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The Age of the Bullshitter
Great piece describing the not great state of affairs in our era. The Age of the Bullshitter by Nathan J. Robinson. Well worth your time. Here’s a pull quote:
And I love the subhead:
The great mystery of our times: Why does anyone take seriously people who are so obviously full of it?
Go read the entire piece.
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Catawompusly Chawed Up
Crazy day in American politics yesterday as the goofballs in the GOP House Caucus tried to elect a new Speaker of the House. Waffling weasel Kevin McCarthy failed not once but three times to secure enough votes achieving a bit of ignominy in making the kind of history your mother wouldn’t want you to make.
My favorite thing I ran across while tooting around Mastodon (if you know, you know) during the vote counting was this bit of history from Joanne Freeman.
I don’t know about you but I think our current journalism could be mightily improved if writers started using more phrases like “catawompusly chawed up” to describe the goings on our politicians like to engage in. I’m not advocating violence. We’ve had enough of that. But these idiots are certainly doing violent harm to the little that’s left of our political process.
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Tech Predictions for 2023
I thought I’d jot down a few tech predictions for 2023. So here we go.
There will be tech news in 2023. There will be grand promises and grander failures. It will be entertaining, a bit crazy, and ultimately meh as the latest in a round of bad bets come due or come closer to being so.
Apple will make a ton of money in 2023 even though some governments want to design products for them. Apple won’t have as easy a time of it as it has in recent years for a number of reasons including some self-inflicted wounds.
Artificial Intelligence will continue to be a dominant story until chat bots start writing most of the tech stories.
The Metaverse will further try to wriggle out of the pond with or without legs. With other companies jumping into the “let’s put an expensive, goofy-looking, headache inducing gizmo on your head” it will be one of the comic tech highlights of the next few years before this whole thing ends where it was always destined to: an enterprise play.
Cyrpto will continue to falter as the denizens of the latest refuge of scammers discover that they’ve sucked all the money they can from the available suckers. There certainly won’t be any Super Bowl commercials.
Streaming Entertainment will continue to figure out that they haven’t figured it out yet. Consolidation will begin in earnest, hopefully before the streamers cancel all of the shows.
Twitter. Who the hell knows. It’s owner sure doesn’t.
Mastodon and federated social networking will continue growing pains as it continues to grow and becomes less of a pain for new users to gain entry.
Humans. Humans will be the biggest tech story behind the stories that capture the headlines. The humans who create tech will continue to be in some form of tension with the humans who use it. Humans who do use tech will continue to look less and less for tech to solve their problems, understanding before tech creators that all tech solutions aren’t necessarily going to change the world. At least until the tech creators understand that they need humans to talk to humans to help them solve the problems with the products they create. Or until the robots show up.
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Rest in Peace Frank Galati
Frank Galati was a gentle sweet soul and one helluva theatre artist. I first came across him after my first move to Chicago in 1979 in the Wisdom Bridge production of Travesties. His performance was a revelation. As was his work on the whole.
One of his many gifts are the legions he influenced, insuring his gifts, like the memories he created, will live on. We were all blessed to experience him.
https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Director-Writer-and-Actor-Frank-Galati-Dies-at-79-20230103
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The Things You See Walking Down the Street
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Things We Know But Don’t Admit
There are things we know. There are things we don’t know. And there are those damn known unknowns.
There are also things we know but don’t want to admit we know. Some of those things keep us in quiet denial. Some of those things allow us to loudly vent outrage at forces beyond our control. (We love forces beyond our control.) Regardless, those things are things. Admit it or not.
One thing we can be grateful to the rotting orange turd blossom for is that he cracked open some of the myths we’ve all been hiding behind like an egg-sucking dog in a hen house. Although lately the current that wants to drag us swiftly back into the safe harbor of myth seems to be rapidly increasing. But I think it’s probably taking us under. Again.
Broken beyond broken is the “no one is above the law” saw. You can also call it the “we’re a nation of laws” myth. Yeah, we have them. Yeah, for most of us they mean something. But hey, get real. There’s a Department of Justice memo that basically says that whomever we elect as president is above the law. If you aren’t paying attention, that pretty much de-myths the myths. At least until someone decides the principle of the unitary executuive that spawned that memo gets tossed into the shredder. (Hint: That’s not going to happen. Hint 2: We apparently love to be governed by memos.)
