“That our definition of activity has to come to include endlessly creating and replying to micro-messages and refreshing feeds, that productivity now means evaluating and adopting the latest-and-greatest app that will let you scan more messages faster, push more bits around or check off more items, is troubling.”
I know I’m addicted to the internet and have learned to function this way. Also troubling.
I love this photo. It’s from a set of early 1900s negatives I picked up at a garage sale. The expression on the man’s face makes me smile every time I look at it. I like it so much in fact that I’ve made it my new avatar.
Looking through old photos is something I never tire of. What I find sad is that everyone in this set of photos is almost certainly dead now. I’ve not been able to determine who these people are, but I would love to find their children or grandchildren and return the negatives to them. Not everyone cares as much about this sort of thing as I do, but c’mon, who wouldn’t love to suddenly find a couple hundred lost photos of their great grandparents?
Someone asked me about a photo that I’d scanned a couple years ago, so I went into my Lightroom library to dig it up. I couldn’t find it. Many of the other scans from that same batch of found negatives were there, but a number of them seemed to have gone missing. I thought making things digital was supposed to make it easier to store and find things. Apparently, I’ve not figured out how to do that yet, so I pulled the original negatives and found the ones I wanted in about 30 seconds.
While they were out I scanned a few more that I missed or otherwise skipped last time. I find them fascinating.
I’m sure there are people who blog about football, and I bet every one of them was surprised by this play, and that some of them wrote about it.
But there’s no space for that in Google: we’re too busy selling ads on SEO sites and link farms.
Every recent story about Google makes me sad.
Why is it that someone referring to a new company as a “Startup” sets me on edge? Wikipedia describes startups like this, “A startup company or startup is a company with a limited operating history.”^wikipedia, which is a totally fair description, so that’s not it. I know people at these companies, and for the most part they are smart and driven and doing awesome things. That’s not it either.
The problem may be one of association. When someone (with some redundancy) says “it’s a new startup” I want to roll my eyes and grimace in anticipation of the rest of the conversation, which will probably include things like “pivot” and “serial entrepreneur” and “investor” and so on. Most of these strike me as nice ways of saying “we’re just throwing shit at the wall hoping to cash out as quickly as possible.”
I’m not sure when I started feeling this way, but it’s proving hard to shake.
There is a fun discussion going on around how the iPhone handles the “Ring/Silent” switch.
Marco on the iPhone’s Mute behavior
“The user told the iPhone to make noise by either scheduling an alarm or initiating an obviously noise-playing feature in an app.
The user also told the iPhone to be silent with the switch on the side.
The user has issued conflicting commands, and the iPhone can’t obey both.”
Marco is right that it can’t obey both, so I would like it to obey the command I issued last. That means when I say “shut up” I mean to shut everything up until I say otherwise. It means I don’t want my phone to make any noise at all. I almost always use that switch to avoid disturbing other people. Those people don’t (and shouldn’t) care if that sudden noise resulted “from user actions that are solely and explicitly intended to produce sound.” They only know some doofus forgot to turn off his phone and it’s ruining the performance. I don’t want to be that doofus just because I’d forgotten that I’d done something or other in some app hours or days before.
When I used to have a regular alarm clock, I had to reset it each night before bed. That was normal. If I forgot and overslept it was my fault. I feel the same about my phone. If I tell it to not make noise, it shouldn’t make any noise. If that makes the iPhone less useful as an alarm clock, I’ll just get a proper clock.
Marco points out later on Twitter:
That almost nobody has really talked about the iPhone’s mute policy in its 4.5 years suggests that Apple probably made the right choice.
That is a good point, but I still disagree with with Apple’s choice.
UPDATE: I’m with Ihnatko on this.
These are the pens I carry on me daily
I started to watch this with fascination, until I realized it was a video about what pens he carries. PENS! And I was riveted there for a minute.
Just shoot me.
(I’m not picking on Patrick specifically. I enjoy his site, but sometimes I need to find something else to do)
Dave Pell:
The wave of emotions, senses and reactions that made up his initial experience were swept away by the undertow of a single sense: what his eyes saw on a two inch viewfinder.
That describes another negative side effect of the immediate “convenience” of digital photography. We experience less.
Thought I’d post a quick list of my favorite gadgets and other things from last year, in no particular order.
Man I love my Sonos. I brought home 2 of the CONNECT devices and one PLAY:5. Within 20 minutes I was streaming all of my music to existing stereos in my home office and living room and the PLAY:5 was rocking the bedroom. So easy. Apple doesn’t have a monopoly on things Just Working. In fact, I replaced the Airport Express/Airfoil system I had been using and found the Sonos better in almost every way. The PLAY:5 sounds absolutely great, and I can easily carry it from by bedroom to the darkroom by unplugging the power and grabbing the handle. It’s almost perfect, and combined with Rdio and Pandora I have an unending supply of music streaming wirelessly throughout my house with nearly no effort at all.
Absolutely recommended.
I bought a few cameras this year, and all of them are great, but it’s the X100 that really stands out. Compact, APS-C sensor, physical controls for the important things, and a great 35mm (equivalent) lens. The optical (hybrid) viewfinder is pretty great. And the camera is simply gorgeous. For digital, it’s the only camera I’ve been using.
Fujifilm X100 (Amazon link)
If there’s one thing helped me eat healthier last year it’s the Breville Juicer (800JEXL). It’s well-made, looks good, and makes short work of juicing just about anything.
Breville Juicer (Amazon link)
I love bags. I may love them too much. Last year I wanted something small and thin I could carry to the office every day with just the 11” MacBook Air, iPad, Notebook, and some odds and ends. The “Lorenzo” from Maxwell Scott fit the bill nicely. Handmade using really great leather. Great small bag.
http://www.maxwellscottbags.com/
http://download.cnet.com/PersonalBrain/3004-2074_4-10877378.html
While not technically “gear,” I wanted to mention my favorite new app of 2011. I’ve tried PersonalBrain before (it’s been around forever), but only this past year did I give it a serious go. It’s a Java app, the UI is funky and somewhat overwrought, and it’s expensive, but what it does it does wonderfully. I use it to manage people, links between them and the things they do, track project ideas and relationships, you name it. Browsing the “Plex” frequently leads to spotting relationships and links between ideas I may not have stumbled onto otherwise.
That’s all I can think of right now. Overall, a pretty good year, gadget-wise.
I am particularly ugly when you see me on TV. Everyone is very beautiful on TV. They always try to put makeup on me or make me brush my hair or tuck my shirt in. Ugh. Are you my mommy? I also had particularly big headsets on. Like Keith Partridge in the Partridge Family. “I Think I Love You”. You know the song.
I like people who are bullish, which makes me like James Altucher even more. His recent book, ”I Was Blind But Now I See
Plus, awesome hair.