An Update on MCI

My brain. I think. No, not really. I imagine.Two months ago I posted about my mild cognitive impairment diagnosis, here. Since then, I have been tooling along as normal feeling no symptoms. The people I am surrounded by have told me they do not notice any diminished capacity and I have to trust they are being honest with me.

Among those people are a small group of fellow writers where we share work we’re developing. I have continued to bring my own work to the group. And they would clearly see, and honestly let me know if they’d noticed any change.

At the advice of my neurologist I also hand a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan of the old noggin’. I got the results two weeks ago and had a 5 minute office visit with the neurologist. Essentially, no issues were found!

I looked at the neurologist for a few moments (we were both wearing masks, obviously). Then I said, just to be sure. “That’s good news, right?”

He said. “Yes. That’s good news.”

That was it! I nearly floated out of the office. My wife was with me, in case I misheard or misunderstood some complicated piece of medical information. When we got into the car, I wept a little bit in relief.

I feel I have new life and energy. And a sense of urgency to get some things done. Who knows how long this all will last. None of us knows. Carpe diem!r

This Seems Reasonable

I occasionally get spam voice mails to my Google phone. It’s not a number I answer so the i only hear the message when I play the recording. I got one the other day. Here’s the transcript:

“I’m charged $1,499. We noticed some suspicious activity on your account. So we have put on hold to this transaction, please press one now. And to report please press two.”

That’s quite an accurate transcript of the message. But it seems like something was left out at the beginning before the recording kicked in. But to get the full effect of how ludicrous and bumbling this attempt is, you should really listen to the audio.

I really don’t get it. Is anyone ever fooled by this kind of thing? I surely hope not.

Joy Sorrow Fear Anger

 

3 weeks and 1 day ago, our first grandchild was brought into the world. This made us gloriously happy. But it was accompanied by a deep sadness. Because of the pandemic we have had to put off indefinitely flying out to visit our grandson, daughter, and son-in-law. Zoom is just not an adequate substitute for holding and helping care for a newborn.

We fear picking up the virus and bringing it to them. We fear, as people in the more vulnerable age range, getting the thing ourselves. The descriptions of the suffering and death that many have faced with the virus are truly harrowing.

And I worry about what kind of world we are leaving Giovanni Dawson. The pandemic, the looming economic meltdown, a chaotic and nasty public sphere of politics, the climate catastrophe all feel like crushing pressures to face. I am angry about the state of the world. 

And yet, there he is and he makes my heart melt.

I have to remind myself that in the span of time, new people have been born into equally, often far more troubling times. Most of human history has been brutally harsh. Much of the world still faces hardships I can’t imagine surviving. But children manage. Children thrive.

So, on balance, I am comforted to know that Gio will be loved and cared for. And sometime soon we will find a way to hold him. Until then, I have to be satisfied by watching over him like some kind of digital guardian angel.

Sleep tight baby Gio.

Giovanni Dawson
Gio asleep in his crib.

Reviews of Free Zoom Alternatives

Video conferencingBrief Reviews of Free Video Conferencing Platforms

After using a licensed version of Zoom for a month, I began casting about for free alternatives that would satisfy the basic needs of a couple group meetings that we participate in regularly. Don’t get me wrong. I like, Zoom. I just didn’t want to spend the money right now for something I could get by on for free. I’m cheap that way.

Our needs are pretty minimal: Allow for at least 10 participants, have screen sharing and offer meetings lasting up to 2 hours.

I subscribe to several tech-oriented newsletters and so have received links to a bunch of articles that point to Zoom alternatives. But none seem to have all the services I have found, each only pointing to a few. Here’s my offering of listing all the options I have found so far. I’m not trying to review them all as I haven’t had time to thoroughly test each service. And the services keep evolving faster than I can keep track.

I will list my top two free services and then the rest I’ve at least looked at.

Jitsi – So far this is my favorite. It’s dead simple to use from their website, and has apps for mobile devices (iOS, Android). At the time I checked the limit was set to 75 participants if you are using their server. There are no time limits. It touts end to end encryption and screen sharing. For large groups it has the hand raising feature so a moderator can have some control of the conversation. Most interesting of all. it’s an open source project which means anyone can download it and build apps on top of the code or modify the code. You can also run your own Jitsi server if you have the chops and want to go beyond their server limits. There are additional features like recording your calls that make this pretty robust for a free service.

