Musings on life, the theatre, technology, culture and the occasional emu sighting
One heckuva one day price jump
So, we’re traveling. Currently in Virginia. On Thursday I filled up the car at a price of $2.72 a gallon. When I drove past the station on Friday morning the price was $3.19.
The same all over town. This price jump hit on the day with all of the insane economic news, but most of that news was just breaking, so who knows what’s really behind it.
I think that might be the largest one day price jump in gas prices I can remember. I’m sure isn’t the end of this kind of volatilty in a volatile world.
Eye catching
We’ve stayed in this same location in Virginia for a few summers now and it’s always a weird delight to see these Purple Passionflower blooms there as they appear almost alien.
The blind leading the blind-to-be
Mark Zuckerberg, trying to see his way clear to dominating the Artificial Intelligence race, is now saying that those of us who don’t use AI glasses will be at a disadvantage in the future. Reminds me of the X-Ray glasses hype from my childhood.
When you consider Zuckerberg’s checkered legend with starting what would eventually become Facebook, after running a college website called FaceSmash to rate girls, the comparison to the come on for X-Ray glasses does have a prurient parallel to many an adolescent boy’s fantasies.
I guess Zuckerberg needs to justify all of the money he’s spent building out AI infrastructure and wooing talent but it also is very reminiscent of the days he mucked up the media by declaring text was out and the pivot to video was in. In fact, much of this AI race feels very much like that. Sure, some of that stuck, but it mostly just made a mess and the legacy of that pivot left more than a few scars.
This entire AI race feels like that to me at the moment. I believe some of it is going to stick around and actually be useful. But mostly it’s just messing things up at the moment as everyone jumps into the deep end of a pool hoping to learn a new way to swim.
I’ve dealt with a few different companies of late trying to help some elder clients cut down on bills and solve some issues. Several of those companies have been switching much of their customer service to AI chatbots and the like. In those transitions they’ve more than made a mess of things for their customers and their employees who are left trying to clean up the mess.
I’m not completely down on Artificial Intelligence. I can see some benefits from the technology. At this point in the game it’s tough to sort out what that might be from the hype that seems to be authored by the folks who keep promising self-driving cars and those that promised X-Ray glasses.
You’d think by now someone would have developed an AI platform for investors and corporations that could see through the hype.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
Terrific trip down my lanes of memories.
Talk about bringing back the memories and the feels. The excellent Billy Joel documentary, And So It Goes, is a must watch if you’re a fan. Or even if you’re not. I am a fan and have been since I worked a load-in, load-out shift for a Billy Joel concert back in my college days and partied with his road crew.
The excellent two-part documentary chronicles the ups, downs, and of course there’s plenty of Joel’s music, because it’s always about the music and where it took Joel and those of us who grew up with him. It’s more than a trip down memory lane, the four hours is a well spent vacation back in time. I highly recommend this.
It’s interesting, and I dare say rewarding, that two of the music artists I grew up with, Joel and Bruce Springsteen, have had excellent recent documentaries about their careers. As they and I both hit later decades of life it’s a good way to look back and dredge up memories often buried in the hurly burly of the current day to day. I consider these documentaries on HBO (or whatever it calls itself this week) gifts well received.
For those interested further, there’s a playlist of the music from And So It Goes available on all the usual music streaming services. If your library, like mine, is filled with the entire catalog of Joel’s music, it’s worth adding just to track and hear how some of his songs have matured, yet not lost any of relevance, and even gained both relevance and resonance with time.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
Chicago Cubs legend passes away.
Watcing the Chicago Cubs lose to the Brewers last night when word came over the broadcast that Ryne Sandberg, the Cubs superstar second baseman had died, succumbing to cancer.
Hit me harder than I would have thought imaginable. Not sure exactly why, but guessing it’s because Sandberg represented an era in my life when life itself seemed simpler, more sane, and as true as a line drive cleanly smacked to the outfiled.
I’m probably deluding myself with those thoughts, but that’s how it struck me last night.
Sandberg played baseball. He was a great at what he did. By all accounts he was genuinely kind to others. That’s all we should ever aspire to because in the end that’s all that matters.
And it is more than enough.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
Just because. They were there. I was there. I had a camera. Goats.
A bit of this, a bit of that. All good bits.
It’s the Dog Days of Summer and it’s been a hot one so far. We’re traveling again, but there’s still some interesting Sunday Morning Reading to share. Some of it hopeful, some elegiac. Some just geeky and fun. Enjoy.
Kicking things off is a piece in The Atlantic from Anna Deavere Smith called When You Don’t Look Like Anything. She’s a singular artist always worth paying attention to. Her story of her 50-year search for the American character is certainly more than worth your time. Damn good stuff.
