Lee Family 2016 Year In Review

Here is our Lee Family 2016 Year In Review. It is our 11th edition, and prior editions can be viewed here. For home movies, visit Victor's YouTube channel.

A Virtual Reality Revolution

Yesterday I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain and rode The New Revolution Virtual Reality Coaster for the first time. I believe this is the same roller coaster that I last rode 25+ years ago, with the addition of Samsung Gear VR headsets that provide a virtual reality experience while the coaster is in motion. Here are images of what the headsets look like:

I wasn't able to record any photos or videos of the virtual reality content, but this video illustrates how the movement of the roller coaster is synchronized with a movie of fighter jets in the midst of battle, with the rider having the co-pilot's vantage point. Since it is December, the standard fighter jet video was replaced by a holiday edition of the video featuring the rider sitting next to Santa in his sleigh, flying through a town whose streets and rooftops are blanketed with snow, presumably on the night before Christmas. Santa's reindeer take the "scenic route" by twisting, turning, and looping through the streets before safely landing on a rooftop to deliver presents.

I was impressed by the immersive feeling that the VR headsets provided. The video was well synchronized with the motion of the roller coaster. I thought that in the absence of a "true" visual input, the twisting and turning of the roller coaster might have felt magnified (and perhaps made me feel nauseated), but that was not the case.

Unfortunately my 7-year-old daughter was not allowed to wear a VR headset (but she was still able to ride the roller coaster). When asked why, the attendant said it was a policy to prohibit the use of the VR headsets in riders under 13 years of age to protect their vision. While I have not researched the potential adverse events caused by VR usage, I doubt that occasional use of VR headsets would incur any long-lasting damage, but I look forward to seeing safety data on this.

Overall, I found VR to be a refreshing addition to the theme park experience, and I hope to see more usage of VR in the future.

Social Media and Child Privacy

At the American Academy of Pediatrics 2016 National Conference & Exhibition, researchers discussed potential harms of parents posting information about their children on social media. A summary is provided in a news release which states that “92 percent of 2-year-olds in the United States have an online presence, and about one-third make their first appearance on social media sites within their first 24 hours of life.”

The researchers presented their findings and recommendations in an abstract entitled “What Parents Should Share: Child Privacy in the Age of Social Media and the Pediatrician's Role” and whose text can be found by navigating to https://www.eventscribe.net/2016/aapexperience/agenda.asp and selecting the 11:30 AM - 5:30 PM session entitled “C0017- Peds 21- The Medium Is the Message: How Electronic Media Are Transforming Our Patients’ World” which will then reveal an option to click on the “What Parents Should Share...” abstract.

For convenience, I'm providing their best practice guidelines verbatim. The authors state that parents should:

1. Familiarize themselves with the privacy policies of the sites with which they share.
2. Set up a notification to alert them when their child’s name appears in a Google search result.
3. Share anonymously if they choose to share about their children’s behavioral struggles.
4. Use caution before sharing their child’s actual location.
5. Give their child “veto power” over online disclosures, including images, quotes, accomplishments, and challenges.
6. NOT post pictures that show their children in any state of undress.
7. Consider the effect sharing can have on their child’s current and future sense of self and well-being.

I think these guidelines are both reasonable and practical. More importantly, I think it sheds light on a topic that many parents are not aware of or at least do not consciously think of in this fast-paced digital world. It certainly makes me reconsider my use of social media involving my child and to think about how we all should be respecting the privacy of children who cannot always speak up for themselves.

Using Technology to Prepare for Doctor's Visits

How much meaningful progress can you make in a 10- or 15-minute outpatient visit to your doctor? How much of that time might be spent on reconciling details (such as medication reconciliation – that is, what medications are you currently taking and not taking?) that could have been easily addressed beforehand so you can spend your precious time talking to your doctor about your active issues?

