Home networking has been a frequent topic that I pursued for personal reasons to get the best coverage in my house. My last house was a ranch style with the cable Internet coming in the center of the house. With cheap routers, this meant the signal dropped off at either end of the house. I first used powerline adapters to distribute the Internet to the ends of the house and … [Read more...]
The CS Detective – An algorithmic tale of crime, conspiracy, and computation
I just finished The CS Detective by Jeremy Kubica. It is a story of an officer kicked off the police force, turned private investigator. The narrative is a fictional mystery that has the goal of explaining search algorithms and data structures to organize and process searching. The author is a principal engineer at Google with a PhD in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University … [Read more...]
Book Review: Growing Up Social: Raising relational kids in a screen-driven world
I recently listened to the audiobook version of Growing Up Social: Raising Relational Kids in a Screen-Driven World by Gary Chapman and Arlene Pellicane. Gary Chapman is the author of The 5 Love Languages. I thought Growing Up Social did a fairly good job at trying to be reasonable rather than just saying "technology = bad". It did not take the approach of trying to get rid of … [Read more...]
Book Review – Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World
I picked up Blockchain Revolution by Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott because I was interested in learning more about the applications of blockchain technology. I know plenty about Bitcoin from first-hand experience with it and previous readings, so I was interested to see where the the technology behind it was heading. The first half of the book satisfied some of that curiosity … [Read more...]
Product review: iClever Himbox car Bluetooth adapter
In addition to picking up some tech podcasts for my commute, I also wanted to adapt my car to use Bluetooth for hands-free communication and using the car's speakers for playback. My car is old enough that it does not natively have Bluetooth but it does have a 3.5mm AUX port where I can plug devices in. The common 3.5 mm connection from the headphone jack is very common but it … [Read more...]