I did not write a blog entry on 9/11. I was too consumed by what was happening on that day. I did write a blog entry on 9/12/2001, and here it is.
I’m not going to make this a long entry as I’ll be late for work otherwise, and with news feeds and such, work is plenty busy.
I am still in shock and disbelief as to what occurred yesterday in New York, Washington, D.C. and southwest Pennsylvania. It’s amazing how fragile life can be sometimes, even living in the greatest nation on the planet. To see the second airliner crash into the World Trade Center tower, live on television, was astounding. The number of innocent victims killed or injured will be staggering. To think that human beings could commit such acts against other human beings is terrifying. There is already a renewed sense of unity in our great nation. I believe our lives changed yesterday at 8:48 a.m. forever. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.
I couldn’t watch the debate. I can’t stand the sight, sound, or any other aspect of the Orange Idiot. I can barely tolerate folks that think a convicted felon is smart businessman or some sort of 21st century Jesus.
He’s not.
I’ve seen a couple of clips. Kamala Harris wiped the floor with him. She set out the bait and he took it hook, line, and sinker. He has no plan for healthcare. He has a concept of a plan. Project 2025 still awaits in the wings for his presidency, because he has absolutely no thought of his own.
Kamala was presidential. I am looking forward to her presidency.
Make it happen, America. We need to keep moving forward.
Here’s are some quick thoughts on today’s Apple Event, “It’s Glow Time”.
The event was geared primarily to this year’s iPhone announcements, the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Pro lines. I watched the event while working, so this isn’t meant to be an exhaustive coverage of the event, but rather some of the quick takeaways I picked up while I was attempting to be productive.
Since the pandemic Apple has been doing pre-recorded announcements at these events, and will probably continue this trend for the foreseeable future. I know these events are all recorded on iPhones and then edited on Macs, which I find nifty. This approach is leading me in the direction of going to an all iPhone approach to my YouTube content. Someone just needs to inform my husband in the budgetary department.
The video itself was gorgeous and I’m always impressed with the production values. For some reason I found Tim Cook’s cadence a little “off” during his portions, like there was an extra beat or two of awkward silence between sentences. Perhaps the teleprompter was difficult to read in the outside sun.
The new Apple Watch Series 10 features a bigger screen that is designed to be easier to view from an angle, which makes sense to me because it is a watch. I like the look of the new version of Apple Watch, but I’m not sure I need an update as of yet. I’m still rocking my Apple Watch Series 7 (the version with cell service) and it seems to be fitting my needs quite well. As I type this blog entry I just turned “Always On” back on to see how it affects the battery life. I had a few applications that were crashing battery life earlier this year and I had turned that feature off. Let’s see if it’s figured itself out.
Apple Watch Ultra 2 got some upgrades but I still think it’s version two. Even though I enjoy hiking, I don’t know that I need an Ultra at this time. We’ll see.
I was dismayed to see that Apple announced beefed up speakers in the new watches, as that’s just going to encourage rude people to start playing music and phone calls over the speakers all the more while they’re in public and that really grates on my nerves.
The entire AirPods line was updated and I was surprised to see Apple leaning on health related features in this line. There was a noted focus on hearing protection and hearing augmentation. The software can now do some nifty things with pass through and noise cancelation, which is interesting. As a Gen Xer I usually translate “they’re wearing headphones or EarPods” to “they don’t care and/or they’re not paying attention to me”. However, now that these devices can be used in place of hearing aids, I should be less judgmental about the use of the devices in every day life. Though, to be fair, I don’t know why anyone would want music piped into their ears during every waking moment; that’s why we Muzak where you can shop at Safeway to a lively beat.
The big announcements were the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro lineups. There’s a new camera button underneath what I still call the power button, and that button is used for photo and video purposes with enhancements to the camera app. I really liked that. The new button is haptic, so there’s a difference between touching the button, pushing the button, and stroking the button. I need some hands on time to see how much it enhances the camera experience.
I find the new “Desert Titanium” iPhone 16 Pro the most appealing. The color is gorgeous and I really like the idea of a titanium phone. The cameras on the pro series have all been beefed up and of course the entire iPhone 16 line is ready for the upcoming Apple Intelligence coming out later this year.