Google Hangouts –  This was the first free video conferencing system I’d tried and, though it seems to be in constant flux, it still holds its own. They’ve opened up the number of participants to only 25 people per call (with the 10 most active participants shown at the bottom of the screen). You can record your calls, but to store the calls in your account you would have to pay a small monthly fee. This post has a feature comparison between Zoom and Hangouts

Google Duo – Duo has a nice interface. However, I couldn’t find a screen sharing feature. Also, you connect with people using their phone number. So, that’s a different approach. There is a limit to 12 people and has end to end encryption.

Skype – Part of the Microsoft family, Skype has been around for quite a long time and it’s pretty robust. From their Fair Use Policy on Group Video: “Group video calls are subject to a fair usage limit of 100 hours per month with no more than 10 hours per day and a limit of 4 hours per individual video call. Once these limits have been reached, the video will switch off and the call will convert to an audio call. If a participant of a group video call is not on a version of Internet Communications Software that supports group video calls, then the call will be an audio call only for that participant. The number of permitted participants on a group video call varies from 3 to a maximum of 50, depending upon device and associated system requirements. You can find more details at www.skype.com/go/gvc.” I didn’t find a screen sharing feature, though, so this makes it not so great for my purposes.

Discord – This service was originally built for gamers to chat,  but is now used by a variety of groups. The video/screen sharing service is limited to 10 people. I have had limited experience with this service, but plan to give it a try just to learn its capabilities. Desktop and App versions. There’s even one for Linux! That’s unusual.

Spike – This is an interesting option that combines email and video conferencing. It’s also free if you are using a generic email account like @gmail.com or @yahoo.com. However, the free version is limited to 10 chat participants. But if you are using a custom domain email like @morsemedia.net then it’s $5.99/mo paid annually, and there are no limits.

Summary

That’s it for now. I’m sure more services will appear as video conferencing will not be going away, even as the pandemic fades. What did I miss? What are your favorites? Let me know in the comments.

Small Adventures in Cryptocurrency and Blockchain

Back in 2014, I began to read about Bitcoin, a new type of currency. I had no idea what it was or how it worked. But I had seen the price rising. At the time 1 Bitcoin was already worth about $566, having started at essentially zero 6 years before.

I decided I wanted to learn more about Bitcoin and the technology behind it. I was afraid I’d already missed the boat, so I only wanted to dabble and not “bet the farm”. I signed up for an account on Coinbase (disclosure: I get a small reward if you sign up using that link), already an established Bitcoin marketplace. I bought 1/5 of a Bitcoin for around $114 as a way to keep the concept in front of me. I didn’t actively trade, just watched as it meandered in value and then, suddenly began to take off. As of today, my investment is worth over $2000.

Bitcoin, cryptocurrency

Unfortunately, as you can tell from that, I am not a crypto millionaire. But I really didn’t set out with that goal. I’m much too cautious for that. Still, I have made more than enough to pay for my new iPhone X. I just need to figure out when to pull the trigger and cash out enough to cover that cost. Should I hold? Should I take some of my gains now? (BTW, whenever I do, I will have to pay taxes on them).

In the meantime, my dabbling has kept me interested in the whole cryptocurrency field and the underlying technology called Blockchain. This included following the incredible story of Silk Road that used Bitcoin to trade in drugs and other nefarious goods and services. What the hell had I invested in?

But Silk Road was brought down and the dark reputation of Bitcoin was slowly rehabilitated. Some business started taking Bitcoin as payment. Cryptocurrency broke into multiple variants, like Ethereum, LiteCoin, and many others. In fact, at one point Coinbase split my Bitcoin holding in two, so suddenly I was the owner of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. It’s all still quite muddled, but also exciting to watch.

And the buzz around the possibilities of Blockchain and how it may affect our lives well beyond Cryptocurrency is even more interesting. Some have claimed Blockchain will prove more revolutionary than the advent of the Internet itself. Others are not so enthusiastic.

It’s difficult to separate the hype from reality at this stage. But if you want to get just a basic idea of what a blockchain is without getting a headache, I suggest watching this: