Category: Uncategorized

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Once Upon A Time

Friends,

I’ve got a bone to pick with a copywriting trend I’m seeing lately. It’s popping up in press releases, news articles, think pieces and op-eds with alarming frequency and I’m already tired of it.

This trend is really a writing style and it goes like this…

 

  1. First paragraph has some background and lays out a premise.
  2. Second paragraph says how we used to do a thing.
  3. Third and subsequent paragraphs introduce the new thing and explain how great it is.

 

It’s lazy (and I’ve done it myself) and not new in itself. What’s new is that articles are explicitly telling you what they’re doing. Here’s an example…

Everyone likes to tell stories – it’s something we’ve done since we were kids. These days storytelling is an inherent part of our daily lives on social media, whether it’s sharing family photos or promoting a product, company, or cause.

For a long time, the tools that let us creatively express ourselves and tell our stories were there for the select few who knew how to use them. But times have changed.  A high-definition camera is just a swipe away. You can carry an orchestra in your pocket and a digital publishing studio in your bag. We already know how to share with the world—but how do we actually stand out by telling our stories with impact?

Today we’re announcing Adobe Spark – a new way to create powerful visual stories…

Sure, Executive Vice Presidents write this way, but you shouldn’t. You’re better than that.

Your best pal in the whole world,

– bob

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One Half AA?

Friends,

I’m sorry to report this morning that a) Southern California Edison is not very good at the whole consistently providing electricity thing and that b) the trusty old Power Macintosh that provides images for the Jaunty Little Webcam did not survive the last extended outage. The good news is that I think the problem with the Mac is its geriatric clock battery which is no longer charging and not keeping the clock alive. Wake On LAN and Restart After Power Outage? Yeah, they’re handled by the clock.

The good news is that replacement batteries are cheap. The bad news is they won’t show up until the end of the week, so we’re sunk until then. Save a good thought for the old Macintosh that she’ll live to see another day, won’t you?

Your pal,

– bob

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In Defense Of Yesterday’s Technology

 

Friends,

I’ve been a subscriber to a single wireless phone carrier for twelve years, which is absurd when you think about it. Who hasn’t switched and flopped between carriers to get the best price or the best signal or to take advantage of a last gasp deal (Hello, T-Mobile!). I was finally able to take advantage of my, erm, loyalty yesterday and also a giant multinational corporation hoping to clear last year’s phone model out of the channel to get an iPhone 6 for nothing down. Also, the payments on the new phone with the deal are lower than the old phone, so the monthly is lower. That’s the financials, but what about the hardware?

Brilliant. The camera is lovely, the processor is very fast and migration of data from the old to the new model was reasonably quick when directly connected to the desktop through iTunes. It’s bigger than the older phone, but it still fits in a front jeans pocket.

All that said, there are some problems. My laptop is from (late) 2007 and has been rejuvinated with a RAM and hybrid hard drive (part SSD, part spinning disks) upgrade, but still can’t run the latest version of Mac OS X. That means that it has been excluded from the great cloudiverse. It can’t share data with the new phone, iPad, or the desktop machine if I turn iCloud on. Apple makes an app (or application, if you will) that allows Windows machines to access iCloud storage, but you can’t do that on old Macs. Perfectly functional Macs.

Perfectly functional Intel-based machines are out. The Power PC machines, like the G4 Cube, Power Mac, Powerbook G3s and iBooks (before iBooks was an e-book purchasing app, or application, if you will) are still running, but out of luck in this ecosystem. Surely you don’t want to toss these machines in the bin since they have a lot of useful life left doing the things that most people want to do, like browsing the web or checking email, so making these machines obsolete seems like a waste.

There are lots of ways around this file sharing problem, like Dropbox, and local file sharing, but the many old machines on my network deserve something better. They’ve built the company, or at least the ethos of the company, so why not cut them a little slack?

I know why, but that’s the subject of the next piece.

Your pal,

– bob

 

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Welcome To The Future

Friends,

This BBC documentary from 1966 details the technological advances pioneered in California with not a small amount of wistfulness. California’s rapid pace is awe inspiring, but there are casualties…

It’s worth your 45 minutes.

Your pal,

– bob

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Hemet.

Friends,

I’ve taken a break, in case you haven’t noticed, to take care of life. It’s been a tumultuous month or so but you’ll be pleased to know that the tumult is largely over. I’ll get back to that in a little while, but you should know that I took a little trip to Hemet today.

I had a check to deposit and the closest branch of my bank is in Riverside County’s home of potato farming, Hemet, California. Once I managed to wade through the traffic, the incessant lights and the low-motor skill holders of driving licenses, I rolled up to the parking lot and caught the attention of enough skinhead loiterers that I thought I should head inside.

Once I was buzzed through the outside doors and the vestibule doors (not entirely unlike this, and you know how that turned out), I was greeted by a pudgy security guard who insisted on shaking my hand and disco playing from the overhead sound system. Friday. Disco. The teller at the end motioned me over, “I can help you.”

Then I noticed the name badge on her teller window. “Excuse me, can I ask you a personal question? Is your name really Shimmy?” “Well, my name is much longer, so most people call me Shimmy.”

“With the disco playing and your name, this may be the most fun bank branch I’ve ever visited.” “Why thank you,” she said. “We try.” 

So if you’re having a bad week, head to the Hemet branch of my bank. They seem to be having a pretty good time.

Your pal,

– bob

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Festival!

A lovely centered picture of a pretty dog.

Friends,

It’s time for our own cherry blossom festival, so here they are. I’m filled with glee.

