The NYC subway is not scary. Amen!
Every once in a while, there’s an idea so obvious once you read it that I honestly wonder what’s wrong with me that I didn’t think of it.
Anyway, Joe Rosensteel’s brain did it, and my goofy-ass brain appreciates his idea that Apple’s Shortcuts should be text.
Well, this is one way to get folks to use their smartphones less.
It seems selling my iPad (first time not having one since 2010) has cleared the way for Apple to make iPadOS extra awesome. And I don’t seem to be getting the thanks I deserve.
I bought my first Mac in 1985 after using one in high school. and Bill Atkinson was the reason. It’s hard for me to describe properly, but when I used MacPaint it felt like it should have been impossible for such a small machine to do what it was doing.
It was the filled oval that sold me on the Mac. When you selected the filled oval from the palette and clicked on the canvas, it would pin the oval to that starting point and then you could in any direction. The way the oval would disappear into the click-point and then reappear on the other side felt amazing to me.
And the reason it worked is because there was no delay or lag. The Mac made all the other PCs of the time feel like old, antiquated nothings.
I’m not qualified to say Bill Atkinson was a genius or the best, but wow did his program blow me away and I’ve never forgotten it. Or his awesome mustache.
Yay, Journamalism!
Hillary Clinton promised us taco trucks on every corner, but all we got was President TACO. Hashtag cheated.
My buddy Tom was right when he said (to my stupid, disbelieving face) that CarPlay Next Gen wasn’t going to come out. And it didn’t. To be more precise, he said it didn’t exist. It was just an Apple fantasy.
And, look, it didn’t come out, so he was right. But now we have CarPlay Ultra and it is out, so there’s that.
I don’t know when or if I’ll ever get to use CarPlay Ultra as I don’t own a car and I’m not likely to ever buy one (being a citybilly). But it’s fun to see. I rent a lot of cars via ZipCar and I was so relieved once they started buying cars with CarPlay. All car interfaces suck. I want to say ‘I don’t totally blame the car makers,’ but I do because they make the cars and those crappy interfaces. I get that it’s not their area of expertise, but, sheesh, hire some people. But if the car maker makes it easy for me to use CarPlay, then I’m good.
I hope we get to find out more about how Apple and manufacturers work together. Does Apple only offer 10 information cluster templates and says to the manufacturer “pick your colors and fonts?” Maybe there aren’t even templates? Could Honda make their cluster look super-close to Aston Martin’s? Can the user change the typeface or is that all controlled by the automaker? I’m assuming you get to choose from a selected series of layouts and apparently tweak the color some. I’m surprised you can tweak the color as color is part of a brand’s identity (or so I thought?).
Props to Aston Martin for including real switches in the car. Changing the cabin’s temperature via a screen is dumb and dangerous. It requires eyes off the road and a far steadier than one (me, I guess) can provide in a moving/bumpy car ride. I have to brace my hand on the dashboard above the screen in order to steady my hand enough to press the right on-screen button(s). Blah.
Enough of this showing off crap.
NASA’s Voyager 1 Revives Backup Thrusters Before Command Pause
I can’t even fix the friggin’ toilet that’s right in front of me.
Feelin’ Good Friday, #15: My daughter is graduating college this weekend and I couldn’t be more proud of her. Her high school experience ended during the pandemic so there was no ceremony and her college experience started with remote classes away from home. Yet, she stuck with it. Congratulations, Abbe!
Think about this when you doubt your own ability to do anything:
The HBO service has undergone several rebranding efforts over the years. The first HBO streaming service was known as HBO Go, and it later became HBO Now. HBO Now was rebranded as just HBO, and then it became HBO Max. After that it was just Max, and now we’re back to HBO Max.
I would be willing to bet that each time this rebrand happened, someone’s boss said, “Great idea, Jenkins. You have a big future here. Meanwhile, here’s a bonus.”
I fully expect there to be another rebrand of this to just HBO. It’s the brand everyone knows and is the only one with value.
Feelin’ Good Friday, #14: I am feeling good today because I finally, finally, finally finished The Mountain in the Sea. It took me three tries to get it done.
I have finally moved past feeling bad if a book isn’t clicking for me. Sometimes the book never clicks, but sometimes I’m not ready for it despite it coming up as available from the library. This time I was ready and I gobbled it up in just a few days.
I am so glad I read it and I fully recommend the book. Don’t let the bit about it being in the Science Fiction genre scare you off if that’s not typically your taste. It’s as much science fiction as 1995 would have seemed to 1965.
I took a picture of the beginning of one chapter because it clicked with me and reminded me of something James Baldwin had written. In this case, it was:
Only those incapable of empathy are truly caged.
I’m also feelin' good because I had lunch with a dear friend, and soon we’re all heading out to celebrate the birthday of another friend.
Eddy Cue’s comments yesterday about users using Google less and also saying in 10 years you might not need an iPhone are both really smart takes.
Initially I was like “wut” but he seems to be saying, “AI corps, which one of you wants to write us a check to be default search?” and also, “Hey, DOJ, no reason to break up Apple as we might not even be here in 10 years.”
I am diggin’ Utah hockey club’s name and logo.
After watching NHL hockey as a boy and after leaving hockey behind for a couple of decades, Mrs. Bob and I have gotten back into it thanks to it being far easier to access now (it’s included with our Max subscription service).
When I was a kid (late ’70s and early ’80s), watching hockey on television was terrible. The cameras and the TVs of the time couldn’t handle the contrast between ice and everything else. I can distinctly remember the little black and white TV we had getting all buzzy as the camera went from showing half the crowd and half the ice to all ice as it panned from one side of the arena to the next. It was closer to watching the radio than it was to watching the game on TV. Anyway, the technology is so much better now that it’s a pleasure to watch hockey.
So I want to talk about nicknames. Yep, each team has a full name: New Jersey Devils (forever will be my home team), New York Rangers (my team before the Colorado Rockies moved to become the New Jersey Devils), Seattle Kraken (best name ever!), etc. But TV announcers and fans also shorten the names so that Devils becomes Devs, Avalanche becomes Avs, Senators becomes Sens. You get the idea.
I think teams should have two shortened names to reflect how well they are playing. When they are playing well, sure, they can be called the Avs. When a team is sucking enough to get booted from the playoffs despite having a lead in the game, they are now called The Lanch. Let me give an example. The Colorado Avalanche and the Dallas Stars went to game seven in the series and despite being up 2-0 in the third period, the Avalanche lost the game 4-2 and ended their season. The following morning I explained to Mrs. Bob, “They really Lanched it.” Likewise the Devs? They Viled their series. Now, you’ll have to adapt this as it doesn’t always work. What always works, you ask? You can always, always, always say, no matter the circumstances, “The Islanders suck.”
The greedy proles in District 39 voted in the Participatory Budget, and here’s what they want:
That’s right. We commoners want decent toilets and books. We have to vote for decent toilets and books. Given that toilets and books aren’t included in the basics of life, we can’t really wonder why we’re in the situation we’re in, right? Sigh.
I guess it’s good that Spotify can collect its money outside the app store? Then it can give even more money to Joe Rogan so he can spread more nonsense about vaccines and masculinity. Yay, Spotify!
Feelin’ Good Friday, #13: The hammer falls on Apple’s malicious-compliance scheme. I love Apple’s products, but I do not love Apple’s business practices, so I’m feeling good that they are getting their comeuppance1. I also like it when Apple is pushed back to its heels, as that’s when they do their best work (it seems to me). You know, make a better App Store in order to compete and make a better use of AI2.
Rumble Strip
I remember a time in high school (the 1980s) when I picked up The New Yorker in the school’s library and leafed through it. I didn’t read the articles, but I attempted to understand the cartoons. I didn’t understand any of them. I was honestly perplexed why they were even included.
The very next time I picked up The New Yorker, I understood each cartoon1. What a weird transformation. I am not claiming to have grown to some big-brain levels, but I did grow up more in the time between. I guess the third time I picked up The New Yorker I started reading the articles and, like many, subscribed. I only unsubscribed when the stack of unread issues caused overwhelming shame.
If anyone who didn’t know what a magazine was, I’d hand them a small stack of issues of The New Yorker. To me, it best represents what a magazine is.
Which brings me to my long-winded point: Rumble Strip is the best representation of a podcast. I guess I came to it from 99% Invisible, but I can’t really remember now. Don’t get me wrong, 99PI is a great podcast. So why am I not using it as the quintessential example of a podcast? Maybe I have qualms about its founder accepting a big pile of money for his hard work? I guess that says more about me than Roman Mars. We all have our foibles; that’s mine.
This week, Rumble Strip’s founder and host, Erica Heilman, has been treating us to examples of what she thinks is a radio show by replaying what inspired her. I never heard of who she considered her mentor, Larry Massett2. But it’s a job to hear his stories. The two I’ve heard so far are great.
I listen to a lot of tech enthusiast podcasts, and it’s time for me to cut those back. So many episodes (and so many tech articles) seem to only exist to place ads next to them. I’m not a dummy3, I get that folks need to put food on the table, but I don’t need to listen to more orifices say words just to get to the next sponsor read. And now so many are also doing video podcasts on YouTube. And while you usually don’t need to watch the video portions, I worry that’s the direction more and more will go.
That’s why I think Rumble Strip stands out. It’s storytelling done right. I hope you’ll listen to Erica’s work. It’s wonderful.
Feelin’ Good Friday, #12: Every Friday I read Mike Monteiro’s Good News. I’ve written about this newsletter before, but it’s so incredibly good, I can’t stop talking about it. He’s angry like me, but he’s far, far better at trying to do something with his anger than I am. I am really trying to pay attention to what Mike says and use my energy for good.
The newsletter comes out about once a week, and I really do try to save it until Fridays because it sets a good tone for the weekend. Although now that I write that, I wonder if I should save it for Sunday so I’m ready to go for the coming week. I’ll think about that. I hope you’ll read one or two issues from his archive and then subscribe. I feel better having read each issue and I bet you will, too.