News: AI will not kill us, says Microsoft

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Sunday, November 6, 2022.

Baby tech should let everyone sleep

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Wednesday, February 22, 2017.

Baby tech should let everyone sleep

The range of baby technology now available is astonishing. You can load up with a smart sock, smart diapers, smart pacifier, phone connected scales (doppler, ultrasound...), Nespresso for formula, a cry translator and of course a wide range of ultra-sensitive, night-vision stalking, shrieking / vibrating baby monitoring systems.

But all this innovation is mostly being wasted on paranoid first time parents who need to obsessively check that everything is OK every five seconds (not judging, have been there).

What I need is a baby monitor that does one thing: wait a minute per month of age and see if there is still a problem. Stay silent until this threshold is passed.

As usual, billionaire investor readers please call me.

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(Published to the Fediverse as: Baby tech should let everyone sleep #etc #parenting #baby #sleep #tech #lazyweb A proposal for a baby monitor that waits a minute per month of age before it alerts you to anything. )

Every House I've Ever Lived In

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Thursday, November 12, 2015.

Every House I've Ever Lived In

Here's a list of every house I've ever lived in. It's 32 across four continents - a different one every 15 months or so which is impressive as I lived in one of them for ten years.

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(Published to the Fediverse as: Every House I've Ever Lived In #etc #bio #houses A project to document every house I have lived in through Google Maps - so far 32 of them. )

News: No need to breed like rabbits - Pope

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Sunday, October 16, 2022.

GDP, The Music Video

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Saturday, February 19, 2022.

GDP, The Music Video

The time on screen for each country is proportional to its Gross Domestic Product.

GDP figures are from the United Nations for 2013 from Wikipedia. Flag images are also from Wikipedia via the handy Google region-flags project. Music is "Money to Burn" by Alex (cc).

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(Published to the Fediverse as: GDP, The Music Video #etc #gdp #video A music video made from flags where the amount of time on screen is proportional to the GDP of each country. )

News: The War Nerd: More proof the US defense industry has nothing to do with defending America

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Thursday, November 12, 2015.

News: Prototype Companion Cube, 1980

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Sunday, October 23, 2022.
Prototype Companion Cube, 1980

And I ordered my 80s outfit right before reading this... (posting mainly to test my spanking new Feedly integration)

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Nine for Exchange email on Android

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Sunday, May 3, 2020.

Nine for Exchange email on Android

I have been super frustrated with the stock email client on Android which seems to crash about 50% of the time when I reply to ActiveSync / Exchange email.

Last week I discovered Nine which handles both Exchange and GMail if you're an apps for business user. It handles email, calendar and tasks beautifully and can present a combined mailbox from several accounts. The app is nicely designed and so far hasn't crashed or hung for me which has reduced the amount of daily swearing I aim at my phone considerably.

If you need to access Exchange on Android I can't recommend Nine highly enough.

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(Published to the Fediverse as: Nine for Exchange email on Android #etc #email Nine is still the best way to get Outlook / Microsoft Exchange email on Android. )

Fermi Suicide

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Wednesday, June 2, 2021.

Fermi Suicide

One family of solutions to the Fermi Paradox is that civilizations die out before they communicate - natural disaster, nuclear war, etc. This sort of calamity seems plausible some of the time but it would need to happen all of the time. What if any sufficiently advanced society inevitably discovers irrefutable proof that free will is an illusion and just gives up?

Depressing. I prefer this.

(This is a joke. For a more serious consideration please read this.)

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(Published to the Fediverse as: Fermi Suicide #etc #fermi #seti Does the inevitable discovery that free will is an illusion explain the Fermi Paradox? )

Leaving Chrome

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Saturday, February 12, 2022.

Leaving Chrome

My Chromebook was stolen over the weekend. The good news is that I didn't lose anything given the cloud only nature of the device. The bad news was that I didn't really want to get a new one.

I loved the cost and the boot speed and being able to do nearly everything I needed to with a browser-in-a-box.

But the nearly was a deal breaker. I sometimes need to VPN and the Chromebook wouldn't. It just wasn't compatible with our flavor of VPN and I didn't want to buy another Chromebook on the off chance that Google would eventually fix this. I also have to use Skype (I'd rather not) and this isn't really possible on the Chromebook either. Imo.im was good while it lasted. IM+ is horrible.

I've abandoned the Chrome dream and picked up a Surface Pro 3.

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Read the full Chromebook Adventure

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(Published to the Fediverse as: Leaving Chrome #etc #microsoft #google #chromebook #surface Why I moved back to Windows after a year of using a Chromebook as my secondary system. )