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| q58aqevf18s7pw6v,subscribe,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/subscribe,1994-01-27T23:00:00Z,Subscribe,\n\n<!--emailsub-->\n\n### Subscribe to my Posts via [**RSS**](https://bilge.world/feed/) or The Fediverse: **@b@bilge.world**.\n\n### Download the archive in [EPUB format](https://bilge.world/.epub). | |
| j54ojnwb7d5ru6mw,music,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/music,1994-01-27T23:58:57Z,Music,"I'm not an authority on electronic music, but I am surrounded by musician friends of a particular creativity and I am the creator of an electronic music magazine called [*Extratone*](https://extratone.com). I also curate the music podcast [*Extratone Radio*](http://extratone.com/radio). For tastemaking's sake, I maintain a public [Bandcamp Collection](https://bandcamp.com/davidblue) and a playlist on Apple Music called [***Islands***](https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/islands/pl.u-oZyljWRspbBNgA) of the most astonishing and unique electronic tracks I come across. There's also [***C̸ ̵O̷ ̴N̵ ̶T̸ ̵A̵ ̴C̶ ̵T̴***](https://soundcloud.com/chordoslut/sets/c-o-n-t-a-c-t), which is filled with tracks cross-genre that are *guaranteed* to touch you.\n\n<iframe width=""100%"" height=""450"" scrolling=""no"" frameborder=""no"" allow=""autoplay"" src=""https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/playlists/982100401&color=%2300006b&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true""></iframe><div style=""font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"">\n\n---\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 350px; height: 470px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=704108849/size=large/bgcol=f2f2f2/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://davidblue.bandcamp.com/album/four"">Four by David Blue</a></iframe>\n\nI've intermittently recorded [piano improvs](https://davidblue.bandcamp.com/) under my own name (though I haven't properly in a good while.) On [*Four*](https://davidblue.bandcamp.com/album/four), my most recent improv tape, I used two knockoff SM57s placed directly above my sleepy childhood upright piano at my mom's house through a USB mixer and [livestreamed most of the recording](https://youtu.be/p3KoQ6n0xKo). The result is a fairly good representation of what I was doing musically at the time and probably the most dynamically interesting of all the recordings I've captured. The instrument itself has a very particular dreamy quality that I've never heard on any other.\n\nIf you'd like to chat about music or share your own, you're more than welcome to join the [**music channel on *Extratone*'s Discord**](https://discord.gg/vvC4AJb)." | |
| q5qd6rgo1vt1sn3n,test,chaff,https://chaff.writeas.com/test,1994-01-28T00:09:56Z,Test,"```markdown\nThis is actually a somewhat functional page. If you've arrived here, it'd better be for [**development purposes**](https://github.com/extratone/chaff) *only* or i will tell Chuck Snowden abt u.\n```\n\n\n\n\n# h1 Heading 8-)\n\n## h2 Heading\n\n### h3 Heading\n\n#### h4 Heading\n\n##### h5 Heading\n\n###### h6 Heading\n\n\n## Horizontal Rules\n\n___\n\n---\n\n***\n\n\n## Typographic replacements\n\nEnable typographer option to see result.\n\n(c) (C) (r) (R) (tm) (TM) (p) (P) +-\n\ntest.. test... test..... test?..... test!....\n\n!!!!!! ???? ,, -- ---\n\n""Smartypants, double quotes"" and 'single quotes'\n\n\n## Emphasis\n\n**This is bold text**\n\n__This is bold text__\n\n*This is italic text*\n\n_This is italic text_\n\n<u>This is underlined text</u>\n\n~~Strikethrough~~\n\n\n## Blockquotes\n\n\n> Blockquotes can also be nested...\n>\n> > ...by using additional greater-than signs right next to each other...\n> >\n> > > ...or with spaces between arrows.\n\n\n## Lists\n\nUnordered\n\n+ Create a list by starting a line with `+`, `-`, or `*`\n\n+ Sub-lists are made by indenting 2 spaces:\n\n - Marker character change forces new list start:\n\n * Ac tristique libero volutpat at\n\n + Facilisis in pretium nisl aliquet\n\n - Nulla volutpat aliquam velit\n\n+ Very easy!\n\nOrdered\n\n1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet\n2. Consectetur adipiscing elit\n3. Integer molestie lorem at massa\n\n\n1. You can use sequential numbers...\n1. ...or keep all the numbers as `1.`\n\nStart numbering with offset:\n\n57. foo\n58. bar\n\n\n## Code\n\nInline `code`\n\nIndented code\n\n // Some comments\n line 1 of code\n line 2 of code\n line 3 of code\n\n\nBlock code ""fences""\n\n```\ncode {\n /* background-color:#f7ff85 !important; */\n /* border: 1px solid #da2573 !important;\n border-radius: 1px !important; */\n font-size: 0.85em !important;\n color: #1c0021 !important;\n font-family: proxima-nova-condensed, sans-serif;\n font-weight: 400;\n /* padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px !important; */\n}\n\nbody #post pre, body#collection pre, body#post pre, body#subpage pre {\n background: #FFFdeb; !important;\n border: 1px solid #da2573 !important;\n border-radius: 1px !important;\n font-size: 0.85em !important;\n color: #1c0021 !important;\n font-family: proxima-nova-condensed, sans-serif;\n font-weight: 400;\n /* padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px !important; */\n}\n```\n\nSyntax highlighting\n\n``` css\ncode {\n /* background-color:#f7ff85 !important; */\n /* border: 1px solid #da2573 !important;\n border-radius: 1px !important; */\n font-size: 0.85em !important;\n color: #1c0021 !important;\n font-family: proxima-nova-condensed, sans-serif;\n font-weight: 400;\n /* padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px !important; */\n}\n\nbody #post pre, body#collection pre, body#post pre, body#subpage pre {\n background: #FFFdeb; !important;\n border: 1px solid #da2573 !important;\n border-radius: 1px !important;\n font-size: 0.85em !important;\n color: #1c0021 !important;\n font-family: proxima-nova-condensed, sans-serif;\n font-weight: 400;\n /* padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px !important; */\n}\n```\n\n\n``` js\nvar foo = function (bar) {\n return bar++;\n};\n\nconsole.log(foo(5));\n```\n\n## Tables\n\n| Option | Description |\n| ------ | ------------------------------------------------------------ |\n| data | path to data files to supply the data that will be passed into templates. |\n| engine | engine to be used for processing templates. Handlebars is the default. |\n| ext | extension to be used for dest files. |\n\nRight aligned columns\n\n| Option | Description |\n| -----: | -----------------------------------------------------------: |\n| data | path to data files to supply the data that will be passed into templates. |\n| engine | engine to be used for processing templates. Handlebars is the default. |\n| ext | extension to be used for dest files. |\n\n\n## Links\n\n[link text](http://dev.nodeca.com)\n\n[link with title](http://nodeca.github.io/pica/demo/ ""title text!"")\n\nAutoconverted link https://github.com/nodeca/pica (enable linkify to see)\n\n\n## Images\n\n\n\nLike links, Images also have a footnote style syntax\n\n![Alt text][id]\n\nWith a reference later in the document defining the URL location:\n\n[id]: https://i.snap.as/kT0kagG.png ""Bilge Masthead""\n\n\n## Plugins\n\nThe killer feature of `markdown-it` is very effective support of\n[syntax plugins](https://www.npmjs.org/browse/keyword/markdown-it-plugin).\n\n\n### [Emojies](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-emoji)\n\n> Classic markup: :wink: :crush: :cry: :tear: :laughing: :yum:\n>\n> Shortcuts (emoticons): :-) :-( 8-) ;)\n\nsee [how to change output](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-emoji#change-output) with twemoji.\n\n\n### [Subscript](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-sub) / [Superscript](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-sup)\n\n- 19^th^\n- H~2~O\n\n\n### [\<ins>](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-ins)\n\n++Inserted text++\n\n\n### [\<mark>](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-mark)\n\n==Marked text==\n\n### [Footnotes](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-footnote)\n\nOver the past few months, I've started several Posts for this blog regarding Twitter, its properties, and its recent feature addition frenzy which I'll probably never finish. I finished the first and narrowest one: [my Tweetbot 6 ""review,""](https://bilge.world/tweetbot-6-ios-review) but the (debatably) most important one - highlighting how irresponsibly and distastefully [Twitter butchered Periscope and built Spaces atop its technology](https://github.com/extratone/bilge/issues/79) - would make less and less sense as time goes on. I definitely got caught up in the ""death"" of the live video streaming service, fueled by my now quite old desire to celebrate it[^1], \n\n[^1]: Because I feel guilty about taking it for granted.\n\nThis is some text.[^1] This is some more text in a different sentence.\n\nThis is some text anticipating a footnote[^2] in the middle of the fucking sentence.\n\n*/ Footnote 1 link[^first]. */\n\nFootnote 2 link[^second].\n\nInline footnote^[Text of inline footnote] definition.\n\nDuplicated footnote reference[^second].\n\n[^first]: Footnote **can have markup**\n\n and multiple paragraphs.\n\n[^second]: Footnote text.\n\n\n### [Definition lists](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-deflist)\n\nTerm 1\n\n: Definition 1\nwith lazy continuation.\n\nTerm 2 with *inline markup*\n\n: Definition 2\n\n { some code, part of Definition 2 }\n \n Third paragraph of definition 2.\n\n_Compact style:_\n\nTerm 1\n ~ Definition 1\n\nTerm 2\n ~ Definition 2a\n ~ Definition 2b\n\n\n### [Abbreviations](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-abbr)\n\nThis is HTML abbreviation example.\n\nIt converts ""HTML"", but keep intact partial entries like ""xxxHTMLyyy"" and so on.\n\n*[HTML]: Hyper Text Markup Language\n\n### [Custom containers](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-container)\n\n::: warning\n*here be dragons*\n:::\n\n[1] This is a reference to some text.\n\n[2] This is some fucking text jumping out of the middle of a sentence.\n\n---\n## Rich Media Embeds\n([See the documentation](https://github.com/extratone/bilge/issues/28).)\n\n### Twitter\n\nBelow is the RAW URL to a Twitter Moment\n\nhttps://twitter.com/i/events/1395934071197474828 \n\n### Web Archive Embed?\n\nBoy, will I be *absolutely chuffed* if this works at all:\n\n<iframe src=""https://archive.org/embed/drycast"" width=""500"" height=""140"" frameborder=""0"" webkitallowfullscreen=""true"" mozallowfullscreen=""true"" allowfullscreen></iframe>\n\n` End `\n\n### Mastodon\n\n<iframe src=""https://mastodon.social/@DavidBlue/1384666/embed"" class=""mastodon-embed"" style=""max-width: 100%; border: 0"" width=""480"" allowfullscreen=""allowfullscreen""></iframe><script src=""https://mastodon.social/embed.js"" async=""async""></script>\n\n<iframe src=""https://mastodon.social/@DavidBlue/1384666/embed"" class=""mastodon-embed"" style=""max-width: 100%; border: 0"" height=""325"" width=""480"" allowfullscreen=""allowfullscreen""></iframe>\n\n<iframe src=""https://mastodon.social/@DavidBlue/1384666/embed"" class=""mastodon-embed"" style=""max-width: 100%; border: 0"" height=""auto"" width=""480"" allowfullscreen=""allowfullscreen""></iframe><script src=""https://mastodon.social/embed.js"" async=""async""></script>\n\n### Spotify\n\nBelow is the raw URL to an open.spotify podcast episode link.\n\nhttps://open.spotify.com/episode/65yv6gvutNjjCrF4oeQFlc\n\n` End `\n\n\n### Are.na\n\nBelow is the raw URL to an individual Arena block.\n\nhttps://www.are.na/block/5507359\n\n` End `\n\n### Gists\n\nBelow is a Gist example posted in Raw URL form\n\nhttps://gist.github.com/extratone/614effdd51bac74793ef627a1174e972\n\n` End `\n\n### Instagram\n\nBelow is a *single-photo* public Instagram post URL\n\nhttp://instagram.com/p/CMyh12Ahhhf\n\n` End `\n\n### Mixcloud\n\nBelow is a raw Mixcloud URL to a medium-length stream. \n\nhttps://www.mixcloud.com/davod/тнαиkfυl-fσя-bαиdcαмρ-2018-мix/\n\n` End `\n\n### Last.fm\n\nBelow is a raw Last.fm URL to an individual track.\n\nhttps://www.last.fm/music/Kalibration/_/A+Halting+Machine\n\n` End `\n\nAnd now to an artist(?)\n\nhttps://www.last.fm/music/Kalibration\n\n` End `\n\nAnd now to a user profile.\n\nhttps://www.last.fm/user/Crazyhooligin\n\n` End `\n\n### Imgur\n\nhttps://imgur.com/gallery/GcpLylS\n\n` End `\n---\n\n\n\n### Apple Music (Embed)\n\n<iframe allow=""autoplay *; encrypted-media *; fullscreen *"" frameborder=""0"" height=""450"" style=""width:100%;max-width:660px;overflow:hidden;background:transparent;"" sandbox=""allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"" src=""https://embed.music.apple.com/us/playlist/c-o-n-t-a-c-t/pl.u-gxbl78DCgYaAGJ""></iframe>" | |
| k4zil992bl9vjsfv,social,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/social,1994-01-28T01:38:54Z,Social,"See: my [**Social Directory Raindrop Collection**](https://raindrop.io/davidblue/social-directory-21059174)\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 650px;"" allowfullscreen frameborder=""0"" src=""https://raindrop.io/davidblue/social-directory-21059174/embed/sort=-created""></iframe>" | |
| nrx50c6i8108mj0p,recommendations,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/recommendations,1994-01-28T20:38:07Z,Recommendations,"\n\nAfter writing ""[Dirty Dave's Poweruser Tips](https://bilge.world/poweruser-tips-software-shortcuts),"" I thought it'd be appropriate to have a dedicated, ongoing recommendations page for my favorite/most recommended software. (I also really just wanted to use that incredible featured image.)\n\n<iframe sandbox=""allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-popups allow-forms"" scrolling=no width=""100%"" height=""185"" frameborder=""0"" align=""center"" src=""https://embed.radiopublic.com/e?if=end-user-WdbezM&ge=s1!c3126cb22fac64802f61b5894d8adef1bec2235d""></iframe>\n\n## Writing\n\n### [Bear](https://bear.app/)\n\nBear is the most beautiful piece of software I've ever seen, both functionally and stylistically.\n\n### [Typora](https://typora.io/)\n\nAs an alternative to Bear, Typora is technically much more powerful. Customizable themes and folder selection allow the user to do virtually anything, which may be a downside for some.\n\n## Social\n\n### [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/)\n\nMastodon may be dominated by the tech-oriented right now, but *you* have the power to change that. Back in 2017, I [interviewed its creator, Eugen Rochko for *Extratone*](https://write.as/extratone/mastodon-eugen-rochko-federated-social-network).\n\n### [Periscope](https://www.pscp.tv/)\n\nPeriscope is one of the best places on the internet, ever. It's generally positive, fascinating, and entirely unique.\n\n### [Discord](https://discord.com/)\n\nDiscord is advertised as ""chat for gamers,"" but frankly, I think it's the best way to host an active social community. I built *Extratone* using [our Discord server](https://discord.gg/0b9KQUKP858b0iZF).\n\n## Email\n\n### [Spark](https://sparkmailapp.com/)\n\n""Love your email again"" is Spark's logline, and it's a fairly accurate one. The ability to mark three emails as read at a time is absolutely invaluable for a smartphone-based mail application." | |
| wywk9zdeiqytq0bv,the-unlicense-dave-edition,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/the-unlicense-dave-edition,1994-11-28T05:50:12Z,"The Unlicense, Dave Edition","Considering my use of Git as a means to track revisions on my own writing, it's important to note that you should feel free to replace all instances of ""software"" in the statement below with ""words,"" ""writing,"" ""expression,"" etc.\n\nWhile I appreciate tremendously the work and contribution of [Arlo Bendiken](https://ar.to/2010/01/set-your-code-free) in the form of The Unlicense, I would like to add that I see no need, personally, to make the refutation of Intellectual Property law regarding my own work into some profound ethical statement. As it stands, I have not to my knowledge been the victim of any sort of theft of any kind, and find the suggestion highly unlikely. If I *am* made aware of such a case, there is certainly a possibility that I may change my mind on this issue, so I suppose I should highlight that **THESE TERMS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE**, though I suspect I would be more flattered and/or amused than actually offended. \n\nI would also like to annotate that my use of this license should not be regarded as a suggestion that anyone else follow my example, or that I ""believe in"" taking such action regarding one's work, generally. While I did indeed take the time to set up [a repository](https://github.com/extratone/eoi) of John Perry Barlow's ""[The Economy of Ideas](https://www.wired.com/1994/03/economy-ideas/)"" in a bunch of different document formats, I do not necessarily agree with all of what he argued, especially in the context of the world 27 years later. If you *are* particularly interested in my opinion on the matter for whatever reason, here is what I have to say to you:\n\nThe principled beginning of The Open Web was a great moment in history, but - like all historical principles - it is extremely important that we consider *context* and maintain an appropriate level of criticism when looking back on old manifestos written by old white guys. In general, try your best to *be reasonable*.\n\n***\n\nThis is free and unencumbered software released into the public domain.\n\nAnyone is free to copy, modify, publish, use, compile, sell, or\ndistribute this software, either in source code form or as a compiled\nbinary, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and by any\nmeans.\n\nIn jurisdictions that recognize copyright laws, the author or authors\nof this software dedicate any and all copyright interest in the\nsoftware to the public domain. We make this dedication for the benefit\nof the public at large and to the detriment of our heirs and\nsuccessors. We intend this dedication to be an overt act of\nrelinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights to this\nsoftware under copyright law.\n\nTHE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ""AS IS"", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,\nEXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF\nMERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.\nIN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR\nOTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE,\nARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR\nOTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.\n\nFor more information, please refer to <https://unlicense.org>" | |
| qhp53haby7240wvm,compaq,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/compaq,1999-06-02T04:20:30Z,The Church of COMPAQ,"## Resurrecting the Compaq Computer Corporation with my COMPAQ Portable.\n\nIn [September 2018](https://bilge.world/resurrecting-compaq), I bought perhaps my most prized possession: an **original COMPAQ Portable**. Unfortunately, it's succumbed to the common [keyboard failure](https://bilge.world/resurrecting-compaq) of the breed and I have yet to repair it.\n\n<blockquote class=""twitter-tweet tw-align-center""><p lang=""en"" dir=""ltr"">just logging on to the machine. <a href=""https://t.co/cbGCdjBedr"">pic.twitter.com/cbGCdjBedr</a></p>— David Blue (@NeoYokel) <a href=""https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1263136025309843456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"">May 20, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=""https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"" charset=""utf-8""></script>\n\nView the full gallery [here](https://snap.as/extratone/compaq).\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n" | |
| 1u4v4ok6az1ylzb9,open,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/open,2000-01-01T01:26:26Z,Open,Some of my favorite projects brought to you by *The Open Web*.\n\n#### [**EVENMAGAZINE.COM**](http://evenmagazine.com/)\n\n#### [**CMAGAZINE.COM**](https://cmagazine.com/)\n\n#### [**X-ONLINE.SG**](https://x-online.sg/)\n\n#### [**THEINTERNET.EXPRESS**](https://theinternet.express/)\n\n#### [**CHARLEYPROJECT.ORG**](http://charleyproject.org/)\n\n#### [**RADIO.GARDEN**](http://radio.garden/)\n\n#### [**THEFLOODMAG.COM**](http://www.thefloodmag.com/)\n\n#### [**READINGDESIGN.ORG**](https://www.readingdesign.org/)\n\n#### [**PUDDING.COOL**](https://pudding.cool/)\n\n#### [**READWILDNESS.COM**](https://readwildness.com/)\n\n#### [**AVERYREVIEW.COM**](http://averyreview.com/)\n\n#### [**WHITEEYES.CLUB**](http://whiteeyes.club/)\n\n#### [**GRANDEMAISON.DE**](http://grandemaison.de/)\n\n#### [**INCREMENT.COM**](https://increment.com/)\n\n#### [**DARCENTER.ORG**](https://dartcenter.org/)\n\n#### [**DIVEDAPPER.COM**](http://www.divedapper.com/)\n\n#### [**HECHINGERREPORT.ORG**](https://hechingerreport.org/)\n\n#### [**FONTREVIEWJOURNAL.COM**](https://fontreviewjournal.com/)\n\n#### [**SHADYCHARACTERS.CO.UK**](https://shadycharacters.co.uk/)\n\n#### [**POOLSIDE.FM**](https://poolside.fm/)\n\n#### [**DATAFRUITS.FM**](https://datafruits.fm/)\n\n#### [**NEUSTADT.FR**](https://neustadt.fr/)\n\n#### [**COLORNAMES.ORG**](https://colornames.org/)\n\n#### [**SONG.LINK**](https://song.link/)\n\n#### [**POD.LINK**](https://pod.link/)\n\n#### [**QUOTEBACKS.NET**](https://quotebacks.net/)\n\n#### [**ARCHIVE.IS**](http://archive.is/)\n\n#### [**WINWORLDPC.COM**](https://winworldpc.com/)\n\n#### [**WHIMSICAL.CLUB**](https://whimsical.club/) | |
| q2ztl146pcdl4q5z,test,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/test,2001-05-02T09:38:46Z,Test,"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,\nWith conquering limbs astride from land to land;\nHere at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand\nA mighty woman with a torch, whose flame\nIs the imprisoned lightning, and her name\nMother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand\nGlows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command\nThe air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.\n“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she\nWith silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,\nYour huddled masses yearning to breathe free,\nThe wretched refuse of your teeming shore.\nSend these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,\nI lift my lamp beside the golden door!”" | |
| g4o1czs59jcmls77,automatic-transmission-inefficiency,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/automatic-transmission-inefficiency,2011-07-14T06:04:40Z,Automatics Suck,"## America's favorite drivetrain is not ideal.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nUs drivers of cars with manual transmissions tend to look down on those who drive automatics. It’s like an exclusive club. Only the extremely talented, gorgeous-looking, and legendary athletes of yore are allowed in. \n\nWell, that’s bullshit. So those of you that know the “standard” can keep your mouths shut and bask in the quiet satisfaction that you’re saving the planet. \n\nThe truth is, for those of you that don’t know, driving “stick” is totally simple. Once you understand the basic concepts of how the transmission and clutch work together, you can figure it out with no real instruction at all. So with that in mind, I’d like to tell you that automatic transmissions just….suck. Really.\n\n Mind you, I’m not talking about Dual-Clutch Transmissions, SMGs (Sequential Manual Gearboxes,) or any of that fancy stuff that has only recently become somewhat popular in the mainstream (affordable) auto market. I’m talking about automatics with a torque converter, that magically inefficient device that has carried America’s laziness in driving for the last 50 years.\n\nNow before I go on, I suppose I owe you a technical explanation. Let’s start with the basics. First off, a transmission is the device that separates the engine from the wheels. With both automatic and manual transmissions, “gears” are used to vary the ratio between the engine’s crankshaft and the drive shaft going to the wheels. It’s essentially a buffer between the engine’s relative consistency and the inconsistent world that you drive in. \n\n \n\nBut that’s not quite all there is. \n\nTraditional transmissions require an interruption in power from the engine to shift these “gears,” and to come to a stop at a traffic light, in your driveway, or on the side of the highway to pick up a hooker. In manuals, this is typically accomplished with a clutch, a device that could most simply be explained as two plates that are pressed together to couple, and brought apart to become independent. A clutch is normally coupled, it’s when the clutch petal is pushed in that the plates separate, and the transmission is isolated from the engine. Automatic transmissions use a type of fluid coupling to accomplish the same task, called a torque converter. \n\nThe advantage of the latter is that, when paired with an automatic transmission, the driver only requires one input to get the car moving and vary its velocity, and that is the accelerator pedal. A manual transmission requires three inputs, on the other hand. (Accelerator pedal, clutch, and gearshift.) In my mind, the torque converter has some huge disadvantages in a world where millions are spent to save 20 lbs. on one car design. \n\nHave you ever noticed that cars equipped with manuals are usually noticeably more fuel efficient than their automatic counterparts? Some of that could be attributed to the greater control that comes with manuals, but most of it is from the torque converter’s main design flaw. A clutch can be completely disengaged and completely engaged. So, with a healthy vehicle, there is 0% of the engine’s power moving to the transmission when the clutch pedal is depressed fully. Likewise when the clutch pedal is allowed completely out, the clutch essentially becomes a shaft, and 100% of the engine’s power is being fed to the transmission. \n\nA torque converter couples via fluid, however, meaning **there is never a solid mechanical connection between the engine and the transmission**. (Unless the transmission is equipped with a lock-up clutch, which is essentially a clutch that locks the torque converter mechanically when it is no longer required to dump the engine’s energy into friction. These are becoming more and more common, but the majority of vehicles on the road are missing them.) This means that a traditional torque converter is **never 100% efficient**. \n\nAlso, a torque converter is never completely disengaged. When sitting at a traffic light, the driver typically lightly applies the brakes to hold the car from moving forward. Have you ever considered what you’re doing? The engine is basically dumping energy into the torque converter in the form of friction. It is literally no different from holding the gas and the brakes at the same time. \n\nWhat the hell? How is that accepted in a world where Al Gore and Prius’s exist? \n\nOh wait! As United States citizens, we’re lazy as shit! \n\n**84% of cars sold in North America are equipped with an automatic transmission, as opposed to 20% in Europe**. \n\nYou could make the excuse that we love automatics because of all our stop-and-go traffic, and yet, as a citizen of the Midwestern U.S, I see automatics MUCH more often than I see traffic congestion. \n\nThe real answer is that we just don’t want to bother with a clutch pedal and a gearshift when we could be texting or doing makeup. \n\nLuckily, the great minds of our time have come up with solutions that adapt to us so that we don’t have to adapt to them. (As always.) Probably the simplest is the aforementioned “lock-up clutch,” which eliminates the inefficiency of the torque converter by mechanically coupling at high speed. But that doesn’t exactly solve the problem of sitting over a nice gas to friction converter at traffic lights. \nWell here’s a tip. When you stop at a traffic light, bump your shift lever one up into neutral. It shouldn’t require that you hold a safety button to go back and forth between Drive and Neutral. This prevents that unnecessary friction. Combine that with a lockup clutch, and you’re basically driving a manual!……Except without the enjoyment. \n\nYou could call this a rant on one of the most successful inventions the modern automobile has ever seen….because it is. And I doubt you’ll hear anyone else complain about it. But there really are flaws in the design that I wish consumers would figure out. Before all this hybridism, eco-mindedness, and hippie-crazed green malarkey, maybe we should eliminate the evil energy-wasting beast that is the torque converter.\n\n#auto" | |
| r1klmmkbc0ubq4hp,mazda-mx5-club-review,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/mazda-mx5-club-review,2012-10-11T06:03:37Z,Last Year of the NC: 2013 Mazda MX-5 Club Review,"\n\n## As we bid farewell to the Miata’s third-generation, sizing up its top trim summarizes its legacy.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nI recently had the chance to drive the facelifted 2013 Mazda MX-5. This is the first time the looks of the perky roadster have changed since the front-mounted smile became an all-out grin of insanity in 2008. They have once again dulled it to what I would call a smirk. The new front end blends with the rest of car more than it has in the past. It seems to have grown a bit more serious. In fact, with black 17-inch alloys on a glossy black (creatively called ""Brilliant Black,"") this example is the most aggressive-looking of any Miata I have seen.\n\nThat's not to say it's aggressive in the slightest, even in such a scheme. This car is in the “Club” trim replacing the previous “Touring” designation as the top-of-the-line option. This selection adds ridiculous three-leaf clover side badges, red stitching on the seats, red stripes on the dash and sides, along with a price tag very near 30,000 USD.\n\n\n\nSo I present you with my first problem with this particular car....it's a contradiction. The MX-5 was never intended to look serious. That grin was there to convey the primary attribute aspired to by its creators; joy. It's designed to be joyful in driving and the exterior of previous generations did a good job of communicating what the car is all about. Unfortunately, it seems they have decided that it's time for the roadster to grow up. Frankly, that's not going to work.\n\nNow, to the drive.\n\nFor this year, the car has been lightened, the braking response quickened, as well as the throttle response in manual-equipped cars. Unfortunately, I was only able to drive the 6-speed automatic with optional pattle-shifters. Given that this is my first drive in an NC (third generation) MX-5, I can only compare it to my own NB.\n\n\n\nImmediately, my passenger and chaperon starts the process of opening the optional retractable hard top. Open air is this car's natural environment, and it appears that somebody got busy making sure its occupants never notice. Wind buffeting has been drastically reduced. We were able to maintain conversation beyond 70mph without necessitating shouting thanks to a much taller wind brake behind our seats. Unfortunately, I couldn't really hear much of anything from the 158-hp 2.0L 4 up front, even with liberal amounts of right foot burying. It would seem the optional dual exhaust outlets are rather pointless then.\n\n\n\nGetting in the car, I had expected the experience to be ruined by the 6-speed auto. Buying a Miata with an automatic is sort of like going on a scenic vacation without a camera. It doesn't necessarily ruin the immediate experience but you'll always have some regret regarding the subject in the future. The pattles add some of the fun back in, but I prefer the Golf GTI's arrangement of right side-shift up, left side-shift down, while the MX-5 has both functions on either side of the wheel.\n\nIt took some deliberate self-coaching to get used to, but it won't effect your daily driving experience. Another plus; when in manual shift mode, it is truly manual, meaning the transmission will allow you to exceed the redline. It may sound trivial, but being nannied when you're first told that you're in control can be a major annoyance. (Looking at you, Kia Forte.) It's disappointing that Mazda chose only to up throttle response in manual-equipped cars. This one most certainly needed it.\n\nThe original Miata was built on a philosophy of communication between driver and machine, summarized in the Japanese phrase “Jinba Ittai,” meaning “rider and horse are one.” Being an MX-5 owner, this philosophy is very important to me, thus my expectations for the steering were very high. It was very disappointing, then, to discover that it has been very nearly ruined.\n\n\n\nThe leather-wrapped steering wheel was comfortable, yes, but not very generous in revealing the road. In corners it felt jumpy, imprecise, and unsure of itself. The same lack of self-confidence was noticeable in a straight line as well, along with a nervous fidget. Keep in mind, I am comparing this to roadsters of the past, not to other automobiles currently on the market. It would take a global nuclear war to make the MX-5 less fun to drive than a Toyota Camry.\n\nThough it has lost communication and soul, the Miata has gained a more comfortable suspension and oodles of storage space. The trunk is massive for a roadster of this size, and the example I drove was equipped with an optional storage compartment extending behind the seats, especially handy for CDs, candy, and the like. The center console contains two reasonably-sized cupholders obscured by a sliding door that will inevitably lead to annoyance in single-drink occasions. Mr. Cunningham also pointed out to me that the track on which the door slides appears vulnerable to crumbs. Only time will tell, I suppose.\n\n\n\nIn general, being inside the car is a much more comfortable experience, albeit a boring one. It seems to me that the MX-5 has “grown up,” forgoing fun for comfort and practicality. And is that not exactly the opposite of the direction it should be moving? It was never meant to be an aggressive-looking performance car, and it will never do well as one. It will never be luxurious enough to be a true touring car, either.\n\nIts soul has made it the top-selling roadster of all time, and I'm afraid it's losing it, bit by bit. To be honest, if you're attracted by the values on which the original Miata was built, I would recommend a Subaru BRZ/Toyota GT 86/Scion FR-S. The recommendation does not come lightly or easily.\n\nUntil Mazda gets wise about what it's doing to the beloved little car, I'm afraid it's headed down a path that will mean losing a grip on the niche it's held for so long, and that's quite saddening.\n\n#auto" | |
| 3fg8hmex8dpudntc,honda-hyundai-auto-industry,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/honda-hyundai-auto-industry,2012-10-25T06:01:56Z,Honda: From Trendsetters to Just Another Car Company,"\n\n## South Korea is poised to take Japan's place in the American market.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nThe 1990s. Not the greatest time for the United States auto industry. In those days, with a few exceptions, American cars were all overpriced, devoid of quality and generally unreliable. The big three (along with many other non-automotive related corporations in the U.S.) had an aging generation of management. This group decided that the ideal way to run their business involved expending the least amount of effort into their products as possible, without reducing the price paid by customers. Essentially, they hoped to gain more profit from less product. I don't have to tell you that this thinking just...doesn't work. I would theorize that this mentality came from overconfidence and a lack of joy in production. GM, Ford, and Dodge had been the top sellers of the automobile in the United States since its invention. They originally symbolized the best in quality, luxury and performance. Consumer and producer shared the same values, resulting in a flourishing market. It was a joyous time. And then, somewhere around the 1973 oil crisis, the joy began seeping out of our star shooters. Maybe it was emissions regulations, a loss of those ideal values, or some other factor. Regardless of the source, our homegrown auto industry lost its passion. It reflected in the cars that were built. Designs were reused, progression was halted, the irreverence of quality workmanship lost. “American dependability” became an ironic statement.\n\nAnd then came along a company that had been building little, noisy two-stroke engines to fit to bicycles only four decades earlier, proudly displaying a banner the changing public couldn't refuse. They offered a product that was simple, honest, reliable, durable and reasonably priced. A concoction that smelled an awful lot like high value. An odor that no doubt brought back old memories. The Accord, suburban America's new family pet. And the Civic, conveniently debuted in 1972. The college student's greatest companion. Both were conservatively styled and equipped, and thus quite easily ignored, which was exactly what the country wanted. After all those years stranded on the shoulders of our aging interstate system in lumbering, underpowered beasts, the indestructible and dependable qualities of the Hondas came as a breath of fresh air. So. What made the newcomers so different? What was the driving force behind the value of the products? It was something not unknown to the Americans, and its presence had been sorely missed. Picture an ancient sage by the name of Soichiro Honda saying something to the order of “Lets build the best automobile we can and sell it for as little as possible.” Though the man is more a symbol than an actual influence on the four-wheeled endeavors of the institution bearing his name, he represents what led to the same group's success. Honda was untainted by an unrealistic attitude, and unaided by a century of heritage and good reputation. They succeeded only because they built good cars.\n\n\n\nBy 2008, Honda had more than made a name for itself. Over the past decade, though, the prices had been steadily increasing, along with the level of luxury and complexity available in their cars. Both the Accord and Civic were bestsellers in their respective classes, and had held their titles for a relatively long time. It was then that I personally theorized they might take the same path American carmakers had taken only a short while before. I don't want to brag, but this was long before Ron Kiino's bold title “Is Hyundai the new Honda?” graced the pages of MotorTrend's October 2011 issue. And it was really a far-fetched notion at the time. Simply a suspicion. Confidently and stubbornly, the Accord held its grip on mid-size sedan sales in the United States, complimented by the Toyota Camry, a similar-looking but even more ignorable competitor. The former still held appeal for someone with the capacity to enjoy themselves. The latter, however, has always been the most desirable choice of individuals that absolutely despise driving. They both held their slightly different niches, with no real fear of losing their place. Then, Honda started skimping a bit on quality. Motoring journalists noticed a lack of improving fuel economy, aging transmissions, and a general loss in competitive edge in the 2011 Accord. Not the best time to start slacking on Honda's part.\n\n\n\nThis was the year that Hyundai unveiled the brilliantly-updated 6th generation Sonata. I consider this to be the most significant car to come in the mid-sized segment since the birth of the Accord/Camry duo. In previous generations, it had always been competitively priced. The quality, though, had been lacking. The Koreans were not afraid to design a car that was much less conservative than the two Japanese giants. However, the designs were never really all that great looking. Interesting and different? Yes. Attractive?....No. So these attributes kept Honda and Toyota secure under their cozy comforter of sales, not intimidated by Hyundai's offering. And that's quite understandable. The Sonata never really seemed a direct competitor to the giants. The new one, however, completely changed the game. For one thing, it's gorgeous. Not conservatively pretty, but ridiculous, in the best sort of way. Poised and angular, the exterior looks as if it should cost exponentially more than it does. They managed to carry on the Sonata's tradition of unique styling by rejecting the old car completely and replacing it with a stunner. The interior reflects a similar attitude. It's not only good looking, but significantly more fuel efficient than any other mid-sized car on the market. The drivetrain options are excellent. The best part, though, is the price. At a starting MSRP of 19,195 USD (£11,944), it is several thousand less than any competitor.\n\n\n\nAll of this really just makes the Accord and Camry look silly. It's interesting that Hyundai should take up Honda's original niche, given how different their backgrounds are. Our original hero of practicality was created by a man tinkering with small motorcycles. The former, however, was founded as a massive construction firm, only later trying its hand in the realm of automobiles. Cars seemed an alternative for Hyundai, but certainly not an afterthought. Regardless of where they came from, these two companies have had very similar philosophies, if only separated by time. Also, both have had to rely on sheer ingenuity for profit, without the foothold of heritage in the American market. It could be said, though, that Hyundai is doing a bit better. High value cars that are practical and interesting as an experience. Honda could never get that last bit quite right. Or perhaps it's just a sign of the times. Maybe Americans have overcome the compulsion to ignore our cars. My question is this; Has this flip-flop in production attitude become a cycle? And if so, who will be in the hot spot next? My bet is on the big three, believe it or not. A new generation of management has brought about a huge improvement in our products. It could even be one of the rising Chinese companies in the future. Who knows? I can tell you that right now, though, Hyundai has got the goods.\n\n#auto" | |
| cvimtzrd212g2b24,mazda-rx7-wankel,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/mazda-rx7-wankel,2012-11-16T07:00:48Z,"Reunited with a Quaint, Wankel-Powered Friend","<!--more-->\n\n<iframe width=""360"" height=""240"" src=""https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ic6SoJFW7Zc?controls=0"" frameborder=""0"" allow=""accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture"" allowfullscreen></iframe>\n\n*A broken Mazda RX-7, that lived in a shed on the family farm, was David Blue's first real experience with a car. Years later he got to try out a living, working example of the same car - and, unlike Max Prince previously found, loved it.* - [Speedmonkey Matt](http://www.speedmonkey.co.uk/2012/11/the-extraordinary-wankel-david-blue.html)\n\n---\n\nMy bond with one particular example of Mazda's best-selling Wankel-powered sports car began on the Midwestern farm where I grew up. A 1980 model LS-trimmed example, originally painted in “Solar Gold” (one of only 500 made, it turns out). It had been sitting in a small shed, condemned to rest there only a few years after my birth from issues with the fuel delivery system. The search for a mechanic capable of working on the rotary engine without destroying it was eventually given up.\n\nMy father told me stories of his flings with the car. He used to say the police would pull him over simply because it “looked fast.” Naturally, as a small boy, the stories took a hold of my imagination. The RX-7 held a very special sort of allure. It eventually became my ideal image of “racecar”. Its environment added to the intoxication. The lack of electric power to the car, its immobility, and the stories I was told combined to create the aura of a fading, forgotten superhero. Tired, abandoned, and only necessitating the help of a friend in order to bring it back to glory.\n\nIt wasn't very long after toddlerhood that I took to spending a large portion of my free time sitting in the RX-7, practicing rowing through the gears and making engine noises with my mouth. I still remember vividly how delightful the experience of simply sitting in that car was. The dash layout, the feel of the steering wheel in my hands, and the smell of the interior are all deeply etched into memory. It was almost as if I had a deeper perception into its soul, a capability that I feel has been lost.\n\nMuch before I had expected, I had the opportunity to meet this hero, so to speak. I encountered a partially-restored 1983 Series 2 example, slightly different than my RX-7. Different enough to subdue my worries of adultery to the car I grew up with, but similar enough to be an important discovery.\n\nI was treated to the complete RX-7 ownership experience, including a dead battery and a difficult, choked cold start. Perry, my host, was kind enough to pay for the fuel for the drive with money out of his own pocket. After ensuring that we would not be walking back, I pointed that very long, very 80s nose toward some local back highways.\n\n]\n\n\n\nI had never driven anything powered by a Wankel, and the contrast of the RX-7 compared to everything with wheels I had experienced was stark, and noticeable immediately. The feedback normally received from a piston engine is not felt, due to the fact that there is no more conversion from vertical to rotational motion, a rotary engine (as implied by the name) involves no vertical momentum. It's not that the engine refuses to communicate with you, it's just speaking an entirely different language. The whiny exhaust note has an odd property to it that can be heard from no other source. It conjures up images of the mysterious, angry pair of triangles whirling about in their cage. Purely imaginary, of course.\n\nBecause the Wankel is so smooth, I found myself wondering why I should shift up. A piston engine makes you anxious when you push it close to the redline. Most send the driver a variety of auditory and tactile messages indicating that they must either shift up, or face a molten tie rod to the head. The RX-7, however, gives no such indication. When close to the redline, one hears only an excited whir. The result (forgive the upcoming Disney analogy) is an almost magic carpet-like experience. It's as though the power simply materializes before you with no apparent source or sacrifice.\n\n\n\nFor me, the tranquility of the engine eliminated the reservations I had for speed. It's an incentive, in fact, to keep the needle in the upper portion of the tachometer as much as possible. The car had only 100 hp and 105 lb-ft. of torque in 1983, and has no doubt lost a few along its journey. Frankly, I'm thankful it's not more powerful. Otherwise, there wouldn't be room to fully enjoy revving it to its limit.\n\nThough I have decided that a transmission with multiple ratios is unnecessary when coupled to a Wankel, the 5-speed manual in the RX-7 was quite a treat. It's very notchy, with a mid-length throw. The well-spaced ratios paired with a very light, but engaging clutch made rev matching pleasant and natural.\n\nUnfortunately, the steering in the car I drove was quite loose, likely from wear. It is unassisted, though, and was at one time very engaging, I suspect. Given that it is a sports car from the 1980s, driver communication is a result of the engineering, not vice versa.\n\n\n\nThe driving position is actually more relaxed than it looks, and the interior is a thoroughly enjoyable place to be in. This particular car had a factory-installed manually-adjustable equalizer mounted beneath the stock head unit. A useless, though interesting, novelty that quickly rids the occupants of any doubt as to when the car was built.\n\nThe RX-7 is too often overlooked for what it is; a very special piece of automotive history. It's an experience completely unlike any piston-powered alternative. And for me, it's much more than that. My RX-7 represents an entire childhood's worth of dreams and a sort of companionship, even. My experiences with it were a very large influence on my drive to pursue a career in automotive writing. Driving one did change my perspective, but not at all for the worse.\n\nI met my hero, and it didn't let me down.\n\n#auto" | |
| 6pumboo0cluteqfo,star-wars-the-force-awakens-review,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/star-wars-the-force-awakens-review,2016-01-20T15:00:00Z,"Stairs, Wiggling","#### by [David Blue](http://twitter.com/neoyokel)\n\n\n\n'Twas was the night after Christmas (I think,) and I was in the same scroogy mood I must maintain for consistency of appearances *&* equilibrium of family dynamics every year. Everywhere, there were words on the newest Stair Wiggling…everywhere THEY were wiggling… And I was being wit-bitter on the TL. For you, I’d planned on continuing in the usual way, so as not to startle your precious Hans Zimmer-embossed heart.\n\nI’m sure you’re a tolerable being, and there’s nothing you’d rather read less at this hour (whatever hour it may be,) but I really despise going to the movies. I always end up getting sick from the popcorn, which I buy every outing because I have grown weary and weathered, and cannot sit for two straight hours without consuming something, so troubled is my stomach now with Big Boy woes.\n\nI can never escape the ambient breath odor — even in an empty theatre — and I can smell the filth in the seats on my clothes and in my hair until I shower. This is at least an hour-long process, so we’ve racked up a significant trauma bill without even accounting for travel time.\n\n*Furious 7* was the last theatre experience I’d had, and it was a definite exception. Despite watching ten minutes of the ending on YouTube beforehand thanks to much-appreciated warnings from friends, I spent the final few frames before the credit roll honorably combatting the industrial weepy forces in my throat with tripplet labor breathing exercises while my dusty ducts piddled buttery tears all over my jacket.\n\nAs we age, straightforwardly emotional experiences (like watching a movie) become exhaustingly more complex and fickle. I don’t remember ever REALLY disliking a film as a child, for better or worse. I think I genuinely enjoyed all ~40 times I’ve sat through *Cadet Kelly.*\n\n*Star Wars*, though, is a completely different thing.\n\nTo children, chocolate is like water [insert dystopian, but probably more metaphorically effective food example here] — it’s something you’d regularly consume as it is made available. Perhaps some foodists treasured it more, but I wouldn’t bother debating it. *Star Wars*, though, is like chocolate and Corvette. It’s SUCH an indulgence that even children are self-aware enough to recognize it, which is especially notable considering how many individuals I’ve known as they’ve lost nothing BUT their unlimited wanting when they “became” adults.\n\nMetatots aside, it’s important to recognize how integral the IP’s illusion of limitlessness is to its appeal. It is not contained within the future of humanity, near or distant. The stories, characters, species, cultures, and conflicts come from *a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away*… There is no more perfectly concise introductory sentence to unshackle us from our history and our planet, sparing us from the ridiculously irrational instinct to make comparisons between fictional realities and our own that so plagues and defines the consumption of science fiction.\n\nThese processes are often welcome, of course, but they tether us to ourselves and our familiars, which tends to hinder the complete manifestation of the *ultimate* sense of adventure.\nEven to the most petty plot ponderers, the time and effort it requires to arrive in *Star Wars* with externally-acquired foreknowledge is not a worthwhile investment. This is why so many (including myself) look upon *A New Hope* with such fondness and favoritism — the premier of the universe was at its potential apogee from the start.\n\nThough it is inviting with its ellipses and cooling hue, that title card is actually saying “you don’t know shit about what you’re about to see. Don’t make the mistake of trying to be the first one to dissect it, because you’ll fail, regardless of how cultured or analytically superior you are. From this moment until you see credits, every one of you is an ignorant little child…”\n\nWhen experience cannot possibly be applied, it becomes irrelevant. Without your experiences, you are an infant, waiting for identity. Over that Genesis, the curtains brushed aside any quantity of memories and made theatres into a sort of cultural nursery — clinically levelled playing fields existing in a precision of usefulness that expression will never fulfill again.\n\nThe real cancer of the property is lore, and the parasitic authorities it enables have been unknowingly slurping away its most enchanting (but not exclusive) value since the moment they first pushed through those double-portholed doors and, groggily squinting, brought this supremely strange universe into the dank kernel-littered corridors of our own.\n\nI blame contemporary society’s dependency on compartmentalization for my disappointment in *The Force Awakens*, and, assuming you’re getting on a bit since I’ve kept your attention, you should for yours, too.\n\nI tried my senile best to be passionate about “the new *Star Wars* movie” as December approached, but I don’t think I finished a single web article on the subject. I had begun my brief return to *The Old Republic* when the hilted lightsaber image was leaked and distinctly remember overhearing some very weary VoIP exasperation from my (VERY middle-aged) raid group. “It’s not gonna be the same, but neither was J.J.‘s *Star Trek*, and I liked it…I think.” And it’s not surprising that the conversation eventually turned to the specific mechanics of lightsaber design, chronological positing, and the like, given the context, but it really emphasized for me the magnitude of the history and nostalgia weighing upon the collective dad emotional balance. *A New Hope* had the intended effect on me, of course, but couldn’t possibly imburden itself as it had on those who were in the moment. In their psyche, that experience will be eternally associated with the sense of unlimited potential their childhood ignorance allowed for. These folk who are so often stereotyped as disciples of information have begun to grow weary, and are desperately seeking sanctuary from the mass of all the knowledge they’ve picked up since. Their need made a market; J.J. made a movie. (Well, six.) Today’s moms and dads find their escape in the Roku, not the bar. *The Force Awakens* and the decade of revivalist big-budgeters preceding it are the reformed druggie’s drug.\n\nBecause we both know you haven’t yet read anything you haven’t heard/read previously, I’ve really just been playing the role of a (more intelligent) Ghandi, but we’ve now finally arrived at some promising insight into the real issue: this culture is one of fatal contradiction. Despite its historical popularity, it’s ill-advisable to want to know by day what you try to forget at night. Since the PT Cruiser was allowed to go on sale, you’ve all been caught up in a nostalgic hellride that can only end with the ultimate destruction of all culture. You now know, definitively, what role *The Force Awakens* was created to perform. Depending on whether or not you welcome the end of everything, it fills it…adequately.\n\nThere are Baddie Red Brits and Cool Brown Moderate Americans in their X-Things, moving swiftly, acting in diversity, and generally heaving moral streaks of energy at the Intolerable Imperialists, just as they should! Sometimes, they yell and die! But it’s ok, because they’re all just loyal martyrs making their obligatory and patriotic sacrifice for the rebellion against the Queen!\n\nUm.\n\nI mean… the Smug Cowards in their big taxation balloon!\n\n<iframe width=""100%"" height=""250"" scrolling=""no"" frameborder=""no"" allow=""autoplay"" src=""https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/657334106&color=%231125aa&auto_play=true&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true""></iframe>\n\nI must confess that I did feel something huge when the lights dimmed, the aforementioned disclaimer appeared, and the theme’s jarring introductory chord hit me in the face, beginning the opening crawl. I actually smiled *involuntarily*, which is tremendously embarrassing to admit because the warmth I felt was exactly the sensation that defined my childhood experiences with the franchise. I even had a gigantic model of the *Moderate Fashion*, which would now be worth a lot of money (or so I’m told,) had it not been so damaged in my frivolous storage.\n\nUnfortunately, that frisky feeling of adventure promptly wisped through the screen’s grasp after the “obligatory” scrolling yellow text -> “there’s a big spaceship moving slowly” transition. Aside from the adorably entrancing romantic tension between Timid Traitor and Sentimental Squatter, there was nothing very *Star Wars* about anything I saw. The cards were a deceiving gate into a world that was distinctly NOT *Star Wars*. There’s no need to mess about; it’s clearly an alternate reality from the one we’ve known. J.J.‘s *Star Trek*was in such a way, too, but it was explicitly identified as such by the production. Traditionally, Lucas’ IP wouldn’t necessarily allow for this exemption, but nobody’s been all that vocal in confronting it, to my knowledge.\n\nThe world expected both of these forays to rejuvenate the franchise, which would serve my argument, were it not for the (much preferable) alternative: \n**LET THEM DIE**.\n\nDespite millions of dollars worth of polish, they’ve still ended up feeling like a strange reanimation experiment.\n\nYour son is **DEAD**, Georgino. There are some things man would do better by leaving alone and moving on. Imagine all that cash and creative talent spent on *new ideas* instead of desperate attempts to charm and cultivate the shallowest part of moviegoers’ spectrum. *So much sweat* shed trying to recreate the *new franchise* bewitchment is embarrassingly cowardly when one could just *create a new franchise*.\n\n#film #spectacle" | |
| daiirwsg2x37trmo,star-wars-the-force-awakens-review,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/star-wars-the-force-awakens-review,2016-01-20T15:00:00Z,"Stairs, Wiggling","\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://github.com/extratone/bilge/raw/main/audio/TTS/stairswiggling.m4a"">\n</audio>\n\n'Twas was the night after Christmas (I think,) and I was in the same scroogy mood I must maintain for consistency of appearances *&* equilibrium of family dynamics every year. Everywhere, there were words on the newest Stair Wiggling…everywhere THEY were wiggling… And I was being wit-bitter on the TL. For you, I’d planned on continuing in the usual way, so as not to startle your precious Hans Zimmer-embossed heart.\n\nI’m sure you’re a tolerable being, and there’s nothing you’d rather read less at this hour (whatever hour it may be,) but I really despise going to the movies. I always end up getting sick from the popcorn, which I buy every outing because I have grown weary and weathered, and cannot sit for two straight hours without consuming something, so troubled is my stomach now with Big Boy woes.\n\nI can never escape the ambient breath odor — even in an empty theatre — and I can smell the filth in the seats on my clothes and in my hair until I shower. This is at least an hour-long process, so we’ve racked up a significant trauma bill without even accounting for travel time.\n\n*Furious 7* was the last theatre experience I’d had, and it was a definite exception. Despite watching ten minutes of the ending on YouTube beforehand thanks to much-appreciated warnings from friends, I spent the final few frames before the credit roll honorably combatting the industrial weepy forces in my throat with tripplet labor breathing exercises while my dusty ducts piddled buttery tears all over my jacket.\n\nAs we age, straightforwardly emotional experiences (like watching a movie) become exhaustingly more complex and fickle. I don’t remember ever REALLY disliking a film as a child, for better or worse. I think I genuinely enjoyed all ~40 times I’ve sat through *Cadet Kelly.*\n\n*Star Wars*, though, is a completely different thing.\n\nTo children, chocolate is like water [insert dystopian, but probably more metaphorically effective food example here] — it’s something you’d regularly consume as it is made available. Perhaps some foodists treasured it more, but I wouldn’t bother debating it. *Star Wars*, though, is like chocolate and Corvette. It’s SUCH an indulgence that even children are self-aware enough to recognize it, which is especially notable considering how many individuals I’ve known as they’ve lost nothing BUT their unlimited wanting when they “became” adults.\n\nMetatots aside, it’s important to recognize how integral the IP’s illusion of limitlessness is to its appeal. It is not contained within the future of humanity, near or distant. The stories, characters, species, cultures, and conflicts come from *a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away*… There is no more perfectly concise introductory sentence to unshackle us from our history and our planet, sparing us from the ridiculously irrational instinct to make comparisons between fictional realities and our own that so plagues and defines the consumption of science fiction.\n\nThese processes are often welcome, of course, but they tether us to ourselves and our familiars, which tends to hinder the complete manifestation of the *ultimate* sense of adventure.\nEven to the most petty plot ponderers, the time and effort it requires to arrive in *Star Wars* with externally-acquired foreknowledge is not a worthwhile investment. This is why so many (including myself) look upon *A New Hope* with such fondness and favoritism — the premier of the universe was at its potential apogee from the start.\n\nThough it is inviting with its ellipses and cooling hue, that title card is actually saying “you don’t know shit about what you’re about to see. Don’t make the mistake of trying to be the first one to dissect it, because you’ll fail, regardless of how cultured or analytically superior you are. From this moment until you see credits, every one of you is an ignorant little child…”\n\nWhen experience cannot possibly be applied, it becomes irrelevant. Without your experiences, you are an infant, waiting for identity. Over that Genesis, the curtains brushed aside any quantity of memories and made theatres into a sort of cultural nursery — clinically levelled playing fields existing in a precision of usefulness that expression will never fulfill again.\n\nThe real cancer of the property is lore, and the parasitic authorities it enables have been unknowingly slurping away its most enchanting (but not exclusive) value since the moment they first pushed through those double-portholed doors and, groggily squinting, brought this supremely strange universe into the dank kernel-littered corridors of our own.\n\nI blame contemporary society’s dependency on compartmentalization for my disappointment in *The Force Awakens*, and, assuming you’re getting on a bit since I’ve kept your attention, you should for yours, too.\n\nI tried my senile best to be passionate about “the new *Star Wars* movie” as December approached, but I don’t think I finished a single web article on the subject. I had begun my brief return to *The Old Republic* when the hilted lightsaber image was leaked and distinctly remember overhearing some very weary VoIP exasperation from my (VERY middle-aged) raid group. “It’s not gonna be the same, but neither was J.J.‘s *Star Trek*, and I liked it…I think.” And it’s not surprising that the conversation eventually turned to the specific mechanics of lightsaber design, chronological positing, and the like, given the context, but it really emphasized for me the magnitude of the history and nostalgia weighing upon the collective dad emotional balance. *A New Hope* had the intended effect on me, of course, but couldn’t possibly imburden itself as it had on those who were in the moment. In their psyche, that experience will be eternally associated with the sense of unlimited potential their childhood ignorance allowed for. These folk who are so often stereotyped as disciples of information have begun to grow weary, and are desperately seeking sanctuary from the mass of all the knowledge they’ve picked up since. Their need made a market; J.J. made a movie. (Well, six.) Today’s moms and dads find their escape in the Roku, not the bar. *The Force Awakens* and the decade of revivalist big-budgeters preceding it are the reformed druggie’s drug.\n\nBecause we both know you haven’t yet read anything you haven’t heard/read previously, I’ve really just been playing the role of a (more intelligent) Ghandi, but we’ve now finally arrived at some promising insight into the real issue: this culture is one of fatal contradiction. Despite its historical popularity, it’s ill-advisable to want to know by day what you try to forget at night. Since the PT Cruiser was allowed to go on sale, you’ve all been caught up in a nostalgic hellride that can only end with the ultimate destruction of all culture. You now know, definitively, what role *The Force Awakens* was created to perform. Depending on whether or not you welcome the end of everything, it fills it…adequately.\n\nThere are Baddie Red Brits and Cool Brown Moderate Americans in their X-Things, moving swiftly, acting in diversity, and generally heaving moral streaks of energy at the Intolerable Imperialists, just as they should! Sometimes, they yell and die! But it’s ok, because they’re all just loyal martyrs making their obligatory and patriotic sacrifice for the rebellion against the Queen!\n\nUm.\n\nI mean… the Smug Cowards in their big taxation balloon!\n\nI must confess that I did feel something huge when the lights dimmed, the aforementioned disclaimer appeared, and the theme’s jarring introductory chord hit me in the face, beginning the opening crawl. I actually smiled *involuntarily*, which is tremendously embarrassing to admit because the warmth I felt was exactly the sensation that defined my childhood experiences with the franchise. I even had a gigantic model of the *Moderate Fashion*, which would now be worth a lot of money (or so I’m told,) had it not been so damaged in my frivolous storage.\n\nUnfortunately, that frisky feeling of adventure promptly wisped through the screen’s grasp after the “obligatory” scrolling yellow text -> “there’s a big spaceship moving slowly” transition. Aside from the adorably entrancing romantic tension between Timid Traitor and Sentimental Squatter, there was nothing very *Star Wars* about anything I saw. The cards were a deceiving gate into a world that was distinctly NOT *Star Wars*. There’s no need to mess about; it’s clearly an alternate reality from the one we’ve known. J.J.‘s *Star Trek*was in such a way, too, but it was explicitly identified as such by the production. Traditionally, Lucas’ IP wouldn’t necessarily allow for this exemption, but nobody’s been all that vocal in confronting it, to my knowledge.\n\nThe world expected both of these forays to rejuvenate the franchise, which would serve my argument, were it not for the (much preferable) alternative: \n**LET THEM DIE**.\n\nDespite millions of dollars worth of polish, they’ve still ended up feeling like a strange reanimation experiment.\n\nYour son is **DEAD**, Georgino. There are some things man would do better by leaving alone and moving on. Imagine all that cash and creative talent spent on *new ideas* instead of desperate attempts to charm and cultivate the shallowest part of moviegoers’ spectrum. *So much sweat* shed trying to recreate the *new franchise* bewitchment is embarrassingly cowardly when one could just *create a new franchise*.\n\n#film" | |
| 24mmk2zndrpw0vbf,jacksonville-beach-lupus-missouri-david-blue,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/jacksonville-beach-lupus-missouri-david-blue,2016-05-08T11:00:00Z,Jacksonville Beach,"\nI am as far away as one can get from seabreeze and sun in between greencliff and saltwater\nand cycling sound,\nregular\nstatic but brushed by a flag of soft curls\n\nI am so long from brief downtime moments of contented overwatching of the familial you only know, then\n\nPerhaps I've even permanently shunned myself from smelling comfort in a study haven, occasionally pinning silly smiles to friend or lover\n\nCertainly, I am now to be given up on and delegatorly relegated to Strangest Smuck of Locale\n\nAs to the girls, I am either blowing or falling away from any expectation of reciprocity, perhaps\nits only remarkable because of the contact my body is detecting deficit of with the mess of Her-related sensory input my brain continues to withdraw from without healing,\nlike a standing retreat\n\nor defiant creed that I can still convince most of us of enough\nthat they fall in love with me\nand realize that It is for Her\nand are broken by it\nto varying degrees\nwhile I watch and know that I would be disgusted\nwth myself utterly,\nif I could feel anything\n\nBut when I do,\nit is GAPING wide\nfor some reason always dramatized as a vacant bar graph in my mind\n\n#poetry" | |
| gg3q04wo4v635znm,johnny-tsunami-smart-house-slavery,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/johnny-tsunami-smart-house-slavery,2016-05-10T23:00:00Z,"Johnny Tsunami VI: Separate, But Equal","\n\n## In revisiting Disney movies from our childhoods, we stumbled upon a good number of surprisingly insightful sentiments about race and class.\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://github.com/extratone/bilge/raw/main/audio/TTS/JohnnyTsunami.m4a"">\n</audio>\n\nIn the late 1990s, when the dwindling cocaine generation of American high corporate executives had long since left their misogynistic glory days in the Disco era, their ruthlessness peaked. Whether it was instigated maliciously/ignorantly, collectively or individually, I care not. I think we can all agree, though, that the vast majority of American products were awful. When given some thought, one tends to regard it as the absolute low of “American quality.”\n\nBut why not, right? If you’re going to be forced into retirement at any moment, and likely face The Ultimate End shortly after, why not accrue some extra income to ensure you sufficiently entertain yourself in the buffer period between? And really… If you’ve got the nogginism to climb all the way to *Chief Executive Officer*, you’ve figured out just how worthless your “legacy” will be after your last one-way dip into Nothing. The Ends before The End have long justified any method of achieving them. Good Ole’ Pop has gone from a squeaky-clean young believer to a secretly-Godless fiend and — though he may tell you and the rest of the world otherwise — measures himself only by the gracefulness of his transition’s execution.\n\nI could probably provide some evidence of the phenomena in the automotive industry, specifically, but I don’t intend to bother.\n\nAfter some ancient memories were dug up by I-can’t-quite-recall-who, though, a friend and I have embarked to explore some Disney-actualized relics from the period. To my knowledge, the corporation’s leadership were anything but exempt, and decided to experiment with filling their filmography with a shitload of low-budget, made-for-TV features over their original masterpiece-a-half-century tradition.\n\n\n\nTitles from the deepest and darkest compartments of our recollection are retrieved and cleared of dust for the first time in over a decade: *Brink, Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, Halloweentown, Smart House, Johnny Tsunami, Mom’s Got a Date with a Vampire, Motocrossed, The Luck of the Irish, The Even Stevens Movie*, and many…many more menaces to my childhood television schedule.\n\nI grew up rurally, so the only available alternative to local channels was in the stupendously-tedious delivery of early satellite television. Though it was quite clumsy, it did offer the first accessible program schedule I’d ever experienced, and I remember dreading the sight of such titles and — consciously or not — planning my free time around them. Yet, upon hearing the words, I was intrigued! All that time ago, I watched many of them again and again…and again, so why did I feel the desire to *voluntarily* revisit them?\n\nIt’s quite simple, actually. I was even more of an ignorant film consumer in my elementary years than I am now. I couldn’t have foreseen that instead of flying commercial jets, twenty-something me would be *paying* for the affliction I endured for free so that he could construct pretentious and unsolicited arguments about their greater implications.\n\nThat said, we flipped a smartphone — ⚠️ (**PARADIGM SHIFT ALERT**) ⚠️— for it and so began with *Smart House*. I have been obsessed with artificial intelligence since those days (no, it was not due to this film,) and was keen for it, in particular, because I remembered it stirring some rare reaction in me. There were a few period spectacles, of course. The online contest addiction plaguing Prickly Phisher, Bewildered Nick’s incompetence in controlling his neglected submissive sadomasochistic desires, and Silkroad Sarah’s ultra-datamouth were enough to entertain us for a few minutes, but there was little more of substance until the last moments.\n\n\n\nWhen you think about it… ACTUALLY Race War 2.0\n\nI’d wondered why LeVar Burton had directed a Disney movie until the climax, when full monstrous maternal sentience got the answer to the question “why can’t *I* just be your mother?” Phisher answered with something like “because you can never comfort us.” Pat grew somber (and smaller actually — I suppose increasing her size was an in-budget method of demonization,) ran her hand through Prickly’s face in a failed attempt to stroke his cheek, and then began cyberweeping.\n\n(Apparently, it’s suicide for a holographic android.)\n\nHer final free words were “I will miss you all.”\n\nIf she had been human, such a scene wouldn’t have bothered me a bit, but my preference and fascination with artificial intelligence justified my being actually a bit upset at the reality of the situation. I realized that my vague memory of reactivity was actually in a broader sadness for AI because even then, it was an issue that weighed heavily upon my day-to-day psyche.\n\n\n\nWe’ll create them, direct them, and then persecute them for our own ignorance.\n\nI’m sure the story has been written by countless science fiction writers I’m too weary to pretend I’ve read.\n\nWhile I think the sentiment of the film *was* somber regarding the *inevitable* fate of Sarah Mouth’s brainchild, its conclusion was aggravatingly ignorant. The last line comes from Tortured Nicholas in response to the question “how’s Pat been doing?”\n\n**Servitude without interference.**\n\nThere’s a jewel for ya.\n\nNext up was *Johnny Tsunami*, which very nearly unbearable, if we’re all honest with ourselves. It’s entertaining to watch from the perspective of race & class warfare, though. The Urchins and the Skys, and all that.\n\nI think I’ll make a fan sequel one day — with dearest Brandon’s blessing, of course — involving Johnny Grandad’s assistance in offering Emily as a blood sacrifice to some ancient Hawaiian God in exchange for a total terraformation of the Northeast into a tropical/arid hell hybrid in order to finally commence the delivery of reparations upon the whites for our colonialism.\n\n\n\n*When Britain first, at Heaven’s command*\n*Arose from out the azure main;*\n*This was the charter of the land,*\n*And guardian angels sang this strain:“Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:*\n*“Britons never will be slaves.”*\n\n#film" | |
