Why I blog
13:01 Sunday, 9 March 2014
Words: 854
Ah, the annual ordeal of the switch to Daylight Savings Time! It wouldn't have been so bad except for yet another inconsiderate neighbor who, wisely perhaps, took a cab home at 2:30 or 3:30 in the morning (depending on how you look at it). For some reason, apparently it was a good time for conversation, and it was the lady cab driver with the loud voice who woke me up, as they went on and on out there beneath my window.
Once awakened, I have difficulty going back to sleep; and when I finally did, I didn't wake up until 8:30 or 9:30 in the morning. In terms of how much time was left in the day, it was 9:30, so I'm off to a slow start.
The good news is, sunrise is later now, and I have a little more time to get up and be fully conscious before I go outside with a camera. So I got that goin' for me.
Blogging! Let's talk about blogging!
Dave Winer, who got me into this whole blogging thing back in 1999, offered a brief post a little over a week ago called Why blog? I'm a little behind, I guess. Back in the day, I would have been all over that shit. Getting old, maybe. But it's interesting because I often encounter friends and acquaintances who say they miss me on Facebook. They miss the photographs, or they miss the links to articles I recommend. But I don't miss Facebook. It was a major timesuck. And I do have Nice Marmot! I'm also still on Twitter, as it hasn't quite crossed the creepy threshold yet.
Why blog? Because I don't wish to be consumed by "social media."
It's become the axiom of our age, "If it's "free," you aren't the customer, you're the product." I blame Doc Searls and the Cluetrain™ gang. They facilitated the commercialization of our social lives through their inartful, pernicious yet ever-so-smug construction that "Markets are conversations," thus creating the business model for social media. We went from being consumers (as if that wasn't bad enough), to being the consumed. What is being consumed? Our time and our attention. If you're on Facebook, or Tumblr, or LinkedIn, or Instagram, even Twitter (though they haven't quite figured out how to get rich off you yet), you think you're giving your attention to your friends. You're not. You're giving your attention to Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Instagram or whatever social media platform you choose to use, oh yeah, and Google+. They have you. ("The Matrix has you, Neo.")
While your friends' activities may be what you think you're viewing and interacting with, it's all presented in a format and a context created by the platform; done so in a fashion to further their ends, and the ends of their customers, and you don't always know who those customers are. Your interests are not necessarily aligned with those of their customers; in fact, they're likely completely orthogonal. Corporations are not people, no matter what failed presidential candidates claim.
I tried explaining this the other night to someone who was again asking me to come back to Facebook, and I guess I wasn't doing a good job. She thought I was saying that I was worried about being manipulated by Facebook. Actually, that doesn't trouble me too much because I think I'm aware of the game. But I didn't realize just how much time I was giving them until I got off Facebook and found myself at many odd moments thinking about Facebook and wondering what to do instead! (Fortunately, there are many wonderful things to do instead!)
Even that's not my reason for abandoning social media, it's just that I don't want to be a part of it. I don't want my photographs, my links to interesting stuff, my thoughts and opinions to be something that helps Facebook hold my friends captive.
I love my friends too much to do that to them, even if I can't free them.
So I blog.
It's not as easy or convenient as a social media platform, built by skilled, naive, misguided and brilliant people in the employ of large corporations with shareholders and venture capitalists, all hoping to get rich. I have to do all the heavy lifting around here, and I don't have a mobile platform, so I can't just fire off a quick post from my iPhone. (I plan to work on that, it should be do-able.) But I do like to think I have a voice, however small. I don't get instant gratification in the form of "Likes" or "Favorites" or comments. I have no idea how many people ever read what I write here. I'm not into "analytics." But I admit, I do miss the dopamine rush of a bunch of likes, or someone on Tumblr re-blogging a photograph. But that's how they take advantage of you. Don't take the bait.
I'm still here, ranting into the void to no discernible effect. And happy to do it.
Anyway Dave, that's why I blog.
And We're Back...
19:10 Monday, 9 March 2015
Words: 1016
Apple had its big day today, with the Apple Watch event. Still processing what I think about it all.
I'm most impressed with the announcement of ResearchKit. I hope it represents a continued effort into health-related products. I think, with the aging baby-boomer population, that home healthcare represents a huge potential market. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I do know that the products I've seen serving that market are seriously lacking in design and user experience, and ripe for disruption by Apple.
I wrote about this back in May, when my Dad had entered into palliative care that required daily data-gathering. The devices he used often confused him, and added stress his and my mom's lives. The devices worked, they performed their intended function, but they were frustrating, clumsy and made everyone feel disempowered as they had to accommodate the needs of the devices instead of the devices accommodating their needs. I think it really is a hard problem, and it's going to take some serious effort and commitment to make this type of technology more humane. I have no doubt that Apple could revolutionize that market segment if they chose to apply their efforts toward it.
Here's hoping.