After scheduling a routine primary care visit, I was pleased to see that Kaiser Permanente understands this challenge and is using health information technology (IT) to address it. Within a couple days of scheduling my appointment, I received the following email message:

Upon clicking the link to take me to my personal action plan and logging in to the patient portal, I was presented with options to do the following under the "Actions for next visit" section:

• Check my medications: I was able to acknowledge whether or not I was still taking previously prescribed medications
• Complete lab work: it turns out that I had forgotten to get some blood work that had been automatically recommended for me, and nearby lab locations were provided
• Prepare for my vision visit: since I had also scheduled an optometry visit, a link to an eyeglass FAQ was provided so I could understand my options ahead of time

Additionally, the "Recommended media" section included the following data and resources:

• A video with general tips on heart-healthy diet
• An automated body-mass index calculation based on my most recent height and weight
• Tobacco use documentation, including status (never smoked, BTW) and last date of documentation
• Flu vaccination status (I'm immunized!)
• Pneumococcal vaccination
• Blood sugar
• Heart/stroke risk
• Blood pressure
• Medication list, including days left for current prescriptions along with refill dates and options to do the following:
• View my prescriptions
• Contact a pharmacist
• Email my doctor

For each of the above, there were links to additional information. This is all made possible by health IT and in my opinion is a far better approach to doctor's visits that trying to address everything in the clinic. That being said, the successful implementation of health IT is necessary but not sufficient to improve health status and maximize efficiency of the healthcare delivery system. We must also get people engaged in leveraging health IT resources to manage their personal health information and make the necessary lifestyle changes to lead healthier lives.  Have you done your part?

Facebook Safety Check

While many people would agree that social media sites like Facebook have utility limited to entertainment or pure suckage of time, one interesting feature is Facebook Safety Check which was designed to allow people to communicate during disasters. As Hurricane Matthew threatens the Caribbean and the east coast of the United States, I could see value in this sort of service. To illustrate, here is the Facebook Safety Check banner from the Hurricane Matthew South Carolina page:

What has been your experience with Facebook Safety Check, and have you used it to communicate with your friends and relatives during disasters?

Firefox on Older Macs

I routinely perform maintenance tasks on my parents' two iMac machines. This includes installing software updates (e.g., Adobe Flash, MS Office, Firefox), updating antivirus definitions, and removing tracking cookies/spyware. One of the machines is a mid-2011 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 iMac with 4 GB RAM, running Mac OS X version 10.7.5.  I have not updated the operating system for fear that it would significantly slow down the machine.

When performing routine maintenance over the weekend, Firefox 48.0.2 showed me the following message:

The Learn more link indicated that Firefox support has ended for Mac OS X 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8. My options for continuing to use a secure version of Firefox were either to upgrade to Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks or later (in which case I could install the latest version of Firefox) or to switch to the Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) channel which will be supported until January 2017.

Since I didn't want to take the plunge by installing Mac OS X 10.9 just yet, I installed the latest ESR release of Firefox, currently version 45.4.0:

For the time being, we are on the safest version of Firefox, but between now and January 2017, I will need to decide whether it will be worthwhile to upgrade to Mac OS X 10.9.  Does anyone have Mac OS X 10.9 running on a mid-2011 iMac (or older), and are routine activities like web browsing, email, and word processing reasonably responsive?

RAW Photo Capture in iOS 10

I was excited to learn that iOS 10 supports RAW photo capture according to the Apple Developer iOS 10.0 prerelease notes where under the "Core Image" section it states, "RAW image file support is now available on iOS devices that use the A8 or A9 CPU"--hooray for my iPhone 6 Plus which has an A8 chip!  However, I was later disappointed to learn that RAW photo capture would not be available on my iPhone 6 Plus according to Table 3-1 in the Apple Developer iOS Device Camera Summary.  Only the iPad Pro, iPhone SE, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and later models would support RAW photo capture.  Wah.

Nevertheless, I am pleased to hear that many 3rd party iOS developers have already introduced RAW photo capture into their apps. Lightroom, 500px, and ProCam are a few examples. While they all tout editing features and RAW workflow within their mobile apps and the ability to export edited images in JPG format, I have not found any explicit language that the RAW DNG files could also be exported (eg, synchronized to the Apple Photos application and/or exported directly to the Mac operating system Finder).

