Influencing Truth.

Dave over at Blogography recently featured a YouTube video by an astute observer who points out the fibs, deceptions, and lies found in many YouTube Influencer videos. If you have 38 minutes and feel invested in the topic, here’s the video:

The video highlights all sorts of things, like illogical positions of the sun in the sky relative to the supposed time the video is being recorded, inflated rankings in marathons, and inattention to details like digital clocks showing the real time, etc. This woman has the receipts. You’ll see those too.

Influencer culture is rather gross. It’s an extension of the Reality TV generation conflated with rampant consumerism where you should buy what these influencers are saying you should buy. Their lifestyles are amazing because their videos show just amazing they are. But they’re not.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to get more people to notice my little videos about hiking, storm chasing, and aviation. Honestly, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of interest. Maybe I should just admit that I’m a boring middle aged man. I’m going to keep making my videos because I enjoy the creative outlet, but I’m realizing I’m doing one thing very wrong.

I’m being truthful. The truth does not begat engagement.

During the storm chasing trip I featured a segment in one of my videos where I show myself in the shower, getting ready for the day, checking out weather websites, etc. Being the “Bewitched” nut that I am, there are a couple of little “witchcraft” segments where I pop on my shoes and magically change my shirt. I’m here to admit right now: those two little scenes were staged. But me getting out of the shower? I put the camera up before I got in the shower, took my whole shower, and then the camera captured me getting out of the shower. Same with the shaving, and the brushing of the teeth, and the packing up my belongings to vacate the hotel room.

Note that at no time did I show a shot of me getting out of bed. Because I was traveling solo, there was no one there to film me getting out of bed and I wasn’t about to set up the camera, set the alarm clock back, get back in bed, wait for the alarm, then get out of bed, and fake waking up. I’ve told many tall tales in my life, but that poor habit was solidly in my youth and something I quickly grew out of. I can’t bring myself to “Survivor” or “Big Brother” my way through the day, taking multiple cuts of the same shot to pick the perfect shot. Maybe it comes from my days of radio, but I tend to grab things live.

Yes, there are times when I’ll say the same phrase multiple times because I stumbled over my words while talking to the camera. Yes, I will hike up a trail, put up the camera, go back down the hill, hike up the hill again, and then grab the camera after I passed by, so I have a shot of me hiking up the hill. I’m actually doing twice the hike for those shots. But I’m not going to be claiming it’s before dawn with the sun beating down on me, or bound out of bed with a sure shot of energy when I’ve already gotten out of bed, set up everything, gone back to bed, and done it for real.

I do my best to represent who I am, where I am, and what I’m doing. And apparently that does not please the YouTube algorithms. OK, fine. Then it’s no engagement numbers for me.

We all know Influencer Culture, and those embroiled in that scene, are tacky. I like to think that some of them are doing it for the creative outlet, much like I do with my videos, but for the most part, they’re there to make money off residuals from you buying what they’re selling.

I guess there’s not enough money in selling the truth.

17 June 2024 by Why. 3

Tech!

I’ve decided to start playing around with the next step in video production. Green screens! Not bad for my first attempt.

16 June 2024 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Caturday.

Truman can occasionally be impatient when it comes to his dads getting out of bed, but he is always looking refined.

15 June 2024 by He's A Feline. 0

Lost.

I’m still making my way through photos and video footage from my storm chasing trip in May. While I’m going through all these picturesque bits and bytes I sometimes feel a moment of disbelief realizing it’s been nearly a month since I trekked out onto the Great Plains. That is usually followed by a pang of boredom, because the weather in the month of June in Sonoran Desert is generally very boring, especially for a guy that loves wild weather.

We have been experiencing near record heat for the past couple of weeks and it looks like the trend is going to continue for the foreseeable future. This should come as a surprise to no one; the climate is changing and too many people don’t care about the climate enough to do anything about it.

I’m tired of selfish people.

I think I have isolated myself too much from storm chasers that are still out on the Great Plains chasing storms well into June.

When I came back from the trip and realized the car needed a few thousand dollars of repairs I began to wonder if chasing storms was worth it. Blazing thunderstorms, high winds, and impressive tornadoes a mile or two away? Sign me up. Dancing in ping-pong ball sized hail? I can probably pass on that opportunity.

But gosh, how I love visiting The Great Plains.

14 June 2024 by Storm Chasing. 0

Sunrise to Sunset.

Lucky is the man that sees both the sunrise and the sunset of the same day.

And speaking of lucky, Lucky and Jinx certainly enjoy their sunset walks. Usually they go out with Mike and Chris, but once in a while Uncle J.P. and Uncle Earl will take them for a walk. They still follow their usual routine, once we’ve determined the asphalt is within everyone’s tolerance levels.

13 June 2024 by Desert Life. 0

Avoiding Fiddly.

All my life I have been one that wants to press buttons. I’m not talking about pushing buttons to get people going, but rather buttons on equipment, i.e. computers and the like. I always want to know what the button does. There’s a part of me that’s surprised I never pulled a fire alarm in school, especially in elementary school, where a little hammer on a swing broke a piece of glass that then pushed a button behind the glass.

My amusement at pressing buttons led me to technology and to this day I love fiddling with buttons, physical and virtual, in the technology space. At times this can lead to a decrease in productivity. Instead of using an application to get things done, I spend the vast majority of my bandwidth playing with all the bells and whistles in an application to try to get things to a point of where I can get things done. This approach is not overly productive and as I get older, my desire to be ‘fiddly’ remains, but my recognition of this trait is accepted and I modify my workflows to avoid ‘fiddly’ situations.

