Author: Joe Wilcox

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 10, 20156:49 am

Flickr a Day 69: ‘Breaking the Silence’

The intensity exploding from the photographs of Isengardt can’t be ignored, and it draws in and envelopes you. Today’s selection is among his tamest, but I’m not alone fancying it. The image is his Flickr banner. Color and mood make self-titled “Breaking the silence”. Yeah, I can almost hear that car punching through the fog.

Bond is a name. You don’t need to hear the James. I have to say the same of Isengardt, whose name is a mystery to me. But not his equipment. He used the Canon EOS 550D to shoot this photo, on Sept. 30, 2012.

News Media by Joe WilcoxMar 9, 20158:58 pm

Goodbye Gigaom

Twice a day, my wife or I take meals to her 93 year-old dad, if he doesn’t want to eat out for lunch. I sat with the gent in his apartment early this evening reading to him about the day in history when a Twitter notification from Harry McCracken caught my attention: “Stunned to hear that Gigaom is no more, but also confident that its excellent staff will find good gigs elsewhere”. Say what?

It’s true, and not a prank as I first suspected. A pioneering tech blog—one of the few credibly news reporting—has ceased “all operations”. What looked like a normal day of posting, and with higher output given the Apple Watch event, was anything but. Maybe the backstory will make sense of today’s closure. For surely an operation with news, research, and events doesn’t evaporate suddenly. The greater concern is resurrection as something less, with menial staff, and focus on posting for pageviews.

Apple by Joe WilcoxMar 9, 20154:50 pm

Apple Returns to Its Roots

Following today’s splashy media event, Apple looks lots more like the company I loved—and loathed—last decade. The smartwatch and new, ultra-thin and light MacBook take Apple back to its core (no pun intended). Both products are all about status. Make no mistake: The devices you use establish status—having the newest, coolest thing. Appealing to the desire for coolness is a longstanding Apple design prerogative.

But that aspirational quality has been missing for a good half decade—and I suspect not coincidentally during the latter stages of cofounder Steve Jobs’ illness, retirement as chief executive, and tragic death. Aspiration remained in the marketing but the quality falls short of products released from around 1998 to 2010. On Twitter today, “Wow” is a common response to the new MacBook, about which many tweeters regard as the bigger announcement. I agree. The 12-inch screen laptop goes on sale April 10, starting at $1,299.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 9, 20157:12 am

Flickr a Day 68: ‘Elliott Erwitt Revisité’

Yesterday’s featured photographer, Stefano Corso, cites Elliot Erwitt as one of his influences. So I searched Flickr for the street shooter, expecting not to find him—and I didn’t. But self-titled “Elliott Erwitt Revisité”, by Jean François, caught my attention. […]

Gear by Joe WilcoxMar 8, 201511:50 am

The Best Phone You Can Buy is the One You can Afford

I can attest firsthand to the rising health-care costs everyone talks about. My mom went to hospital on January 30th for outpatient surgery. Still woozy from anesthesia, she left her Nokia Lumia Icon Windows Phone in the bed’s blankets. The hospital ships the linens to Canada for cleaning, and, well—cue the violins—that handset is gone to cellphone heaven or into someone’s greedy, grubby hands. Wouldn’t you know, Medicare won’t cover the cost of replacing the phone.

Yeah, I’m being facetious. It helps mellow my frustration buying her a replacement mobile. Mom is done with Windows Phone and must satisfy with an older Android. This post explains why, and how during a big week of new smartphone announcements she gets a—cough, cough—2013 model.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 8, 20157:35 am

Flickr a Day 67: ‘Dresden Symphony’

The silhouette strongly describes the street photography of Stefano Corso, but something more. The “peculiar point of view always has a certain surreal, oniric quality, properly balanced by the irony of the pictures’ titles. Selected […]

Living by Joe WilcoxMar 7, 201511:19 am

Comic-Con Heroes: The Time Lord

San Diego Comic-Con 2013 was a great venue for Dr. Who. The 50th-year celebration was underway, and there was tremendous excitement about the new Doctor. The program is always popular at the Con, but there was special aura—and were attendees in costumes and garb of all kinds everywhere.

The Time Lord is topic of today’s installment from my ebook Comic-Con Heroes: The Fans Who Make The Greatest Show On Earth, which goes into the public domain on July 8, 2015, after my current commitment with Amazon KDP Select ends. Previously posted in order of appearance: The Dark Knight, The Fighter, The Collectors, The Academic, The Nerd Culturist, The Writer, The Bicyclists, and The Heroine (Ericka Quesada).

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 7, 20157:14 am

Flickr a Day 66: ‘Noisy Silence’

Today’s selection is the second of a trio of photos where a person sets the scene rather than is the dominant subject. Like the first, the individual is back to the shooter and moving away. […]

Samsung by Joe WilcoxMar 6, 201512:05 pm

Yes, Chromebook Matters

Yesterday, commentary “Do Chromebooks matter anymore?” popped up in my Google+ feed. Preston Gralla rightly wonders, when looking at how the laptops have fallen off Amazon’s top-seller lists, IDC shipment forecasts, and what happened with netbooks. While being a Chromebook fan, I must admit to sharing similar misgivings,

So today, I emailed Stephen Baker, NPD’s vice president of industry analysis: “Are Chromebooks just the next netbook wave? Low-cost, lean configurations, and education adoption all look similar to me. Do you see any parallels to suggest Chromebook is little more than the next netbook and it’s headed for the same destination: Short-term appeal that vanishes? Or is there longevity here, based on sales numbers? His answer is reason for this post.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 6, 20157:39 am

Flickr a Day 65: ‘Slippery Slope’

Landscapes rarely contrast so strongly as Day 64’s Northern Maine potato field and this New Zealand mountain view. Beam me up, Mr. Scott, and down to Kiwi. The photographer, who goes simply by Vern, is […]

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 5, 20157:37 am

Flickr a Day 64: ‘Harvest Storm Clouds’

I debated long about whether this photo should be today’s selection. For starters, Richard Robles is no longer active on Flickr, which he joined in January 2006, and I could find little else about him—even confirmation that the gentlemen still lives. The image also isn’t the sharpest, taken with the Kodak EasyShare CX7525, which by today’s standards is a vintage digital compact. But the colors appeal, and bleak landscape is home: Aroostook County, Maine.

Aroostook, or “beautiful river”, but referred to as the “Crown of Maine” on maps and in tourism marketing, is a single, isolated county. Aroostook is so expansive—larger than the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined—that many Mainers refer to it as “The County”.

Critters by Joe WilcoxMar 4, 201511:19 am

The Bear Cub

On an autumn evening in November 2005, I recalled true story “Somewhere Between Dickey and Rivière-Bleue“, which gives glimpse of Aroostook County hunting lifestyle. In August 2013, I greatly expanded the tale into the “The Bear Cub”, which I submitted to Amazon as consideration for a Kindle Single. Unlike my previous, and only other submission, the retailer didn’t dignify the nearly 5,000-word story with a rejection email.

Last year, I had planned to expand the vignette into a short book with other stories, and some family recipes. that reveal something about Aroostook culture then and now. That project sidelined, like several others, because of blurred vision problems that are in 2015 remedied enough to return to serious writing. I hope to finish the book, tentatively titled Growing Up Aroostook, sometime this year.

For today, I share the text as submitted to Amazon—for your reading education and entertainment. Please note: Because of its length, the Henry David Thoreau book excerpt is italicized rather than put into block quote. Enjoy!