A.R. Moxon popped up on my radar this week with a piece called Total Eclipses. It’s part 2 of a series, the first being Be Bolder, Not a Boulder. If you’re like me and looking for any light at the end of any tunnel these days, do give both pieces a read.
NatashaMH offers up An Ode To The Poetic Detours. It’s about writing and where she finds inspiration, but more broadly, it’s about observing, noticing, listening, seeing, and feeling between the lines we sometimes get trapped within.
Will Dunn asks Are Emoji’s Killing Language? I’ve been saying they are for quite some time. For the life of me I don’t understand why we seem intent on regressing back to an age of hieroglyphics instead using the complex beauty of words and language.
Mathew Ingram says The Google Link Economy Is Dying and It’s Not Coming Back. He’s not wrong. Actually, he’s very right.
Health is a big deal in tech these days, especially when it comes to adding features to improve monitoring what’s going on in our bodies. Frankly, as someone who uses medical devices for monitoring my diabetes, the promises to add that kind of monitoring to smart devices, along with blood pressure and other conditions, sound hollow, seeming as realistic to me as self-driving cars. We may get there one day, but for now it’s mostly a clever way to market something new to increase the bottom line. Victoria Song takes a look at Samsung’s recent effort to check out our level of antioxidants with their smartwatch in I ‘Fooled’ Samsung’s New Antioxidant Feature With a Cheez-It.
Much has been made of Paramount’s caving to Donald Trump, leading to the firing of late not comedian Stephen Colbert. That was quickly followed up by the Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s skewering new season opener of South Park. Paramount paid up, got its merger, and in an Aristotelian, if not Mel Brooksian sense there’s some grand comedy in the entire thing. I’m a fan of Alexandra Petri’s piece examining the moment pre-South Park titled Are You Laughing Yet?
Sometimes we just need to laugh at what feels like no laughing matter.
(Image from Milen Kolev on Unsplash)
If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.
iPadOS 26 beta reactions are making me think twice about installing
As I continue to live vicariously, watching from the sidelines through this summer’s Apple beta season, two interesting takes on iPadOS 26 have crossed my radar and are worth sharing.
First up, Harry McCracken says what most using iPadOS 26 are saying that Apple has made the iPad more Mac-like. But he also wonders where that might lead? Check out his post here.
Follow that up with M.G. Seigler’s post. He thinks Apple might have created sort of a Mac, Jr. His post is from prior to the release of the public beta.
Both gentlemen delve deeper than the “what’s a computer?” discussion into other facets of the betas and both posts are worth your time, if iPads are your thing. That “what’s a computer?” question is going to probably be with us through most of the next year.
FYI. I’m adding an iPad category to this little corner of the web. I have a feeling we’re going to be talking quite a bit about iPads in the months to come.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
Jumping the gun?
It seems longer, but it was just a week ago that there was lots of excitement in tech nostalgia circles over an announcement that YouTuber Christian ‘Peri Fractic’ Simpson was taking pre-orders for a “new” Commodore 64.
As if we all don’t have enough to keep up with, the news generated quite a bit of buzz. No word on if it generated actual pre-orders.
Well, for those thinking about joining the Commodore 64 nostalgia parade, there might be some legal hurdles on the parade route ahead.
Commodore Industries, S.r.l, is out with a press release claiming they still own what’s own-able regarding the Commodore 64 and offering documents and evidence. After all of the hype surrounding Simpson’s announcement Commodore Industries claims it is now time to “intervene” to set the record straight.
Quoting from the press release:
Mr. Christian Simpson (alias ‘Peri Fractic’) recently made statements on his YouTube channel, at different times, which were picked up by numerous media outlets and various newspapers, aimed at undermining our position, claiming to have ‘bought Commodore’ and describing our use of the trademark as ‘illegitimate’.
None of the initiatives launched in the United States give Mr Simpson the right and/or power to cancel or revoke our legitimate rights to the above trademarks.
Such claims are not only legally unfounded, but also compromise the truth and unjustifiably discredit a business project that has invested time, resources and expertise in relaunching the Commodore brand in a modern and technologically advanced way.
In closing the press release states:
Our goal remains the same: to continue to create real value for the brand and for the entire Commodore ecosystem. For this reason, we are ready to dialogue and collaborate with anyone who demonstrates, through their actions, a constructive spirit and respect for both the rules and the community.
#WeAreCommodore
The hashtag and bold typeface concluded the press release.
Sounds like some lawyers are going to make some money. No one ever gets nostalgic over that happening.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
Continuing to watch Apple’s Betas from the sidelines.