Why am I interested in the ability to export the RAW files?  First, I prefer not to process my RAW images on a mobile device. Not only are mobile screens are smaller and less convenient for editing in general, there are times when I need to magnify an image to 1:1 such as to verify that the right amount of noise reduction had been applied, so there are significant advantages to using large monitors for RAW editing workflows.  Second, I use other desktop applications for photo stitching or HDR processing of my RAW files, and those apps might not be available on mobile devices, at least not yet.  Third, I simply want to archive my original RAW files so I have the option to later go back and apply more edits, using any software application that fits the job (which will usually be a desktop application).

So... does anyone have a RAW-compatible iOS 10 device, and could you tell me if you are able to use a 3rd party app to export the native DNG files to your computer?

Facebook 'Mirror Boy' Controversy

Last night I posted a photo of myself on Facebook.  The subject of the photo was me when I was approximately 1 year old, standing naked in front of a mirror.  After all, it was Thursday, and given that it is one of my favorite childhood photos, I thought the photo was worthy of a #TBT hashtag.  This morning I received the following email from Facebook:

Upon visiting Facebook via desktop web browser, it forced me to login despite having previously stored my username and password in my browser (the same applied to my Facebook app for iOS).  Following successful login, rather than displaying my typical feed of UFC events, nature videos, and stories illustrating that Donald Trump possesses the emotional intelligence of a chick pea, I was presented with this message:

So take that, Facebook--that's me in my birthday suit for the whole world to see.  There was certainly no pornographic intent, and clearly I had consented to posting the image since I had carefully scanned and edited (rotating, cropping, tone adjustment, and other minor edits only--nothing that would require surgical intervention to correct) the photo before posting it to my own personal Facebook feed which I make visible only to my personal contacts.  If you read the Facebook Community Standards (referenced in the above image) language on nudity, the wording all falls under the section of "Encouraging respectful behavior" where nudity, hate speech, and violence and graphic content policies are described.  The 'Mirror Boy' photo was also not intended to be disrespectful, nor do I think that most people would perceive it to be disrespectful.  I wonder if Blogger (owned by Google) would censor this image too?  I guess I'll find out after I post this blog article.

On a related topic, a controversy recently unfolded about Facebook censoring the 'Napalm Girl' photo, and following much public criticism of Facebook's policy, the photo was reinstated across the site.  You can find articles about it here, here, and here, to highlight a few of the many stories written about it.  Coincidentally, both the 'Napalm Girl' and 'Mirror Boy' photos were taken in 1972.  Should I petition to reinstate the 'Mirror Boy' photo on my Facebook feed?

Google Voice VOIP Weirdness

From time to time, I use Google Voice to make free phone calls anywhere in the United States. Typically I access Google Voice through Gmail via a desktop browser by clicking the "Make a call" link in the far left column in the Gmail interface, pictured here:

From there, I enter the area code and phone number that I need to call. Since some of my calls are web conferences, I often need to enter an access code to join a meeting. While I've never had a problem placing domestic calls, lately I've had some difficulty entering passcodes into Google Voice, and although I do not understand the root cause of the problem, I have been able to reproduce the issue.

Upon invoking Google Voice via Gmail, the calling interface is displayed at the lower right corner of the same browser window where my Gmail contents are displayed:

From here, I am able to successfully enter audio conference passcodes, both by clicking on the numbers in the keypad as well as typing the numbers on my physical keyboard.

However,  when I click the arrow at the upper right to open up the calling interface in a new window (which I often do so that I can have 2 open browser windows to look up my passcodes), the numbers do not consistently register. This happens both when I attempt to click the numbers on the keypad and when I attempt to type the numbers on a physical keyboard. The numbers that do register are delayed by about a few seconds which usually results in a failed entry when I have several digits to enter.

