The weekend before we put her asleep was very rough. She couldn't keep anything inside of her for long. Her fur was covered in nasty stuff this morning. She didn't have the energy to get to the catbox less than a meter away, or clean herself afterward.

The appointment was late in the morning. I took advantage of my working-at-home status, at pulled my laptop down to the floor so I could get in some scritching.

We decided to go to the local animal hospital instead of our standard vet to put Kimiko to sleep. The vet was surprisingly skillful -- and fast. He gently introduced himself to her. He was advised that it'd be best to give her an anesthetic first as she was likely to fight tooth and nail. We petted and talked to Kimi and one hissing thrash later, it was done.

We were left alone with her for a few minutes, petting, talking, and crying. I snapped a final picture. Kimi has been having problems maintaining her balance for months now. Even when sitting on all four paws, she wavered back and forth slightly. As the drugs took hold, she suddenly toppled over nearly falling off the exam table. It was only then I realized that she had been using all her strength just to sit. Sleeping had been incredibly difficult for her for months as well. No wonder why she held any spot she took so fiercely.

Within minutes, her eyes dilated, and her breathing became short and shallow. We checked and she was indeed, quite malleable. The vet came in. Gently he positioned her, wetted a thigh, and gave her a final injection. It was a light, garish pink, the color of watered down cinnamon mouthwash. 10cc's went in, and we were left alone once more.

We said our tearful goodbyes to the tiny, emaciated little white cat I had known and loved for over three years. We kissed her on the head. A small puff came from the body and her breathing stopped. I petted her one last time, gently pressing the tiny pink pads on her paws -- something she rarely allowed in life.

Goodbye, by all your names:

Hecate,

Little Miss Pinky Paws, and

Kimiko,

You will be deeply missed.

This morning an article came across my feed that crystallized to me how wrong-headed the tech blogosphere is about the stylus. In this Read-write-web article, the author argues that the iPad isn't a proper drawing surface. I am in complete agreement with this point. A touchable interface is the cornerstone of the Tablet experience. Unfortunately, the Tablet fails when it comes to the production of artistic works. The author argues that the fault is the lack of physical feedback of the touchscreen. Instead, the software uses other kinds of feedback such as sound, graphics, or vibration. 

Which doesn't make any sense.

Most artists, particularly those that create 2D work such as drawings or illustrations, start with physical media. It's cheap, versatile, and yes, it's physical feedback is simply unmatched. Many webcomic artists start with physical media, and scan in their drawings to publish their stories. While this works, it has a number of drawbacks in the digitial world. Scans can be blurry or messy. Cleanup can take a large amount of time, and scanners can be fussy, broken, or unavailable. 

Enter the Wacom graphics tablet. I bought my Graphire 2 while I was in college early in the millennium. The $99 USB device still works and is still in service today. What's interesting about this bare-bones device is what it lacks. It has no display. No vibration. It doesn't even have buttons! Yet, I and many other artists can produce and continue to produce wonder pieces of art thanks to it and it's descendants. You'd think that the iPad and other tablets would be the ultimate "artist's digital sketchbook". 

But tablets suck at artwork. They are flatly unacceptable. The problem isn't haptics, or display resolution, or any of that nonsense. It all comes down to one simple thing:

Precision. 

Tablet touchscreens lack precision due to the nature of the technology. If you've ever held up a touchscreen and reflected light off of it at just the right angle, you'll notice a grid of "dots" cover the screen. Each dot is a tiny capacitor that can register a scale of contact. Clever (and highly patentable) mathematics are used to "guess" where you actually tapped on the screen. The problem is that capacitive touchscreens aren't manufactured to have the resolution required by artists. They are simply too expensive for the average consumer. 