Anyway, the big news: The Watch! I'm not onboard just yet. I haven't worn anything on my wrists for years, though I do wear a Garmin Forerunner 305 (a big sports watch) when I run. I'm not sure how comfortable I'll be with a fairly substantial device on my wrist all day. For me, I think the biggest win is being able to see notifications (chiefly texts and calls), without pulling my phone out of my pocket. When I'm out walking Bodhi, I usually have the leash in one hand and a camera in the other. The cameras are either on a sling or a wrist-strap, so I can let go of them and pick up dog poo, or answer a call or text. I keep the phone on me for my walks because the M8 chip counts my steps, and I'm all about the steps! And I'll use the iPhone's camera if I have a telephoto zoom mounted if I want a wider angle perspective for a shot. But to just be able to glance at my watch and decide if it's something I need to respond to right now, or if I can just continue what I'm doing I think would be welcome.
Of course, I could also resolve that issue by simply choosing to ignore the alerts from the phone regarding texts and calls. I've turned off nearly every other notification from the apps on my phone. The only immediate notifications are for texts and phone calls, and I suppose I could just ignore them while I'm out walking Bodhi.
For the time being, I'm going to be reading others' experiences with the watch before I make any decision to adorn my wrist with one. There may be a killer app that I don't know about yet, and I'd like to see what weird rashes people will develop. You can bet that someone is going to have a weird rash and get their 15 minutes of fame blaming Apple for their hand falling off or something. I suppose if you can afford one of those $10,000 gold watches, you can probably also afford the personal body guard to keep thieves from chopping off your hand to steal your watch. Don't laugh! One guy nearly lost a finger when someone stole his newly-purchased iPad, and the string from the Apple Store bag wrapped around his finger.
The new MacBook is interesting. To me, it seems to be competing with the iPad, especially if Apple introduces a 12" iPad Pro as many expect they will this fall. With the lack of ports, the improved keyboard and trackpad are the only things that really seem to distinguish it from an iPad. I considered buying an iPad Air 2 this weekend, but decided to wait and see what happens this fall. My iPad 3, the original Retina iPad, is a little sluggish under iOS 8, and apps often quit are restart suddenly. I'm pretty sure it's the lack of RAM more than the slower processor. I can live with it for the time being, as it's not essential to my existence.
When I travel today, I bring my 13" MacBook Pro Retina and the iPad 3. While While the MBP is pretty lightweight for a MBP, the iPad 3 is about the heaviest iPad Apple ever made. The MacBook Pro comes because I need the USB ports and the SD port. While I use RunKeeper on my iPhone, it's mostly for the sharing function, and as a backup to my Garmin. I get more, and better, data from my Garmin 305 with the heart rate monitor. I shoot a lot of photos when I'm away from home, and while I could upload them from the E-M1 using wifi, it's pretty slow compared to just using an SD card reader.
I have the SD card reader for the MBP, but it'll crash Photos half the time, sometimes even taking the whole iPad down with it, forcing a restart; and I don't have a lot of spare room on my iPad to store images. I use the iPad for convenience on the aircraft, or when I'm at my Mom's, keeping up with social networks, looking up information or reading blogs and books. If I'm only going away for a weekend, I'll just bring the iPad 3 and the E-M1 and then just choose a few images to upload to the iPad via wifi. As slow as it is, it's less frustrating than the repeated crashes with the SD card reader.
I don't know, reading what I've just written, maybe what I want is just an iPad mini. It would be the lightest iPad to bring along with me.
In any event, the good news seems to be that Apple had a big announcement yesterday, and I'm not reaching for my wallet yet!
Little Blue Heron
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Crossed the street to walk on the multi-purpose path since the landscapers were edging the sidewalk. (Noise and smell.) So it was easy to spot this little blue heron.
✍️ Reply by emailCedar Waxwings
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I went out this morning with the E-M1X and the 40-150mm/f2.8 Pro with the MC14 1.4x teleconverter mounted. There was one swallow tailed kite, but it was pretty far away. It seems like the teleconverter adds a bit of chromatic aberration. Shot wasn't compelling enough to share it.
Thought I'd be shut out when I saw these cedar waxwings flock to this tree. Had kind of hoped I'd get a shot of them all going airborne, but they didn't seem like they were in any hurry and I wanted to get home.
It's a much heavier rig than I normally carry, so I used the Cotton Carrier G3 vest. At least I got more of a workout. I couldn't have carried this setup for 3.3 miles on a sling without getting a painful knot between my shoulder blades. As it was, I felt it a bit in my quads, and toward the end in my calves. I wasn't booking along by any means, but I wasn't sauntering either.
✍️ Reply by emailUnderthinking
06:10 Saturday, 9 March 2024
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Words: 598
So the "Midwatch" entry didn't work. Rather, it worked as intended within Tinderbox, I just didn't fully understand that intention.
A quick trip the forum got a prompt reply from Mark Anderson. The Create command will only create a uniquely named note. All of my Year, Month and Day notes are uniquely named, but to create a note with the name "Midwatch," in every Day note requires a little finesse.
