Superbook, again.

I’m not sure that the thing can charge another device’s battery. That might have been the idea when it started out, but disappeared as things developed. I’ve set up a small tablet with the Sentio and DisplayLink stuff to get it to work with the Superbook. The best I can say about it is that it appeared to at least not drain the tablet battery – which is good, as it’s a limited tablet that discharges itself quite fast already. That it is also slow (rather nasty pointer lag) is unpleasant, but the idea of hauling it around with the Superbook hardware is nonsense anyway. The point was to have a phone-as-computer setup. This was merely a test.

I tried to use the Superbook as monitor on my main computer, but that requires DisplayLink. I’m running an older version of Linux Mint, and that on an older kernel (due to issues with a graphics card – yes, I just really need to upgrade to the newer Mint), so things didn’t work that way.

The laptop, however, is running the latest stable release. There, DisplayLink installed without (much) issue and after a few moments of goofy display began to run fairly well. It took a minor bit of fiddling. Really, I just needed to work out how the display driver controls worked. I had a dual-monitor (and dual keyboard) setup. The strange thing is that while the laptop has the larger screen, the Superbook has the higher resolution (1920×1080 instead of a mere 1366×768).

It’s just as well that I dislike trackpads. I suspect the Superbook trackpad is flaky at best and might be defunct. At least that means I won’t suffer “touch to mess up focus” with it.

At this point, I’m not sure what, if anything, I will eventually really use the Superbook for. It doesn’t work well with my current phone, which was the real point of the thing, and using it as an addition screen is a bit silly with a laptop, and rather pointless with my other computers. I suppose if I set up a Raspberry Pi for something, I could use it as the user interface – but I already have the main computer, the laptop, another setup for use whilst on treadmill, and there are a couple tablets about. So, for now, the Superbook is a “Great Idea… Almost.”

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Broccoli: What the Heck Is Going On, Anyway?

I do not have any (known) allergies. If I use one particular personal care product more than a couple days, I get something of an itch – so there’s some sensitivity. But it takes time and there are plenty alternative products that do not bother me. And that’s really the only consistent sensitivity I know of. If there are any others, I’ve managed to miss them and will likely continue to. This suits me just fine.

I like, or at least do not mind, broccoli. Or at least that has been the case, and seems to be the normal state of things for me. But in the last several weeks there have been a couple times where I simply couldn’t stand it. It didn’t taste bad to me. Nor was the texture the off-putting element. It was just off-putting to the point I couldn’t take a third or fourth bite. Things with broccoli as an ingredient don’t seem have this effect. I can only somewhat predict when this will happen. I know when it’s a Bad Idea for sure… but it seems I cannot predict when it won’t happen. Last time, I figured I’d have no problem – and then couldn’t stand the broccoli. This is NOT “eat it, suffer effects” but “can’t stand to eat it.”

Other things don’t seem have this issue. Cauliflower is no problem. Nor is spinach, nor green beans. If there is something of an interaction, I have yet to work out what I need to avoid before trying to eat broccoli. This is bewildering.

Early Adopter… or Maybe Not

I am composing this post on my phone, but not exactly. The phone is certainly the electronic “brain” of the system, such as it is. However, I am not using the phone’s screen or on-screen keyboard. Instead, a gadget that the makers Sentio have dubbed the Superbook is supplying a larger display and a physical keyboard. There is also a trackpad which can deal with four points of contact when I checked that. However, due to my preferences, I have a trackball plugged into the spare USB port on the device. I still, at times, wind up using the phone screen as trackpad since that’s the interface Android expects and Sentio desktop is not quite as polished as it perhaps ought to be.

It’s not bad, as such, but it’s more of “this is a hint of how things will become” rather than “the future is now” sort of thing. A couple years ago when the Superbook was designed, the 1080 screen was higher-end (the gadget is about the size of a ‘larger’ netbook or tablet) but in a world where phone resolution has rocketed, even the smallest phone text size setting seems a bit large.

The selling points, not all truly delivered, of the thing are:

1. A larger screen than the phone screen.
2. A real, if not full size, keyboard instead of a screen keyboard.
3. A battery that can run things AND charge your phone while doing so.
4. The phone is the “brain” so a new phone is a new ‘laptop’ sort of thing.
5. Because it’s your phone, it’s always in synch with your phone’s stuff.

Some applications do well with the newer Android windowing setup, others (such the text editor I am using) are “not optimized” for that and a warning is generated, with an “open full screen” option. If things are not well behaved, a sudden close can leave me with a screen showing not the Sentio desktop, but the usual phone display – and sometimes it’s not an easy trip back.