Speaking of “coming out soon…”, there seemed to be a LOT of mentions of features that would be available this year throughout the entire presentation. It seems like the company has become a slave to its own marketing department and stock holders and for some reason it really feels like they’ve been caught off guard a little bit with this “artificial intelligence” fad that has gripped the tech world. Apple Intelligence seems to be the most appealing approach to me, in that Apple is predictably leaning on security and doesn’t seem to be encouraging people to take photos of things that aren’t really there and trying to pass them off as real. I’m not a fan of the “artificial intelligence” fad, but I figure I’ll be beyond this lifetime before it completely destroys society. At least Apple seems to be doing it in the most sane way possible.
As a budding videographer I am very much interested in the new iPhone 16 Pro to replace my iPhone 13 Pro. The camera upgrades, processor upgrades, and the now year-old upgrade to USB-C would be a big benefit to my videography experience. While I did hear some remarks from folks who wonder if we want to be locked into an Apple ecosystem when it comes to photos and videos, I don’t really think of the content creation on iPhones as a lock-in to the Apple walled garden. There are plenty of apps out there that allow a creative to treat the in-phone cameras as a regular camera with plenty of adjustments across the board.
It’s all a matter of budget for me, and if Apple can record their gorgeous productions on an iPhone 16 Pro, I can do the same with my hiking, storm chasing, and aviation videos.
I miss the sense of wonder I had when sitting in the back seat of the Heavy Chevy at age six, wondering where that road went, and where that airplane was coming from.
I miss the smiles both my grandmothers had when I walked into the room. They were completely different but either smile made me feel so loved.
I wish people kept their nationalism to themselves.
I wish it was still considered rude to be prideful about your religious beliefs.
I feel like society reached peak technology around 2007. A lot of tech beyond that is iterative and rather unnecessary.
I’m bummed that while chasing storms I discovered that capitalism has turned charming small towns into carbon copies of one another, all with the same big box stores.
I miss dot matrix printers that were too slow to print yards of marketing messages and gimmicky coupons.
I’m tired of Arizona heat this summer.
I want to spend a day just watching airplanes and trains.
I really miss hanging with better pilots than me at the airport.
My latest video shows a little bit behind the scenes as I capture my hiking adventures on Mount Lemmon. Plus, there’s plenty of beautiful scenery to enjoy. Here’s a link to all the fun, with plenty of information available in the video description.
Football season has begun. Earl wanted to see the Eagles game in a fun environment, so we made our way across Tucson to Cold Beers and Cheeseburgers in Oro Valley.
This restaurant is a chain throughout Arizona, with a location coming soon to somewhere in Texas, which is an odd twist.
This was our second visit to one of these restaurants, our first being in the Phoenix area in July. The Eagles won, we had a great time, and our server was awesome. There were many patrons stationed at their tables for the entire game, which seemed weird to me at first but when I saw others doing it I was good to go.
A video from 1983: “Meet the Computer Addicts”. It’s funny to think this was reported over 40 years ago.
It is this type of “addiction” back then that resulted in my first piece of shareware being sold in 1984 and subsequently a quite successful career in tech.
We stopped into Slow Body Brewing this evening. The vibe is awesome here. Said vibe includes video on a small TV on the bar, courtesy of a genuine VCR.
I’ve figured out why social media is really starting to burn me out. It’s not the political discourse, because I’m doing my best to stay away from that stuff. Though admittedly, I’m contributing to it too often and so now I’m really trying hard to stay away.
No, the reason I’m getting burned out on social media is because of the “firehose” onslaught of information. There’s no coherency or consistency through the subjects, emotion, tempo, or timbre of the doomscrolling opportunities. My attention is being yanked from Linux tech talk to Trumpian idiocy, to why bees are important in less than three entries in the same round of scrolling and my brain is getting really tired jumping from subject to subject like that.
In reality I can jump from subject to subject, and I’m usually doing that at any given moment, but there’s usually a common thread in these jumps, no matter how obscure that thread is. And furthermore, I can’t find any rhyme, reason, or general pattern in these wildly oscillating topics flying by on the doomscrolling machine and it just makes my brain tired. Very tired.
Shockingly, forums like we had back in the days of GEnie, CompuServe, and AOL at least were based around a loose subject and I enjoyed that cohesion.
All I need is a 56K baud modem and I’d be good to go.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