Your pal,

– bob

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Sometimes The Glass Is Mostly Empty

Friends,

A big Pacific storm is headed our way today and will bring us some rain. In some places, like my piney paradise, quite a bit of rain. Then this idiocy happened on Twitter (about 500 times from a series of like-minded nitwits)…

 

 

Gee, really? The two inches of rain today aren’t going to turn our arid desert into a tropical rainforest? How about shut the hell up?

I blame how we’ve come to understand the word drought. Since we live in a mostly dry place, shouldn’t what we now think of as drought be considered normal? It seems like the times when moisture falls out of the sky are extraordinary, not the dry spells. 

And before you raise your hand to mention climate change or poles shifting or coronal ejections, yes, it’s always been this way forever. Dry deserts are not new.

So let’s reset the measurement and get rid of the D word. That way most of us, perhaps with the exception of Ian, can enjoy the rainfall as it was intended. Spoilsport.

Your best pal in the whole world,

– bob

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Freelance Crankypants

Friends,

On this particular Monday, the idea of responding to this Craigslist post is very appealing. Like asking an arsonist to come over and check your stove’s pilot light.

Tempting.

– bob

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The Photons Are Bouncing Off Of Things In The Atmosphere In A Pleasing Manner

a lovely centered picture of a stunning sunrise in sorta-hdr

 

Friends,

Some days you just want to press on through your commute as fast as you can. Year in and year out you look at the same landscape. You change the channel on the radio to mix it up. Have another sip of coffee to stay alert.

Today, on the eve of a minor precipitation event (which would be a grandiose way to hype the promise of some rainfall this afternoon) I found the sunrise so spectacular, that I had to share. My iPhone’s High Dynamic Range (HDR) setting only begins to capture the depth of the colors on display, but it wasn’t too far off.

We’ll see what today’s sunset offers. Maybe another reason to stop.

Your best pal in the whole wide world,

– bob

 

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Absolutely Everybody Is Talking About It!

Friends,

Yesterday, the fine folks at the South Coast Air Quality Management District (an obviously overwrought name designed to create the too cute by half acronym, SCAQMD) issued a No-Burn Notice for Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside Counties due to anticipated high levels of particulates in the air. This means that you’ll need to put out the tire inferno still blazing in your backyard (no, seriously, you should get right on that), but more importantly, it means that the fireplaces and wood stoves heating a touch under a third of California homes must stay cold this evening. You’ll notice that our gal, The Idyllwild Weather Clam says that it’s 27° outside right now, but overnight lows tonight are predicted to be at or a little above freezing. In other words, despite this steep warming trend, it’s going to be pretty chilly tonight and for a lot of people, particularly in the mountain communities, a fireplace may be the only source of heat in their homes.

I’m lucky in that even though my furnace has been broken for a couple years, I have several different sources of heat for my house. They’re inadequate on their own, but when combined can make the Damp Dog Lodge a pretty cozy place.

The notice went up on Facebook and my neighbors lost their minds trying to figure out how they’ll stay warm tonight. If you simply went to http://www.aqmd.gov/ and put in the ZIP code of an affected region, or use Idyllwild’s 92549, you’ll see that burning is banned today. If you read further down into the press release linked on that page, you’ll see that residents living 3,000-feet above sea level or higher, like our friends in my mile-high burg, are exempt from the order. You’ll see lots of exceptions, some economic, some born of necessity, so why did people freak out? Was it because their way of life was threatened by an arbitrary governmental agency but they didn’t want to take the time to do simple research, like clicking a link, on exactly how the order might affect them personally?

Maybe!

 

Your pal,

– bob

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Goodbye, Blogger

So long, weirdos.

Friends,

It’s been a very long time and we’ve had a lot of laughs, but it’s time to finally bid the Jaunty Little Blog at Blogger farewell. Their interface isn’t playing nice with the tools I use every day, Google has made it very clear in revisions to their terms of service that content I post can be sold by them however they see fit, and maintaining two sites has been a real impediment to my willingness to post new content. Something had to give and Google has made the decision for me. The nice people at Squarespace, on the other hand, have been generous with their support (maybe because I’m paying them a nominal fee) and their tools work all the time, unlike the advertising behemoth that Google has become.

I’ll miss the old site a little only due to nostalgia, but there’s more cool stuff to come at therieau.com, so please take the time and follow me over there. You won’t necessarily be glad you did, but you’ll be sad if you don’t.

Good night Blogger.

Your best pal in the entire world,

– bob

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Octobernationals

That’s Exciting!

Friends,

I was driving home this sunny and comfortable afternoon with the windows rolled down and was passed by a rough looking Mercury Villager minivan. A minivan held together with duct tape and drywall screws. A minivan that smelled like taco grease and farts.

I changed lanes and pulled up alongside at the red light when I caught the driver’s eye. He grimaced a little, his eyes narrowed, and he started revving the bag of broken hammers under his imaginary race car’s hood. So this was going to be a race then?

Not sure I want to know what I would have received for winning. Fare thee well, fart van man. Fare thee well.

Your pal,

– bob

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Well, That Settles It

 

 

Friends,

Remember earlier when we had a little discussion about Google losing interest in Blogger? It turns out that they’re very interested, for reasons that I’m not very interested in.

Google revealed its shared endorsements scheme in a change to its terms of service. The updates state that going forward, friends, family, “and others” may see a user’s Google profile name, photo, and any endorsement they’ve created for a company alongside ads for that company. For instance, if Jon Brodkin gave the new Nickelback album 5 stars and said in a review that the band is “the voice of our generation,” the next time someone searches for that album, Brodkin’s rating and praise could appear alongside a sponsored placement.

Time to hold a pillow over the mirror on Blogger until it stops squirming.

Good night, Blogger site. Please adjust your bookmarks accordingly.

Your best pal,

– bob