Narrowing my focus to a specific set of applications and earnestly fighting the urge to try other applications keeps my employer happy.

Unfortunately, Microsoft is constantly releasing upgrades and updates to their products and the work desktop services team dutifully pushes these changes to our company laptops. Hardly a few days go by when I’m not being prompted with pop-up ads to “try this new things in Teams!” or “you can collaborate with friends in the web version of PowerPoint!”. These pop-up ads, coupled with the constant barrage of Teams messages from folks ignoring my “Busy” status tends to make my to-do list longer than it needs to be.

For a couple of years I’ve been using an application called Obsidian to manage my notes, lists, and other general writing adventures. Productivity gurus far and wide have been touting the virtues of Obsidian for years but I have never been completely happy with the experience. The interface resembles nothing on any platform it’s available on. The syncing service is great, albeit a separate subscription. But my downfall with the application is that it is so customizable that I end up customizing the experience more than actually writing or making lists or taking notes.

While theming an application to my liking is pleasing, it’s not productive for a fiddly guy like me.

So I’m trying out new applications that aren’t as fiddly for this purpose. Before Evernote went completely catawampus a decade or so ago, I was content with Evernote. OneNote at work is alright for work stuff and that’s probably where I’ll land at work.

At the moment I’m looking at Craft. Right now it looks promising, especially when it comes to the user interface. Plus, there’s a web version which makes it accessible across platforms, something very important to me.

If I’m not fiddling around with it too much by month’s end I’ll probably write a blog post about the experience.

12 June 2024 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Hacks.

We finished up season three of “Hacks” on HBO Max. I definitely enjoyed this season of the show. I don’t know if I enjoyed it more than season two, because this new trend of releasing these short bursts of series with no rhyme or reason to timing kind of messes with my memory and I don’t really remember season two. But I liked the way season three went along. The screen time afforded to the supporting players seemed a bit more proportional to their importance to the story.

I was a little surprised at the amount of “very progressive awareness” with some of the storyline choices. Sometimes I feel like the writers were checking off boxes on a checklist, but for me it worked 99% of the time and I didn’t roll my eyes once. Maybe I’m just getting old. That being said, it was interesting to see two main characters of different generations having their take on key topics of that nature.

I’m purposely writing in a vague way and without any spoilers in case you want to watch the show. I absolutely think you should give it a go. And Max comes from with your AT&T cellular subscription! I don’t know why AT&T has buddied up with HBO Max but we live in a crazy country like that.

11 June 2024 by Everyone's A Critic. 0

WWDC.

I don’t have a lot to write about today’s announcements during WWDC24 from Apple Park. Is that what we call the spaceship? Apple Park? I should go there and get the full Apple Park Spaceship Experience. I hear it’s a real “E” ticket ride.

As a daily constant user of Apple products, I was interested in what the latest iterations of all the operating systems was going to bring the to the masses. I even blocked time off in my work calendar so I didn’t miss a beat. I walked away feeling kind of “meh+” about the whole thing.

A.I. doesn’t really get me worked up with excitement. I mean, it’s kind of neat, but it’s just a computer program cleverly grabbing whatever it can and regurgitating it back to the user based on some sort of input. It sounds intelligent, but A.I. isn’t really intelligent. It’s the new hype thing though and all the companies think they’re going to make money by mentioning “A.I.” in their products. But in too many cases it’s like saying Tide Pods are Gluten Free.

Anything to beef up Siri’s capabilities with a dose of sanity and basic functionality is a welcomed addition to the experience, so there’s that.

I definitely don’t need to make cartoons out of images of my friends to let them know they should have a happy birthday, and in that way I feel like Apple REALLY dumbed down and/or cheapened their line of products with gimmicks like this. I usually feel a warm and fuzzy from Apple; this doesn’t give me a warm nor fuzzy. But integrations with calendars and relating my schedule to things I have to do and the like… that’s something I can get on board with.

I was really surprised at how little time, comparatively, was spent with the Vision Pro enhancements. I feel like Apple has lost a bit of their enthusiasm for their Spatial Computing platform, even though it was just released in February. I don’t feel bad for the folks that spent $3500+ on these new devices, as I feel like it was sold long before it was ready to be useful, but I was surprised there wasn’t a little more movement forward with the platform.

The other thing that surprised me was the on-board A.I. processing is limited to the latest and greatest “Pro” edition of the iPhone, and that’s it. Obviously it’ll work with new phones coming out this fall. But if I had the latest “consumer” edition of the iPhone and I was left out of the loop I’d be a little perturbed. I still have an iPhone 13 Pro that works quite well, so I knew I wouldn’t be in that mix.

10 June 2024 by Apple. 2

Being Positive.

I find society’s general focus on the negativity around us, and we all know there’s a great abundance of it, to be overwhelming more often than it’s not. The only way I’m personally going to get through this Election Cycle, and whatever comes from it, is by seeking and focusing on the positivity around me. It’s occasionally a struggle but it’s very much worth it.

I’ve decided to keep pushing forward with my YouTube channel. I finally went ahead and built a “trailer video” so folks would know what’s in my content and what my intentions are for the channel. I hope you enjoy this video as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

9 June 2024 by Ponderings and Musings 0

About J.P.

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.

Weird? Eccentric!

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