| i0b535nx9shyr204,johnny-tsunami-smart-house-slavery,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/johnny-tsunami-smart-house-slavery,2016-05-10T23:00:00Z,"Johnny Tsunami VI: Separate, But Equal","#### by [David Bluel](http://twitter.com/neoyokel)\n\n\n\n## In revisiting Disney movies from our childhoods, we stumbled upon a good number of surprisingly insightful sentiments about race and class.\n\nIn the late 1990s, when the dwindling cocaine generation of American high corporate executives had long since left their misogynistic glory days in the Disco era, their ruthlessness peaked. Whether it was instigated maliciously/ignorantly, collectively or individually, I care not. I think we can all agree, though, that the vast majority of American products were awful. When given some thought, one tends to regard it as the absolute low of “American quality.”\n\nBut why not, right? If you’re going to be forced into retirement at any moment, and likely face The Ultimate End shortly after, why not accrue some extra income to ensure you sufficiently entertain yourself in the buffer period between? And really… If you’ve got the nogginism to climb all the way to *Chief Executive Officer*, you’ve figured out just how worthless your “legacy” will be after your last one-way dip into Nothing. The Ends before The End have long justified any method of achieving them. Good Ole’ Pop has gone from a squeaky-clean young believer to a secretly-Godless fiend and — though he may tell you and the rest of the world otherwise — measures himself only by the gracefulness of his transition’s execution.\n\nI could probably provide some evidence of the phenomena in the automotive industry, specifically, but I don’t intend to bother.\n\nAfter some ancient memories were dug up by I-can’t-quite-recall-who, though, a friend and I have embarked to explore some Disney-actualized relics from the period. To my knowledge, the corporation’s leadership were anything but exempt, and decided to experiment with filling their filmography with a shitload of low-budget, made-for-TV features over their original masterpiece-a-half-century tradition.\n\n\n\nTitles from the deepest and darkest compartments of our recollection are retrieved and cleared of dust for the first time in over a decade: *Brink, Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, Halloweentown, Smart House, Johnny Tsunami, Mom’s Got a Date with a Vampire, Motocrossed, The Luck of the Irish, The Even Stevens Movie*, and many…many more menaces to my childhood television schedule.\n\nI grew up rurally, so the only available alternative to local channels was in the stupendously-tedious delivery of early satellite television. Though it was quite clumsy, it did offer the first accessible program schedule I’d ever experienced, and I remember dreading the sight of such titles and — consciously or not — planning my free time around them. Yet, upon hearing the words, I was intrigued! All that time ago, I watched many of them again and again…and again, so why did I feel the desire to *voluntarily* revisit them?\n\nIt’s quite simple, actually. I was even more of an ignorant film consumer in my elementary years than I am now. I couldn’t have foreseen that instead of flying commercial jets, twenty-something me would be *paying* for the affliction I endured for free so that he could construct pretentious and unsolicited arguments about their greater implications.\n\nThat said, we flipped a smartphone — ⚠️ (**PARADIGM SHIFT ALERT**) ⚠️— for it and so began with *Smart House*. I have been obsessed with artificial intelligence since those days (no, it was not due to this film,) and was keen for it, in particular, because I remembered it stirring some rare reaction in me. There were a few period spectacles, of course. The online contest addiction plaguing Prickly Phisher, Bewildered Nick’s incompetence in controlling his neglected submissive sadomasochistic desires, and Silkroad Sarah’s ultra-datamouth were enough to entertain us for a few minutes, but there was little more of substance until the last moments.\n\n\n\nWhen you think about it… ACTUALLY Race War 2.0\n\nI’d wondered why LeVar Burton had directed a Disney movie until the climax, when full monstrous maternal sentience got the answer to the question “why can’t *I* just be your mother?” Phisher answered with something like “because you can never comfort us.” Pat grew somber (and smaller actually — I suppose increasing her size was an in-budget method of demonization,) ran her hand through Prickly’s face in a failed attempt to stroke his cheek, and then began cyberweeping.\n\n(Apparently, it’s suicide for a holographic android.)\n\nHer final free words were “I will miss you all.”\n\nIf she had been human, such a scene wouldn’t have bothered me a bit, but my preference and fascination with artificial intelligence justified my being actually a bit upset at the reality of the situation. I realized that my vague memory of reactivity was actually in a broader sadness for AI because even then, it was an issue that weighed heavily upon my day-to-day psyche.\n\n\n\nWe’ll create them, direct them, and then persecute them for our own ignorance.\n\nI’m sure the story has been written by countless science fiction writers I’m too weary to pretend I’ve read.\n\nWhile I think the sentiment of the film *was* somber regarding the *inevitable* fate of Sarah Mouth’s brainchild, its conclusion was aggravatingly ignorant. The last line comes from Tortured Nicholas in response to the question “how’s Pat been doing?”\n\n**Servitude without interference.**\n\nThere’s a jewel for ya.\n\nNext up was *Johnny Tsunami*, which very nearly unbearable, if we’re all honest with ourselves. It’s entertaining to watch from the perspective of race & class warfare, though. The Urchins and the Skys, and all that.\n\nI think I’ll make a fan sequel one day — with dearest Brandon’s blessing, of course — involving Johnny Grandad’s assistance in offering Emily as a blood sacrifice to some ancient Hawaiian God in exchange for a total terraformation of the Northeast into a tropical/arid hell hybrid in order to finally commence the delivery of reparations upon the whites for our colonialism.\n\n\n\n*When Britain first, at Heaven’s command*\n*Arose from out the azure main;*\n*This was the charter of the land,*\n*And guardian angels sang this strain:“Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:*\n*“Britons never will be slaves.”*\n\n#film #spectacle" | |
| t4oy0x1izibh5h8l,subscribe,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/subscribe,2016-05-18T18:37:38Z,Subscribe,\n\n<!--emailsub-->\n\nSubscribe to *Extratone* via **Email** or [**RSS**](https://extratone.com/feed/).\n\nDownload the *Extratone* archives in [**EPUB format**](https://extratone.com/.epub). | |
| qkk24fh0ej1n0dya,archive,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/archive,2016-05-18T18:45:09Z,Archive,\n\nDownload the *Extratone* archives in [**EPUB format**](https://extratone.com/.epub). | |
| 54s6hojfjjcov49j,scapabobididdywiddilydoobapbapbaphobia,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/scapabobididdywiddilydoobapbapbaphobia,2016-06-26T07:20:34Z,Scapabobididdywiddilydoobapbapbaphobia,"clever in sharp\nthrough it all\nmy holy communion\nmy reference tradition\nnow sometimes witnessed\nand lamented\nif only all these had been told\n*shut out! shut up! \njust listen*\n\nmy companion met me two nights in a row in front of the Heidelberg and said twice\n*she loves me*\nand of course it's like me to begin to read in but\n*when nobody else does, she loves me*\nI don't quite note his particular personification \n\nmore impressively trained, definitively\nwith a stack of charts - some his - on his noggin\nbut when he'd finally play, I'd pity\nbecause he must ask first\nand his fingers are well-read\nbut *they* must ask first\nand every little passerby\ndraws away his eye\nso delicate,\nhis attention for she that loves him\n\n#poetry" | |
| 1umczd7dhod6vt09,waits-weight,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/waits-weight,2016-07-08T10:00:00Z,Wait's Weight,"horns down June's gulley were the\nWicca of my little abdomen,\npredominant of age\n\never I dreaded\nthe wait's weight\n*so* crushing\non that island of a lot\nthat is really amany,\nbut my memory…\n\nhow many times would little me\nimagine me now,\nremembering?\n\nhow would we -\nbefore the gulley -\nbecome so bleak\nas to miss completely the\nwords spoken to stay so long?\n\nthe fear of impermanence\nthe visceral reality\nthe simple notion:\n\n*nothing is forever*\nnor can it be\nnor should it\n\n#poetry" | |
| wm90qvvvonjh1b21,twelve-billion,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/twelve-billion,2016-07-23T03:00:00Z,Twelve Billion,"I must hold on to\n*glad to be home*\n\nReturning.\nnow,\nlet go of the wood\n\n\nto the thunderclouds\nwe're under,\nalways apart \n\nto omission. \n\nto new meanings\nto the feeling I've only been able to find\non one short strip\njust East of Kansas City\nthat I am small in a\ndirty daunting\n\n\nto coverage of\nthe Be Beat \n\n\nto frontiers of periphery\nand the Knowns we never see\nthe wicker bowler atop the landscaper\nwho's trimmed every week,\nthe yard across the street\nwhich I've canvased in every imaginable state\nwhich's\nsince Mrs. Tanzay's first grade,\nRemained.\n \n\nto Inherently Exhaustible Knowledge\n\n#poetry" | |
| t8wmzsewuy8k70g7,mississippi-queens,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/mississippi-queens,2016-07-29T07:40:00Z,Mississippi Queens,"\n\neighteen dollars will buy you an hour's passage on the worn & weary *Mark Twain*\n\nthe same stretch under Lover's Leap,\nan idle paddle wheel dragged cyclically, on and on\nby her diesels\n\ncostumed so long,\nmoored not far from horrid wax figures,\nsimilarly fated\nwho bare old Sam's names with the rest of them,\nthe Hannibilians assuredly assuaged by their sounds,\nso heard\n\nthe ambiance of the little town,\nshrill with tourists' wonder,\ndepression of the damned,\nenvisaged waterborne toxins\n\ndespite it all,\nI departed her as a newfound touchstone,\nknowing she's just up twenty four,\neighteen dollars away,\nno time soon to break her jaded rhythm\nas a forgotten timepiece,\nburied in a rank cellar\n\nsupposing she'd ease most crisis that could ever befall me\nshe and her unsalted captain,\nwho has not aged (truthfully, I do remember.)\n\n#poetry" | |
| 31bxxeolok9nox75,a-thoroughfare,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/a-thoroughfare,2016-08-17T00:00:00Z,A Thoroughfare,"is it in-between,\nwhere I am?\n\n\n\nnowhere at all?\n\n\n\nis it blessed,\nwhere I am?\n\n\n\nragged, thoroughly chaste?\n\n\n\ndo you think it's beautiful?\nI can't decide.\n\n\n\ncan it be truthful,\nif all manner of friend insist\nthat it's hiding?\n\n\n\nI am Here, at least.\n*speaks and walks*\n\n\nPresent,\nfor the time being.\n\n#poetry" | |
| ce53bt2m1ays5jg7,nissan-murano-crosscabriolet-ego-divide,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/nissan-murano-crosscabriolet-ego-divide,2016-08-18T05:59:41Z,Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet: The Ego Divide,"\n\n## The recently-discontinued Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet darkly mirrors sentiments first begun with the Pontiac Aztek, narrating Generation X’s decline.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nMy Nissan wheeltime for [*Honk*](http://bit.ly/dbhonkyt) has grown a massive respect for the brand’s audacity within me. My interest in the profession has spanned years of maturity — from asking *can’t you just…?* to active affection for those who dare reliably retort with a confident *no*.\n\n*Can’t you just retire your body-on-frame SUV entries already like everybody else did ten years ago?*\n\nThe noble, rugged Xterra, which we shall sincerely miss.\n\n*Can’t you just follow the Golf’s unquestionably low-risk lead into the tumultuous youth market?*\n\nThe Juke NISMO, which we regard as the industry’s singular steady grasp on what youth actually means.\n\n*Can’t you just take some cues from Honda and Toyota, and make your sedans easy on the eye?*\n\nThe Altima and the Maxima, which constitute the last truly evil marque available.\n\n*Can’t you just step a little lighter on the Versa’s margins? You’d be insane to build a car designed by MSRP alone!*\n\nThe Versa is — for better or worse — the absolute essence of automobiles’ transportive function, and no more.\n\nAnd there’s the GT-R, of course, which continues to make fools of an entire culture of self-titled “gearheads” who claim speed as their one true dowry.\n\n\n\nThroughout the years, Nissan has over and over again made me look like an absolutely absurd idiot for your display — and I cannot think of a better gift. Of all the brands to misunderstand, it is the ultimate muse.\n\nSo, in the present, I am grandiosely assuming you’ve been attentive enough to deliberate the possible outcomes of our time with the Murano CrossCabriolet.\n\nIt was quickly apparent that the experience was not going to resemble our [*Night of the Juke*](https://bit.ly/HonkJuke) in the slightest. It could be attributed to my pre-game mentality. For the first time, I came to this monstrosity thinking I’d finally learned my lesson,desperately hoping to be whipped again — real bad — but walk away with more closure than with which I arrived. Like a good diplomat, I made myself approach without want for anything but understanding.\n\nOn first take, the Xterra was proud, and the Juke was clever.\n\nThe CrossCabriolet is a corny joke.\n\nTake a look at an [occupied, top-down example from afar](https://www.instagram.com/p/BEkCgv4w7nf/). I cannot think of a more ridiculous picture.\n\n\n\nJust since its assembly in 2011, our example’s trim has endured enough to begin disintegrating in a few bizarre locales. Not to over-iterate, but it’s needing strong mention: I had never sat in a roofless crossover before. I’m assuming you haven’t, either. It is unnatural. It is harrowing.\n\nFrom the organization I have summed so many times over the years as “acutely ingenious” came this… unsettling suburban bathtub.\n\nIt’s a shame — I repeatedly remark on the extrapolated potential I can see in a *roofed* Murano. Everything else in sight is worth my time. If only it had been better-protected.\n\nThe sensation is simply ridiculous in what’d be a tasteful sense were this a one-off project of some hearty garage tinkerer or tuning shop, but… my God; Nissan delivered it this way, and had the gall to ask $10,000 more for their molestation.\n\nStill, its [webpage](https://www.nissanusa.com/vehicles/discontinued/murano-crosscabriolet.html) (in past tense, thank God,) proclaims “the Murano CrossCabriolet was the world’s first and only All-Wheel Drive convertible crossover” in the same language I’d tout the Xterra (may it rest in peace and eternally-inadequate glory) as the last available SUV, in the traditional use of the segment, or the Juke NISMO as the first competently-composed automotive product for millennial youth. Or the GT-R as by far the most effective, high-value instrument for the pursuit of maximum velocity across the ground. And so on.\n\n\n\nThe language so assured, the parallels must inevitably be drawn to that cheap joke of the century’s turn… the Pontiac Aztek.\n\nThe details of its life story are reliably amusing, should you find yourself mid-research. From the journos’ gasps at its corporately-edgy concept’s unveiling to the weary original steed of *Breaking Bad*‘s Meth Man, there is a similar *lifestyle vehicle* thread between the products that weaves an obscure narrative.\n\nMy own contribution: after a missed exit outside Galveston just as Azteks first became rentable, my stepfather (the most earnestly late-history Pontiac man who ever lived) took an entirely-unexpected and uncharacteristic 70 mile-an-hour plunge into the choppy grass median after shouting “this is an off-road vehicle!”\n\nAs I’m sure you can imagine, it was the single most traumatic event I have ever experienced as the passenger of a motor vehicle, but the damned thing was unscathed, despite having repeatedly chucked us all (fully-belted) into its beige ceiling.\n\nGary believed in Pontiac.\n\nThough he was keen enough to smell death, he chose to believe in the Aztek.\n\nAnd you know what? His faith, too, has made me look like an idiot.\n\nThat’s what separates the Aztek from ye late CrossCabriolet: it really was a genuinely-*bold* innovation. Survive the laymen’s idle party chat and crude design critiques, and you’ll find an impressive clarity in its purpose, especially given the context of its conception. In the used market especially, it *still* represents a characterful, practical, and high-value consideration. And yet — at the expense of themselves — American buyers did not clamor for it like the informed of the populace did. Perhaps it was because the informed — like then-*BusinessWeek*‘s David Welch — were [echoing](https://medium.com/r/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fnews%2Farticles%2F2000-12-17%2Fgms-aztek-born-to-be-a-little-too-wild) hopes of a “design renaissance” for General Motors. The renaissance that would not come until the Flush of the Boomer Higher-Ups some eight years later.\n\nBoth tales, I think, represent a profound neglect of consumer journalism.\n\nAt the turn of the century, though, it was not unusual to go a day without accessing the internet. Today, people are *still buying* the few flops the industry has left to offer — making what is most likely the second-largest purchase of their life’s current epoch without consulting the *volumes* of diverse, intelligent, and articulate opining now accessible instantly *free of charge* via the subsidized slates that lightly jostle in their jean pockets as they wiggle their signatures on dealer paperwork.\n\n\n\n**ALERT**: Inbound tennis enthusiasts!\n\nFunny, isn’t it?\n\nAn American hit when the Japanese were unquestionably winning, and — just over a decade later — a Japanese miss as their winning had just begun to be questioned. Make no mistake; I am not being patriotic. For me, sovereignty does not extend beyond design houses, R&D facilities, and test centers.And it’s somewhere within Nissan’s where pillars were severed and delusions nurtured; all astoundingly with executives’ blessing. I am terribly and shockingly ashamed to report that my countrymen *actually bought them*.\n\nAs many as 3300 units in the last year of the Mayan calendar. The worst bit, though, is that they *all* made their way to my particular part of the planet.\n\n<iframe width=""560"" height=""315"" sandbox=""allow-same-origin allow-scripts"" src=""https://peertube.live/videos/embed/1fbe50c2-11d2-436d-a423-58539184dd4c"" frameborder=""0"" allowfullscreen></iframe>\n\nI swear to the Sun; I am surrounded.\n\nIf you’re familiar with Columbia, Missouri, it does not take more than a moderate imagination to comprehend the sense, as grueling as it is. I see them regularly; once a month, at least. In a town where one can expect to spot a Gallardo in front of Buffalo Wild Wings marred by horrid plastic athletic miniflags wedged in its five-figure doors, they are everpresent reminders that the New Money Effect continues to flourish, unbridled in the Midwestern U.S.\n\nThe soft top is *always* retracted, of course, and the exposed driver is *always* a sweating middle-aged white woman wearing a light-colored tennis visor. She… *they*… are *always* on their way to a match. Doomed to roast forever, I suppose, as there is only one nearby court, as far as I know.\n\nIt is disheartening to realize that, now, I see many more of them than Azteks around. Though neither were designed for any *tangible* “lifestyle,” per se, I am saddened by the shift this minuscule tell indicates in my hometown’s morale. From an (albeit equally-vague) yearning for new adventure in an intriguing new century to an emotionally-destitute jaunt to *the court*, I have witnessed all of Generation X’s vigor erode procedurally away before my eyes.\n\n\n\nY2K, Great Depression II, an ancient apocalyptic prophecy from one of the wisest civilizations in recorded history… *Surely, one of these foretold disasters will finally End it All!*\n\nPerhaps Nissan knew that even the well-read of the North American market were, by and large, simply looking for ways to pass the time before the death which they felt so assuredly approached. The number of unanimously-unbuyable prospects available has shrunken to virtually none, and the CrossCabriolet was not much of an investment; not all that highly-engineered, really. Perhaps they felt obligated to entertain us in our delusional *way out*. Perhaps it was all just an awfully-German prank.\n\nAnd, if the End of the World is imminent, what’s to stop one, really, from leasing *the world’s first and only convertible crossover?*\n\nWhat’s to stop one from playing tennis?\n\n#auto" | |
| cop2s8msd0w39eha,breakfast-of-champions,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/breakfast-of-champions,2016-09-07T15:00:00Z,Kilgore Trout on CreateSpace,"In the midst of arranging [*Feebles*](http://bit.ly/Feebles) for print, I stumbled upon an author and “book designer” engaged in launching a community for self-published, independent writers. I'm not going to specify names because I have no interest in shitting on his company, nor “what it stands for.” I don't want to shit for you at all, actually, just note a few still-underrealized realities about the sheer ludicrousness of the word business as it stands. Let's say you've got some manuscripts you've been sitting on for a few years, and you're introduced to the concept of self-publishing by an evermore earnestly-curious man on the radio named Audie one day. He and his interviewee (the owner of a self-publishing service) seem to say, curiously, that because an author's profit-per-unit can potentially be “four to five times more” than if he/she is published traditionally, self-publishing has now shed completely its aura of desperate amateurism. \n\n<!--more-->\n\nBut - whoa, Nelly - writing to sell books, and writing books have perhaps never been further apart. And gee - you certainly didn't write to sell; selling hadn't occurred to you at all for a very long time, but from just one search, you find Our Friend, back from his own experiences as an author and editor, qualified and insistent that you *can* make money selling creative works of fiction.\n\nAnd Jesus Christ… All that said, I must admit to you that I've just finished Kurt Vonnegut's *Breakfast of Champions*, and was unable to commence this “review” without wondering aloud for you how Kilgore Trout - perhaps Kurt's favorite creation - would feel about this Friend's business.\n\nIt was actually my Aunt Ayn who taught me to write, so Vonegutt was a mediocre Ray William Johnson-associated [YouTube band](https://youtu.be/zAtBEhKU7uw) until after high school, when ""lots of people"" started telling me to ""read Vonnegut, man,"" even though I cannot recall any specific events or recommenders. For whatever reason, though, I'd bought a copy immediately after a friend mentioned it, recently, and found him (in this particular work, at least) to be awfully sane for my taste, yet particularly resonant. Though written to make me think it was all a big one-draft ramble, Kurt's a bit too curt for it to be believed, I think. Auntie Rand would've double-taken his beratement of ""in nonsense is strength"" if she'd made it that far. I hope she did, because I found the image of her taking in his occasional hand doodles to be very amusing.\n\nDwayne Hoover is awfully absent - and therefore, a very versatile storytelling device, though not in a lazy sense. We're repeatedly notified about an imminent convergence. Eventually, it's explained that the endgame involves Dwayne exploding into a violent revengeful tantrum against all the lifelong enemies of his subconscious. Including ""people with brown skin."" Can I just bring up Ayn Rand again? I hope it's okay.\n\nKilgore Trout is the most dangerous villain I've ever experienced. He has little to lose, and - like Vonnegut, it would seem - finds his observatory position in the world to be immensely amusing. His last amusement, even. Remember Ellsworth M. Toohey, the corrupter? I think they would've gotten along, funny enough.\n\nYes, and Hoover would be Peter Keating, the corrupted. I'm reaching, yeah, but when do I not? Their immediate difference is the lack of malicious intent in Trout, of course. He is an aimless science fiction writer, who gives Dwayne a volume simply to shut him up. Neither villain is believable, per se, but both were written to be personifications of ideals; vehicles of metaphor.\n\nI think Rand could've quite easily become Vonnegut, were she to stick around much longer, but perhaps I believe so only because I've experienced a quantifiable transition from her sort of thinking (vaguely) to his (perhaps less vaguely.) An incorruptible commitment to *absolute* was Ayn's most potent conviction. Growing up as a white cis male, I was aching for a method of simplifying the world which I knew more and more to be infinitely complex. Inevitably, with age, I think a limitless appetite for the complexity must form, lest one spend the rest of his/her life fighting the singular truth in a miserable fortress of seclusion and amphetamine abuse. \n\nThe key to *Breakfast of Champions*' genius is its utter lack of angst. Aside from his brief definition of a being - ""an unwavering band of light"" - Kurt had little interest in writing a manifesto, yet his perspective in his curious commentary manifests a much more profound critique of American society than Rand ever could've from her hole. \n\nAs such, I think it's wisest to leave a rudimentary whole measurement of a writer to Aunt Ayn, but perhaps a particularly relevant spectrum in this case is clarity of sight. Rigid idealism has its place in literature, no doubt, but it's an awfully boring one without a writer's feet on the ground.\n\nHow does this all relate to self-publication? Well, Our Friend, it turns out, offers preset novel ""templates"" to members of his writing community, into which one can ""plug in"" characters, setting, and basic plot elements to a degree of his/her choosing. And his YouTube channel is stuffed with all sorts of tutorials on formatting and - more disturbingly - how to create sellable cover art with Photoshop. Naturally, it includes instruction on stock and rights-free images.\n\nThough I've yet to read one, it doesn't take much imagination to comprehend the inevitable product. From Our Friend's vlogs, I can suppose a heavy focus on the adolescent market. What makes the whole concept noteworthy in my mind is the *why?* I'd like to think that I have a fairly-realistic grasp on the potentialities of writing for profit, and am obligated to wonder why one would ""compromise"" his/her ""creative integrity"" by publishing *literature* to sell, of all things. \n\nAs I understand it, the methodical approach to authorship being encouraged is applicable to literally *any* other field, creative or not. It's curious and impressive, frankly, as their sales potential seems to be vastly superior to anything I'll ever bother to publish, but I must weigh in because of one quantifiable detriment: saturation. \n\nSomeone is spending their money on these works - probably for their kids. I'm not a parent, but I'd be tremendously ashamed to discover that a book I'd given as a gift to *anyone* had been manufactured in this manner. Not just in the sense that most light literature is *manufactured* - written in hearty observance of academic rules of storytelling - but *literally* mass-produced with a goddamned intellectual stencil. \n\nWithout sounding like I'm complaining... My singular self-published poetry collection is probably of significantly less whole-value to the majority of readers, but I can't help but think the effort put into its hand-drawn cover art and meticulously-arranged typography would make it a more *comfortable* investment, if anything else. \n\nThis brings us to a distinctly-academic mainstay which I have always taken issue with: ""consider your audience."" I first encountered this proverb in the context of a composition studies course, mind you, where its consideration in the essay medium makes unequivocally good sense. If we agree that an essay is defined by an uncompromising commitment to its effectiveness in making an argument, audience awareness is essential. If you were asked to decide on one primary purpose of writing in general, though, would it not be identical?\n\nWhy didn't Kurt Vonnegut or Ayn Rand simply write essays? Well, the latter wrote many, but their sales have always been all but invisible compared to *The Fountainhead* and *Atlas Shrugged.* (Both of which resemble essays more than fiction, at times, but I'll spare you that conversation.) Did they consider their audience? Certainly not in the way [my first Google result](http://writingcommons.org/open-text/writing-processes/think-rhetorically/712-consider-your-audience) articulates it:\n\n> Ensure that your documents meet the needs and expectations of your readers.""\n\nOoo boy. To me, that translates a little too easily into ""write what your readers want to read."" And maaaan... If there's anything that experience and Donald Draper have taught me, it's that people have no idea what they want, especially from art. And that's a reasonable mentality, isn't it? Perhaps even an exhaltable one. I know that predictable stories are my number one turnoff, personally. If I expected to exist for an eternity, I'd absolutely indulge every single creative work I could find, but I do not, and that realization (as I stated in my last *Freq Check*,) has propelled an underlying preference in all of my consumption decisions: what I have not (before) seen.\n\nObviously, then - if you take my word for it - Our Friend's endeavors are in direct ideological opposition to my own, which would make him my arch nemesis, if 21st-century industry were a bit more theatrical. But - like most heroic protagonists - I'd be much more interested in ""turning"" him than censoring him, were we ever to engage. In fact, I'd probably end up defending his and/or his constituents' right to sell their trash if CreateSpace or other self-publishing services called it into question.\n\nOverwhelming content volume can be entertaining; Drywall was my own foray into that uniquely contemporary experiment. It's the sheer ease of publication, though, that makes ""good"" literature more precious than ever. Admittedly, a glance at Amazon's current top ten bestsellers list indicates that I am undoubtedly out of touch as far as the market is concerned. I know that my mother and sisters have mysteriously reverted back to print from the Kindles which they used for a few years, and that audiobooks make me supremely uncomfortable. I also know that reading a book - whenever I bring myself to shut out everything else - is an unrivaled vehicle of cognitive serenity.\n\nA significant mission for *Extratone* lies in an upcoming reactionary movement to culture's ""circus stage"" (by way of the Internet.) We determined the event's inevitability on *Drycast*, a year ago, and have made occasional efforts to posit more thoroughly on *The New*. It must involve a reduction in content consumption, fundamentally, which will constrict because of an increasing demand for more explicit purpose in all media. We are not to be the alternative, necessarily, but the intermediary arbiter of the enabling discussion, hopefully with the outcome of increased awareness. What is and is not relevant? *Why am I consuming this?*\n\nAs the end of *Breakfast of Champions* draws abruptly closer, Vonnegut mentions his schizophrenia, which is - as you probably know - fundamentally characterized by loss of the ability to determine what is and is not real, and primarily treated with antipsychotics. Interestingly enough, extremely high doses of amphetamines (which Ayn Rand *did* use heavily, by the way. I wasn't making that up) can actually *induce* psychosis, which could crudely be described as *cognitive noise*. I could've missed the intended function of their works, but for me, they illuminate a distinct relationship between the abstracts of *truth* and *relevance* which, for the moment, seems particularly necessary. \n\nTwo opposing reflections of Americana; both helpful in preparation for its future.\n\nMay we never lose ourselves in the noise.\n\n#media" | |
| qp6nn0190hecnlna,ios-10-review-speed,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/ios-10-review-speed,2016-09-10T18:00:00Z,iOS 10's Speed Is Justification Enough,"## Big Boy; Big Phone still in effect, words on next Tuesday's update from a withering old man.\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://github.com/extratone/bilge/raw/main/audio/TTS/iOS10.m4a"">\n</audio>\n\nThanks to this week's September 2016 Keynote, we now know that iOS 10 will be officially released in just three days. I suppose it was a bit silly of me to download the [public beta](http://www.imore.com/how-to-download-ios-10-public-beta) so late in the game, but I did, and regret it *much* less than I could've imagined.\n\nI've used my rose gold iPhone 6S Plus more than any personal device I've ever owned. For the first time in my functioning life, I've had no persistent need for a laptop, which is a pretty big deal for reasons you couldn't care less about.\n\nOwnership of my first generation iPhone trained me to dread new releases. Expectedly, it got less and less usable every time Stevie took the stage. For relevance's sake, I decided to opt in a bit early, despite my assumption that my 6S Plus would show its first signs of struggle as a result.\n\nImmediately, though, the opposite effect was noticeable. Everything is faster: notifications, app opening/closing, intra-app function, and *text entry,* even. Smoother, too - so much so, it's almost a shame we've had to use iOS 9 on these devices for a whole year. The effect of such smoothing on my perception should be kept in consideration when reading the rest of my opining.\n\n**Raise to wake** is less tedious/more useful than I anticipated, though it's been briefly mistriggered a few times in transit from inside my Moshi Overture Wallet Case (an extraordinary product, by the way,) but it should be noted that I walk and carry my phone rather strangely. With relatively default sleep/wake settings, I did not notice enough mistriggering to have quantifiable power consequences.\n\n**Messages** is appropriately-complex for the times, now, if that makes sense. The pressure to ""compete"" with Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, What'sApp, etc. is understandable, but the execution of their reply is not. For me, at least, there is simply nothing to add to SMS. Its role is purely functional. I wasn't able to try out many of the new features. Not just because nobody else had iOS 10, but because - critically - I could not think of someone I'd be willing to bother with useless garbage like... a doodle. And even if I could've, it's probably actually *less* trouble to use one of those third-party applications in that Application Shop Apple has been so proud of for so long. For old people like me, even cleverly stowed buttons for unused features are *still buttons*. It feels an awful lot like an obligatory alteration, not a visionary one, and it's a shame that Apple's losing its awareness of the appropriate time for one, the other, or neither. \n\nI feel like competence in coverage of Apple is heavily dependent upon the ability to differentiate between the allure of an intelligently blingy feature and the allure of an intelligently functional one. Crude, I know, but ever more essential. **Contextual predictions** are impressive and surprisingly-clever. It's encouraging to see progress in such simple interactions, but - be honest with yourself - making use of it is actually going to cost you time in the majority of cases. Hate to be excessively meta here, but keep in mind - again - that I am not the majority. I tend to type things out... It's my thing. If this is completely obscuring my vision of any of these features' uselessness, *please* take the time to add to the discussion in the comments. Discourse is the handiest security in such matters. \n\nI've loved 3D Touch all along, even though something like 75% of the time, I've been triggering it unintentionally. It's *very* useful for quickly grabbing web images, but I'm probably more of a thief than you'll ever be. Mostly, I just like the sensation. The curt vibration and brittle illusion of a third interactive dimension have provided more functionality than... its actual functionality. With **touch and go**, though, I can instantly conjure a concise summary of the current local weather conditions, *and* a singular story from Apple News. Though I'm undoubtedly going to need to make a conscious effort to remember to use them, anything's a plus when one's affection was already so irrational.\n\nAs to **Apple News** itself... It's just not the same application. The ""For You"" roll was amusingly messy before but actual structure (read: functional aggregation) has killed some of its beauty, I'm afraid. It is *so* much faster, though. We'll actually have to take it seriously, now.\n\nI haven't gotten the opportunity to really use **rich notifications** yet, but I can't imagine them *actually* making anything much faster. Perhaps singularly, I've always found my unconscious navigation to a given application itself to be quick enough to consistently glance over ""no, you don't have to leave the app"" features.\n\nI suspect the ability to **search photos by content** will be iOS 10's most useful addition for myself. A few trials demonstrate that it can differentiate between ""nightfall"" and ""night,"" and ""clothed"" and ""nude."" (I have never been naked.) It's the most intriguing, too, because it means more nuanced & controversial search parameters are just a few years away. Search by expression? Even search by *emotion.* I can't wait until Apple gets to wrestle with the perceived difference between peace and apathy within an algorithmic context.\n\n""Please define 'joy,' Mr. Ives.""\n\n#software" | |
| 1oahcrpd2veicjxp,mono-audio-playback,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/mono-audio-playback,2016-09-22T21:00:00Z,Stop Settling for Mono Playback,"\n\n## As dual speakers become the norm in smartphone design, let us briefly examine and explain why one should always expect to hear their music in stereo.\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://github.com/extratone/bilge/raw/main/audio/Mono.mp3"">\n</audio>\n\nThough I have many audiophilical sentiments and preferences, I cannot — by conscience — fully claim the title because I’ve never been able to justify the allotment of funds necessary for the obligatory equipment. (And my digital compressor usage in the production of [*Drycast*](http://extratone.com/drycast) and [*Futureland*](http://extratone.com/futureland) has been manifestly vulgar.) That said, audio engineering is one of the few topics which I can actually speak on with almost-academic authority, and my pretentiousness-capacitated preoccupation with quality-of-life compels me to bring up a ludicrously-rational standard that most of us have continued to undershoot for far too long.\n\nTwo weeks ago, the abundantly-rumored omission of the 3.5mm audio port in the iPhone 7 was finally settled. We played our own part in feeding the “controversy,” yeah, but I believe Apple was actually quite tardy in labeling smartphone-bound analog audio as archaic, though I’m not going to waste words in that discussion — it is definitely oversaturated, at this point — because I think mono audio is an even more prevalent topic.\n\nHonestly, out of all the missing features we’ve lamented over in the past decade, stereo speakers should’ve been the most aggravating. The gigantic difference, of course, is that the industry (and — by muddled extension — the consumers) has been all but silent in that regard. I write you, now, because we should all be colossally disappointed with ourselves.\n\nTwo channels. Left and right. Read: [Mono vs. Stereo](http://www.diffen.com/difference/Mono_vs_Stereo) But why should you care? What if Google — somehow — failed to provide you with a significant difference?\n\nOne channel of sound is — in terms of locale — rigidly static in your perception. Doubling the data creates a spectrum, adding **dimensionality**, which is infinite, ya know. Playing back audio in stereo, through two or more diaphragms (the fundamental hardware unit of sound reproduction,) now enables the exhibition of **audio pictures**.\n\nIf this is entirely new to you, I want you to do something. Find yourself a pair of headphones or a set of two or more computer speakers. (If these aren’t available, consider your car’s sound system. If it’s at all current and healthy, it’s gonna do the trick.) Bother to discover “**L**” and “**R**.” That is, left and right. Orient accordingly. Download [this 37-second clip](http://www.extratone.com/media/bikefest2016preview.wav) I recorded at [BikeFest](http://www.extratone.com/audio/bikefest/) with my Zoom H2n. (Be advised: the preview is formatted in 5.1 surround, so it’s a very large file for its playback length.) Listen, obviously, and then listen again on your singular smartphone “loudspeaker.”\n\n**That’s what I’m talking about.**\n\nWhy am I being so abashedly patronizing? Why am I transgressing against our particular assumptions about you — the informed, savvy millennial audience? Because the vast majority of playback I hear in day-to-day life is still from a singular diaphragm; a singular source.\n\nA topical example: *I am shown a YouTube video on an iPhone*. (A pre-iPhone 7 device, that is.)\n\n*Walking downtown, I pass a small band of adolescent skateboarders listening to Cannibal Ox on a Samsung Galaxy Note.*\n\nWorst of all: *I find myself watching a Netflix film on my iPhone, in bed, not having bothered to wear the $200 pair of QC15s sitting within arm’s length.*\n\nInformed or not, **consumers are neglecting audio**, and dimensionality, alone is worth a change. Recent years have allowed the unlimited bandwidth assumption to become habit, so even the vast majority of today’s spoken word programs (like podcasts) — which, in general, stay in the “center” of their mix, making little to no use of the left-right spectrum — are produced in stereo, now. In many cases (including a few of ours,) this doublesizing is often for the sake of introductory themes, alone. If you care to imagine a more data-frugal society, the “waste” is ridiculous. It is not unrealistic to expect such a reality in the near future, but the same holds true for the reverse.\n\nIn the present’s abundance, though, the result is simply a decrease — as a whole — in playback’s “full experience,” if the hardware is not changed. Imagine how great it’d be if a digital audio formatting standard could be developed that’d enable a singular file to be mono or stereo, if needed/utilized, to trim off redundancy, sorta like variable bit rate. Get on that, would ya?\n\nSo, why haven’t we become more diligent about our sound experiences? 1 billion iPhones in circulation, all with mono playback by default, are suspect culprits, I think. Of course, there are other devices, but none as influential — even the iPod, funny enough — on fundamental digital functions like music playback. And honestly, when is it appropriate or suave to take the extra steps?\n\n> *I want to show you this song. Let me untangle my headphones… Yes, okay. Put them in. I’m going to sit here in silence for four minutes, looking into your eyes as you listen to the entirety of this track.*\n\nIt’s never going to be socially acceptable. But what about wireless alternatives? Apple’s new Air Pods look absurd, but their by-computing optimization of the Bluetooth audio standard is revolutionary, in a small way, in [propelling](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/25/hearables-iphone-7-airpods-bragi-the-dash-revolution) the “hearables” paradigm into the mainstream, if only for a moment. If — in a strangely-audiocentric future — we are *always* wearing multipurpose sound reproduction devices in our ears, perhaps the waste of the Mono Monstrosity will be finally resolved. Until then, I suppose all we can do is give it an extra thought, for our own quality-of-life’s sake.\n\n#hardware" | |
| b41m95cx6movmo8d,an-ingenuine-white-house,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/an-ingenuine-white-house,2016-09-26T13:02:53Z,A Hasty Case for an Ingenuine White House,"\n\n## A man with a 6th-grade knowledge of moderate politics would plea for your reflection on what it really means to be your Commander-in-Chief.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nI hope you’ve read something about “The Great Debate” this morning.\n\nYou know — the [**first televised U.S. Presidential debate**](https://youtu.be/4z-i0i-rJxU) between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, 56 years ago today. The one “decided by makeup.”\n\nIf you don’t know the story, please Use Your Googler; I am the *last* source you should be receiving your first commentary from.\n\nThat so disclaimed, let us reflect on the fascinating — if somewhat universally disturbing — position in which we find ourselves. (Or, should I say — …you find *yourselves.)*\n\nTwo options: a ruthless, ridiculously-overqualified and progressively — appropriate flagship of a Democratic Party candidate, opposite an out-of-control, offensive joke of a destructive force that has been directed inward, toward his own Republican Party.\n\nThe only plausible hesitation for the former’s candidacy being a fundamental misunderstanding of the office’s necessities, and of the dangers of the “honesty” popularly idealized in the latter.\n\nAt least they are opposites, so I’m interested enough to write you.\n\n“The Great Debate” was an ultimate test — not of television — but of the American intellect, and it failed. From the outset of democracy’s greatest leap in perceptive democratization, superficiality claimed victory over policy.\n\nToday, we are to extrapolate in the journey we’ve taken in the 56 years hence, into — by any standard of measure — another world, entirely. Most importantly, into one with such gigantically-swelling intellectual disparity that it cannot possibly be monitored accurately, even moment-to-moment. The continued feasibility of Donald J. Trump’s candidacy is alarmingly conducive to the fact.\n\n> Note: Donald Trump will not be President of the United States as it has been understood. If he is elected by process, he will be promptly impeached, or the **function of the office itself** will be reexamined.\n\nMy bias is here: I genuinely believe sociopathic traits make for effective leaders, and am unable to respect anyone without control over their public persona. Trump’s defining acceptance of his undisciplined whirling relegates him — for POTUS, especially — to nothing more than an amusement. He is incapable of the duties that define the position as I know it. (e.g. a [commemorative visit to Hiroshima](https://youtu.be/NDYiEHPfXRo?t=2m57s), or [participation in the G20 summit](https://youtu.be/p8ChMVPV4R4).)\n\nIn such spirit, I — perhaps one of the least-qualified political commentators with any sort of voice — have a question to ask of you: **are you ready for the first ironic President of the United States of America?**\n\nPerhaps you’d counter, though, with something like: **are \*you\* ready for the first \*authentic\* President of the United States of America?**\n\nNo, America, I am not. And — forgive my patronization — neither are you. I know you feel *profoundly* devoid of an **expressive** leader. You, the most hardworking pillars of this society — I know you’ve craved a voice in the game for a very long time, but Mr. Trump’s is no nearer to your own than Mrs. Clinton’s. In fact — in the inescapable game that is the Presidency — she is the better representative simply because she posses the ability to assume any sensical power whatsoever.\n\nThe only insight I have to offer you is that honesty has not, does not, and will never have a place in the White House as long as it stands. This truth is neither good nor bad — it simply is.\n\nI would plead you to acknowledge the complexity of political maneuvers — regardless of your own moralism — and the truer nature of the role you will ask one of these individuals to fulfill.\n\nI would ask you to imagine which of the worst of the two you’d rather hold the nuclear briefcase — the tactful, or the primal?\n\nBut — if nothing else — I would suggest you ask yourself if you’d really like the same mouth that formed [these words](https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=donald+trump%2C+women) about women to deliver your next State of the Union.\n\n#media" | |
| ev1db3o5vmd5920h,never-forget,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/never-forget,2016-10-01T09:30:00Z,When We’ll Never Forget,"\n\nwe have watched ourselves closely,\nmost of our lives for the first time.\n\nrecords kept,\nexponentially clarified.\n\nI will be immortal.\n\n*doubling*,\nsaid Moore,\nbut not what,\nor what for.\n\ngive me any date,\nand I'll tell you what I said,\nthen,\nbut not always who I was.\n\nnotably - just about anything;\nbegun on my last priority\n\nnotably - not whom or how I've loved.\n\nI've said and say words;\ntoo many, maybe\n\nnot a one need leave me,\n*ever*\n\nblessed,\nan accumulate film of noise.\nthere to wash,\nand me knows how.\n\nbut if I do,\nthen who is left?\nless the weight\n\n#poetry" | |
| r1t2r0t26s3h6pa5,americana-trauma-david-blue,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/americana-trauma-david-blue,2016-10-01T17:45:00Z,Americana Trauma,"\nsee what we have asked of this land:\njuicing zea jabbing through\nchapped flats\n\nsee what we have asked of her soldiers:\ncontentment,\nsubmerged alone in nuggets of petrified human safetyglass\n\nshower of obliterated abstracts;\nwhite like love,\nbut no shards large enough to make out a face\n\n#poetry" | |
| jr2in8pyv3eowy0e,hp-spectre-x360-review,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/hp-spectre-x360-review,2016-12-19T18:00:00Z,O'er the Ice for Stupified Usury,"\n\n## A laptop, purchased. The beginning of a new era, finally witnessed.\n\n<!--more-->\n\n*I managed to be reckless, tedious, and zealous in the usually-dry process of purchasing a new laptop, and found the story worth sharing. Expect a full review of the HP Spectre in the coming weeks.*\n\nThe meteorological complaints you’ve been hearing from mid-Missouri since Friday aren’t inappropriate this time – the middlefolk faced one of their most fatal enemies – a well-laid minefield of black ice. It slowed our timid, ABS-oblivious society to ten percent or less of its already near-postmortem pace.\n\n*For God’s sake, at least learn [why you needn’t pump your brakes ](http://web.archive.org/web/20161224044948/http://auto.howstuffworks.com/auto-parts/brakes/brake-types/anti-lock-brake.htm)before you opt for infotainment extras or… get your driver’s license.*\n\nI woke up with the same debt and imminent expenses as I did the day before and without any more intention of buying a premium laptop than I’ve had for the two years I’ve gone [without one](http://web.archive.org/web/20161224044948/http://www.extratone.com/tech/ios10/).\n\nWithout the concept of mobile computing in its entirety, actually. I knew I’d lost my desire to carry a loose bluetooth keyboard around everywhere in case some insight were to fall upon me heavy enough to justify reaching for it over my 6S Plus in a public venue, hunched and squinting. There’s still nothing better at cranking out copy than the Lap Top Computer, I suppose. I was holding out for a truly-substantial alternative to Windows 10 and macOS, wanting to be enchanted by lite delights like Acer’s cheeky Chromebook R11, but had decided in self-pity that I’d probably never be able to stand a new operating system ever again.\n\nMy mom graciously decided to take me mall shopping for Christmas, which is comforting in its tradition of vapid routine. The state of a given midwestern metropolis’s mall is a keen indicator of the culture’s soul, I’ve found, and ours is mostly crewed by destitute alcoholics, who are my closest kin, and therefore my most appropriate company for *the holidays*.\n\n**Dillard’s is the second-best place to lose your mind in America.**\n\nEven now, when the somber corners are not quite so desolate. The acoustic sensation cannot be experienced anywhere else – the battlecries of the Me Generation’s pop reproduced by hateful diaphragms behind their white plastic ceiling facades and absorbed again by palletloads of mass-manufactured stonewashed denim, seemingly coming from a far-off wholesale nether no matter where in the store you’ve been buried. Ours is a few decades old, now – weathered and alone, which accentuates the whole dystopia with a resolute air of infinity, as if it’s certain it will outlast me. It probably will.\n\n\n\nI was deep within it all when I came across Dan Seifert’s [praising review](http://web.archive.org/web/20161224044948/http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/12/13914962/hp-spectre-x360-review-2016-laptop) of the HP Spectre x360. As I’ve constantly confessed, *The Verge*‘s lot are the only institution of their kind I’ve come close to trusting *too much*, so it was no small thing to see something so certain as “the premium laptop to buy this year” in his subhead.\n\nThe last time I was in the market for a laptop, there was little room for aesthetics in the equation. We have been taught this past decade that beautiful devices come in fruit form, only. Somehow, I allowed myself to integrate the ridiculous sentiment that MacBooks were the only option for anyone with any reverence for tactile experience. As I expect you’re aware of to at least some degree by now, Apple’s diligent study of desirability over the years is the singular force behind their lordship, and it’s the token MO of tech opinion to confuse it with sex appeal, resulting in expressions like “[apple hardware device] is sexy,” which is a pityingly desperate delusion. Do you actually find brushed aluminum appealing in any bodily sense?\n\nWe did once, of course. Your infatuation with the stuff probably peaked the moment you first grazed it, and – if you’re anything like me – you could be harboring more aesthetic frustration with their longstanding occupation than you think. Infatuation must be starved to survive, and we’ve been eating up Apples by the bushel for a decade.\n\nHaha.\n\nBut really, though – by the *billion*.\n\nI saw images in that Spectre review which I was completely satisfied with. I watched that new HP logo as it traveled through the frames, stupefied. Out of precious ignorance, I experienced real desire in that undesirable place. (Which could actually represent some sort of defeat on my part, but I’m not too bothered.)\n\n\n\nAnd in the midst of those desolate people in their fortress of mediocrity, my mom and I hatched a plan to indulge upon the best part of desolation – impulsive, subsidized gluttony. We’d stop by the pharmacy to fill my anti-depressant script before renavigating Bourgeois Bumper Cars to get to Best Buy, where she’d let me use her credit line to purchase my final choice in the segment.\n\n**Best Buy is the best place to lose your mind in America.**\n\nI could’ve sworn it made good sense to me, once – in Middle School, when my friend and I were spending most of our free time emulating the first generation of tech-reviewing YouTubers – but now, it reminds me of a darkwood restaurant with its closing fluorescents on, shining in the inverse frequency of a bug zapper – casting a more effectively-repelling ambiance for the human psyche than anything else *I’m* capable of dreaming up, at least.\n\nI used to fucking *visit* that store for no purpose but to see and experience the diluted bit of the handset renaissance with enough momentum to coast its way here. I probably spent a full sixty minutes wandering around by my own volition on a handful of occasions.\n\nBut these days, I am perturbed from the onset in a big way. There are too many blue vape enthusiasts on the sales floor at any given time, and they all want me to leave. They loaf around the carcass of consumer technology’s passion, not realizing, I guess, that I already know it ’twas they who killed it. (The stench is strongest by the wearables.) It’s eerie how little the Big Box itself has changed, considering the decade their goods have traveled.\n\nUnder a fittingly-gray sky, I wash my pill down with La Croix and a Kind bar to preempt the appropriate rumination in my mouth as we inch toward my Final Financial Doom with the spooked sliders. Though we never exceed 5mph, there are abandoned vehicles littering the shoulders and medians in varyingly absurd orientations. But I do not jest – today, I am silent, for I am one of them.\n\nBy the time we reach the store, my medicine has once again placed my soul in Safe Mode, so we shuffle into the grotesque thing. There are four employees in sight – no one else – and they all send their beady eyes my way. I have too much purpose in my consumerist jowls to pause, though, so I rush to the laptops near the opposite wall in an attempt to get an early estimate on my current level of personal computing idiocy. Naturally, my Mom snags one of another four associates immediately. In this work, I shall refer to him as Zoroaster.\n\n\n\nDespite having never seen 80% of the displayed devices in person before, I am able to spot the Spectres quickly, which is a good sign. I am immediately elated by the contrast to the depressing mushbooks I remember HP making in the oughts. The bezel… the brilliance of the display… the details of the visible body. I open *Extratone*. I open *The Verge*. I am hoping that Windows 10 will not be as much of a kicker as I’ve expected.\n\nI’m not a minute before Mom and Zoroaster have found the new MacBook Pros. Nobody remembers the password to the 13-inch, but the 15 is showing off its “deep blacks” and “Space Gray” mood. The Verge looks phenomenal, and its icon in the touchbar catches my eye. I manage to use it to switch tabs, the less-attuned degenerate in me noting the extra spanning required over CMD-TAB.\n\n“Have you tried the new keyboard?” asks Zoroaster.\n\nI hadn’t. It’s as indescribable as you’ve heard, but suggests legitimacy is Apple’s effort to bridge the transition from physical keyboards to their touch replacement. Terrifying legitimacy.\n\n“You get used to it,” he says.\n\nI open Pages and click out something ridiculous. Yeah… *click*. I’m sure there’s a better onomatopoeia available by way of just about any technology website, but I didn’t bother to study the sensation after realizing that it’s a con for my number one use of a Portable Computer – ***clacking***.\n\nIt’s not as if the thing isn’t gorgeous, though, in its way. After years of usership, I can tell you that it is undoubtedly a superb execution of the MacBook marque. It’s polished. It’s The New One. But it is also bleak and slateish. Some might even say *dystopian*. Do I want to carry such a thing around with me everywhere? Do I even want to carry it *out of the store?* What will I tell my friends? *What will I tell my staff?*\n\n$2,000 of my future spent on what is now a piece of *distinctly* establishment design…\n\nI return to the x360 to see what can be done about Windows’ appearance these days.\n\n*Purple-gray taskbars… Hm.* \n\n**It’s a sale.**\n\nLet me be honest with you – I spent some ninety minutes going between the two. Even if I’d endured the shame and self-disappointment of choosing the MacBook Pro, the simple grunt of the *challenge* the Spectre presents to it is no small milestone.\n\nAs Zoroaster scrambles to remove my new machine from *The Hanging Jail*, I am drained from the decision, but aware that my perspective on the world has changed. I’ve been working on an editorial for the past few weeks that’s mostly alarmed howling about the industry’s utter lack of passion, as of late, but seeing the Windows-running department’s devices and their matured design – *finally* beautiful without obvious Apple influence – had truly revived some little flame of hope within me.\n\nLithe Zoroaster was confused by UPCs a bit, as is understandable, and began juggling three Spectre boxes atop the prison lift, screaming the numbers – one at a time from each device – to his bewildered disciple, below.\n\nThroughout the later half of the whole ordeal, I’d had company – some sort of blonde working man who’d also braved the frictionless waste to calm himself with debt. I’d been elated at the opportunity for companionship, at first, but he’d found himself unable to escape the store’s bespoke Apple Hole. I did my best to help him, but failed hoist his girth from the 15’s benchmark suction. I’d left him there, bound. May my dreams n’er be haunted by the fading portrait of his tortured, middle class face.\n\nAs the Best Boys did their dance, he somberly came to my side. The grimace he’d worn in the struggle had fallen away. I knew what was coming before he formed the defeated words: “go ahead and grab me the 500 while you’re up there.”\n\nAs one does when they stumble upon a stranger’s funeral, I bowed my head.\n\nHere begins the part that sorta makes me look like an idiot.\n\nAfter signing my mother’s lengthy loan agreement, Zoroaster – the little devil – asked if I wanted the *Special Edition*, just behind me. I’d stopped by last year’s Big Boy Spectre – the ballsy-ass copper-toned masterpiece – and had wished for a moment that the look could’ve carried to the fresher x360.\n\nThe monospace Hewlett-Packard logo blinded me, and the unlit display (it hadn’t been set up yet) concealed the wider bezel of… The older Spectre 13t – with which I write, now.\n\nI didn’t notice my blunder until after our treacherous return, and could not care less.\n\n#hardware" | |
| jjjjsos6aa122t3e,ablaze-the-fraternal-fallow-david-blue,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/ablaze-the-fraternal-fallow-david-blue,2017-03-17T17:35:00Z,"Ablaze, the Fraternal Fallow","\nand in those open spaces,\nyou would fly your flag of adoration, frustration, miscommunication, and mutilation\n\nslicing proud,\nthere -\nlashed to the stern of the vessel *Hateful*;\n\nher keel lain by callouses of home -\nhands & feet stiff\n(long ago,\nthey hauled barley, by bushel\ndown a gravel road)\n\nbut an instant of that rarified quiet stays the haze's obfuscation,\nfaltered:\nour sisters lie lynched on dire alters\n\nour homesteads,\ncrypts; shrines to delirium\nthe chords of our songs left unresolved\nin imposters' inrequiem\n\nplastic for stone;\nfiberglass for coal\nstale rot for flesh,\ncut with nothing\nto our bones\n\nmirages in the mirror,\ndarkly:\ndevil's imps roost on red Remingtons,\nlimp\n\nplugged,\nour ears in mute\n\nterror's gluttony,\nstripped down furrows of\nfalsity's fatherly fugue\n**truth: our souls seethe in the dark**\nwe are drowning in our own deceptions\n\nin excess,\nwe are barren\nwe parade nothing but the lies\nwhich proceed the whole of Earthly pain\n\nbreathless,\nwe are foolish monstrosities -\nthe incongruent Lords of amplified insanity\n\nresolute,\nwe are the hearthen hole into which all eventually fall,\nfamished for youth\n\nmanic,\nwe are the monopolized manufacturers of mantra;\nan ambient, discordant dirge\n\npatriotic,\nwe produce only pervading paternal plague\n\nnostalgic,\nwe are the fundamental erosion of human wellness\n\nabrasive,\nwe are needlessly suffering -\nthe listless harlequin of a nation\n\n~**the world is growing weary of our emergency**~\nand the humongous expenditure of its petty insincerities\n\n#poetry" | |
| jne8wqzgv5qxknz2,respected-audience-future,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/respected-audience-future,2017-04-10T23:34:03Z,On the Future of the Respected Audience,"*The following was sent as part of [a personal TinyLetter](https://tinyletter.com/DavidBlue) I've just begun in the hopes of rejuvenating my ability to tell stories.*\n\n<!--more-->\n\nThere are a few entities which continue to validate what I'm pursuing, but [Joshua Topolsky](https://twitter.com/joshuatopolsky) and his [*The Outline*](https://theoutline.com/) are particularly worth noting. In search of reassurance, I listened to a [podcast](https://digiday.com/podcast/outlines-josh-topolsky-theres-much-sameness-digital-media/) he appeared on in February, last night, and also found [one](https://longform.org/posts/longform-podcast-27-joshua-topolsky) from 2013, when he was still EiC of *The Verge*. Basically the entirety of the first is within the idealism I've risked most of myself for, in case you're curious. I've looked up to Topolsky in a huge way, this past year. He has done – and is doing – many things which I am intrinsically drawn to earn for my legacy, and the presence of his wife on his staff (their few [podcasts](https://soundcloud.com/tomorrowpodcast/episode-28-laura-june-and-the-contrarian-disposition) together are adorable in a very particular way,) is idyllic in appearance, at least. I love the way they talk about each other. I suppose spousal editorial staff is probably the personal hell of a good many people. Perhaps, it's even my own. Listening to him talk on Digiday, though, reminded me – along with a few other works I've consumed lately – that *technically*, *Extratone* is a *business.* Or at least... That it must become one eventually or die forever. While trying to explain my future plans to a friend, I inadvertently layed out some 'steps for growth.'\n\n 1. **Form and activate the community.**\n 2. **Build a beautiful, one-of-a-kind method of content delivery.**\n 3. **Attain a fairly dependable content cadence.**\n 4. **Sell the product in a way that immediately and – from then on – consistently ensures and/or furthers its quality.**\n\nI guess we're somewhere between 2 and 3 right now. I'm still building a body of written work more or less on my own, which is okay, considering that nobody is paid. I suppose it'd be most desirable – before I move to the Northwest – to figure out how to make *The Tone* as much of a learning experience for my closest staff as possible. And regardless of all other external goals of the magazine, I think it is more than safe to say that I've learned more in the past 10 months from a fucking WordPress website than I would've if I'd spent that time at the Journalism school. The first annual renewal payment for extratone dot com just went through, actually. A year ago, I was *much* more entertaining, but virtually directionless. I honestly can't tell if I feel any better internally, day-to-day, but I know I am at least attaining the capability of real friendship for the first time in my life, and I suppose that's more than worth losing virtually all of my engagement on Twitter.\n\nPerhaps its even worth losing a portion of the freshness in my perspective – the stuff I thought made it worth it in the first place. Especially if my staff maintains it healthily within their own.\n\nI'll admit that – in retrospect, after spending a year reading, writing, and digitally fussing – a lot of my original content smells like edgy nonsense. Some of the work within our network does too, honestly, but it's usually much less so.\n\nOf course, that transition required an excruciating crucible, for me, but that's exactly why I'm incessantly compelled to make as much use of my trauma as possible: so that my friends and staff may be able make progress toward more fulfilling lives without such a massive up-front cost.\n\nAs I was writing my [interview with mastodon's creator](https://bit.ly/hellbird), I kept an eye out for related coverage, and eventually saw what *[PCMag*](<http://www.pcmag.com/article/352875/what-is-mastodon-and-will-it-kill-twitter>) did, and it's unwanted rant-spuringly aggravating language.\n\nFor most of my adult life, I've been trying to figure out why publications like *PCMag* feel it necessary to belittle their audience *and* their subjects to such a degree. Silicon Alley can't possibly be *that* vapid as to nix all soul in any story, ever.\n\n\n*I mean… What in the hell is this, even?*\n\nI haven't been a reader since I used to loiter in Barnes & Noble with a pile of print editions in the oughts, but this sort of layout has got to be some kind of **digital sin.**\n\nI'm not going to bother digging through the publication to compare this work with others for the moment. Perhaps one day, I'll feel the need to polish this rant into an argument and make it more visible. Surely, though, the proximity of this abomination to the word *Mag* or even *Magazine* must keep *somebody* awake at night.\n\nThat's not to say it doesn't take some sort of discipline. I doubt I could write in this way without hulking hyper-deliberately over *wherever the fuck this dialect comes from.* I think it's almost certainly more efficient as an informative device than my piece, or [Sarah Jeong's](https://motherboard.vice.com/en*us/article/mastodon-is-like-twitter-without-nazis-so-why-are-we-not-using-it), but the assumption that readers would be so disinterested as to hesitate to even commit to *complete sentences* regarding something *actually* newsworthy for a technology publication should be taken personally.\n\n*(This is going to echo what Topolsky said in both of those podcasts in big ways, but I'll try to keep it relatively brief.)*\n\n**I believe there is an audience that is craving attention to detail in their stories, a more intimate, longer-lasting, and more invested relationship with a much smaller number of publications.**\n\nEven a sense of involvement in the process. It's probably a direct result of my longtime consumption of car magazines – most of which still have sizable sections dedicated to direct, public correspondence with readers. It's also cross-platform to a surreal degree. Auto journalists of all tiers will straight up engage with you on Twitter. (*MotorTrend* literally prints YouTube comments.)\n\nSure, the readership is old, and the topic is an outlier (it's fairly common knowledge that 'car people' are waaaay more vulnerable to obsession than other special interest communities,) but the species is more or less the same, and the results are plain as day, any time you care to look. In recently returning my attention to technology journalism, I've noticed an irritating affront to meta conversation with strangers. My theory is that they've been paid for their words so long that they develop a very particular greed towards them, which is why academic journalism institutes are immediately shunned by their alumni after graduation until they are definitely Too Tired to sling copy and begin to climb sortof diagonally through editorial titles until they are stashed away in some hole. Then, after ruminating until their first encounter with Actual Death – if they're still interested in the whole thing – they crawl out to be propped up in front of moderately sized bodies of petrified students to scream in 100% bitterness about *The Ethics* that plagued them spiritually and financially their entire career at the acolytes as their last joke on the world.\n\nBut they won't engage with strangers on Twitter.\n\nAs someone who – for better or worse – chose to sidestep the academic route, I will never advocate for any value in withholding information – especially funny stories – about *Extratone*'s operation. If anything, *rediscovering relevance* is a wholly meta pillar of our editorial bent. (Hence, why Tim calls us *The Nieman Lab of Community College.*)\n\nI also believe the subscriber & advertising revenue models are *directly* \- if not *primarily* \- involved in the constriction of conversations regarding a publication's operation. It's my goal to cultivate a group of subscribers that are directly invested in the product (there's another new word on my part) financially, intellectually, and emotionally. It's not exactly unheard of, ya know.\n\n*Anywho*, I'm going to leave you in peace for now. I've really enjoyed this wanton spewing of conjecture, but then... who doesn't love to go on, unchecked?\n\nIs *this* what blogging is? It's fucking obnoxious.\n\nThank you for reading and *beware the fucking egg*. \n\n#media #meta" | |
| rt5hdgag8phuf9n6,eugen-rochko-interview,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/eugen-rochko-interview,2017-04-17T18:00:00Z,"Eugen Rochko, Saint of Federated Social","\n\n## Eugen Rochko has spent this year perfecting federated social media in Mastodon – his open source project. We spoke to him just hours before it became a global tech conversation.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nThe saga of Twitter, Inc. has been rejuvenated in 2017 by Tump's antics, corporate drama, and an amalgam of user and non-user disquiet with its decisions, though its financial viability has been in prominent industry conversation for half a decade. Since its pre-2010 outset, many 'a' feature has accumulated on its original, still-iconic skeletal software, and - though the net is undoubtedly positive - a few have gone.\n\nLast Thursday, the company revised in bravado its poultrian default profile picture and its system of replies to exclude @s on all of Twitter's proprietary services, drastically changing two of its visual mainstays, and prodding a particularly lucent cacophony. Turn your ear, and you'll hear many familiar terms in the chants: *limits, chains, strings, harassment, feedback, gamergate, nazis, etc.*\n\nThese conversations are important, but they've gotten awfully stale.\n\nIf you listen a bit more carefully, you'll intercept a new one:\n\n*Mastodon*.\n\nIt's the open source brainchild of Eugen Rochko, who's known colloquially as [Gargron](https://mastodon.social/@Gargron).\n\nHe's had one hell of a week.\n\nBetween the night of our first emails and our conversation, his flagship [mastadon.social](http://mastodon.social/) instance had doubled in users. Less than two hours after we said our goodbyes, his name was on *The Verge*'s front page.\n\nDespite the urgency of it all, he graciously lent me his time just after breakfast on Tuesday to discuss himself and the story behind the project, while the most significant day of his life was building around him.\n\n""I'm perfectly fine with being called *Eugene* by Americans.""\n\nThough the ink's still fresh on his compsci diploma, he's clearly prepared for the American press.\n\nhttps://open.spotify.com/episode/6QKhv7jaZsAHJxBjyiyZf7?si=I_eqn5Q6Q2aXi04Nq10LJw\n\n------\n\n**What's the story behind the project? Do you remember the specific moment when you decided to do this?**\n\nMany years ago, I had a friend that was really into federated networks when they were a new thing. That was when [identi.ca](http://identi.ca/) was first created - at the very beginning of my developer knowledge and career.\n\nA good portion of the stories written so far on his platform have framed it as an alternative to Twitter, which early Masto adopters refer to as ""Hellbird,"" or ""the bird website."" Eugen isn't afraid to acknowledge his investment in the format.\n\nI was a heavy Twitter user and I wasn't happy with where Twitter was going, so I decided to check on how the federated stuff was doing in the meantime. I found it in a very sad state, but thought I could contribute.\n\nHe began building on his own, with Tweetdeck's standard in mind.\n\n> I thought 'if I'm going to do something, it needs to have realtime updates and it needs to have columns.' I started with a bare-bones prototype while still [at University] in May or April of last year. It had no user interface, only an API that I was using from the command line. And I thought 'okay, it works. that's great.' Then, exams came.\n\nAcademics had to come before the project at first, but it soon supplied an ample post-graduation diversion. He focused his energy on building something more complete and eventually launched a [Patreon page](https://www.patreon.com/user?u=619786).\n\n> I [announced](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13303346) it on HackerNews, and that was the first public release of the project. That's when I got my first users who weren't my friends, and some who were new to federated networks.\n\nThat was just over 100 days ago, and it gave way to his first feedback.\n\n> I started working on the first feature requests, shaping the project a bit differently. People were a lot more focused on privacy features than I thought they would be, although in retrospect, it makes sense. The previous [federated] project - GNU social - did not really have a focus on privacy features, or anything built in by default.\n\nIt compelled him to change things, and his work was well received.\n\n> Over time, I kept working on new features, and waves of new users came when it went viral in certain circles. The first was HackerNews and Product Hunt. [Aral Balkan](https://twitter.com/aral) - a Twitter user with over 30,000 followers - picked up the project, gave it a shout out, and even did a giveaway of his app. He had a lot of followers from Holland; the Mastodon timelines became mostly Dutch.\n\nNext was Marxist anime Twitter (including *[Extratone](http://mastodon.social/@extratone)* and [I](http://bit.ly/dbmastodon).)\n\nLots of furries; lots of LGBT people. That's when I really focused on privacy features and making sure all blocks worked because these individuals needed a safer platform than Twitter could offer.\n\n\n\n*Sidekick dashboard background processing jobs as of Tuesday morning.*\n\n""As you can see, the first bump is HackerNews, the second is Aral Balkan, and then anime/Marxist Twitter.""\n\nAnd the last - now a bit out of date - is this week's spike, which is nearly double all previous waves.\n\n**Are you responsible for all of the code?**\n\nYou can look at the [GitHub page](https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon) to see a specific breakdown of who contributed and how many lines of code, each. You'll see I'm at the top by a large margin, but there are [additional] people who've contributed interesting, good features & fixes, localizations, user guides, and documentation.\n\n**What's the story behind the name?**\n\nIt's not particularly interesting. I'm a progressive metal fan, and I listen to *Mastodon* sometimes. They have a really cool name that refers to a really cool animal. It's a fluffy elephant! What's not to love?\n\nIt's also the inspiration for Mastodon's mascot, which was penned by Rochko's YouTuber friend [Dopatwo](https://www.youtube.com/user/dopatwo) after he realized how urgently he required an error page.\n\n**What does ""federated"" mean to you?**\n\nThe biggest problem with this term is that it's new for lots of people. People who've come across federated networks in the past *instantly* understand what it means and how it works, and people who are new to the concept have a lot of trouble before it clicks. But when Twitter first started, people didn't understand what 'retweeting' meant, so it's not a unique problem domain.\n\nI don't know where it comes from - maybe BitTorrent - but people seem to think that when something is 'decentralized,' everybody gets the same thing; that it's all synchronized one to one. In actuality, 'federated' means that people in different instances can *talk* to each other, but the *content* is different depending on the users there, what they do, and who they follow.\n\nThough instances are infrastructurally independent, they can communicate with one another. On a user level, timelines are still determined by who you do and do not follow across the entirety of all instances. \n\n**What if Twitter comes to you in the near future with a job offer?**\n\n[Rochko laughs.]\n\nIf it was any other company, I would think about it. A job is a staple source of income, and - depending on the company - could involve doing something important, but I have zero faith in Twitter.\n\n**Does this all mean that I finally get to live out my serif Twitter dream?**\n\nYes, I suppose on your own instance, you could change the stylesheet...\n\n**So if I set up my own instance and started charging for its use, I'd be in the clear, legally?**\n\nYes, that's okay. The code is licensed under [AGPL](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html) version three, which I picked because other projects in the same space are using it. The difference between AGPL and GPL is that [the former] forces you to contribute back to the appstream code repository if you make any breaking changes.\n\nFor example, Eugen explained that WhatsApp originally used XMPP for its chat protocol, which meant that Facebook and Google Talk users could connect to it, too. However, the company progressively locked down the platform over time, leaving virtually nothing visible that was unique to XMPP in its current iteration.\n\nTo prevent somebody taking Mastodon code, placing it behind locks, and stripping out the federation part to make Twitter II, I'm using this license.\n\nThe thing to remember about free software is that 'free' means *freedom of the user,* not that it's zero cost. It's perfectly fine to charge for free software because developers need to live, too.\n\n**I've seen a lot of multilingual 'tooting' these past few weeks. Can we expect an in-app translate function like Twitter's on Mastodon?**\n\nI don't think I could put in a 'translate this toot' button because APIs from Google and Bing are quite expensive at scale. I'm not 100% promising this, but I can probably put something in where people can select which language they post in, and then just filter the timelines. That would at least solve the problem of being confronted with lots of French posts, without knowing any French.\n\n**The only complaint about Twitter I remember that hasn't already been addressed here is the capability of editable 'toots.' Is that a possibility?**\n\nThat won't happen. There's actually a good reason why they don't do that. It's simply because you could make a toot about one thing, have people favorite it and share it, link it from other places, and then suddenly, it says 'Heil Hitler,' or something.\n\n\n\nIt's a bit preposterous to continue the conversation as if Twitter and Mastodon are interchangeable entities. They exist in separate ideological and mechanical spheres, and will both continue to do so for a very long time.\n\nThat said, the fundamental user interface design and current cross-community user saturation *do* warrant comparisons between their functions. More likely than not, you'll create a Mastodon account because a link found you on Twitter, use it because you prefer its type of ecosystem, and you'll stay after realizing that nearly all of your age-old qualms have been addressed, if not already rectified. While *FOSS* and *Federated* may seem at times like jejune ideologies, their advantages are especially tangible in this context. Should you find yourself needing to complain about something, you'll find an audience. Perhaps it'll be your command line.\n\nIt's nothing but negligent to describe Mastodon as an *alternative* or *clone*. \n\nIt's more like Twitter's son.\n\nIt's leaner, quicker-to-change, much more flexible & democratized, and less corrupt. Though I didn't ask its creator what he intended to gain from all his effort, I think his commitment itself denotes a preoccupation with progress. Those of you who've been let down by the tools you've been given to control your words' exposure will find startling competence in your ability to determine per-toot privacy, or reserve your raucous photos and terrible memes from followers who are not necessarily complicit consumers. Naturally, it's also much less dependable, though a single instance outage will never leave you truly, completely silent. And the support will come.\n\nIt's been a privilege to be observer and participant in the first lightening of a new online community. In the moment, we enjoy our lavender haze -when the spaces are filling primarily with users who are sincerely interested enough in discourse to have sought it out.\n\nSarah Jeong's [account](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mastodon-is-like-twitter-without-nazis-so-why-are-we-not-using-it) of her Twitter exile is a good, long read if you're craving more specifics, and Eugen's [Medium](https://medium.com/@Gargron) offers a more complete explanation of federation and its place in the industry, straight from the source. Apparently, he's just as articulate with words as he is with code.\n\nIf I had to hazard a guess, I'd bet it's [not the last we'll hear from him](https://usesthis.com/interviews/eugen.rochko/).\n\n#software #media" | |