Compare this with the technology behind a Wacom tablet. This device uses not capacitors, but a magnetic field using wires (circuit tracings) and a coil inside the stylus. The nature of this technology allows much greater densities of tap registration. With a little clever circuity in the stylus, pressure sensitivity can be measured with a minimum of additional components. This formula has worked well for Wacom, and digital artists for years and years. While it takes effort to get used to the lack of physical feedback provided by traditional media, a skilled artist can overcome that problem within hours. The result is clean digital lines without any scanning artifacts. 

But it has one critical problem. You need a stylus. 

The inductive system Wacom uses does not work with fingers. You can touch a Wacom tablet (with the exception of the Bamboo line) all day and not get a single click. Capacitive touchscreens take advantage of the conductive nature of fingers, and use that as a means to register taps. This is also why sausages work with touchscreens. In a mobile device world, this can be an advantage as only conductive objects register as taps, and it's unlikely you'll be carrying pieces of metal or meat in your book bag or pocket. Styli that work with touchscreens actually have a piece of rubber or plastic with a conductive coating. That's why they work. You can actually create a touchscreen stylus yourself with an old pen and some conductive foam commonly used to transport integrated circuits. 

The stylus has gained a bad reputation since the iPhone became the darling of the tech blogger world. This reputation is entirely undeserved, as the fault isn't the stylus, but the screens used at the time. In addition to Capacitive and Inductive, there's an older touchscreen tech -- resistive. The Palm series of PDAs heavily relied on resistive touchscreens. The physical configuration is similar to capacitive touchscreens, but relies on a different electronic property. When Palm was king, resistive screens were readily available and inexpensive. With a simple pointing device and again, clever mathematics, a tap could be registered and narrowed to a small region.

The problem is that resistive screens registered any and all physical taps. Furthermore, they had to be built using flexible material that deflected on contact. Capacitive touchscreens do not need physical deflection. As the size of the screens were often small in this age of mobile devices, a stylus was required to register taps accurately. Fingers were simply too mooshy. When Apple came along with the right combination of existing technologies, the stylus became the whipping child of an earlier era of technology.

The stylus is not the enemy. Bad touchscreen tech is. 

As of late, the Internet seems to be reconsidering the stylus. Thinkgeek popularized the idea of a capacitive touchscreen stylus to avoid the greasiness inherent to a finger controlled interface. Wacom has recently began producing a "premium" capacitive stylus under it's Bamboo brand. Yet, there hasn't been one article that doesn't repeat the words of Steve Jobs: "If you see a stylus, you blew it." The author of the article expands on this point:

Apple's second mobile operating system nearly eliminated the friction between the software and the physical human interacting with it. It felt like touching and manipulating the actual pixels. A stylus would just be an inert barrier in between.

And that is completely wrong when it comes to artwork.

For centuries, if not millennia, artists have used sticks of charcoal, quills, brushes, pens, and pencils in order to produce drawings and illustrations. These devices are long, usually cylindrical, and are often controlled by pinching them between the pointer finger and the thumb. Sound familiar? The stylus inherits this form factor. In addition to sheer familiarity, this form factor has been sucessful for one reason:

The stylus is not an inert element. It is an active, mechanical element that acts as a movement reduction device.

Leonardo da Vinci did not use finger paints, he used a brush. The stylus, pen, brush, and so on translates the relatively large mechanical movements of the hand into smaller more precise movements necessary for the production of detailed artwork. This was, coincidentally, why the stylus was necessary on Palm and Windows Mobile devices. The screens were smaller as they were more expensive to produce. The stylus allowed more precise input on the smaller surface.

Today, this remains a problem even on the relatively larger size of the tablet computer. Using a finger to produce artwork is akin to using finger paints. It's messy, clumsy, and the results tend to be prized the most by the parents of diminutive artists. A stylus is required to make artwork more detailed as fingers are too large to do it accurately. The problem is that current capacitive styli replicate not pens, but fingers. The tips are large and squishy, making it seems like finger painting with a cleaner, straighter finger. Pen-precise styli could easily be created, but the touch resolution of the average touchscreen is not yet up to the task. There are too few capacitiors, and they are too far apart.