The various software issues, however, are things that can be dealt with and are not as bad as the early days of home computing. For those who weren’t there, crashing was nearly a way of life at times. It’s not that bad, but there are some reminders of the bad old days which indicate this is still the early days of “drop the phone into a terminal-like thing.” The thing that really grates is that the charge system is messed up. I don’t know if this an issue with my Honor 8, the Superbook, or the particular combination. The Superbook is supposed to be charging my phone, supplying up to 8 hours of computing life between the Superbook’s and phone’s batteries. Instead, even at full charge, my phone shows it is in “reverse charge” mode. That is, the charge is flowing FROM the phone, TO the Superbook. This is not supposed to happen and defeats one of the selling points of using it.

I can see that this is where much of computing is likely headed, as ESR has said for some time. If it weren’t for a handful of “heavy computing” things (higher end gaming, virtual world [Second Life, etc.] equivalents to higher end gaming, compiling, and real number-crunching) the traditional desktop and laptop could be replaced by the phone now, if the interface was simple enough. “Drop in phone, surf web, email, do word processing, etc.” is not beyond smartphone abilities. It’s just the interface is lousy. A small display and virtual keyboard is great… for a phone.

As it is, this device is a neat experiment, but it seems to be just that. I might see about installing the Sentio desktop and apps on another phone and see if the charging issue is an Honor 8 thing (a web search indicates this is a common Honor 8 bug, that seems to be relegated to WON’TFIX… guess what my next phone will NOT be? Huawei might or might not be a USA/China security issue, but they’re screwing with my battery: NO SALE) or a Superbook thing. But, in the time waiting the Superbook to ship from its beginnings as an idea on Kickstarter, the computing world has changed. This thing now sells for $139 plus any options (Need any extra cables?, Side-mount for your phone?) but even backers still wonder when theirs will arrive. I sure was wondering – and was annoyed that I had NO notice of shipping and when to expect a parcel. It just showed up.

In the time since the Kickstarter, tablets have improved. You can get a nice Kindle cheap (and you can install Google’s Play Store on it and not have to deal with Amazon’s idiotically lobotomized app store stuff). A month or so ago I acquired an off-brand tablet that might not be the fastest thing, but it was well under $100, runs Android itself, has about the same size screen and (bluetooth) keyboard, and doesn’t drain my phone’s battery. Right now, I’d advise anyone considering this to just get the tablet – it has the advantages… right now.

Oh yeah, there’s that standards thing again, too. This gadget will work with Android devices (recent ones, anyway) and some non-Android devices. But not with iPhones, due to how Apple has things set up. It’s NOT Woz’s company anymore, damnit.

That might change in a few years. Phone CPU (and graphics) are getting ever better, Android or whatever OS comes next is apt to handle real windowing better. I’m having the Early Adopter experience – which is generally not recommended. Sure, I can brag I did it a bit earlier than some, but that’s not really worth much. If you want to move away from big desktop or tower systems as your computing needs aren’t huge, look at the ‘computing bricks’ like the NUC or Mac mini – and you get to keep using a full sized monitor and keyboard.

[And I wound up copying from the text editor, posting via the WordPress app, saving as draft, and doing the last bit from the desktop… which let me deal with spell check and settings that much more easily. That might say more about the WP Android app than anything else, however.]

Humans? Elves? Yes??

In a post on The Value of Pain notes how it seems to be a necessity (beyond simply being Nature’s way of saying “No! Don’t do that!”) and how modern people, of the First World anyway, are ever more insulated from pain. This might not be as good a thing as might have once been imagined. As interesting as that is, what was striking was an exchange and explanation in the comments.

Margaret Ball[1] started it off with:

Maybe we are becoming elves. A long time ago I figured that beings who could expect to live a very long time as long as nobody chopped them into tiny pieces would have an extraordinarily risk-averse culture.

And Sarah[2] herself responded that she had had similar thoughts:

I’ve long wondered if time is circular and we are elves. Long lived. Few children, can do “magic” to medieval and earlier eyes…

Which led to Margaret’s question or quip:

When do we get the unearthly beauty part?

And then Dorothy Grant pointed out humans, at least of the First World, might already qualify:

You know, we’re kinda already there. I mean, how many faces at the grocery store do you see ravaged by smallpox, chicken pox, mumps, and measels? How many adults have a full set of teeth… or can afford dentures? How many elderly people aren’t blind with cataracts? How many people on the street have sun- and wind-ravaged skin, craggy and cracked? Where are our lepers, our amputees on their crutches begging for a crust of bread?

Heck, look around and realize that not only do we have easily a foot on average on the medieval lords, we’ve got all the plumpness that only the richest could afford… (Only a culture where famines never happen[4] could value skinniness instead of plumpness as a standard of beauty.)

And when you look around the average collection of geek, you’ll find that we have the milk-white skin so prized as the most unattainable luxury by a culture that had to work under the sun all day just to not starve.

