Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

WWDC 2020.

I cleared my work calendar yesterday so I could watch the Apple keynote at WWDC 2020 in its entirety. WWDC, or World Wide Developers Conference, is Apple’s annual gathering geared toward developers. This year the event is virtual. From what I’m hearing online it’s being well received. I’m happy Apple is able to maintain their momentum.

I’m not going to get into a complete rundown of thoughts and opinions on the keynote, fellow blogger Dave at Blogography does a fantastic job here. H/T to Dave.

However, I will touch on a couple of thoughts around the keynote. First of all, I LOVED the production of the entire thing. Obviously pre-recorded, the pacing was fantastic, the presentation was concise, and there were no time filling demos of games or other things just to, well, fill time. There were drone shots, zoom shots, and we were afforded the opportunity to see parts of the Apple campus not usually available to the general public. I hope this type of keynote is used as a model for future Apple endeavors, because I enjoyed this keynote more than any I’ve seen in at least the past five years. No pauses for applause and accolades, let’s show and go. It was fantastic.

Apple CEO Tim Cook opened up with a statement on the company’s stance on Black Lives Matter and I commend them for the $100 million dollars they are pledging to make this world a better place in this regard. It may be just a drop in Apple’s financial bucket, but it’s a heck of a lot of money and a bigger effort than their technological contemporaries. I have always loved Apple for their societal stances and the way they back up these stances with action and this is no different.

As the presenters moved through the new features of iOS 14, iPadOS 14, macOS, and the other operating systems, I couldn’t help but notice how much attention is focused on user privacy. As more and more of our lives move to digital platforms, user privacy is probably the most important element of our experience. While many like to crow about how great Google’s Android ecosystem is, I’m always concerned with the amount of information Google is scraping from user data for ad revenue generating purposes. And what happens if that user data ends up in the wrong hands? Bad things can happen.

Apple focuses on doing as much as they can in the way of processing user information locally, on the user’s own device, and as anonymously as practical. Does this hamper some of their efforts when compared to companies that do this processing in the “cloud”? Yes, it does. But I believe the trade off is worth it. Unless you’re running your own cloud, with all of the administrative tasks that come along with that endeavor, the closest thing you’re going to get to solid user privacy and have a digital presence is to do it through Apple’s ecosystem. I appreciate that focus and that’s why I always recommend Apple’s iPhone and iPad to friends and family looking for a routine, casual digital experience.

iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and macOS, as well as the other things announced during the keynote, look rock solid and very compelling. I’m excited about the releases coming out later this year.

While I explore Linux and my Raspberry Pis and the like, I’m always happy that I still have my Apple devices as well. Apple helps me look forward to the future.

23 June 2020 by J.P. Geek 0

Dun Dun.

Walter and Maude Findlay’s neighbor Arthur Harmon was a staunch Republican. Now, he didn’t use many of the words that his contemporary Archie Bunker used, though he did use some, but like Archie he had a Republican view on the early and mid 1970s. When discussing municipal laws around the arrival of a gay bar to Tuckahoe, N.Y., Arthur proclaims the Republican Party is the party of Law and Order. There are laws in this country and they must be obeyed.

Trump likes to tweet in all caps. LAW AND ORDER! We’ve never had a president that lived by Twitter before this fiasco began. It seems like a really crude way to communicate to the American people. As if having Twitter becoming a publicly traded company made it any more legitimate. But an illegitimate president tweeting and barking orders makes sense here in this Age of Chaos.

LAW AND ORDER!

Who the hell knows what Trump is talking about with these barks formulated by his tiny little hands. I’d say maybe a third of the American populace really cares what he has to say but the news channels hang on every tweet, every character, every slip, every indication. I gave up trying to understand Donald Trump back when Julia Sugarbaker was telling him off in Prime Time.

Here in the late 2010s and into 2020 the Republican Party is the complete opposite of what they were back in the 1970s. Oh, there’s plenty of them that are trying to Schlafly their way through life, twisting words, spinning sentences, and hating just as hard as they can, but the Republican Party can no longer claim to be the party of Law And Order. That went out the window years ago. Law and Order is complying with subpoenas. Law and Order is not raping American tax dollars for personal gain. Law and Order is respecting the United States Constitution.

So when Trump bangs out LAW AND ORDER in a tweet, we are left to do one thing.

