these children to have experienced. For the full story as reported by Philly's NBC 10, CLICK HERE.

Google OS

Will Google have the muscle to do what OS/2 and BeOS failed to accomplish? The search giant has announced it will soon be releasing a new operating system based on the company's Chrome browser.

Personally, I would love to see more widespread choice. Although Google is touting the new OS as a Windows alternative for netbooks, can its wider deployment be far behind? Now if Apple can be persuaded to release OSX into the wild, we could see some real competitive choices. Windows, OSX, Google OS, Linux, wow! Let the OS wars begin!