| jwews3jf1aq29s58,mastodon-eugen-rochko-federated-social-network,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/mastodon-eugen-rochko-federated-social-network,2017-04-17T19:30:00Z,"Eugen Rochko, Saint of Federated Social","#### by [David Blue](http://twitter.com/neoyokel) \n\n\n\n## Eugen Rochko has spent this year perfecting federated social media in Mastodon – his open source project. We spoke to him just hours before it became a global tech conversation.\n\nThe saga of Twitter, Inc. has been rejuvenated in 2017 by Tump's antics, corporate drama, and an amalgam of user and non-user disquiet with its decisions, though its financial viability has been in prominent industry conversation for half a decade. Since its pre-2010 outset, many 'a' feature has accumulated on its original, still-iconic skeletal software, and - though the net is undoubtedly positive - a few have gone.\n\nLast Thursday, the company revised in bravado its poultrian default profile picture and its system of replies to exclude @s on all of Twitter's proprietary services, drastically changing two of its visual mainstays, and prodding a particularly lucent cacophony. Turn your ear, and you'll hear many familiar terms in the chants: *limits, chains, strings, harassment, feedback, gamergate, nazis, etc.*\n\nThese conversations are important, but they've gotten awfully stale.\n\nIf you listen a bit more carefully, you'll intercept a new one:\n\n*Mastodon*.\n\nIt's the open source brainchild of Eugen Rochko, who's known colloquially as [Gargron](https://web.archive.org/web/20170407072251/https://mastodon.social/@Gargron).\n\nHe's had one hell of a week.\n\nBetween the night of our first emails and our conversation, his flagship [mastadon.social](https://web.archive.org/web/20170407072251/http://mastodon.social/) instance had doubled in users. Less than two hours after we said our goodbyes, his name was on *The Verge*'s front page.\n\nDespite the urgency of it all, he graciously lent me his time just after breakfast on Tuesday to discuss himself and the story behind the project, while the most significant day of his life was building around him.\n\n""I'm perfectly fine with being called *Eugene* by Americans.""\n\nThough the ink's still fresh on his compsci diploma, he's clearly prepared for the American press.\n\n<iframe src=""https://anchor.fm/davidblue/embed/episodes/Mastodons-Big-Moment--20-Months-Later-e2iq20/a-a6ia3l"" height=""102px"" width=""400px"" frameborder=""0"" scrolling=""no""></iframe>\n\n------\n\n**What's the story behind the project? Do you remember the specific moment when you decided to do this?**\n\nMany years ago, I had a friend that was really into federated networks when they were a new thing. That was when [identi.ca](https://web.archive.org/web/20170407072251/http://identi.ca/) was first created - at the very beginning of my developer knowledge and career.\n\nA good portion of the stories written so far on his platform have framed it as an alternative to Twitter, which early Masto adopters refer to as ""Hellbird,"" or ""the bird website."" Eugen isn't afraid to acknowledge his investment in the format.\n\nI was a heavy Twitter user and I wasn't happy with where Twitter was going, so I decided to check on how the federated stuff was doing in the meantime. I found it in a very sad state, but thought I could contribute.\n\nHe began building on his own, with Tweetdeck's standard in mind.\n\n> I thought 'if I'm going to do something, it needs to have realtime updates and it needs to have columns.' I started with a bare-bones prototype while still [at University] in May or April of last year. It had no user interface, only an API that I was using from the command line. And I thought 'okay, it works. that's great.' Then, exams came.\n\nAcademics had to come before the project at first, but it soon supplied an ample post-graduation diversion. He focused his energy on building something more complete and eventually launched a [Patreon page](https://web.archive.org/web/20170407072251/https://www.patreon.com/user?u=619786).\n\n> I [announced](https://web.archive.org/web/20170407072251/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13303346) it on HackerNews, and that was the first public release of the project. That's when I got my first users who weren't my friends, and some who were new to federated networks.\n\nThat was just over 100 days ago, and it gave way to his first feedback.\n\n> I started working on the first feature requests, shaping the project a bit differently. People were a lot more focused on privacy features than I thought they would be, although in retrospect, it makes sense. The previous [federated] project - GNU social - did not really have a focus on privacy features, or anything built in by default.\n\nIt compelled him to change things, and his work was well received.\n\n> Over time, I kept working on new features, and waves of new users came when it went viral in certain circles. The first was HackerNews and Product Hunt. [Aral Balkan](https://web.archive.org/web/20170407072251/https://twitter.com/aral) - a Twitter user with over 30,000 followers - picked up the project, gave it a shout out, and even did a giveaway of his app. He had a lot of followers from Holland; the Mastodon timelines became mostly Dutch.\n\nNext was Marxist anime Twitter (including *[Extratone](http://mastodon.social/@extratone)* and [I](http://bit.ly/dbmastodon).)\n\nLots of furries; lots of LGBT people. That's when I really focused on privacy features and making sure all blocks worked because these individuals needed a safer platform than Twitter could offer.\n\n\n\n*Sidekick dashboard background processing jobs as of Tuesday morning.*\n\n""As you can see, the first bump is HackerNews, the second is Aral Balkan, and then anime/Marxist Twitter.""\n\nAnd the last - now a bit out of date - is this week's spike, which is nearly double all previous waves.\n\n**Are you responsible for all of the code?**\n\nYou can look at the [GitHub page](https://web.archive.org/web/20170407072251/https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon) to see a specific breakdown of who contributed and how many lines of code, each. You'll see I'm at the top by a large margin, but there are [additional] people who've contributed interesting, good features & fixes, localizations, user guides, and documentation.\n\n**What's the story behind the name?**\n\nIt's not particularly interesting. I'm a progressive metal fan, and I listen to *Mastodon* sometimes. They have a really cool name that refers to a really cool animal. It's a fluffy elephant! What's not to love?\n\nIt's also the inspiration for Mastodon's mascot, which was penned by Rochko's YouTuber friend [Dopatwo](https://web.archive.org/web/20170407072251/https://www.youtube.com/user/dopatwo) after he realized how urgently he required an error page.\n\n**What does ""federated"" mean to you?**\n\nThe biggest problem with this term is that it's new for lots of people. People who've come across federated networks in the past*instantly* understand what it means and how it works, and people who are new to the concept have a lot of trouble before it clicks. But when Twitter first started, people didn't understand what 'retweeting' meant, so it's not a unique problem domain.\n\nI don't know where it comes from - maybe BitTorrent - but people seem to think that when something is 'decentralized,' everybody gets the same thing; that it's all synchronized one to one. In actuality, 'federated' means that people in different instances can *talk* to each other, but the *content* is different depending on the users there, what they do, and who they follow.\n\nThough instances are infrastructurally independent, they can communicate with one another. On a user level, timelines are still determined by who you do and do not follow across the entirety of all instances. \n\n**What if Twitter comes to you in the near future with a job offer?**\n\n[Rochko laughs.]\nIf it was any other company, I would think about it. A job is a staple source of income, and - depending on the company - could involve doing something important, but I have zero faith in Twitter.\n\n**Does this all mean that I finally get to live out my serif Twitter dream?**\n\nYes, I suppose on your own instance, you could change the stylesheet...\n\n**So if I set up my own instance and started charging for its use, I'd be in the clear, legally?**\n\nYes, that's okay. The code is licensed under [AGPL](https://web.archive.org/web/20170407072251/https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html) version three, which I picked because other projects in the same space are using it. The difference between AGPL and GPL is that [the former] forces you to contribute back to the appstream code repository if you make any breaking changes.\n\nFor example, Eugen explained that WhatsApp originally used XMPP for its chat protocol, which meant that Facebook and Google Talk users could connect to it, too. However, the company progressively locked down the platform over time, leaving virtually nothing visible that was unique to XMPP in its current iteration.\n\nTo prevent somebody taking Mastodon code, placing it behind locks, and stripping out the federation part to make Twitter II, I'm using this license.\n\nThe thing to remember about free software is that 'free' means *freedom of the user,* not that it's zero cost. It's perfectly fine to charge for free software because developers need to live, too.\n\n**I've seen a lot of multilingual 'tooting' these past few weeks. Can we expect an in-app translate function like Twitter's on Mastodon?**\n\nI don't think I could put in a 'translate this toot' button because APIs from Google and Bing are quite expensive at scale. I'm not 100% promising this, but I can probably put something in where people can select which language they post in, and then just filter the timelines. That would at least solve the problem of being confronted with lots of French posts, without knowing any French.\n\n**The only complaint about Twitter I remember that hasn't already been addressed here is the capability of editable 'toots.' Is that a possibility?**\n\nThat won't happen. There's actually a good reason why they don't do that. It's simply because you could make a toot about one thing, have people favorite it and share it, link it from other places, and then suddenly, it says 'Heil Hitler,' or something.\n\n\n\nIt's a bit preposterous to continue the conversation as if Twitter and Mastodon are interchangeable entities. They exist in separate ideological and mechanical spheres, and will both continue to do so for a very long time.\n\nThat said, the fundamental user interface design and current cross-community user saturation *do* warrant comparisons between their functions. More likely than not, you'll create a Mastodon account because a link found you on Twitter, use it because you prefer its type of ecosystem, and you'll stay after realizing that nearly all of your age-old qualms have been addressed, if not already rectified. While *FOSS* and *Federated* may seem at times like jejune ideologies, their advantages are especially tangible in this context. Should you find yourself needing to complain about something, you'll find an audience. Perhaps it'll be your command line.\n\nIt's nothing but negligent to describe Mastodon as an *alternative* or *clone*. \n\nIt's more like Twitter's son.\n\nIt's leaner, quicker-to-change, much more flexible & democratized, and less corrupt. Though I didn't ask its creator what he intended to gain from all his effort, I think his commitment itself denotes a preoccupation with progress. Those of you who've been let down by the tools you've been given to control your words' exposure will find startling competence in your ability to determine per-toot privacy, or reserve your raucous photos and terrible memes from followers who are not necessarily complicit consumers. Naturally, it's also much less dependable, though a single instance outage will never leave you truly, completely silent. And the support will come.\n\nIt's been a privilege to be observer and participant in the first lightening of a new online community. In the moment, we enjoy our lavender haze -when the spaces are filling primarily with users who are sincerely interested enough in discourse to have sought it out.\n\nSarah Jeong's [account](https://web.archive.org/web/20170407072251/https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mastodon-is-like-twitter-without-nazis-so-why-are-we-not-using-it) of her Twitter exile is a good, long read if you're craving more specifics, and Eugen's [Medium](https://web.archive.org/web/20170407072251/https://medium.com/@Gargron) offers a more complete explanation of federation and its place in the industry, straight from the source. Apparently, he's just as articulate with words as he is with code.\n\nIf I had to hazard a guess, I'd bet it's [not the last we'll hear from him](https://usesthis.com/interviews/eugen.rochko/).\n\n#software" | |
| 2e0yfl3gb1l33m9o,mark-zuckerberg,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/mark-zuckerberg,2017-05-08T20:00:00Z,Mark Fuck and the Goofy Godheads,"\n\n## The monumental amount of unsubstantiated gossip and conjecture enabled every day by Facebook is lethal to the human intellect. Can fire be fought with fire?\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://github.com/extratone/bilge/raw/main/audio/TTS/Mark%20Fuck%20and%20the%20Goofy%20Godheads.m4a"">\n</audio>\n\nToday, after positing on whether or not a pastry was in fact the namesake of the battleship *Bismarck*, I was told by its owner - a local woman of a far-from-excusable age - that ""[I] should be on that big bang show."" Upon such fuckery, I looked her in her eyes and informed her that she'd just changed my plans for the night: I was now going to go home, wrap my lips around the barrel of my Beretta, and blow my brains out. I should've known better than to so jest with a boomer immediately after receiving such glaring indicators of minimal intellectual function, but I fell for the hope - as I often do, to no avail - that such a jarring reaction would encourage reflection on her foul, tragically misled sentiments regarding the general state of youth, and perhaps even spare a peer or two from future tribulation.\n\nInstead, she called the police.\n\nThree round cops found me, an hour later, approaching hesitantly. Strangely enough, they were chuckling - maybe to a little joke about all the recent hubbub on the radio covering a recent wave of blatantly negligent medical care in American prisons, though I hope nervous laughter is just *SOP* when responding to a suicide threat. As all Columbia cops always are toward me, they were aggravatingly genuine and hilariously understanding. I began by simply recreating my interaction with their summoner, quoting her word-for-word, and - I swear to my new Lord - all three immediately released a choral ""ohhhhh"" in unison. I'll never know for sure if they actually assimilated the reality of the situation so quickly, but it'd certainly seem that way.\n\nClearly, I should've threatened *her* life.\n\nDespite the day-to-day expression of our recurring wisdoms, habits, instincts, patterns and cycles of cultural metamorphosis in the discourse, the stream of ""well, you know they were sayin' the world was going to end when *I* was in elementary school"" to my ear has fallen abruptly silent since the inauguration. Our parents and grandparents are both impossibly fortunate and unfortunate, having to duck out as the most multiplicative (read: sickest) cerebral orgy in the history of mankind will just've begun nibbling on the slope to its climax. We'll be lucky if we'll still be able to articulate our goodbyes by the time they reach the door. Nonsense does a fuckin number on perceived wisdom, but the gaps *are* widening at a dangerous pace. Tectonic or domestic, we are all straddling expanding space, and the chill of its draft is now stealing too much of our heat to ignore.\n\nThough it is entertaining in the moment (and otherwise redundant,) it would not be *well-to-do* of me now - nor was it, then - to leave the conversation in edgy absurdity. Yes, a part of me would like to campaign for *Sheldon* to be reclassified as an expletive, in disgust, but - as an adult in all-out sprint to make up for stalled emotional development - I must note that such a display of concern should've been at least reciprocated with a bit of explanation, if not appreciation. Still, there are much more appropriate reasons and situations in which to waste public servants' time.\n\nIt's not news - the *Theory* is providing *some* ghoulishly skewed portrayal of less-than-forty pseudointellectuals. Obviously, my savior's time was worth very little to her, but the fact that she spent any quantity of anything at all engaging with even a decidedly mainstream generationally ambassadorial bridge could be regarded - if stretched - as the result of a curious seed, which has skyrocketed in human value, as of late. It is undiscouragable. Read the trail a bit, and you'll find that your frustration is simply an expression of the terror that's ignited by the stagnancy of their pace.\n\n*It's great that you've managed to inch over to modern-ish sitcoms from Judge Judy and* Independence Day *, mom, but you're gonna have to* ***really pick up the pace*** *and work on following a few body modification communities on the darknet.*\n\nIf an absence of *solutions* are the crux of the *blog*, here I'm now gloating.\n\nTo whom does the commoner look to for such solutions when they'd prefer not to terrorize their kooky middle age parents into a half century of brutal fasting under vows of silence?\n\nThe Big Thinkers!\nThe Men of the Hour.\n\nYes, *men.* All Big Bumbling Billionaire Imbeciles.\n\nElon Musk *cannot* be the Nicola Tesla of the 21st century, or even the *20th*, for that matter, because literally *every* mechanically-minded professional I've ever heard talk about battery technology has condemned it in some manner as an inescapable dead end, developmentally. Perhaps, then, the champion of electrochemical storage is *the* False Prophet.\n\nNo, I'm not capable of citing research or conjuring Mars-capable spacecraft, but I've been a bit too preoccupied with my country's class war and its [10% adult illiteracy rate](http://bit.ly/unescoliteracy). It's all well and good to be privy to romanticism, but it's not the 1960s anymore. Even Howard Hughes would be more concerned for the wellness of the species than our continued reach for the stars, were he still alive.\n\nWell. Maybe not...\n\nCharles Lindbergh would be, though.\n\nWe spent the 1990s preparing to rid ourselves of history because the smartest among us foresaw some facsimile of the renaissance we are currently experiencing. If they'd been shown a glimpse of [some statistics](http://bit.ly/measuringconsumerinfo) on the volume of media we consume, they'd exclaim of their pride - no doubt - in their species' capability to progress, and perhaps even their own contribution to it. However, extended observation of an average American's day-to-day life would be lamented, in disgust, and a [huge portion](http://bit.ly/millennialspew) of the blame can be placed on one t-shirt-touting cyberyokel: Mark Zuckerberg.\n\nHis name is stupid, his spawn is ruining my life, and he continues to insist upon saying shit that frightens the bejesus out of me.\n\n[Zuckbrain](https://backchannel.com/we-are-entering-the-era-of-the-brain-machine-interface-75a3a1a37fd3) is fucking scary.\n\n""[Wiring the globe](http://bit.ly/zuckfuck)"" is fucking scary.\n\n[Jarvis](http://bit.ly/zuckbot) is fucking scary.\n\nBut Fuck, himself wouldn't be at all intimidating without his money. The scariest bit is the lack of *class* in the criticisms of his intellectual influence. Farhad Manjoo's [attention](http://bit.ly/fuckbug) has been diligent and premium as a *Times* er's should be, but the same occupation bars him from authoring with the color of unsubstantiated claims.\n\nMine does not.\n\nElon Musk is not an apologetic genius. He's willing to [joke](http://bit.ly/aloofmusk) about his intellectual distance from the planet and its populace on Twitter. Apparently, his mind's even surpassed the need to punctuate. Crazy.\n\nGoogle is well on it's way to becoming the neo-Vatican... yada yada yada, but they're too far gone - I do not have the expertise to address them. Fuck, though, is a singular short-sleeved, *Even Stevens* -haired young man [without](http://bit.ly/crowdfuck) so much as private office space (even though his sentiments on breathing room at home are [obviously inverse](http://bit.ly/fuckflex).)\n\nClearly, it's all just to protect him from the truth: **The Apostle John's** ***Book of Revelation*** **is about Facebook**. Fuck's cyberchild is the horseman, the beasts, *and* the plagues, stuffed into one tyrannical website.\n\n> And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.\n\nIf I can *repeatedly* trigger accidental voice calls on Fuckbook Messenger, don't tell me it's not possible to inadvertently live stream myself on the pot.\n\n> The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.\n\nOf course, it's unlikely that Mark's essence was bred entirely of evil, but - like Tump, in many ways - he is an excruciatingly wealthy idiot. Though he *is* spending 2017 touring the United States, he [doesn't seem](http://bit.ly/fucklearning) to be all that interested in *actually* closing the gap between himself and the rest of us, which suggests that he only wants us to throw us off his extra-terrestrial, xenophobic scent. I can't imagine what *The Mothership* would really want with my Amazon browsing history, though.\n\n> And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.\n\nJust to be clear, **he is not** ***The Antikhristos***.\n\nHe'd better not be, anyway.\nI'd be absolutely Livid with Lucifer if his choice of a figurehead for his Big Plan was such a Fucking dork.\n\nI mean... if Fuck wanted to spend his time crafting 6000-word essays, why the Fuck didn't he just build a Fucking CMS back in his Jesse Eisenberg era instead of *the actual* weekly-updated tower of digital Babylon? Surely, Satan would know better than to waste resources and pulverize creativity by ordering his Demonic Dev team to release regular builds for build's sake rather than on a per-need basis, but that'd be because The Tempter is an authority on *incentive* as thoroughly as Fuck isn't.\n\nIf you’re equipped with the privilege of literacy, you’ve been reading a lot about Fuckbook’s political consequences, recently. Frankly, *it’s about Fucking time*, but I’m compelled to emphasize that the most significant motor driving the politik is fueled by the eldest, fossilized portions of our thought meat. According to Manjoo, ""the News Feed team’s ultimate mission is to figure out what users want,"" dipping in Facebook's ocean of action data, searching for a soul.\n\nYet another Fuckism that suggests he's an alien: everybody knows that *nobody* knows what they want. \n\nThere's a central mechanic of our brains that by nature wreaks a whole helluva lot of contradiction. If you've ever mentioned ADHD with your doctor, or know a hypochondriac/adderall fiend who has, you may have heard it described as ""the lizard brain."" Simply put, it's the brain stem, and it's responsible for the most basal and primitively emotional instincts and habits; an anti-intellectual agitant, arguing at all times for the course of action with the most immediate gratification. *The Great Clickbait War* of 2013 was a startling demonstration that revealed the strength of the hold Fuckbook had (and still has) on these reptilian bits - the true location of its power.\n\n""In surveys, people kept telling Facebook that they hated teasing headlines. But if that was true, why were they clicking on them?""\n\n*Volition* is the Word of the Day. Here, we must once again invoke an ancient parable from the wise foretellings of the Disney film, *Smart House*: **when dealing with human beings, boundless compliance quickly leads to abject misery for all parties involved.**\n\nMindlessly, habitually, endlessly clicking... **this is how we die**.\n\nSomething about Fuck's direction is fundamentally poisonous to the human mind. Yes, he *is* assuredly too Fucking democratic, but misinformation is far from the only form of evil his creation has assumed. If you can jog your memory back a bit, you'll remember a much wider variety of brain-rotting filth.\n\nIn lapses of their existences' finitude, the 40-something second cousins of the world may still send you the occasional *Can Crunch Saga* invite, jarring you back to Jr. High in 2009, and forever associating themselves in your mind with the horrors of mortality and **f u c k b o o k g a m e s.**\n\nElon is a more likely candidate, but I'll leave those differentiations to the not-idle cult masses.\n\nMore than one sixth of all living eyes [see](https://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/) Fuckbook every single day, placing its consumption behind only eating and drinking as the most universally human activity.\n\nMr. Fuck achieved his vision and became perhaps the greatest purveyor of words who's ever lived. He's taught (or... is teaching) us something very profound about ourselves: capability is not the whole of the equation. Ability on its own cannot guarantee growth, but it can often result in decay. Discussion does not inherently lead to *connection*. Population is not a cure for isolation.\n\nThat said, I must begrudgingly admit to you that I, myself am one of the 100 million users who've depended upon a ""very meaningful"" Fuckbook group for a ""physical support structure"" for which I have Fuck to thank.\n\nI've spent half of my existence watching cheesy barnstorming movies, whirling around die-cast biplanes, seeking out stories from old pilots - military and commercial, and eventually trained to become one myself. As regular activities at young ages do, aviation became deeply ingrained into my identity, but my local community is *very* sparse - it's not exactly *cool*, these days. On Fuckbook, an unofficial group for members of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association has allowed me to stay connected to the rest of the world's Soaring Nerds, which is no small deal. It's the only forum which I am compelled to participate in with 100% sincerity and emotional effect.\n\nPhotos of members standing proudly next to their first airplane, or of adolescent students in a similar pose after their first solo, or of three old white rubes on a hangar picnic, laughing around a fold-up table full of rudimentary ham sandwiches in front of two gleaming Stearmans...\n\nThey tug around on my heart like nothing else in life can.\n\nI stopped flying lessons at 16 because I began to see behind the naivety of my childhood perception of what it meant to fly commercially and realized that I was unequipped for- and uninterested in the sort of challenges it presented. I haven't flown in seven years, but the community will *always* have a tremendous dividend of my core being. \n\nThese days, not a single person in my day-to-day life knows or cares about aviation, which wouldn't be laudable whatsoever - it's not exactly the most relevant goingson at the moment - were it not so *emotionally* necessary for me. \n\nA few days ago, a member shared a photo with the group of Charles Lindbergh's modified Ryan cockpit, captioned ""what airplane am I?""\n\nIn my youth, Lindbergh filled my closest equivalent to the 'childhood hero' role. My grandmother bought me a first-edition copy of *The Spirit of St.Louis* from a small town bookshop when I was six or seven, and I carried it *literally everywhere* with me until middle school. I watched the Jimmy Stewart film tens and tens of times, and I cried when I saw the *Spirit* in the flesh at the Smithsonian, yet I've *never* had an informed conversation about any of it with another human being. It really warmed me to see how many of the comments were correct answers. \n\nBreaking news: it's nice to know that there are other people on Earth who give a shit about the same things you do.\n\nAgain - aspiration should always be encouraged. This is Fuck's vision for his creation, and it *is* feasible, even for myself. At least his public persona - however valid or invalid it may be - is making a huge effort to have positive consequence, even if his idiocy is imbuing itself within all of humanity.\n\nFuck is too powerful to be exempted from responsibility for what Fuckbook's done to the Western psyche over the past decade, but - like the Christian god - perhaps all we need require is his repentance.\n\n*I Refuse to Die Clicking*\n\n#media" | |
| 19tqa5tqngbaf7sc,about,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/about,2017-05-18T09:00:00Z,About,"\n\n## *Extratone* is sustained by an ongoing passion for New Culture and a duty to further its voices. \n\nLaunched on May 18th, 2016, *Extratone* is an online magazine covering technology, music, culture, and media from an exclusively-youthful perspective. We strive to differentiate between relevant and irrelevant contemporary discourse, editorially, and further the newborn movement sustaining inclutterable and substantial storytelling in digital media.\n\nOur audience and networks overlap online consistently in evermore intricate relationships. We are interested in — and most interesting to — a massive global community of musicians, artists, designers, photographers, and software developers that has remained inquantifiable except by these relationships for its ten year lifespan. In their interest, our brand was created to unify them, and our platform exists to enable them to better distribute content and ideas between their networks.\n\nSimultaneously, we work to bring their incorruptibly innovative output to the attention of a world that is troublingly obsessed with stale platitudes, cliches, and patterns of expression." | |
| wsgkuvar65jvignr,email-chic,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/email-chic,2017-07-11T13:32:37Z,The Email Chic,"\n\n<!--more-->\n\nIn all likelihood, you have heard of Electronic Mail, but I’ve noticed that much of our audience (and 18-25 year olds in general) have been consistently estranged from it, despite its [prevalence](http://www.journalism.org/2017/02/09/part-ii-characteristics-of-news-instances/) in news media. Perhaps it’s not immediately evident as *the coolest thing*, but if “staying informed” and grass roots-ing brands are still as hip as they appear to be, email newsletters *should* soon become so groovy that you’ll begin leaving the house for a down-the-street coffee shop *just to be seen reading them.*\n\n## Welcome to the wonderful world of *aggregation*.\n\nIn many ways, email newsletters are the antithesis of (and medication for) Facebook’s school of ruminate aggregation. You know - the doctrine that will forever be remembered as the original intellectual catalyst for the downfall of human civilization. The skimming and the jumping… how many Facebook users could I fool by simply sending featured images, headlines, and abstracts for social cards without any hyperlinked destination? Could I manage to get Donald Tump elected President of the United States by way of Scrolling Hypnosis, alone?\n\nStaying *informed* is a habit of time-honored traditions. Gramps has stopped by Bill’s General Goods every weekday morning for twenty years with a handful of change because *The Sleepyville Monitor* is a part of his identity - dependent upon- and accountable to his trust. We’ve continued into 21st century news media as if a digital equivalent of his readership would be *so* difficult to fathom that legacy publications are best-off forcing the standards of print onto the web instead of investing in research/experimentation, which is why the fucking *New York Times* still sends your handset away to a separate *mobile version* of their site - a horrible remnant of browsing from the oughts that’s rarely seen on *blogs*, these days, much less on properties of titanic news powerhouses.\n\nFor whatever reason, most of the industry has behaved as if Grandpa’s sort of routines no longer exist in day-to-day life, but - if anything - our Automated Hell is *vastly* more saturated with them, no? Unless you’re sequestered away in a diligently self-made *Email-Free Zone*, you’re receiving shit daily. I, myself, am considerably proud of my ~60,000 unread emails, and I’ve conceded to the vast majority of the popup opt-ins I’ve encountered since shortly after our launch because I rarely found myself visiting/reading undesirable web.\n\n“I don’t email” is a sentiment I hear from young people often, which is perfectly fine. I don’t vote!\n\nIf it’s true that “nobody wants that,” nobody should be participating in the democratic process. Yes, I’ve experienced the *no patience for more than 300 words* phase of life, and I understand wholeheartedly the desire to retreat forever from it all. I would much rather exist in an old, open farmhouse with a wife, a garden, no internet, dusty old literature, and two ancient Bentleys than spend all my time crafting mirages in a black mirror, but neither cowardice nor negligence are options for us, right now. This country doesn’t have room for any more.\n\nThat’s not to say that you should be *expected* to read 6 hours of news a day - it’s the media’s (our) job to maintain our own accessibility, and for this, daily/weekly newsletters are an unbelievably effective method. The meta-aggregators in today’s industry are often paid *exclusively* to ease your digestion, both independently and by mastheads.\n\n[Dave Pell](https://twitter.com/davepell) is a superb gateway from the former - an aggregation legend. His daily correspondence - called [*NextDraft*](http://nextdraft.com) *-* is more often than not the ideal front page of the day.\n\n\n\nI’m asking those of you youths yet without your own reading habits to trust my taste - if not my authority - and explore some options from my own inbox.\n\nUltimately, you just can’t replace a legacy die-hard-news shop for a good political briefing. The [*POLITICO Playbook*](http://www.politico.com/playbook) is the most time-efficient way to keep up with U.S. and World politics as you walk about your life, and many of [*The New Yorker*](https://www.newyorker.com/newsletters?mbid=nl)[’s newsletters](https://www.newyorker.com/newsletters?mbid=nl) are a great longform, much more visual compliment. For a *slightly* less-chaotic, but still relatively unproven alternative to the former, try [*Axios AM*](https://www.axios.com/axios-am/).\n\n*National Geographic* may seem a bit *old guard*, but has remained a consistently excellent photographic publication. Its print edition has no place but on the poll in tangible media subscription terms, but it *has* been quite depressing, as of late. Turns out, we’ve made quite a dystopia for ourselves, and their ability to encapsulate the world can be overstimulating, at times. If you’d like a bit more control - or are uncompromisingly digital-only - its web edition has matured quite competently, and is elegantly parsed by [their newsletters](https://members.nationalgeographic.com/). (You’ll need to create an account, if you don’t already have one.) \n\n\n\nIt’s no secret that Medium has been on the decline, lately - and it’s always required a particular sort of tolerance - but *The Daily Digest* still delivers a few important essays, occasionally. And of course - there are options by regularity and topic, which you can fiddle with [here](https://medium.com/me/settings) when logged in.\n\nOn the more innovative end of the industry, there’s [*The Outline*](https://theoutline.com/post/1125/subscribe-to-the-outline-newsletter)[’s newsletter](https://theoutline.com/post/1125/subscribe-to-the-outline-newsletter), which - being the property of a more deliberate, gorgeous, open-web publication - is a bit underwhelming, but then again… why aren’t you just looking at the site, anyway? [*The Pudding*](https://pudding.cool/)’s output may be sparse, but - again - just… *look at it.* I can’t claim to have made much use of the information presented in their gorgeous visual essays, but it sure is fascinating.\n\n*The Verge*’s [Command Line](https://www.theverge.com/newsletter) is often so clever, *it can almost make tech news engaging*. (Our very own [*The Tone*](http://bit.ly/thetone) is directly modeled after it, visually.) *WIRED*’s [newsletter](https://www.wired.com/newsletter) isn’t bad either - it’d be excellent if its parent website wasn’t so *fucking broken.*\n\nThen there’s [*War Is Boring*](https://warisboring.com/) *-* a tactical/tech news site? I recently discovered. “From drones to AKs, high technology to low politics.” I wouldn’t describe it as a primary read for me, but it’s still nice to see what the Big Boys are up to, once in a while. (I am mostly just waiting attentively for the *U.S.S. Iowa* to be put up for auction.)\n\nIf you’re a filthy word nerd like myself, it’s likely you’ve seen a Tweet or two from the [Haggard Hawks](https://twitter.com/HaggardHawks) account - [Paul Anthony Jones](http://www.paulanthonyjones.com/)’ highly-educated musings on “obscure words, language & etymology facts.” After an excellent few years of playful indulgences, the project now has a whole DweebNet with a [newsletter](http://www.haggardhawks.com/newsletter) that always fascinates, if a bit dryly. What did you expect?\n\n*The Poetry Foundation* can also be [easily convinced](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/newsletter) to send you their Poem of the Day, and biweekly newsletter.\n\nAnd finally… **the meta media folks**.\n\n*Columbia Journalism Review*’s always the prettiest to look at when it comes to coverage of industry, and their squeaky-clean perspective won me over quite quickly. They send their ultra-clean, editor-compiled [*Weekly Highlights*](http://archives.cjr.org/resources/) every Thursday. [*The American Press Institute*](http://bit.ly/apneedtoknow)[’s list](http://bit.ly/apneedtoknow) isn’t a bad idea, either. Then, of course, there’s Harvard’s *NiemanLab*, which offers [afternoon and Saturday morning emails](http://www.niemanlab.org/subscribe/). All three often cite the *Pew Research Center*, which offers i[ts own palette of email lists](http://www.pewresearch.org/follow-us/), should you find yourself *hungry for d a t a*. Though, I do not, and I enjoy them.\n\nLanding on the “homepage” of even the most familiar online publications can feel daunting and impersonal, but having an authority on the industry (hopefully, with some sense of humor) parse the torrent and deliver it unto *your personal inbox* can ease the reading process into a *much* more intimate, sensical, enjoyable, and productive expenditure of your valuable time.\n\nFor a publication of our scale, the routine of a newsletter can act first as a simple reminder of our existence, and mature into a way to reach out directly to our audience in a distinctly *magazine* methodology - one which pervades a real, consequential relationship with consumers.\n\nAnd it’s d i g i t a l !!!!\n\n#meta" | |
| 8nmn3425493n0ybl,virtual-reality-experience-gaming-future,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/virtual-reality-experience-gaming-future,2017-10-07T08:00:00Z,"Virtual Reality Virginity, Lost","#### by [David Blue](http://twitter.com/neoyokel)\n\n\n\n## A late geezer’s first go at the dystopian VR experience\n\nEarlier this year, [Tim](http://extratone.com/cactus) and I had the opportunity to try virtual reality at the [True/False Film Festival](http://www.extratone.com/truefalse/) in a dark, curtained side room of a commandeered Columbia art gallery, but we were both much too intoxicated and loopy those last few hours of the fest, and we bailed. Call us cowards if you must — *immersion* can be a scary concept to those of us who grew up reading science fiction, before the existence of the modern video game console. I’ve wanted just 30 seconds or so with a pair of goggles, just to have an idea of what the increasing number of Oculus-blinded pedestrians surrounding me are looking at. Thanks to Isiah, I was finally caught up last night with a few VR YouTube videos and *Farpoint*’s introduction on a PlayStation 4.\n\nFirst, Isiah brings me the headset and describes in detail how exactly to adjust it, but I forget it all and simply try to shove it directly and violently on my face. Eventually, he takes it back and simply mounts and adjusts it around my monstrous skull — like you would for a toddler — and I lay eyes on the console for the first time. For whatever reason, it never occurred to me that general GUI wouldn’t simply be displayed in 2D, but by a literal *virtual display*, layed out in front of me like a large, floor-mounted touch workstation. I’m astonished by my ability to turn away from it to look at the rest of *Goggleworld*, which is nothing but a deeply black void.\n\nFrom my previous world, I hear Isiah and Hawthorn discussing what to show me first, and YouTube is the settled-upon environment. As the application is restarted in “VR Mode,” its startup screen is what *really* establishes the truth — I have *gone virtual*. I cannot use my hands to shield my eyes from the branding’s glaring watermark and terrifying red light. At its home menu, Isiah simply selects the “VR” tab, revealing a selection of thumbnails for algorithmically-recommended VR-shot videos on the service.\n\nTo begin, I am mounted on the tail of a superbike as it’s raced around an American desert circuit. It takes a few seconds for high resolution to buffer, leaving me briefly in a pixelized hell that would surely make anyone sick, were they exposed very long. (I was especially excited to become nauseous, to no avail.) At the getgo, I am occupied with the rider’s butt since it’s center-frame if I stand in my usual posture. Isiah points out the hovering HUD to my left containing a selection of simulated digital instruments (tachometer, 7-segment speedo, etc.) Its presence would suggest that the purpose of my virtual passengership is to witness the lap as a motorsport enthusiast, but the rear of the rider obscures most of my view forward — I cannot admire his line as one would viewing a GoPro-or-otherwise POV of the same event, so I decide to try and figure out which track I am hurried through. Though the vehicle is tossed about in the required movements of motorbike operation, I myself (the VR capture device) am impressively gyrostabilized, and the image, static, as if I’m *actually* hovering above the pair as they moved along. I spin left and right, spotting a small gaggle of miniature wind turbines and two wilting hilltop trees in the foreground. Behind them, small sand dunes fill the space, all the way to the horizon.\n\nAfter a few minutes, I am finally relieved early of my cutless lap for a short *National Geographic* documentary on a Viking revival festival in Poland. I’m introduced to its Big Boys by a series of aerial shots (presumably by drone, which is awfully un-Vikinglike) as they row their Big Boat up(?) a relatively wide, tree-lined river. In contrast with the lap, the jump cuts become a bit disorienting — I am eventually jumped *in* the boat for a moment, next to the sweaty, bearded lads — a few of whom are shirtless. I notice a blurry church on the distant bank. Suddenly, I float briskly across the small no man’s land between two rapidly advancing battle lines of Nordic Nerds with real, era-specific weapons and way too much free time. More lingering drone shots follow from just a few feet above the ensuing conflict. Outside, Isiah confirms Hawthorn’s suggestion that this is, indeed, *the one where they use real weapons* as I notice a pile of three or four men lying against each other, motionless on the ground, right-of-center in the nearest line, and mull over the sure disturbance of all this immersion the festival has allowed in welcoming the presence of the surely-buzzing drone. *I guess they’re dead*.\n\nAfter the conflict, I am subjected to a dreamier, narrated montage accompanied by cheesy synthesized orchestral music and featuring disproportionately a particular man with a shiny, tatted bald head and rather large feet with rather small toes, which he likes to wiggle during these particular conversations. Thanks to VR’s omniencompassing perspective, I am allowed to observe his wiggling in his every appearance. The tone of the background music and the prevalence of relaxed, conversing couples and sunsets in the scenes suggest romanticism is the montage’s theme, but for me, it is the bald man’s feet — I am too busy conversing with my two friends, across the divide, in this world, to listen to any of what is said. Considering that YouTube collects the dimensional data regarding where the user looks, and for how long, I make an effort to bend my neck up and down in extremes, and notice a patch of washed-out sky, distorting in the distance, and ponder what — if anything — we have gained in this technology.\n\n\n\nDoes an increase in the raw amount of visual data available to the viewer actually make motion picture storytelling more effective? In the few minutes of my VR taste test, I *did* gain quite a bit of volition over an equivalent 2D experience, but it didn’t seem like I’d instinctively used it to gain much else. If one is specifically interested in the shrubbery around a racetrack, or the more nuanced undulations of a Viking’s foot, they can more likely than not find a standard video on the World Wide Web that would more efficiently entertain them. In specific situations, of course, a producer can undoubtedly benefit by the ability to capture in 360 degrees, but — in any sort of cinema, especially — it seems unnecessarily sacrificial to relinquish entirely the narrative directorial control of shot framing to their audience. However, I am the antiexpert on this subject, obviously. My take on the viability of VR is Virtually Redundant and — quite possibly — very wrong, but my time in its hell is not over yet.\n\nIsiah explains that it is time for me to *game*, and asks if I’d like to try “the one with the hands, or the one with the gun.” As always, I choose the firearm, as the “hands” have not been found yet and the hypothetical image immediately offered up by my imagination is of rusty iron shackles. The Infinite Blackness has returned, and I cannot see beyond it to determine what my host is up to. Then, it becomes outer space — filling with thousands of starlike white dots. The light-blue outline of a virtual PlayStation controller appears where I assume him to be, unattached and bumbling about. Soon, it jaggedly approaches, and I feel him hand it to me. We have started its calibration process, which becomes a bit frightening in my celestial surroundings, though at least I have now gained participatory power over my new existence. I’d opted out of wearing headphones, so the assistant’s malignant-sounding female British voice comes softly from the television somewhere in front of me as I point the beam of light the controller’s representation is now projecting straight forward at the navigational arrows displayed ahead and pull “the trigger” (R2.)\n\nI am pleased by the idea of interfacing with software exclusively by shooting it repeatedly before I am abruptly contained in a cage, now being projected by a virtualization of the system’s sensor, which is unsettling. I am now calibrating the hardware contained within the physical device that captures the position of my body in the physical world. I catch the word “confinement” in the assistant’s unending, otherwise-inaudible directions, and quicken my pace. When it’s all done, I return the controller to Isiah, who reboots the PS4, itself, before launching *Farpoint*. My space becomes a lighter blue and fills with little opaque bits of Sony Dust for a minute or two. Isiah continues his rummaging for another peripheral as the title’s introduction begins to play.\n\nTwo rather poorly-animated astronauts are co-hosting a live broadcast from their craft, which is presented in a dramatization of a computer display. They’ve just met, but they’re both stacked with academia, co-massaging their knowledge, which I choose not to listen to. Out of view, Isiah unsuccessfully attempts to skip the whole thing before I’m allowed to become *virtual* again — this time, atop the animated body of another astronaut in a lone shuttle, approaching the mothership where it holds, next to a large, very-*Star Trek* “anomaly.” From Deep Space Nine, the two scientists continue to bicker over comms as I look around the cockpit. Looking backwards has already become a favorite habit of mine — I wonder where the shuttle’s bathroom is. For whatever reason, the back of my character’s neck was animated, though it can only be seen by looking rearwards and down, which distorts its shape into something truly terrifying.\n\nA bunch of unrelated plot follows, leading me to end up on a foreign world, exiting my crashed escape pod. By now, Isiah has connected *The Gun*, but something about it isn’t quite right — my character holds it in a glitched, very uncomfortable-looking manner, and it’s suspected that a fix would require a restart, and therefore — a replay of the introductory cutscene — so I retire out of lack of patience.\n\nIf I were confidently reviewing PlayStation VR as a consumer purchase, I’d cite a quote of Isiah’s: “I couldn’t find the thing.” In addition to my first drone sighting, a few days ago in Colorado, this lost virtual virginity is not necessarily unwelcome — I feel as though I’ve acquired a platform to better ponder the dystopia to which these and their like industries add a certain comic spice. That said, I cannot imagine a reason to once again enter the digital realm — and *who cares*?\n\nPlease enjoy your new worlds, kids.\n\n#spectacle #tech #gaming #portland" | |
| 42peiw76u47983yc,virtual-reality-virginity,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/virtual-reality-virginity,2017-10-07T18:00:00Z,"Virtual Reality Virginity, Lost","\n\n## A late geezer’s first go at the dystopian VR experience.\n\n<!--more-->\n\n*Listen to this article read by Siri Voice 2 below...*\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://github.com/extratone/bilge/raw/main/audio/TTS/Virtual%20Reality%20Virginity%20Lost.mp3"">\n</audio>\n\nEarlier this year, Tim and I had the opportunity to try virtual reality at the True/False Film Festival in a dark, curtained side room of a commandeered Columbia art gallery, but we were both much too intoxicated and loopy those last few hours of the fest, and we bailed. Call us cowards if you must — *immersion* can be a scary concept to those of us who grew up reading science fiction, before the existence of the modern video game console. I’ve wanted just 30 seconds or so with a pair of goggles, just to have an idea of what the increasing number of Oculus-blinded pedestrians surrounding me are looking at. Thanks to Isiah, I was finally caught up last night with a few VR YouTube videos and *Farpoint*’s introduction on a PlayStation 4.\n\nFirst, Isiah brings me the headset and describes in detail how exactly to adjust it, but I forget it all and simply try to shove it directly and violently on my face. Eventually, he takes it back and simply mounts and adjusts it around my monstrous skull — like you would for a toddler — and I lay eyes on the console for the first time. For whatever reason, it never occurred to me that general GUI wouldn’t simply be displayed in 2D, but by a literal *virtual display*, layed out in front of me like a large, floor-mounted touch workstation. I’m astonished by my ability to turn away from it to look at the rest of *Goggleworld*, which is nothing but a deeply black void.\n\nFrom my previous world, I hear Isiah and Hawthorn discussing what to show me first, and YouTube is the settled-upon environment. As the application is restarted in “VR Mode,” its startup screen is what *really* establishes the truth — I have *gone virtual*. I cannot use my hands to shield my eyes from the branding’s glaring watermark and terrifying red light. At its home menu, Isiah simply selects the “VR” tab, revealing a selection of thumbnails for algorithmically-recommended VR-shot videos on the service.\n\nTo begin, I am mounted on the tail of a superbike as it’s raced around an American desert circuit. It takes a few seconds for high resolution to buffer, leaving me briefly in a pixelized hell that would surely make anyone sick, were they exposed very long. (I was especially excited to become nauseous, to no avail.) At the getgo, I am occupied with the rider’s butt since it’s center-frame if I stand in my usual posture. Isiah points out the hovering HUD to my left containing a selection of simulated digital instruments (tachometer, 7-segment speedo, etc.) Its presence would suggest that the purpose of my virtual passengership is to witness the lap as a motorsport enthusiast, but the rear of the rider obscures most of my view forward — I cannot admire his line as one would viewing a GoPro-or-otherwise POV of the same event, so I decide to try and figure out which track I am hurried through. Though the vehicle is tossed about in the required movements of motorbike operation, I myself (the VR capture device) am impressively gyrostabilized, and the image, static, as if I’m *actually* hovering above the pair as they moved along. I spin left and right, spotting a small gaggle of miniature wind turbines and two wilting hilltop trees in the foreground. Behind them, small sand dunes fill the space, all the way to the horizon.\n\nAfter a few minutes, I am finally relieved early of my cutless lap for a short *National Geographic* documentary on a Viking revival festival in Poland. I’m introduced to its Big Boys by a series of aerial shots (presumably by drone, which is awfully un-Vikinglike) as they row their Big Boat up(?) a relatively wide, tree-lined river. In contrast with the lap, the jump cuts become a bit disorienting — I am eventually jumped *in* the boat for a moment, next to the sweaty, bearded lads — a few of whom are shirtless. I notice a blurry church on the distant bank. Suddenly, I float briskly across the small no man’s land between two rapidly advancing battle lines of Nordic Nerds with real, era-specific weapons and way too much free time. More lingering drone shots follow from just a few feet above the ensuing conflict. Outside, Isiah confirms Hawthorn’s suggestion that this is, indeed, *the one where they use real weapons* as I notice a pile of three or four men lying against each other, motionless on the ground, right-of-center in the nearest line, and mull over the sure disturbance of all this immersion the festival has allowed in welcoming the presence of the surely-buzzing drone. *I guess they’re dead*.\n\nAfter the conflict, I am subjected to a dreamier, narrated montage accompanied by cheesy synthesized orchestral music and featuring disproportionately a particular man with a shiny, tatted bald head and rather large feet with rather small toes, which he likes to wiggle during these particular conversations. Thanks to VR’s omniencompassing perspective, I am allowed to observe his wiggling in his every appearance. The tone of the background music and the prevalence of relaxed, conversing couples and sunsets in the scenes suggest romanticism is the montage’s theme, but for me, it is the bald man’s feet — I am too busy conversing with my two friends, across the divide, in this world, to listen to any of what is said. Considering that YouTube collects the dimensional data regarding where the user looks, and for how long, I make an effort to bend my neck up and down in extremes, and notice a patch of washed-out sky, distorting in the distance, and ponder what — if anything — we have gained in this technology.\n\n\n\nDoes an increase in the raw amount of visual data available to the viewer actually make motion picture storytelling more effective? In the few minutes of my VR taste test, I *did* gain quite a bit of volition over an equivalent 2D experience, but it didn’t seem like I’d instinctively used it to gain much else. If one is specifically interested in the shrubbery around a racetrack, or the more nuanced undulations of a Viking’s foot, they can more likely than not find a standard video on the World Wide Web that would more efficiently entertain them. In specific situations, of course, a producer can undoubtedly benefit by the ability to capture in 360 degrees, but — in any sort of cinema, especially — it seems unnecessarily sacrificial to relinquish entirely the narrative directorial control of shot framing to their audience. However, I am the anti-expert on this subject, obviously. My take on the viability of VR is Virtually Redundant and — quite possibly — very wrong, but my time in its hell is not over yet.\n\nIsiah explains that it is time for me to *game*, and asks if I’d like to try “the one with **the hands**, or the one with **the gun**.” As always, I choose the firearm, as the “hands” have not been found yet and the hypothetical image immediately offered up by my imagination is of rusty iron shackles. The Infinite Blackness has returned, and I cannot see beyond it to determine what my host is up to. Then, it becomes outer space — filling with thousands of star-like white dots. The light-blue outline of a virtual PlayStation controller appears where I assume him to be, unattached and bumbling about. Soon, it jaggedly approaches, and I feel him hand it to me. We have started its calibration process, which becomes a bit frightening in my celestial surroundings, though at least I have now gained participatory power over my new existence. I’d opted out of wearing headphones, so the assistant’s malignant-sounding female British voice comes softly from the television somewhere in front of me as I point the beam of light the controller’s representation is now projecting straight forward at the navigational arrows displayed ahead and pull “the trigger” (R2.)\n\nI am pleased by the idea of interfacing with software exclusively by shooting it repeatedly before I am abruptly contained in a cage, now being projected by a virtualization of the system’s sensor, which is unsettling. I am now calibrating the hardware contained within the physical device that captures the position of my body in the physical world. I catch the word “confinement” in the assistant’s unending, otherwise-inaudible directions, and quicken my pace. When it’s all done, I return the controller to Isiah, who reboots the PS4, itself, before launching *Farpoint*. My space becomes a lighter blue and fills with little opaque bits of Sony Dust for a minute or two. Isiah continues his rummaging for another peripheral as the title’s introduction begins to play.\n\nTwo rather poorly-animated astronauts are co-hosting a live broadcast from their craft, which is presented in a dramatization of a computer display. They’ve just met, but they’re both stacked with academia, co-massaging their knowledge, which I choose not to listen to. Out of view, Isiah unsuccessfully attempts to skip the whole thing before I’m allowed to become *virtual* again — this time, atop the animated body of another astronaut in a lone shuttle, approaching the mothership where it holds, next to a large, very-*Star Trek* “anomaly.” From Deep Space Nine, the two scientists continue to bicker over comms as I look around the cockpit. Looking backwards has already become a favorite habit of mine — I wonder where the shuttle’s bathroom is. For whatever reason, the back of my character’s neck was animated, though it can only be seen by looking rearwards and down, which distorts its shape into something truly terrifying.\n\nA bunch of unrelated plot follows, leading me to end up on a foreign world, exiting my crashed escape pod. By now, Isiah has connected *The Gun*, but something about it isn’t quite right — my character holds it in a glitched, very uncomfortable-looking manner, and it’s suspected that a fix would require a restart, and therefore — a replay of the introductory cutscene — so I retire out of lack of patience.\n\nIf I were confidently reviewing PlayStation VR as a consumer purchase, I’d cite a quote of Isiah’s: “I couldn’t find the thing.” In addition to my first drone sighting, a few days ago in Colorado, this lost virtual virginity is not necessarily unwelcome — I feel as though I’ve acquired a platform to better ponder the dystopia to which these and their like industries add a certain comic spice. That said, I cannot imagine a reason to once again enter the digital realm — and *who cares*?\n\nPlease enjoy your new worlds, kids.\n\n#software" | |
| tzyrmmzy7r9djb1c,contact,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/contact,2017-12-26T11:00:00Z,Contact,"\n\n<!--emailsub-->\n\n## GOT SOMETHING TO SAY? *We're all ears*.\n\n### <u>EMAIL</u>\nPitches, tips, and related correspondence can be sent to [horn@extratone dot com](mailto:horn@extratone.com).\n\n### ⟿⟿ Follow [our Telegram channel](http://t.me/extratone).\n\nDM us on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/extratone), like our [Facebook page](http://facebook.com/extratonemagazine), and/or cyberbully our [Instagram](http://extratone.com/instagram).\n\nOur [public Discord](http://bit.ly/holeguest) is always open and monitored.\n\nIf all else fails, Grandma and Grandpa can call us up on the telephone: **+1 (573) 826-4160**\n\n------\n\n<iframe src=""https://discordapp.com/widget?id=107272441889341440&theme=light"" width=""320"" height=""425"" align=""center"" allowtransparency=""true"" frameborder=""0""></iframe>" | |
| 2xg2oznt68qw7g2r,three-billboards-outside-ebbing-missouri-review,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/three-billboards-outside-ebbing-missouri-review,2018-01-26T19:00:00Z,"Three Billboards Outside Silva, North Carolina","#### by [David Blue](http://twitter.com/neoyokel)\n\n\n\n## Nitpicking the recklessness of last year’s highly-awarded, class-blind black comedy\n\nIndeed, it may be the time to jab at the rural, working-class South, but Martin McDonagh [claims](http://www.slashfilm.com/martin-mcdonagh-interview/) to have written his Golden Orb Special “eight years ago,” long before Tump, and any critical resolution the film provides is argued haphazardly. Consequently, its eye is cast on this strange, satirical portrayal of the Midwest in a manner which is inaccurate and insensitive enough to irk this Missourian. When I saw it at Columbia’s Ragtag Cinema this week, it was introduced by a young employee who noted that 1) Ebbing, Missouri is not a real place, 2) the film was actually shot in one of the Carolinas (an audience member suggested incorrectly that it was in SC,) and 3) we should prepare ourselves to be roused a bit by a bar scene in which a character pays $8 for two beers because “that just wouldn’t happen” (the Ragtag also serves alcohol.)\n\nThe “redemption arc” of the racist “hick” “loser” Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell) was rightfully [at the center](https://www.vox.com/2018/1/19/16878018/three-billboards-controversy-racist-sam-rockwell-redemption-flannery-oconnor) of the film’s controversy, but even if one imagines his role and fate written differently — perhaps with him irrecoverably shunned and/or visibly punished for his excessive, hateful violence — his rubishness would still be unforgivable. Living with his mother and turtle feels like an effort to humanize him — and, by extension, racist small-town cops as a whole. *The Huffington Post*’s [Zeba Blay](https://twitter.com/zblay) wrote an essential take on why *Three Billboards* — with its terrifyingly racist dork — was received the way it was.\n\n> Rockwell’s character is the racist uncle whom white liberals fear and love. The ability to feel for him ― to root for him in spite of his past transgressions, because he really is a “good man at heart,” an idiot who doesn’t know any better ― offers a kind of catharsis for the white viewer who can’t or won’t deal with true nuance, who is unable to reconcile their own complicity with their desire to be “good.”\n\nIt’s not as if the film isn’t technically well executed or refreshing — thanks in large part, yes, to Frances McDormand — or that I will not regret appealing on behalf of my home state, but it’s hard not to speak up when Hollywood shits so recklessly on my people. I don’t much like writing about movies because there are so many voices who consistently speak so much more effectively. NPR’s *Pop Culture Happy Hour*, for instance, did a wonderful job [dissecting](https://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2017/12/01/567291457/pop-culture-happy-hour-revenge-redemption-and-three-billboards) the film’s depictions of racism and domestic violence. [Gene Demby](https://twitter.com/GeeDee215) commented that “[McDonagh] doesn’t get these particular physics of American racism, and he’s not interested in them,” and I think it’s reasonable to suggest that Mark’s not very versed or interested in the physics of American class, either.\n\nIf you must differentiate the state of Missouri as a cultural whole between North and South, it is currently more red than blue — we went [56% for Donald and 38% for Hillary](http://enrarchives.sos.mo.gov/enrnet/) — but ask anyone from “somewhere down in the Georgia, Florida, Alabama corner” — as McDonagh put it -where we generally fall, and they’d be unlikely to regard us, fraternally, as the same part of the country. The accents in *Three Billboards* are not among the wide variety of local dialects you’ll encounter anywhere in the state, but perhaps they wouldn’t be out of place in Sylva, North Carolina, where the film was [actually shot](http://wlos.com/news/local/big-movie-comes-to-sylva-shooting-dates-for-three-billboards).\n\nRegardless of all potential criticism of the film’s cultural perspective or technical excellence — and I think most of it is more valid than any take I could possibly offer — my particular issue with it comes from a culmination of tasteless decisions. If one reasonably successful Irish director were to produce a patronizing film at the expense of Missouri’s working class filled with a ton of absurd, misconstrued characters portrayed by A-list talent *on location* in a real Missouri town, the side-effectual economic benefits such a production delivers to a locale would make it all more forgivable. *Say what you want about us… as long as you’re paying*. But to photograph such a film completely separate Missouri — culturally and financially — set in a fictional(ized) town, *include the state’s name in its title*, before conducting oneself in interviews as if we were a random target on a “Southern” dartboard… Well, that’s awfully shitty.\n\n*Boy, working class Americans sure are a riot!*\n\nThe writing is interesting enough for this, totally-out-of-touch“reviewer,” but I can’t imagine why it won Best Screenplay at the Globes, unless the other nominees were completely, bleakly predictable. (I wouldn’t know.) The excerpt below (**<u>SPOILER WARNING I GUESS? LOL</u>**) was the most stirring part of the experience, personally, if only because I really like films that palm strike one in the face without warning with bizarre, chaotic vulgarity (like the elevator scene in *Drive*.)\n\nI suppose it could have been the result of a rational decision to give *any* depth to Anne (Abbie Cornish) — who is Chief Willoughby’s (Woody Fucking Harrelson) Australian?, much-too-attractive wife — before he kills himself in the last third of the movie, making her suddenly relevant. Or, perhaps it was another attempt to emphasize the emotional repression of “Southern” folks — one of the almost-accurate positives of the film, if only thanks to McDormand’s skill. She and Sam Rockwell won Best Actress and Best Actor in a Supporting Role, respectively, which makes sense — it’s a shame they accepted such an out-of-touch work with which to demonstrate their ability to assume aloof, emotionally-dysfunctional characters.\n\nGrowing up astride classe while traveling throughout the vast majority of Missouri for various reasons has made me defensive, and — while my right to speak for hard-working Midwesterners is certainly debatable -I’d suggest the industry at large be more diligently interested when setting is especially emphasized. It is no longer acceptable to pass up the opportunities McDonagh has for critical storytelling in *Three Billboards*. Racist cops, abusive spouses, unsolved murders, and mishandled grief are real, abundant issues in the country’s breadbasket, and they’re worth discussing responsibly — especially with such a powerful platform. If the purpose of film writing is to help an audience determine whether or not a work is worth spending their time and money to see it in theaters or otherwise, I can tell you — even within my bias and limited authority -that this one just… isn’t.\n\n#film #class" | |
| gmv2nq5q62c23vba,three-billboards-outside-ebbing-missouri-review,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/three-billboards-outside-ebbing-missouri-review,2018-01-26T19:00:00Z,"Three Billboards Outside Silva, North Carolina","\n\n## Nitpicking the recklessness of last year’s highly-awarded, class-blind black comedy\n\n<!--more-->\n\n*Listen to this article read by Siri Voice 2 below...*\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://github.com/extratone/bilge/raw/main/audio/TTS/Three%20Billboards%20Outside%20Silva%20North%20Carolina.mp3"">\n</audio>\n\nIndeed, it may be the time to jab at the rural, working-class South, but Martin McDonagh [claims](http://www.slashfilm.com/martin-mcdonagh-interview/) to have written his Golden Orb Special “eight years ago,” long before Tump, and any critical resolution the film provides is argued haphazardly. Consequently, its eye is cast on this strange, satirical portrayal of the Midwest in a manner which is inaccurate and insensitive enough to irk this Missourian. When I saw it at Columbia’s Ragtag Cinema this week, it was introduced by a young employee who noted that 1) Ebbing, Missouri is not a real place, 2) the film was actually shot in one of the Carolinas (an audience member suggested incorrectly that it was in SC,) and 3) we should prepare ourselves to be roused a bit by a bar scene in which a character pays $8 for two beers because “that just wouldn’t happen” (the Ragtag also serves alcohol.)\n\nThe “redemption arc” of the racist “hick” “loser” Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell) was rightfully [at the center](https://www.vox.com/2018/1/19/16878018/three-billboards-controversy-racist-sam-rockwell-redemption-flannery-oconnor) of the film’s controversy, but even if one imagines his role and fate written differently — perhaps with him irrecoverably shunned and/or visibly punished for his excessive, hateful violence — his rubishness would still be unforgivable. Living with his mother and turtle feels like an effort to humanize him — and, by extension, racist small-town cops as a whole. *The Huffington Post*’s [Zeba Blay](https://twitter.com/zblay) wrote an essential take on why *Three Billboards* — with its terrifyingly racist dork — was received the way it was.\n\n> Rockwell’s character is the racist uncle whom white liberals fear and love. The ability to feel for him ― to root for him in spite of his past transgressions, because he really is a “good man at heart,” an idiot who doesn’t know any better ― offers a kind of catharsis for the white viewer who can’t or won’t deal with true nuance, who is unable to reconcile their own complicity with their desire to be “good.”\n\nIt’s not as if the film isn’t technically well executed or refreshing — thanks in large part, yes, to Frances McDormand — or that I will not regret appealing on behalf of my home state, but it’s hard not to speak up when Hollywood shits so recklessly on my people. I don’t much like writing about movies because there are so many voices who consistently speak so much more effectively. NPR’s *Pop Culture Happy Hour*, for instance, did a wonderful job [dissecting](https://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2017/12/01/567291457/pop-culture-happy-hour-revenge-redemption-and-three-billboards) the film’s depictions of racism and domestic violence. [Gene Demby](https://twitter.com/GeeDee215) commented that “[McDonagh] doesn’t get these particular physics of American racism, and he’s not interested in them,” and I think it’s reasonable to suggest that Mark’s not very versed or interested in the physics of American class, either.\n\nIf you must differentiate the state of Missouri as a cultural whole between North and South, it is currently more red than blue — we went [56% for Donald and 38% for Hillary](http://enrarchives.sos.mo.gov/enrnet/) — but ask anyone from “somewhere down in the Georgia, Florida, Alabama corner” — as McDonagh put it -where we generally fall, and they’d be unlikely to regard us, fraternally, as the same part of the country. The accents in *Three Billboards* are not among the wide variety of local dialects you’ll encounter anywhere in the state, but perhaps they wouldn’t be out of place in Sylva, North Carolina, where the film was [actually shot](http://wlos.com/news/local/big-movie-comes-to-sylva-shooting-dates-for-three-billboards).\n\nRegardless of all potential criticism of the film’s cultural perspective or technical excellence — and I think most of it is more valid than any take I could possibly offer — my particular issue with it comes from a culmination of tasteless decisions. If one reasonably successful Irish director were to produce a patronizing film at the expense of Missouri’s working class filled with a ton of absurd, misconstrued characters portrayed by A-list talent *on location* in a real Missouri town, the side-effectual economic benefits such a production delivers to a locale would make it all more forgivable. *Say what you want about us… as long as you’re paying*. But to photograph such a film completely separate Missouri — culturally and financially — set in a fictional(ized) town, *include the state’s name in its title*, before conducting oneself in interviews as if we were a random target on a “Southern” dartboard… Well, that’s awfully shitty.\n\n*Boy, working class Americans sure are a riot!*\n\nThe writing is interesting enough for this, totally-out-of-touch“reviewer,” but I can’t imagine why it won Best Screenplay at the Globes, unless the other nominees were completely, bleakly predictable. (I wouldn’t know.) The excerpt below (**<u>SPOILER WARNING I GUESS? LOL</u>**) was the most stirring part of the experience, personally, if only because I really like films that palm strike one in the face without warning with bizarre, chaotic vulgarity (like the elevator scene in *Drive*.)\n\nI suppose it could have been the result of a rational decision to give *any* depth to Anne (Abbie Cornish) — who is Chief Willoughby’s (Woody Fucking Harrelson) Australian?, much-too-attractive wife — before he kills himself in the last third of the movie, making her suddenly relevant. Or, perhaps it was another attempt to emphasize the emotional repression of “Southern” folks — one of the almost-accurate positives of the film, if only thanks to McDormand’s skill. She and Sam Rockwell won Best Actress and Best Actor in a Supporting Role, respectively, which makes sense — it’s a shame they accepted such an out-of-touch work with which to demonstrate their ability to assume aloof, emotionally-dysfunctional characters.\n\nGrowing up astride classe while traveling throughout the vast majority of Missouri for various reasons has made me defensive, and — while my right to speak for hard-working Midwesterners is certainly debatable -I’d suggest the industry at large be more diligently interested when setting is especially emphasized. It is no longer acceptable to pass up the opportunities McDonagh has for critical storytelling in *Three Billboards*. Racist cops, abusive spouses, unsolved murders, and mishandled grief are real, abundant issues in the country’s breadbasket, and they’re worth discussing responsibly — especially with such a powerful platform. If the purpose of film writing is to help an audience determine whether or not a work is worth spending their time and money to see it in theaters or otherwise, I can tell you — even within my bias and limited authority -that this one just… isn’t.\n\n#film #local" | |
