Category: Living

Photo by Joe Wilcox
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The Cats of University Heights: Herman

On Christmas Day, while walking down Campus Ave. from my father-in-law’s apartment, I spotted a kitty. Then another. And another. And another. Their owner, JoAnn, lets outside her four furballs for four hours three days a week—Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. She sits in the courtyard with them, as they race around chasing and playing. Look for the others tomorrow and rest of the week.

Her favorite is Herman, who may be the cat I previously featured as Frisky. He visited me on a June Saturday across the street but down the block from JoAnn’s studio apartment. She thinks it is, although there are few identifying features in my photo. 

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Photo by Joe Wilcox
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The Cats of University Heights: Grey and White

On, Dec. 17, 2016, at 11:57 a.m. PST, as I walked down Maryland Ave., headed to The Hub, where there is Trader Joe’s, movement in a roomy front yard caused me to stop and look. I had not seen this grey and white furball before; too bad, the beastie sat in contrasting areas of light and shadow. Worse, prescription sunglasses and glare from overhead obliterated the iPhone 7 Plus screen to darkness. I shot this and subsequent portraits blind.

The Featured Image is a crop, and it’s the best—and not that great—from the dozen captured. The second photo is the uncropped but tweaked original, which gives good perspective of feline and habitat. Vitals: f/2.8, ISO 20, 1/290 sec, 6.6mm 

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Apple by Joe Wilcox
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Apple Store, Bah Humbug

Apple sure knows how to keep its store stocked for the holidays. Ho, ho, ho, bah humbug. The shelves are bare, and you can get your must-have pretty thing some time next year. If you’re lucky. Let’s start with the delayed AirPods, which went on sale online last week. They arrived in stores on Monday, and whoosh were gone before the waiting line ended. My local shop had about 30 pairs. If you want them, first available retail pickup date is—cough, cough—February 8th. That is 2017. I had to confirm not 2018, because you never know with these dumbfounding delays. Straight-to-ship orders move your way in six weeks. Donald Trump will be president sooner!

Perhaps you’re pining for one of those pricey MacBook Pros—you know, the ones with Touch Bar that no sane person knows what to do with. Apple will miss Christmas, but you can still beat Martin Luther King’s birthday, with orders made today delivering sometime between January 4-10 or available for in-store pickup on the tenth. God Bless America and Made in China! 

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Society by Joe Wilcox
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iPhone for Education

Many educators won’t agree, but perhaps students will: The PC, whether desktop or notebook, is obsolete in the classroom. This reality, if accepted for what it is, presents Apple opportunity to retake the K-12 market from Alphabet-subsidiary Google’s incursion and sudden success with Chromebook among U.S. schools. If the fruit-logo company doesn’t seize the moment, a competitor will—and almost certainly selling devices running Android.

Chromebook’s educational appeal is three-fold: low cost, manageability, and easy access to Google informational services. For buy-in price, and TCO, no Apple laptop or tablet running macOS or iOS, respectively, can compete. Think differently! Providing students any kind of computer is shortsighted, by narrowly presuming that schools, or their parents, must buy something. I suggest, in this time of budgetary constraints, that educators instead use what the kids already possess (or want to) and what they use easily and quickly: The smartphone. 

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Gear by Joe Wilcox
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Epitaph to Chromebook

A few days ago, one of my Google+ followers, Steve Kluver, commented on an August 2014 share: “I am shopping for some more Chromebooks this Holiday Season, and found this post via G+ hashtag #chromebook search. How current is your ebook now?” He refers to Chromebook Reviews, which is available from Amazon for sale or for free reading with Kindle Unlimited. I apologized that the tome, published more than two years ago, is “way out of date”. If I’m not going to revise, I really should remove the title.

I offered to give him buying advice, which got me to thinking about Chromebook as a concept and computing edifice. While a big fan, and owner of both generations of Google-made Chromebook Pixel, my primary laptop was a MacBook Pro for most of 2016. Measure of commitment: I bought the new 15.4-inch Touch Bar model just a few weeks ago. I’ve moved on, and got to thinking about why in crafting my response. 

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Mobility by Joe Wilcox
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The Googorola Metaphor

I don’t want to start an argument about politics. My sentiment this lovely day derives from what the incoming White House is, not what so many people here in California want it to be. I wonder: If Google bought Motorola during a Trump presidency, rather than Obama regime, would later sale to Lenovo be allowed or closing of the Texas phone-assembly factory about 18 months after opening?

The question arises from a pique of sadness as I look at the FedEx tracking information for two Motorola phones purchased directly from Lenovo. City of origin: Wuhan, China. My last Moto came from the Lone Star State, here in the USA. I pine for what might have been, remembering my excitement about Google’s $12.5 billion Motorola Mobility acquisition, in August 2011. My opinion expressed then remains: “The acquisition is bold for its risks, which are no less great than the benefits”. I was no fan of the later sale to Lenovo. 

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Living by Joe Wilcox
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Where’s My Dyson?

Should I blame FedEx or the shipper? For Cyber Monday, Dyson discounted a combo fan/heater by $200. The rust and grey color, while a little odd, fits my workspace, and I placed an order expecting three business day delivery. Overnight, arrival pushed from today to tomorrow, and that’s okay because tracking the package is fun; the USA has some strangely named cities.

First off, I rarely track packages. They arrive when they arrive. No amount of time dumped down the “Where is it now? waste bin will accelerate delivery. But in a casual peak, the splendor—no, no oddity—of the route traveled tickled my synaptic pathways. 

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News Media by Joe Wilcox
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Outrageous! Digital Wall Street Journal Costs 708% More Today Than Did My First Subscription!

As a journalist, I appreciate the importance of paying for quality journalism—but my budget only can absorb so many paywall subscriptions. I am disappointed to, once again, abandon the digital Wall Street Journal. Cost is too high. I resubscribed this year for a 6-month, election special promotional rate of $87—and received great value. The Journal became my newspaper of record during the brutal, belabored, blood-sucking Presidential campaign.

My sub would have auto-renewed on December 9th. But for how much? Nowhere (that I can find) does the account page disclose this vital information. So yesterday afternoon, I called customer service and received a shock that required the guy to repeat the renewal amount four times. Surely I misunderstood him: $98.97 for three months. That’s $395.88 per year! I pleaded for a deal and got one that isn’t low enough: $130.44 for six months. The WSJ rep compared the monthly costs for the incredible savings: $21.74, rather than $32.99 monthly. But as I told him, the meaningful comparison is to my other paid papers (digitally). 

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