At least I know how to work around the issue by not opening Google Voice in a new window until AFTER I successfully enter my passcode. I think Google Voice is a great service, and if you've been plagued by the same issue, I hope this helps you too.

Living Life on the Edge with macOS Sierra

With the introduction of macOS Sierra, I wondered if my wife's 24-inch Mid-2007 iMac with 4 GB RAM would have enough horsepower to support all the new features. She is currently using Mac OS X El Capitan version 10.11.6, and while the machine runs a little bit slowly, it supports all the basic functions that my wife demands of the machine: web browsing, photo management, and synchronizing with our iPhone and iPad mobile devices.

I found the macOS Sierra hardware requirements on this page. In summary, the following Mac models are supported:

• MacBook (Late 2009 or newer)
• MacBook Pro (Mid 2010 or newer)
• MacBook Air (Late 2010 or newer)
• Mac mini (Mid 2010 or newer)
• iMac (Late 2009 or newer)
• Mac Pro (Mid 2010 or newer)

Therefore, the 2007 iMac should not qualify for the upgrade. However, upon visiting the App Store, I was presented with the option to upgrade to macOS Sierra:

I am thinking of living life on the edge and see what will happen if I attempt to install the upgrade. What do you think--should I do it?

UPDATE: Since my original post on 9/24/2016, I had installed macOS 10.12 Sierra on a couple of other machines, and I found it to be similar in "bulkiness" and performance as compared with 10.11 El Capitan. Therefore, I decided to try upgrading to 10.12 Sierra on my old 24-inch Mid-2007 iMac. However, upon clicking "Download" from the App Store, I received the following message:

So I guess the system requirements are checked after being given the option to download. I am a proponent of not giving users the opportunity to make mistakes, but at least there was a safety net downstream of me deciding to install an operating system that was supposedly incompatible with my machine.

Not Just a Partial Idiot

I drove my daughter to her gymnastics class over the weekend, and since we had to make a couple of pit stops along the way, I decided to use Waze (which I've written about before) to find the fastest route to my destination. Upon arrival, I was surprised to see this message on my screen:

My first reaction was: no duh, does Waze think I am a complete idiot? Would any decent human being leave their child alone in their car? It seems incomprehensible for something like that to happen. But then again, I recall seeing videos of parents leaving babies in their cars "just to run a quick errand" so I guess these kinds of reminders may offer value to a subset of the population. But even if the problem exists, will a reminder from Waze actually mitigate the problem? I guess we'll find out. Meanwhile... SMH 1, faith in humanity 0.

More interesting, however, was my second reaction: does Waze actually know for sure that I have a child? I have never explicitly told Waze that I have a child. Could it have inferred from my destination that I was likely to be taking a child to a gymnastics class? What if I was driving my niece or a friend to gymnastics? What if instead of a child I had a dog, would it have reminded me not to leave my dog in the car on a hot day? Is Waze breaching my confidentiality or was this just a lucky guess or coincidence?

Needless to say, I tapped "No thanks" and promptly took my daughter to her gymnastics class. What do you think about reminders from Waze?

I Want the Truth!

In the past few months I've been receiving a lot of unsolicited calls on my iPhone, so based on some online reviews I decided to see if Truecaller (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/truecaller-number-search-spam/id448142450?mt=8) would help me identify "spam" phone calls ahead of time. Truecaller leverages feedback from its user base to determine if calls are "spam" and populates its database from this feedback.  If a call originates from a phone number in the Truecaller spam database, I see this warning on my phone:

Based on a limited number of calls over the past 2 weeks, I estimate that roughly half of my spam calls had been correctly identified as such (true positives). For the most part, the other half of my spam calls slipped through Truecaller (false negatives), after which I dutifully reported those numbers to Truecaller.