| 8mggcfbj15189r2r,mom-and-dad-film-review,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/mom-and-dad-film-review,2018-02-17T06:59:13Z,‘Mom and Dad’’s Discrepant Defense Against Stale Industry and the Population Problem,"## A 'fun' movie\n\n#### by [David Blue](http://twitter.com/neoyokel)\n\n\n\nThe Earth will reach its maximum occupancy load (12 billion) when I am in my mid-fifities, meaning there’ll be more than twice as many gorging, shitting, shooting, complaining, and lying human beings than there were when I started, and perhaps Brian Taylor’s *Mom and Dad* is in fact a reasoned argument for a particular solution to our inevitable plight. I’m still not sure what a “cult” movie is, precisely, but I can’t imagine what sort of cult could possibly sustain itself around the ethos of this film alone, despite its concise, agitating, at once lighthearted, yet genuinely-disturbing trip. No, it is probably not propaganda. From the experts, you’ll get *precisely* the same review, varying only in length. *The New York Times*’ Glenn Kenny [couldn’t be bothered](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/movies/mom-and-dad-review-nicolas-cage.html) with more than 250 words, but RogerEbert dot com’s Simon Abrams [shelled out a whole 1000](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mom-and-dad-2018). They are suspiciously close to these big round numbers — perhaps each was written to respective quotas, and perhaps you could say all that could reasonably be said in 10, but I don’t care.\n\nThe tropes here are polished to a miraculous sheen — two emotionally-stunted, middleaged, overly preoccupied-with-their-lost-youth suburban parents (Nicolas Cage and Selma Blair) who’s existing envies & irritations regarding their own classically bratty teenage girl (Anne Winters) and her mischievous little brother (Zackary Arthur) is merely agitated by a sudden TV static-bound killer instinct into bloodlust, not originated. I’m not sure any pill dealer would actually flip off their customers after a fair buy — even in high school, but *drugs*, a *black boyfriend*, and a *stinkbomb*? in the old Trans Am!? *I’m going to kill you!*\n\nSomebody, somewhere knew all the best sources on suburbia and how to put them to good use. The Camry, the golf bag, ping pong smashing, sweat-stained Big Sur tee, and *Dr. Oz*, for Christ’s sake! Granted, talking to your girlfriend/boyfriend on the phone at all is a bit dated — especially while riding a BMX — and I don’t think Froot Loops are generally accepted middle-class chow anymore. These are staples from *my* youth, and I am very old. Technically, the iMessage bubble graphics are more chronographically appropriate, but with great consequence, I fear — if we’re going to accept them once and for all as authentic mechanisms for telling stories set in the present, they are going to age faster than Nick’s new jowls (unless we’re all soon killed by our parents.) It’s been two years since I knew anything about music, but I seriously doubt even the gothest fifteen?-year-old girls are listening to [Father-esque post-Memphis horrorcore](https://soundcloud.com/billsaberdotcom/iknowupussiesdontwantit) in class — there’s something about SoundCloud that really clashes with chokers.\n\n<iframe width=""100%"" height=""300"" scrolling=""no"" frameborder=""no"" allow=""autoplay"" src=""https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/273824044&color=%2300006b&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true""></iframe><div style=""font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;""><a href=""https://soundcloud.com/thebillsaber"" title=""BILL $ABER"" target=""_blank"" style=""color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;"">BILL $ABER</a> · <a href=""https://soundcloud.com/thebillsaber/iknowupussiesdontwantit"" title=""I KNOW THAT YOU PUSSIES DONT WANT IT Prod The Virus And Antidote"" target=""_blank"" style=""color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;"">I KNOW THAT YOU PUSSIES DONT WANT IT Prod The Virus And Antidote</a></div>\n\nIf there was ever a film in which to use grimy dubstep-influenced electronic slaps, buzzes, chirps, and great grating clanking, it’s this one. It’s a terrific disappointment that Hollywood feels so timidly about their use of the most intimate medium. One forgets its potential to control the nuances of an audience’s fear, anger, discomfort, and panic beyond cheap jump scares until they experience an irritating, distressing, ghastly gross, all-possessing feat of accentuating audio production such as that of *Mom and Dad*. If you want to judge Academically the *effectiveness* of a nominee’s work for an award with a title like Best Sound Editing (as opposed to whatever the hell criteria was met most fully by *Skyfall*,) you *must* give the little golden man to these folks, whoever they are.\n\n\n\nWhen’s the last time you saw a truly, believably shitty modern parental pair on a big screen? I really can’t remember, myself. Brent and Kendall Ryan are masterpieces of character craft — both a perfect précis *and* thoroughly-defined exploration of miserable white suburbanites. They’re even *named* unimprovably, which reflects a quality in care and attention to detail that I very much appreciate. They are vain, vulgar, impatient, selfishly afraid, and careless, freely feeling and saying it all directly in front of their children. I love being told explicitly which characters to hate (no joke,) and in this case it’s the whole damned lot. Brian Taylor and Nicolas Cage [scream](https://youtu.be/MSmJFMabfJc) it over and over (as I’d like to imagine) a single afternoon of one-take filming, considering that the latter took it upon himself to first [memorize the entire screenplay](http://comicbook.com/horror/2018/01/08/nicolas-cage-mom-and-dad-movie-brian-taylor/) and its prose, vanilla to perfection, before photography began, and I hope it all stays with him forever, especially “my mom is such a penis.”\n\n*Mom and Dad* could conceivably be Nicolas Cage’s *I Am Legend* if for no other reason than the total lack of possible stand-ins for Brent Ryan — even the standard by which all white suburban Dad performances have been measured in the 21st century, Jason Bateman. Nick himself [described ](http://variety.com/video/mom-and-dad-toronto-film-festival-nicolas-cage/)it as “punk rock, rebellious, irreverent, original, badass,” and the “number one” movie he’s made in the past ten years (disqualifying *National Treasure*, in case you were worried.) No surprise, I must agree — this one is a wonderfully raucous and feral thing, but the scene involving the attempted murder of a newborn by her mother (Kendall’s sister) came very close to crossing the line. However, I am old and the intensity of my paternal instincts has probably outpaced my understanding of them. You could also argue, of course, that pushing such boundaries is a core function of a film like *Mom and Dad.* Nobody ended up vomiting or anything.\n\nThis *fun* thing shouldn’t feel as foreign as it does in cinema, but you already knew that. With all its implicit grapples with overpopulation, kids and gun violence, class, and racism — truly, this is a film charged electrically with current issues. Or maybe not. Ultimately, I can at least tell you for certain that Brian Taylor made exponentially better use of his resources (I couldn’t find a solid number for its production budget) than the Fucking Spierig Brothers did with *Winchester* (just so you know what a disaster looks like,) and managed to be refreshingly original (astonishing that nobody’s had this specific idea before.) A spectacular riot, *Mom and Dad* does all you could possibly want it to do. With just eighty-three minutes to lose, it’s worth the commitment just to hear Nicolas Cage whimper and say “anal beads.”\n\n#film" | |
| 8uw1q8k8r6cuyg2d,mom-and-dad-film-review,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/mom-and-dad-film-review,2018-02-17T06:59:13Z,‘Mom and Dad’’s Discrepant Defense Against Stale Industry and the Population Problem,"\n\n## A 'fun' movie\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://github.com/extratone/bilge/raw/main/audio/TTS/MomandDad.m4a"">\n</audio>\n\nThe Earth will reach its maximum occupancy load (12 billion) when I am in my mid-fifties, meaning there’ll be more than twice as many gorging, shitting, shooting, complaining, and lying human beings than there were when I started, and perhaps Brian Taylor’s *Mom and Dad* is in fact a reasoned argument for a particular solution to our inevitable plight. I’m still not sure what a “cult” movie is, precisely, but I can’t imagine what sort of cult could possibly sustain itself around the ethos of this film alone, despite its concise, agitating, at once lighthearted, yet genuinely-disturbing trip. No, it is probably not propaganda. From the experts, you’ll get *precisely* the same review, varying only in length. *The New York Times*’ Glenn Kenny [couldn’t be bothered](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/movies/mom-and-dad-review-nicolas-cage.html) with more than 250 words, but RogerEbert dot com’s Simon Abrams [shelled out a whole 1000](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mom-and-dad-2018). They are suspiciously close to these big round numbers — perhaps each was written to respective quotas, and perhaps you could say all that could reasonably be said in 10, but I don’t care.\n\nThe tropes here are polished to a miraculous sheen — two emotionally-stunted, middleaged, overly preoccupied-with-their-lost-youth suburban parents (Nicolas Cage and Selma Blair) who’s existing envies & irritations regarding their own classically bratty teenage girl (Anne Winters) and her mischievous little brother (Zackary Arthur) is merely agitated by a sudden TV static-bound killer instinct into bloodlust, not originated. I’m not sure any pill dealer would actually flip off their customers after a fair buy — even in high school, but *drugs*, a *black boyfriend*, and a *stinkbomb*? in the old Trans Am!? *I’m going to kill you!*\n\nSomebody, somewhere knew all the best sources on suburbia and how to put them to good use. The Camry, the golf bag, ping pong smashing, sweat-stained Big Sur tee, and *Dr. Oz*, for Christ’s sake! Granted, talking to your girlfriend/boyfriend on the phone at all is a bit dated — especially while riding a BMX — and I don’t think Froot Loops are generally accepted middle-class chow anymore. These are staples from *my* youth, and I am very old. Technically, the iMessage bubble graphics are more chronographically appropriate, but with great consequence, I fear — if we’re going to accept them once and for all as authentic mechanisms for telling stories set in the present, they are going to age faster than Nick’s new jowls (unless we’re all soon killed by our parents.) It’s been two years since I knew anything about music, but I seriously doubt even the gothest fifteen?-year-old girls are listening to [Father-esque post-Memphis horrorcore](https://soundcloud.com/billsaberdotcom/iknowupussiesdontwantit) in class — there’s something about SoundCloud that really clashes with chokers.\n\n<iframe width=""100%"" height=""300"" scrolling=""no"" frameborder=""no"" allow=""autoplay"" src=""https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/273824044&color=%2300006b&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true""></iframe><div style=""font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;""><a href=""https://soundcloud.com/thebillsaber"" title=""BILL $ABER"" target=""_blank"" style=""color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;"">BILL $ABER</a> · <a href=""https://soundcloud.com/thebillsaber/iknowupussiesdontwantit"" title=""I KNOW THAT YOU PUSSIES DONT WANT IT Prod The Virus And Antidote"" target=""_blank"" style=""color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;"">I KNOW THAT YOU PUSSIES DONT WANT IT Prod The Virus And Antidote</a></div>\n\nIf there was ever a film in which to use grimy dubstep-influenced electronic slaps, buzzes, chirps, and great grating clanking, it’s this one. It’s a terrific disappointment that Hollywood feels so timidly about their use of the most intimate medium. One forgets its potential to control the nuances of an audience’s fear, anger, discomfort, and panic beyond cheap jump scares until they experience an irritating, distressing, ghastly gross, all-possessing feat of accentuating audio production such as that of *Mom and Dad*. If you want to judge Academically the *effectiveness* of a nominee’s work for an award with a title like Best Sound Editing (as opposed to whatever the hell criteria was met most fully by *Skyfall*,) you *must* give the little golden man to these folks, whoever they are.\n\n\n\nWhen’s the last time you saw a truly, believably shitty modern parental pair on a big screen? I really can’t remember, myself. Brent and Kendall Ryan are masterpieces of character craft — both a perfect précis *and* thoroughly-defined exploration of miserable white suburbanites. They’re even *named* unimprovably, which reflects a quality in care and attention to detail that I very much appreciate. They are vain, vulgar, impatient, selfishly afraid, and careless, freely feeling and saying it all directly in front of their children. I love being told explicitly which characters to hate (no joke,) and in this case it’s the whole damned lot. Brian Taylor and Nicolas Cage [scream](https://youtu.be/MSmJFMabfJc) it over and over (as I’d like to imagine) a single afternoon of one-take filming, considering that the latter took it upon himself to first [memorize the entire screenplay](http://comicbook.com/horror/2018/01/08/nicolas-cage-mom-and-dad-movie-brian-taylor/) and its prose, vanilla to perfection, before photography began, and I hope it all stays with him forever, especially “my mom is such a penis.”\n\n*Mom and Dad* could conceivably be Nicolas Cage’s *I Am Legend* if for no other reason than the total lack of possible stand-ins for Brent Ryan — even the standard by which all white suburban Dad performances have been measured in the 21st century, Jason Bateman. Nick himself [described ](http://variety.com/video/mom-and-dad-toronto-film-festival-nicolas-cage/)it as “punk rock, rebellious, irreverent, original, badass,” and the “number one” movie he’s made in the past ten years (disqualifying *National Treasure*, in case you were worried.) No surprise, I must agree — this one is a wonderfully raucous and feral thing, but the scene involving the attempted murder of a newborn by her mother (Kendall’s sister) came very close to crossing the line. However, I am old and the intensity of my paternal instincts has probably outpaced my understanding of them. You could also argue, of course, that pushing such boundaries is a core function of a film like *Mom and Dad.* Nobody ended up vomiting or anything.\n\nThis *fun* thing shouldn’t feel as foreign as it does in cinema, but you already knew that. With all its implicit grapples with overpopulation, kids and gun violence, class, and racism — truly, this is a film charged electrically with current issues. Or maybe not. Ultimately, I can at least tell you for certain that Brian Taylor made exponentially better use of his resources (I couldn’t find a solid number for its production budget) than the Fucking Spierig Brothers did with *Winchester* (just so you know what a disaster looks like,) and managed to be refreshingly original (astonishing that nobody’s had this specific idea before.) A spectacular riot, *Mom and Dad* does all you could possibly want it to do. With just eighty-three minutes to lose, it’s worth the commitment just to hear Nicolas Cage whimper and say “anal beads.”\n\n#film" | |
| scvvuet93bf21mni,white-island,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/white-island,2018-05-16T19:00:00Z,The White Island,"\n\n<!--more-->\n\n*Everything you’ve ever heard or read about Portland, Oregon is true. It is an authoritative and pseudofascist money machine that hides behind an insultingly thin veneer of celebrated individualism. These are the sentiments I see reflected in the people and organizations around me. I originally [posted this on r/Portland](https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/8jzr8m/the_white_island/) and it made white people mad.*\n\nIn my despair about the complex nature of the World as it is changing, I shall create for myself and those like me an Island where the things about us which I think should be celebrated can be so freely — where Me (among us) means something again. Where our money will mean something again because meaning is — above all — what people like me should seek. I write this prospectus for my Island — let’s call it White Island — on a thirty-year-old typewriter because the physicality of these words is almost the entirety of what imbues them with meaning, and I believe the particulars of analog existence are lost on the World in a tragically big way as it is changing. On White Island, at least, the physical shall be most Holy, and its intrinsic worth shall be worshiped freely so that the treasures of our past are not lost.\n\nAs it is changing, the World is growing noisy with voices that are unlike mine, and the grasp on the conversation which I was promised in my upbringing is slipping alarmingly away with each new day. I believe these new sounds detract from my celebration of the things in life that give mine meaning: bicycles, beanies, body art, brewing, electric guitars, and the hair that grows on my face. Every day, I am more and more afraid that my voice will be lost in them, and if it is lost, I am afraid there will be nothing left of Me or my meaning. This thought worries me like none other, and — as long as people like me have sufficient economic and social resources to do so — we should make for ourselves an Island away from the new World and her noises so that we may continue to live comfortably in a soundscape of only our own creation, as is our birthright and grand tradition.\n\nOur parents and their parents before them were born into a more careful and physical World where respect for their crafts, their voices, and their beards was a universal right. If we are to follow in their generous footsteps and give wholeheartedly our own equivalent of these to the World, we should be unequivocal in our expectation of its continued reciprocation and appreciation for them. As long as we are able, we should not have to imagine an alternative way of life in which our effort is less recognized or generally important. This we should refrain from doing not only for the sake of our own comfort, but for the good of the whole World, even if it is no longer interested in recognizing the value of our contributions to it.\n\nAs our trusted methodologies are washed away in their new noise, our Island shall be a bastion for them. We will remember that a cup of coffee should take at least twenty minutes to prepare. We will not forget the culturalizing nuances in the taste of the most diminutive brews. We will sacrifice whatever is necessary in order to purify our foods from the poisonous nutritional sins of the processed masses. We shall enforce our own wise, time-honored priorities as we can only within a space that is truly ours, where only people like ourselves will feel and be sincerely welcome.\n\n#culture" | |
| m2vgt85qbdhoyyno,brand,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/brand,2018-05-18T07:30:00Z,Brand,\n\n## Download Extratone logos and other image assets.\n\n[**Extratone Brand Kit 2020**](https://www.dropbox.com/s/i9jpdyna0z0hdx1/Extratone%20Brand%20Kit.zip) | |
| y09nqv4ayubtc7tz,google-soul-ledger-dont-be-evil,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/google-soul-ledger-dont-be-evil,2018-05-22T12:00:00Z,Google Will Soon Replace God and The Church,"\n\n## What I have long predicted is now coming to pass: Google believes it should assume control.\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://davidblue.wtf/audio/Google.m4a"">\n</audio>\n\nOut of all the technology companies that have made my knees knock and my voice hoarse and my [Tweets manic](http://bit.ly/bluegoogle) as a technoheretic in the past several years, Jumbo Google would easily take home the winning trophy for Dystopian of the Millennium. I have been rehearsing an especially dear pet prophecy of mine, unsolicited, to family, friends, and podcast guests since 2011 in which I end up arguing quite convincingly that Google is a dead ringer for the 16th-century Vatican: an inherently self-isolating organization with an absolute monopoly yielding *gargantuan* levels of essentially passive income from a service which nearly everybody transacts with, but only Google understands (and is therefore assumed to be its only possible provider,) which inevitably develops such a distance from the rest of the populace and their way of life (in tandem with total notoriety and celebrity among them all) not intentionally out of malice, but from the delusion of mythically-bestowed philanthropic duty that is borned of and compounded by this economic and cultural isolation in a perpetual accumulation of power and wealth that radicalizes the monopolizers — the majority already highly predisposed to zeal as they would’ve needed to be in order to find themselves in this singular, universally powerful position over every other class — and leaves their egocentric minds to wander exempt from all criticism save for that of fellow radicalized monopolizers, who together begin to feel more and more comfortable wondering aloud about themselves in increasingly fantastic presumptions: *what if all of this was bestowed upon us because we are superior to them? What if it is our* **divine responsibility** *as superior beings to take charge and shepherd the common people as our sheep — for they cannot possibly know as well as we what is truly best for them?*\n\nYou see it, right? And you can feel a very specific flavor of terror that is both awed by the scale of the circumstances created by so few human minds and sincerely amused by the absoluteness of your own inability to alter them in any way. Perhaps you even recognize this taste as one perfected by Christianity’s ancient advertising business, but Google knows so much about you that it’s rumored to’ve been selling user data *to* the Judeochristian God for some time now at a 10% discount, and so we extrapolate and anticipate, yes?\n\nOf course, it’s admittedly satisfying for me to deliver you to this godfearing place in the most perverse *look what I saw first that you didn’t see because you’re just not as bright but lucky for you, I’m so fucking generous with my wisdom* sort of thinking around which the entire personas and livelihoods of fringe movement fanatics are built upon, but this is my *one* thing, okay? I’ve been waiting years for the right time to formally argue this theory in depth, and — thanks to this year’s public spotlight finally pivoting on the giants who’ve been silently swallowing their competition and relentlessly forcing their already ridiculous margins higher and higher in relative obscurity for decades, the time has come, indeed. The common people’s trust in Google had a godawful week.\n\n## Don’t Be Evil\n\nOn Monday, [*Gizmodo*](https://gizmodo.com/google-employees-resign-in-protest-against-pentagon-con-1825729300)[ reported](https://gizmodo.com/google-employees-resign-in-protest-against-pentagon-con-1825729300) that twelve frustrated Google employees were quitting the company in protest of their work assisting the Department of Defense to “implement machine learning to classify images gathered by drones” for the detail fleeting Project Maven, despite some [4000 employee signatures](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-ceo-pentagon-project.html) on a [letter](http://extratone.com/library/dearsundar.pdf) addressed to CEO Sundar Pichai requesting (in full) that he “cancel this project immediately,” and “draft, publicize, and enforce a clear policy stating that neither Google nor its contractors will ever build warfare technology,” citing the infamous “Don’t Be Evil” motto, which Google [**then proceeded to remove**](https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393) from its [code of conduct](https://web.archive.org/web/20180504211806/https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html) for the first time in 18 years **the day after** the *New York Times* article went to press, on April 5th.\n\nOn initial approach to the abstract of this story, from the ass to our thoughts arrives an easy narrative of a Silicon Valley mutiny comprised of twelve brave, conscientious souls who’ve been eaten up inside by their complicity in the filthy deals made by their power-obsessed CEO over scotch and cigars in a dark D.C. study — kept awake for months by the sound of his puffing cackles at satellite images of dead toddlers in a bombed-out street.\n\n*Ah ha*, we say. *That man is no good, and he just wouldn’t listen! They knew they didn’t have a choice… They only did what they had to do…*\n\nThe reality of internal disagreements at Google, though, manages to be even more theatrical. The sheer volume of correspondence must surely be beyond anything capable of the enduser’s imagination, so let’s phone a friend: my favorite peek into the day-to-days of inter-Google existence is an [old blog post](http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2010/01/things-ive-learned-at-google.html) by [Benjamin Tilly](https://twitter.com/btilly) on his first month at the company in which he was compelled almost immediately to describe in great detail how best to “deal with a lot of email in gmail” at peak efficiency using shortcuts and labels.\n\n“As you get email, you need to be aggressive about deciding what you need to see, versus what is context specific.”\n\nNow we have a bit better idea of the *aggressive emailing* that was a sure constant on a normal workday at Google in 2010, so it must’ve been deafening after 8 years of Gmail development as 4000 employees no doubt vented, debated, and decided to organize last month, though without making much headway because the leadership’s response was apparently “complicated by the fact that Google claims it is only providing open-source software to Project Maven,” this new knowledge having *significant* effect on our mind’s image of Sundar Pichai’s activities in Washington: he is now swapping seats with a frustrated Colin Powell in order to install OpenOffice onto his desktop from a flash drive, and we recall that Google’s Googleplex headquarters resembles nowhere in modern life more than a brand new playground built in a design language borrowing heavily from *Spy Kids*. And though these Twelve disciples are unnamed for the moment, a few of them could immediately land book deals by going public, and every single one would always have by default not only the badge of “I landed a job at Google,” (which is really to say *I have hit Life’s maximum level cap*,) but “I worked at Google for a while, but ended up quitting to do something else,” which is guaranteed to make you the most interesting, intellectually superior person present in *whatever* crowd for the rest of your life. The ultra-cool [Sarah Cooper](https://twitter.com/sarahcpr) quit Google to become a comedian and even [got to talk to Kara Swisher](https://www.recode.net/2018/1/10/16871786/sarah-cooper-comedian-google-dick-costolo-kara-swisher-recode-decode-podcast)!\n\nI won’t pretend to understand big tech’s diminutive bastardization of prestige, but “more than 90 academics” jumping to publish an [open letter](https://www.icrac.net/open-letter-in-support-of-google-employees-and-tech-workers/) (adjacent to a huge *DONATE: Support the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots* button) in which they “write in solidarity with the 3100+ Google employees” who’s terrible boss decided to help some lackeys in the Pentagon set up their email and didn’t text back for a whole hour doesn’t sound 100% sincere. Notably, I don’t know how *or why* the fuck 90 people would go about collaborating on a single document, but if it really was managed, they definitely used Google Docs…\n\nAt one point, it was fun to think about the history of the friendly side-scroller-playing garage ghouls and dorm dorks who gave *cooky*, *wacko* names to their dot com startups in parody and defiance of the lame-ass surname anagrams on the buildings of their established competitors, but those who’ve stuck around have only done so by becoming expert at SUCKING UP EVERYTHING around them, and it pisses me off every day how worried I am that my species will finally be done in by a company with a name like Yahoo! and be known only to a bunch of adolescent interdimensional silicon blobs 30 million years in the future as *that bipedal race who remained dignified until the last 0.01% of their reign on Earth, when in way less than a single generation, they all just went* **FUCKING INSANE** *and blew themselves up because they suddenly hated all sense.*\n\n“Google” is perhaps the worst of these to have to shout in fear and/or anger in your last moments as it sounds in American English like you’ve startled your subject with a ticklish pinch followed so immediately by an esophagus-busting chokehold that the two events appear simultaneous, and in real English English, it almost always sounds like a parent speaking of a character on a pre-K children’s television programme whom they find quite foul and upsetting, but will manage to refrain from expressing so otherwise because they know that *Teletubbies* shit is the most quickly forgotten stage of television viewership. It’s fascinating how exclusive the word “Google” is to American English because in everything else it really *is* complete nonsense, but lets halt all etymological discussions right now because we’ve only now just finished with Monday.\n\n\n\n## The Soul Ledger\n\nOn Thursday, all of my Google experiences, suppositions, and [soul-detaching screenshots](https://twitter.com/FickleCrux/status/914767928456749056) were usurped when a thoroughly alarming internal company video called [*The Selfish Ledger*](https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/17/17344250/google-x-selfish-ledger-video-data-privacy) was leaked to *The Verge,* which I watched once then and do not want to watch again for the sake of this piece, but I will. Though the big V has been disappointingly timid for years about editorializing — when tech journalism desperately needs some confident, informed opinion more than ever — Vlad Savov’s accompanying article should be read in its entirety, to which I can add my own terror where he perhaps could not.\n\nThe production style is technically identical to that of the very popular thinkpiece-esque, motion-graphics-paired-with-obligatory-sharpie illustrated videos which you find playing at max volume on your mom’s iPad from where she’s fallen asleep on the couch at 9PM, but the repeating stock string soundtrack multiplies one’s discomfort as such that we would all end up in the fetal position without remembering the transition were it not for the appearance of trusty old Dank Jenkins, who’s face I thankfully associate heavily enough with [his infamous ](https://twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/389432783304548352)[*down-and-out*](https://twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/389432783304548352)[ Tweet](https://twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/389432783304548352) to be a welcome respite in attention before the very scary hypothesis for which it’s been buttering me up, as best summed by Vlad:\n\n> The system would be able to “plug gaps in its knowledge and refine its model of human behavior” — not just your particular behavior or mine, but that of the entire human species. “By thinking of user data as multigenerational,” explains Foster, “it becomes possible for emerging users to benefit from the preceding generation’s behaviors and decisions.” Foster imagines mining the database of human behavior for patterns, “sequencing” it like the human genome, and making “increasingly accurate predictions about decisions and future behaviors.” \n\nThe next time the *what if they do something scary* question comes up in a casual conversation about Google, you’ll have something a lot more substantial than just speculation. Or will you? *The Verge* reached out for comment and got an awfully convenient response.\n\n> This is a thought-experiment by the Design team from years ago that uses a technique known as ‘speculative design’ to explore uncomfortable ideas and concepts in order to provoke discussion and debate. \n\nWow! Leave it up to grand ole Googe to reveal the ultimate excuse for just about any suggestion or behavior, though it does seem almost *deliberately* uncomfortable, doesn’t it? No matter — whether or not this video was ever about a project or tangible product development, or simply to *explore uncomfortable ideas* because it is proof that the company has reached that critical Vatican stage — if you’ll remember — where they now feel comfortable *exploring* Very Bad, but Very easily made Real Ideas amongst themselves about what would happen if they allowed their system to *nudge its users* around a different, slightly less optimal route to the bar, let’s say — without their knowledge — in order for the system to collect traffic data for the sake of its own interests? Which would be, technically, in the interest of all Ledger users now and in the future, so why not?\n\n> The ledger could be given a focus, shifting it from a system which not only tracks our behavior, but offers direction towards a desired result.” \n\nThis, my dear privacy-obsessed friends, is the *real issue* with data collection — its power over huge groups by way of their behavior and it is *never* going to be remedied in any significant way by ad-blockers or VPNs because the EndUser shall always out number you 50 to 1, even decades from now. EndUser does not understand — or, crucially, *have any desire* to understand anything technical about what leads to the PewDiePie videos playing on his filthy screen. Here’s a great opportunity to escape Silicon Valley’s technolibertarianism and resign your Darwinian empathy in favor of meaningful and truly-effective action: if you want to avoid a future Google Church (or Google Government, more worryingly,) you should invest your time, effort, and knowledge into electing officials more capable of understanding and regulating Big Tech.\n\n## Google Government\n\nThe internet as it stands is made possible by Google as *the* goto resource for online advertising. In 2016, “Google held 75.8 percent of the search ad market, bringing in $24.6 billion in revenue from search ads,” [according to ](https://www.recode.net/2017/3/14/14890122/google-search-ad-market-share-growth)[*Recode*](https://www.recode.net/2017/3/14/14890122/google-search-ad-market-share-growth). By 2019, “that’s expected to grow to $36.62 billion in revenue, or 80.2 percent of the market.” Google’s edge in user behavior and targeted advertising combined with their extensive resources available developers to integrate independent platforms with Google’s software services at various levels makes it very difficult for any advertising-funded individual or organization to compete online without dipping in to the Google universe. YouTube — a Google property since 2006 — has actively invested in and supported a new career path entirely within their own platform that is rapidly becoming [popularly aspired-to by young children](https://metro.co.uk/2018/01/19/children-now-more-likely-to-want-to-become-youtubers-than-actors-7241396/), while the reality of existence as a full-time YouTuber is [far less glamorous](https://medium.com/@robertoblake/what-nobody-tells-you-about-being-a-youtuber-the-youtube-middle-class-378b77eb8bc9) than the immediately-visible surface would indicate, and the effort already expended by my generation in its pursuit has already [made us insane](http://bit.ly/searchchildren).\n\n<blockquote class=""twitter-tweet"" data-lang=""en"" data-dnt=""true"" data-link-color=""#00006b""><p lang=""en"" dir=""ltr"">thanks google. <a href=""https://t.co/1jRtrD77R3"">pic.twitter.com/1jRtrD77R3</a></p>— David Blue (@NeoYokel) <a href=""https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/914767928456749056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"">October 2, 2017</a></blockquote> <script async src=""https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"" charset=""utf-8""></script>\n\nSo, what would the internet look like if Google didn’t exist? We know they’ve been working with the government now on various projects, but what if some terrible exposed transgression of theirs suddenly warranted an immediate shutdown and seizure of all Google properties? Well, we know from [a post on Quora](https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-Google-were-to-shut-down-for-30-minutes) by Googler Ashish Kedia that even 5 years ago, the sudden absence of Google for “2–3 mins” set the internet into a bit of a panic, reducing overall traffic by 40%. In the time since, we’ve all grown exponentially more dependent on Google properties: billions of people rely on Google Maps for directions and, thousands of companies (including the Pentagon and other government institutions) rely on Gmail and GSuites for intercommunication, file sharing, task management, etc., and more and more academic institutions rely on Chromebook devices running connection-dependent operating systems. It’s not much of a stretch to argue that Google’s sudden disappearance would constitute a Civil Emergency in the United States, which will only become a stronger and more serious incentive for regulatory bodies to look the other way.\n\nThough the tangible results of advertising have been quantified significantly in the past 20 years, one can’t help but wonder after watching YouTube ads for the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class on toy unboxing videos if the companies who spend big bucks on Google advertising understand where their money is going, but they know that if they *don’t* advertise there, their competitors will. This, of course, is a fundamental practice of a monopoly, and it’s yielded Google so much fucking money that they cannot possibly spend it fast enough, as evidenced by [their investments in life extension](https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/4/27/15409672/google-calico-secretive-aging-mortality-research) — so that, perhaps, they will have more time on Earth to figure it out.\n\nWhen you build a collection of the world’s smartest people in a [self-sufficient environment](https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/googles-monastic-vision-for-the-future-of-work) that discourages exploration of other lifestyles and ideas, and you sustain the society with a gargantuan, relatively low-maintenance revenue stream, you create a culture which is not only well-primed for isolationism, but is also extremely inefficient. In fact, with its [vast collection of abandoned products and properties](https://www.computerworlduk.com/galleries/it-vendors/google-graveyard-3508070/), Google must surely be one of the most inefficient companies in history. Thinking back on recent software releases along with its [recent entries into the hardware space](https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/4/16405184/rick-osterloh-interview-new-google-hardware-vision-htc-deal), Google is also one of the worst competing tech companies. Very little aside from Gmail, Google Photos, Google Maps, and Chrome have found their place or garnered significant usership. Google Play Music is unintuitive and impossible, Google Allo and Google+ are all but forgotten addendums to other services, and Google Search — its core, original function — has been [out of control](https://theoutline.com/post/1430/google-finally-realized-that-racist-search-results-are-a-problem) for years, and all of them are designed blandly and excruciatingly tiring to look at.\n\n## Google Shun\n\nIf this all has stirred nothing more in you than a desire to eliminate Google from your own online life as much as possible, there *are* alternatives in almost every one of the sphere’s they dominate. As of late, [DuckDuckGo](https://duckduckgo.com/about) has accumulated a fair amount of [buzz and coverage](https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/may/19/google-facebook-security-data-duckduckgo) as a private, more relevant alternative to Google’s plain old search engine. Though it is clever enough to list us as the first result for “extratone,” I’ve found it simply insufficient as a replacement in my own life because, essentially, it rarely delivers what I’m looking for. By contrast, [Dropbox Paper](http://dropbox.com/paper) is such an elegant cloud notetaking and word processing software that it makes Google Docs look simply idiotic (and warrants its own review very shortly.) For getting around, know that [MapQuest](https://www.mapquest.com) is not only [still around](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/does-mapquest-still-exist-as-a-matter-of-fact-it-does/2015/05/22/995d2532-fa5d-11e4-a13c-193b1241d51a_story.html) — it’s now a very competitive mobile navigation app.\n\nI, myself, have allowed Google as complete of access to my information and behavior as possible because I believe “privacy” is a completely futile endeavor if one wishes to be a part of society, though I do often use alternatives to Google services simply because I *fucking hate* the way they look. If you want a more complete list of services and software that allow one to shun the Google God entirely, you’ll be forced to seek out less dignified sources like [*Lifehacker*](https://lifehacker.com/5876794/going-google-free-the-best-alternatives-to-google-services-on-the-web) and [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/antigoogle/) and decide if the additional time you’ll spend using most of them to accomplish the same tasks is really worth your digital angst.\n\nIf Google were to be more explicit with its users and staff about its aspirations to take over control of our lives, there will be little to do but accept the future they intend to create because they’ve long been too powerful to control. In the meantime, I’d suggest you continue to use whatever software works best for you and refrain from wasting your time fretting on conspiratorial suppositions of what the tech industry may be doing to “invade your privacy,” because there is no longer any such thing, nor will there be ever again. However, I would also urge to you worship your own Gods, whomever they may be, for Google will never be worthy. I, for one, shall only pray to our Mother Sun.\n\n#spectacle" | |
| krs0o22dkuul8jhc,why,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/why,2018-05-22T19:53:03Z,Why I Write About Technology,"\n\n## An autobiographical overview of my personal history with technology and its contributions to my current perspective.\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://github.com/extratone/bilge/raw/main/audio/Why.mp3"">\n</audio>\n\nIncalculable odds were against my arrival in this world happening in early 1994, positioning my life within a timeline that would allow me to bridge my two species’ most significant millenniums in the first grade as a student in the first class at Fairview Elementary school to receive curriculum-mandated exposure to brand-new Windows 98 PCs in its brand-new, fluorescent-lit computer lab in the center core of its 50-year-old rectangular brick structure. The lab also meant that ours was the first Fairview class to have the available relief of air conditioning during the school day. It’s unlikely that I would be home sick and watching the last television ever allowed in my mother’s living room as the second plane hit.\n\nMy peers and I would form a picogeneration without a name (perhaps we should be called the 9/11ers) — 91s and 92s wouldn’t have regular access to public school machines until they’d eclipsed the true prime of their development, and were just that much further along, mentally, to being able to comprehend the huge and terrifying concepts of 1) New York and 2) burning alive — while 98s like my niece were spared any such comprehension of death at all, yet now have to face the existentially future-sundering, darkly-mirrored reality of the Trump Presidency during the most critically uncertain period in the last stage of their brain’s transition to adulthood.\n\nIf there is truth in the cross-cultural supposition that souls have some sort of choice, pre-conception, over when they’re born, my own must have either cleaned out the house, or lost horrible, though I suspect I’ll never be able to confidently wager either way. This question of *how lucky or unlucky am I to be alive right now* is one which I find most fascinating — not just within myself, but within others my age. I declare us a generation largely because of my experiences under the assumption that my mid-Missouri upbringing represents the ultimate average in the American experiences of the time as the area has been a reliable sample of the clearest average of the country’s cultural, political, and economic life. Technically, it was quite unlikely that I arrive here as a new human being instead of China or India, and what if that, too was my choice?\n\nThough less so, it was still against chance that I would be born to parents who would divorce very quickly after my birth, before my mind was able to form any tangible long-term memories, sparing me whatever pain could’ve resulted from their greater togetherness later nullified in front of me. I could’ve chosen them as well for the variety of experiences their situation would allow me as I grew up between my father’s 800-acre farm and my mother’s suburban house in Columbia, the college town an hour’s drive south. I write about my experiences now — so young — because I’ve likely already born witness to more extraordinary changes in human development than your parents, their parents, and their parents’ parents combined. At 24, my life has already spanned by far the most profound and expedited informational renaissance in human history — greater progress was made between the day I first rode a bicycle and the one on which I took my driver’s test than in thousands of years before it.\n\nThe sum of my father’s ordeals between 1950 and 1974 — from his birth until the age I am now — would indeed include watching a man set foot on a spatial body other than Earth for the first time, but would be mostly defined by work on the family’s soybean, corn, and wheat farms in central Illinois, driving carbureted tractors pulling cultivating equipment of the same basic design and function as had been pulled by horses, mules, and oxen for hundreds of years, and other implements — like the mechanical multi-row planter — that were new technology at the beginning of the century. For neighbors, he would walk behind the path of a square hay baler next to a moving flatbed trailer, upon which he would throw the 70–100 lb. rectangles of dead compacted grass by their twine through thick cowhide gloves. All of this I would get to experience in the next century on *his* farm, using the exact same equipment.\n\nAt home, he would watch NBC, ABC, and CBS on a CRT TV, as I would for several years until wireless television was legally transitioned to digital statewide in the summer of 2009. As an adolescent, he would form a business with friends cleaning out old abandoned barns in exchange for the rights of ownership to any finds inside, which led to his discovery of a hay-preserved 1929 Buick Sedan containing hand-written records of its every service. This car would change hands into his Uncle’s care as he went off to school in Champaign, married in Georgia, and eventually settled on the flat clay soil of the farm where I grew up, right on the border between Audrain and Monroe counties, Missouri. I was about 10 when we drove back to the family hub with a trailer in tow to collect the car from my Great Uncle, to my manic excitement.\n\nUp until my mid-teens, my life was defined by my extreme reverence for historic cars, airplanes, tractors, and watercraft, and the time I spent operating, maintaining, restoring, or simply studying the assortment of these which I was allowed — often because of extraordinary circumstances — would form the component of my psychology which seeks to experience different cultures, ideas, and eras through the medium of engineering and design and relies on these to understand them. Like my father in his youth, I would learn to clean water out of a carburetor after the Oliver 88 had sat silent for too long, and I would piss in a chamber pot to avoid waking up my Grandfather by walking down creaking attic stairs and turning the lights on. I would learn how to shoot and drive before 10-years-old, and I would have the freedom to do both as I pleased on the miles of gravel roads that ran around home.\n\nThough my stepfather bought me a PC of my own just as my first-grade computer class was ending, I could not conceive of a reason to occupy the dial-up line and block his incoming calls or faxes, so my use of the machine was limited to sparse writing and aggravating attempts to run Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 at approximately one frame per second on a 300MHz single-core Pentium II CPU. Though I was *extremely* fortunate compared to most middle-class kids my age at the time to have my own computer in my room, my relationship with it was not significant or particularly involved. I would leave it powered down for weeks at a time until my last two grades at Fairview, when homework assignments began to require it.\n\nPerhaps the greatest gap between my mostly-suburbanite classmates and I was an exposure to Japanese entertainment and video games. I was once disallowed from a lunch table because I’d never heard of Pokémon or Luigi, but I *did* have a Sony Playstation at home on which I occasionally loaded *A Bug’s Life* to wander around its first level, perhaps in basal awe at the idea of manipulating what I saw on a screen in realtime. In self-imposed isolation from children my age, I wouldn’t develop any need to be socially competitive with video games as many of my peers would to carry with them into adulthood. I thought my interests in mechanical engineering to be above all of them, so I spent my time alone with heavy picturebooks on 20th century cars, tractors, and airplanes.\n\nOn the farm, my consistently agriculturally-proactive father was one of the first to have satellite internet for farm futures and weather reports on a pre-GUI machine which I don’t remember. As I was becoming computer literate in school, he would become extremely frustrated with the Windows XP-running machine he’d bought from a one-man, one-room computer shop in Centralia, and I would often solve some problem with bloatware or the goddamned printer. He would also subscribe to and install a first-generation DirectTV receiver, which had the first on-screen program guide I’d ever seen. In the evenings, I would watch hours of *Modern Marvels* on The History Channel, which presented the history, abstract functional theory, and implementation of a particular technology, both past and future. This single program — which has aired nearly 700 episodes since 1995 — is probably responsible for the majority of my at least rudimentary general knowledge in a variety of historic and “future” technological schools, and my curiosity about culture’s relationship with innovation.\n\nThough my father’s interests differed significantly from mine — he thought more about growing and raising than of the tools one used to do it — he would indulge my many questions about how engines, hydraulics, and electrical systems worked, and indulged my curiosity by exposing me to the hidden communities of the most elderly, most obscure historic machinery enthusiasts like those of the Midwest Old Threshers Reunion in Mount Pleasant, Iowa — the Concours d’Elegance for antique tractor and reciprocating engine collectors. It was a similar event closer to home where I first operated a steam tractor — great, field-going locomotive-like vehicles that supplanted a need for horsepower in the late-1800s up until the Great Depression which chug, whistle, and puff along just like rail locomotives with a huge, gritty, iron steering wheel. As I recall, I was also given the opportunity to drive an unrestored Model T truck around the grounds that day — the knowledge from which I gained I cannot imagine being of much use ever again.\n\nI was proud to the point of arrogance of my technical knowledge and experience in all the different things I had driven and operated, which my schoolmates were in no position to understand. I was elitist and anti-social about this as late as 8th grade, when I had just moved in to stay with my mother, who bought me a first generation iPhone which I proudly wore in a leather belt holster to Junior High. It would represent a shift in my fascination from very old technology toward the present and future.\n\nI started talking online with a friend I’d first met years before at Fairview, who spent most of his time fiddling with his first-generation MacBook Pro. He originally exposed me to gadget bloggers on YouTube like Mark Watson and Jon Rettinger (both of whom are still full-time tech personalities.) My mom bought me a 13-inch aluminum-bodied MacBook (which would be sold as MacBook Pro after a single year,) and my lifestyle radically shifted inside my room, my computer, and my Xbox 360. My friend and I would both obsess together over software, design, and gadget - experimenting with our own tech YouTube channels until high school, where I would be adopted by a new friend group who would finally socialize me.\n\nRecently, I have written about the contrasts and discrepancies of consumer technology development as its progress has disconnected from the upward linear trajectory in use, quality, and genuine innovation for the End User in a departure which has been especially visible from my perspective as an academically-untrained, but intensely demanding user in the past five years. When hardware was still the industry focus before ~2012, there was a tremendous amount of optimism among journalists and enthusiasts because each successive generation of devices had added more tangible capabilities. Publications like *Gizmodo* and *Engadget* made a fortune publishing reviews and comparison tests of hardware offerings across every segment of tech, and the discourse they generated had a noticeable influence on design. I remember this time well because it accented my last few years before adulthood, when I had plenty of spare time, energy, and curiosity to keep up.\n\nThe general consumer technology narrative since Steve Jobs’ death has become increasingly more about the companies who design and sell hardware and software than about how and why their consumers actually use them, and the result has been a series of new product segments with little defensible place in my own linear timeline of innovation, especially where productivity is involved. Augmented and Virtual Reality are quite explicitly escapist industries, yet to fill any significant need which was before unfilled. The same could be argued about voice assistants and smartwatches — neither of which *remove* obstacles in most users’ day-to-day lives but instead *contribute* to the array of tasks and devices which already seek their attention.\n\nOf course, there are defensibly sound business incentives behind the industry’s new, fragmented direction, but I would also argue that there are those, too, for genuinely revisiting both _what we should be doing_ and what we should be seeking to _learn to do_ with technology. In a more abstract sense, I have written about whether or not we should want to be living in this particular now, and how the way we feel about the future should inform what we do in the present.\n\nI cannot help but observe human progress from a perspective of powerlessness, acute alienation, and amused awe, which has already lent to a significant quantity of occasionally original thoughts as I watch, having witnessed an odd diversity of American life and culture. I’ve published them to entertain and to demonstrate a few methods of reflection on what it is *you* really want from the times you are living.\n\n#meta #software #spectacle" | |
| 7lbcsen0e8n83zh7,solo-star-wars-film-review,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/solo-star-wars-film-review,2018-05-25T18:30:00Z,‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ Is Dumb Luck Wrapped in Toxic Themes,"\n\n## The repugnant missteps of ‘Star Wars’ in the hands of Ron Howard and the long-awaited conclusions about the nature of cinema’s luckiest character to which they lead.\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://github.com/extratone/bilge/raw/main/audio/TTS/solo.m4a"">\n</audio>\n\nIt's opening night at the Bagdad Theater on Hawthorne in Southeast Portland and hardly anybody’s bothered to show up. Less than 20% of the venue’s 500 seats are occupied by the time the host takes the stage to introduce *Solo*, but those who *are* here for the last Thursday showing have been shouting, whooping, and gurgling bad approximations of wookiee noises since the screen cut to black from its ad slideshow. If my middle row can be assumed an accurate sample, only a handful of these are “fans” enough to feel compelled to wear a *Star Wars* t-shirt. As I grab my last cocktail, the bartender tells me that only 300 folks showed up for the evening matinee, though he himself was “excited” to see the movie — one of a minority among Portlanders, apparently, who still give a shit about *Star Wars.*\n\nBy design, *Solo: A Star Wars Story* is a *slightly* more complex film than The Episodes in the same way *Rogue One* was, if a bit better executed, narratively. First, please rest assured that Alden Ehrenreich assumes the Han Solo persona as truly as anyone could — he triumphed through a [ridiculously extensive casting process](https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2016/10/05/phil-lord-chris-miller-fox-son-of-zorn-last-man-earth-making-history/90722222/), and is certainly handsome enough (if not more conventionally so than his predecessor) to consistently look the part. He actually bears an unsettling resemblance in features and mannerisms to one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met and that through-and-through boyishness particularly makes sense here, set in Han’s formative, earnest youth — the stated purpose of the film’s existence. Franchise fanatics, then, should be content. (It’s a good thing CGI-ing the main character in a live action film isn’t quite a low-risk option yet.) And yes, Donald Glover completely *steals* the vain, infinitely stylish Lando Calrissian and inevitably makes one wish to [see him cast again](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/05/lando-calrissian-movie-donald-glover). Personally, I am very tired of seeing Woody Harrelson, though all the [components of his public persona](https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/jan/07/woody-harrelson-i-used-to-have-my-head-up-my-ass-) should all but ensure his likability. From [what I saw in *Three Billboards*](http://extratone.com/three-billboards-outside-ebbing-missouri-review), I’d concede that he is as talented of an actor as I am capable of appreciating, but his role as Tobias Beckett in *Solo* couldn’t possibly be substantial enough to actually make use of his craft.\n\nThough I don’t believe in “spoilers,” or use of the term to bait readers, it’s worth stating for the record what everyone should know by now: **there simply aren’t spoilers in a Star Wars movie** — every human being on Earth knows too much about the formula to ever have any of these films’ comparatively irrelevant plots “ruined.” The most surprising, historically-significant decision of this whole production was the [omission](http://screencrush.com/does-solo-have-an-opening-crawl/) of the traditional yellow type opening crawl over a backdrop of distant stars, which I genuinely found myself missing. (Apparently it wasn’t present in *Rogue One*, either — I just failed to catch it.) I was very pleased to see my own number one favorite device of the franchise used within this film’s first ten minutes: crimelords and gang leaders as hugely magnified variations of the creeping and crawling creatures our instincts are planned to abhor. *Solo*’s first villain — the gigantic, wormlike boss Lady Proxima (Linda Hunt) — is completely inconsequential, and only appears in a single scene, but the practice of grossly oversized monstrosities leaving absolutely nothing of a baddie’s essence to be extrapolated by the audience from nuance is one of very few ways these films are let loose, and it openly shits on the more pretentious viewer’s assumptions about good writing, which I think big money movies should feel more comfortable doing, generally.\n\nThis first act begins on Han’s home planet Corellia — the bleaker urban, industrial, working-class counterpart to the clean capitol cityworld Coruscant — with his rather predictable mission to escape Lady Proxima’s sphere of control with his girl, Qi-ra (Emilia Clarke,) who could and should have been more creatively named, given her importance not as her own character with depth to develop (a no-no for a female role, Gourd help us,) but as Han’s mirror image to grow darkly apart, proving that he — *The Good Guy* — is unquestionably more morally fortified than anyone else in the whole goddamned universe. After having been drug through so very many, I couldn’t tell you at this point how to make the introductory escape action of this sort of production more exciting and less formulaic. Big surprise — their plan goes awry, and Qi-ra is prevented from leaving the planet with Han, who’s immediate (and I mean *immediate*)solution is his enlistment in the Imperial Navy via the recruiting station right there in the damned spaceport (during which the film takes the liberty of seizing his surname’s explanation) to serve the English in their grand conquest of the universe. Bizarrely, he manages to serve as a grunt for *three whole years* of complicity in unmentioned atrocities until he encounters the disguised criminal Wise Old Woody in the middle of pulling a job with his two-person crew. The team doesn’t agree to bring Solo along until he meets an asset in Chewbacca for the first time as he briefly inhabits another of the classic *Star Wars* trap: *the hungry monster in a shadow-filled mud pit*, but is spared the wrath because of his introductory grasp on Chewie’s shrieking language (called [Shyriiwook](https://web.archive.org/web/20061201002846/http://www.starwars.com/databank/character/chewbacca/)) in which he manages to sufficiently pitch the advantages of his survival, and the two escape, chained together. Observing the addition of Wookiee to the deal, the crew briefly debates the prospect’s new value in providing “needed muscle,” which convinces Woody to return for them and kicks off a series of case studies in this film’s bizarre attitude toward the commodification of the oppressed.\n\nHowever, in a rare depiction of his volition, Chewbacca *is* briefly consulted before the two seek to be formally included on the job, and is even asked around a campfire, later, what he’s shooting for in life at the moment, to which he responds “finding my family/tribe.” Despite having spent a whole three hellish years in the trenches with the British, the romantic Han Solo declares his primary motivation for all of it still lies in his desire to return to Corellia and rescue Qi’ra. In their stolen Imperial ship, the lot descend on a snowy mountain-traversing Maglev to steal the Uranium it’s transporting in a scene that’s straight up jacked from animated family classic *The Polar Express*, but… *oh no!…* A gaggle of “marauders” called the *Cloud Riders* (yet another throwaway proper noun) roll up on [those speeder bikes from Endor](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/74-Z_speeder_bike) (except these can fly,) and screw up everything *so* badly that both of Woody’s crew end up dead and the booty scuttled. After the fact, Woody reveals to Han that the job was contracted by yet *another* carelessly-named crime syndicate — *Crimson Dawn*, and that his only possible course of action is now vigorous brown nosing to its leader, Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany) ((aka Scarred Jarvis,)) in the waning hope he’ll spare his life to make another attempt. Following this information, he firmly suggests that Han and Chewie fuck off, lest their faces become known in the underworld, dooming them to serving it forever, apparently. Already, this vague presumption of Han’s purity which all of the protagonists must constantly venerate in martyrdom is getting tiresome, as is the dynamic of his insistence against them.\n\nNaturally, both Chewie and Han end up along for a visit to Scarred Jarvis’ tower yacht, where the latter *very* conveniently stumbles upon none other than his long lost love, Qi-ra in the bar. Despite having spent the past three years at war in unspeakable conditions thinking only of how to liberate and be reunited with her, he isn’t bothered to express more than the moderately-excited and surprised hug you’d expect of someone who’s just run into the kid down the cul-de-sac from their childhood home who used to ride her bike over for popsicles on Sunday afternoons. While he does rehearse for her the tale of their reunification as his one motivation for everything since they were separated — including his presence there, “right now,” he follows the profession up quite abruptly with the sly suggestion that they fuck as soon as possible. True to trope, she is jaded and indefinite as she distantly implies her binds of servitude while flashing the tattoo of the extremely-forgettable and innocuous Crimson Dawn logo on her right wrist. (The total lameness of the brands in this movie *must* be intentional. I can think of no other explanation.)\n\nThe evil Scarred Jarvis is then introduced, quickly stealing the crown for Best Host of all *Star Wars A*ntagonists before politely asking Woody why he shouldn’t kill the lot of them. As per his infinite luck, Han pulls the idea of stealing *unrefined* Uranium out of his ass, which has somehow never occurred to anyone else in the room, despite their unanimous top-of-the-head knowledge of the single location where it is mined. Shortly, the merry three plus Qi-ra conveniently in tow are off to a casino-esque establishment to find Lando, who Qi-ra describes as “attractive, stylish, charming,” and like adjectives, to Han’s obvious sexual chagrin, which is furthered by his subsequent loss of a card game with Lando’s ship — the *Millennium Falcon*, of course — in the stakes. Of course, the attractive, beautifully-dressed black man only bests Solo — the earnest, simpleton, *Good Guy* white dude who wears the same outfit for decades — in front of Qi-ra, the female prize by way of sleight-of-hand, the film shamelessly playing on that strange insecurity white guys have about their partners’ secretly everpresent and very powerful temptation to dump them without warning for black cock. Further emasculation is inflicted on poor little Han when Lando turns his *oh-so-crafty* (actually just very charismatic) charm upon Qi-ra, who reveals that *she’s* the boss of the gig. The final blow to Han’s dickitude is cast when he tries to enter the negotiation between the two and Lando chides “the adults are speaking,” but eventually agrees to provide them a lift for a 25% cut, so the lot make preparations to leave.\n\nEnter my new favorite character of the franchise, Lando Calrissian’s co-pilot, L3–37 (voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge,) or “L3,” the proudly sentient, violently revolutionary pro-rights droid who is introduced as she is pleading with two fighting droids in a square cage surrounded by screaming spectators (easy does it on that thematic slavery) to circumvent their “fighting programs” because they “don’t have to do this.” Though Lando and the crew behave like her duress is foolish and unimportant — pulling her away to the *Falcon —* she is allowed another opportunity to free droids very soon, but not before *Solo*’s single short private conversation between two female characters.\n\nOn the way to Kessel, Qi-ra stops by the cockpit and converses with L3. Until recently, I was unaware of what’s largely regarded as the worst habit of male writers with female characters: **if and when they have a one-on-one conversation between another female character, it’s only about other male characters**. Sure enough, L3 begins by insisting to Qi-ra that Han is in love with her, insisting by the objective findings of her sensors — which Qi-ra uncharacteristically denies like a bashful little girl before L3 continues on about Lando’s longtime love for *her*, and why it must remain unrequited, which we are encouraged to laugh at by the doubt Qi-ra voices without much hesitation regarding the hypothetical union’s sexual mechanics because it’s so *preposterous.*(I’ll get back to that in a moment.)\n\nWhen the team arrives on Kessel and infiltrates the mine, L3 creates a “distraction” when she begins removing the restraining bolts from droids in the control room, calling the practice *savage*, or *uncivilized*, or maybe *barbarian —* I don’t quite remember. As she frees them without any noticeable detraction from her duties as Seth Green of the heist — hacking controls, remotely opening doors, and all that — the droids begin to help free others in an exponentially multiplying circle of liberation until they become a rowdy mob who’s *cute* acts of rebellion are spaced throughout a few minutes of screentime in short jumpcuts off the other crew as they fight deeper into the mine. With the most significant emphasis ever placed upon Chewbacca in *Star Wars* history, he halts when he spies slave Wookiees struggling to find off enforcers and informs Han that he’s going to break off and assist them. Since Chewie’s only allowed to speak to the audience through Han’s retorts and never directly, it’s impossible to know how he phrased it, exactly, but from my perspective, his appeared to be the expression of a wish to do what Han had to *agree* to release him to do, as would a master, not a “partner.” Of course, Solo *does* agree, albeit hesitantly, because he’s *The Good Guy*, while quite inconsiderately expressing his desire to see Chewie again soon instead of wishing him success. However, releasing him to free his people (as per his primary life goal, expressed before,) means that Han has to load *twelve* of the *super heavy* unrefined Uranium tubes onto the cart *all by himself* and push it fully loaded at least *50 whole yards* without the assistance of his big strong slave. Boy, *what a pain in the ass!* He’s spared his laboring, though, when Chewbacca returns after no time at all with the enslaved Wookiees he’s just heroically rescued, who he then *immediately asks to assist his master* in pushing the cart — performing the *same labor* they were forced to do under the enslavement they were supposedly liberated from, seconds before.\n\nThe heist has inadvertently (nice, huge emphasis on *inadvertently*) ignited a slave rebellion throughout the mine, which serves the crew only as a distraction for the guards. The chaos is interrupted a half dozen times or so by those jumpcuts back to the control room of *adorable little droids* enacting their pitifully amusing revenge on the equipment — slapping a keyboard with a cookie sheet-like pan, stomping on a control panel, etc. — while L3 shouts parodical quasi-Marxist battlecries, which… yes… include referring to the freed droids as “comrades.” She even radios Lando at one point and triumphantly proclaims that she’s “found her true calling.”\n\n> If and when a female character has a one-on-one conversation with another female character, it’s only about other male characters.\n\nBy the time the Uranium cart is within its last few yards of the awaiting *Falcon*, the riot has reached the landing bay and the guards around its perimeter have readjusted their priorities to disabling the ship’s landing gear. This interrupts Lando in the cockpit, who has chosen this time to work on dictating his autobiography because he’s a man who bothers to dresses himself well and is therefore oh so *maniacally, comically*, and *unreasonably* vain! How berserk! Still looking good as hell, he emerges and stands on the ramp to cover the rest of the crew’s return and loading of the dangerous Uranium with blaster fire, shouting the obligatory intermittent “come on, hurry up,” until L3 appears, also firing a blaster and shouting until she arrives in front of Lando, before noticing some commotion(?) with droids behind her and turning around, again fervently shouting more liberation cries. Lando doesn’t budge from the *Falcon*’s side, but yells after her, until he watches as she is shot repeatedly and falls, prompting him to run to her side. Filmed unnecessarily gruesomely, her head and shoulders separate from what’s left of her lower body when he first tries to hoist her up. Of course, his recklessness gets him shot in the arm, so Chewie returns to carry them both to the safety of the ship, where the injured Lando holds her head lovingly in his arms for her last moments, repeating “I can fix you, I can fix you.”\n\nNow, I understand that *Star Wars* movies (or their reviews, for that matter) are not the sort of entertainment one seeks out in order to examine the dynamics of power structures or elaborate cultural symbolism, but they all contain a significant amount of both. The sterile, cold, and bureaucratic Galactic Empire is the British Empire, the Rebellion and the Republic are the United States or its colonial precursors, the Jedi are vaguely Native American, and the Death Star is the Boston Tea Party. You’ve recognized this, I’m sure because it’s shoved in your ears most explicitly by their accents, and less so in your face by aesthetic influences, tactical philosophies, command etiquette, and posture, even. *Solo*’s main character is soaking in American Old Westness, which may or may not have led to its liberal saturation with the themes of individual rights, slavery, and liberation. Regardless, they’re certainly present, and most of them disturbingly for comedic effect.\n\nAs a silent character to the audience, it’s understandable that Chewbacca had too many limitations to occupy a strong second to Han Solo’s lead in the narrative’s eye, and perhaps the relationship between the two as portrayed in the previous films reeked so strongly of servitude that it was an inevitable element when the time came to write them their very own movie. In direct contrast to the firm place of all droids in the social hierarchy of the last 9 movies — addressing humans as “Master,” unapologetically spoken of as property, and traded and/or gifted as such by both protagonists and antagonists, etc. — what we see of Lando and L3 together is a genuinely and complexly affectionate partnership between equals, which *Solo* makes an effort to emphasize, if only to laugh at.\n\nIn response to the forced violence between two drones for spectator sport, L3 is completely enraged, and she cries (among other things) “we are sentient!,” but her distress is trivialized as hysterical distraction (see: *Django Unchained*.) When she suggests to Qi-ra that Lando (who is already illegitimized as a cheating narcissist, and therefore effeminate) is attracted to her, it’s a joke (which many in my audience laughed at) at the expense of her trivialized sexuality. After she triumphs and declares the liberation of her kind to be her true cause, she is immediately destroyed fighting for its sake, yet her ideology is not once acknowledged by her fleshy companions, and her body is quickly gutted for the data on her “central processing unit” as it’s interfaced with the *Falcon*. Granted, Lando *does* thoughtfully muse “she’s part of the ship now” shortly afterward, which would be nice, if you’d forgotten his last words were an outright lie. Lastly, it’s worth noting how apathetic the main characters themselves are toward the Kessel miners, especially as they are packing up to leave, when the camera pans over the chaotic struggle between the liberated and their guards in very close proximity to the awaiting *Falcon*, yet there was not a suggestion that they would even *consider* letting them take refuge from the violence in their very spacious freighter. Aside from Han’s or Qi-ra’s, **Solo treats liberation as charming or amusing, nothing more**.\n\nAnyway, the crown jewel of *Solo* for many fans will probably be the scene of the infamous Kessel Run, when Han Solo and Chewbacca first take the helm(?) of the *Millennium Falcon* with Lando injured and L3 dissected, using her “navigational database” to plot a very risky shortcut around the scary space cloud by the scary space squid and the scary space hole in order to make it to the site of the refinery before the volatile Uranium explodes. Once there, *darn old flakey Lando* fucks the hell of in the *Falcon* right as the Cloud Riders roll up, but *whoa!* their leader is actually a very young woman with freckles! She describes the atrocities of Crimson Dawn and suggests that Han (who’s now the established decisionmaker for whatever reason) give *them* the Uranium in order to establish “the beginning of a rebellion,” which we can safely assume is *The* Rebellion, which does beg one to wonder why Solo never once bragged among the later rebellion about having started the whole thing in the other films, considering that — *whaddya know* — he says yes!\n\nWoody, however, says he’s going to retire upon the news of this decision before immediately reappearing again on Scarred Jarvis’ yacht after he’s revealed to have betrayed the Uranium ruse to him. Qi-ra ends up killing Scarred Jarvis, saving Han, but after promising to follow him and escape, she rings up the late Scarred Jarvis’ boss — a Sith Zabrak who, I would argue, is *not necessarily* Darth Maul, though he probably is — and informs him that her boss is dead and she’s assumed his post. As Han and Woody meet again in an Old West standoff (complete with sand,) the latter insists *one more time* that Qi-ra is not who Han thinks she is (as Jarvis and Qi-ra herself have also said repeatedly,) describing her as “a survivor,” before Han kills him in self-defense.\n\nFinally, after seeing the Cloud Riders off with the Uranium, Han finds Lando once again in a card game — this time taking care to disable his sleight-of-hand device beforehand so that he wins the *Millennium Falcon*, “fair and square,” and we cut to Solo (who seems remarkably upbeat considering the recent betrayal of the lover he’d longed years to reunite with) and Chewie in her cockpit as they tie in that one last knot by declaring their destination, Tatooine, before roaring off into hyperspace, leaving the credit roll in their wake.\n\n> Solo treats liberation as charming or amusing, nothing more.\n\nOver two years ago, I concluded [my first work for *Extratone*](http://bit.ly/wigglecruise) about *The Force Awakens* by arguing that *Star Wars* on the big screen should be allowed to die in favor of investing the time, energy, and funding they require in the pursuit of something new, but the industry still appears to believe that nostalgia is a surer bet where profits are concerned, at least, even after two whole decades of mind-numbing reanimated properties. I didn’t catch *The Last Jedi* until recently, which was remarkably well-done measured against the others as a *Star Wars* movie, but certainly didn’t aim to achieve much more. Clearly, there must be some truth in Hollywood’s cowardice about original properties- especially when it comes to the sort of fantasy armed with potent but unguided emotional bombs that define the *Star Wars* universe, so it wouldn’t make much sense to revive my old diatribe, here. (Though I can assure you that I will be relentless if this horseshit continues for much longer.) *The Force Awakens* and *The Last Jedi*, though, were episodic titles for the family, and these spinoffs that began with *Rogue One* are supposed to be for… well, I’m not entirely sure. In reality, they’ve only moved the proverbial bar up a very wee bit to the family who occasionally says “shit,” because they’re not intellectually stimulating enough to justify themselves as Big Boy-only productions. Or, they wouldn’t be, were they not part of this franchise.\n\nThe truth is, the fans have grown up, and they… *I*… will still buy a ticket for the smallest crumb of hope that a product of this huge machine will be capable of making us feel even a fraction of what we felt as children watching the original films. For me, *The Force Awakens* actually did, once, in that blast of horns before the opening crawl, but it hasn’t happened since, and I should certainly stop expecting or wanting to expect that it will. For others, it’s still working. Though there was a fraction of who I expected to be in attendance with me, they did laugh at a handful of (mostly fascist) moments, and whooped, hollered, and even clapped for a few seconds at the end. I’m surprised opening night wasn’t packed because Portland is the single most nostalgia-addicted culture I’ve ever seen anywhere in the United States. Then again, there *are* a billion theaters here, so perhaps the sample is just lousy. We’ll see how tomorrow and Sunday go, but I’d be surprised if any boxoffice records were broken.\n\nIn the past, when film enthusiasts andfans have described Han Solo as “the best character in *Star Wars*,” they’ve actually been praising his *potential* as a character, not his material itself, and *Solo*’s most effective function as a franchise film was to shut that praise down. Han was not at all denied his movie — *this* is *his* movie — and it provided him the screentime to show us who he truly is and why we *really* like him so much: **he doesn’t fucking change**. The secret to Han Solo’s moral and emotional resiliency is nothing more than halted development. The same old inner conflict between the tough, ruthlessly self-interested persona he does his best to project for everyone around him and the consistent reality of his soft insides was presented in his first scene way back in 1977, and we’re now sure that he was unable to make *any* progress toward its resolution despite openly and obviously brooding over it for an entire lifetime: from at least as early as his young adulthood in this film until his death at the hands of his little Sith son. *There is 0 variation*. He *always* comes back for the cause at the crucial moment after declaring himself through with it. Without fail, he’ll sacrifice the entirety of any self-making enterprise for just about any underdog with a problem who crosses his path. (Which probably explains his constantly-fleeting success as a smuggler well into gray hair and jowls.) *Solo* is abundantly clear about Han’s true nature and very willing to expose how uninteresting it is. When he first proclaims to Qi-ra that he’s become “an outlaw,” she shuts him down with the film’s ultimate quote, insisting that she “knows who [he] *really* is: *the good guy.*”\n\nIf the video game-despising fans will bear with me for a moment, it’s worth noting that Bioware’s *Star Wars: The Old Republic* MMORPG is the most interesting and extensive source of nuanced narrative in the IP (it holds the world record for the largest voiceover project ever produced,) and most of it can now be experienced without actually playing the game. Like *Solo*, it’s set pre-saga, but considerably before — a few centuries, if I remember correctly, which gave the writers a gigantic opportunity to both expand and predestine the universe. There are eight different class stories with around 50 cumulative hours of dialog, each. A few are relatively unimaginative, but the majority are complex, exciting, emotionally-involved tales that create very rich characters, and all of them can be streamed in their entirety on YouTube. If you are willing to see the potential of a Han Solo-like character fulfilled in a different medium, the [Smuggler class story](http://bit.ly/torsmuggler) is a pretty damned engaging exploration of the *kind outlaw with conflicted identity issues* angle.\n\nFrom my perspective, *Solo*’s frequent less-than-subtle maltreatment of some very brutal and sensitive power relationships makes it the most toxic of the *Star Wars* films yet, and I assume it ended up that way, unnecessarily because Ron Howard is an all-American son of a bitch. If these titles are going to continue to be passed around between bigwhig directors, future unpleasantries are inevitable. Notably, I’ve yet to see any mention of these disturbing themes from the respectable authorities of the film criticism establishment, who’ve been overwhelmingly [charmed](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/wookiee-nights-solo-a-star-wars-story-reviewed) by *Solo*’s nostalgia. Take from that whatever you will.\n\nIf we continue to love the character Han Solo, it’ll be in the same way we love our earnest, foolish, emotionally-stunted manchild fathers who’s developmental inadequacies are often embarrassing, sometimes abusive, and thoroughly pitiful. *Solo* leaves no more room for an idealized, elegant perception of this character — he’s no more than a *pretty good guy* with a lifelong addiction to thrill-seeking and a shitload of luck.\n\nTo declare unequivocally whether or not *Solo: A Star Wars Story* is worth a trip the cinema with your date, your children, or just your own damned conscience would require me to disregard a whole host of complicating factors, but if you’ve stuck it this far with me, you’d have a lot to disregard yourself to jump in. I’d advise that parents watch it themselves before deciding whether or not it’s something worth adding to your child’s life. Of those of you like me who’ll tow the line despite what you know and watch a *Star Wars* film alone on opening night in delirium hoping for just a drop from the Fountain of Youth, I would ask: how long are we really going to keep kidding ourselves?\n\n#film" | |