Apple’s adventures with its new Liquid Glass design language reminds me of the title of a terrific, yet gloomy, Ingmar Bergman film, Through a Glass Darkly. Keep in mind that I’m not running the beta and living vicariously through the reactions of those whose opinions I trust. That said, based on some of those opinions of the recently released 4th developer beta, the future of Apple’s new design approach appears less than clear.
From most accounts it’s a battle between legibility and the “coolness” of the design’s featured transparency that overlays content with the intent for the content below to bleed through. The challenge seems to be finding the right amount of bleed through that also allows users to easily read a notification or a control.
In my view, the challenge with that challenge seems to be one of fighting things you can’t control. Holding liquid in your bare hands without spilling a drop might be easier. Every website and app designer has their own preference and approach. Even Apple apparently has difficulty as some of their own apps with background bleed through obscuring text.
Since Apple announced Liquid Glass there have been three iterations of the approach. In a sort of Goldilocks and the Three Bears adventure with Apple dialing transparency features back and forth. Now in the 4th version of the developer beta reengaging more transparency. Searching for a “just right” solution doesn’t yet seem to be yielding any clear direction. But then, Apple’s ambitions, perhaps by design, have created a lose-lose short term future. The eventual product will never please everyone with this design change. But to be fair, that’s always the case with design changes and the folks at Apple knew that going in.
There are other usability issues as well, including things like making it easy to tell which tab or control is in focus, and having to tap multiple times to perform a function that used to be one tap to name a couple I see repeatedly mentioned.
But the clear focus of complaints (and some praise) is Liquid Glass. I would venture that for users it’s still too early to judge, but supposedly the Public Beta is due soon and the consensus is that what we see there will be pretty close to what we see in the Fall. Developers on the other hand are increasingly worried about Apple’s search for a “just right” solution while they try to find a path forward to have their own apps ready for the big release alongside or close to the release of this new wave of operating systems.
The problem becomes magnified when designing for the lowest common denominator with so many users. From my perspective of supporting clients and family members, most folks just want to pick up their devices and do what they want or need to do. They don’t want a new learning curve getting in the way. They certainly don’t want legibility issues to get in the way. There’s a real tension between what Apple needs to do to keep the cash registers ringing and the familiarity users want that I don’t think the folks in Cupertino understand given the annual pace they seem locked into.
From where I sit on the sidelines, I think Apple has also created some real and perhaps less transparent problems beyond how Liquid Glass eventually rolls out.
Coming on the heels, and at least somewhat intended as a distraction from last year’s Apple Intelligence and Siri woes, Apple needs to create a clear narrative surrounding Liquid Glass in order to sell this year’s new crop of iPhones. (I imagine the commercials have already been scripted if not filmed.)
That already seemed like quite a challenge given that the only big hardware news this year is the rumored introduction of a smaller, lighter, apparently with less features iPhone Air. I don’t imagine that Apple’s traditional iPhone lineup is going to have new features to tout that makes those familiar device form factors must haves or must upgrades.
If you’re counting on a flashy UI design change as the distraction that gets criticized as much as the issue you’re trying to distract from you’re magnifying your problems. Unless of course, you bank on criticism of the distraction further distracting from bigger issues.
Adding to that, the larger narrative has somewhat already passed by this year’s iPhones to what comes next year, with just about everyone assuming Apple’s version of folding iPhones will be the new focus.
Sum all of that up and this is starting to feel potentially like a lost year for Apple. Sure, Apple will sell lots of iPhones, but if it can’t capture the imagination the way Apple usually does, much of the narrative will be wait ’til next year. Apple historically takes a long view. Time will tell if they have lost control of the visible horizon.
That said, somewhat under the radar, iPad beta users continue to trumpet the success of changes made in iPadOS 26. I’m looking forward to seeing that myself. That said, as much as those potential changes will be welcome, I can’t imagine that’s the tentpole Apple wants to rely on to create excitement this year.
I mentioned the film Through A Glass Darkly in the opening of this post. The story of that classic film is about a family that gathers to try and heal after a member diagnosed with schizophrenia is released from an asylum. If you ask me, the challenges we’re seeing at Apple with design changes, Apple Intelligence and Siri among other things demonstrate that there are multiple personalities exhibiting control at various times within Apple, at a time when some turnover at the top is already underway, with quite a few calling for more.
As always, I recommend Michael Tsai’s Blog as a good source to keep track of how all of this continues to develop.
And with that, I’ll leave this update from the sidelines with this.
Update: The public betas for all of Apple’s new operating systems were released shortly after this post was originally published.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 