Today I received a call which Truecaller identified as spam, only to find out later when listening to the voice message that it was an automated call from Kaiser Permanente reminding me to get a flu shot. To me, it felt like an error (false positive) for the call from Kaiser to be identified as spam. While I can understand that some folks would prefer not to receive flu shot reminders, appointment reminders, or other automated communication from Kaiser and would report it as spam, it felt to me like a legitimate call. This initially made me wonder if people simply do not value calls from their healthcare providers. I then hypothesized that it would be more appropriate for people to opt out of phone messages from Kaiser, but when I went to the Kaiser patient portal, I could find any settings to opt out of phone calls (there were settings to opt out of automated email messages). So from that perspective, maybe it was fair to label it as spam after all.

Overall, despite intercepting only about 50% of my spam calls, that's a lot better than 0%, so Truecaller is an app that will stay on my phone for the foreseeable future.

Annual Photo and Video Storage

Out of curiosity, I charted my year-over-year hard drive storage of photos and videos. This was a relatively simple exercise since I store all of my photos and videos in parent folders named by year, so all I had to do was have the operating system calculate each folder's size. I did make some minor adjustments--for example, in 2013 I made a video of a vacation that I took back in 2002, and I stored the video in the 2002 folder, but since I created the content in 2013, I re-allocated that storage space from 2002 to 2013. So essentially the following graphic depicts storage space based on year of content creation:

As you can see, there is an upward trend of storage space consumption. This is not surprising because with each new camera purchased, along came more megapixels. Additionally, in late 2009 when my daughter was born, I began shooting in RAW (actually RAW + JPG). I believe that the combination of baby photos and the addition of RAW files sufficiently explains the jump in storage space between 2009 and 2010.

Not depicted in the figure are some milestones related to video capture. In 10/2009, I purchased a Polaroid DVG-1080P camcorder to capture videos of my then soon-to-be-born daughter. In 5/2011, I upgraded my camcorder to a Canon VIXIA HF M301 which performed much better in low light and had a far superior image stabilization feature.

There appears to be slightly higher storage space consumed in 2005 as compared with the next few years, and I attribute that to our wedding and honeymoon in April and May of 2005 where we not surprisingly generated lots of photo and video content.

Prior to 2005, I shot digital photos with a Canon PowerShot A70 (7/2003 to 6/2005), my first digital camera. However, the storage space was negligible on the above scale. I also used a Canon EOS Rebel S to shoot 35 mm film from approximately mid-1992 to mid-2003, and while I did scan all my negatives and save them as JPG files, that storage space was also negligible.

For the first half of 2016, I am at around 250 GB of storage, so extrapolation to a full year would land me at around 500 GB.  Therefore, it looks like I am leveling off at approximately half a terabyte annually. I suppose this is useful for me to know so I can estimate when I will need to buy additional external hard drives to back up my photo and video content.

Google AdSense Account Canceled

I received the following email message from Google today:

Google AdSense is a free service that allows you to earn money by placing ads on your website. I must have signed up for AdSense a long time ago just to play with it. I do not clearly recall registering, nor have I ever earned any money through AdSense. In any case, I was intrigued when apparently Google cancelled my AdSense account without any warning.

Since I do not have my own web site, I believe that I must have linked my AdSense account to either Blogger or YouTube. In reviewing the AdSense program policies, I appear to be in compliance with all requirements. I suspect that my AdSense cancellation could have something to do with my recent installation of Adguard which presumably would interfere with Google's ability to serve up ads on my browsers. Anyone else have a similar experience?

Original publication on 7/4/2016, update on 7/5/2016: Today I received the following email from Google about my AdSense account cancellation:

So mystery solved, and the Adguard theory has been officially thrown out the window. It would have been nice if Google provided an explanation upon cancellation yesterday rather than keeping me guessing as to why they cancelled the account, but better late than never I suppose.

Low Power Mode on iOS 9

"Low Power Mode" is a new feature that was introduced to iPhones in iOS 9. Enabling this mode reduces power consumption by reducing or disabling functions such as email fetching, background app refreshing, visual effects, and others. By default, Low Power Mode is turned off, and when your battery reaches 20%, you are given the option to enable Low Power Mode (and are offered the option again at 10% if you did not previously enable it). Upon charging your iPhone to 80%, Low Power Mode is automatically switched off. An official Apple Support description of Low Power Mode is available here.