The problem is not the stylus, dear tech bloggers. The problem is the screen. 

Yesterday I passed the Extra Class Amateur Radio exam. When I first got back into this hobby, I had only expected to pass the Technician class test and leave it at that for some months or years. When I passed, the VEs (Volunteer Examiners) vocally suggested I should take my chances with the General-class exam. After all, I only needed to pay them $15 once no matter how many tests I took that day. So, I sat down and muddled my way through. To my surprised, I passed the General class with a margin of one question. The VEs then suggested I take the Extra, but I knew I wouldn't pass that one, not without studying.

Today, there are three classes of Ham Radio licenses -- Technician, General, and Extra. The material is cumulative, in order to take one exam, you must pass each one that precedes it. The questions from all exam classes are multiple-choice, and each derive from a nation-wide question pool. Other countries may have similar processes, and even borrow heavily from one another as many questions only concern physics that know no nationality. While the Tech and General class exams are 30 questions each, the Extra-class exam in 50 questions. No only is the exam longer, the question pool is bigger and the questions much, much more difficult. Techs need only know the two most basic Ohm's Law equations: Resistance (R) = Voltage (E) / Amperage (I), and Watts (P) = Amperage * Voltage. (This leads my personal mnemonic "Ohm's law for Evangelion Fans", R=E/I likes P=I*E, or "Rei likes Pie".) Generals need to know the expansions of the basic Ohm's Law equations such as P=i²*R as well as how to calculate series and parallel resistances and capacitances. Extras need to know much more complex things like Impedance, bandwidth calculations, and Resonance. There has been a suggestion that the huge jump in complexity is due to the fact that the much newer Tech and General question pools were made easier in the last review. The Extra question pool is older, and reflects the much more technical bent of earlier tests. 

The Extra Class exam pool is due to be revised on July 1st, 2012. As a consequence, all the books and materials you may find months before that date reflect the older question pool. This means that you either study now before the new pool comes into effect, or you wait until new books can be published to help you study. You either study now and take the test before July, or you may have to wait until late this year just to get started. Last fall, I had checked out the ARRL's study guide for the Extra Class exam, but found it meandering and poorly written. Eventually, I gave up trying to make sense of the incomprehensible mess it presented to me. Switching to a question-centric approach, I had purchased the ARRL's Extra Class Q+A as an eBook early last winter. I slowly slogged through half of it, but I found the explanations terse and laid out in numerical order of the question pool. This was a horrible way to study. 

Some months ago, a friend bought Gordon West's General Class study guide. The writing in these books is surprisingly good. The questions have been reorganized so that similar questions are grouped together. The explanation text is much more helpful than the ARRL's Q+A books. After sitting on the idea for a few weeks, I drove up to my local ham store and bought the Extra Class book. I tore through it in a week, surprising even myself. Afterward, I planned to drill using Eham.net's online exam generator. This turned out to be the best way, as the question pool is some 700 questions. Each question pool, including the mammoth Extra, is broken up into topic-related portions called "Elements". You only get a few questions from each element. By using the generator, you get a random sampling from each element put together like a real test. Typically I'd take one or two practice exams each night. If I couldn't remember an equation, or couldn't guess an answer with any confidence, I'd open the book for help. 

Throughout this process, I did not give much consideration as to why I was doing this. Each license class gives you additional operative privileges. Mostly, this comes down to how much radio spectrum in which you can play. Techs are granted most of the Ham bands above 30Mhz. This includes the two most popular VHF bands, 6 meters (50-54Mhz) and 2 meters (144-148Mhz), and the 70cm (420-450Mhz) UHF band. General Class gives you access to much of the HF bands. These are great for long-distance communication. Extras are allowed key segments of the HF bands that are the best for long-distance, or "DX", contacts. One might think I'd be excited to dive into these most-privileged portions of the ham radio spectrum, but that isn't really the case. 