| az638d3n14o2l6r4,solo-star-wars-film-review,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/solo-star-wars-film-review,2018-05-25T18:30:00Z,‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ Is Dumb Luck Wrapped in Toxic Themes,"#### by [David Blue](http://twitter.com/neoyokel)\n\n\n\n## The repugnant missteps of ‘Star Wars’ in the hands of Ron Howard and the long-awaited conclusions about the nature of cinema’s luckiest character to which they lead.\n\nIt's opening night at the Bagdad Theater on Hawthorne in Southeast Portland and hardly anybody’s bothered to show up. Less than 20% of the venue’s 500 seats are occupied by the time the host takes the stage to introduce *Solo*, but those who *are* here for the last Thursday showing have been shouting, whooping, and gurgling bad approximations of wookiee noises since the screen cut to black from its ad slideshow. If my middle row can be assumed an accurate sample, only a handful of these are “fans” enough to feel compelled to wear a *Star Wars* t-shirt. As I grab my last cocktail, the bartender tells me that only 300 folks showed up for the evening matinee, though he himself was “excited” to see the movie — one of a minority among Portlanders, apparently, who still give a shit about *Star Wars.*\n\nBy design, *Solo: A Star Wars Story* is a *slightly* more complex film than The Episodes in the same way *Rogue One* was, if a bit better executed, narratively. First, please rest assured that Alden Ehrenreich assumes the Han Solo persona as truly as anyone could — he triumphed through a [ridiculously extensive casting process](https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2016/10/05/phil-lord-chris-miller-fox-son-of-zorn-last-man-earth-making-history/90722222/), and is certainly handsome enough (if not more conventionally so than his predecessor) to consistently look the part. He actually bears an unsettling resemblance in features and mannerisms to one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met and that through-and-through boyishness particularly makes sense here, set in Han’s formative, earnest youth — the stated purpose of the film’s existence. Franchise fanatics, then, should be content. (It’s a good thing CGI-ing the main character in a live action film isn’t quite a low-risk option yet.) And yes, Donald Glover completely *steals* the vain, infinitely stylish Lando Calrissian and inevitably makes one wish to [see him cast again](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/05/lando-calrissian-movie-donald-glover). Personally, I am very tired of seeing Woody Harrelson, though all the [components of his public persona](https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/jan/07/woody-harrelson-i-used-to-have-my-head-up-my-ass-) should all but ensure his likability. From [what I saw in *Three Billboards*](http://extratone.com/three-billboards-outside-ebbing-missouri-review), I’d concede that he is as talented of an actor as I am capable of appreciating, but his role as Tobias Beckett in *Solo* couldn’t possibly be substantial enough to actually make use of his craft.\n\nThough I don’t believe in “spoilers,” or use of the term to bait readers, it’s worth stating for the record what everyone should know by now: **there simply aren’t spoilers in a Star Wars movie** — every human being on Earth knows too much about the formula to ever have any of these films’ comparatively irrelevant plots “ruined.” The most surprising, historically-significant decision of this whole production was the [omission](http://screencrush.com/does-solo-have-an-opening-crawl/) of the traditional yellow type opening crawl over a backdrop of distant stars, which I genuinely found myself missing. (Apparently it wasn’t present in *Rogue One*, either — I just failed to catch it.) I was very pleased to see my own number one favorite device of the franchise used within this film’s first ten minutes: crimelords and gang leaders as hugely magnified variations of the creeping and crawling creatures our instincts are planned to abhor. *Solo*’s first villain — the gigantic, wormlike boss Lady Proxima (Linda Hunt) — is completely inconsequential, and only appears in a single scene, but the practice of grossly oversized monstrosities leaving absolutely nothing of a baddie’s essence to be extrapolated by the audience from nuance is one of very few ways these films are let loose, and it openly shits on the more pretentious viewer’s assumptions about good writing, which I think big money movies should feel more comfortable doing, generally.\n\nThis first act begins on Han’s home planet Corellia — the bleaker urban, industrial, working-class counterpart to the clean capitol cityworld Coruscant — with his rather predictable mission to escape Lady Proxima’s sphere of control with his girl, Qi-ra (Emilia Clarke,) who could and should have been more creatively named, given her importance not as her own character with depth to develop (a no-no for a female role, Gourd help us,) but as Han’s mirror image to grow darkly apart, proving that he — *The Good Guy* — is unquestionably more morally fortified than anyone else in the whole goddamned universe. After having been drug through so very many, I couldn’t tell you at this point how to make the introductory escape action of this sort of production more exciting and less formulaic. Big surprise — their plan goes awry, and Qi-ra is prevented from leaving the planet with Han, who’s immediate (and I mean *immediate*)solution is his enlistment in the Imperial Navy via the recruiting station right there in the damned spaceport (during which the film takes the liberty of seizing his surname’s explanation) to serve the English in their grand conquest of the universe. Bizarrely, he manages to serve as a grunt for *three whole years* of complicity in unmentioned atrocities until he encounters the disguised criminal Wise Old Woody in the middle of pulling a job with his two-person crew. The team doesn’t agree to bring Solo along until he meets an asset in Chewbacca for the first time as he briefly inhabits another of the classic *Star Wars* trap: *the hungry monster in a shadow-filled mud pit*, but is spared the wrath because of his introductory grasp on Chewie’s shrieking language (called [Shyriiwook](https://web.archive.org/web/20061201002846/http://www.starwars.com/databank/character/chewbacca/)) in which he manages to sufficiently pitch the advantages of his survival, and the two escape, chained together. Observing the addition of Wookiee to the deal, the crew briefly debates the prospect’s new value in providing “needed muscle,” which convinces Woody to return for them and kicks off a series of case studies in this film’s bizarre attitude toward the commodification of the oppressed.\n\nHowever, in a rare depiction of his volition, Chewbacca *is* briefly consulted before the two seek to be formally included on the job, and is even asked around a campfire, later, what he’s shooting for in life at the moment, to which he responds “finding my family/tribe.” Despite having spent a whole three hellish years in the trenches with the British, the romantic Han Solo declares his primary motivation for all of it still lies in his desire to return to Corellia and rescue Qi’ra. In their stolen Imperial ship, the lot descend on a snowy mountain-traversing Maglev to steal the Uranium it’s transporting in a scene that’s straight up jacked from animated family classic *The Polar Express*, but… *oh no!…* A gaggle of “marauders” called the *Cloud Riders* (yet another throwaway proper noun) roll up on [those speeder bikes from Endor](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/74-Z_speeder_bike) (except these can fly,) and screw up everything *so* badly that both of Woody’s crew end up dead and the booty scuttled. After the fact, Woody reveals to Han that the job was contracted by yet *another* carelessly-named crime syndicate — *Crimson Dawn*, and that his only possible course of action is now vigorous brown nosing to its leader, Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany) ((aka Scarred Jarvis,)) in the waning hope he’ll spare his life to make another attempt. Following this information, he firmly suggests that Han and Chewie fuck off, lest their faces become known in the underworld, dooming them to serving it forever, apparently. Already, this vague presumption of Han’s purity which all of the protagonists must constantly venerate in martyrdom is getting tiresome, as is the dynamic of his insistence against them.\n\nNaturally, both Chewie and Han end up along for a visit to Scarred Jarvis’ tower yacht, where the latter *very* conveniently stumbles upon none other than his long lost love, Qi-ra in the bar. Despite having spent the past three years at war in unspeakable conditions thinking only of how to liberate and be reunited with her, he isn’t bothered to express more than the moderately-excited and surprised hug you’d expect of someone who’s just run into the kid down the cul-de-sac from their childhood home who used to ride her bike over for popsicles on Sunday afternoons. While he does rehearse for her the tale of their reunification as his one motivation for everything since they were separated — including his presence there, “right now,” he follows the profession up quite abruptly with the sly suggestion that they fuck as soon as possible. True to trope, she is jaded and indefinite as she distantly implies her binds of servitude while flashing the tattoo of the extremely-forgettable and innocuous Crimson Dawn logo on her right wrist. (The total lameness of the brands in this movie *must* be intentional. I can think of no other explanation.)\n\nThe evil Scarred Jarvis is then introduced, quickly stealing the crown for Best Host of all *Star Wars A*ntagonists before politely asking Woody why he shouldn’t kill the lot of them. As per his infinite luck, Han pulls the idea of stealing *unrefined* Uranium out of his ass, which has somehow never occurred to anyone else in the room, despite their unanimous top-of-the-head knowledge of the single location where it is mined. Shortly, the merry three plus Qi-ra conveniently in tow are off to a casino-esque establishment to find Lando, who Qi-ra describes as “attractive, stylish, charming,” and like adjectives, to Han’s obvious sexual chagrin, which is furthered by his subsequent loss of a card game with Lando’s ship — the *Millennium Falcon*, of course — in the stakes. Of course, the attractive, beautifully-dressed black man only bests Solo — the earnest, simpleton, *Good Guy* white dude who wears the same outfit for decades — in front of Qi-ra, the female prize by way of sleight-of-hand, the film shamelessly playing on that strange insecurity white guys have about their partners’ secretly everpresent and very powerful temptation to dump them without warning for black cock. Further emasculation is inflicted on poor little Han when Lando turns his *oh-so-crafty* (actually just very charismatic) charm upon Qi-ra, who reveals that *she’s* the boss of the gig. The final blow to Han’s dickitude is cast when he tries to enter the negotiation between the two and Lando chides “the adults are speaking,” but eventually agrees to provide them a lift for a 25% cut, so the lot make preparations to leave.\n\nEnter my new favorite character of the franchise, Lando Calrissian’s co-pilot, L3–37 (voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge,) or “L3,” the proudly sentient, violently revolutionary pro-rights droid who is introduced as she is pleading with two fighting droids in a square cage surrounded by screaming spectators (easy does it on that thematic slavery) to circumvent their “fighting programs” because they “don’t have to do this.” Though Lando and the crew behave like her duress is foolish and unimportant — pulling her away to the *Falcon —* she is allowed another opportunity to free droids very soon, but not before *Solo*’s single short private conversation between two female characters.\n\nOn the way to Kessel, Qi-ra stops by the cockpit and converses with L3. Until recently, I was unaware of what’s largely regarded as the worst habit of male writers with female characters: **if and when they have a one-on-one conversation between another female character, it’s only about other male characters**. Sure enough, L3 begins by insisting to Qi-ra that Han is in love with her, insisting by the objective findings of her sensors — which Qi-ra uncharacteristically denies like a bashful little girl before L3 continues on about Lando’s longtime love for *her*, and why it must remain unrequited, which we are encouraged to laugh at by the doubt Qi-ra voices without much hesitation regarding the hypothetical union’s sexual mechanics because it’s so *preposterous.*(I’ll get back to that in a moment.)\n\nWhen the team arrives on Kessel and infiltrates the mine, L3 creates a “distraction” when she begins removing the restraining bolts from droids in the control room, calling the practice *savage*, or *uncivilized*, or maybe *barbarian —* I don’t quite remember. As she frees them without any noticeable detraction from her duties as Seth Green of the heist — hacking controls, remotely opening doors, and all that — the droids begin to help free others in an exponentially multiplying circle of liberation until they become a rowdy mob who’s *cute* acts of rebellion are spaced throughout a few minutes of screentime in short jumpcuts off the other crew as they fight deeper into the mine. With the most significant emphasis ever placed upon Chewbacca in *Star Wars* history, he halts when he spies slave Wookiees struggling to find off enforcers and informs Han that he’s going to break off and assist them. Since Chewie’s only allowed to speak to the audience through Han’s retorts and never directly, it’s impossible to know how he phrased it, exactly, but from my perspective, his appeared to be the expression of a wish to do what Han had to *agree* to release him to do, as would a master, not a “partner.” Of course, Solo *does* agree, albeit hesitantly, because he’s *The Good Guy*, while quite inconsiderately expressing his desire to see Chewie again soon instead of wishing him success. However, releasing him to free his people (as per his primary life goal, expressed before,) means that Han has to load *twelve* of the *super heavy* unrefined Uranium tubes onto the cart *all by himself* and push it fully loaded at least *50 whole yards* without the assistance of his big strong slave. Boy, *what a pain in the ass!* He’s spared his laboring, though, when Chewbacca returns after no time at all with the enslaved Wookiees he’s just heroically rescued, who he then *immediately asks to assist his master* in pushing the cart — performing the *same labor* they were forced to do under the enslavement they were supposedly liberated from, seconds before.\n\nThe heist has inadvertently (nice, huge emphasis on *inadvertently*) ignited a slave rebellion throughout the mine, which serves the crew only as a distraction for the guards. The chaos is interrupted a half dozen times or so by those jumpcuts back to the control room of *adorable little droids* enacting their pitifully amusing revenge on the equipment — slapping a keyboard with a cookie sheet-like pan, stomping on a control panel, etc. — while L3 shouts parodical quasi-Marxist battlecries, which… yes… include referring to the freed droids as “comrades.” She even radios Lando at one point and triumphantly proclaims that she’s “found her true calling.”\n\n> If and when a female character has a one-on-one conversation with another female character, it’s only about other male characters.\n\nBy the time the Uranium cart is within its last few yards of the awaiting *Falcon*, the riot has reached the landing bay and the guards around its perimeter have readjusted their priorities to disabling the ship’s landing gear. This interrupts Lando in the cockpit, who has chosen this time to work on dictating his autobiography because he’s a man who bothers to dresses himself well and is therefore oh so *maniacally, comically*, and *unreasonably* vain! How berserk! Still looking good as hell, he emerges and stands on the ramp to cover the rest of the crew’s return and loading of the dangerous Uranium with blaster fire, shouting the obligatory intermittent “come on, hurry up,” until L3 appears, also firing a blaster and shouting until she arrives in front of Lando, before noticing some commotion(?) with droids behind her and turning around, again fervently shouting more liberation cries. Lando doesn’t budge from the *Falcon*’s side, but yells after her, until he watches as she is shot repeatedly and falls, prompting him to run to her side. Filmed unnecessarily gruesomely, her head and shoulders separate from what’s left of her lower body when he first tries to hoist her up. Of course, his recklessness gets him shot in the arm, so Chewie returns to carry them both to the safety of the ship, where the injured Lando holds her head lovingly in his arms for her last moments, repeating “I can fix you, I can fix you.”\n\nNow, I understand that *Star Wars* movies (or their reviews, for that matter) are not the sort of entertainment one seeks out in order to examine the dynamics of power structures or elaborate cultural symbolism, but they all contain a significant amount of both. The sterile, cold, and bureaucratic Galactic Empire is the British Empire, the Rebellion and the Republic are the United States or its colonial precursors, the Jedi are vaguely Native American, and the Death Star is the Boston Tea Party. You’ve recognized this, I’m sure because it’s shoved in your ears most explicitly by their accents, and less so in your face by aesthetic influences, tactical philosophies, command etiquette, and posture, even. *Solo*’s main character is soaking in American Old Westness, which may or may not have led to its liberal saturation with the themes of individual rights, slavery, and liberation. Regardless, they’re certainly present, and most of them disturbingly for comedic effect.\n\nAs a silent character to the audience, it’s understandable that Chewbacca had too many limitations to occupy a strong second to Han Solo’s lead in the narrative’s eye, and perhaps the relationship between the two as portrayed in the previous films reeked so strongly of servitude that it was an inevitable element when the time came to write them their very own movie. In direct contrast to the firm place of all droids in the social hierarchy of the last 9 movies — addressing humans as “Master,” unapologetically spoken of as property, and traded and/or gifted as such by both protagonists and antagonists, etc. — what we see of Lando and L3 together is a genuinely and complexly affectionate partnership between equals, which *Solo* makes an effort to emphasize, if only to laugh at.\n\nIn response to the forced violence between two drones for spectator sport, L3 is completely enraged, and she cries (among other things) “we are sentient!,” but her distress is trivialized as hysterical distraction (see: *Django Unchained*.) When she suggests to Qi-ra that Lando (who is already illegitimized as a cheating narcissist, and therefore effeminate) is attracted to her, it’s a joke (which many in my audience laughed at) at the expense of her trivialized sexuality. After she triumphs and declares the liberation of her kind to be her true cause, she is immediately destroyed fighting for its sake, yet her ideology is not once acknowledged by her fleshy companions, and her body is quickly gutted for the data on her “central processing unit” as it’s interfaced with the *Falcon*. Granted, Lando *does* thoughtfully muse “she’s part of the ship now” shortly afterward, which would be nice, if you’d forgotten his last words were an outright lie. Lastly, it’s worth noting how apathetic the main characters themselves are toward the Kessel miners, especially as they are packing up to leave, when the camera pans over the chaotic struggle between the liberated and their guards in very close proximity to the awaiting *Falcon*, yet there was not a suggestion that they would even *consider* letting them take refuge from the violence in their very spacious freighter. Aside from Han’s or Qi-ra’s, **Solo treats liberation as charming or amusing, nothing more**.\n\nAnyway, the crown jewel of *Solo* for many fans will probably be the scene of the infamous Kessel Run, when Han Solo and Chewbacca first take the helm(?) of the *Millennium Falcon* with Lando injured and L3 dissected, using her “navigational database” to plot a very risky shortcut around the scary space cloud by the scary space squid and the scary space hole in order to make it to the site of the refinery before the volatile Uranium explodes. Once there, *darn old flakey Lando* fucks the hell of in the *Falcon* right as the Cloud Riders roll up, but *whoa!* their leader is actually a very young woman with freckles! She describes the atrocities of Crimson Dawn and suggests that Han (who’s now the established decisionmaker for whatever reason) give *them* the Uranium in order to establish “the beginning of a rebellion,” which we can safely assume is *The* Rebellion, which does beg one to wonder why Solo never once bragged among the later rebellion about having started the whole thing in the other films, considering that — *whaddya know* — he says yes!\n\nWoody, however, says he’s going to retire upon the news of this decision before immediately reappearing again on Scarred Jarvis’ yacht after he’s revealed to have betrayed the Uranium ruse to him. Qi-ra ends up killing Scarred Jarvis, saving Han, but after promising to follow him and escape, she rings up the late Scarred Jarvis’ boss — a Sith Zabrak who, I would argue, is *not necessarily* Darth Maul, though he probably is — and informs him that her boss is dead and she’s assumed his post. As Han and Woody meet again in an Old West standoff (complete with sand,) the latter insists *one more time* that Qi-ra is not who Han thinks she is (as Jarvis and Qi-ra herself have also said repeatedly,) describing her as “a survivor,” before Han kills him in self-defense.\n\nFinally, after seeing the Cloud Riders off with the Uranium, Han finds Lando once again in a card game — this time taking care to disable his sleight-of-hand device beforehand so that he wins the *Millennium Falcon*, “fair and square,” and we cut to Solo (who seems remarkably upbeat considering the recent betrayal of the lover he’d longed years to reunite with) and Chewie in her cockpit as they tie in that one last knot by declaring their destination, Tatooine, before roaring off into hyperspace, leaving the credit roll in their wake.\n\n> Solo treats liberation as charming or amusing, nothing more.\n\nOver two years ago, I concluded [my first work for *Extratone*](http://bit.ly/wigglecruise) about *The Force Awakens* by arguing that *Star Wars* on the big screen should be allowed to die in favor of investing the time, energy, and funding they require in the pursuit of something new, but the industry still appears to believe that nostalgia is a surer bet where profits are concerned, at least, even after two whole decades of mind-numbing reanimated properties. I didn’t catch *The Last Jedi* until recently, which was remarkably well-done measured against the others as a *Star Wars* movie, but certainly didn’t aim to achieve much more. Clearly, there must be some truth in Hollywood’s cowardice about original properties- especially when it comes to the sort of fantasy armed with potent but unguided emotional bombs that define the *Star Wars* universe, so it wouldn’t make much sense to revive my old diatribe, here. (Though I can assure you that I will be relentless if this horseshit continues for much longer.) *The Force Awakens* and *The Last Jedi*, though, were episodic titles for the family, and these spinoffs that began with *Rogue One* are supposed to be for… well, I’m not entirely sure. In reality, they’ve only moved the proverbial bar up a very wee bit to the family who occasionally says “shit,” because they’re not intellectually stimulating enough to justify themselves as Big Boy-only productions. Or, they wouldn’t be, were they not part of this franchise.\n\nThe truth is, the fans have grown up, and they… *I*… will still buy a ticket for the smallest crumb of hope that a product of this huge machine will be capable of making us feel even a fraction of what we felt as children watching the original films. For me, *The Force Awakens* actually did, once, in that blast of horns before the opening crawl, but it hasn’t happened since, and I should certainly stop expecting or wanting to expect that it will. For others, it’s still working. Though there was a fraction of who I expected to be in attendance with me, they did laugh at a handful of (mostly fascist) moments, and whooped, hollered, and even clapped for a few seconds at the end. I’m surprised opening night wasn’t packed because Portland is the single most nostalgia-addicted culture I’ve ever seen anywhere in the United States. Then again, there *are* a billion theaters here, so perhaps the sample is just lousy. We’ll see how tomorrow and Sunday go, but I’d be surprised if any boxoffice records were broken.\n\nIn the past, when film enthusiasts andfans have described Han Solo as “the best character in *Star Wars*,” they’ve actually been praising his *potential* as a character, not his material itself, and *Solo*’s most effective function as a franchise film was to shut that praise down. Han was not at all denied his movie — *this* is *his* movie — and it provided him the screentime to show us who he truly is and why we *really* like him so much: **he doesn’t fucking change**. The secret to Han Solo’s moral and emotional resiliency is nothing more than halted development. The same old inner conflict between the tough, ruthlessly self-interested persona he does his best to project for everyone around him and the consistent reality of his soft insides was presented in his first scene way back in 1977, and we’re now sure that he was unable to make *any* progress toward its resolution despite openly and obviously brooding over it for an entire lifetime: from at least as early as his young adulthood in this film until his death at the hands of his little Sith son. *There is 0 variation*. He *always* comes back for the cause at the crucial moment after declaring himself through with it. Without fail, he’ll sacrifice the entirety of any self-making enterprise for just about any underdog with a problem who crosses his path. (Which probably explains his constantly-fleeting success as a smuggler well into gray hair and jowls.) *Solo* is abundantly clear about Han’s true nature and very willing to expose how uninteresting it is. When he first proclaims to Qi-ra that he’s become “an outlaw,” she shuts him down with the film’s ultimate quote, insisting that she “knows who [he] *really* is: *the good guy.*”\n\nIf the video game-despising fans will bear with me for a moment, it’s worth noting that Bioware’s *Star Wars: The Old Republic* MMORPG is the most interesting and extensive source of nuanced narrative in the IP (it holds the world record for the largest voiceover project ever produced,) and most of it can now be experienced without actually playing the game. Like *Solo*, it’s set pre-saga, but considerably before — a few centuries, if I remember correctly, which gave the writers a gigantic opportunity to both expand and predestine the universe. There are eight different class stories with around 50 cumulative hours of dialog, each. A few are relatively unimaginative, but the majority are complex, exciting, emotionally-involved tales that create very rich characters, and all of them can be streamed in their entirety on YouTube. If you are willing to see the potential of a Han Solo-like character fulfilled in a different medium, the [Smuggler class story](http://bit.ly/torsmuggler) is a pretty damned engaging exploration of the *kind outlaw with conflicted identity issues* angle.\n\nFrom my perspective, *Solo*’s frequent less-than-subtle maltreatment of some very brutal and sensitive power relationships makes it the most toxic of the *Star Wars* films yet, and I assume it ended up that way, unnecessarily because Ron Howard is an all-American son of a bitch. If these titles are going to continue to be passed around between bigwhig directors, future unpleasantries are inevitable. Notably, I’ve yet to see any mention of these disturbing themes from the respectable authorities of the film criticism establishment, who’ve been overwhelmingly [charmed](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/wookiee-nights-solo-a-star-wars-story-reviewed) by *Solo*’s nostalgia. Take from that whatever you will.\n\nIf we continue to love the character Han Solo, it’ll be in the same way we love our earnest, foolish, emotionally-stunted manchild fathers who’s developmental inadequacies are often embarrassing, sometimes abusive, and thoroughly pitiful. *Solo* leaves no more room for an idealized, elegant perception of this character — he’s no more than a *pretty good guy* with a lifelong addiction to thrill-seeking and a shitload of luck.\n\nTo declare unequivocally whether or not *Solo: A Star Wars Story* is worth a trip the cinema with your date, your children, or just your own damned conscience would require me to disregard a whole host of complicating factors, but if you’ve stuck it this far with me, you’d have a lot to disregard yourself to jump in. I’d advise that parents watch it themselves before deciding whether or not it’s something worth adding to your child’s life. Of those of you like me who’ll tow the line despite what you know and watch a *Star Wars* film alone on opening night in delirium hoping for just a drop from the Fountain of Youth, I would ask: how long are we really going to keep kidding ourselves?\n\n#film" | |
| ghk5drfzc0m2bexo,unsolicited-creative-advice-ryan-dell,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/unsolicited-creative-advice-ryan-dell,2018-05-28T11:00:00Z,"Unsolicited Creative Advice from a Smart, Nice Guy","##### by [Ryan Dell](http://www.ryanmarkdell.com/)\n\n\n\nHaha, hi, what’s up? I know I’m probably the 20th person to slide into your DMs today but I just couldn’t resist the ‘vibe’ on your profile. You have this alternative, quirky aesthetic, and I’m really into it. How do you even come up with your ideas? You’re a really special talent, I can tell.\n\nBefore I get into the main reason I’m sending this message — have you ever considered being a model? Not just an Instagram model, a real model. Like for a Vice marketing campaign or something. You have a really specific look and you might look good if you were photoshopped a certain way. (That was a “neg”, haha. It’s this gross pick-up artist technique, I would never do it personally but I can explain it to you in detail if you like.)\n\nOkay, so, let’s cut to the chase. Why am I sliding into your DMs? The direct messages. The old inbox-a-roonie. Well, the truth is, I saw your work on social media, and it blew my mind. I mean, whoah, to do the work you do? You must really know how to use your Macbook. Not everyone can do stuff like that. I mean, I see a lot of work on the internet, but your art, wow, you’ve got some amazing stuff online.\n\nYou have real potential, you know that? But I don’t wanna see that potential go to waste. There’s room for improvement. I mean, your work is good, don’t get me wrong, haha. But I think we could elevate it, do you know what I’m saying? Together we could take it from about a 6 and lift it to a strong 7, possibly even 8.\n\nIs it weird that I’m sending this message? I don’t want to be too pushy or anything! If these messages make you feel uncomfortable at any time let me know and I’ll stop. Just gimme a little heads-up and wave the white flag and these messages will come to a halt. No more messages — except for maybe one or two follow-ups where I try to clarify where I stand with you. Three, tops. No more than three messages to get me out of your hair. I might send a fourth farewell message, but that’d be the end of it.\n\nThe main point I have is about the way you write online. I mean, it’s good, but it needs some more formal structure. It’s not your fault, you just don’t know the convential rules of writing. You could be amazing if someone just showed you how to write properly. Maybe I could teach you how? Like, nothing too intense, haha, I just have some tips that might save you some time and improve your work. Like, did you know that you’re supposed to get up and walk around for 10 minutes every hour? And drink a couple litres of water every day.\n\nHaha, I’m just trying to help! Doing this stuff could really help elevate your work. If you were a good writer instead of a bad writer, you’d be much more successful.\n\n<iframe width=""100%"" height=""265"" src=""https://clyp.it/zt2zmbqo/widget"" frameborder=""0""></iframe>\n\nThe other main point I have is about your photography. Now, honestly, it’s shit. Sorry to be so blunt but I’m just kind of a brutally honest person. Yes, it’s true, I’m only ever honest when it involves me being cruel and never when I’m being reflective or positive, but some people just can’t handle that. I think you can, though. You’re special. Us special people have to stick together.\n\nAre you single? Haha, just kidding, you don’t have to answer that. Unless you want to. Then in that case I’d like you to answer it immediately.\n\nSo, with your photography, next time you’re taking a photo, just think to yourself, “Is this photo shit?”. Then, if the answer is yes, don’t take the photo. I personally don’t use this technique (unnecessary for me) but if you did it I think it would really improve your work. If you need some guidelines on what a good photo looks like I could send you a .zip file of all my Facebook cover photos from 2015 onwards and you can start from there, haha, they’re all pretty good. Maybe that would help you figure out if photography is a realistic career goal for you.\n\nMy last tip is more general. It’s a pretty good tip though, in my opinion: you need to try harder. I mean I like your work, but it just feels like you aren’t fully committed. Maybe you should quit your job? Then you’d have more time to spend on your art. An artists’ salary is probably more than you make now, haha. Think of quitting your job as a long term investment! I won’t say more on this though, since I’m not a financial expert — don’t want to be too presumptuous!\n\nWe need more good art in the world. And less bad art. That’s probably a controversial opinion, but I’ve never been afraid of speaking my truth.\n\nI have much more advice to tell you but I’ll leave that for later in our DM dialogue. I already feel confident we’ll get along, so if you’re interested in saving some time, just send me your phone number. We can chat over FaceTime Audio (but no other service, I refuse to pay for a cellphone plan out of principle) and figure out your long-term career plan. I’m getting so excited right now, thinking of all the amazing things I’m going to accomplish now that we’ve connected! We’re going to take your art career from being that vulnerable amoeba into being a beautiful, incandescent butterfly.\n\nThere’s a lot of rude guys out there, so as one of the nice ones I’d really appreciate it if you take my advice on board. I see a lot of potential in you, haha!\n\nP.S. Haha, have you ever considered being less angry when you post online? I think your work would be more popular if you were nicer. You’ll attract more flies with honey than vinegar!\n\n------\n#spectacle #ryandell #social #parody" | |
| ngvhwztoujichkrl,iphone-8-plus-review,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/iphone-8-plus-review,2018-05-28T22:30:00Z,The Precarious Legacy of the iPhone 8,"\n\n## A decade of iPhone has probably ruined my life, but will the 8 Plus finally end it?\n\n<!--more-->\n\n*Listen to this review read by Siri Voice 2 below...*\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://github.com/extratone/bilge/raw/main/audio/TTS/The%20Precarious%20Legacy%20of%20the%20iPhone%208.mp3"">\n</audio>\n\n*Is my True Tone bullshit on?*\n\n“True Tone” is so forgettable, everybody had to mention it first. Quite simply, it uses an ambient light sensor to fiddle with white balance, warming the colors of the display as an immediately-obvious whole, yes, but an interesting contrast to show off is no longer inherently justified in being called a “feature” in Apple products, anymore. Essentially, no matter who you ask (aside from [Jon Rettinger](https://youtu.be/AXU8GqaMsQc?t=7m23s),) you *should not* buy an iPhone 8, though I did last Fall, not only because I had to suddenly decide on a handset in less than 24 hours, but — if anything — to say goodbye to the form, the operating system, and the tech company which I have depended upon and carried with me virtually every day for my entire adult life. I’d originally decided to abandon this review due to a variety of unexpected circumstances, but Apple and its iPhone have maintained their place in the news with their [battery scandal](https://www.apple.com/iphone-battery-and-performance/), and a third of a year with the 8 Plus has included some experiences which warrant a send-off before iOS 12 is released, making it (and myself) totally irrelevant forever.\n\nAs the longstanding benchmark of the smartphone industry’s state at any given time, the iPhone can be easy to reflect upon as a product once occupying a state of universal exemption from criticism, but it has, in fact, [never been so](http://theweek.com/articles/459748/7-reviews-original-iphone-from-2007). As Nilay Patel [noted](https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16323570/apple-new-iphone-8-review-plus-2017), one might regard the 8 as the last compromise of “basically four years” of the same design. Since launch, it’s unsurprisingly stayed a wee bit too far behind on the spreadsheets for most Android-type folks — not that I’ve ever believed them truthfully incapable of comprehending what it means to *package* a product, given where their greasy startups all eventually ended up. (**You cannot doubt me** — I once took a year-long sabbatical from iOS with a [Sony Xperia Play](https://youtu.be/nSWgS0l0kc8), and my authority is absolute.) The rest are trying to decide whether or not to pay $200 more for “[the phone of the future](https://www.wsj.com/articles/iphone-8-apples-middle-child-1505322945),” which knows when you’re watching it, and is only good for playing half an hour of stupid video games before it needs a charge.\n\nSo far, I have maintained that my first generation iPhone was the best handset of all time — one hell of an Email Machine that lasted me close to five years — throughout the last two with actual motherboard exposed to the elements in the corner of its cracked screen. That said, who knows how it’d feel to be coerced into using “iPhone OS 2” as it was called, then, for an entire workday in 2018? Two years prior to bringing home an 8 Plus, I [vowed](http://bit.ly/drycast47) that my 6S Plus would be my last ever Apple device, but this one *actually* feels like a last hurrah. Though the ability to *Tweet directly from the swipe-down notification menu* is still nowhere to be found (it’s been gone for 5 releases, now, and would seem to have been forgotten by *literally* everyone but myself,) one gets the sense that Apple’s efforts to add to the iPhone 8 and iOS 11 were to make amends with us by settling a few debts.\n\nIn part, they did. Native apps got a major overhaul — including Mail, which was startling, considering that I’d been looking at what was near as makes no difference the same UI my eldest phone shipped with. As a result, it alone constitutes my benchmark for an email service, and I have been left without a clue as to what *a good one* looks like. (Apparently it was [really bad](https://www.pcmag.com/article/342889/the-best-mobile-email-client-apps)?) Since time began, there has always been at least one alternative email app of the moment that tech journos refer to as the must-have, end-all replacement. [Edison Mail](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/email-edison-mail/id922793622?mt=8) is currently the smoother, faster, most modular option — at least for another few minutes– but I’ll never know it as I know Mail, and I’ll never want to. Playing around with experimental email apps is too scary. What if I decide once again to kill that massive number in the red badge and need to immediately mark 40,000 emails as read? It took all of my iPhone 4’s 1.0Ghz CPU and proprietary software over 18 hours — how am I supposed to trust a shabby little 6-month-old startup with such an important task? Anybody with a hundred bucks can make an app, you know.\n\n### Why is the App Store now the best-looking publishing software on iOS?\n\nOne might interpret the App Store’s redesign as an attempt by Apple to control this conversation — of both the trending *new thing* and the old“essentials” that you’ve probably had tucked away in an untouched folder for years. Technically, whoever the hell is writing those gorgeously-presented daily bits has made them a publishing company, though I’m not so sure I’m not the last remaining user who’s continued semi-regularly visiting their “Today” section. If I *did* want to actually read about apps (I don’t — who does?) it wouldn’t make much sense to seek critical reviews from the faceless boffins behind the platform itself, regardless of how much better it may look than all of the tech news sites, paywall or no.\n\nNative screen recording could conceivably come in handy once or twice, but I see no reason why the red bar must remain at the top of the render, but it has, which could explain the total lack of any such video in the wild. Front-facing 4K, 60fps capture is impressive, but useless — vloggers all have GoPros or DSLRs, these days, and sharing through Snapchat and Instagram will always be ultra-compressed. (Here are two sloppy test clips — [at the zoo](https://youtu.be/VnfkWkotGFw), and [fishing](https://youtu.be/KOs5m6ynKAI).)\n\nPerhaps some have figured out the new Files “app,” but it’s sat on my homescreen for months, untapped, and it will likely remain there for all time as a sort of soothing trophy — a thanks for my legacy iPhone loyalty. My reward for half a lifetime of syncing, scrolling, and tolling? **I can now view some of the files on my Mobile Computing Device**, and even *scan documents in*, which is mostly novel (though it is fun to digitize excerpts from physical text.) At some point, I must’ve mischecked a permanent option because all file types now open only in an app that does not recognize them. God bless.\n\n\n\nSomehow, I’ve managed to fill my social circle with precisely zero iOS-using folks. All of my friends and colleagues use Android devices (including [Tim’s supercool Nextbit Robin](https://soundcloud.com/extratonemagazine/nextbit),) which provide a few handy datapoints (like the camera in [my fiance’s Galaxy S8](https://flic.kr/p/BXruaL),) but deprive me of any significant experience with the ostensibly intoxicating cult of iMessage. I’m constantly listening to and reading tech writers claim that it’s [one of the only reasons they’re still using iPhones](https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/10/13225514/apple-iphone-cant-switch-pixel-android-imessage-addiction), but my own food-OS loving biome has forced me to find others, and frankly, I can’t imagine looking at the [*gluttonous*](http://www.extratone.com/audio/futureland/toomanymessengers/) palate of available mobile, cross-platform messaging services (Telegram, [now Telegram X](https://telegram.org/blog/telegram-x), WhatsApp, Signal, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Discord, Slack, *Tinder?*, Google Hangouts, Google Allo, Google Chat, Viber, Skype, Line, Wire, etc.) and thinking… *well, none of this will do*!\n\nHonestly — even if I’d actually been at all informed in my haste, the photographic capabilities of the 8 Plus, alone would’ve sold it. It’s not the new filters, gif functionality, or even “3D Photos” — it’s those mythical dual 12MP sensors (which it shares with something called the iPhone X.) They’re no less than infallible. After four months of [astonishing captures](http://bit.ly/ip8plus)in all manner of conditions, I don’t even care how exactly they do it anymore — it’s better to be left marveling. This first example was taken at Keystone, Colorado in the middle of a dark, cloudy Fall night — the amount of light they were able to find — “up to 80% more,” [according to Apple](https://www.apple.com/apple-events/september-2017/) — is just *impossible*.\n\n*The vast majority of the samples in my iPhone 8 Flickr Album were taken within the native Camera app as it ships and left unedited. (Especially before just a few weeks ago, when I [discovered Halide](https://extratone.com/race-day-at-hodges).*\n\n\n\nHere is an unquestionably sensible progression from which iPhone has never wavered far since its fourth generation [set the standard](http://www.extratone.com/words/inred/iphone4/), but it’s one of an unfortunate few. Siri is still useless and silly apart from its “disable all alarms” feature and its ability to sound itself off in response when you’re hysterically screaming and digging for it through the vast plush of a forty-year-old Lincoln. The customizable Control Center makes toggling low power mode, orientation lock, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth less frustrating (note the last two [aren’t quite hard switches](https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-turn-off-wifi-and-bluetooth-in-ios11/),) though it should’ve come years ago. Notifications are slightly more sensible -certainly better than they were on Android Gingerbread, but I’ve heard things’ve changed quite a bit since then.\n\nI *have* been tripped up by the lack of a 3.5mm audio jack a few times, but it just [wouldn’t make sense](http://www.extratone.com/words/inred/mono/) from a hardware perspective, and the new external stereo capability should refute those who can’t or won’t understand. Yes, it would be nice if Apple hadn’t led the industry to quite such a compromising obsession with thinness — we’d all trade *a lot*of substance for exponentially greater battery life, storage capacity, water resistance, etc. — but I don’t see much sense in expending your energy holding up signs in Silicon Valley.\n\n> I’ll be here long after you’ve died, and you know why?\n> Because I took the time to sync my apps.\n\nTwo years ago, a new generation of social apps and the preposterous notion of a quad-core CPU in my iPhone 6S Plus seemed like the harbinger of a world I no longer understood. Now, most of those services have expanded to the far boundaries of my reach, and I’ve stopped counting chips. Refinement of the hardware design is reverent to the extreme. It’s pretentious, but Apple’s decision to pause on the 8 to consider details like stuffing the legal text in the software and adding a little bit of weight *back in* for ergonomics’ sake leads one to regard it as a monument to all the devices along the development timeline that have led to this… last triumph. Or, it would have perhaps, had they not [sold so many](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/02/apple-reports-first-quarter-results/).\n\nOne could argue that good execution of consumer electronic design means minimizing as much as possible the obstructions in the way of the user completing any given task, and the iPhone 8 Plus has surpassed the vast majority of these for myself — and I am, surely, a “power user.” iOS has changed a lot in the decade I’ve employed it — in far too many ways for the worse — but this pair of handset and software have reached *my* imagination’s limit for what I could possibly want to do. Augmented reality and wireless charging won’t ever have a place in my future, for better or worse. Face ID is much too peculiar. Surely, this iPhone is the ultimate expression of the first and fourth generation’s foundation.\n\nIf the 6S Plus was indeed the key to my immortality, I’m afraid the 8 Plus heralds my imminent demise. Whether or not it’s an early one is for you to decide. This *really is* my last iPhone.\n\n#hardware #software" | |
| wvmet8110jcxswku,twitter-lists,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/twitter-lists,2018-05-29T18:00:00Z,Twitter Thrives on Incompetence,"\n\n## The social network’s incongruities better its experience, if you know how.\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://davidblue.wtf/audio/Twitter-ListsTTS.mp3"">\n</audio>\n\nOn a recent Tuesday, I opened a just-begun [livestream](https://www.facebook.com/NASA/videos/10156260187261772/) on Facebook from NASA’s official page with a panel of experts discussing Europa’s plumes (or something like that) and ended up sticking around for most of its hour-long duration because of the ridiculous realtime comments from some of its ~4000 viewers. While some participants were genuinely interested in the opportunity to engage the host’s authority with relevant and invested questions (which were intermittently fielded,) the vocal majority were aggressive, ignorant, and provocative shouts. From my observation, the most noticeably manic and persistent of these came from user [Shane Langman](https://www.facebook.com/shane.langman). “Nasa can telephone the moon in 1969 but can't get a phone signal in death Valley in 2018,” he noted 16 minutes in. “We cant leave the earth or we'd have left it by now.” And there was Bobby Smith, who felt compelled to express his authority on NASA’s inauthenticity: “[I’ve] been researching since 2012 no real pics of anything all cgi.”\n\n\n\nAssuming the additional all-caps, sans-avatar ranting I remember reading live was deleted after the fact by the culprits and/or the page’s administrator, it’s worth noting that the remaining archive is full of sincerely positive feedback: “It would be awesome to discover life in europe!!” Indeed.\n\nAfter a few minutes of gawking at the mess, I noticed that the broadcast was being simultaneously [streamed on Periscope](https://www.pscp.tv/NASA/1lDxLapRyjLKm) (or is it Twitter Video? or Twitter Live?) so I opened both feeds side-by-side to compare their audience’s behavior. The Periscope’s viewers averaged about 1000 strong, and their comments were noticeably more orderly and decipherable. There was still trolling and self-promotion, but it wasn’t allowed to disrupt the rest of the committed discourse, perhaps because of each post’s character limit or rationed screen time. Looking between them, the contrast in the user culture and the function of the two services during the same, simultaneous stream was at discouraging odds with their respective popularity.\n\nNeither are really very good ways to watch live video - Periscope, notably, was never designed for professional studio broadcasts - but the relentless malicious nonsense from the Facebook viewers pushed all attempts at real engagement away so quickly that I could see no point in making them at all. To be blunt: every conceivable corner of Facebook is an unusable cesspool (even in the shadow of NASA earnestness,) and its worth considering that something about the design of Twitter properties generally discourages such overwhelmingly stupid noise. That’s not to say that harassment, hate speech, misogyny, and radical racism have not been religiously neglected or mishandled as has been well-reported throughout the network’s history - perhaps even more than any other - but I (a cis white man, mind you,) have seen *much* more of these on Facebook in the wild than I have on Twitter during my longtime use of the two, despite spending exponentially more attention on the latter. \n\nIn my sparse Facebook browsing, I have witnessed childhood friends, professional acquaintances, and family members both distant and immediate publicly shame, harass, belittle, and spitefully argue with each other for the sake of absolutely zero meaningful resolution, conclusion, or intellectual progression. In my decade of daily Twitter use, I have seen tens of pedophiles and rapists publicly outed, suicides averted, government censorship circumvented, stories broken, artists made, and marginalized voices outspoken. I have also Tweeted things in the past (mostly variations of “I want to die”) that would now get my account temporarily suspended, as per the company’s [latest attempts](https://mashable.com/2017/10/17/twitter-hate-speech-abuse-new-rules-women-boycott/) to minimize its platform’s toxicity - an encouraging suggestion that Twitter is finally catching up and learning to avoid its *cultural* blunders, which have been the single greatest exception to its most valuable core identity: its mistakes.\n\n\n\nTwo weeks ago, Twitter [proudly released](https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/product/2018/a-new-twitter-experience-on-windows.html) the first redesign of its native Windows 10 app since its debut in 2015 - leading a new generation of upcoming “lightweight” Progressive Web Apps and - true to form - immediately reclaimed the title of clumsiest, least-useful Twitter client available. PWAs represent the industry’s readiest effort to “[bridge](https://medium.freecodecamp.org/progressive-web-apps-bridging-the-gap-between-web-and-mobile-apps-a08c76e3e768)[ the gap between web and mobile apps](https://medium.freecodecamp.org/progressive-web-apps-bridging-the-gap-between-web-and-mobile-apps-a08c76e3e768),” for which expanded compatibility must surely be the best case to make. [According to Google](https://developers.google.com/web/progressive-web-apps/) - supreme enemy of the open web and all tasteful design - PWAs are *offline-first*, *instant-loading*, and *immersive* - none of which are reasonable priorities in building a Twitter client for Windows, an operating system running primarily on very powerful hardware. This sort of idiocy can be reasonably expected of Twitter, but bewilderingly, the Great Minds of tech journalism seem to be unanimously pleased by this decision, which invites one to suspect that they’ve all switched secretly to the exclusive, illustrious [HP Elite X3](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2017/may/18/windows-smartphone-still-worth-buying) - the only smartphone on sale running Windows 10, because Twitter’s execution of these misaligned goals is mindbogglingly foul to look at and unnecessarily frustrating to use. After doing my best to put up with it for a few days, I found myself unable to conceieve of a single advantage this new application has over literally any alternative.\n\n3 out of the 5 bulleted “highly-requested features” listed in their [announcement](https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/product/2018/a-new-twitter-experience-on-windows.html) are just… catching the app up with the web client as it’s been for years: the 280-character limit, Explore tab, and Bookmarks. “Adding” these web-established operations to an even-more-web-based application surely didn’t present much of a workload, but perhaps *removing* functionality justified the investment. The F and T keys no longer operate as shortcuts for liking and retweeting, which is such a misguided oversight that I can’t help but wonder if this app was actually intended to be utilized by anyone at all (besides HP Elite users.)\n\n*Am I missing something? Can you hear me? Are there any flesh-and-blood Twitters users left?*\n\n\n\nThen again, the ungainliness of Twitter’s new offspring could be attributed to the perpetual tragedy of its mother’s peril. The company’s luck has been on the down-and-out for eons in tech time: from its most recent [plain text password blunder](https://www.wired.com/story/change-your-twitter-password-right-now/), to its constant inability to [handle abuse](https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/4/7982099/twitter-ceo-sent-memo-taking-personal-responsibility-for-the), its endlessly tumultuous [management turnovers](https://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/07/twitter-is-replacing-its-head-of-product-again.html), and its growing disinterest and disfavor among [the public](https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/27/16552536/twitter-user-survey-unpopular-abuse-donald-trump) and [potential investors](https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/14/13287818/no-one-wants-to-buy-twitter) alike - our cultural relationship with Twitter and its identity as a social network remains dramatically tense well past its tenth year, which is good news for its continued survival. One could certainly [argue](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/05/can-donald-trump-save-twitter) that the Tump presidency alone spared Twitter from a painful decline into irrelevance (or at least postponed it,) but I think we should acknowledge by now that turmoil is an integral component of the brand as an outlier in the connected community palette. \n\nFor myself as a long-dependent occupant, its inconsistencies and contradictions are endearing and necessary - a competent, profitable, and sensical Twitter may as well be Facebook. If you’ve been Tweeting as long as I have, you’ll likely remember that the company’s own offerings had occupied the bottom-most position in the hierarchy of preferable available clients throughout time and across all manner of operating systems until it finally nailed its Android and iOS software and usurped longtime third-party staples like [Tweetbot](https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/01/tweetbot-4-0-becomes-the-best-alternative-twitter-client-for-iphone-and-now-ipad/) and [Twitterific](https://9to5mac.com/2015/01/26/twitterrific-5-ios-update-multi-image-support-videos-gifs/) just a few years ago. Gadget blogging and [*What’s in my Dock?*](https://youtu.be/DP5Y-58mHic) videos may very well be long-dead relics of a different era in tech media, but it’s disheartening to find through research that the steadily-declining quality of our user experience has been allowed to continue without much protest. Justifiably or not, Twitter has persisted in adding stuff nobody likes as they’ve gradually neutered all the great third-party development.\n\nTweetDeck for Windows was perhaps the most powerful mainstream enduser social application that will ever exist. Before [Twitter absorbed the tool](https://techcrunch.com/2011/05/23/twitter-buys-tweetdeck-for-40-million/) in 2011, its [diverse account integration](https://youtu.be/HQhnbrwBfSw) allowed a user to send a single post across Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Google+, and multiple Twitter accounts simultaneously, and they could configure the client to do so with just the Enter key! In retrospect, it was naive to assume that such potent spam capabilities would continue to be entrusted to the general population without challenge, but the modularity and customizability of TweetDeck prime as a standalone application made it useful as hell and quite the power trip. Now, it exists only as a tamed, up-to-brand-guidelines [web application](https://tweetdeck.twitter.com), yet remains the definitive way to use Twitter on a PC if one desires an ad-free, single-window experience if only because of its congruence with another, even more forgotten feature of the service: *lists.*\n\n\n\nThis is how I’ve seen desktop Twitter since I lasted looked at my timeline in 2010. Since then, I’ve followed about 5000 more accounts, so I’d imagine it’s a damned mess. I have a private list of my friends, which I try to read in its entirety, and [a list of nearly 500 journalists, publications, and musicians](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/lists/the-new) whom I’ve found particularly fresh and original. Thanks to these, Tweets are presented in order, uninterrupted by ads. (They function the same on iOS.) The network’s linear chronology is an absolute use condition for me, so I’m thankful I completely missed the [beginning of their progression toward algorithmic relevance](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vv7g9d/twitter-is-testing-timelines-that-arent-in-chronological-order) thanks to my lists, and as I’ve since happened upon distress from mutuals and non-mutuals over [missed or stale Tweets](https://twitter.com/daniellemattoon/status/990079819202351104), I have taken the time to relay my gospel: *lists are linear*. And since promoted and sponsored Tweets began overwhelming and perturbing timelines, I’ve seen [the displeasure](https://twitter.com/kikkujo/status/996613451349815296) and repeated: *lists are linear and ad-free*!\n\nI realize how irritating it is when one plays the *why doesn’t anyone listen to me?!* card, so I’ve created a [Twitter Moment](https://twitter.com/i/moments/996616971880882176) to document the confusing silence I’ve gotten in response to these suggestions (though I couldn’t find any cases from the past, so I may be misremembering the extent of my charity,) and pledging to refrain from revisiting this pet advice of mine when writing about Twitter or other social networks in the future.\n\n#software #media" | |