Since I prefer to minimize the amount of time that my iPhone is tethered to a charging cable, I want to go as long as possible between charges. Therefore, I decided to see what would happen if I kept my phone in Low Power Mode all the time. You can do this by going to Settings > Battery and manually toggling Low Power Mode to the ON position immediately after charging your iPhone (in fact, you can enable it "Whac-A-Mole" style right after Low Power Mode is automatically switched off when your battery is charged to 80%).

Besides, after having used Low Power Mode repeatedly over the last year when presented the option, I could not perceive any degradation in performance so I saw little to no downside to running this experiment.

My methods are admittedly not very scientifically rigorous, but I compared my charging records from Battery Doctor in the month of January (when I was using Low Power Mode only when the battery drained to 20% or lower) with the month of February (when I was using Low Power Mode all the time). I believe that I practiced similar phone usage patterns and charging habits over these 2 months. Results are as follows...

• January: 10 charges over 30 days, average span = 3.0 days
• February: 7 charges over 23 days, average span = 3.3 days

In summary, although the difference is not large, my findings appear to confirm my perception that in some cases, I may have been able to squeak out an extra day without having to charge my phone which is really what matters most to me. Furthermore, since I cannot perceive any difference in performance between Low Power Mode and "regular" mode, I will probably continue to use my iPhone in Low Power Mode all the time.

Apparently I'm not the only one who has experimented with Low Power Mode 24/7. Here's another guy who shared his findings in a nicely written blog (much better than mine, especially if you'd like to see more granular data points on this topic): What If You Used iOS 9’s Low Power Mode all the Time? In any case, I hope this helps at least 1 more person squeak at least 1 more day between charge cycles. What do you think about Low Power Mode?

Downgrading to Office 365 on Windows 7

At work, we recently upgraded everyone's Windows 7 machines from Office 2013 to Microsoft's latest offering, Office 365. Everything was previously working fine in Office 2013, and although I understand that there are new features in Office 365, the "upgrade" comes at a steep price in my opinion. I am not referring to dollars and cents but rather in terms of a hit to my productivity. For example:

1) Launch Time. Office applications take longer to load in Office 365 than in Office 2013. I have not precisely quantified the difference, but it is palpable. I assume that this is a result of the applications being bloated with extra features and functions, none of which I am interested in using—I was perfectly fine with the "basics" in Office 2013 and even Office 2010 for that matter. Bring back the light weight and speed!

2) Complexity. Simple actions have now become a significant burden in terms of time and number of required clicks. In Word 2013, to save a document I would click File and then click Save As... to be presented with a dialog box. In Word 365, I click File, click Save As, then click Computer (there is a choice to save to one's local computer which I do 100% of the time, otherwise one can choose from a variety of cloud storage sites, none of which I plan to use), then click Browse (because it first shows a bunch of recently used folders). Only then do one get a Save dialog box. So what used to take 2 clicks now requires 4 clicks to different areas of my screen every time I want to save a document to my laptop. The same applies to a lot of other commonly used commands. Rather than bother me every time for something I am not planning to use, I wish there was an option to turn off all the cloud options to bring simplicity back to Office.

3) Instability. The issue that bugs me the most about Office 365 is that Outlook freezes repeatedly throughout the day (yes, I have tried repairing/reinstalling Office—twice, to no avail). Every few hours when I try to open an email message or calendar invitation or simply switch from Mail to Calendar view or vice versa, Outlook freezes and gives me a "Not Responding" message. Usually I switch to another application (other applications function normally while Outlook is not responding) or leave my desk to do something else (use the restroom, get coffee, etc.) for 1-2 minutes after which Outlook eventually "catches up" and starts working again. Quitting Outlook and re-launching it seems to temporarily prevent unresponsiveness, but after a few hours the issue invariably recurs. While the impromptu breaks are sometimes needed, usually they are disruptive to my train of thought.