People who chase long-distance contacts, "DXers", dream of being Extras. Those dreams also include kilowatt transmitters and "antenna farms" sprouting from rooftops and the tippy-top of metal tower from their backyard. While it may be fun to someday have those things, that's simply impossible given my current living situation. I live in a second story apartment in Minneapolis. My antenna -- intended for service on the roof of a car -- is magnet-mounted to the metal railing of my balcony. And while I have a transmitter capable of 100 watts of output, I love my tiny QRP rig with a miniscule output of 5 watts. Any contact I make with this setup astounds me. The new spectrum allotted to Extras is typically reserved for Morse Code enthusiasts. Something I have a passing interest in, but I'm much more sanguine about digital modes such as PSK31. 

So why? Why even bother with Extra?

There's several reasons I pursued this. In my day job, I build education material for enterprise software. While it's a challenge in it's own right, it isn't per se a technical challenge. Ham Radio presents this challenge, and the Extra Class exam presented a neat goal and a short and satisfying time-line of several weeks. I wanted to prove to myself that I could pass this test, learning all the necessary electrical and operating theory to back it up. And, for lack of better words, it was in front of me. Passing the Extra means I've arrived at an endpoint, and now I can enjoy the craft without seeing something above me. I can move on to other challenges such as catching better contacts, newer modes, and someday building my own radio from scratch. 

But that'll be another day.

P.S.: In case you're wondering, I decided not to change my call sign at this time. My current one is ridiculous, unpronounceable, and I've grown quite fond of it.

Earlier this evening a friend sent out a request on Twitter:

@[redacted] needs a new laptop. Any recommendations? She needs win7 and not too expensive.

I found something that met the criteria and quickly sent off a reply. There wasn't much too the request. Desktop Computers (including laptops) haven't changed much for the last few years. Even the specs have for the most part stabilized: 2 to 4 cores, 1.5-2.1 GHz, 4 - 8GB of memory, Hard Drives up to 750GB... Getting a new computer is simply no longer exciting. 

Contrast this with mobile devices. Smartphones and tablets have come to such an amazing prominence that they now consist of the majority of Internet traffic today. Most people in the US consume content on websites, blogs, and social media on these devices from the sofa while watching television. I too, have succumbed to this madness last summer and bought one myself. Yet, they are rarely considered machines on which you "can get work done". Just try to develop a web site on an iPad.

And that's the shameful part of it: you should be able to develop a website on a tablet. Hell, you should be able to write and compile software on it. My HP TouchPad has more CPU and memory power than the computer I used in college to write my assignments and compile my C++ code. Spec-wise, there should be no reason why a tablet of today could not supplant a desktop-class machine. The problem is the industrial complex including both the hardware manufacturers and the OS developers.

Apple championed the ideal of "owning the entire stack". They build the hardware, they code the software. This allowed Apple to integrate the two with spectacular refinement since the late Steve Job's return. There's also the opposing edge to that sword: You are at their mercy. If they decide to no longer support your model -- as Apple has with their recently announced Mountain Lion -- you're out of luck. Fork over another $1500 and you'll be reinstated into grace.

It's with distaste that other manufacturers have taken up the same methods, hoping to swell their coffers in the same manner as Cupertino. Since the original Droid, we've been fighting locked bootloaders on Android phones and tablets. The strategy hasn't worked. Samsung, Motorola, HTC; you're not Apple. You don't have the same fanatics or the legacy of a charismatic figure promising us a skeuomorphic Rapture of the Hipsters. What you can do sounds simple, but requires more thought and much more risk.

HTC is a prime example of Doing It Wrong. They seemingly put out a new smartphone model every month. None of them are distinct, and the modifications to stock Android, HTC Sense, provides only a minimal visual flare at the cost of increased pace of obsolescence. More than once, a firmware update has been held up because Sense couldn't be shoehorned into a popular device. At least once, a device that had an announced upgrade was canceled because Sense wouldn't fit. The subsequent outcry called for a a Sense-less upgrade, but HTC's response was lukewarm.

