Perspective

22:38 Thursday, 4 September 2014
Words: 642

I don't watch TV. I don't visit any of the major news networks' web sites unless there's something there that others have written was worthwhile to see. I don't visit The Huffington Post, Slate, Salon, or any of the other "new" media sites.

I subscribe to the New York Times online. I read what I can in The Atlantic and The New Yorker, and I'll likely subscribe to them soon. I listen to NPR in the car, and Diane Rehm online. And the 187 accounts I "follow" on Twitter help keep me abreast of what's going on.

The problem with news and information distribution in a market economy is competition.

Ever since Darwin, competition has been embraced as this great self-organizing principle that supposedly yields better outcomes wherever it is practiced. And it hides a multitude of sins.

The problem with competition is what the competitors want. In the case of the news "business," since it's based on advertising, the competitors want attention. And we've known since infancy how to get attention.

Which is why nearly all "new" media (specifically in the news and information area) sucks.

I avoid most of the advertising-based media because the "stories" are written to appeal to my amygdala, not my cerebrum. They are written, or shot, to provoke fear, incite outrage, or appeal to prurient interest. To some extent, this can be cognitively overcome, but that requires effort and energy that I'd rather spend doing something else. So, I just avoid as much of the hysteria as I can.

Then something happens in an area that I'm interested in, like technology. Because of my interest, I follow a number of people on Twitter who share that interest, not all of whom happen to share all of my views on everything, and not all of whom eschew the hysteria of new media, as I do. And, silly me, I sometimes follow links to pieces that turn out to be hysteria masquerading as analysis or commentary. Mostly they're just rants. But they're hysterical rants by high-attention earning people, competing for attention, on platforms that compete for attention as well.

Which pretty much guarantees there will be a complete and utter lack of perspective.

Now, I'm passionate about some things and perhaps my perspective on those matters is somewhat skewed. But I do think about that, and I'm confident that I'm at least somewhat rational about why I feel as strongly as I do about things like Google and its data-gathering efforts. At least part of my confidence is rooted in the fact that so few people seem to share my concern. It's kind of the obverse of "if you can keep your head about you when all around you are losing theirs."

So I like a good rant.

But a good rant requires perspective. The stuff I've been reading about iCloud and the celebrity nude selfies is just self-serving hysteria, manufactured outrage for the purpose of garnering page-views.

It's bullshit.

Sadly, I think a huge swath of the public has been conditioned to actively seek a stimulus for fear or outrage or prurient interest at all times, by the type of media we've allowed ourselves to create. Our interior experience of "normality" likely requires some sense of outrage or fear or sexual arousal, so people keep clicking on these stories, like rats in cages. If we weren't being force-fed it in our Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr "streams," we'd actively seek it out.

I actively try not to. But there are things we should be outraged about, and they get lost amid all the bullshit things media manufactures outrage about.

I'm not an optimist. I'm pretty sure we're witnessing peak civilization, or we're actually just past it.

We're trapped by our physiology, our ignorance, and our greed.

We're fucked.

That's my perspective.

The Print Shop

06:53 Wednesday, 4 September 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 78.12°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 11.5mph
Words: 218

Just an experiment to see if I can post video. I have a Vimeo account I seldom use, but if this works perhaps that will change.

I received the box o' disks I'd bought from eBay. Very fastidious original owner, printing out the catalogs of each disk and sticking them to the disk sleeves. So I booted one of the generic DOS 3.3 disks to see if the drive in the //c worked. I hadn't wanted to risk the disks in Micro Dynamo. It booted right up.

There are original disks of The Print Shop and The Print Shop Companion. I knew the reverse side of the disk contained a program of some kind, but I thought it was a graphics demo. It's actually a promo for the program. I guess a retailer could have it running in a store. Anyway, it just keeps repeating and at some point I took out my phone and recorded it.

This is being displayed via HDMI, which I was able to improve somewhat by using the TV's "Direct" setting. I think it's still stretched a bit horizontally, but it looks better. Anyway, without further adieu, let's see if this works...

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That Worked

07:14 Wednesday, 4 September 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 78.28°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 282

For me, anyway.

What also seems to have worked is the Verizon 5G home internet. We went to a Verizon store yesterday to investigate and hopefully procure one of these devices to use in New York until such time as I can schedule fiber activation. They require two weeks notice to schedule, and we're going to be there tomorrow for a week.

Looks like I'm getting 100mbs down and 10-12mbs up from the box, which isn't far off what I'm getting from Comcast right now. Should be adequate for keeping tabs on the place while we're away.

It was a bit of a bear, getting the box. Because of recent data breaches, I'd frozen all my credit reports. I "unfroze" one while I was in the store, but it's apparently not an instantaneous thing, computers and the speed of light notwithstanding. Because why would it be? Bastards.

Anyway, we went to lunch at a Mediterranean restaurant and came back an hour later, hoping the "soft" credit check could be run, but no. We were the only people in the store, except for one woman who came in for some help putting her case on her phone. The guy who was helping us, Doug, was great. No high-pressure upsell, no fast talk. Very helpful and easy to work with.

He called his manager and he gave him a number to a guy who apparently had the cheat code to enable "God mode." Several minutes on the phone and we were all approved. Brought the box home, plugged it in and a few minutes later I was online.

It's bigger than I expected, but it'll fit in a suitcase. Good to go.

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Picture Window

09:16 Friday, 4 September 2026

Current Wx: Temp: 67.37°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 83% Wind: 5.5mph
Words: 49

When the house is complete, the view won't be quite this complete. There will be a deck intruding from the bottom, the wire safety rail that probably shouldn't intrude above the horizon, and the roof over the deck may intrude into the upper sky.

But it's still pretty cool.

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