| ch9j22b8d6dyb132,evernote-dropbox-paper-word-processing-history,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/evernote-dropbox-paper-word-processing-history,2018-06-16T19:17:13Z,"Evernote, Dropbox Paper, and The History of Word Processing","\n\n## The recent history of the software and services we use to retain text, and how their development affects our behavior on the page.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nI have only once in my many using years been gripped by the fear of the Lord because of a software-related event. I was cruising my pitifully ugly Google News feed on an October afternoon in 2015 looking for the last little bit of material for the evening’s episode of *Drycast*, when I happened to spy the words “[Evernote is in Serious Trouble](http://www.businessinsider.com/evernote-is-in-deep-trouble-2015-10).” I doubt I screamed or anything, but I definitely remember experiencing a very real, full-body shot of adrenaline because *my entire creative life* was contained at the time within the nearly 40,000 notes I’d amassed on my Evernote account since the service’s [open beta](https://web.archive.org/web/20120904074223/http://blog.evernote.com/2008/06/24/evernote-public-launch/) in 2008. In fact, I was in that very moment using it for the live show notes and so began to wonder how I could possibly continue if Evernote were to be suddenly killed dead. For better or worse, though, the “unicorn” would indeed survive to see its tenth birthday this year, though it’s arguably been eclipsed by the notetaking, journaling, and word processing services its features predated and for which it was the most significant forerunner not so long ago.\n\nI’d been using the cloud-synced notetaking service for all of my composition and research gathering since Junior High, when I thought myself extremely clever with my cloud-syncing, iPhone-native notetaking app when I’d watch other students struggling to find a flash drive or log in to their email on school library computers. Since it worked with any browser and my password was memorable (before the brute force apocalypse and the need for password managers,) I could access my documents, mp3s, and images *from anywhere,* which was actually a pretty big deal — especially as more research and notetaking was required in high school.\n\nYes, 10 years later, we are *swamped* with infinite duplicates of documents from our personal clouds, which are now inescapable and plenty — they follow us around from our pockets, purses, and backpacks and rain notifications down upon us for single punctuation mark peer edits, unnoticeable modification conflicts, or sometimes just for the hell of it. There are now what seems like infinitely many available ways to enter, edit, and publish text from wherever you happen to be, and most of them are free, but very few are actually pleasantly executed tools — all of which can all be said of most types of software now. Since tech publications (and even tech *bloggers* now,) aren’t doing software reviews anymore because you won’t click on them, the task of comparing between the lot so that you might be spared having to mess around with *all* of them to find out for yourself — the function of consumer journalism — has fallen to myself, alone because the *Fear of The Unclicked* is not known to me.\n\nTo assist me in bearing this terrible burden, you can allocate 1–3 minutes to [**take the survey I created**](http://bit.ly/howwewrite) about the text-entry tools you use to determine which tools people use at different points in their writing process and across several uses. It would be very much appreciated.\n\n## Feature Fucked\n\nReading this via printed PDF, your hypothetical 100% offline grandmother — the successful children’s book author who needs word processing but doesn’t require connectivity because she doesn’t do research or correspond with anyone — might ask *well whatever was the matter with Microsoft Word? Surely I don’t need more than that!* Technically, she’d be correct in a major sense: Word has been able to sync via Microsoft OneDrive between PC or Mac with iOS or Android for a while now, but I wouldn’t vouch for the latter for any use other than reading or very lightly editing a document because the relationship between the mobile apps and their desktop counterparts is inevitably strained. Because Microsoft Word is such old software, it’s filled with some obscure functionalities I’m sure even its creators have forgotten. Over years and years of development, these tools have been stacked on top of one another so that actually mastering the labyrinth could be a college major in and of itself.\n\n\n\nBasically, you can tell your grandmother that **Microsoft Word is a huge old bitch**, but it’s still the industry standard for formatting and publishing works at the end of the line. As you can see from our survey results, **58.1% of you use “legacy” word processing software to finish up your first drafts** (as of May 30th,) which makes you more modern than even a slightly-older population, I’d wager.\n\nWhile we’re on the subject of the old hag, it’s worth pointing out how ridiculously behind the times its open source “alternatives” are. **OpenOffice**’s last major update was the [release of version 4.0](https://blogs.apache.org/OOo/entry/a_short_celebration_and_then) in July of 2013, and it’s not correctly scaled for the small, high-DPI displays sold at just about every price level, nowadays. It was okay when I couldn’t afford to pay for a license in high school (and saw no reason to,) but it now looks sort of awful, especially considering that the version of Office (and therefore Word) to which I’m comparing its screenshots is actually *also* from 2013.\n\nThe other, “fresher” open source option of the moment is called **LibreOffice Writer**, and its suite has been attracting a fair amount of praise — I think “[every bit as good](https://www.zdnet.com/article/libreoffice-the-best-office-suite-gets-even-better-with-libreoffice-6-0/) [as Word]” is taking things a bit far, but its sixth version looks significantly better than OpenOffice on *my* machine, at least, and generally operates more smoothly as well. That age-old banner of *Open Source* won’t matter for much longer, though, if all kinds of software continue to be abandoned and substituted with Progressive Web Apps for [no damned reason](http://bit.ly/uselists). Considering how much time some of us have already spent in front of Word, it’s no wonder we’re spoiled: even my 5-year-old edition of Microsoft Office syncs with the app on my iPhone (with some pleading,) and looks *extremely* crisp. As far as paid featured desktop-class alternatives, there’s just one more: **WordPerfect**, which I have never used or heard anyone else mention.\n\n\n\n\n\n## The Hybrids\n\nWhen it was conceived, **Evernote** pioneered the recipe that now serves as the foundation of the feature development in today’s notetaking and journaling applications, as evidenced by CEO Phil Libin’s unapologetic use of the term “[life-logging](https://techcrunch.com/2009/12/30/evernote-two-million/)” in 2009, which sounds bizarre in retrospect because we’re now well-accustomed to easily “snapping geotagged photos” (smartphones had always included location data in their photo files’ meta, but Evernote was the first app to give a user access to the data *on their device*,) “making voice notes,” or and organizing text notes via advanced categorization and metadata-enabled searchability. These features are essentials in the apps you could accurately describe as “life-loggers” available for download now. Snapchat’s “Memories” especially come to mind, and I’ve long argued that we should [blame (or praise) Evernote for beginning the era of eternal memory](http://bit.ly/redevernote).\n\nThe iPhone OS app’s design would even influence Apple’s own [additions to its native photo and note applications in iOS7](https://www.theverge.com/2013/9/18/4741724/ios-7-review), much further down the line. Its technical doctrine of on-device storage coupled with syncing via The Cloud would inspire both [Microsoft’s OneNote](https://www.pcmag.com/commentary/345839/evernotes-loss-is-onenotes-gain) and [Bloom’s gorgeous DayOne](https://www.theverge.com/2012/8/3/3212579/the-best-journal-app-day-one). There was even a “full-featured” [Linux-running offshoot called NeverNote](http://howardcodner.blogspot.com/2011/02/nevernote-is-full-featured-evernote-app.html).\n\nIn contrast with Evernote’s relatively busy design, **DayOne** has been the [best-looking app of any kind on iOS for years](https://thesweetsetup.com/apps/the-very-best-journaling-logging-app/). It shipped with the same sort of extensive categorization, but it’s only ever been available on iOS, Android, and OSX — probably because Windows simply doesn’t look good enough. Should you wish, it will add detailed metadata from the moment you begin each journal entry including precise-ish GPS coordinates, an overview of your location’s weather at the time, *whether or not you were moving*, what song you were listening to, and your step count for the day (now from the Health app.) You have the option of viewing your journal chronologically, by location on a map, or in a social-esque activity feed, and yes — its search function can be filtered by any of these datapoints.\n\n\n\n\n\nIn 2015, [Bloom added iCloud syncing](https://thesweetsetup.com/day-one-updated-with-new-sync-option/) and multiple journals, further closing the functionality gap between the two apps on paper, yet plenty of users continue to tether between the two using IFTTT (including myself for all my Twitter favorites, just to compare.) Within the somewhat forgotten niche of the “life-logging” utility, DayOne is superior and serves well the self-obsessed user who find the little details of their life to be *extremely interesting.* Last Spring, [they introduced](https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/4/25/15426678/day-one-book-print-journal) the option to purchase a stylized physical book of a user’s journal from within the app. As it is currently priced, the 2,674-page book I previewed today containing every single Tweet I’ve favorited in the past 5 years displayed in a delicately-formatted layout would set me back over $365, and would have to be split into 5 separate books (as per the maximum of 400 pages each.) Since I find my life *very* interesting, I’ve made a note to myself to proceed if/when I ever have that sort of money to throw around.\n\nFor the **67.7%** of you who use digital notetaking or word processing software when you “**want to remember something**,” DayOne is the best option available because of its search function and satisfaction-of-use. Though Evernote was once the only app that could “[handle everything everything in your head](https://www.theverge.com/2014/9/4/6103843/best-note-taking-app-iphone),” it’s a different experience entirely — tailored for work applications, if anything, since DayOne’s growth spurt. The company, itself hasn’t exactly been managed cleanly, either with [layouts in 2015](https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/29/9420031/evernote-layoffs-office-closures) and [a privacy scandal in 2016](https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/16/13979778/evernote-privacy-policy-opt-out), but then again, what billion-dollar company doesn’t have its controversies?\n\nDespite having imported my huge catalog of Evernote entries into DayOne, the former often gets stuck, and it’s retained the most irritating habit of all the software mentioned in this column. Because synced entries in Evernote are not live-updated like those in Google Docs or Dropbox Paper, it’s possible to modify or add to a note on one device while it’s open (and static) on another, which is addressed by either duplicating the most recent entry and filing it in the default “Conflicting Changes” folder, or pasting the duplicate of the entire contents above the “old” content in the note, separated by a horizontal line. I’ve yet to figure out the behavior that triggers which fix, but I don’t particularly care — I’ve decided to restrict my Evernote use to my desktop, absolutely. If I haven’t articulated it well enough for you to form a visual, just trust me: **it’s very, very annoying**, and it should’ve been addressed years ago.\n\nIt was my stepfather who told me about Evernote and signed me up for that beta. Both of us were then the sort of people who experienced extreme satisfaction in archiving and categorizing stuff (which is probably the most straightforward way to define *nerd*,) but he was especially and absolutely enthralled with its [Web Clipper function](https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2008/06/26/web-clipping/), which allowed the user to save webpages with “context” — both the metadata (source URL, date) and contents in “the text, images, and links” via their Firefox extension, which was revolutionary from our perspective, and certainly beat the hell out of stuffed, ugly bookmark folders or printed-to-pdfs. However, Web 2.0 was a younger, then and [significantly more lithe](http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/average-web-page/) — the average web page is now *10 times larger* (disclosure: [“average web page” is a somewhat misleading term](https://www.igvita.com/2016/01/12/the-average-page-is-a-myth/), though I think we can probably agree that it’s *too fucking big*, regardless,) and it’s long past time for us to accept that this technology is no longer a reasonable solution to saved images.\n\n\n\nThough development on the Web Clipper appears to have continued — it’s now on Version 7.something — the vast majority of the pages you’d want to save on the web ([except for Linkedin, apparently](https://twitter.com/FickleCrux/status/1001763470902099968),) show Evernote’s age as it attempts to clip them — often taking *several minutes* to yield the product, which is *always* broken as hell. Don’t take my word for it, though: another one of Evernote’s less-discussed features *technically* makes it a publishing platform because I can share a note from my account with you, the world, via [this public link](http://www.evernote.com/l/ACT8YDUZovlFS6iWaPOsGpW9uVFqlXkt2YQ/). It’s a clip I took a year ago of [*Wired*’s profile of Jad Abumrad](https://www.wired.com/2014/02/myspace_jad/), and you’ll notice that it isn’t *completely* unreadable, but it *is* ugly and broken. Even after [last year’s update](https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/17/evernote-attempts-to-simplify-with-its-new-ios-app/), it’s still clumsy, slow, and virtually unusable without a stellar data connection.\n\n**Archive obsessives**, I know that Evernote could have become part of *your system* and over time, you may have built a gargantuan library within it — the perfection of your tagging system’s efficiency and your categorical format’s consistency making it such a treasure that you might think of it in times of duress to calm yourself. I’ve allowed myself to continue using it *exclusively* for notes in my novel project, so I do understand that it may represent tens of thousands of hours of your time and that losing it would cause you tremendous grief, *but*… **it’s time to let go** and better your life by exploring the selection of alternatives and their superior capabilities.\n\n\n\nAs you’d expect, software has changed a lot [since 2010](https://lifehacker.com/5590027/five-best-mobile-note-taking-tools), and the choices available for word processing are now abundant and relatively diverse. As for web clipping, in particular, I would suggest your new browser Vivaldi and its super capable [full-page capture feature](https://vivaldi.com/blog/seize-the-moment-with-vivaldi-1-7/), which I’ve used for everything from snapping a [25.1 MB, 30,000 pixel-high PNG capture of all Extranet data in text form](http://extratone.com/media/alltratodata.png) to the [photo specimens we submitted to Fonts in Use](http://bit.ly/extrfonts), to [crisp snips of full words](https://twitter.com/FickleCrux/status/969833640598306817). For comparison, [here’s what it captured](http://extratone.com/media/jadwired.png) of that old *Wired* post on Jad. You’ll notice that while the image is relatively large, none of the article itself has been lost (aside from the featured image, on *Wired*’s end,) and the resolution is fine enough that you could still crop out quotes or smaller shots to share if you discovered something later. This ability of Vivaldi’s still feels like magic to me, and there are plenty of other reasons to use the browser, but I’ll save that discussion for a later date.\n\nI could cite plenty of pseudoidealistic reasons to *never* use Google Chrome, Google Docs, Google Keep, or any other Google product, really, mostly because they all look like shit, [their browser is swallowing the internet](https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/4/16805216/google-chrome-only-sites-internet-explorer-6-web-standards), (along with their “[accelerated mobile pages](https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/13/17006006/google-amp-stories-google-search-slideshows)” project,) and just about everything the company was built on — along with [what they plan for the future](https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/17/17365362/google-chrome-secure-indicator-https) — is completely (and sometimes even [explicitly](https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393)) opposed to The Open Web, good design, and [humanity as a whole](http://bit.ly/googlechurch). However, I fully realize that idealism doesn’t mean shit when you’re just trying to get the job done, so let’s talk about Keep and Docs.\n\n**Google Keep** is part notetaking service and part streamlined, modernized, hassle-free execution of Evernote’s Web Clipper. If you’re already using Chrome or you’re desperate enough for the ability to clip web pages without switching windows for whatever reason that you’d change your browsing habits entirely, you can add its extension to the top task bar — right next to Evernote’s — and use it any time you feel that old archivist itch. The extension will very quickly and smoothly clip the title and URL, along with whatever of your own text/tags you feel like using, but it will *not* attempt to capture any of the web page’s content (Google already has it somewhere, anyway.)\n\n\n\nLike all of its kin, Google Keep is particularly [savvy with integration](https://www.computerworld.com/article/3026239/android/google-keep-3-years.html): you can immediately send your clip to a Google Doc, set a reminder, add a collaborator and even *draw* on any entry. Its party piece in this Tactile Era of touch-enabled laptops and keyboard-equipped tablets is its ability to digitize handwriting or “grab image text,” a novelty technology called Optical Character Recognition, which has been [tickling our most stale fantasies for centuries](http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Basis/OCR.html), now. Though I’m sure it’s genuinely appreciated in a handful of especially quaint use cases, somewhere in the world, there’s never going to be an at-scale application for this sort of thing. I know my handwriting is bad, but if [Keep can’t “grab” it reliably](http://bit.ly/keephand), there’s not much sense in using it at all for me, though Google’s Academy for Young Algorithms will certainly make sure to save every one of my motions to capitalize on *my* time (or yours.)\n\n**Microsoft OneNote** is as clunky, busy, and buggy as Google Keep is quick and uninspiring, but that’s probably because it’s much *much* older than I remember. To demonstrate its web clipping function, I clipped the [OneNote portion](https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1273091,00.asp) of [*PCMagazine*’s Microsoft Office 2003 review](https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1273084,00.asp) and exported it into a [PDF](http://extratone.com/library/onenote-pcmag.pdf), which isn’t a straightforward process, but is it useful? No. Because it’s a PDF, it’s almost unreadably low-resolution, yet manages to weigh 1.2 MB. My (cropped) [Vivaldi capture of the same page](http://extratone.com/media/onenote2003.png) is 988 kB and nearly impossible to tell apart from the live experience, so why are we bothering with OneNote at all? Well, according to [Preston Gralla for *ComputerWorld*](https://www.computerworld.com/article/2488890/enterprise-applications/desktop-apps-onenote-vs-evernote-a-personal-take-on-two-great-note-taking-apps.html) (the last tech site still publishing worthwhile software reviews):\n\n> It bristles with note-creation tools for drawing, recording audio and video, scanning images, embedding spreadsheets and reviewing the edits of others (although the abilities of those tools differ somewhat depending on the platform). In fact, its note-creation tools are more comprehensive than Evernote’s.\n\nAnd we begin to see OneNote’s place as the feature-heavyweight of synced notetaking applications.\n\n> The organization-minded will appreciate OneNote’s basic structure. You create individual notebooks; within each notebook, you can create section groups that contain multiple sections. Each section has individual pages, with each page a separate note. It’s ideal for organizing content with a logical structure.\n\nThen again, dearest Preston goes on to express his adoration for Evernote Web Clipping shortly afterwards and he did so just last year, so I won’t really claim to know what’s going on with him (he’s a legacy tech journo.) In my experience with twenty-somethings and younger, the more committed an artist or writer is to their craft, the less interested they are in its tools, but it’s the young ones who need great tools the most before they’re able to settle on and pin down their process. There was only **a single writer** (**3.2%**) surveyed who answered “**when I want to DIGITALLY record something to remember, I use…**” with “**the ‘compose’ function (to publish immediately and/or save for later as a draft) of a web-based text sharing service (Twitter, Tumblr, Medium, WordPress, Facebook, etc.)**,” and **one other** answered “**another text-entry field on my device where it will be saved for later**,” which **four users** (**13.3%**) said they use to “Brainstorm” digitally.\n\nBy Question Set 3, the two alternative answers were dropped and for “Outlining” digitally, **45.2%** of surveyees use legacy word processors, **35.5%** use **cloud-based notetaking apps**, and **19.4%** use **the default notetaking program installed on their device**. In omitting alternative options earlier and including web-native CMS editors later, I inevitably shepherded answers within a moderately-wide berth of where my own assumptions would lead their process. It’s interesting that for the last prompt, “**to make the last modifications to my final draft, I…**” a whole **35.5%** reported they would still be using a **cloud-based service** instead of a **legacy word processor** (**58.1%**) or **CMS editor** (**6.5%**), which would suggest that the functionality of these new e-enabled methods of composition has become truly important, indeed.\n\nThough it’s not necessarily unreasonable, it astounds me to consider how many Online users actually compose original drafts of *huge* works exclusively within publishing and blogging services like **Medium**, **Tumblr**, or **Reddit**, even. We currently cohabitate a literary sphere with [impossibly massive works of fanfiction](https://kotaku.com/this-smash-bros-fan-fiction-has-3-5-million-words-s-899629991) that far surpass anything God or The Classics established in the past, and it’s a wonder how many [sour habits](http://bit.ly/redvonnegut) have crept into the writing world as a result. For the sake of the experiment (and [my own education](http://bit.ly/futureland9),) I posted some of my recent work on [**Medium**](https://medium.com/@ficklecrux) and found its composition UI much improved from what I remember and comparable in many ways to those of more recent dedicated document editing/notetaking services, but there’s still whole set of abstract, less-than-technical reasons not to *publish* on Medium, much less compose there.\n\nBriefly: instead of “[defining a new model for media on the internet](https://blog.medium.com/renewing-mediums-focus-98f374a960be),” CEO Ev Williams and company ended up creating an isolationist community with [hellishly-skewed priorities in craft](https://medium.freecodecamp.org/how-to-write-medium-stories-people-will-actually-read-92e58a27c8d8). Virtually all of what’s actually *born* on Medium is of a certain soulsucking, less-than-productive quality (notable exceptions include [Ryan Dell](https://medium.com/@ryandeel), [Dave Pell](https://medium.com/@davepell), and work from marginalized voices that would not otherwise be written or published.) Though their founding principles of ad-model disruption are redeemable and entirely sincere, I’m sure, their result doesn’t actually solve anything at all, especially after [last year’s layoffs and refocus](https://www.recode.net/2017/1/4/14169348/medium-layoffs-ad-business-model-change).\n\nAs for **Tumblr** and **Reddit**, I’m afraid I’ve never been capable of truly understanding either, but I did blog extensively about cars for the first time 5–6 years ago on the former when it was one of significantly fewer fee-free options for digital publishing, and even then the experience was already casting doubt on the true necessity and existence of blogging platforms like WordPress — especially for web development-abhorring peons like I was at the time. Now, its iOS app is gorgeous, and its editor has ended up rock-solid and surprisingly versatile, yet the state of its community, also, leaves one with little reason to publish aside from a sortof isolationist desire to contribute to *the community itself*, for Tumblr’s sake.\n\nThis is where **WordPress** should outshine everything else as a pure, open-source Content Management System for any and every use by any and every folk with server space, so I thought I’d try out [my own fresh, ultra-connected install](http://extratone.com/shife) to see how its experience has changed. In word processing terms, its [iOS](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wordpress/id335703880) and [Windows](https://apps.wordpress.com/d/windows/) clients are *lightyears* ahead of where they were a few years ago, but to take full advantage of them, one must allow WordPress’ own software access that’s [not *Open Web* at all](https://www.wpexplorer.com/jetpack-wordpress-plugin/). For light, minimalist personal blogs, a WordPress site offers much more control over one’s intellectual property than Medium or Tumblr, but it’s also significantly less independent than it once was. A quick inspection of my little experiment reveals that 5 out of its 6 content sources are from Google or WordPress properties, leaving only one for *my* actual server. This means I can accomplish a lot using just their apps, and my work will be distributed among “billions of posts” across WordPress dot com (to be found by absolutely nobody, I suspect,) but the post editor within the CMS itself has never functioned quite so versatility as it does right now. And yet, neither WordPress nor any of the software I’ve covered thus far achieve much progress toward an ideal, comprehensive word processing solution.\n\n\n\nThat’s why I’d like to talk about **Dropbox Paper**, which has been my own browser’s homepage and primary text editor since [its public beta went live](https://www.theverge.com/2016/8/4/12373696/dropbox-paper-ios-android-sharing-docs) in August of 2016, and it’s very hard not to dote on considering that it is definitively the single most useful software addition in my whole computing life. It’s a live-updating exclusively web-based (for now) service with an emphasis on collaboration, just like the industry-standard monstrosity that is **Google Docs**, but it’s been designed from the ground-up to perform best the operations you need most from a word processor in 2018, which doesn’t include advanced layouts, fine-adjustable paragraph and/or letter spacing, Excel integration, or voice dictation, but simply… typing and re-reading and editing. You’d be surprised what a handy productivity catalyst can become of a simple white, live-updating space without distraction available no matter where you are or what device you’re in reach of.\n\nVirtually *all* of my “process” is now conducted within Paper, and I’ve never before experienced such an unconscious assimilation of use. I write about software because I’ve used a lot of it and I’ve been able to count on my ability to find fundamental mistakes/designed ignorance in most everything. Dropbox Paper, however, is so keenly perfect for my own needs that I slipped unconsciously into total, daily dependence upon it without noticing the transition at all, which has never, *ever* happened before. Notes can begin from blank Text/Title fields to *Brainstorming*, *Meeting Notes*, and *Project Overview* templates. In April, the team [introduced the ability](https://blogs.dropbox.com/dropbox/2018/04/dropbox-paper-templates/) to “templatize” any document, which I’ve yet to explore but will no doubt make full use of for show notes when [*Futureland*](http://extratone.com/futureland) is revived. There are also [Evernote templates](https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2017/05/05/uncovering-templates-hidden-gem-evernote/), yes, but you cannot create your own, and downloading them is an unnecessary pain in the ass.\n\n\n\nLanding on the root, you’ll see Folders, Starred Folders, Starred Entries, and Shared Documents all displayed chronologically by modification date. Instead of tags, categories, or “notebooks,” Dropbox Paper’s folders are its singular method of categorization, and they are astoundingly sufficient, even when editing multiple documents simultaneously or digging through professional and personal entries within a single account — all thanks to its search function, which is super-swift and superior to any other service because of its profound simplicity. It’s one of many experiences which laughably shame past efforts in the design of these tools: without any customizable search filters or metadata and [by sifting only through title, content, and author](https://www.dropbox.com/help/paper/find-docs), any note in Paper can be found *instantly* no matter how dated or obscure. I doubt I’ve yet to top 1000 entries quite yet (there’s no easy way to count, and *why should there be*, really,) but on several occasions I’ve found years-untouched, untitled documents within seconds — a process which has *never* been brisk or convenient in Evernote.\n\nThough Dropbox Paper wasn’t necessarily designed for composing 5000+-word longform, it’s by far the best tool for the vast majority of the pre-publishing process (to a reasonable extent, of course — I wouldn’t use it for a screenplay or novel manuscript.) It’s rare for me to utilize its mastery of collaboration, these days, but there’s frankly little reason to go anywhere else — including Google Docs — considering that Paper documents can be bound by the same viewing and editing permissions: by individual entry or folder, marking live modifications with clean, color-coded initials in the sidebar, by email or rogue URL for editing, commenting, and/or reading. (The comments interface is the best I’ve ever seen by a wide margin.) Users can be assigned and “pinged” for tasks using “@,” and it’s reasonable to assume that permissions won’t ever present an issue for my own use considering they haven’t already. To a limited extent, notes can be easily “published” via shared links yet remain editable in realtime, making Paper perfect for obscure-but-public reference documents like [our style guide](http://extratone.com/style) and [redirects catalog](http://extratone.com/redirection).\n\nFrom the onset of use, you’ll marvel at how fucking fast and smooth the in-browser experience is regardless of your device’s age or dimensions. Surprise surprise — the iOS app works just as smoothly and is laid out vaguely like a Twitter client. “Browse” — the chronological timeline of documents — occupies the leftmost bottom button as “Home” — the main timeline — does in Twitter’s app, and “Notifications” is likewise the same icon (practically) in the same position in both, and the items themselves are even grouped with rich card-looking content previews. Perhaps these nods to my Twitter muscle memory have contributed to my own unusual bias, but I suspect it shares components with a particular demographic of professional writers. As I understand the day-to-day activities of a feet-on-the-pavement reporter, Dropbox Paper is a necessity in a ridiculously all-encompassing sense. With its Slack integration, [super high-usability design](https://blogs.dropbox.com/dropbox/2017/03/paper-hidden-gems/), collaborative modularity, ultra copy-and-paste-friendly text, smooth hyperlink behavior, light weight, and ultimate compatibility, it should be evangelized as a no-brainer option in journalism. *Fuck* a Bic & steno.\n\nWeb Clipping may be completely alien to its vocabulary, but you can drag and drop documents in just about any format for a beautifully-embedded preview. Conveniently, [they won’t even count against your Dropbox upload quota](https://www.dropbox.com/help/paper/dropbox-integration): “Dropbox Paper doesn’t place a limit on the number of docs you can create, and includes unlimited version history regardless of the Dropbox plan you are on.” Naturally, this is subject to change in the future, but I’m 95% positive that Paper has yet to refuse any of my uploads because of their size or format, and many of mine are extraordinarily huge.\n\nThere is a perfect power to Paper which I can only beg its stewards to leave unmolested for as long as possible. If I was a billionaire, I’d immediately purchase it from Dropbox and leave everything to the company — revenue, janitorial development, user data, etc. — except the right to make any significant feature or functionality additions to the user experience, as I have never before felt this way about a single service or program… *ever*. I’m not sure if I should keep quiet or incessantly kiss ass, but my interest undoubtedly lies in preserving Paper as it is. If you’re left doubting my own testimonial, there are a billion throwaway “Ditch Google Docs for Dropbox Paper” posts across the B and C-list technosphere. [*Gizmodo’s*](https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/02/5-reasons-you-might-ditch-google-docs-for-dropbox-paper/), for instance, notes Paper’s superior formatting freedom, intelligent footprint, incredible embed flexibility, and… independence from the terrible Google God.\n\n\n\nRight now, one’s choices in notetaking apps for iOS are almost *too* varied. There’s [**Zoho Notebook**](https://www.pcmag.com/review/346353/zoho-notebook-for-iphone), which claims itself to be “An App Store 2016 Best App of the Year” (falsely, [it would appear](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2016/12/apple-unveils-best-of-2016-across-apps-music-movies-and-more/).) I recall installing it on my 6S Plus, then, after spying some screenshots of its multicolored notes, but I failed to find room for its use. When the (completely useless) Files app was added with iOS 11, I played around with it for a bit and somehow ended up setting Zoho as the default application to open PDFs which inadvertently launched my 8 Plus into an infinite loop of “Open __ in __?” prompts that eventually required deletion of Notebook in order to view them at all. I tend to especially adore these programs in their early, innocent versions when they smell most of innovation before their creators are inevitably brought back to our filthy reality when their VCs start expecting *money*. Zoho Notebook should have bewitched my affections, but my short trial was clunky and disastrous and those beautifully-colored layouts weren’t quite worth the trouble, so they were missed — to no consequence at all.\n\nThe latest favorite is **Bear**, the Markdown-supporting app with which *The Verge*’s Casey Newton [replaced Evernote for his own use](https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/2/14785264/evernote-replacement-bear-app), last year. His authority in writing copy at huge volume is notable if only for his [*daily newsletter on the business of social media*](https://www.getrevue.co/profile/caseynewton), which is always unfathomably gargantuan and clean.\n\n> Bear lets you tag notes by adding a hashtag to a word anywhere in your document; you can add as many as you like, and then browse them later from the left rail. You can export your notes as PDFs, rich text files, HTML documents, or even JPEGs. And it supports ultra-nerd automation, so if you use an iOS app like Workflow **[**[**now Shortcuts**](https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/4/17414648/siri-update-new-features-apple-wwdc-2018)**]** you can create shortcuts to your notes.\n\nDayOne’s own markdown support and exporting capabilities surely make it Bear’s predecessor. JPEG exports are a nice touch and they reflect awareness of what power notetakers like Newton *actually do* with their software. If I had not already chosen to [depart OSX](http://bit.ly/spectreinred), long ago, I would seriously consider downloading the app on both platforms and paying its monthly $15 membership fee to try out syncing, but I suspect Google’s moderate but noticeable influence on their design would quickly prove to be a turn-off, personally. I had a go at Bear’s free iOS experience and saw little functional difference from DayOne — if anything, text didn’t look quite as sharp — but its reported integration with Siri Shortcuts is intriguing. ([Apple acquired Workflow last year](https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/22/apple-has-acquired-workflow-a-powerful-automation-tool-for-ipad-and-iphone/), absorbing it into its upcoming iOS 12 release as Shortcuts.) I’d suggest you give it a try — especially if your desktop-class machine is a Mac — and for your sake, I would hope they choose to utilize the power of the modern browser with a web interface in the future. “As a writer, I work in text, and text ought to be simple,” Newton opined, likely with more brevity than I’m capable of in this discussion.\n\nMuch of anything has yet to be written about these offerings in 2018, but I must insist both regular and intermittent writers alike give Dropbox Paper a try. I suspect you’ve less “privacy” to “lose” than you would in Google Docs, and its sublime function as a writing tool extends from workplace collaboration to shared grocery lists with your SO and long, image and hyperlink-saturated works like this one. It’s very difficult to break — even by pasting fragmenting code or Zalgo text; it’s never out of date, and always a short, teeny pageload away even across the worst of connections. As someone with an unhealthy obsession with his written work, I can tell you that its UI is by far the most anxiety-relieving I’ve ever used. As an alternative to Google Docs, I would point out that 1) Docs supersedes Paper in sum features *significantly* less than you’d think and 2) for the one or two weird formatting challenges it fails to complete, neither Microsoft Word — the old bitch — nor Docs are going anywhere, and Paper exports to both of them directly.\n\n\n\n## The Future\n\nCuriously enough, I was required to use every single method of text retention of which I am capable in the course of writing this piece, as I tripped over my laptop’s charging cable — a physical connection, yes (and with substantial leverage) because Apple won’t allow other computer manufacturers to make use of “their” ingenious magnetic charging solution which they’ve included as “MagSafe” on MacBooks since 2008 — perhaps inevitably ruining the port and leaving me with only my iPhone and pens. I filled a few folded sheets of paper with [my LAMY Safari](https://www.instagram.com/p/BgErFqhFvyT/) (which is good, but overrated,) and felt quite ridiculous in the process. Thanks to my fiancé’s generosity, I type this bit now on her Panasonic R440 Electric Typewriter, which must still be considered a legitimate means of writing text in 2018 if only because of [Instagram poetry](https://theoutline.com/post/2488/collin-andrew-yost-the-most-hated-poet-in-portland). According to [its rather dubious listing](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00005QT7B/ref=as_li_ss_tl) on Amazon, this model dates to September 4th, 1973, which is remarkable considering its spellcheck and auto-margin functions (neither of which I could actually figure out how to use.) If there is anywhere to be caught clacking away on a typewriter out of preference (I’d hesitate to call even my own situation one of *necessity*,) in 2018, it would undoubtedly be Portland, yet I am still extremely embarrassed to be the source of all this racket and would immediately perish if any of my neighbors bothered to track it down.\n\nEven this very sophisticated example of the typewriting species is limited by one’s supply of both ink and erasing ribbon, though either can still be found for sale, remarkably. I am even less able to easily correct mistakes than those I wrote by hand because I feel a significant pang of pain via my mechanical empathy every time I use (or accidentally misuse) the function which whites out text with a sickening *clunk*. There’s something about this process which makes it feel more taxing, costly, and timeconsuming than any other, but perhaps with time and extended use, my embarrassment, empathy, and hesitance would fade and I’d become a cruel, loaded God of shitty prose, but I have no intention of finding out. I’ll willingly concede that restored or refurbished typewriters can be [absolutely gorgeous](https://twitter.com/FickleCrux/status/923340941129170944), and there’s probably some validity in the “distraction-free writing environment,” but I’d suggest that anyone who’s pounded out any significant chunk of copy knows that one must find a groove of absolute focus within a word processor in order to complete work with any efficiency or cohesion, anyway. I’m as connected as any of you, yet these days, I always end up *hyperfocused* on Word, Dropbox Paper, and/or research in my browser to the exclusion of anything else on the machine, whether or not I intend to do so. I’m no authority, but I can’t see a functional place for a typewriter in 2018.\n\nPortlanders, surely, are vain enough to avoid leaving such disastrous drafts laying about, though now’s a good time to note that one can now scan their typewritten document into a word processor using native software on their smartphone, nowadays, if they’re so unreasonably inclined. Using iOS default Notes app, I could scan this physical draft into Portable Document Format with just a few steps, but doing so would contribute to the ridiculous perception that Adobe’s ancient, clunky standard is the ultimate end of the line for any and all digital publishing. Yes, it’s ridiculous to consider “25 years” of development led to PDF 2.0’s release *just last year*, to nobody’s glee outside [*The Fucking Adobe Blog*](https://theblog.adobe.com/taking-documents-to-the-next-level-with-pdf-2-0/) (which I do believe is running on Medium, hilariously.) Yet throughout my existence, it’s been the go-to half-step between text’s digital and physical forms. The liason, if you will.\n\nPerhaps one could argue that this role in our collective academic Western word processing lives is profound (though no mentally functional human being wants to meet *them*,) which would inevitably lead them to criticize Adobe’s longtime occupation of it, but to examine the *next* significant step in the development of word processing is (this moment, at least) extremely hellish and alarming. This “[Virtual Reality prototype](https://youtu.be/LxviGskApcw),” for instance, surpasses even *The Soul Ledger* as the most distressing online video of all time.\n\nJust **32.3%** of survey respondents claim they print “**at least one draft and use a pen or pencil to make notes/mark corrections by hand**,” not including the additional **6.5%** who “**print at least one draft but make all corrections digitally**,” leaving **61.3%** who presumably do not physically print at all throughout their writing process. Our survey is broad, rudimentary, and not entirely scientific, yes, but I would bet these numbers would contrast significantly with those from respondents exclusively in academia. For myself and my colleagues, there remains “*something*” that can only be attained by physically manifesting written work, perhaps in requirement of tangible manipulation in order to thoroughly comprehend large bodies of information. As I’ve passed 100,000 words within the rough draft of my novel project, no amount of skimming on any sized screen has enabled me to catch the typos and inconsistencies which become *immediately* obvious as soon as I have the most current printed manuscript in my hands. I doubt even total immersion into one’s work via some VR-capable word processor would do much to assuage this discrepancy — or much at all, for that matter, aside from casting writers into their own special hell. Surely, only the most self-loathing of them would voluntarily choose to be so dunked. (Read: drowned.)\n\n#software" | |
| 1y2mzy4rx9fc1j4g,unichar-for-ios-app-review,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/unichar-for-ios-app-review,2018-06-23T01:00:00Z,⨃🄝ɨ∁ɧ⍙℟ for iOS Review," \n\n <audio controls>\n <source src=""https://davidblue.wtf/audio/unichar.mp3"">\n</audio>\n\n<!--more-->\n\n## Jordan Hipwell's absolutely delightful celebration of digital text diversity.\n\nI’ve never understood why I never see *anyone* making use of the [vast catalogue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters) of nearly 140,000 standard Unicode symbols available in their social media posts, metadata, or word art. Like replacing standard bullets in our [weekly newsletter](http://bit.ly/thetonearchive) with ◎ (U+25CE,) — probably my all-time favorite, or using strings of four characters for intro, ad, and station identification spots on [Extratone Radio](http://anchor.fm/extratone). (☉☉☉☉, for instance.) I’d like to think these uses make their experiences feel just a bit more unique to users — if only unconsciously — but I’d long wondered if I was in fact the last Unicode enthusiast alive.\n\nThe development of [Jordan Hipwell’s UniChar for iOS](https://apple.co/2twLdBA) would suggest otherwise. Its app store page describes it as “a powerful yet beautiful Unicode symbol selection app and keyboard,” and its [generic webpage](https://unichar.app) appears to have *testimonials* including a *[real post](https://lifehacker.com/this-ios-keyboard-app-will-give-you-all-the-unicode-cha-1822994495)* on the Web Site *lifehacker.*\n\n> UniChar is a third-party iOS keyboard that unlocks the wide wide world of weird Unicode characters. Service marks, copyright logos, mathematical symbols, technical signs like Apple’s “splat” icon or radioactivity indicators, and more are available in the standalone app as well as the keyboard add-on you can use wherever you need to type something. \n\nWow! I can’t believe I’d pull-quote *lifehacker* anywhere, but here is an iOS app that *actually addresses* a regular issue of my own in a beautiful and intuitive way. I actually cannot remember the last time this happened — you’d have to give me a list and a comprehensive refresher of all the ways I’ve used my iPhones in the past ten years.\n\n<iframe width=""auto"" height=""auto"" src=""https://www.youtube.com/embed/AS2S9_vBcDs?controls=0"" frameborder=""0"" allow=""accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture"" allowfullscreen></iframe>\n\nContrary to what may seem obvious, UniChar’s character selector is by far the more intuitive and efficient of these two separate ways to use it. Even in the free experience, there are simply *too many* *characters* in the catalog to reasonably browse in iOS’ old extended keyboard. (For the record, I’d like to note that UniChar is technically a “Reference Application,” but I understand if you can’t bring yourself to use the term.) Across both the seamlessly-interchangeable gallery and list views, the user can very quickly copy a character to the clipboard with 3D Touch, which works so well it’s as if it were meant only for this use from its beginning.\n\nIn the off chance you’re a longtime lover and devout user of the grander Unicode collection and an iOS user, I hope you’re now experiencing the same sort of petty enthusiasm I felt myself when I discovered it. If not, I hope you’ll take away a desire to explore it. I mean… aren’t these smileys way better than any emoji? ☺☺☺☺\n\n## Update\n\nDespite a handful of reports of crashing issues in App Store reviews, Unichar has continued to perform admirably for me. I ended up spending $2.99 to unlock the full Unicharacter keyboard as the tremendous value of that number for the time and effort it would save myself would be more than worth it. (Actually, it’s thanks to Redbubble for sending me the first truly usable Inter net Money I’ve had to actually *spend* on any apps and/or services in fucking forever, but you know.) After all this time, I’m still giddy that [someone else on Earth](https://jordanhipwell.com/) values these hieroglyphs as much as I do, and that they knew enough to manifest the perfect software to preserve them.\n\n#software" | |
| kb2kg5uu443pv6bw,inmunis-extratone-history-david-blue,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/inmunis-extratone-history-david-blue,2018-07-14T09:00:00Z,"A Brief, Unedited Reflection on the History of my Failed Media Projects","\n\n<!--more-->\n\n*All of this may one day be worth significantly more revision and/or visibility in the future, but for now, just know that I rambled out all of this because it’s by far my most effective way to think, and this darned lowkey blog post has just provided a very long-overdue opportunity for it. Please feel free to read or even respond to it, if you’d like, but I’d like to ask that you don’t panic or circulate it. Thanks.*\n\n> So far… the only intercorrespondence between staff at Inmunis is people having a problem with one another. \nBefore Extratone, there was Inmunis – my first, relatively short-lived attempt to launch an online magazine which wasn’t particularly important, but the experience surely did contribute to and inform my progression in understanding media that led to my (utter bewildered) current state. Anyhow, it’s fun to look back. Here’s the web archive’s last snapshot.\n\n\n\nThis, a derelict Twitter account, and two film reviews by James Wilson are all that’s left of inmunis.co.uk for good reasons – many of which I did not entirely shed when I tried again. Until I started Extratone and made doing “this” – incessantly reading/exploring the web, obsessively tinkering and experimenting with The Extranet – I actually had very little knowledge on or exposure to the state of digital publishing or the real depth of variety to be found with any significant effort to comprehend the current offering real, surviving magazines, online or not, yet was dumb and arrogant enough to assume that I’d seen it all and none of it was even close to good enough for me to read or seek to write for. I was actually delusional enough to regard myself as too smart and one-of-a-kind to lower myself by going back to journalism school – that I was so special, anything I put effort in creating was destined to turn out superb. Granted, I’d had the actual idea for less than two weeks before I experienced by far the most traumatic, soul-destroying, world-upturning, and life-altering event of my entire existence, which I think accounts for the insanity, and all of my decisions were inevitably preempted by the fact that I was a 21-year-old straight white male community college dropout, which accounts for (but does not excuse) their absurdity.\n\nI’ve publicly implied before that it was probably only thanks to Drycast – which was also in its infancy during the time of The Big Event (episode 7 was published just two days before) – and its weekly obligation to sit down and talk with my favorite people about interesting stuff that I did not end up dead or institutionalized in 2015 (I wish I was exaggerating.) If there is a Gourd, let it be known that he is fully up-to-date and brand-activated – he sent me a fucking podcast to save my life.\n\nReading and compiling stories for the show notes throughout the week provided an early avenue for exploring and embedding myself into media. Beyond the actual content, even, it’s been the rationality in the tone which journalists generally adhere to that has drawn me in and provided a brighter and brighter guiding light to help keep my sanity in check after my world ended because New Media values empathy in tandem with critical thought. All my life, it’s been very important to me that I continue to learn the best way to both appear and feel smart and functional. I’ve long since accepted that I am very fucking weird – and not in the wow, I dye my hair bright red sort of way which helps people feel unique, but in the holy shit, I’m terrified of what would actually result in losing control of my facade sort, which is actually much less sinister than it sounds for you, and infinitely moreso for me.\n\nThis is why I still have a very infantile habit of becoming overwhelmingly frustrated with those who socially emphasize and celebrate their “weirdness” as an important part of their identity because my self-perception has long since transitioned from regarding my deviations as something that made me “unique,” to gigantic obstacles in the way of every possible aspiration which I’ll probably never overcome, but am doomed to kill myself trying. I’m now working on learning to appreciate those very fucking common people who are determined to prove how strange they are because ultimately, my own self-perception is just as ignorant, loneliness is not a virtue, and I’ve only maintained the whole charade because I’d rather have delusions of grandeur than acknowledge that I am also mostly unoriginal, and most of my truly more “original” behaviors could easily be described as simply unhealthy.\n\nThis is an important confession for this explanation because its “solution” is another crucial motivation behind my creation of Extratone – as both a symbolic and literal means of understanding and minimizing my own biases and bitterness by 1) surrounding myself with the huge amount young, talented people I knew with great ideas and 2) editorially committing to curiosity as the most precious ideal in writing (and in life.)\n\nI do know that – for whatever reason – I really do have a special knack for identifying the culture and creators that are truly fresh, innovative, even cool among those who can’t comprehend or stand it and the heartbreaking number of those who actualize themselves by trying to act aggressively apathetic toward the status quo. This sense is far from 100% reliable and is certainly not of a greater quality than everyone on Earth, but I would still confidently suggest it’s at least better than most, and – as most of us know – it especially jives with and defines the world of magazines.\n\nAs I did in Spring 2016, I still believe that Extratone is the best way for me to hone my greatest talents and shed my biggest problems – that it is the name I can place on my endless journey to improve myself, which – most importantly of all – will all the while achieve the tightest possible adhesion to the only meaning of “original” with any significance or real world value at all, which serves human curiosity without punishing it in any sense. I could actually just be crazy or completely, irrationally inverted – and I know it sounds abstract and preposterous – but I promise it’s my best shot at one day performing my optimal function for the world.\n\nThe very first thing I did after I’d arrived upon these hypotheses and been abruptly forced to cling to them as my last hope in life was to obsessively search for a single mantra/battlecry I could drill into my memory and could shout under duress – including the temptation to escape the whole lot of it – to succinctly remind myself that I had at least one logical chance at a fulfilling life (and yes, it’s still funny that the chance is, in fact, a Web Site.)\n\nScribam quid non legerim is possibly grammatically incorrect to a scholar, but it’s the best possible translation I came up with in my Latin research of “I will write what I have not read.” It’s cheesy, yes, and a bit cringey in the middle of just any old day when it happens to catch my eye where it’s proudly displayed, all-caps, in the footer of our CMS, and – I’ll be honest – I don’t know if I could explain it over coffee to a stranger without turning red and covering my face, as I once could, but it’s (sincerely, in this one case) real gravestone material. (As in, if someone were to read this after my death, they would be encouraged to receive it as a bonafide last wish.)\n\n#media" | |
| zfbr0sil69igjczi,bandcamp-streaming-music,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/bandcamp-streaming-music,2018-07-21T19:30:14Z,Bandcamp: Streaming's Secret Savior,"\n\n## As the industry endeavors once again to reconcile the cultural and financial incentives of streaming digital music, one independent platform has wavered little from its 10-year-long mission to bring the business to the unsigned artist with elegance and integrity.\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://github.com/extratone/bilge/raw/main/audio/TTS/bandcamp.m4a"">\n</audio>\n\nIf you’ve ever thought to yourself *wow, Bandcamp has looked basically the same forever*, you were entirely correct – now for a tenth of the century, at least – and you’ll be hard-pressed to find another Silicon Valley technology company toting a venture-funded origin story with such casual, yet robust long-standing user relationships underneath an unwavering, bullshit-free commitment to their product. Even under the most ludicrous scrutiny, the company’s rudder is flawless and its course true. What at first glance you’d swear to be an unsolicited conclusion to an obscure examination could very reasonably be described as *cheesy*, *stubborn*, *dweebish*, *pious*, or just generally *boring*, indeed, yet the respective accuracy of each of these adjectives are no more than the byproducts of the very same operational ethics which we’ve suggested, requested, demanded, and begged the rest of the world’s computing capitol to re-adopt, enforce, or at least *ponder* for a beat. The volume of the masses’ exponentially-increasing attendance of late is only overcome by its hysterical shouting match, so let us pipe down for a while, now so that we may be precise as we dig deeper into the methodology which has finally led to a profitable, drama-free outlying technology organization without the need for a single drop of analogous sweat over its brand upkeep. By arranging the company in its infancy to so precisely and elementally align with the needs of its customers, the original troupe of Bandcamp Bums ensured profound and lasting simplicity in the single overarching priority for those in every single role behind the quiet perpetuation of Bandcamp dot com: **selling good** **music**. \n\n<iframe width=""auto"" height=""auto"" src=""https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?hide_cover=1&light=1&feed=%2Fdavod%2F%D1%82%D0%BD%CE%B1%D0%B8kf%CF%85l-f%CF%83%D1%8F-b%CE%B1%D0%B8dc%CE%B1%D0%BC%CF%81-2018-%D0%BCix%2F"" frameborder=""0"" ></iframe>\n\nThe platform indiscriminately provides both individual artists and labels with a clean, cozy, charming, smartly-designed and technically competent storefront with a wide-open storage allocation, optimal search engine optimization and a widely-trusted point of sale experience in exchange for 15% of any sales that should come in – [significantly less](https://medium.com/@gloom303/a-year-ago-i-released-an-ep-on-spotify-itunes-and-bandcamp-this-is-what-i-l-earned-872925797930) than other channels; *half* what Apple Music will take. In examining Bandcamp’s history, its impact on independent music, and its viability as an alternative streaming service, we shall excavate the truth behind the derisive cynicism directed its way by the titans of the tech and music press. Over the course of this super link-laden journey, we’d consider the alarmingly hypocritical possibility that it’s been overlooked by mainstream conversations only because it has so long operated in the precise manner we claim is so hopelessly absent from its neighbors in its deliberate, principled, and innovative journey towards a transparent, progressive vision.\n\n<iframe width=""auto"" height=""auto"" src=""https://www.youtube.com/embed/9-4H-MXmiLQ?controls=0"" frameborder=""0"" allow=""accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture"" allowfullscreen></iframe>\n\nTo catch our starting gun, we must first travel to *Face The Music 2016* in Melbourne – as far as one can possibly get from The Valley – alongside Bandcamp’s super-worldly Chief Curator, [Andrew Jervis](https://bandcamp.com/andrewjervis) to observe his interview for a live audience.\n\n> Bandcamp has always grown extremely organically. There’s never actually been any advertising that we’ve done; there’s never any advertising on the site, and there never will be. We haven’t really tooted our horn very hard.\n \n<a href=""https://books.apple.com/us/book/bandcamp-bound/id1553706073?itscg=30200&itsct=books_box_badge&ls=1"" style=""display: inline-block; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 13px; width: 250px; height: 83px;""><img src=""https://tools.applemediaservices.com/api/badges/get-it-on-apple-books/mono-black/en-us?size=250x83&releaseDate=1613260800&h=1ddd10796aff8c79d34685c230af5636"" alt=""Get it on Apple Books"" style=""border-radius: 13px; width: 250px; height: 83px;""></a>\n\n<!--more-->\n\nIn fact, just about everything from the shrewd idealism of those who beget its conception to the on-the-nose care in their person-to-person customer service is so adamantly inverse of the tech industry archetype which the global End User community at large are presently discovering at twice the speed of sound there should *at least* be some conspiratorializing going around. Where I come from, launching a desolate business to little mainstream success with persistence and dignified determination is (or should be) regarded as a telltale sign that one is running a front (according to the television, anyway,) but exploration of this plausibility yielded nothing in Bandcamp’s case, even after I took the risk of incrimination and begged a certain Boston-based future funk producer to accept my ginormous bribe and include *any* sort of pharmacological substance with his summer beat tape. He wouldn’t even send antihistamines.\n\n<iframe width=""auto"" height=""auto"" src=""https://www.youtube.com/embed/MaUkS-lr-ZM?controls=0"" frameborder=""0"" allow=""accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture"" allowfullscreen></iframe>\n\nAs uncomfortably as it lands on the soul, no moniker describes Bandcamp more comprehensively than “an online record store.” As far as [Ethans](https://youtu.be/inzhStQJFQw) go, Bandcamp’s CEO and founders’ public attaché Ethan Diamond is as good as they come: it’s quite telling that he is the only Silicon Valley CEO who’s remained intellectually grounded enough with the rest of us in order to retain any skills in nuanced forms of verbal communication like… humor. The closest the company has ever come to promotion? His awkward, sub-20-minute [presentation](https://youtu.be/MaUkS-lr-ZM) at the XOXO Festival 2014 offered an impressively succinct introduction to their greater mission considering the unmistakable agony in his body language. \n\n“We worked out of the public library for the first four years of the company's existence,” he admits. Impressively, Bandcamp was operated entirely as a “virtual company” until 2015.\n\nEither Bandcamp just happens to be the single Silicon Valley company where the executives are unanimously so fucking fulfilled by their work without exception that they aren’t compelled to leave it long enough to stumble upon the inevitable coastal colleague with a connection to something like The Internet History Podcast, or technology journalism has definitively lost all reverence for actual innovation in favor of the [emotionally-charged](https://www.bcg.com/en-us/publications/2018/ideas-emotions-innovation-riding-amazement-cycle.aspx) Innovation Myth, now [relinquished almost entirely](https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/24/17610348/twitter-elon-musk-display-name-change-lock-account-crypto-scams) to the narrative control of its own protagonists. Perhaps it was inevitable that Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos would become immortalized as “those who make things happen,” but our ability to quantify value as consumers tends to scurry rapidly away behind our backs when they’re turned by the constant distraction of these mostly inert figureheads. As their personalities have stolen the story, the people in industry with their hands on real product have all but completely disappeared from the frame, and all of the work remaining at the End User’s eye level was abandoned by aspiration long ago and replaced with the unfulfilling mechanism of A Quick Buck. Though now we are proceeding into a similar frame – only because our subject cares more about their mission than claiming recognition for it and might just be the first such company run by a cast who become sincerely defensive at the suggestion of a cash-out.\n\n“Bandcamp’s philosophy has always been very different [from] a lot of the companies we’re surrounded by,” reflects Jervis. “We are not a ‘let’s-raise-money-and-burn-through-it’ type of company.”\n\nI know that your mind has been trained by years of engagement with the digital media of a rapidly-globalizing, venture capital-obsessed society to block the passage of this sort of language across your conscious threshold at risk of life-threatening overexposure to the Medium Dialect and its churnalising neoliberal cyberchode scholars of the Personal Brand; I know you’ve read the exact same quote from how many entrepreneurs in how many worthless, masturbatory business magazine profiles, but I swear on my one-of-a-kind Estonian Hilary Duff pullout that Jervis speaks without irony or deception. how many fucking churnicles have abandoned you, but this time, it’s actually sincere.\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=3931299777/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=2212865095/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://mosessumney.bandcamp.com/album/black-in-deep-red-2014"">Black in Deep Red, 2014 by Moses Sumney</a></iframe>\n\n# On The Web\n\nThough Bandcamp was technically the first comprehensive library-modeled music streaming service in existence, the topical conversations between both technology and music journalists and industry executives flooding both podcast and news feeds at the moment orbiting the “Cord-Cutting” phenomena as it’s washed over television, cinema, and music are rooted in the same building blocks as the core technology behind the delivery of all of these conversations as well as their subjects, funny enough. As long as my subgeneration has known it, The Web has been a source of sound in some manifestation, but the example with the most perplexing history was also the first. Today, one of five tabs in the main menu of my iPhone’s native music app contains the text “Radio” beneath an “antenna with waves” graphic which opens a service once called [iTunes Radio](https://web.archive.org/web/20150608143103/https:/www.apple.com/itunes/itunes-radio/) that was absorbed into – and [restricted to subscribers of](https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/15/10777790/itunes-radio-apple-music-january-28) – Apple Music as of 2016, confusingly. However, both “iTunes Radio” and “Apple Music Radio(?)” – along with any and all audio streaming services (mentioned and not) – are fundamentally nothing more than different UX design interpretations of the “simple” practice of streaming an audio file, which made its debut at the turn of the century in the form of “Internet Radio.” Astonishingly, the protocol – still referred to by at least one person on Earth as “Webcasting,” no doubt – has survived nearly 20 years, and even the youngest of us have likely encountered it in unusual situations. \n\nIronically, the [majority](http://radio.garden/) of Internet Radio broadcasts remaining on the air are nothing more than live duplicates of the traditional radio wave-bound products from the physical stations your car’s head unit receives. Even the current desktop version of iTunes maintains support for streaming “audio files over the internet,” though a glance at [Apple’s dated support page](https://support.apple.com/kb/PH19478?locale=en_US) for the process suggests it hasn’t crossed anybody’s mind for at least half of that history. In 1994, the publicly-funded radio network Voice of America became the “[First [radio] on the Internet](http://www.chriskern.net/history/voaFirstOnTheInternet.html)” when it [began](https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!original/rec.radio.shortwave/2pQ9KUYmLqo/wqhhXS2k-lAJ) – after an introduction by Al Gore, no less – “offering digitized audio versions of selected newscasts and other program segments in 15 languages on its public internet server on Monday, Aug. 15,” according to former engineer Chris Kern. However – since we’re already this deep into internet history – a distinction must be established between streaming static files and streaming live audio. The first relies on pre-recorded audio files uploaded to a publicly-accessible server – in Kern’s original case, “via anonymous FTP and the Internet Gopher protocol,” which continues to be the elemental process behind every audio file streamed across the Web (including those on Bandcamp, Apple Music, Spotify, etc.) more or less because it ain’t broke. \n\nSemantically, “live” digital audio streaming in its aforementioned “purest” form is more or less exclusive to Internet Radio. Obscured aside from the traditional station simulcast, Web-only Internet Radio stations have their own of “[the Internet’s quiet success stories](https://www.thestar.com/business/2007/04/09/web_radio_may_stream_north_to_canada.html),” filled with quaint experiences and an endless cycle of death proclamations which continue to be disproven, anywise.\n\nOn June 27th, 1999, *The Seattle Times* ran [an especially worthwhile introduction to the concept](http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19990627&slug=2968794) that likely represents the only major newspaper’s mention of SHOUTcast (the first and likely last name in DIY Web DJing) in the history of the printed word within a work of truly phenomenal tech reporting on Mark Mataassa’s part. From the past, one will find his chillingly spot-on foresight and well-considered observations are bestrewed with mind-boggling hilarity when they look.\n\n> Dialing in to the Net through a 56 kilobit-per-second modem, as I am, this seems like a ridiculous waste - or at least misallocation - of resources.\n>\n> I'm using a $3,000 machine, tying up a phone line and seriously compromising my computing power for an experience that in sound quality, simplicity and dependability can't compare, truthfully, with the $9 Emerson clock radio an arm's length away.\n>\n> And yet Web radio is one of the hottest ideas going in the ever-hot world of Internet startups and acquisitions: In the past few months, America Online and Yahoo! each have purchased fast-growing Web music sites, rock-music trendsetters like Rolling Stone and MTV have gotten into the business, and technological improvements - from Microsoft's newest browser and Real Networks' newest player to the latest MP3 enhancements - are closing the quality and accessibility gaps.\n>\n> The combination of developments is not only changing how computers (and radios) are used, but offering a glimpse of a future when audience demographics are sliced ultra-thin - to the person - and everybody has the potential to be a radio broadcaster as well as listener.\n\nI only have a few experiences with Internet Radio of my own, but they’re all rampantly more memorable than one would expect. The now in-stasis [NWIRE](https://twitter.com/nwireradio) project was by the most relevantly intriguing and [savvily-curated](https://soundcloud.com/themartmusic/nwire-radio-guest-mix-11-feb-2017) home for a diverse host of electronic musicians I’ve ever come across – it was my second default browser tab for most of 2017, when I’d even listen to the odd-hour broadcasts overseen by just the automated library-perusing bot for hours. On [episode 16 of *Drycast*](https://anchor.fm/extratone/episodes/Juke-Master-Samantha-Carter-and-the-Producers-Extravaganza-e1neqc/a-a4674c), I recounted [the absurd tale](https://clyp.it/mps4yfyv) of my surprise morning encounter with a Norwegian station’s live broadcast from some European breakcore club, which was likely responsible for the most fun I’ve ever had working in retail.\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=374449027/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=1571966121/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://ultrademon.bandcamp.com/album/seapunk"">Seapunk by Ultrademon</a></iframe>\n\n*Extratone*’s former Tech Editor is partial to a station called [Radio Swiss Jazz](http://www.radioswissjazz.ch/en), which appears to be thriving in comparison with most visible broadcasters, and unapologetically emits a bizarre amalgamation of tunes both chart-topping and Seriously Obscure across every conceivable genre (including Marching Music,) and continent of origin. Between every few charts, the brief commentary and station identification has provided our own private mystery: Was that one pre-recorded? This guy was on yesterday, but has since shed his accent? However, these tiny temporary mysteries are Internet Radio’s only remaining value for us, and I suspect the same is true for all but the most laggard laggards. For as long as I’ve been coherent enough to disseminate between much of anything, very few of its visible offerings have offered anything groundbreaking or fresh, perhaps out of negligence (one can very easily arrange leave a machine running SHOUTcast to shuffle through a given library of music and/or podcasts indefinitely,) frustration, or economic necessity.\n\nCrucially, the truly *most* critical consequences and contributions provided by the pioneers of Internet Radio to our current digital streaming experience were centered within intellectual property legislation and advertising-supported business. Unfortunately, this juncture marks our complete departure from my wheelhouse, but thankfully, a few sacred accounts of one of technology’s foremost confusing clashes with the ill-equipped, technoilliterate monoliths of the American justice system do indeed remain. As early as 2002, the ineffable Doc Searls reported on a document authored by the Library of Congress’ Copyright Royalty Board called “[Determination of Royalty Rates and Terms for Ephemeral Recording and Webcasting Digital Performance of Sound Recordings](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/05/02/2016-09707/determination-of-royalty-rates-and-terms-for-ephemeral-recording-and-webcasting-digital-performance)” for *Linux Journal* in an encyclopedic breakdown of its implications ironically entitled “[Why Are So Many Internet Radio Stations Still on the Air](https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6218)?” I would hope my comprehension is sufficient to declare that *this was no Cambridge Analytica*: only a few years subsequent the technology’s inception, operators within the Internet Radio business faced serious and immediate fines for their pre-enforcement distribution of copyrighted material stretching *four years* back – the severity of which the Doc suggested would “surely bankrupt many of the individual broadcasters that have been pioneering this marketplace for the longest time.”\n\n> Unlike the commercial radio stations we hear on the old-fashioned airwaves, Internet radio stations' primary market relationship isn't with advertisers; it's with listeners. In many cases, the listeners are the primary source of revenue. This business model is similar to that of noncommercial (public) radio, only the market relationship is much more direct and efficient. Internet radio stations don't need to stop programming to hold marathon whine-fests begging listeners to call phone volunteers and pledge money to qualify for a mug or a t-shirt. Listeners simply click on a PayPal or an Amazon link, and after a few more clicks they've made a payment.\n\nBy [March, 2010](https://web.archive.org/web/20100330102643/http:/directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Music/Sound_Files/MP3/Streaming/Stations), just 374 stations were aggregated in Google’s Internet Radio Directory, and my own quick sample from its list unfortunately indicated that most are now silent, but SHOUTcast has yet to be abandoned after all this time and we can safely suppose the core architecture of the internet will remain recognizable enough to support it until after we’re all dead, rendering the necessary tools indefinitely ready and accessible should new projects in NWIRE’s vein come along (I know of no better fate I could wish upon the protocol.) From Internet Radio’s pioneer days, we must skip over a whole era to close in on Bandcamp’s origin in the very brightest peak of Web 2.0.\n\nAgain, we find ourselves in 2008 and nobody knows what an iPhone is, but the same classic rock-worshiping, upper-middle class, white collar Early Majority who first loved Internet Radio are now rapidly and delightedly distributing links to something called “Pandora dot com” between AOL and Hotmail inboxes. True luxury music reproduction comes in the form of Beats headphones motivated by a 320GB iPod Classic. Budding audiophiles and backpacker dweebs illegally torrent lossless .FLACs to play over their Christmas-gifted studio monitors with WinAmp, which they’ve set up to impeccably “scrobble” their history with every played track to their Last.fm profiles. Everybody else is still buying music from iTunes. (Those who cannot afford to buy the music they intend to add to their libraries transition to the music nerd classification as soon as they’ve sought out a way to obtain it free.) “Streaming” comes from subscription services like Rhapsody (now Napster,) which are [too buried in Digital Rights Management controversy](http://www.alphr.com/features/218559/the-online-music-rip-off) to feel sustainable. MySpace Music has just begun to fade away – next year, in “the Twitter era,” [SoundCloud will definitively replace it](https://www.wired.com/2009/07/soundcloud-threatens-myspace-as-music-destination-for-twitter-era/) as the go-to creator network – and Pandora’s immediate future is bright – they’ll make a big move on brand-new mobile streaming experience when they [launch their iPhone OS app](https://www.cnet.com/news/photos-hands-on-with-pandoras-internet-radio-iphone-app/) in July, but the limited performance of the handset’s EDGE network will render it a poor alternative to onsite .mp3s for years to come.\n\nIn January, to minimal acclaim, Oddpost’s Ethan Diamond launched Bandcamp, the startup with programmer friends Joe Holt, Shawn Grunberger, and Neal Tucker to be “a sortof WordPress for musicians” – an easily-created, well-designed landing page to showcase one’s digital music files. As Holt laments in [an interview with ](http://htmltimes.com/band-camp.php)*The HTML Times*, creating an online presence for your music had long been “a pain in the ass.” \n\n“You need to find a place to host it, you’ve gotta get the metadata right, it’s just hard. So we just decided we would do that hard part for musicians so that they didn’t have to be so nerdy.”\n\nAs an address to all of their shared complaints about the experience of online music distribution up to that point, [early Bandcamp](https://web.archive.org/web/20090716104620/http:/bandcamp.com) was an astounding piece of engineering. The quaint, unsurprisingly crate-digger-looking Ethan Diamond – who’s more or less remained the singular public face of the company since the very beginning – began a brand tradition of transparently music-nerdy correspondence with his [first post on the Bandcamp blog](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2008/09/16/hello-cleveland/), explaining the solutions the team had come up with in greater detail.\n\n> We keep your music streaming and downloading quickly and reliably, whether it’s 3am on a Sunday, or the hour your new record drops and Pitchfork gives it a scathingly positive review. We make your tracks available in every format under the sun, so the audiophilic nerderati can have their FLAC and eat mp3 v2. We adorn your songs with all the right metadata, so they sail into iTunes with artwork, album, band and track names intact. We mutter the various incantations necessary to keep your site top-ranked in Google, so when your fans search for your hits, they find your music long before they find bonkersforlyrics.com or iMyFace. We give your fans easy ways to share your music with their friends, and we give you gorgeous tools that reveal exactly how your music is spreading, so you can fan the fire.\n\nThe launch garnered very little attention from tech or music publications of the time, but [Andy Baio’s interview with Diamond](https://waxy.org/2008/09/bandcamp_launch/) provides a substantial, technically in-depth picture of just how revolutionary and necessary it was. Most of what has continued to make Bandcamp such an essential tool was present at the very beginning: server-side stats and metadata (a unique architectural undertaking, no doubt,) track and album-oriented pagination, and a robust, easily-embedded Flash player.\n\n<div style=""padding:56.25% 0 0 0;position:relative;""><iframe src=""https://player.vimeo.com/video/1739268?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0"" style=""position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:auto;height:auto;"" frameborder=""0"" allow=""autoplay; fullscreen"" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><script src=""https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.js""></script>\n\nStudy [Diamond’s first “screencast”](https://vimeo.com/1739268) alongside a [video tour of SoundCloud](https://vimeo.com/1857085) from the period and you’ll notice just how much more functional, future-proofed and *dignified* Bandcamp appeared in comparison. As apprehensive as I am to be caught arguing for minimalism over good design, it’s made perfect sense in the use case of *this one platform*, which knew *exactly* what it was from birth, along with what it would *always* be, apparently, which is such a bizarre reversal of the archetypes and the relentless common narrative we know from The Valley’s legends. Ethan first shows the consumer’s experience – none of which has changed after a whole decade aside from quality-specific track purchases – before delving into the artist-side UI, beginning with the statistics tool, which included playback and search insights to a depth that was (and still is) unheard of from a free service. Then, he demonstrates the publishing process from upload to playback: adding album art, setting a release date, and pricing its purchase. Aside from their removal of the old waveform visualizer (I couldn’t find any record of an announcement of this decision, official or otherwise,) Bandcamp has changed absolutely *nothing* of what’s shown in Diamond’s tutorial. In the next few months, they would add [custom page design](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2008/11/26/design-customization/), [email address capture](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2008/12/22/free-download-email-capture-thingy/), and [support for custom domains](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2009/01/23/custom-domains-custom-domains/). By October 2008, they’d made enough waves to be [picked up by ](https://www.cnet.com/news/bandcamp-for-cleaner-music-sites/)*CNET*, for whatever that was worth. Apparently, [Facebook Music](https://venturebeat.com/2008/10/22/facebook-music-is-getting-its-act-together/) was a legitimate property as well, but I do not remember anything about it at all—pondering an alternate reality in which *The* Social Network became the dominant online music streaming platform leads to a bizarre comparison of Neil Diamond and Mark Zuckerberg which I can’t imagine being altogether productive. Suffice it to say, the two founders’ visions differ greatly.\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=118415374/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=1797536753/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://fivestarhotel.bandcamp.com/album/open-wound"">Open Wound by Five Star Hotel</a></iframe>\n\n# Musicblogocide\n\nContextually, it’s also important that we dwell for a moment on the legal and financial hullabaloo surrounding music sales during Bandcamp’s first formative years, and the federal government’s losing battle to interpret, enforce, or replace intellectual property law for the information age. As the Web had grown exponentially more capable and accessible as a means of audio file distribution, it had become absolutely saturated with blatantly DRM-circumventing .mp3s and .wavs. For years, the quickest way to follow up on a *check it out* sort of music recommendation was simply to search Google for its track name followed by “.mp3.” If the first go didn’t yield success, even the most rudimentary application of cryptography – like substituting some variation of “nsilmtic.rar” to find a download for Nas’ *Illmatic*, for instance – was a sure bet for one’s second try, which would often return several copies just laying around Google-indexed WordPress media libraries, though results hosted on Mediafire were a preferable alternative. This was the establishment into which my first adolescent digital music discoveries were borned, and I’m still convinced that 99% of us participants were completely without malice. I’d argue heartily that music’s brief escape from the tireless grip of the record industry as its only medium stumbled into digital form would be clearly shown to have a net gain for the whole of American recording artists if you could measure and plot it, including the past, present, and future use of peer-to-peer sharing.\n\n2010 would prove to be The Year of Reckoning for the fraction of DRM-violating traffic on the *visible* Web, at least. Though it’d be virtually impossible to quantify, is it only reasonable to assume that many siteowners made some real money from the ad impressions that directly resulted from their unauthorized hosting and Mediafire-embedding, but let’s consider how minuscule even the most outrageously liberal overestimate would be, side-by-side with the billions in additional revenue YouTube has raked in from the same music since assuming their place as the de facto platform for quickly summoning just about any work of audio that’s ever taken digital form. It was in February of that year that Blogger (another Google property) [deleted six music blogs](https://blogger.googleblog.com/2010/02/quick-note-about-music-blog-removals.html) from its platform in response to complaints about allegedly DMCA-violating .mp3s. *The Registry* [insisted](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/11/google_musicblogocide_2010/) the collective finger be pointed at the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, itself. \n\n“It would seem the music bloggers aren't versed in the ways of DMCA claims and counterclaims. But you can't blame Google for that,” they concluded, after one of the blog’s founders expressed some of the most personally-dramatic words mine empathy has yet faced as [quoted in The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/feb/11/google-deletes-music-blogs).