While I have met and worked with a couple amputees, they were notable for being that exceptional – and they both seemed to find that prosthetics didn’t help enough to be worthwhile for them. As for pock marks and such? Those are now largely teenage acne – and there are even remedies for that now, ranging from mild stuff available to anyone anytime, to serious prescription-only drugs. The modern food issue is either too much, too much of the wrong thing, or a matter of distribution. Starvation, where it occurs, is not a product of poor production, but of criminal governance.

Also, this makes those going on about how “evolution is no longer happening” look a bit silly. The humans are evolving themselves into elves of sorts (the pointy ear thing… mis-understood BlueTooth earpieces perhaps?), even if they are doing so without conscious intent. But that’s how evolution by natural selection works. If done with intent, it is called ‘breeding’ or even ‘eugenics’.

——

[1] Margaret Ball has some books that might be of interest. I am partway through the ‘Applied Topology’ series (Mathematics as ‘Magic’ – don’t panic! You do NOT need to be a mathematical type to be entertained.

[2] Sarah Hoyt has a number of books out in case, somehow, you hadn’t heard. I rather like her ‘Shifter’ books and the ‘Furniture Refinishing’ (‘light’ murder mystery, if such a thing can be said to exist) series. But don’t limit yourself. The Darkship stuff has won awards – and not Hugo or Nebula, but real awards that demand good story rather than narrative allegiance.

[3] Why, yes, Dorothy Grant also has some books that might interest you. I admit I cannot say anything as so far my reading has not gotten to that point in the ‘To Be Read’ stack.

[4] Emphasis mine.

It Was Nice While It Lasted

The local restaurant that had given up on my ‘strange’ drinks and just put a button for me on their drinks menu has dropped their liquor license. Family issues, legal issues, mean the place will be getting a new name and when the license expired it didn’t make sense to renew it with the soon-to-be-old name. I found this out a week or so ago when I walked in and saw the bar devoid of bottles.

The place will be closed between Christmas and New Years to change some things. Looks to be perhaps more than just menus and signage. The owner mentioned what profits needed to be for the liquor, and as the place is more restaurant than bar (it’s not open late into the night as the bars are) it makes sense to drop hard liquor, and due to the way Minnesota law is set up, wine goes with it, and real beer as well. When the place re-opens there will likely eventually be beer again. But, being Minnesota, beer-only will mean mere 3.2 beer.

Hopefully the changes will 1) thwart the relative(s) who figured they could grab everything by grabbing the name 2) make the business (more?) profitable for the owner thus 3) ensuring the survival of the enterprise – even if I can’t get a right, proper drink there any more. Minnesota being Minnesota, there is public allowance for the silliness of 3.2 beer (it’s all any place not a liquor store can sell ‘off sale’ (for off-site consumption)). And I suppose being mere 3.2 it is somewhat low-carb – for beer, anyway.

And, due to a very good relationship with the owner, a few bottles he and his would not likely be using or drinking themselves have wound up in my possession. I might be set for some considerable time for a few good gins, a decent tequila, and I think I was the only creature he ever encountered who drank Campari at all. Really, I suspect there is only one place in town that might serve Campari now – and that place is known for being expen$ive. Besides, I can mix more at home than the local bars can – and I’m in the slow process of winnowing down the collection, as having done a lot of exploration, I think I can settle on a few things. And even then I’ll have a few ‘oddballs’ I’ll need to travel to get.

Moo.

Moo.

Timing…

Last week Friday while Jay was at work, I went out for something and things seemed about normal until I got back home. The overhead garage door wasn’t quite closed. It wasn’t truly open, but there was a gap of a couple inches or so. I had no luck getting the door up and open, nor fully down and staying there. I gave up, having parked on the street and being a bit ill yet (cold hit me hard the previous Saturday – mostly over it, but some effects linger) and tired.

Jay checked it out at lunch and saw what I missed: One of the springs was broken. The door is too heavy to lift without the aid of the springs. Home Depot in $DISTANT_TOWN was called as they were the only place that would do anything on Saturday. And Saturday came and went and the call back from them never came. I think they got called again on Monday to let them know they lost business and we are Not Impressed. Jay then found who had done the installation for us – some years ago we had the overhead door & such replaced as the old one never quite worked right and tended to jam.

The fellow came on Tuesday, I think, and realized just how heavy the door is and found he doesn’t even carry springs that big now. (“As long as nobody runs into it, that door should last forever.”) He’d have to order in or have made up the right springs. He might have them as early as Thursday afternoon, but Friday was more likely. It was Friday.

We got lucky, relatively. The spring failed when both vehicles were out of the garage so we weren’t down to only one (or none – a third is in storage). Also, the weather was relatively warm most of the week. Window scraping happened only once, I think.

Very late Friday morning or very early afternoon the job was done. And just in time. It’s snowing and the vehicles are in the garage again.