Sometimes Outlook 365 never recovers from its unresponsive state, and I end up having to force-quit the application (through Task Manager > End Task).

This brings me to another pet peeve of mine. Upon force-quitting an unresponsive application, Windows boldly proclaims that it is checking for a solution to the problem:

Oh come on, Microsoft! Surely you jest! Not once have I ever seen a viable solution to a problem that your operating system claims to be checking for. Not for Outlook, Internet Explorer, or any of your other applications. NOT. EVEN. ONCE. Why do you offer a glimmer of hope that there is a solution to your application instability, when in reality there seems to be none?

While I'm sure that many people (at least dozens!) have welcomed the new version of Office into their lives, in my opinion, the "upgrade" to Office 365 has felt very much like a downgrade. If it were up to me (which unfortunately it is not), I would upgrade back to Office 2013. Obviously your mileage may vary, so feel free to leave a comment below.

Memory Implants

Someone recently asked me, "What's your earliest memory?" I believe that my earliest memory was seeing my father looking down at me from above my crib. Many people do not have memories before the age of 3, so I question whether my memory was "true" or if it could have been influenced by parental storytelling, a video, or some other medium--I don't think so, but I can't say for sure.

On the other hand, my daughter (now 6 years old) claims to remember events from her infant, toddler, and preschool days. I believe this is largely influenced by the numerous photos and videos that I've taken since she was born. I enjoy making home movies with my photos and videos, and while most of the home movies that I've made within the last couple of years are posted on my YouTube channel, I have numerous other videos dating back to her birth, and we periodically take proverbial trips down memory lane to relive those moments. Even though she looked completely different back then, my daughter can unambiguously identify herself as an infant and toddler and recalls specific events because she has seen photos and videos from the early days of her life.

This observation leads to a variety of questions. What is the difference between "real" memory vs. "implanted" memories? Should we place any differential value on the memories based on where they came from? Is one kind of memory more enduring than another? Does the origin of the memory really matter at all, so long as they are memories?

I don't have any defensible responses to these questions, but I do enjoy taking trips down memory lane with my family, whether they are recent events or ones from the distant past. So for now, I will keep shooting more footage.

3D Virtual Reality on my iPhone

One of the current tech trends is 3D virtual reality (VR), so I decided to get some first-hand experience in this area. Perhaps one of the best known companies in this space is Oculus VR which was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for a boatload of money and whose Oculus Rift head-mounted display is considered by many to be one of the industry-leading virtual reality devices even though it is only available for pre-order at the time of this writing.

On the low-end side of VR devices are a number of Google Cardboard viewers. These products are literally made of cardboard, they require manual assembly, and they all adhere to the standard Google Cardboard specifications. And as the name implies, they are all dirt cheap. While there are many to choose from, I purchased the EIGHTones VR Kit XL ($16.99 plus tax at Amazon) for my iPhone 6 Plus. Assembly was aided by a helpful video and was pretty straightforward.

After getting my device assembled, I downloaded some virtual reality apps from the Apple App Store. Here are some free iOS apps that I played with:

• Dive Zombie: This is a zombie shooter game where you aim your gun by simply looking in the direction of the oncoming zombies. The gun fires automatically since there is no "trigger" for the user to pull.
• Moorente: This is a duck hunt game that is similar in concept to Dive Zombie. Note that the app is written in German, but it is fairly easy to figure out how to operate the game even if you cannot read German.
• Roller Coaster VR: This is an app that demos VR capabilities, it basically allows you to look in all directions as you ride a virtual roller coaster.  Pretty neat if you've never seen VR apps before.
• Dive City Rollercoaster: More or less the same as Roller Coaster VR, and this one features a 360-degree loop.
• The Height: In this app, you basically walk through a VR landscape and collect as many items as possible. The only confusing part of this game was that it took a while to figure out that you have to look down to start and stop walking.

All of these apps were more or less designed to showcase VR capabilities so were not rich in features. I suspect that VR games will improve in the future, but playing with these apps was a fun way for me to explore new and interesting 3D worlds on my iPhone.