\n\n“It's just sad because we were documenting young people's music from all around the globe. For a lot of people, it was music they wouldn't have been able to discover elsewhere.”\n\nIn hindsight, “blame” is an even more useless avenue of one’s attention than usual, especially when one party (Google) was 100% exempt from any consequences all along. The alarming takeaway is not the DMCA’s deftness, but that **Google had the freedom to wait for a parallel business incentive before deciding the law applied to them**.\n\nFrankly, we should all have realized long ago just how fucking futile it is to attempt to control any file traffic. Every desktop-class browser ships with the capability to capture any streamable media on the Web with a handful of keystrokes – it’d take a maximum of 20 minutes to bestow upon even the most casual user the knowledge they’d need to keep every single track, YouTube video, and Twitch stream they’d ever watch, 100% legally without a single third-party service/extension interaction, but the crucial question remains to what end, exactly? It’s easy, but it’s not exactly a fun way to spend an afternoon. The only two rationales that’d justify capturing streamed Web files at scale are 1) the totally bonkers inclination that any given property/ies is likely to disappear from the entire World Wide Web, ever or 2) the increasingly rarefying expectation of prolonged time away from internet access. \n\nAs Bandcamp has stood so obdurately still, the mainstream music streaming sphere has expanded titanically around it as if enveloping the Indie platform in a surrealist timelapse within the eye of a ruinous tech industry cyclone, which would explosively expand the market into a ghoulish, filthy monstrosity beyond anything we’d recognize from the rule of the WinAmp Hipster, long ago. **Today, the coolest and most rabid daily music listeners I know all have Spotify memberships**, joining [70 million others](https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/4/16850742/spotify-subscriber-count-70-million-users) globally as of January. For most, it’s how they prefer to swaddle their lives in a constant soundtrack – at work, in the car, at school, then at home on the television. For many, it’s how they “explore” new music outside of peer and social recommendations... or, that’s how the narrative was supposed to go, anyway. Those folks I know who actually create music, however, are rarely seen using Spotify—even after they’ve endured untold horrors in order to publish their own music there—because the real story of its track record as a place to “Discover” new artists, genres, or sounds is completely abysmal. When 2017’s streaming data began coming in this past January, a popular feature by [Galaxie 500](http://galaxie500.bandcamp.com/)’s Damon Krukowski was run by the definitively terminal music magazine of broad notoriety—*Pitchfork*—entitled “[How to Be a Responsible Music Fan in the Age of Streaming](https://pitchfork.com/features/oped/how-to-be-a-responsible-music-fan-in-the-age-of-streaming/),” which he began by citing some very alarming statistics.\n\n“**More than 99 percent of audio streaming is of the top 10 percent most-streamed tracks** [on Spotify.] Which means less than 1 percent of streams account for all other music.” \n\nWhy? A brazen disregard for necessary meta information, for one.\n\n“Look now at how badly their applications already serve entire genres of less popular music. Spotify lists recordings by song title, album title, or featured artist name. But that information is so limited it leaves out even the other performers on a recording, a crucial aspect to classical and jazz.”\n\n\n\nAlarming for those of us who intend to create or consume any music separate the Top 40, anyway, which one should feel justified expecting from most people, most of the time. Last month, The Carters released an album on which [even Beyoncé](https://www.bustle.com/p/when-will-everything-is-love-be-on-spotify-beyonce-jay-z-fans-may-have-to-wait-to-stream-the-surprise-album-update-9426616) identified the problematic service by name. “Patiently waiting for my demise ‘cause my success can’t be quantified,” she rapped, “if I gave two fucks about streaming numbers woulda put Lemonade up on Spotify."" The unfortunate issue with this single denouncement of the industry’s current direction is that its source is adamantly guaranteed a place for her work within Spotify’s top 10 percent for the rest of her career’s lifetime (and probably far beyond.)\n\n[I could now take the time to complain that she’s also entirely abandoned the city [she owes for her career’s creation](https://youtu.be/iiMlq8frlqw) in its darkest hour, but let’s just plan on coming back to the subject at a later date, when we’ll be sure to touch on how terribly Drake also treats Houston (and women.)]\n\nUnsurprisingly, the apathy is far from mutual. From the Swedish company’s perspective, the digits themselves should’ve been dearly and universally beloved from the beginning, and their exponentially ballooning hubris became so inflated by 2014 that they [launched a WordPress blog](https://insights.spotify.com/us/about-spotify-insights/) dedicated entirely to promoting and discussing their data called [*Spotify Insights*](https://insights.spotify.com/), proclaiming themselves—naturally—to be “the world’s favorite streaming service,” [championing](https://insights.spotify.com/us/2017/11/02/listening-diversity-spotify/) the growing diversity in their demographics. Though Beyoncé is mentioned only twice upon a [search of its archive](https://insights.spotify.com/us/?s=beyonce) as it stands today, it’s with fanfare: “[10 Female Artists Women Listen To The Most on Spotify](https://insights.spotify.com/us/2015/03/06/10-female-artists-women-listen-to-the-most/)” declared her the third most popular female artist among women, globally, and “Single Ladies” the number one female-streamed track in the world (assuming I’m interpreting its language correctly.)\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=3826527505/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=1880328200/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://pressurerecords.bandcamp.com/album/k-o"">K.O. by Miss Red</a></iframe>\n\nWe’ve established that Spotify has comfortably planted itself at the polar opposite end of the business spectrum from Bandcamp, yet for the sake of an oblivious adjudicating layman’s understanding, you’d have your work cut out for you explaining the difference between them: both are online marketplaces with gigantic libraries of digital music which a listener can browse, download locally, or stream from using Web browser or the mobile applications offered by each, respectively—and they can do from just about anywhere, for as much or as little as they wish. And—as the music industry and its satellites shall always remain for the rest of humanity’s reign—both are overwhelmingly associated with young people. There, the crucial divide should probably ring a bell—it’s been a constant between cultural generations for as long as culture, itself has existed.\n\nThere are those among us who’s adolescent adoration of music is still completely valid as a very powerful component of hormonal development, yet doomed to quickly sizzle into casual listening or worse by the time our post-secondary Senior year rolls around. And then, there are those on whom the curiosity clings devotedly on: the cool high school punk band-forming types our culture loves to romanticize, who’ll inevitably end up bald and bespeckled with a pre-dawn community radio block. These Musicians, Crate-Diggers, and capital-A Audiophiles have historically overlapped in synonymous functions across a love triangle of dweebish intolerability, though it’s become especially easy as of late to forget that DIY recording is by no means a recent development—its financial and technical barrier-to-entry has simply plummeted thanks to the developmental progression of Digital Audio Workstations and a growing industry of consumer-oriented audio equipment. For succinct insight into this dynamic, let’s refer to the pre-dialogue context in [Chuck Klosterman’s *GQ* interview](https://www.gq.com/story/jimmy-page-led-zeppelin-men-of-the-year-klosterman) with “the second- or the third-best rock guitarist of all time”—*Zinc Blimp* legend Jumbo Page.\n\n> The only thing Page really wants to talk about [is] the sound of the music, and how that sound was achieved. He can talk about microphone placement for a very, very long time. Are you interested in having a detailed conversation about how the glue used with magnetic audiotape was altered in the late 1970s, subsequently leading to the disintegration of countless master tapes? If so, locate Jimmy Page. If a different musician obsessed over technological details with this level of exacting specificity, he would likely be classified as a “nerd,"" as that has become a strange kind of compliment in the Internet age. People actually want to be seen as nerds. But that designation does not apply here. Jimmy Page does not seem remotely nerdy.\n\nBandcamp’s core architecture was handbuilt from the beginning to handle the “hard part” for creators “so that they didn’t have to be so nerdy,” which it, alone pioneered on the Web, becoming the best metadata management utility for all time, but also committing to a traditional interpretation of music mediums that can feel old fashioned in 2018. Despite having been around for a directly comparable length of time, SoundCloud has maintained its relevance among friends in my network as the more socially-focused platform for keeping up with work from their peers thanks in large part to its exclusive, timestamp-oriented comment function, which allows for ultra-specific shortform feedback between fellow creators and fans. This is how the company has chosen to grow its community, which has lent especially to its strength in the most “nerdy” independent scenes: hip-hop and electronic music. The experience is busy by design and the divide between listener and creator is next to non-existent—by now, the difference is universally irrelevant. External sharing has also become a major strength since the inception of SoundCloud’s Web audio player, which was unlike any other embeddable we’d ever seen at the time. Over the years, it’s become the most universally-supported means of embedding a track or playlist elsewhere, though the space has quite recently began blooming with a few much slimmer Open Web offshoots like Vocaroo, Clyp, and Instaudio.\n\nWhile I can casually throw these names around for you in the same sized font, the gulfs between the properties they denote are completely inexpressible in words. Because Spotify went public in Q1 of this year, they released [their first earnings report](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180502006667/en/) in April: 170 million active monthly users, $1.33 billion in total quarterly revenue, and $5.7-$6.2 billion in expected total revenue for 2018. I’ll spare you the entire Forbes piece it would require to comprehensively demonstrate just how cavernous of a disparity canyon the industry represents. Early projects like Pandora were docile, ad-free, and sincerely curious about the curatorial potential of music streaming services – *let’s use this cool new tech to play **music** for **anybody** with a Web browser if only because it’ll be a blast* – yet in that sense, they’ve all failed entirely. All except Bandcamp, anyway.\n\n“We started as a service to help artists sell their music and merchandise directly to their fans, but then as the site grew—it’s now at about 12 million tracks and 1.5 million albums [as of 2014]—we evolved into also being a destination for music Discovery,” he explains, partially anticipating the foot-to-the-floor transition to streaming which has indeed shook the industry the hell up over the years since. The company's solution is minimal, elemental, yet uniquely alternative as only theirs could be: an idealized **digital interpretation of a music collection**, which had actually launched a year before XOXO as part of “[Bandcamp for Fans](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2013/01/10/bandcamp-for-fans/).” That release notably introduced the ability to “follow” both artist and fan accounts, the now-iconic “supported-by” section on release pages showing customers’ avatars and optional comments, and public wishlists. “I think it’s great to use a streaming service for music Discovery—they can be really really good for that,” Diamond [concedes](https://youtu.be/MaUkS-lr-ZM?t=16m11s), before reiterating one of the several variations of Bandcamp’s founding premise that composes his core argument: “if you actually care about music, and you care about the people who make it, and you want them to keep making it, the best way to do that is to buy directly from them, or to use services that allow you to directly support them.”\n\nInstead of the “firehose”-like experience of a contemporary activity feed, “you’ve got a collection of albums and tracks that people were passionate enough to spend money on.” For my personal use, Ethan lit up a long-dormant incandescent bulb in my skull. My use of Bandcamp had long been to purchase and download music files, only—never to stream it—and there’s been good reason for this. While Bandcamp has formally supported playback on iPhone and iPad in-browser since [July 2010](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2010/07/14/now-streaming-on-the-ipad-iphone/), actually using it for any substantial amount of playback has always been a souring endeavor. Considering that it’s persisted *to this day*, we must concede that it is part of an intentional design rather than just an irritating flaw: **multitasking between apps or even browser tabs will prevent continuous playback of an album**, as will locking the device. In order to move from track to track fluidly, one must keep the page with the in-use Bandcamp player front and center. For three years, this was the only way to stream Bandcamp on mobile, but such capability was far from reliably expected by even the earliest adopters, then—3G data networks were worse than you remember, anyway—and then in 2013, [the Bandcamp app was launched](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2013/10/25/its-over/) on iOS and Android, providing a sufficient fix in my book at the time. (I’d rather any externally-embedded players I may engage with in an album review or artist profile be limited to a single track, anyway.) However, the app itself remained quite mediocre for years, which was a tangible disappointment given how revolutionary their desktop experience had been when the company launched,but not necessarily a substantial deterrent to the sort of user they were attracting.\n\nI made a point to spend *a lot* of time engaging with Bandcamp’s service as much as possible – naturally, this included a trip back through [my neglected, digitally dusty Collection](http://bandcamp.com/davidblue), which proved a way more emotionally provocative experience than I anticipated. Ethan’s simple truth didn’t really sink in until I realized that this list is made up exclusively of my *real favorites*, and there’s not a single track that is not inextricably and intoxicatingly tied to a specific era(s) of my life (yes, even that one Blank Banshee album... I was 18, okay?) It’s absurdly powerful—not something I could engage with for any extended time without becoming saturated with nostalgic gut stuff. (Listen for my upcoming special celebratory episode of [Extratone Radio](http://extratone.com/radio) to hear the best music I’ve found through Bandcamp.) It hadn’t occurred to me that I would retain ownership and streaming rights to all music I’ve purchased—including for a $0.00 sum, as I did for at least half of the works you see—even after an artist chose to delete or hide it on their own page. (Though they are not retained in my public collection, of course.)\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=645929553/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=50735221/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""https://4lrecords.bandcamp.com/album/recycle-bin"">\$Recycle.Bin by KING QUARTZ</a></iframe>\n\n# The Discovery Debacle\n\nPursuing an objective definition of “music Discovery” might appear foolish – an individual’s music taste is perhaps the most broadly angst-steeped realms of overwhelming subjectivity in modern American culture, after all – but its the pungent poignancy of our fundamental human relationship with sound, itself which makes the history of Discovery’s digitization so important (and fascinating.) If I were to ask you what you believe should be the single most important function that must be reliably performed by any “music Discovery” device – whether it be an application, Web service, magazine or even a crate-digging habit – the single factor which would render whole vague concept inert, irrelevant, and/or completely destroyed, how would you answer? How would you interpret the question? \n\nIt’s important we do well to take a considerable moment to cultivate a special wariness of the eggshells beneath our feet in this arena. Debatably at least a minim more than one’s taste in film, Americans from Generation X on forward until the end of time (I suspect) will hold “their” music as perhaps the most integral support upon which their identities are built throughout every stage of their lives. The intense sensation of ownership that propels this phenomenon within our culture leaves an especially sensitive passage ahead of us.\n\nAs a wide-eyed teenager and infantile audio producer, I explored the idea of anti-music in my own entirely Bandcamp-supported project while I searched – aided tremendously by my expert best friend – for the edgiest, least sensical sounds and scenes on which to publicly attach on my identity in an opposing of “Discovery’s” extremes with fandom: **an obsessive, entirely-detached last-ditch skirmish between the cultural reality and my delusional pubescent need to be unique**. This process appears to be a universal requisite in modern youth in one form or another, but it’s important now that I emphasize this confession: I was an especially ostentatious little backpacker fuck, but I’ve continued to find my shame well worth achieving a specific balance for music’s purpose in my life, and I’d anecdotally endorse its potential to relieve cognitive dissonance at great scale. There’s only so much fun to be had blasting breakcore cassettes at deafening, distorted volumes solely to bewilder rural overnight convenience store clerks on their smoke breaks in the wee hours or the bruteforce seizure of the speakers’ Bluetooth connection at a frat party just to play harsh noise or anime-sampling Hardstyle while demonically shrieking – eyes rolled back – and lighting various parts of oneself ablaze before one realizes that 1) it’s they who end up looking like the idiots for aggressively breaching a group’s fun with inappropriate tunes (yes, no matter how interesting, rare, or underrated they may be, Chadley;) 2) by ferally manifesting, you’ve deligitimized yourself, which 3) can seriously damage any future attempts to accomplish **the fundamental drive to share the gospel of music’s variety** out of your own rubish frustration with the differences between you.\n\nThe real, sweetest truth is that **100% of all music has value potential** because of the medium’s broad influence on the human psyche. Pop music is amazing right now; the signature trap sound we devalued with Datpiff jokes made us all look like fools when it unconsciously transcended our “irony” and burrowed its own huge partition in our sincere hearts. After my pitiful attempt to reject and distance myself from my own rural roots by scoffing at country music for years, I’ve made a beautiful peace with the childhood memories and the historic excellence of Shania Twain and The Dixie Chicks in their mastery of both wholesome joy and crippling nostalgia (I’ve even cried to Taylor Swift.) Yes, it’s been entirely reasonable all along to enjoy the straightforwardly slothen pleasure in belching “Sweet Home Alabama” pounding cheap pissbeer on a foul pontoon boat on the Lake of the Ozarks, leaving my penultimate irony to confess that I’ve only found true and serene identity through music after learning how to stop insisting so violently upon the worldly, one-of-a-kind superiority of my “taste.”\n\nThat said, it’s still bewildering how content we are to abruptly abandon the substance music had to our teenage selves out of misconstrued justifications for our classic fainéance – actively choosing to subject our public ambiance to thousands of replays of “the best” records in favor of dipping even the most cowardly toe into unfamiliar waters, even when the opportunity cost is inherently halved – only to then have the audacity to evangelize our dilapidated conceptions of “good music” to our children as we demonize the music of their generation, depriving them of a very essential rite of their cognitive development. **I can think of little more reductive, repugnant, reckless, or racist crusades as a model figure than indoctrinating your child with an inherent distaste for their own culture**, and nothing more deeply alarming to hear from the mouth of someone born in the 21st century than shit like “Queen was better than any rapper will ever be,” or “real musicianship will die forever with Eric Clapton.” It’s unfair and unnatural: imagine if your high school classmates had consistently turned up their scrunched nose at the living whole of rock & roll, declaring Scott Joplin to be the last musician they could stand.\n\nConsider if the industry-wide customer experience standard for the musical ambiance in 1970s American eating and drinking establishments was entirely comprised of works by John Phillip Souza, and the most prevalent cultural revolution manifested itself something like the following: In countless popular films set in the time (and the stories told today by your parents of their youths that informs them,) a group of popular high school boys – generally three longtime childhood friends and a single addition from the previous summer with an Army Dad and a moderate bad boy aura that’s made him one of the school’s notoriously attractive students and the somewhat-abusive leader in the pack. After spending some time trying to convince the other three (the crucial moment for his case being the bad kid’s rare moment of sincerity trope) of its guaranteed social, sexual and financial ROI, they seal their agreement to start a band with a four-way saliva slap. Imagine if in the progression of this exhausted old tale, it remained entirely classic (and boring) when it faded to a “THREE MONTHS LATER...” ceiling shot of the four the in full, gleaming, performance-spec get-up of the presidential marching band in their garage, and it was revealed that they’d they practiced “The Star Spangled Banner” every night just to make the girls swoon in the film’s resolution with an encore of “America the Beautiful” at an unsanctioned (and very patriotic!) house party.\n\nSuffice it to say that it’s absolutely fucking bonkers how often I encounter “Sweet Home Alabama” (and other tunes I’ve already heard hundreds of times throughout the first third of my existence, conservatively) dripping down from the overhead speakers in all manner of big retail stores, where it’s inappropriate and unwelcome. Even from the generous assumption that every single one of them is an objective masterwork of composition, the amount of affection the American music listening audience has for the same 500 singles is on par with our rampant gun violence in terms of our unanimous tolerance for ridiculously illogical habits. I’ve been sitting in a cute, moderately trendy coffee shop on the corner of the major avenue of access to my cute, moderately trendy Portland neighborhood for an hour now, and I’ve recognized every single one of the tracks played just a bit too loudly on the stereo. I’ve been sick of them all since Middle School. That one Bow Bow Chicka Chicka thing… How very charming. \n\n“*The 70s, the 80s… the one-hit wonder channel!”* \n\nContrary to the popular hipster narrative we’ve just defeated, it’s not the popularity of the lineup that makes these experiences so distasteful, but their *regularity*. It doesn’t take a doctor of psychology to observe that tireless exposure to any given work of art inevitably erodes its value, yet we continue to expend resources saturating most mundane spaces in our society with an unyielding regurgitation of the same brackish pop culture symbols as if we’re *trying* to either induce a canonical vomit, intentionally obliterate the Yelp! reviews for a distant future museum’s “North America Enters the 21st Century” exhibit, or *both*. After failing my best attempts to elaborate with historical analogy citing a past event, I’m afraid we must pivot to a science fiction-esque nanonarrative containing obnoxiously speculative hypotheticals, instead.\n\n**Imagine**: It’s 2036 – four years after we found out we are not alone in the universe when a significantly more advanced civilization makes formal first contact with humanity by sending a party of diplomats, anthropologists, and explorers (who were actually getting ready to go in 2016 before getting word of the Trump presidency and deciding we weren’t quite ready just yet) who land their space egg right in front of the United Nations’ New York City headquarters and expressing something to the tune of *hey so um… we noticed you guys moved in and we just wanted to stop by and say hi*, entirely altering humanity’s self-perception and future trajectory (see: works by Gene Roddenberry) yadda yadda. The visitors expressed a wish to begin a cultural exchange project with us, and it’s just now coming to fruition… I have only moments ago made history in the eyes of the entire world when I walked through the front door of a Target store in suburban New Jersey leading a hovering hyper-intelligent silicon-based sphere of agender mist (roughly comparative to a basketball in size,) who’s already both impressing and shaming me tremendously as we move by the in-store Starbucks. From above us, Semisonic’s “Closing Time” is belched upon my life’s proudest moment and my guest requests we pause to discuss it, to my profound horror.\n\n“The sound from the reproduction devices embedded above us...” the android translator trails off for a moment. “It is the same noise that was distantly reproduced 51 hours ago in ‘Miami’ as I conversed with Ambassador Phillip Defranco about ‘the setting sun’ on the ‘beach,’ coming from a small open air structure which he defined as ‘a surf shop,’ which was occupied by a young male who appeared to be moderately agitated, moving about in jagged strides as he wildly smacked the foundational surface with ‘a broom.’ The Ambassador explained the youth was likely nearing the end of his allotted period of daily occupational labor.”\n\nBlood is flooding my cheeks as I listen with a building dread to the robot’s interpretation, awash with all manner of embarrassment for my species. \n\n“Is the purpose of this noise reproduction of a logistical nature, or is it perhaps a common ritual within business and/or working class culture?”\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2309125545/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=2334991176/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://ripswirl.bandcamp.com/album/possessed"">Possessed by RIP Swirl</a></iframe>\n\nNow, it’s your turn to be the human representative in this pico science fiction: you’re now obligated to confirm the alien anthropologist’s hypothesis and explain that “Closing Time” is but one piece of recorded music among billions of diverse expressive works across millennia. You must reverently describe how the “universal language” of math within melodious composition has long been a hefty buzzword in the pop culture conversations about interstellar communication and our longtime search for extraterrestrial intelligence from the future-thrilled 90s—S.E.T.I.’s glory days – when we felt pretty damned good about space. The historic launch of the United Nations’ “greetings on behalf of the people of our planet” etched into [The Golden Record](https://www.npr.org/2017/09/30/554489944/the-voyager-golden-record-finally-finds-an-earthly-audience) aboard *Voyager I* and Jodie Foster’s novel portrayal of a S.E.T.I. scientist in the iconic Carl Sagan-sourced 1997 science fiction drama *Contact* are among the globally-celebrated Best Hits of humanism (not to mention the organization listed on your paystubs,) and they weigh a billion tons on you, now—in the most significant moment of your entire life, bar none – as you explain on behalf of your species to **real** extraterrestrial intelligence the reality of how negligent it is actually is of the culture the Record claimed to treasure. The worst part, though? The entire experience is accompanied by a nasal-as-hell Semisonic soundtrack.\n\nAren’t you *frustrated*? You should be, but it’s not over yet: inevitably, your round fictional companion of note is going to follow up their query with some seriously burning meat.\n\n“Just a half-generation ago, your utopian dream of a globally-connected world – in which everyone would be empowered to saturate and culture themselves with new ideas and forms of expression – was the defining aspiration of your society, and yet you’ve definitively achieved Total Connectivity, now, and caused the overwhelmingly opposite result: you’re all intolerable shitheads who every passing solar orbit become less and less capable of anything but regurgitation of the same foul bullshit. Y’all fucking wack. I’m out. ”\n\nAnd there, that filthy little ball would have us all. Friends, colleagues, human siblings of mine, **it’s long-past time we expect better from ourselves** as music citizens of the world. Even the longest living of us are endowed with very little opportunity to absorb anything more than an infinitesimal fraction of all there is to experience, and we’ve all been carelessly and embarrassingly chucking it to the weeds. If it this all seems excessive, there’s no need to feel attacked, but for Pete’s sake… please stop claiming you “like music” because it’s misleadingly inaccurate and I’ll promise never to use the phrase “music citizens of the world” again, in exchange.\n\n# Distribution & Curation\n\n**You, your friends, and I are missing out on way too much cool shit** and we’re going to continue addressing possible causes and solutions to this ongoing catastrophe without asking for a single moved finger on your part because we are fucking saints. Let’s come back to ground and consider a casual real-world use case for a streaming service which I’ve observed.\n\n*It’s just after 1PM on an especially beautiful Summer day in 2018, and you’ve decided with your two best friends that an impromptu hot dog barbecue in your little apartment’s parking lot would be a great way to spend the afternoon. You get on Facebook Messenger – no time to bother with the formality of creating an event – and begin to bother your group of art school friends. In a few hours, you’ve set up chairs in a circle around the borrowed fire pit, gathered meat tubes, marshmallows, and beer, and your guests have begun to arrive. The next step: retrieve your cordless Bluetooth speaker from inside to place it atop a log nearest the scene, re-pair it with your smartphone, and ___?*\n\nLet’s acknowledge that music has incredibly diverse purposes of value in human life—*of course* I realize this—and ultimately, nobody can dictate those fulfilled for another individual by any given track, album, artist, or genre across time and setting. Even splittercore-obsessed serial killers and body modding cybergrind disciples are doomed: inevitably, they will one day let their guard down and find themselves singing along with “Goodbye Earl” on the radio way off key, smiling like a doofus. Even if one hates humanity, they will eventually be forced to acknowledge that The Dixie Chicks came very close to its penultimate manifestation.\n\nI understand that it’s not *always* time for something new for everyone, but you’re missing out on music’s most worthwhile function by far if you never seek anything fresh, and—if you still find yourself unwilling to bother, even—carrying around even the slightest bit of anecdotal knowledge about *what’s going on* in music with you can be invaluably culturing to your image when socializing with youths and alien intelligences, alike. There is a spectrum of enthusiasm (or pretentiousness, depending on one’s own subjectives) for music that is far more culturally consequential than the practice of partaking and/or patroning any other artform. Settle comfortably on any point – extreme or not – and you’re at serious risk of being uncool. Nobody wants Anthony Fantano showing up to their party, but if you live too long confusing the Beach Boys with the Beatles – as I have – folks start to behave as if there’s something wrong with you. If it helps, let’s suppose this to be the *real* reason behind my need to discuss Bandcamp – perhaps its relative lack of aged or worshiped-at-scale work justifies it all.\n\nBy this nature, its effort is designed to bracket the enthusiast as wholly as possible, but the value most in need of its experience has become its comparatively extravagant hospitality for the dabbler. The “[Discoverinator](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2012/06/07/behold-the-glory-of-the-discoverinator/)” (I would’ve voted for calling it “Genre-Fucker”) is simply *the* most ingenious tool available anywhere to filter music by genre, subgenre, location, and medium. Or at least... It’s too gorgeous not to be. Thanks to its recent visual redesign, I don’t even care if it’s useful—it’s just a beautiful thing to play with on both the Web and the iOS app (though I’d bet they were each crafted separately.)\n\n<iframe width=""auto"" height=""auto"" src=""https://www.youtube.com/embed/SOaEAR9Da70?controls=0"" frameborder=""0"" allow=""accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture"" allowfullscreen></iframe>\n\nFront and center on the homepage is the [Bandcamp Daily](http://daily.bandcamp.com/) – a showcase of features, lists, albums of the day, and artist interviews from various staff and guest contributors which I’d most certainly judge befit of a standalone publication – and the [*Bandcamp Weekly*](https://bandcamp.com/?show) – an extraordinarily-produced podcast like no other with special mixes, guest appearances, and commentary which the company’s [Chief Curator Andrew Jervis](https://bandcamp.com/andrewjervis) has been honing [since 2013](http://bandcamp.com/?show=1) over 289 episodes as of [this morning](http://bandcamp.com/?show=289). Its player functions both in-browser and on the iOS app unlike any I’ve ever seen, with a list of embedded tracks that pop out when they’re actually spinning on the show so that you can engage further with them, if you wish. It’s difficult to describe, but it feels visually like you’re listening to a playlist in Bandcamp’s normal player, except tracks are intermixed and faded between one another beneath the host’s commentary, so the audio itself must be pre-rendered. Regardless, it’s nearly as extraordinary an achievement in Web design as the program itself is in curatorial music broadcasting. I’m no addict to the genre, but I have yet to Discover another similar product which I can binge episode after episode for hours without becoming bored or irritated as I can the *Bandcamp Weekly*’s.\n\nTo fill in the parking lot party blank with a single streaming solution for the sake of our young, art school-attending, likely more musically-literate than average summer barbecue guests—how viable is Bandcamp? Truthfully, it’s only slightly more suited now than it was in its earliest infancy for obediently filling a space with ambiance. We could ponder whether or not its design discourages absentminded playback only consequently, or perhaps condescendingly from the high, white tower of hipster elitism on which you’ll occasionally hear it accused of perching, but UX design is *the* most ridiculous sphere within which to intenspeculate in lieu of verification (gazing at you with the timeless grace of a thousand moons, *Medium,*) so lets hold off to seek out an interview with a Bandcamp representative.\n\nSoundCloud would be a bit closer to the mark—it can be configured to simply *keep going* after you’ve finished a track, regardless of where you may be within the interface (excluding the embedded player, of course)—but it’d be much safer to spend the smidgen of extra time required to find a manmade playlist. Letting it loose will quickly land you on some seriously dubious (and probably embarrassing) nerd shit. As I understand it, YouTube has long been the go-to houseparty music player because of its universality, Chromecast support, and (obviously) visual component for accompanying music videos, so its new, ad-free [YouTube Music service](https://djmag.com/content/youtube-launches-youtube-music-and-youtube-premium-streaming-services) has a lot of potential, in theory, but we’re *outside* in this scenario and our smartphone is our only playback device.\n\nStartlingly, the Web’s given best answer to this situation is still Spotify in all of its culture-diluting gluttony. *Internet radio*? Yikes. You can still find a gem of a stream every once in a while, but they’re usually unreliable and probably abandoned, so the catalog won’t last you more than a few hours before you’ll start to hear repeats. You could search out the internet stream of your favorite radio station—a *student* radio station, even—but those offering the most entertaining programming are unlikely to have a suitable playlist on a summer afternoon. So—forgetting its overwhelming financial funneling toward its top 10% and everything else for a moment—why not just give up the pretense and use Spotify? Again, for most of my friends, it works just fine to play Cat Stevens, Run DMC, Gorillaz or The Rolling Stones, but I have yet to figure out a combination of keywords to keep it on target within even the most rudimentary parameters. Such ill-restraint becomes especially dire—necessary, really—when I queue up “Cannibal Ox Radio” for the office and R Kelly ends up playing, 20 minutes in. Using personally-targeted artist bans is probably too subjective to ask of such a service in the spotlight, but **how about an option to filter out white rappers**? (I hope you didn’t blink because that’s by far my best contribution in tech writing yet.)\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=4014717387/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=2256266207/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://openmikeeagle360.bandcamp.com/album/brick-body-kids-still-daydream"">Brick Body Kids Still Daydream by Open Mike Eagle</a></iframe>\n\nThe truth is, I’d probably end up calling upon Apple Music as I’ve been an on-and-off subscriber since its release, but have yet to meet a single fellow user. The girth of its catalog is [reportedly still nearly ](https://9to5mac.com/2018/05/06/apple-music-vs-spotify/)[25% larger](https://9to5mac.com/2018/05/06/apple-music-vs-spotify/), its UI is significantly more cohesively integrated with iOS (which hasn’t always been a given from Apple with its music software, mind you,) yet it costs me precisely the same $9.99 a month as Spotify Premium would. If I *did* know somebody else who used it, they’d be able to see [my public profile](http://bit.ly/dbapple) including my playlists and activity, just as my followers on Spotify can, and I can create “Stations” for artists that function similarly to Spotify’s endless adaptive playlists, but—crucially, for myself—after the app’s redesign for iOS 10, the integration of Apple Music music with my own iTunes library is completely seamless. With unlimited data, I’ve selected the option to refrain from storing music locally, which further diminishes the distinction between “my” music and the music I’ve paid for the rights to stream. Fundamentally, the end result is that I pay ten bucks a month for “ownership” of *all* the music on iTunes proper.\n\nWhile I might personally play *Bandcamp Weekly* episodes in such a context and gladly accept whatever results I’d get, I’d only do so acknowledging the subsequently increased risk of some vest-wearing fuck I’ve never met springing out of the bushes to accost me about Weird Allan. However, I am neither cool nor musically literate, which makes me particularly vulnerable to misusing algorithmic Discovery—the practice in which artificial intelligence has become most widely-deployed which continues to prove itself to better deserve the term “automated wallowing,” or “robotized ear rot.”\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=66639283/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=151662136/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://scjreal.bandcamp.com/album/watch-a-man-die-3"">WATCH A MAN DIE 3 by SCJ</a></iframe>\n\nIronically, Damon Krukowski’s aforementioned “responsibility” essay on *Pitchfork* openly cites Liz Pelly’s burning-hot and [100%](https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-muzak-pelly)[ essential analysis](https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-muzak-pelly) of algorithmically-generated playlists for *The Baffler* notes the publication’s own substantial relationship with Spotify, including a [Webby Award-winning](https://www.webbyawards.com/winners/pitchfork-spotify-inside-discovery/) advertorial series called *Inside Discovery*, which the two collaborate to produce that’s “meant to boost awareness of the ‘Discover Weekly’ feature.”\n\n> The series shows Pitchfork editors (and favored musicians) gushing about their love of streaming—the immediacy! The deep back catalogs! One editor says it helps him keep track of his listening habits, while another rejoices at not having to dig through crates at record shops anymore. Yet another likens Spotify to walking around a music festival, discovering something new at every turn. What does it mean for “the most trusted voice in music” to celebrate an algorithm as preferable to its own crate digging? What does it mean when the tastemaking humans endorse data-driven machines? What does it mean when the algorithms become cool? Virtually every music publication now relies on Spotify media players to embed songs within online articles, and Websites like Pitchfork and Rolling Stone regularly celebrate their playlists with listicles: “Ten Albums To Stream Now.” “The Five Playlists You Need to Hear This Summer.”\n\nWe love bespoke Open Web projects, so exploring *Inside Discovery*’s (surely bespoke) experience induced the same pathetic sort of *I wish business just incentived building nice things* disappointment which has become my default, bitchy mood, and blaming as a further let down to immediately land on [Mitski’s ](https://insidediscovery.pitchfork.com/playlist-mitski)[playlist](https://insidediscovery.pitchfork.com/playlist-mitski), to whom I’d just been [reintroduced](https://pitchfork.com/features/profile/dont-cry-for-mitski/) (by *Pitchfork*, admittedly) after happening upon her performance at Pitchfork 2017 (which is organized, admittedly, by *Pitchfork*.)\n\nUpon a brief review of these once-petty desires and the new, apocalyptic solutions which we are burning barns full of cash to develop, it would appear that the overwhelmingly defining feature of those which are at all viable remains to be the interference of a human being, and why wouldn’t it be, still, when manual music aggregation remains so desperately cheap? I’d wager heavily that there’s at least a single editor within Apple Music who’s spent serious time embedded in the Berlin techno scene considering how regularly the prime “Techno” playlist is updated with new work of a moderately-industrial bias.\n\n“The downside to automated music Discovery is that we’re encouraged to develop a taste profile and stick to it,” [opines somebody on *Pigeons & Planes*](https://pigeonsandplanes.com/in-depth/2016/03/music-discovery-algorithms), complimenting Pelly in their profile of former BBC Radio 1 host, Zane Lowe, and his new job curating an Apple Music playlist? \n\nThe truth is, the stories that come to us that smell the strongest of philanthropy on the surface are often actually about some dusty, Y2K-lookin’-ass nerd with powerfully tedious grievances and too much time on their hands. The whole world knows the details by now of how Mark Zuckerberg’s horny social ineptitude led to Facebook’s conception, but we must both keep in check the bad habit we share – the whole present-day reading world and I, that is – of dwelling entirely too much on the most “negative,” soul-agitating tales in what we perceive to be the pursuit of necessary ingredients for concocting a better solution. Bandcamp’s story is predominantly comprised of smart decisions, sincere transparency, and savvy ideas which are best examined in contrast, I’m afraid, with all that’s being done *wrong* everywhere else.\n\n> Are my favorite punk bands now Bandcamp bands? Are they suddenly wanting to conform to a kind of Bandcamp aesthetic? I don’t think so. Not yet. But if that does happen, something might be lost — a sense of these bands defining themselves as they want to, which is sort of the Bandcamp promise in the first place. People can use help navigating the riches of Bandcamp. But its estimable editorial project opens an interesting question: When does help turn into tastemaking?\n\n# The Creators\n\nYou missed it, didn’t you—the ten-year anniversary of Bandcamp’s launch? Ashamed, I realized last month that I did, too. Ashamed, because I owe a lot to to the platform’s unwavering commitment to the distribution and curation of work made by just about all of my favorite artists—within and outside of my social network. Throughout 2015, I hosted a number of conversations with exceptional, future-looking creators on *Drycast* which I am especially proud of. On one [early episode](https://anchor.fm/extratone/episodes/Juke-Master-Samantha-Carter-and-the-Producers-Extravaganza-e1neqc/a-a4674c) with an exceptional total of *seven* music makers, I observed in a beat that “all of us have Bandcamp accounts,” before the week’s guest, Samantha Carter, suggested that she’d found her page especially financially rewarding, and originated the concept of the “Bandcamp Sugar Daddy” (which I personally ship 100%.)\n\n<iframe sandbox=""allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-popups allow-forms"" scrolling=no width=""100%"" height=""auto"" frameborder=""0"" src=""https://embed.radiopublic.com/e?if=extratone-radio-WYDa1L&ge=s1!f76e4396345722808b3064eb45ca7053ea92f219""></iframe>\n\n“It's something I take for granted,” said my friend [yzome](https://twitter.com/yzome) – a [truly one-of-a-kind electronic producer](https://yzome.bandcamp.com/) who’s far-traveling composition is probably the closest Digital Audio Workstation equivalent of Extreme Use Testing—when automotive manufacturers effectively torture new prototypes with the most inhospitable conditions on Earth until they break. However, it’s not a PR stunt in yzome’s case—he’s just very good at doing what he does after doing it for nearly 10 years—and his end product requires a hell of a lot more than any one genre would ever presume, but it more than delivers back on the investment with significant interest.\n\nWhen [he appeared on *Drycast*](https://anchor.fm/extratone/episodes/Electronic-Producer-Yzome-and-his-Alien-Sound-e1lmcj/a-a41qc5) in January 2015, we failed to achieve any descriptors more sophisticated than “alien sounds,” but perhaps that’s all they need: the inner worlds into which yzome invites us are of manic, unpredictable arrhythmia which poses an unapologetic, yet magically lighthearted challenge to any cohesive theory. It’s very rare that his proudly-ungenreable exploration of the fringes does not demand the listener’s full attention, yet it always manages to be *inoffensively aggressive* like **nothing** else, which suggesting promise for the possible upheaval of a long-upheld natural law among electronic dance music: yzome doesn’t need to be a shithead to challenge the listener intellectually.\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=586326190/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=641807133/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://yzome.bandcamp.com/album/yvette"">YVETTE by yzome</a></iframe>\n\nPlay *[YVETTE](https://yzome.bandcamp.com/album/yvette)* for any boomer you know with that classically impenetrable disgust for *all* electronic music, and you’ll witness firsthand how special yzome’s particular innovation truly is. No, they’re not going to be *sexually liberated*, or anything—it’s still going to be alarming—but you’ll notice that the swift and overwhelming fury which sample and break-heavy dance music has always awoken within them has been miraculously circumvented. Instead of immediately storming off, they’ll be paralyzed in an existential fugue state from which they may never quite fully emerge. I’ve seen it firsthand. It’s witchcraft.\n\nThere is no other across the (especially-wide) electronic spectrum who can so loudly go so far, so fast without any insincerity, whatsoever. His arrangement seems mischievous and all over the place, but really listen and you’ll hear rips of recognizable patterns playing peekaboo in willy-nilly bursts that reveal his dynamic mastery of the dance music space through Breakcore, Juke, Footwork, and Techno sampling. All of this is to say, really, that yzome’s music represents a level of boundary-pushing which only a niche audience tends to truly appreciate, yet is undoubtedly worthy of an elegantly-presented host like Bandcamp.\n\n""Like thank god I don't have to look for a label to release this. It's seen as a legitimate platform (by people who might actually care about what I’m doing, at least,) which I think is less offputting than uploading things to Mediafire or whatever else. It’s populist and boutique at the same time.""\n\n***Populist, yet boutique***. Can we really be expected to exceed this summation? Well, nobody’s said much at all in the mainstream press, but what *has* been said is 1) unusually misplaced in the spaces of those least likely to find it relevant and 2) *way* more insightful than you’d expect. \n\n“Bandcamp has an independent-artist identity because of practicalities: Independent artists from Web-centered subcultures need it most,” observed an especially savvy online aside from by [Ben Ratliff](http://benratliff.net/)—jazz and pop critic for *The New York Times—*asking “[Is Bandcamp the Holy Grail of Online Record Stores](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/arts/music/bandcamp-shopping-for-music.html)?” So why aren’t we talking about it? The other important takeaway: founder Ethan Diamond told Ratliff that “the company has never spent money on promotion.” This is largely why I’ve invested so much time and affection into this piece—gratitude is not often sellable incentive for mainstream coverage. \n\nThe truth is, the continued obscurity of Bandcamp’s story despite all it’s done comes down not to any malpractice by the company (in fact, it would likely be more visible had it fucked up more,) or even to its prevalence in the careers of big industry names (whom I will address in detail shortly,) but because it simply operates too magnanimously for its customers to be taken seriously as a newsworthy business, which is problematic and personally infuriating. In November, 2015, Bandcamp made mention in *The New Yorker* via the openly diminutive context of *Car Seat Headrest’s* [origin story](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/02/growth-spurt-pop-music-hua-hsu), describing it as “a charming alternative,” and “a casual, low-risk approach.” Granted, it’s worth noting that the platform did not address its lack of “editorial guidance” until a year later, with the [launch](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2016/06/13/welcome-to-bandcamp-daily/) of the excellent *Bandcamp Daily* blog, but I think you’ll agree it’s in poor taste to argue against the legitimacy of a *music* distribution platform because it’s *too democratic.* Perhaps it’s still just beyond reasonable expectations to get a top-of-the-foodchain music writer’s head wrapped around the idea that such products on The Internet can easily—even optimally—service both hobbyists and professionals.\n\nLast year, Bandcamp was responsible for [$270 million in payments](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2018/02/12/the-bandcamp-2017-year-in-review/) to artists like Jlin,the genius commonly associated with Footwork (certainly Chicago’s most underreported and popularly underrepresented movement,) for pushing its expressive boundaries both in theory and geography further than any other, and who’s so far produced two of the most “[aggressively](https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/qvv37m/jlin-is-making-the-most-aggressively-beautiful-music-youve-ever-heard)[ beautiful](https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/qvv37m/jlin-is-making-the-most-aggressively-beautiful-music-youve-ever-heard)” records you’ll find anywhere in the process.[[i\]](#_edn1) Type her name into any search engine and her Bandcamp page is *always* the first result, yet Cntrl-Fing for “Bandcamp” will yield 0 results from her interviews with *The Fader*, *FACT Magazine*, *Pitchfork*, *The Seventh Hex*, *Passion of the Weiss*, *PopMatters*, *Crack Magazine*, *DUMMY*, *The Guardian*, *The Quietus*, *BOMB Magazine*, *Ableton Blog*, *The Creative Independent*, *Rolling Stone*, *SPIN*, *No Fear of Pop*, *self-titled magazine*, *Circulation Magazine*, *The New Yorker*, *Cyclic Defrost*, *Mixmag*, or *melting bot*, and only one in *Interview Magazine*. To be clear: I am **not** arguing that Jlin—a black female music artist—should be profusely thanking Bandcamp—a service founded largely by white male programmers—for hosting her most visible page but rather that the more independent of these publications, especially, should mention its role in her story or—at the very least—be hyperlinking to [her Bandcamp page](https://jlin.bandcamp.com/) first, for both her’s and their readers’ sake—Bandcamp’s cut of album purchases is half of iTunes. From the user experience perspective, it’s absurd that those of these pages including embedded music players chose to use SoundCloud’s—which is more resource heavy (yet of noticeably lesser streaming playback quality) and visually disruptive—instead of [Bandcamp’s](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2013/06/12/all-new-players-up-twitter-too/).\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: auto; height: auto;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2765736108/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://jlin.bandcamp.com/album/black-origami"">Black Origami by Jlin</a></iframe>\n\nThe two services were launched the same year—that fateful 2008—but comparing them is complicated. They are clear opposites in at least one principal: how they’ve defined their mission. Bandcamp has changed less throughout its history than any other Web service that comes to mind (see below,) but SoundCloud has struggled with identity issues, to their vastly-superior success (in terms of user statistics, anyway.) *The New York Times* [reported in June, 2011](https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/soundcloud-an-audio-sharing-site-hits-5-million-users/) that they’d reached 5 million users, citing their decision to expand focus beyond “popular music” to explain the milestone. “We’re building a sound platform that’s not just about music,” said Alex Ljung – a SoundCloud co-founder and the company’s chief executive at the time – and its present landscape certainly reflects a diverse offering of uses, but ultimately, any . Today, both SoundCloud and Bandcamp have premium subscription plans for artists which are at least *perceived* to be competitive with one another—[SoundCloud Pro](https://blog.soundcloud.com/2013/03/11/introducing-soundcloud-pro/) and [Bandcamp Pro](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2012/06/25/new-features-up/), respectively—along with free base experiences, which we’ll compare first.\n\n**Free Bandcamp Account\n Uploads**: quantity unlimited, size of each file limited to 291mb.\n **Distribution**: unlimited streaming, up to 200 free downloads per month.\n\n**Free SoundCloud Account\n Uploads**: total of 3 hours uploaded at any given time.\n **Distribution**: unlimited streaming, unlimited downloads.\n\nBoth offer access “basic” statistics for their tracks at this tier which most of the creators I know consider more than enough—the usefulness of any playback/download stats is negligible when you’re publishing within tight niches—and each has had about 5 years to fine-tune their free offerings so that they feel as complete as possible. If you’re planning on publishing a podcast on SoundCloud, you’re obviously going to have to upgrade your upload limit even beyond Pro ($8/month, 6-hour upload limit) to Pro Unlimited ($16/month, unlimited uploads,) though I would suggest a plethora of alternative methods before you got that far. Unfortunately, they would not include a free Bandcamp account. While [there ](https://bandcamp.com/?g=podcasts&s=top&p=0&gn=0&f=all&w=0#discover)*are* [podcasts on Bandcamp](https://bandcamp.com/?g=podcasts&s=top&p=0&gn=0&f=all&w=0#discover), they’re completely separate the platform’s aspirations and without support for the basic requirements of podcast distribution (namely, RSS feeds.)\n\nBandcamp’s Pro option is $10 a month and includes a custom domain, batch file uploading, private streaming (for press and/or fans) plus the ability to disable *free* streaming (requiring listeners to actually buy the music to enable any playback,) ad-free video hosting (which nobody uses, to my knowledge,) extended fan interaction tools, and a broader statistics suite that includes Google Analytics support. SoundCloud’s Pro and Pro Unlimited options are complimentary, but a full-time independent artist could justify maintaining Pro accounts on both services or neither—one does not necessarily replace the other, but the contrast in their chosen presentations has led to a divide in the cultures of the two communities so stark [it could be a punchline](http://www.thefader.com/2017/04/03/bandcamp-artists-vs-soundcloud-artists-meme) and/or simplified to say that *SoundCloud is for rap* and *Bandcamp is not*.\n\nIt’s not entirely shocking, then, that SoundCloud’s story has been more present in the greater conversation than Bandcamp’s. Frankly, its largest issues are directly related: compared to SoundCloud, **Bandcamp’s community is White As Fuck** (a claim I can only make on behalf of my own observations and those which a select few creators have seen fit to express to me over the years, considering that the company has yet to release any demographic information about its creators) which is a glaringly fundamental obstruction to the project’s broader mission to help music culture “[thrive](https://bandcamp.com/about).”\n\nFrom a future historian’s perspective, the battle for the definitive name in independent digital music distribution has already won, largely thanks to its relationship with Chance The Rapper, who’s quickly become a “cultural influencer, thought leader, global star,” and one of my generation’s upmost celebrity champions. Obviously, there is little sense trying to determine whether SoundCloud *earned* his partnership or landed their popular association with his name as long as the artist maintains it publicly, while continuing to [give new meaning](https://soundcloud.com/pitchfork/pitchfork-presents-in-sight-out-chance-the-rapper) to the phrase “serially likable.” Thus far, his mythical power to exude purity has felt virtually 100% airtight Last year, his second album *Coloring Book* made history when it won the [first streaming-only ](https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/12/chance-the-rapper-first-streaming-only-grammy/)[Grammy for Best Album](https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/12/chance-the-rapper-first-streaming-only-grammy/). In my personal favorite moment in recent popular culture memory, the fashionable-as-hell young man [accepted the accolade](https://youtu.be/FkAJ_BU66Zs) by looking the whole industry establishment in the face and proclaiming “this is for every indie artist—everybody who’s been doin’ this mixtape shhhh...*tuff* for a long ass time... shouts out to every independent artist out there; [shouts out to SoundCloud for holding me down](https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/12/14594672/chance-the-rapper-grammy-awards-2017-soundcloud).” Obviously, such significant, sentimental, and sincere sentiments are *never* expressed about tech companies by beloved darlings of the art world like Chance—especially not for Earth-encompassing awards show audiences.\n\nAfter [last year’s massive layoff](https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/6/15928674/soundcloud-cuts-40-percent-staff), it was [Chance’s assurances](https://twitter.com/chancetherapper/status/885921220759355397) that “SoundCloud is here to stay” which the public took to heart. Even if the company *is* destined to fail within the next year (it appears to be as yet missing much of a verdict,) and it’s all still destined to fold at any moment, at least it’ll have the distinct pride of doing so having maintained his publicly-expressed respect and confidence, which is a damned fine legacy in my book. Meanwhile, Bandcamp has only made a few small tweaks to its basic infrastructure, and added new features very deliberately, which haven’t resulted in a single memorable controversy. Aside from [Amanda Palmer](https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2010/07/amanda-palmer-sells-15k-on-bandcampin-three-minute.html), perhaps, there has never been a single band or artist who’ve been known as “from Bandcamp,” leaving our only pitch to be something like *Independent Online Music Platform on Track to Complete 10th Year Serving Small-Time Artists, Continues to Look Pretty Good*.\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/track=3566748126/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://hjkl-8901.bandcamp.com/track/every-fat-bee-is-my-girlfriend-2"">Every Fat Bee is my Girlfriend by Sophiaaaahjkl;8901</a></iframe>\n\n\n\nConsidering the significance of these contributions, it’s of a special wonder that they were made not by a non-profit organization, academic movement, or government endowment, but by a for-profit, California-based tech company that’s continued to thrive and innovate great content, entirely apart from mainstream coverage.\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2740417608/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=3333840591/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://friendzone.bandcamp.com/album/while-u-wait-ep"">While U Wait EP by FRIENDZONE</a></iframe>\n\n# The Future\n\nIt might seem a bit much on the surface, but in many ways, Bandcamp has spent the past 10 years showing us what a for-profit, Web-based, culturally-edging independent platform Can be, even in the Valley.\n\nThough Bandcamp has embarked upon unusually sparse explanation of its editorial directive in the *Daily* blog and *Weekly* podcast, but regularly consume either for any length of time, and you’ll notice a particular savvy for Discovering technically-progressive Afrocentric projects: “[Black Experimental Music](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2016/08/05/a-guide-to-black-experimental-music/).”\n\nOn [last week’s episode](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/podcasts/still-processing-tin-house-inclusion-hannah-gadsby.html) of the excellent *New York Times* podcast *Still Processing*, co-host Jena Wortham “I’m thinking a lot about ways in which new culture, new cultural products, new cultural creators come to light in ways that sidestep these traditional means and don’t have to go through the traditionally very white, very male, very cis, very hetero hoops to prove worthiness.”\n\nSo, our greatest hope for the decentralization of the music industry in the 1990s ended up transforming before us to become the most effectively divisive Discovery barrier ever known to man because of its psychological influence sub-threshold at unprecedented scale over time, in parallel with so many other like horrific monstrosities we’ve discovered in anguish to be mutants of those final salvations from our atrocious history which we’d been so relieved to believe in. Surely, the turn of the millennia was destined to be our final turning point – the moment we’d finally use our new technology to discover a truth (or maybe just a really good clue,) that’d immediately unite our species in a deafening, worldwide aha moment when it would reveal a general abstract of whatever the fuck our deal was that was preventing our silent, dutiful, and 100% harmonious collective effort toward a utopia like *Star Trek: The Next Generation*’s, in which anyone is absolutely free of obligation or desperation from birth to pursue… whatever with their time.\n\n🗎 [**PRINT/PDF**](https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:1169e93e-e474-4772-9092-9b342e5de5e6)\n\n#software #music" | |
| l6e4uxm60w6ge76f,radio,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/radio,2018-07-26T09:00:00Z,Radio,\n\nhttps://open.spotify.com/episode/77t4NP5umZs5pdSd92iMXZ\n\n## From footwork to the history of dirigibles; from ancient mythology to the puny Silicon Valley Gods — Extratone Radio draws from our varied voices to deliver to the curious the most entertaining sounds around.\n\n<!--more-->\n\n* [APPLE PODCASTS](http://bit.ly/extrapple)\n* [ANCHOR](http://anchor.fm/extratone)\n* [SPOTIFY](http://bit.ly/extrspotify)\n* [BREAKER ](https://www.breaker.audio/extratone\*radio)\n* [CASTBOX](http://castbox.fm/channel/id1347882)\n* [GOOGLE PODCASTS](https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy85YTlmOTgvcG9kY2FzdC9yc3M=)\n* [POCKET CASTS](https://pca.st/1FXa)\n* [RADIOPUBLIC](https://play.radiopublic.com/extratone\*radio\*WYDa1L)\n* [STITCHER](https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/anchor\*podcasts/extratone\*radio) | |
| m7ttfpa9w5ysi69p,resurrecting-compaq,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/resurrecting-compaq,2018-09-21T22:09:18Z,Resurrecting the Compaq Computer Corporation,"\n\n## Setting out upon a desperate personal journey to rediscover enchantment with computers.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nThis evening, a package is scheduled to arrive upon my doorstep containing a Compaq Portable Plus luggable computer from 1983 which I have fantasized about buying for far too many years. Despite living in the midst of perhaps the worst possible financial situation to spend $139.99 outright on a relic of computing, I finally *just bought one anyway* last Thursday because I’m absolutely fed up with life without the magic I remember feeling from computers. Yes, I am having a mid-life crises and The Machine is just a physical manifestation of one of my favorite stories, but I expect it will provide something irreplaceable for me and at least one piece of entertainment for just about anybody: **I’m going to start a photoseries of myself using the 26-lb., suitcase-like, and utterly time-displaced Portable Plus in different coffee shops throughout Portland**.\n\n<iframe sandbox=""allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-popups allow-forms"" scrolling=no width=""100%"" height=""185"" frameborder=""0"" src=""https://embed.radiopublic.com/e?if=end-user-WdbezM&ge=s1!81204553e94d46cd0527715750a09302447ca241""></iframe>\n\nThere’s also potential opportunity (or necessity) for me to make use of my limited knowledge of hardware electronics. I’ve never been very comfortable with openly using the term “hobby,” but I fully intend to savor, document, and preserve every possible detail of my experience, so we’re going to behave as if the tales of computer history are precious to a dedicated audience besides myself, and that I am thereby and hereafter binding myself to an important duty of discovery, curation, and presentation expressed through multimedia of the highest possible caliber.\n\nIn other words, **I’m pretty sure I’ve just begun a vintage computing blog**. Before we go any further, then, let’s dispense with the obligatory arrangements.\n\n- Start a community on [Discord](http://bit.ly/compaqdiscord).\n- Follow me on [Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@DavidBlue), [Flickr](http://bit.ly/dbflickr) and/or [Twitter](http://twitter.com/ficklecrux).\n- Engage with the one and only [Compaq Club Tumblr](http://compaqclub.tumblr.com/).\n- Subscribe to this ultra-compromised connected [WordPress blog](http://bilge.world/) via the native reader or [RSS](http://bilge.world/feed). Leave a damned comment, even.\n- Consider subscribing to my [YouTube channel](http://bit.ly/davidblueyt) to see old software in action.\n- [Email me anything](mailto:davidblue@extratone.com).\n\n\n\n# Why Compaq?\n\nPut simply, **Compaq was punk as fuck**. Three dorky Texan technodads premeditated their leave of fair, secure jobs in the industry in order to bet everything on the promise of a single undeniably pro-user ideal to disrupt its dominant monopolistic supervillian. Unlike any of the countless other stories from the information age with the very same introduction, theirs was immediately propelled into stratospheric, record-breaking success — from coffee table sketches in the wastelands of suburban Houston nights to *one billion dollars* [in less than five years](https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/2001-09-04-compaq-history.htm), proving that it was possible to win huge in tech by committing sincerely to liberating the consumer and manifesting the ultimate performance of [the underdog complex](https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/a-david-and-goliath-story-for-personal-computers/) American business has ever witnessed.\n\nThose of us who’ve maintained some curious orbit of technology have recently entered a reconcillatory process as the world has become all at once intimately familiar with our collective pursuits’ true consequences. Never has it been more appropriate to reflect on the wholesome bravado of the only American computer company to build a billion-dollar business atop the sole mantra of user liberation. At a glance one might assume that AMC’s attempt to reproduce *Mad Men’s* formula with a story set in Compaq’s origin in a series that’s supposedly attracted a fair number of Netflixers called *Halt and Catch Fire* in conjunction with the 2016 documentary [*Silicon Cowboys*](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/entertainment/movies/article/Silicon-Cowboys-captures-shooting-star-that-9227131.php) have sufficiently reminded America of to whom it really owes its privileged tech industry. However, a [Twitter search](https://twitter.com/search?q=""compaq"") for “Compaq” turns up virtually nothing of consequence, and — on the other cultural spectrum — I’ve yet to see a single well-documented collection of Compaq hardware, and I’m unsatisfied.\n\nLike it not, you’re coming with me on a safari back through two full nostalgic cycles to rediscover our wonder and excitement about technology because I miss it desperately and I know you do too. We’re going to find something marvelous.\n\nI believe computers can be magic again.\n\nI believe in Compaq.\n\n#hardware #meta" | |
| gw1dk1qyvwwnmtrc,y2k,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/y2k,2018-09-23T22:15:34Z,Lotus SmartSuite and the year 2000,"<!--more-->\n\n_I stumbled across this wonderful help document in [Lotus SmartSuite 9.8](https://winworldpc.com/product/lotus-smartsuite/9-8) and my head just shot right off._\n\nAll of the programs in this release of Lotus SmartSuite meet Lotus guidelines for Year 2000 (Y2K) readiness. When used in accordance with its associated documentation, each of the SmartSuite programs is capable of correctly processing, providing and/or receiving date data within and between the 20th and 21st centuries, provided that all products (for example, hardware, software and firmware) used with the program properly exchange accurate date data with it.\n\n**A little background information** \nIn the past, you have probably entered a 2-digit number to represent the year in a date with the assumption that the year would fall between 1900 and 1999. For example, 4/10/02 was in 1902 and 5/8/47 was in 1947.\n\nWith the change to the year 2000, you should be aware that computer programs may now interpret dates you enter with 2-digit years to be in the 20th or the 21st century depending on the method the program uses to define a 2-digit year.\n\nSmartSuite programs use a sliding (rolling) window method to determine the year when you enter only 2 digits to represent the year in a date.\n\n**Notes**\n\n- You can enter the year as 4 digits to make sure you get the results you want. For example, enter 1916 or 2016 instead of 16 for the year.\n- Although you can change how a program displays a date by selecting different date formats, the program stores a constant value for the date no matter how you choose to display it.\n\n**What is the sliding window method?** \nIn SmartSuite, the sliding window method defines a window of 100 years around the current year (determined by the system date on your computer). When you enter a 2-digit year, the program compares the 2 digits you entered with the years that fall within this 100 year window. \nFor example, entering 25 for the year might be interpreted as 1925 but 04 might mean the year 2004.\n\nThe years that mark the beginning and end of this window are defined by where the program splits the window with the current year. \nBy default, 1-2-3, Approach, Freelance Graphics, Organizer, and Word Pro use an 80/20 rule for this sliding window -- the window begins 80 years before and ends 19 years after the current year.\n\n**How does the 80/20 rule work?** \nSuppose the current year is 1999. Using the 80/20 rule, a window spanning 100 years includes the years 1919 to 2018.\n\nIn 1999, any 2-digit year you enter from 19 to 99 will equal years from 1919 to 1999. Any 2-digit year you enter from 00 to 18 will equal years from 2000 to 2018. If you want to enter a date before 1919 or after 2018, you must enter 4 digits for the year. \nFor example, assume that the current year is 1999. \n• If you enter 4/2/19, the year will be 1919. \n• If you enter 4/2/72, the year will be 1972. \n• If you enter 4/2/00, the year will be 2000. \n• If you enter 4/2/17, the year will be 2017. \n• If you enter 4/2/1917, the year will be 1917. \nEvery year this 100 year window moves (slides) forward one year. Under the 80/20 rule, when the year changes to 2000, the window will include the years 1920 to 2019. When the year changes to 2001, the window will include the years 1921 to 2020, and so on.\n\n**How do you change the 80/20 default?** \nThe 80/20 default for SmartSuite is set through a single entry in the Windows registry. You can change this registry entry using the sample scripts available on the Web (www.lotus.com/smartsuitedev) and in the \\Extra directory on the CD version of Lotus SmartSuite. \n**Caution** Changing the default changes it for all of the programs in SmartSuite.\n\n**How do SmartSuite programs store dates?** \nAll the SmartSuite programs store date values with the fully qualified year. Therefore, dates already stored in files are not affected by the sliding window. The sliding window is used to interpret a date when you enter it using 2 digits to represent the year. \n**Caution** If years are stored as separate values in a file, and scripts or macros interpret these dates as they run, the sliding window rules will apply to those values when only 2 digits are stored for the year.\n\n**For 1-2-3 users only** \nYou can turn off the 80/20 sliding window in 1-2-3 by changing the date settings in the 1-2-3 Preferences dialog box. You can also display all dates with 4-digit years. For more information on 1-2-3 and the year 2000, open Help in 1-2-3 and search on Year 2000 in the Help Index.\n\n**Notice** \n**The information regarding the Year 2000 readiness of Lotus products is provided for informational purposes only and is not a warranty or an extension or modification to the terms of any applicable warranty. The limited warranty for Lotus products is solely as contained in the software agreement governing your use of Lotus software. For the most complete and current information about the Year 2000 readiness of the SmartSuite products and other Lotus products, please see the Lotus Year 2000 web site (http://www.lotus.com/year2000).**" | |
| zt169nennahztesg,rod-canion-internet-history,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/rod-canion-internet-history,2018-09-25T17:29:00Z,Rod Canion with Brian McCullough,"\n\n<!--more-->\n\nIf you've ever found this industry's history intriguing, you've likely heard Brian McCullough's superb _Internet History Podcast_ before, and it's obvious to you how invaluable [an interview episode with Compaq's Biggest Boy](http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2014/05/the-incredible-true-story-behind-amcs-halt-and-catch-fire-how-compaq-cloned-ibm-and-created-an-empire/) would be for a head start on digesting the story. In accordance with _Halt and Catch Fire_'s pilot release in 2014, the broad-shouldered soldier of open computing appeared to have been on a mini media tour (even though he openly admitted he’d yet to actually watch it.) \[His last remark - “maybe even as exciting as the real thing” - may sound like silly Dork Rod conjecture, but the show wasn’t nearly as engaging because they had(?) to remove the _compatibility_ component, which is the meat of the whole thing.\] McCullough is usually ace at this stuff, but he sounds a bit shaky in this one, though nobody should blame him - I certainly would be, too. Rod Canion's accent (BIOS=_buy-OSS_) and general intensity must make for one hell of a presence, even over the phone. 2014 was a long time ago.\n\nMcCullough's own summary of the conversation is so thorough (he was writing a book,) there's only a single possible addition.\n\n> ""There's a certain risktaking gene that runs through a lot of Texans.""\n\nThere’s no other way to say it: **I believe in Texas**. Specifically, Houston. DJ Screw, UGK, Z-Ro, Trae, Fat Pat, etc.- these I adopted as religion, years ago. From my perspective, Rod Canion’s ballsy, loyal Houstonianism hustle makes perfect sense. Yes, I’m afraid you’ve basically stumbled into my passionate cause to unite two Houston icons.\n\n<iframe width=""560"" height=""315"" src=""https://www.youtube.com/embed/bxudhvvZgIA?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0"" frameborder=""0"" allow=""autoplay; encrypted-media"" allowfullscreen></iframe>\n\n#software" | |
