Random Non-Sequiters
It's been a few months since I've done a Random Non-Sequiter type of post, so let's go...
Social Media
Social media is a weird thing, I check it constantly but for the most part I get very little out of it. It feels completely mainstream now. It's not so much an intimate place where people "really" talk like it was once upon a time. It's much more like general acceptable office conversation now. Sports, local events, pets, kids, and a little bit of navel gazing at the medium itself -- those sorts of things. Probably invaluable to people who work at home, but for those already in a largish workplace, it's more redundant by the day.
The Web
I'm plugged into a lot of different news channels online. More and more they just copy eachother's posts, and the same sort of posts show up everywhere, regardless of the "stated mission" or "topic area."
Web services. Flickr, Gmail, blogs, that sort of thing:
- Flickr's recent change really pissed me off -- I wrote about that last month though. Solution to that will likely be to post ephemeral/time-context contingent photos directly to twitter, and to create my own photo archive on my own hosted domain for longer term storage/archiving.
- Gmail made a fantastic new change this month, auto grouping: personal, social, promotional and updtate emails together. It's already changing how I deal with email. Personal email I read right away of course. The other categories I save for later in the day and then page through them. Oddly, I'm looking at more email then ever. I think it helps to not be context switching as you look at each one. When I'm ready to look at promotional emails, I flip to that category and page through them like a catalog. Not a use pattern I immediately expected to engage in.
- I'm not sure I know a single real person (other than my wife) maintaining a personal blog right now. I mean there are some tumblr's out there but a good old fashion blog, those seem to be out of fashion at the moment don't you think?
- I still have no replacement strategy for Google Reader. Not interested in Feedly until they stand-up their own backend and stop asking for your Google Password. Newsblur will be a likely choice, but being run by one guy makes it tenuous, don't you think? What if that recent car chase was in the Newsblur guy's neighborhood instead of that Occulous rift guy for example? Haven't seen any open source solutions that would really handle the number of feeds I track well either. Near as I can tell, the smart thing to do, will be just to create monthly archives of my OMPL file, so that I'm ready to adopt new software or services at a moment's notice.
Media
- Love the current ubiquity of media. Any Movie, TV, Audio or Book you want is generally a click away.
- Sad that the cheapest way to watch a recent movie is still driving down to a Redbox kiosk and renting a DVD though.
- Streaming rentals should be cheaper.
- Lots of well produced drama out now. Many are so hyper violent and torture prone though aren't they? The torture has been getting to me a bit lately. Too much imagery sometimes.
- Most shows are ending now, but we do have more Summer shows than ever, and there is bingeing on online sites to be had.
Devices
- You have to be astounded at how cheap powerful tablets have gotten already. Desktops and laptops too.
- If you have something decent from the last few years though, not likely a huge need to upgrade though.
- Amazed at how cheap, truely monstrous TV's have gotten. It'd get a larger one than what we have, but ours is already pretty much as big as there is wall space for in our small TV den. It's nice price isn't the limiting factor now in TV's, it's wall real estate.
- Still digging the Samsung Galaxy S4. Fantastic device. I even use it in place of my iPad on more occasions than with previous phones. At home, I'm probably 65% iPad, 35% S4 in my time split.
- Been using Fitbit. Surprised at how useful I find it. Neat to have a numerical rating of activity associated to when I feel tired or sore. The Fitbit scale is really nice too. Even without the wi-fi and the record keeping, it's just a nice looking device with that round LCD display.
- Hue and Nest - automated lighting and temperature how did we ever get along without it.
- Mailbox notifier still cool too, especially since a month back or so we added an even smoother reset switch
- Haven't done much with Belkin automated switches. They're good for turning on and off Christmas lights. Plus used one for a Slow Cooker once, but haven't found much other use for automating the on and off of dumb appliances.
- Netcam is useful though, nice to be able to check in on the house or cat from anywhere.
- Downloaded some netcam software to my old android phone too. Turning that into a net enabled camera has given that device new life. There's probably alot of worthwhile projects that you could do with these aging and cheap second hand Android phones.
- Pebble watch this past month or so has been cool. Changes your relationship to real time notifications.
- Not sure what other device frontiers need to be conquered. I've looked around at some various gadget sites like gdgt etc. and I don't see much else out there. Perhaps 3D Printing soon? I'm sort of surprised that this hasn't been the summer that something really affordable broke through to mainstream sellers on that front.