Respond with CAGNEY AND LACEY.

It’s just as ridiculous.

Stormy Weather.

I’m sitting on the sofa in the living room, enjoying the thunder and lightning show outside. This makes me wonder, why do we call it a thunder and lightning show? Thunder and lightning. It’s usually not said “lightning and thunder”. This is strange to me, because the lightning comes before the thunder.

I remember fellow classmates in elementary school talking about thunderstorms and how it was the angels bowling in heaven. One particularly religious girl claimed God was crying for our sins when it rained. I mentioned something about snowstorms and dandruff and there were laughs and I was told I was going to hell.

Instead I was invited to go roller skating with other classmates which turned out to be a big prayer circle in the middle of the rink with our feet sticking out. I just wanted to roller skate; I had my own time to talk to God.

The weather forecast has thunderstorms predicted for a good share of the week. It’s that time of year and quite frankly as long as I’m not flying I’m happy about it. I just hope it clears up by the weekend so I can go flying as scheduled for Saturday morning.

In the meanwhile I’ll enjoy the light and rumble show.

22 June 2020 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 0

Thank You.

There are many reasons to love our neighborhood.

21 June 2020 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 0

Culture Shifts.

We took a drive into Northwest Indiana today. We had no plan in mind other than a change of scenery. We’ve lived in the Midwest for nearly three years but I feel like our exploration adventures are still in their infancy.

We stopped at a Target in Valparaiso, Indiana to use the washroom. Unlike establishments in Illinois, there are no big signs on the front doors requiring the use of masks, just a few 8 1/2 x 11 printed signs reminding customers the importance of Social Distancing. Either the virus has passed over or gone beyond Indiana or folks there feel like wearing a mask is an infringement on their freedom.

I tend to think it’s the latter.

Earl and I wore masks while in the store. Approximately a quarter to a third of the other customers were doing the same. The folks in masks seemed to be doing the most social distancing. We used the washroom and then left the building.

Our drive was pleasant. We passed through a couple of thunderstorms along the way but nothing outrageous. When it was time to head home I jumped onto Interstate 65. I’ve always known this roadway to be under construction and it didn’t disappoint today. The construction area was flooding in the rain causing a traffic backup. I dodged around floating construction barrels. I didn’t know they were able to float.

The ride was most enjoyable because we always enjoy our time together talking and watching the countryside go by. The isolation of the car is an added bonus.

21 June 2020 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 0

Endorsements.

I earned my Complex and High Performance endorsements to my Private Pilots Certificate today. I’ve been flying with an instructor since the beginning of May to accomplish this feat. My new endorsements allow me to exercise my Pilots Private skills in airplanes with retractable gear and more than 200 horsepower engines. The airplane used for my training is a 1978 Cessna 182 RG with a 235 horsepower, six-cylinder engine. It’s much heavier than what I’m used to flying and it took me a little under 12 hours of flight time to get used to the handling characters of “Large Marge”.

A rain storm was passing to the north of the airfield today as I performed some landings and demonstrated a manual gear extension (in case the wheels don’t come out when I tell them to). There was quite a bit of traffic up there with us, so we extended the pattern a couple of times. It gave us a nice view of the Lake Michigan shoreline near the Wisconsin-Illinois state border.

I’m excited about my new endorsements as this opens up some cross-country flight opportunities. I’m really happy I was able to accomplish this during the pandemic.

20 June 2020 by J.P. Fly. 0

Douglas.

Tonight Earl and I watched Hannah Gadsby’s latest Netflix special. It is called “Douglas”.

We both found it very funny and very enjoyable. I love the way Hannah communicates with her audience. I get her. I get her humour. There’s a whole spectrum of comedy out there and Hannah sits right in a place I can identify with. It’s a wavelength thing.

Is “identify with” correct syntax? I think with is a preposition and if you’re writing informally ending a sentence with a preposition is completely acceptable. I tend to write informally. Even when I put a “u” in humour.

I do recommend “Douglas”.

19 June 2020 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 0

Diversity.