If you add the $Path of the note to the name, and it's unique within that path, as Midwatch is intended to be, then Create will oblige. And to do that we construct it with a bit of Action Code thus:
$MyString=$Path+"/Midwatch";
create($MyString);
Since the Edict had worked yesterday when I first implemented it, it declined to do it today. Once I revised the Edict as above, it worked in Saturday. Of course, it appeared at 10:21 a.m. when I revised the Edict. I'll be interested to see what time it creates it tomorrow!
As regards Research, I'm uncertain and troubled. As I was playing around this morning with the Edict, trying to understand what was happening, I had both the iMac and the MBP awake. The Inspector window was open in both machines, though not necessarily on the same note. On the iMac, I witnessed the contents of the Inspector window change without any interaction from me.
I'm working now with Tinderbox shut down on the MBP. I'm going to create a very small test file and do some more testing. But I think it may be problematic in some way to keep the same document open on two machines at the same time. Maybe not, if I'm not working on both machines within seconds or minutes of each other, which is what I was doing this morning. But a smaller file should be simpler to help understand the behavior.
Jack is worried that perhaps I may be creating "complicated workflows." I think there's little chance of that, relatively speaking. First, I'm not that smart.
Second, I think the automation I'm creating is rather straightforward, certain particulars notwithstanding. And, for now, it's mostly just doing basic infrastructure.
I will be playing with the "run command" action to see if I can reach out to other services from Tinderbox to do something useful. Mostly this is intended to help me learn how to do it, something I've never done in Tinderbox before. And the only way to learn Tinderbox is to use it.
And use it.
And use it.
After that, I plan to build some Agents to gather related notes, if only the "Change:" entries to create a Change Log. But probably something for healthcare or medical and something for travel too. But Agents are usually pretty straightforward.
I also hope to learn more about linking notes within Tinderbox to see what advantages there may be to exploiting that facility.
For now, this is just baby steps. But even at this early stage, I'm quite excited about what document affords me in terms of recall. I used to have a pretty good memory. I'm not leaning into dementia at this point (yet), but it isn't quite as reliable as it once was. This is giving me greater confidence that I'll be able to recall things with some ease when the need requires, and that gives me a little peace of mind.
I am having fun. But I also feel as though this is time well spent. Invested, really.
And it was great chatting with Phil Nunnally in the meetup this afternoon too.
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16:39 Sunday, 9 March 2025
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Words: 261
A couple of posts I came across this morning with some thoughts and perspectives about actions we can take. It does feel as though one of the most powerful levers we have is an economic one. Those of you who observe Lent may appreciate this guest post at Empty Wheel.
Chris ODonnell pointed to this one. I guess I'm pleased that I'm engaged to one degree or another in four of the five (2 through 4). My political activity for the moment is limited to making donations and writing my representatives. I have run for something (twice!), but I won't be doing that again. I'm going to be considering the consumer activity. If I pull the trigger on the OM-3, I don't necessarily see that as antithetical to the mission. I'd buy it from OM Systems directly, or a camera retailer, not Amazon.
We have a rotating dinner party, but it's the same circle of friends, so I'm not sure that's 100% aligned with the spaghetti dinner thing. We will be doing more of that in New York, partly as an effort to mitigate polarization, but also to build up our "social capital," so we're not isolated in our old age.
It's clear we can't just go along for the ride and hope that thing's will get better by themselves. We're all going to have to get out and push this old clunker of a democracy ("Democratic republic, libtard!") if we want to get it back on the road again. We've driven it into the ditch, and AAA ain't comin'.
✍️ Reply by emailSunshine
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Love to see this.
Slept well last night. By "well," I mean I was up at the usual wee hours, but fell asleep around 0400, turned off the alarm at 0500 and went right back to sleep until 0700.
Interesting analysis of the sinking of IRAS DENA by USS CHARLOTTE and the Law of Naval Warfare. Bottom line is there is no violation of the laws of war. Now, how I would feel about that when there is no war declared by Congress is another question.
The oil price spike is unwelcome and totally foreseeable. Just when we're getting ready to build a house. Between tariffs and energy costs, Trump is trying to bankrupt us. My only consolation is that every other poor, stupid son of a bitch who voted for that incompetent asshole is in the same boat.
It's small consolation, but it's not nothing.
How about a little "regime change" over here, Congress?
They could do it before April Fools' Day, if they put their minds to it.
This gets worse before it gets better.
The beat, and the beatings, go on...
✍️ Reply by emailUtterly Foreseeable
08:34 Monday, 9 March 2026
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Words: 121
Trump is going to try to subvert the mid-term elections. Whether or not he succeeds depends on the strength of our institutions.
We must anticipate, with sadness and resolution. We will be horrified, but we cannot be surprised, if there is a terrorist attack on the United States. If choose to be surprised, we co-create a moment that Trump will exploit to undo what remains of our democracy. If the unthinkable happens, it will happen because some of Trump’s people thought about it, some of them created the conditions for it, and some of them looked away. The responsibility for catastrophe will be theirs. And the responsibility for democracy will be ours.✍️ Reply by email