I rabbit sat last week.
Author: Joe Wilcox
Black Friday Stinks
What a fantastic headline: (in story context): For Retailers Today Really is the Shittiest Day of the Year. Some journalists squawk at Gawker sites for cheesy, sleazy headlines and content. I see Gawker as a […]
It’s Not a Fad
“Selfie” may be Oxford Dictionaries Word the Year 2013, but is there anything really new about the practice? My wife, at age 21, from the glorious days of film photography. Photo Credit: Anne Wilcox
You Belong to the Fifth Estate
My wife and I just returned home from watching “The Fifth Estate“. My problem isn’t the film but the trailer, which makes the movie look more like a political thriller. The film is nothing like […]
Lestat’s West
I am hanging at a local coffee shop while waiting on car repair—stunned by the amount of business going on here: A physical therapist calling clients; what looks like a professor teaching college students; two […]
Red Hot Dogs from Maine!
I rarely post food photos, but this I can’t resist. A seafood store nearby our San Diego auto service station has red hot dogs from Maine. What a shock! I’ve looked for these forever! The […]
iPad Air is the Best Tablet
Sometimes there is revolution in evolution. That’s my surprising reaction to iPad Air, which Apple started selling on November 1. This is simply the best tablet I have ever used. Period. The fruit-logo company wisely chose to resist reinventing the wheel and build a vehicle around four instead.
For people who complain—and there are many—that Apple’s newest 9.7-inch tab shows waning innovation, let me correct the record. You are oh-so wrong. iPad Air is an amazingly refined piece of art—like a sculpture chiseled to perfection. iPad 3 and 4 are unpolished bricks by comparison. More importantly, anyone looking for a tablet to largely, or completely, replace a Windows PC or Mac, Air is it.
All This Googlism disturbs Me
Today, Ian Betteridge posts: “One thing that is impossible not to notice on Google+: There’s a very distinct skew towards big Google fans in commenting. It doesn’t matter which tech site’s page you look at, the (in my view, tedious) ‘fanboy’ mentality is hotter here than on any other social network”.
I commented on his post but want to draw more attention to Ian’s observation, to which I concur. I am rethinking my social service presence because of pervasive Googlism. While now immersed in the Google lifestyle, I am not a Google fanboy. But the leanings here are quite strong now, and tipping more all the time. Also, there is increasingly less tolerance for non-Google tech posts and more criticism of those regarding competitors like Apple.
Gladwell Makes Me Sad
One of my pet themes is what I call “David Thinking“, and until today I worked on an ebook espousing the concept as a lifestyle philosophy. Now that’s on hold, and it’s not a choice easily made.
I first wrote about David Thinking here in May 2009 post “Why Apple Succeeds and Always Will“. Writer Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker article “How David Beats Goliath: When underdogs break the rules” inspired the concept. He used Ivan Arreguín-Toft‘s research about so-called Davids beating Goliaths as basis for the story. I took the political scientist’s concepts someplace Gladwell didn’t, applying them as a way of thinking differently. I have written about David Thinking often, in posts here and elsewhere.
Black Mirror
Starting last night, I watched the six episodes of “Black Mirror”. What fantastically entertaining television is the program, which isn’t legally available in the United States (although Amazon sells an off-region DVD).
I hunted online for sites streaming both three-episode series. I prefer Series 1, between them. I didn’t Torrent but streamed.
The Beeb Should Know Better Than Source Like This
I expect a lot more than crap-reporting from BBC News. Is this really the sorry state of tech journalism? The story cites absolutely no sources.
Google plans to pull photos from Google+ profiles to accompanying advertising, which would look to some people like endorsements. BBC claims user backlash.
It's Time to Fire Congress
Constitutionally, the American people have few options to immediately penalize their representatives in Congress who forced Federal shutdown and threaten the debt ceiling. Someone would want to. According to Gallup, Congress’ disapproval rating is 85 percent. An AP-GfK poll shows even greater dissatisfaction.
Public Policy Polling says that “Hemorrhoids, toenail fungus, dog poop, and cockroaches all might be a little bit gross, but they’re all more popular than Congress”. Sadly, however, Brett Logiurato, writing for Business Insider, is right. The low approval rating doesn’t matter. States elect individuals, whose ratings often are much higher, not the body electorate.