I didn’t know Juneteenth was a thing until well into my adulthood. I don’t know the exact date I became aware of Juneteenth but I do remember thinking it was odd that we didn’t learn about this sort of thing when I was in school. It seems rather important. I know back in elementary school it was extremely important for me to know the history of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers back when dates were in the B.C. range, Marie Antionette did something, and of course George Washington was the first president. Oh! New York was one of the original 13 states. Modern-ish history was always raced through late in the year: there was one World War, then another, then a couple of other wars, and Jane Fonda did something, but now it’s time for your final exam. That’s pretty much how all my civics classes went. My school had an accelerated Social Studies program for sophomores and juniors; college bound students tended to skip World History I to take World History II and American Studies I as a sophomore and American Studies II and Ethics as a junior. I remember Regents students took American Studies while non-Regents students took American History. I don’t know why there was a delineation or what the difference in curriculum was. Maybe they learned about Juneteenth in American History. The accelerated program moved the New York State Regents Exam to January of my junior year, which helped balance exam loads in June, I guess. We didn’t even talk about Juneteenth in Ethics, even as we sat with our desks in circle and discussed the merits of various things in society. Gays? Some would counter not equal. Juneteenth? Never came up.

Over the years I’ve quipped that I came from a town that had no racial diversity. None. We didn’t even have a Chinese or Mexican restaurant until well after I graduated in 1986. Today I got to wondering if I was just not remembering things correctly so I went through all of my yearbooks, grade 8 to my senior year. Among all the smiling faces of classmates of various teenage years, there was one non-white face amongst the smiles two years behind me. Her name is Tammy and I vividly remember her with pleasant memories. She doesn’t appear after her eighth grade photo; I don’t know where she went to. She lived down the road from us in town with her mother, her older brother, and younger sister. I remember kids being mean to Tammy and in my obnoxiously present ignorance I could never figure out why they were being mean. She was nice, had a great laugh, but she could be as tough as nails when she needed to be. I liked that about her.

So out of approximately 1200 students, aside from the occasional AFS Exchange Students that would drop in once in a while, we had three non-white members of the student body. That’s 0.0025% of the student population.

Small wonder I don’t remember them discussing Juneteenth in what I sometimes jokingly call “snowy Alabama”.

19 June 2020 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 0

What The Font.

Let’s face it, in technology years I’m very old. I’ve been online in some way since early 1986, when I used my Commodore 64 and a 300 BPS modem to connect to the online service GEnie. To this day I’m still not the biggest fan of point-and-click or touchscreens, especially when it comes to everyday tasks like managing email or scheduling meetings or conversing online. If there is a command-line interface available I’m going to try to use it (unless there’s media involved). Hence, one of the reasons why my love affair with Linux never ends, though I do use other systems all the time. With Linux I can just get back to a classic interface and go with it.

It’s probably because of my weird tendency to focus and fixate, but the use of certain fonts in applications can be a distraction or an inspiration. When looking at columns of numbers I want the font to be simple, consistent, and I feel best when it has a “classic” look to it. I detest “Courier New” found in Windows but I *love* “Courier” found elsewhere.

When working with databases at work I use a variety of Database Management programs but I always set the default font to one that I purchased, and that’s called “Amateur Typewriter“.

I like Amateur Typewriter because it strongly resembles a font found on sales receipts printed by NCR cash registers in the late 1970s (the first scanning cash register, the NCR 255 being one of them).

Amateur Typewriter is not identical to NCR’s typeface on those old impact printers but it’s pretty darn close. And this gives me a geeky-comfortable feel during the workday, which in turn makes me very productive.

Sometimes it’s the little things that can make all the difference in the world.

18 June 2020 by J.P. Geek 1

Neighborhood Support.

Chicago’s Boystown is about 12 blocks away from our home. I haven’t been down there much since COVID-19 made its debut. The couple of times I’ve passed through it was a little depressing. I’m sure things are picking up as quarantine practices are relaxed a bit. I’m not ready to risk that sort of mass public contact yet.

June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month. Corporations are quick to show their support with Pride colors flying here in the 21st century, and while I have a little bit of cynicism around their displays overall I feel like it helps with the cause.

What I really enjoy is when neighbors display Pride colors. One block in our neighborhood is decked out with Pride colored ribbons, with an extra Black Lives Matter ribbon on top.

It’s good to know we live in such a supportive area. I hope we can be a beacon of hope for the rest of the country.

17 June 2020 by J.P. City Life. 0

WWDC 2020.

Dun Dun.

Stormy Weather.

Thank You.

Culture Shifts.

Endorsements.

Douglas.

Diversity.

What The Font.

Neighborhood Support.

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