Apple did have it right with part of their formula: The number of models should not exceed the fingers on one hand. The times those models are replaced with a newer version should not exceed once a year. Customers like it simple. Do it right; don't rush anything out the door and make sure it's solid.

This is why I've watched developments in Windows 8 with great interest. Microsoft is trying to create a tablet experience in which you Can Get Work Done. While the hybrid Metro/Aero environment is abominable, their aim really does seem well thought out, if unsettlingly different. For the first time, ARM will be supported as a major Windows platform. Furthermore, the experience is "touch first". Microsoft hopes the touchscreen will be standard computer equipment going forward.

What is possibly more interesting to me is what open source developers will do. With Microsoft pushing touch interfaces, the tablet form factor will become the de facto standard. The two most popular desktop environments are already gearing up for this change. GNOME3 is taking a radical unified approach, casting off old mouse-centric WIMP interfaces and aiming for a blend not unlike Windows 8. KDE is remixing their astonishingly flexible DE into Plasma Active. For the moment, it is difficult to find a touch device on which either of these open source stacks will run. I hope that with the release of Windows 8, this will change.

That is, if Microsoft doesn't screw it up.

They already are, sadly. As part of the Windows 8 operating system, Microsoft is pushing "secure boot". If this sounds like the return of the Android locked bootloader controversy, you're right. This time it's bigger and meaner. While x86 based tablets will have no requirement to use secure boot, any ARM based tablets will. Furthermore, Microsoft will deny manufacturers the right to apply the Certified for Windows 8 sticker if an ARM tablet allows the user to disable the secure boot feature. One may think the solution would be to stick with x86, but the venerable CISC architecture was never designed for low power operation -- something critical for a mobile device. ARM, on the other hand, is specifically geared to function in an embedded context.

There are several technical discussions elsewhere on the 'net highlighting why "secure boot" is little more than DRM in disguise. Microsoft intends to create a technical vendor lock, preventing the upstart Linuxes from whittling away their overwhelming marketshare. It's petty. It'd devious. And they probably can get away with it. Universe knows Apple has for years.

Is there no hope for those of us that wish to run on an open source stack? If the open source community has shown anything, it's determination. Despite smartphone manufacturers best efforts, bootloaders have been cracked and hardware wrested from their control.

A famous hacker once put it thus: If a thing can be decrypted, it can be stolen reclaimed.

Since last weekend, I spent my evenings manually moving content on deninet. It many ways, it was an exhausting process, but it gave me something to do while I suffer through the last two seasons of Star Trek: Voyager. Let me chart how I arrived at this point. 

Over vacation time in December, I decided to conduct a little experiment. I would attempt to upgrade the current deninet website from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7. When I had attempted this a year ago, it did not go well. The upgrade process crashed spectactually, leaving me with a lump of a database. Thankfully I was doing this on a local copy, and not the live site. I had speculated that in the interviening year, Drupal would have ironed out a lot of the edge cases I originally ran into. So, I copied off the site and tried again. To my astonishment, it worked. 

This created a dilemma. The previous year I had created a new deninet website by manually copying content from the version based on Drupal 6 to the new one based on Drupal 7. When all the features I needed to run the site were available, I'd switch to the new site. I had maintained the D7 fork from time to time, manually importing nodes and to make sure the two sites where in sync. At the time, this seemed the best way to go. I would lose things like comments and break all the URLs, but the end would be a good move. 

Except that the new site never seemed to get anywhere. 

I had reservations about the URLs and the comments. While I could bury my feelings, claming it was for "the greater good", it still bothered me. There was the bigger issue that I really wasn't getting anywhere with the D7 site. It sat and languished, while I couldn't resolve the issue. 

After successfully upgrading the site, I began to wonder if I could take a more fluid approach. I used Pathauto to create URLs that would be the same for both the current D6 site, as well as a D7 site -- upgraded or new. The biggest problem was images.