Games
I'm not much of a gamer, but there's alot available in this space right now, isn't there? Looks like this fall/Christmas there will be a breath of fresh air into the console experience as well as the Xbox One launches. (Is there much hope for the PS4?)
I've been digging Ingress on Android. Good excuse to get out of the house sometimes. Will be interesting to see if I feel the same about it in winter though.
Weather
So far, it's been a much more normal weather season Spring 2013 than Spring 2012. Been enjoying working a little in the yard and getting outside to the local parks this spring, so far.
Comics and fandom
I still keep up on the news and the movies, but there's little exciting me at the moment. Maybe I've just got a little too much of a been there seen that mentality about this stuff though, so it could be just me.
- Yesterday they announced that Matt Smith will be leaving Doctor Who at the end of the year. For me, it was David Tenant that really mde that franchise "must see". The Matt Smith era really exploded Doctor Who into mainstream fandom popularity though didn't it? Who isn't Star Wars or anything but it's at least reached an awareness level of probably late 90s Star Wars don'tcha think?
- DC Comics really seems a mess at the moment. Cool to see Justice League so prominent as part of Target's Summer theme this year though.
- Marvel seems a mess at the moment too. I don't keep up with it as closely, near as I can tell it's the TV and Movie universes that they're having the hardest time absorbing into the tone of the comics, combine that with the constant "event crossovers" and "multi-month event stories" and they just look to be being crushed under their own historical weight don't they?
- With comic creators flitting from company to company and many not doing runs longer than 6 or 8 issues any more, that's not helping consistency either is it?
- As to fandom in general: It seems so well ordered now, it has it's own major news sites and release schedules and procedures and seems little different on every front than the full-court promotional-informational press that used to be reserved just for major movies. Fandom is everywhere now. I mean, I don't even watch Community, but I know Dan Harmon is back on it. Geek news travels very fast and very efficiently now.
- Can I take this moment to say: I really hope Man of Steel doesn't suck when it comes out in a couple weeks. It doesn't have to be great, but just don't suck as a Superman story ok? I mean, Green Lantern sucked as a movie, but didn't suck as a Green Lantern story, that's all I ask, the bar is pretty low really.
People, Careers and Jobs
I thought the recent story of the Chicago Sun-times firing it's photographers to be very interesting. Technology is on it's way to eliminating an entire class of middle class creative work, it would seem. As someone who earns a living in that space, it's a little troubling.
This sort of thing was supposed to happen to manufacturing. I mean Travel Agents got nailed by this a decade or more ago, but that was an outlier right, most other office work and especially creative work was supposed to be safe. That no longer seems the case.
Easy to use tools are making more and more people able to absorb various little specialized tasks and just make them part of their routines. So Journalists get a few workshops in the rule of thirds and composing photos on their iPhones. Now they'll be able to write the copy, and submit a web usable photo and we're all set. Poor Jimmy Olsen though right? At least he's still Superman's pal.
This sort of thing has been coming in design awhile too. Any looking out past 5 years gets real fuzzy as far as I can tell. Ideally I'd like to be doing the sort of thing I do for another 15 or 20 years yet. With each passing iPad iteration and app release, that looks like it might be more and more a tall order though.
Not sure where to run to for job security though. Even doctors are turning into disembodied heads floating in computerized kiosks.
In some ways, I'm glad I'm 40 and not 20 right now though. I can't imagine trying to figure out what would be a good 40 year career to train for at this moment. People say "do what you love" and that's good, but you have to remember that things that people love will be the first things that people will also do for free, and it's hard to compete with free, so there's something to being able to do something that you can enjoy and tolerate instead of just love. There has to be something unenjoyable about a job, otherwise you wouldn't need to be paid to do it.
The only advise I'd have to someone really young would likely be:
- Find a really good spouse. (don't screw this choice up)
- Buy the cheapest house in the nicest neighborhood that you can comfortably live in on one income.
- Find a job with decent healthcare coverage if you can. (hopefully we don't have to worry about this in another 10 or 12 years)
- Keep all your other overhead low and your wants narrowly focused. There's never been a better time for people who like to read, or people who enjoy media. The outdoors are still largely free if you enjoy a good run or walk. You can do alot with a decent powered cellphone or cheap laptop. Immerse yourself in an inexpensive hobby.
- Avoid getting sucked into drama from other people's poor drives or choices whenever possible.
- Use a hoodie instead of sunscreen whenever possible.
- Good Luck, life is unpredictable and comes with no guarantees, be ready to roll with it.