So indictments may come for the rotting orange turd blossom and his blossomettes. Headlines will scream. Lower thirds will find new shades of red to burn our retinas. But folks I’m sorry. We’ve been playing a game with rules we thought we knew until recently. And the house always wins.
Admitting we know that would open up a can of worms nobody wants to fish with.
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Sometimes Just Fun Is Just Enough
Looks like I missed this on New Year’s Eve. Lots of fun. Although I think it would take the better part of a year for me to set up something like this popsicle stick explosion.
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Curtain Up
This is the third act of Life on The Wicked Stage. There was a an Act 1 on the long since dead Windows Live Spaces (sorry no links available). There was an Act 2 on TypePad. Both of which seem like a several lifetimes ago. In addition there was some tech geek blogging and gadget reviewing on GottaBeMobile and some writing on various subjects on Medium.
So. Curtain up on Act 3. You don’t find many plays in the three-act form these days, which dates me. But I prefer to think of it has having the benefit of wisdom acquired through age. Or you can just call me old.
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Where the Mastodons Roam
So I’m hanging out on Mastodon these days. It’s the social networking site that quite a few folks have found to continue their social networking addiction, thanks to Elon Musk’s behavior as the new owner of Twitter. So far I’m liking it quite a bit. Scratch that. I’m liking it a lot. So do many of the folks I’m hanging out with.
If you’ve come to this blog post from Mastodon you’ll recognize most of the things folks are saying in my thoughts. Yes, it’s more civil. Yes, the Mastodonians are working hard to keep it that way in reacton to the Musk melon’s mucking up the joint. Yes, it’s not Twitter. Yes, the engagement is richer. And yes, it’s fun.
I’m here to tell you that I haven’t had as much fun with an Internet thingie since, well… since Twitter first came along.
While Mastodon has existed for awhile (I first staked out a piece of turf in May of last year), it picked up a fast blossoming head of steam once Musk’s purchase of Twitter went through. That momentum seems to be continuing. And those who’ve set up shop in these recent waves of refugees seem to be enjoying themselves as much as I am.
In addition to hanging out there it led to this blog. I stopped blogging and writing on the Internet primarily due to Twitter’s existence. I’m not alone in that. But as Mastodon is gaining in popularity, there appears to be a parallel resurgence in personal blogging. That urge hit me as well and here we are.
Twitter may have turned into the place of “owning” someone with a witty response, but “being owned” accelerated into a whole new nasty meaning in the last few months. So, Mastodon or no, it was time for a change.
For those who don’t know, Mastodon is set up as a decentralized network where no one person has control or ownership. It exists in a place(?) called the Fediverse. There are many Instances (or servers) where folks can find a home, and those Instances are interconnected through the Internet. If you’re not paying attention to that structural distinction Mastodon feels like a similar experience to Twitter. I’m reasonably certain that Mastodon will run into some issues down the road given its structure and philosophy. But that’s for another day.
There are other types of services in the Fediverse as well. Pixelfed is an Instagram-like service Yes, I’ve staked out a spot there as well, though I’m not that active currently. And if you’re starting to sense that these services on the Fediverse sound reactionary, then you’re correct. I’ll probably spew out some words on that in the future.
But for the moment I’m enjoying that fun I referred to earlier. Not only is the service new (we all like new things and self-validate our new choices) but the energy in the eco-system surrounding Mastodon feels very much like the days when mobile tech exploded after the launch of the iPhone. I’ve tried out more new apps in recent months than I have in the last couple of years. I’m re-discovering folks who I followed but somehow lost sight of on Twitter while discovering new folks in abundance.
So, if you choose to visit this blog you’ll be hearing more about Mastodon in the future. If you choose to find your way there you can check me out at this link.
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End of the Year Lists for 2022
There’s a lot I didn’t see/listen to/consume but from what I did ingest here are some thoughts. NOTE: I don’t believe in “best of.” So these lists contain what I most enjoyed.
Films:
(more…)Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Prey
RRR
Everything, Everywhere All at Once
Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio
The Howard Stern Interview: Bruce Springsteen
Spirited
Glass Onion
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Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3
Musings on life, the theatre, technology, culture and the occasional emu sighting
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 