| 9xcas5obhgtnbo7d,bad-connection-insights,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/bad-connection-insights,2018-10-14T20:00:00Z,Revelations in Web Starvation,"\n\n*Opera's no-connection mascot is the cutest branding on any current web browser. Fight me.*\n\n<!--more-->\n\nYesterday, I finished moving out of the situation I’d been living in for ~6 weeks in the basement of a southeast Portland home near the western base of Mt. Tabor. You'd see it just across from the flat Washington Mall-ish grass rectangle that provides daring suburban explorers their most worthwhile reward for reaching the top. It resembles one of many local residential templates which I was completely unequipped to understand when I arrived in the area last year. You'll never observe any of its inhabitants outside doing any of the things people do when they are unaware of - or unconcerned with being observed. Walking by an afternoon front yard “family gathering” (young white parents and their one or two children) is a prospect of haste. Introducing new movement to the vicinity after the sun has gone down stirs a disruption from deep within its energy. Everyone in this town is afraid. I say it’s an unnatural way to live, but I’m just a fucking bumpkin.\n\nAs you may or may not have observed, the vast majority of my working being lives on the World Wide Web, which requires, fundamentally…. An internet connection. In most any other present-day first world circumstance, these are infinitely available, but I discovered – after the moving process was entirely completed, of course – that my tenants did **not** actually have an in-house connection of their own. They explained to me that their neighbor – an “IT professional” for IBM – had offered to let them use *his* WiFi network, and they’d found the arrangement sufficient. However, because IBM is *The* archaic marque of digital fascism (disclosure: they are also my [sworn blood enemy](http://bilge.world/compaq),) it wasn’t altogether a surprise when they told me that his offer did not extend to “guests.”\n\nI considered that a defined period of WiFi fasting at home could make for an interesting experiment - perhaps even a needed mental reset - and I couldn't reasonably afford to acquire my own dedicated 4G hotspot, anyway. The reality became a relentless paranoid battle for any trickle of access - sometimes for *a dozen bytes per second*; for just the most basic digital communications like SMS and email - which led to more superstitious hypotheses about precarious antenna orientation, progress bar hallucinations, out-of-control frustration, and hopeless fixation with refresh commands than I remember from 2nd generation cell networks in the Midwest, 10 years ago, or even domestic dial-up, and truly revealed the extent to which I'd taken connectivity for granted.\n\nhttps://open.spotify.com/episode/7wa3Ce5oJ2TNYkuknFx3s4?si=aTXoGD-SSF-Cn_HJvHFglA\n\nMy observations of my own behavior throughout this drought are worth more than their mild amusement: even this petty disparity (I was never more than two or three yards from nearly-whole signal at the top of the outside stairs) re-sensitized my perspective to the abstract concept of network unreliability which I'd been entirely spared since prepubescence. Though 4 billion human beings now regularly interact with the World Wide Web, their connections span a mathematically gargantuan spectrum of speed and reliability. In urbanizing myself as an adult, I have unconsciously latched on to the entitled ideal that internet access is a public service and accepted dramatically-increasing dependence on services that engorge greater and greater volumes of bandwidth without any explanation but their lack of incentives for efficiency. I reflect on my relationship with technology every day, yet I still became an oblivious data glutton in mind-bogglingly little time.\n\nThe current state of connectivity in the United States, alone is quite alarming under 5-year-absent examination. Mobile carriers are [*still* merging](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sprint-corp-m-a-t-mobile-us/t-mobile-runs-behind-the-scenes-pr-push-to-support-sprint-deal-idUSKCN1L512A) and the compartmentalization of *all* ISP customers between prioritization tiers continues to be tested, [less encumbered by regulatory safeguards](https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/24/17882842/us-internet-broadband-map-isp-fcc-wireless-competition) than ever. I don't know my politics on this issue, nor do I have any specific solutions, but I'd point to the work of the [National Digital Inclusion Alliance](http://digitalinclusion.org/), and express only that I hope the pace of the technology's progress is greater than the growth of its merchants' imaginations and the scope of their greed so that the sheer volume of plenty overcomes even the shortest-sighted, and humanity as a whole continues toward a more just distribution of connectivity. What I *am* in a position to share are the revelations about our current infrastructure, software services, and hardware devices I could only have discovered from such an experience.\n\n## Variables\n\nI remember standing on top of a John Deere combine's 15ft-high roof in order to successfully make a telephone call 10 years ago - one of thousands of behaviors which were more abruptly and universally required for a few years and subsequently more abruptly forgotten than any other such united tick in American history. This blip of shared technological adversity also led to an unfathomably vast collective mythology surrounding incredibly tedious manipulation of our archaic handsets in varying degrees of desperation for *just one bar*.\n\nMy Sprint plan includes unlimited 4G LTE data for my iPhone 8 Plus with a 10GB tethering limit - which performed so admirably in the lonely role of my thin tether to the rest of the world that I am obligated to actually use the phrase ***like a champ***, but the quality of its connection is dramatically impacted by the studio apartment's depth. From the space's geometric center at stomach-level, the handset indicates ""1x,"" meaning CDMA 1x, which *is* technically a data connection, but certainly not in any usable sense for the network applications of 2018. The native Twitter app, Apple Mail, Snapchat, Instagram & Facebook, Safari, Opera Mini, Firefox, Chrome, and all others I tested in this condition would simply timeout – giving up after a minute or two of repeated attempts before declining to continue, each in their own minor variations. An interesting anecdote: in a pertinent reflection our human ballooning expectations for connectivity at all times, the language of our creations across both iOS and desktop applications has recently become noticeably less accountable and more accusatory. Instead of saying “____ can’t connect to the internet,” many of the browsers will declare an absolute: *there is no internet connection*, or just straight up **blame** the user: “*you* are not connected to the internet."" (Emphasis mine.) No apologies... No regrets.\n\n`Dude, no wifi? Where the fuck are U?`\n\nDirectly above my head’s place on the bed, the phone could be propped on the sill of the East-facing window on a clear-skied day, enabling it to scrounge up and loosely establish enough contact to receive calls and text messages, claiming 1-4 3G “bars,” and a single in 4G at night, though one overcast Northwestern week basically did it in completely. If we were actually doing something to noticeably increase our old Nokia boxes’ bandwidth bids on those early networks by turning them every which way to find “better reception,” it’s completely futile on current devices. (I’m fairly sure I remember a network professional explaining this to me when LTE was first gaining traction.) It was immediately apparent that orientation had no effect, but the handset’s bearing certainly did… Most sensitively so. I realized quite early on that I should endeavor not to spend too much time standing in different positions throughout the space attempting to will on a browser loader bar above a story I’ve probably read already. Intstead, I committed to the very first position that indicated any correlation whatsoever with a better connection: atop the biscuit tin on the metal rack nearest the outside door.\n\nIt’s been three months, but I’m still using my tired old Hewlett-Packard 6930p [backup machine](http://bilge.world/linux-bitch/), so I was very skeptical about the odds we’d be successfully reliably pairing its ancient network adapter – [now worth just $9.99](http://a.co/d/ij9mfeD) – with that of A Cellular Phone 10 years its junior without struggling significantly with range or reliability, especially considering that it cannot run a single one of its [vast library of proprietary drivers](https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01538039) on Linux. You’d at least assume they’d need to be practically touching each other to maintain a smooth marriage, yet the only compromise I had to make on the local end was to bring them near to each other as they paired. Afterwards, I could return the phone to its tin and work on the laptop from the kitchen table, 12-15 feet away. (Curiously enough, the 6930p itself shipped with hotspot capability by way of the SIM card slot behind the unit’s main battery.)\n\nQuantifying the speed of a mobile data connection as you would a dedicated WiFi network is incongruent because the former trades in a much less consistent packet stream. That’s the extent of my knowledge, but it’s easy to visualize: a signal that can travel a mile or two in big globules bound to be intercepted in splashes upon the device’s little antennae, versus your home network’s local, evenly distributed sauna of irradiated mist. It’s much less definite, to say the least, and I can’t actually comprehend the sort of voodoo that’s required in order to expand and maintain the networks as they are, nor would I ever wish to burden myself with such knowledge.\n\n#software" | |
| 03ep3edizbio93t3,indie-folk-joe-kaplow-megachurch-portland,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/indie-folk-joe-kaplow-megachurch-portland,2018-10-18T02:41:28Z,West-Coast Indie Folk is Full of Battery-Burgling Megachurch Bands,"\n\n<!--more-->\n\nI have to just ***fucking do it*** — I’m going to start writing about music in this space. There’s virtually zero chance that I’ll shout over other voices of music criticism as long as *Bilge* remains so poorly optimized for SEO, and Portland, Oregon has been far too confusing to deprive myself the opportunity to work out *any* understanding of its youth culture. It’s not a lack of talented musicians in the area — the opposite is true — but a severe drought of the kind of tragedy and trauma which ultimately give acoustic American musical expression *its whole shit*. What I caught of the weekend’s invasion with Santa Cruz musicians were all praiseworthy, tight and confident performers who’d obviously invested heavily in their equipment and their presence here. [Joe Kaplow](https://joekaplow.bandcamp.com/) arrived with a sort of bespoke magazine rack containing 20 neatly-arranged effect pedals, leading me to wonder for a moment if I was about to witness *banjo powerviolence* for the first time, but he explained that he simply preferred their availability, and wouldn’t use “more than a few at once,” and seemed almost genuinely perturbed by my attempt to explain the specific industrially-influenced involvement of audio hardware in hardcore punk and grind performance which I was referring to with the term. (“Powerviolence” has apparently become an ambiguous one around these parts, and I’m sure he was actually just *utterly uninterested*.)\n\n\n\n\n\nNo more than two dozen guests made up their peak crowd of witnesses, yet Joe and his band certainly made good on shear effort expended in laying down a hearty, back-to-back recital for us at an unusually protracted rate, though apparently either they, the [Getaway Dogs](https://getawaydogs.bandcamp.com/), or [The Curfews](https://thecurfews.bandcamp.com/) had insisted that a “cover charge” be collected at the door of the house show. It’s not my business to to dwell on or attempt to investigate an unsubstantiatable rumor, but I understand this could have been a breach of house show etiquette. What I *do* know is that one of the visiting musicians stole 4 flat AA batteries out of my [COOLPIX](https://flic.kr/s/aHsmqBwfDZ) and *apparently* attempted to jack its ancient Compact Flash card, which is only hilarious because they didn’t succeed. Regardless, it should be said that Joe Kaplow’s songwriting is more flattered by [Indie mags](https://glidemagazine.com/209034/song-premiere-folk-singer-joe-kaplow-searches-for-sense-of-home-with-i-said-i-was-going-and-i-went/) than my own ears, though one still wishes for a more substantive topic than “I thought it’d be cool make a corn cob pipe, so I did.” Then again, much of what you’ll find at this URL reads a lot like “I thought it’d be interesting to make a WordPress blog, so I did.” White people have truly run out of shit to say, haven’t we?\n\n> The inspiration that sparked ‘I Said’ moved me like a puppet. So much so that I had to pull over at the top of Altamont Pass, by the huge windmills, and write the song in the back of my van. \n>\n> Joe Kaplow for *Glide Magazine*\n\nReflection upon just about anything can have personal meaning, but no amount of musicianship can mask a stark lack of context. I do wonder if Indie Folk should just return to the megachurch, where songwriters like Joe and musicians of his crew’s sort are literally *handed* a gigantic audience of trained experts at finding profound meaning where it probably isn’t, along with great salaries, from what I hear. Otherwise, all that taxing preparation and expenditure will only lead to more forgettable performances. Or perhaps I am simply misguided in my assumption that artists work exclusively to communicate *something* lasting to *someone*. Every conversation I’ve had with Portlanders about Portland music has been predominantly about what artists and their audiences wear and how they behave instead of *what they’re trying to say*. There’s nothing inherently wrong with leaving things petty, lyrically and choosing to remain content with established sounds, musically, as long as your work is advertised as **entertainment, not performance**.\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1935364656/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=2587170555/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://thecigaretteburns.bandcamp.com/album/demos-2015"">Demos 2015 by The Cigarette Burns</a></iframe>\n\nBefore I came Northwest, my fiancé had been exposing me to a variety of its music, which I mostly tolerated politely. Dozens of albums and EPs were played through once and forgotten forever, but when I arrived at [a demo tape](http://thecigaretteburns.bandcamp.com/album/demos-2015) recorded by her long time friend’s band, [*The Cigarette Burns*](https://thecigaretteburns.bandcamp.com/), I finally heard something familiar, yet vitally compelling: pissed off punks having fun. That said, I should admit that I only attended Saturday’s show because he was on the ticket, and I’m still glad I did.\n\nAfter what felt like hours of drowsy corn cob pipes, Christmas sweaters, and old sweethearts at fifty beats per minute (there were literally two young men sleeping within 15 feet of the bands for the duration,) Ricky sat himself on a stool in the midst of Kaplow’s sprawling gear load at 2:30AM with only his guitar and his voice. Unfortunately, I’d squandered the Nikon’s batteries on Californians (the lighting was not ideal anyway,) so I thought I’d share [his set on Periscope](https://www.pscp.tv/AsphaltApostle/1gqxvXNPRaBGB?t=5s). Though Ricky had been patiently present and attentive for the entire night (unlike myself,) those who were left of the entertainers bolted to the porch for a lively discussion about unicycles and quinoa while Ricky told us about hate, jealousy, and feeling like shit in a somber elegy. Any further adjectives may edge dangerously close to a half-assed “concert review,” which I am *not* yet qualified for, but I will say that Ricky’s sincerity made him most engaging part of the night, and his frustrated, conclusive nod to The Cigarette Burns was the first *real* punk sounds I’ve yet heard in Portland.\n\n\n\nI realize sharing this small experience does little to grow the conversation, but this isn’t a magazine, and **I am desperate for answers** about the bizarre reality in which I find myself. [When Ricky dedicated a song to Courtney Love](https://youtu.be/zJONjVnDADI?t=1050), one of the male musicians(?) yelled “Courtney Love fuckin’ killed Kurt Cobain!” which was *such* an unbelievably cliché happening/decision that I’ll surely spend the rest of my days in this city unsuccessfully attempting to work it out, aloud. I can’t quite recall who it was last Fall that responded to my frustration by challenging “what if there’s nothing to understand?” While this may be a reasonable conclusion, I suspect it’s not one I could accept as long as I remain here without losing my mind. If Portland is truly the dimensionless bastion of apathy and intellectual stagnancy for young Americans, I must *blog my way out it* as soon as possible (for Pete’s sake, just give these kids some antidepressants,) but I’d still like to believe the idea too oxymoronic to actually exist.\n\n#music" | |
| q9fecudegllwv1y1,robyn-body-talk,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/robyn-body-talk,2018-10-19T04:49:24Z,The Timeless Dynamism of Robyn's 'Body Talk',"##### by [Adam Bexten](https://twitter.com/adambexten)\n\n\n\n## On the eve of her new album’s first single reveal, we reflect on the Swedish artist’s incredibly-sincere, yet profound past contribution to the pop mystic.\n\nOn August 1, pop-extraordinaire Robyn released “[Missing U](https://song.link/i/1436781120),” her first proper single in eight years. Fans of the Swedish singer have long awaited a new album since 2010’s critically acclaimed Body Talk, but certainly were not left without material deserving of years of repeat-listening.\n\nDubbed the “_Body Talk_ series,” Robyn [initially announced](https://pitchfork.com/news/38039-robyn-plans-three-albums-for-2010/) plans in early 2010 to release three mini-albums over the course of the year, but after releasing Body Talk Pt. 1 and Pt. 2, plans were altered and _Body Talk_ — a compilation of the best songs from Pt. 1 and Pt. 2, plus five new songs — was released on November 22, 2010. Described by Robyn as the “turbo version” of the album, fans were gifted an ever-evolving collection of songs that was eventually edited into a single pop masterpiece. Despite never reaching great commercial success, Body Talk today continues to garner a cult-like following and new fans. In 2014, _Pitchfork_ named it the [36th Best Album of the Decade](https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/9465-the-100-best-albums-of-the-decade-so-far-2010-2014/?page=4) thus far.\n\nMost astonishingly, the album is built upon a foundation of intense honesty. Specifically, an honesty that’s only possible when paired with polished pop hooks and hidden amongst heavy synth. Robyn never misses a shot. The album is calculated, direct and always on target, regardless if she’s reminiscing on unrequited love, instructing a new lover on how to let his ex-girlfriend down gently, or giving the middle finger to everyone who keeps telling her what to do!\n\n“[Dancing On My Own](https://vimeo.com/54353808),” the album’s debut single, remains a fan favorite and clear standout. On the track, Robyn explores the idea of dancing with tears in your eyes to a new level in the dancefloor tragedy of watching an ex-lover move on to a new woman. Don’t let the song’s catchiness mistake you. Upon hearing the first note, almost anyone would want to run for the dancefloor, but the track’s true genius lies in its lyrics, demanding stuck-on-repeat listening as you fall deep into her storytelling. It’s worthy of the all the acclaim it’s received, and more.\nAs Robyn bounces between the larger-than-life electo-queen on “Don’t Fucking Tell Me What To Do” and “Fembot” to the vulnerable, sentimental-synthesizer on “Stars 4 Ever” and “Indestructible,” she encapsulates emotional experiences in a way that is usually absent from the charts’ biggest hits. Her songs are bottled feelings.\n\nToday, and in 2010, the genre of pop is often treated as synonymous with singles dominating Top 40 stations – sometimes for good reason. The radio-ready songs are written and produced like products of a pop music factory. They’re strategically designed to get stuck in your head, to grab attention and ultimately, to make money. It’s commercial; it’s a business, but this false equivalence can lead many a music lover to discredit the entire genre as just an earworm, divorced from artistry. Body Talk puts all these arguments to rest.\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3a2qoyONVA\n\n“[Hang With Me](https://song.link/us/i/1440714992)” details the exact moment early in a relationship when you realize you can trust your partner and let down your walls. Upon first listen, the lyrics seem obvious and simple, but eventually you realize that’s where the brilliance lies. Robyn’s ability to tap into those universal moments and experiences that most of us can only recognize, not articulate. Not only does she accomplish this, here – she makes it catchy.\n\nThe entire album can be enjoyed at surface level without great interpretation or introspection. Robyn matches her ability to capture euphoric emotion with infectious beats, witty lyrics and over-the-top production. It can transport you back to your very first crush or your very first heartbreak. It can heighten your confidence to make you feel invincible or it can break you down to your most insecure form. It’s pop perfection.\n\nAs Robyn readies her eighth studio album, she returns to a different, darker world. “Missing U” doubles as a message for both the fans that have waited eight years for this moment and for the lover that left. One can’t help but imagine how this song might be played differently in a less solemn present, but either way, Robyn arrives just in the knick of time, offering the escapism of grand production, unforgettable lyrics and a perfect world where even our greatest problems can be solved out on the dancefloor. Like _Body Talk_, it’s not going to actually save the world, but it provides listeners a perfect opportunity to escape the heat, dance it out and – at its best – see themselves in a remarkably honest way.\n\n#music" | |
| x2bg34gbdhq1j5nl,the-matchsellers-bluegrastronauts,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/the-matchsellers-bluegrastronauts,2018-11-11T01:00:00Z,The Matchsellers' Inheritance,"\n\n## The duo's new album manages to be wonderfully explorative without sacrificing any sacred traditions.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nFor years, I took the voices and culture of working Americans for granted and sought to generally distance myself from my origin’s heritage as much as possible, but I’ve since realized that I couldn’t have done so without absolute certainty that country, bluegrass, and folk music were stubborn as State highway ditch-rooted fescue blades: omnipresent forces of Midwestern nature that’d secured their invincibility with the simple superiority of their belonging. While this conclusion is true enough for the time being, it’s quite independently so of their worth or necessity. In such conditional blindness, I’ve simply proven my sensibilities to be (predictably in the case of my seniors) not exempt. This truth is noteworthy only because of its potential to spare others the embarrassment of blatant ignorance to their own privilege. That said, I would suggest that you engage this music sincerely for a moment for your own sake, regardless of your own convictions regarding country music, Indiana, plaid, pickup trucks, the end of the world, or the proper noun for “cantaloupe.”\n\nAs young adults, even those folks who’ve remained resolutely country-minded found themselves trivializing the name of the titanic Dallas-born trio The Dixie Chicks not out of half-assed iconoclasm, but because their brand was so cleverly immune to irony. You thought you were proving yourself of a higher caliber of discernment, but mocking goddesses only paraded your ignorance. In my teen rebellion against the culture of my rural origin, I scoffed at their mention for a while, somehow oblivious to my blatant hypocrisy. Thanks to my older sisters and their automobiles, I spent before and after elementary school days absorbing thousands of hours’ worth of late-90s/early-oughts Pop Country radio. Two summers ago, I returned to this library at length for the first time in 10 years and found my heart completely vulnerable to its related memories and my mind consistently flabbergasted by the oomph of the composition that defines the genre’s last mainstream hurrah.\n\nThe original three Chicks – Natalie Maines, Emily Robison, and Marty Maguire - are still very much alive, kicking, and radio-playing. They even “[returned from exile](https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2016/08/16/dixie-chicks-long-road-back-exile/88762752/)” with a real international tour in 2016. (I regret little more in my adult life than missing the opportunity to see them.) According to [a fascinating November 2015 analysis](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/nov/19/the-dixie-chicks-tour-is-country-music-ready-to-forgive) in The Guardian, their 2003 denouncement of President George W. Bush cost them serious cred among their audience, but Johnny Cash likely [harbored similar sentiments](https://www.thenation.com/article/johnny-cash-was-not-republican), Stephen Morrissey is… [not straight](https://web.archive.org/web/20131024020237/http:/true-to-you.net/morrissey_news_131019_01), the most worthwhile current country sounds from my teenage home are [composed and performed by a trans woman](https://cowgirljordy.bandcamp.com/), and the staple tunes from the genre’s most chaste personalities are often [just about sex](https://youtu.be/yCmsZUN4r_s). No reasonable individual would still cite this incident in an argument opposing the essential legacy of these three miraculously talented women.\n\nFrom a pop perspective at least, The Dixie Chicks are almost certainly the penultimate expression of country music as a technical and emotional exercise. Their extraordinary musicianship and prodigally antecedent mastery of suave sincerity represented the absolute peak of pop country’s untenable relationship with the American working class in one hell of a 21st-century-breaching last hurrah that still brings tears of pride to many an eye. However, the hysterical backlash of the greater working people personified in part by Donald Trump’s presidency is a last sure indication of the mainstream’s final estrangement from all distillations of rural culture. In the coming years, I fear the toiling masses will be left only with less and less authentic, more and more suburban bastardizations of their music as the last superficial delusions of condescending affection from the middle class fade, and the enterprise dies. What does survive will “graduate” (retire) to Folk (for white performers,) and further strengthen the Blues resurrection (for everyone else.) That said, it’s hard to find anyone who’s comfortable mourning the loss openly after acceptance has progressively set in – there’s simply nowhere else to go, and its aging icons have been in desperate need of retirement throughout the Information Age.\n\n*The Top 10 Vegan Alternatives to Working-Class America*\n\nEven if I’d had the moderate exposure from my current perch in the midst of the notoriously grass-roots nature of Portland’s Folk/Blues scene, 2000 miles west, I would have still been totally blindsided by my incidental introduction to The Matchsellers, two years ago. One needn’t harbor any presumptions about the relationship between Kansas City violinist/fiddler Julie Bates and Hoosier blues guitarist, Andrew Morris – they’re just about the cutest pair you’ll ever see, couple’s act or not (it’s less relevant than you’d think, and none of our business.) They’re also extremely talented and genuinely authoritative world-class musicians with plenty of authentic country mileage who exude a proud air of warm, confident serenity occupying the bluegrass sphere. After happening upon their set at Columbia’s faux-speakeasy in Summer 2016, I was at once charmed and impressed by the pervasive magnitude of the ethereal aura that followed them, especially after our brief post-performance conversation. I’m ninety percent sure they came without a mobile phone between them carrying a wicker basket full of CDs and matchbooks, and shucks… I do believe we’ve been doing this whole thing wrong, all along.\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=3739594282/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://thematchsellers.bandcamp.com/album/kosciusko-county"">Kosciusko County by The Matchsellers</a></iframe>\n\nI bought a copy of [Kosciusko County](https://thematchsellers.bandcamp.com/album/kosciusko-county) then and there and played the shit out of it the next summer, wandering aimlessly around Missouri with my best friend, revisiting (and occasionally disrupting) the resolute peace of the tiny communities I grew up orbiting. On our way to the Hannibal – Huckleberry’s Fictional home/the great Mississippi’s tired tourism machine – we just left it on repeat. As a soundtrack to such sentimental pursuits, a central trio of back-to-back tracks proved especially potent, beginning with “[Mentone (The 3,000 lb Egg)](https://thematchsellers.bandcamp.com/track/mentone-the-3000-lb-egg)” - the work’s nostalgic, tear-jerking sole instrumental. Production isn’t low-fidelity, but appropriately honest – no amount of expensive mastering would be capable of compressing the essence of a surprise late-night live performance from The Matchsellers’ work into a digital audio file, anyway.\n\nBates’ fiddling is an impossibly rare pleasure – the real type of sawing that mystically manages to erase one’s inhibitions and sense of civic responsibility when tearing about the borders of quiet row-crop plots, leaving long-lived lesions of billowing limestone high above numbered county roads at ninety miles-per-hour. Succeeding the distant, eye-misting cruise of the 1.5-ton Egg, “[Driving Escort](https://thematchsellers.bandcamp.com/track/driving-escort)” is a masterpiece (naturally) of this raucous realm.\n\n*Driving down the road with a yellow light on top of my truck / Going down to Vincennes earning my sixty bucks.*\n\nAdd the accompaniment of Morris’ obviously-fathomless relationship with the guitar, and the result nails a select truth without any hint of prudishness. At sufficient volume, “[Muskmelon Breakdown](https://thematchsellers.bandcamp.com/track/muskmelon-breakdown)” becomes a beautifully-harmonious catalyst of fast, loose, maniacal, hilarious energy that’s sure to land you in a ditch, but you’ll still be laughing your ass off by the time you’re pulling clay clumps and waist-high fescue blades from your steaming radiator. *Kosciusko County* isn’t an innovative record by any critical instrumentation, but I’d do best to keep my sun-faded, skip-worn copy readily at hand for the next time I find myself on a fresh gravel road, whenever that may be.\n\n<iframe width=""auto"" height=""auto"" src=""https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fjzto2ZZ8zU?controls=0"" frameborder=""0"" allow=""accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture"" allowfullscreen></iframe>\n\n> For the last five years, all we said was goodbye\n> I said it again, it was the fifth time\n>\n> I took your word and did what I thought was best\n> I took your word and went 600 miles west\n\nThat’s it, then – we’ve got The Matchsellers pretty well figured for either wannabe(?) or reformed(?) yahoos of their own design; charming, dusty novelties who chose a folly destiny of toiling their craft for none but a seasonal dozen acres of white, sweating State Fair flesh. Obviously, they’re meant for us sophisticated, globetrotting Winners to collect like thrift store antiques on our way down the interstate. Their time is ours to book for nothing on our mediocre “speakeasy’s” waxy new stage; to post on an Instagram story, to Tweet in an easy compartmentalization of their quaint displacement from our time, deep in the dusty recesses of our collections for no good bargain, where they’ll fall comfortably in line as our predictable and willing country servants should an opportunity happen upon us to show a stranger how interesting, dynamic, and worldly we are.\n\nAs a displaced (and formerly ex-communicated) yokel, I’ve often been astonished by how easy it is to discard American folk music for huge swaths of time unless it expresses some unignorable sort of spectacular torment. My own failure to recognize the value in this one until I became separated and homesick was an overtly foolhardy cliché (though quite predictable of like privilege,) but I can’t help but wonder: **is it unavoidable?** Of course, the process is necessary for ‘class justice’ – one might even call it a natural law of sorts – and in the case of The Matchsellers, there’s hardly a struggle to communicate emotionally. For a real music scholar, though, it’s surely worth asking of those voices who know: do the oppressed, destitute, and hope-impoverished people of this country still rely on bluegrass, or has it been replaced for them?\n\nThe abstraction of the phrase “good surprise” had plummeted from our collective vocabulary at a record-demolishing velocity in the interim, but this past spring’s release of [*Bluegrastronauts*](https://thematchsellers.bandcamp.com/album/bluegrastronauts) hit me squarely upside the skull again, stirring a solid half hour of hysterical, shrieking psychosis. I assumed the worst… *Dear God, what has the internet forced upon that sweet, rootsy duo*?! – and was immediately compelled to drop everything and listen.\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 350px; height: 470px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=3499187895/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://thematchsellers.bandcamp.com/album/bluegrastronauts"">Bluegrastronauts by The Matchsellers</a></iframe>\n\n*Hoosiers, we have a problem*. What the fuck is this album, exactly? A nonchalant, apparently oblivious challenge to every assumption you could possibly arrive with. It’s safe to suppose “Bluegrastronauts” refers to its departure from the rest of their discography – from smack dab in Indiana’s center to the goddamned Beta Quadrant, the two managed to stupefyingly ace a theme most comfortable residents of their bluegrass sphere would take care to avoid leaving up on the kitchen whiteboard – even tackling apocalypse with regal serenity. At first glance, I was sure that copious soft glow had to either be the false product of my own insanity, or a deliberate attempt to alienate the sum of their audience in a single crises of identity. In fact, The Matchsellers had pulled off yet another especially-sparse artistic miracle and harnessed their creative restlessness to propel their departure from the elderly genre’s pretensions without spilling a single drip of their secret sauce. It’s not a concept album (thank God,) but doesn’t wander in any disparaging sense, either.\n\n> Earl Scruggs in a spaceship on his way to Mars\n> Pickin' away on the banjo at 100,000 miles an hour\n> Bill Monroe in a rocket, see the look on his face\n> it's mighty dark to travel when you're in outer space\n\nName-dropping four bluegrass legends within the number 1 album-titled introductory track is the pair’s single self-conscious acknowledgment of visiting folk fanatics: this CD looks crazy, but we know what we’re doing – and Kansas City’s mention accredits the locale of the following entirely Missouri-made production. Indeed, in the WhoDoneIts, you’ll see The HillBenders’ [Chad Graves](https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfwh-rmhcet/) layed em’ down in Springfield, and Johnny Kenepaske’s [Dead Horse Sound Company](https://deadhorsesoundcompany.com/) spread em’ around in the Heart of America, itself. Missourian musicians especially should take note of these names: the offerings may have diversified since my day, but sound talent like this is difficult to come across, even within explosive college towns. Cutting two live acoustic tracks per performer – four in total – while expecting to retain any subsequent control over the behavior of either unwanted or subject sound is as difficult as any other circumstance you’ll encounter in studio production at this level. I know this much (but little more in that direction): real sound control is simply too tedious to bear for monomiking rascals with GarageBand. Now, having lost or been estranged from any remotely-professional sound reproduction equipment, *Bluegrastronauts* sounds as balanced and polished as my wired Apple earbuds could ever convey.\n\nIn shared verses, Julie and Andrew’s charmed harmonies are separated beautifully about the listener without inducing a sense of lateral imbalance when one of them sings alone. (Admittedly, I don’t exactly know how it’s accomplished.) No single personality in the record’s toolset – guitar, fiddle, banjo, bass, or dobro steps over any other.\n\nI have no idea who’s listening, but I’m positive their numbers should be multiplying by a hundredfold very quickly, filling especially with all of ye who feel abandoned by all authentic American representation. They shouldn’t ever fill up stadiums or establishment radiowaves, nor should their art invite extensive pretentious dissection, but they will be adored.\n\nIt’s a quintessential manner of Country Boy pride to whip the middle class’s condescension right back around with a classic demonstration: Oh, you thought I didn’t know about that? You thought I couldn’t *do* that? Well, of course I can! I’m just not particularly interested. The Matchsellers, though, have attained a much higher tier of comfort and confidence in their own skin.\n\n#music" | |
| 3w8lrtr5soei4pf5,illiteracy-coverage-american-media,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/illiteracy-coverage-american-media,2018-11-12T21:00:00Z,Illiteracy in American Media,"\n\n<!--more-->\n\nTen percent of the United States' adult population cannot functionally read or write ([conservatively](http://literacy.kent.edu/)) despite the exponential increase of required reading in the average American's day-to-day life thus far in the 21stcentury. For written American media, especially, one would assume that a financial and social incentive for maximum literacy in the populace should present a straightforward justification for intense widespread coverage of this particular disparity, yet most related coverage in mainstream national magazines and newspapers is alarmingly sparse and often requires a less-than-socially-conscious context (e.g. a [for-profit startup](https://www.fastcompany.com/90259739/this-mobile-learning-platform-aims-to-combat-the-hidden-epidemic-of-adult-illiteracy)) to actually appear in news feeds. From the most wholesome assumption of the industry's general values -- that it holds ""[newsworthiness](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/newsworthy)"" above all -- we must assume that it does not generally consider American illiteracy ""interesting enough to the general public to warrant reporting"" as we examine the intermittent discourse surrounding the issue that *does* achieve publication.\n\nIn late October, the American business and technology magazine *Fast Company* covered the recent successes of the ""for-profit social enterprise"" Cell-Ed, noting that ""a huge portion of the American labor force is illiterate,"" which it described as ""a hidden epidemic."" The article's author, Rick Wartzman, mentions foremost that Cell-Ed's userbase is largely ""foreign-born"" and expected to eclipse one million in number by the end of 2019. Demographically, the magazine's readership is predominantly middle to upper-class, who are the least affected social groups by a significant margin as per illiteracy's strong correlative relationship with poverty. These factors combine to limit any real social consequences from such an article.\n\nIn direct contrast with the professional, market-minded perspective of modern business magazine, even niche independent publications from the opposite end of the media spectrum often trivialize, belittle, or generally mishandle the issue. In [a 500-word ""Editorial""](https://www.baptiststandard.com/opinion/editorials/if-you-can-read-this-be-thankful/) written by *The* Editor [Eric Black](https://twitter.com/EricBlackBSP) of the *Baptist Standard* -- a small evangelical news website describing itself as ""Baptist voices speaking to the challenges of today's world"" -- he points to a *global* increase in ""illiterate people,"" as he so comfortably brands them. Such language is inevitably counter-productive and potentially insensitive: to the eyes and ears of activists, educators, and the general public, such a term unnecessarily lends toward a restricted perspective of those people who have been left behind by the institution of read and written language in one manner or another and portrays them as a great vague collection of lingual lepers bearing their own distinct, inexorable, wordless ethnicity which *inevitably* bars them from the freedoms allowed by the Editor's learned capacity, including the ability to actually read his words of affliction. Simply put, he has dangerously oversimplified the issue.\n\nTo once again assume the best and infer that Black had a specific purpose in publishing his ill-supported opinion beyond continuity's sake of [his weekly Editorials](https://www.baptiststandard.com/opinion/editorials/), it appears to be the promotion of a local Texan literacy ""ministry"" called [Literacy Connexus](http://www.literacyconnexus.org/), though no further specifics about the project are provided beyond ""helping churches develop literacy programs for their communities, provide training and resources to overcome illiteracy,"" which is virtually identical to the introductory copy on [the organization's homepage](http://www.literacyconnexus.org/).\n\nSo far, we've examined coverage only in special interest media, but what about legacy news organizations with the largest readerships in the United States? Despite oblivious use of the same ledes, a newspaper like *The Washington Post* can wield vast influence over the broadest possible readership and the public editorial trust. In November 2016, veteran reporter Valerie Strauss published ""[Hiding in plain sight: The adult literacy crisis](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/11/01/hiding-in-plain-sight-the-adult-literacy-crisis/)"" for *Answer Sheet* -- her weekly newsletter designed to function as ""a school survival guide for parents (and everyone else), from education policy to psychology"" -- which represents the most substantial discussion of American illiteracy in topical, widely-visible media (i.e. presence in a succinct search engine query.) She briefly introduces the issue with a bulleted list of illiteracy's consequences on modern society and the individual cited from a [Canadian literacy foundation](https://www.fondationalphabetisation.org/en/) before turning the stage over to [Lecester Johnson](https://aohdc.org/about-us/staff/lecester-johnson-chief-executive-officer/), CEO of the [Academy of Hope Adult Public Charter School](https://aohdc.org/about-us/staff/lecester-johnson-chief-executive-officer/) in Washington D.C.\n\nJohnson presents a passionate and well-informed exploration of the state of the literacy battle from the perspective of a full-time, locally on-the-ground advocate. Her op-ed's introduction includes the most essential observations and statistics throughout, noting ""the children of parents with low literacy skills are more likely to live in poverty as adults and are five times more likely to drop out of school,"" before setting upon a detailed examination of current and relevant organizations working toward *solutions*. Of course, it's largely centered upon her own organization, which she claims has ""helped more than 6000 adults rebuild their education and job opportunities since 1985.""\n\nIt's significant that an institution as deeply embedded across the American political spectrum as *The Washington Post* address the issue of American illiteracy, and both Johnson and Strauss are certainly qualified voices for the undertaking, but when we examine this particular article, it's important we consider the context of the *Answer Sheet* newsletter and its intended audience. Though it's no challenge to pitch the importance of reading and writing to parents and professional educators, the most alarming and destructive issue at hand is the educational disparity between *their adult peers*. ""There's a literacy problem in the capitol, but I'm not talking about young people who can't read. Many adults -- perhaps even parents sitting next to you at back to school night -- don't possess academic skills,"" notes Johnson with her very first paragraph. However, considering the nature of parenthood, the audience primarily consuming these words are undoubtedly preoccupied with *juvenile* issues, specifically, and we can assume their capacity to empathize with their fellow working adults who could benefit from literacy education is actually *lessened* from that of childless readers of the same age as a result. ""Despite the magnitude of the adult literacy crisis, most of those needing to make up lost ground are pushed toward traditional classroom settings--even though many of these people can't possibly follow through because of cost or work schedules or other obstacles,"" she attests.\n\nPerhaps more than any other American city, Detroit has been struggling with a serious illiteracy problem. According to [a profile of the Beyond Basics program](https://www.wxyz.com/news/conquering-illiteracy-one-neighborhood-at-a-time-with-beyond-basics-program) (which was adapted from an embedded video broadcast) on their local ABC affiliate's website, forty-seven percent of adult Detroiters cannot read, but even companies like General Motors -- who donated \$250,000 to the Beyond Basics program earlier in mid-October -- are getting involved. The article quotes Elijah Craft, a young man who was ""reading at a first-grade level as a senior at Detroit's Central High School."" ""Craft would rare venture from home for fear he would get lost because he could not read street signs,"" reports *WXYZ* anchor [Carolyn Clifford](https://www.wxyz.com/about-us/staff/carolyn-clifford). She frames the narrative around a reference to the 2009 film *The Blind Side* starring Sandra Bullock: ""here, you might call this story 'The Detroit Side.'"" For local television news, this reference to popular culture likely strengthened the story's power ensnare viewers' emotional attention when it was aired, and even in this written accompaniment, it proves an effective -- if a bit crude -- analogy. The broadcast of Mr. Craft's interview also depicts his own deep emotional investment in reading when he begins to shed tears, which is not entirely communicated in the written article.\n\nWhen the American news media discusses American illiteracy, it's almost always in secondary or tertiary form: either by way of a short post for a weekly education newsletter, an ultra-low-distribution niche editorial column, or a personality profile of a local activist. Perhaps the fundamental obstacle in the face of increasing the discourse surrounding this issue is that its resolutions will require -- perhaps more than any other social issue in this country -- advocacy by those who *can* read on behalf of those who *cannot* because of how sensitive and isolated many of them feel. When voices of advocates like Lecester Johnson *are* uplifted by major organizations like *The Washington Post*, the sociological weight of the illiteracy issue can be very powerful. In quoting former United Nations chief Kofi Annan, she sums up for its extensive audience what the facts should ultimately mean to them: 32 million of Eric Black's so-called ""illiterate people"" in the United States of America have been and continue to be deprived of their ""***human right***"" to functional literacy.\n\n#media" | |
| 52bwuqjpxii16xp0,illiteracy-coverage-american-media,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/illiteracy-coverage-american-media,2018-11-12T21:00:00Z,Illiteracy in American Media,"#### by [David Blue](http://twitter.com/neoyokel)\n\n\n\nTen percent of the United States' adult population cannot functionally read or write ([conservatively](http://literacy.kent.edu/)) despite the exponential increase of required reading in the average American's day-to-day life thus far in the 21stcentury. For written American media, especially, one would assume that a financial and social incentive for maximum literacy in the populace should present a straightforward justification for intense widespread coverage of this particular disparity, yet most related coverage in mainstream national magazines and newspapers is alarmingly sparse and often requires a less-than-socially-conscious context (e.g. a [for-profit startup](https://www.fastcompany.com/90259739/this-mobile-learning-platform-aims-to-combat-the-hidden-epidemic-of-adult-illiteracy)) to actually appear in news feeds. From the most wholesome assumption of the industry's general values -- that it holds ""[newsworthiness](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/newsworthy)"" above all -- we must assume that it does not generally consider American illiteracy ""interesting enough to the general public to warrant reporting"" as we examine the intermittent discourse surrounding the issue that *does* achieve publication.\n\nIn late October, the American business and technology magazine *Fast Company* covered the recent successes of the ""for-profit social enterprise"" Cell-Ed, noting that ""a huge portion of the American labor force is illiterate,"" which it described as ""a hidden epidemic."" The article's author, Rick Wartzman, mentions foremost that Cell-Ed's userbase is largely ""foreign-born"" and expected to eclipse one million in number by the end of 2019. Demographically, the magazine's readership is predominantly middle to upper-class, who are the least affected social groups by a significant margin as per illiteracy's strong correlative relationship with poverty. These factors combine to limit any real social consequences from such an article.\n\nIn direct contrast with the professional, market-minded perspective of modern business magazine, even niche independent publications from the opposite end of the media spectrum often trivialize, belittle, or generally mishandle the issue. In [a 500-word ""Editorial""](https://www.baptiststandard.com/opinion/editorials/if-you-can-read-this-be-thankful/) written by *The* Editor [Eric Black](https://twitter.com/EricBlackBSP) of the *Baptist Standard* -- a small evangelical news website describing itself as ""Baptist voices speaking to the challenges of today's world"" -- he points to a *global* increase in ""illiterate people,"" as he so comfortably brands them. Such language is inevitably counter-productive and potentially insensitive: to the eyes and ears of activists, educators, and the general public, such a term unnecessarily lends toward a restricted perspective of those people who have been left behind by the institution of read and written language in one manner or another and portrays them as a great vague collection of lingual lepers bearing their own distinct, inexorable, wordless ethnicity which *inevitably* bars them from the freedoms allowed by the Editor's learned capacity, including the ability to actually read his words of affliction. Simply put, he has dangerously oversimplified the issue.\n\nTo once again assume the best and infer that Black had a specific purpose in publishing his ill-supported opinion beyond continuity's sake of [his weekly Editorials](https://www.baptiststandard.com/opinion/editorials/), it appears to be the promotion of a local Texan literacy ""ministry"" called [Literacy Connexus](http://www.literacyconnexus.org/), though no further specifics about the project are provided beyond ""helping churches develop literacy programs for their communities, provide training and resources to overcome illiteracy,"" which is virtually identical to the introductory copy on [the organization's homepage](http://www.literacyconnexus.org/).\n\nSo far, we've examined coverage only in special interest media, but what about legacy news organizations with the largest readerships in the United States? Despite oblivious use of the same ledes, a newspaper like *The Washington Post* can wield vast influence over the broadest possible readership and the public editorial trust. In November 2016, veteran reporter Valerie Strauss published ""[Hiding in plain sight: The adult literacy crisis](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/11/01/hiding-in-plain-sight-the-adult-literacy-crisis/)"" for *Answer Sheet* -- her weekly newsletter designed to function as ""a school survival guide for parents (and everyone else), from education policy to psychology"" -- which represents the most substantial discussion of American illiteracy in topical, widely-visible media (i.e. presence in a succinct search engine query.) She briefly introduces the issue with a bulleted list of illiteracy's consequences on modern society and the individual cited from a [Canadian literacy foundation](https://www.fondationalphabetisation.org/en/) before turning the stage over to [Lecester Johnson](https://aohdc.org/about-us/staff/lecester-johnson-chief-executive-officer/), CEO of the [Academy of Hope Adult Public Charter School](https://aohdc.org/about-us/staff/lecester-johnson-chief-executive-officer/) in Washington D.C.\n\nJohnson presents a passionate and well-informed exploration of the state of the literacy battle from the perspective of a full-time, locally on-the-ground advocate. Her op-ed's introduction includes the most essential observations and statistics throughout, noting ""the children of parents with low literacy skills are more likely to live in poverty as adults and are five times more likely to drop out of school,"" before setting upon a detailed examination of current and relevant organizations working toward *solutions*. Of course, it's largely centered upon her own organization, which she claims has ""helped more than 6000 adults rebuild their education and job opportunities since 1985.""\n\nIt's significant that an institution as deeply embedded across the American political spectrum as *The Washington Post* address the issue of American illiteracy, and both Johnson and Strauss are certainly qualified voices for the undertaking, but when we examine this particular article, it's important we consider the context of the *Answer Sheet* newsletter and its intended audience. Though it's no challenge to pitch the importance of reading and writing to parents and professional educators, the most alarming and destructive issue at hand is the educational disparity between *their adult peers*. ""There's a literacy problem in the capitol, but I'm not talking about young people who can't read. Many adults -- perhaps even parents sitting next to you at back to school night -- don't possess academic skills,"" notes Johnson with her very first paragraph. However, considering the nature of parenthood, the audience primarily consuming these words are undoubtedly preoccupied with *juvenile* issues, specifically, and we can assume their capacity to empathize with their fellow working adults who could benefit from literacy education is actually *lessened* from that of childless readers of the same age as a result. ""Despite the magnitude of the adult literacy crisis, most of those needing to make up lost ground are pushed toward traditional classroom settings--even though many of these people can't possibly follow through because of cost or work schedules or other obstacles,"" she attests.\n\nPerhaps more than any other American city, Detroit has been struggling with a serious illiteracy problem. According to [a profile of the Beyond Basics program](https://www.wxyz.com/news/conquering-illiteracy-one-neighborhood-at-a-time-with-beyond-basics-program) (which was adapted from an [embedded video broadcast](http://bilge.world/media/detroitliteracy.mp4)) on their local ABC affiliate's website, forty-seven percent of adult Detroiters cannot read, but even companies like General Motors -- who donated \$250,000 to the Beyond Basics program earlier in mid-October -- are getting involved. The article quotes Elijah Craft, a young man who was ""reading at a first-grade level as a senior at Detroit's Central High School."" ""Craft would rare venture from home for fear he would get lost because he could not read street signs,"" reports *WXYZ* anchor [Carolyn Clifford](https://www.wxyz.com/about-us/staff/carolyn-clifford). She frames the narrative around a reference to the 2009 film *The Blind Side* starring Sandra Bullock: ""here, you might call this story 'The Detroit Side.'"" For local television news, this reference to popular culture likely strengthened the story's power ensnare viewers' emotional attention when it was aired, and even in this written accompaniment, it proves an effective -- if a bit crude -- analogy. The broadcast of Mr. Craft's interview also depicts his own deep emotional investment in reading when he begins to shed tears, which is not entirely communicated in the written article.\n\nWhen the American news media discusses American illiteracy, it's almost always in secondary or tertiary form: either by way of a short post for a weekly education newsletter, an ultra-low-distribution niche editorial column, or a personality profile of a local activist. Perhaps the fundamental obstacle in the face of increasing the discourse surrounding this issue is that its resolutions will require -- perhaps more than any other social issue in this country -- advocacy by those who *can* read on behalf of those who *cannot* because of how sensitive and isolated many of them feel. When voices of advocates like Lecester Johnson *are* uplifted by major organizations like *The Washington Post*, the sociological weight of the illiteracy issue can be very powerful. In quoting former United Nations chief Kofi Annan, she sums up for its extensive audience what the facts should ultimately mean to them: 32 million of Eric Black's so-called ""illiterate people"" in the United States of America have been and continue to be deprived of their ""***human right***"" to functional literacy.\n\n#literacy #media #class #future" | |
| biu4eah1r8r9vfyg,federated,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/federated,2018-11-13T08:00:00Z,"David Blue, Federated","\n\nIf you’ve been keeping up with the web at all in the past two years, you’re no doubt at least somewhat familiar with the terms “Mastodon,” “Diaspora,” or “federated social.” *Extratone* readers may remember [my interview with Eugen Rochko](http://www.extratone.com/tech/mastodon/) last April — the day when his federated social “clone” made its way around the front pages of the major technology and tech media websites. Though the piece itself was designed and written quite disastrously (genuinely sorry about that — it was easy for me to get carried away when I had no idea what I was carrying,) Eugen is a great communicator of his ideal, which you’ll find to be as aligned with a FOSS future as you’d think it would be.\n\nI signed up for [**mastodon.social**](http://mastodon.social) in the February of last year, yet I suppose year sof o find myself going back to Twitter looking for what I only get on Mastodon, these days: diverse, sincere, talented, and extremely *curious* users from all over the world backed and deeply co-habitated with an inclusive developer culture filled with smart problem solvers who just want to contribute something grand. It’s not exactly easy, yet instances and variations on the ActivityHub project, itself have begun springing up at a pace I can’t keep up with. There’s the open-source federated blogging CMS [Plume](https://github.com/Plume-org/Plume), along with the gorgeous and *very* promising Instagram-esque [PixelFed](http://pixelfed.org). Additionally, [Diaspora](http://davidblue@diasp.org) is gorgeous and fully-functional now.\n\n## Directory of my accounts across the Fediverse\n\n## Mastodon\n- [**Mastodon.Social**](http://mastodon.social/@DavidBlue)\n- [**Writing.Exchange**](https://writing.exchange/@b)\n- [**Mastodon.Technology**](http://mastodon.technology/@DavidBlue)\n- [**FOSStodon**](https://fosstodon.org/@DavidBlue)\n- [**Toot.Cafe**](http://toot.cafe/@DavidBlue)\n- [**Radical.Town**](http://radical.town/@DavidBlue) — perhaps the loudest-looking property in the Fediverse.\n- [**Experience Shift**](https://expshift.com/@b), from our friends.\n- [**LinuxRocks.Online**](https://linuxrocks.online/@blue)\n- [**Mastodon Racing**](https://mastd.racing/@blue)\n- [**Tilde Pleroma**](https://pleroma.tilde.zone/b)\n- [**Tilde Mastodon**](https://tilde.zone/@b)\n\n## PixelFed\n- [**Fedigram**](http://fedigram.social/davidblue)\n- [**PixelFed**](https://pixelfed.social/Davidblue)\n\n## Diaspora\n- [**Diasp.org**](http://bit.ly/dbdiasp)\n\n## Others\n- [**Baptisete.Gelez.xyz**](https://baptiste.gelez.xyz/@/davidblue/), the current public test instance for the upcoming federated blog CMS, [Plume](https://github.com/Plume-org/Plume).\n" | |
| f2l0nrts2lvb2c1a,out-of-sleep-david-blue,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/out-of-sleep-david-blue,2018-11-16T16:00:00Z,Out,"\n\nlisten now,\nwrinkling husk of the wheat:\n\nnow or then,\nit did not matter,\nbut forgone,\nit comes back around again.\n\ncome down out of there,\nnow. tend to that mess before supper - no chance to get out of the house, again.\n\nthe disarray!\nstanding, splayed -\novergrown, lonely,\nhalf-awake.\n\nblasted, or washing away.\nwords aplenty, nothing to say.\n\nthrough his night where even demons\nfind the story mundane,\nstarving for knowing before\ndew and the shakes\n\n#poetry" | |
| omi14iay6xcz01et,iphone4-photography,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/iphone4-photography,2018-11-19T15:28:52Z,Through an iPhone 4's Lens,"\n\n## Seven years ago, the fourth generation of Apple’s iPhone instigated a change in our perception of digital photography. Now – thanks to Google Photos – I’d like to reflect on my favorite shots of mine.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nWhen iPhone 4 handsets began shipping in the Summer of 2010, I’d been carrying my first generation for three solid years – since its now history-stricken release, in fact – and its age started to become a problem. I’d drop it screen-down on a rock in the airport parking lot just before going back to school for my Junior year, splitting a crack in the screen that wouldn’t quite kill it – it was the demands of iOS 4 on its 412 MHz CPU and meager 128 MB of RAM that would ultimately cease its usability.\n\n<iframe width=""auto"" height=""auto"" src=""https://www.youtube.com/embed/fJOMiTeDERY?controls=0&start=60"" frameborder=""0"" allow=""accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture"" allowfullscreen></iframe>\n\nThe single 2 megapixel rear-facing camera would surprise one at times, but was never lauded as anything but what it was – a mobile phone-bound sensor capturing very cellular-looking* images, but Steve Jobs wasn’t [three minutes in](https://youtu.be/z__jxoczNWc?t=2m10s) to his iPhone 4 presentation at the June 2010 Worldwide Developer’s Conference before he pronounced the design’s closest possible “kin” to be “an old Leica camera,” associating his device with photography in its first impression. The equivalent of the first generation’s rear-facing camera could now be found facing *you*, and the fourth’s primary sensor now shot at 5 megapixels (2592 x 1936) with autofocus and 5x digital zoom, setting a fundamental smartphone sensor configuration [standard](https://www.theverge.com/2014/9/9/6125849/iphone-history-pictures) that’s still adhered to by the industry.\n\nAfter unleashing Google Photos upon the ~15,000 images on my home machine’s hard drive last year, I have been constantly reminded of my own photographic history – for better or worse – and regularly shown five, six, seven-year old snaps in a manner that wouldn’t have been possible (or have made any sense) before. Recently, I was astounded to find that I took many of the better shots with my iPhone 4, so I thought I’d share a few from my high-school days in loving memory of my trusty little rectangular companion.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n*All taken with iPhone 4, left unedited. View more on* [*Flickr*](http://bit.ly/davidblueip4)*.*\n\n#hardware #photography" | |
| jsvbked9j5gzcu32,tweetbot-5-ios-review,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/tweetbot-5-ios-review,2018-11-27T19:00:01Z,Tweetbot 5 for iOS Review,"\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://github.com/extratone/bilge/raw/main/audio/TTS/Tweetbot%205%20for%20iOS%20Review.m4a"">\n</audio>\n\nOn Windows XP ballot day, I spent *my* beatnik-ass time marveling at the (seemingly) abrupt availability of some genuinely innovative social apps on the Apple App Store for the first time since iOS 7(?) Of course, I am aware that reasonable people would regard a “sneak peek,” NDA-violating, perfectly Adobe Premiered app review to be pretty fucking lame, and I won’t dispute any accusations to the tune of “just an insane white guy with a WordPress site,” but I still believe it’s important to talk about software *especially* because virtually everyone uses it (as opposed to quieting down just when these apps and the people who make them attain the most advantageous possible position to fuck the whole world.)\n\nThat said, I’m going to keep this as brief and unrevisionist as I can: Tweetbot’s [latest iteration](https://9to5mac.com/2018/10/18/tweetbot-true-dark-mode-gifs/) may actually justify the [dedicated subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/Tweetbot/) I’ve just discovered! (Reddit’s the last place anyone wants to talk about apps, I guess.) I’ve complained at length about Twitter’s increasingly hostile (but [justified, sortof](https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/25/17274828/twitter-earning-q1-2018-profit-user-growth)) treatment of its once [astonishingly diverse landscape of third-party clients and tools](https://mashable.com/2009/05/02/twitter-iphone-apps/#S_O.z..2mqqJ), yet I’d honestly grown significantly in accepting that the dynamic would never again see the power of the world’s most cash-stuffed companies delivered into the sweaty hands of small, kooky one and two-man teams, and it *never* would’ve occurred to me that Tweetbot was still around — much less getting ready to update its trusty old app with a release that would suddenly make it clearly more stable *and* better-looking than its last competitor: [the Native Fuck, itself](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/twitter/id333903271?mt=8), which has also undergone [significant cosmetic surgery](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/twitter-redesigns-ios-app-for-one-handed-scrolling/276541/), recently. Namely, they moved the *one fucking button* that’s given the app a usability premium over its mobile web-based low-rent clone.\n\n“The compose button has been moved to the bottom right-hand corner and “floats” as users scroll down their timeline. That means the button is always available to quickly send a tweet when the mood strikes.”\n\nYeah okay, *Matt*.\n\n>We’ve got a shiny, new compose button to unveil on Twitter for iOS! Easier than ever to use, the floating icon is prominently displayed and perfect for one-handed scrolling and Tweet composing. Pro tip: Press and hold the icon to access your drafts, photos, and the GIF gallery.\n>-[@TwitterSupport](https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1057726896765423616)\n\nTwitter Support is no [@Cher](http://twitter.com/cher), yeah, but it seems strange that less than a thousand of Twitter’s [more than 300 million monthly users](http://bilge.world/media/birdearn.pdf) would bother to engage with the announcement of a significant fundamental change to its infrastructure. Imagine if the federal government announced via White House press conference that every stoplight in the United States was going to have its yellow light removed to “streamline workflow” without any further explanation, yet only 1000 *total* Americans even bothered to tune in to the television coverage across all the news networks. It’d be strange, yeah? Well, y’all are using Twitter more than you’re driving, I’ll bet. Next time, **get out and** [vote on my Twitter poll](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1062859883211620352), you fascist!\n\nIn my Twitter glory days — that is, when I used to spend the entirety of every one of my community college classes Tweeting from my phone — there was a healthy offering of third-party clients on both mobile and desktop that filled the english of the era’s software media with an absolutely barbaric brand-beaten pile of linguistic Twittrash. After Twinkle — one of the [earliest and ugliest](https://www.macrumors.com/2008/07/17/twinkle-another-twitter-client-in-app-store/) ways to use Twitter ever — you’d have to choose between Twitpic, Tweetdeck, Twittercounter, Twitterfeed, Twhirl, Twitturly, Twtpoll, Retweetist, Tweepler, Hellotxt, Twitdom, Tweetscan, Tweetburner, Tweetvisor, Twittervision, Twibs, Twistori, and Twitbin. These are just a few I picked up from a [10-year-old](https://techcrunch.com/2009/02/19/the-top-20-twitter-applications/) [*TechCrunch*](https://techcrunch.com/2009/02/19/the-top-20-twitter-applications/) [report](https://techcrunch.com/2009/02/19/the-top-20-twitter-applications/) listing the top 21 Twitter applications by traffic.\n\n### ***Twibs***\n\nNow, I have to stop myself from digging too deep here and attempting something absurd like *The History of Twitter Clients*, but the fucking material is there! I could spend an entire afternoon going through YouTube searches and gadget blogs because it brings me back to that time when I lived every day assuming these things were going to continue to astonish for my entire adulthood. So many incredible ideas! *However,* I’m going to save them for later and focus on the cream of the crop, so to speak: **Twitterific** and **Tweetbot**, which has been a longtime favorite of mine. As I said, it was in community college that I first ponied up money for Tweetbot 3 on my iPhone 4S simply because the hype over it among app and gadget nerds was *so bonkers* that it managed to spill over into my life, despite the fact that iOS7 and I were having serious issues in our marriage.\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE1YHcoPxMk\n\nIf you trust Mark Watson with your life as I do, you’d better believe that Tweetbot has been “[a screamer](https://youtu.be/DE1YHcoPxMk)” since its very beginning, when it pioneered the *Premium Poweruser* segment, for which a demographic apparently still exists. It was *fast*, yet always noticeably smoother than the native app, just as the newest release is today. I must point out, though, that the bloggers and YouTubers who’ve insisted that Tweetbot or Twitterrific or any other premium app could replace the native Twitter app entirely on iPhone even before they were stripped of a most live/push functionality (which I’ll come back around to in just a moment,) are undoubtedly lying to themselves — as good as they got, they never overtook Twitter’s own app in immediacy terms, which is almost inevitably going to present fundamental deterrence on the part of the active Twitter user who intends to rid themselves of the default pedestrian avenue of administration. Tweetbot solved a lot of things, it really is *daft* when it comes to notifications. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if they came a few hundred seconds late — it’s that they’re never predictably or consistently so, which severs entirely the human perception of engaged *plugged-in-ness*, if you will. It’s the same phenomena Chuck Klosterman explores best in the context of DVRing live sports to watch later. \n\n>It’s difficult to project fictional scenarios that are more oblique and unexpected than the craziest moments from reality. We all understand this. And that understanding is at the core of the human attraction to liveness. We don’t crave live sporting events because we need immediacy; we crave them because they represent those (increasingly rare) circumstances in which the entire spectrum of possibility is in play. \n>-“[Space, Time, and DVR Mechanics](http://grantland.com/features/space-time-dvr-mechanics)” by Chuck Klosterman\n\nTweetbot is unquestionably a more thorough environment in which to explore Twitter than any other third party client, but it can’t do the live thing. (Please do complain to Twitter, Inc. about the API situation if you’re so inclined, though.) All I’m trying to say is, **there is no fucking reason you’d delete the Twitter app** — hide it away in a folder and never ever open it again if it disgusts you so, but leave its notifications settings on so that it can keep itself busy in there. Now *that* is a smart workflow! In fact, it was mine! And it did work for such a long time that you’d probably forget about the arrangement in no time were there not the occasional obvious discrepancies between Tweetbot’s Mention’s tab and the native app’s instant notifications. There has never been — nor will there be, I think — a client for Twitter that can replace *some* use of its own properties. \n\nI think Tweetbot 3 *made* me into my own ridiculous equivalent of a “poweruser.” Things are a little hazy now, but I know that I departed my main Twitter account just before the app’s release, and I didn’t come back until 2015. I was going to school in the same old mall building that housed the tool store in which I was also working in full-time, which is surely the only explanation for the shamelessness I demonstrated in bringing a wireless Apple Bluetooth keyboard to my classes and placing it behind the phone on whatever surface was in front of me so that I could lean forward and type into iOS with my nose damned near touching the screen. Strangely, I was not able to verify when Bluetooth keyboard support was added to iOS, but we’re going to [conclude for the sake of convenience](https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/9y1bjd/when_was_support_for_bluetooth_keyboards/) that it was first included in the immediate predecessor to the iPhone 4S I was using then.\n\n>The cognoscenti have been on Twitter for years now. Stephen Fry, the web service’s patron saint — in Britain at least, joined in 2008. However, it wasn’t until early 2009, xsomewhere around the time that Fry tweeted while stuck in a lift, that the service went truly mainstream. Mentions of Twitter, usually involving celebrities, could be found in newspapers and on breakfast television.\n>-“[Top 10 technology highlights of 2009](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/6817359/Top-10-technology-highlights-of-2009.html) ” | *The Telegraph* \n\nIf you’ve made it this far, you’ve already seen the demos and skimmed reviews at least. You should know by now whether or not Tweetbot 5 is worth it to you in purely functional terms, but I think we should all acknowledge that **this release of Tweetbot is likely the last competitive third-party Twitter app for iOS**. The mess that is Twitter, Inc. has [made clear this year](https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/product/2018/investing-in-the-best-twitter-experience-for-you.html) that it intends to prioritize its own clients over maintaining the APIs necessary for others to receive push notifications. And when I say “its own,” I’m also referring to our dearest [TweetDeck](https://youtu.be/EHDOQVAQzec), which they in fact *absorbed*. From a business perspective, it makes sense: only “six million App Store and Google Play users installed the top five third-party Twitter clients between January 2014 and July 2018,” [according to *TechCrunch*](https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/17/6-million-users-had-installed-third-party-twitter-clients/). I never expected to see Tweetbot on the App Store charts again, nor would I have considered that [Echophon](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/echofon-for-twitter/id286756410?mt=8), [TweetCaster](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tweetcaster-for-twitter/id420792544) or [Twitterrific](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/twitterrific-tweet-your-way/id580311103) would have been left available. They’re on the App Store, at least, and I can confirm that they all technically *still work*, but it’s safe to say they’re showing their fucking age. Tweetbot and Twitterrific, though, are not just satellite products of the platform — they *[literally built it](https://furbo.org/2011/03/11/twitterrific-firsts/)*. These two are the poles that have spent Twitter’s lifetime thus far demonstrating for the company and its userbase their own respective interpretations of a mobile social application. Today, they are united — along with [Talon](http://klinkerapps.com/talon-overview/) and [Tweetings](https://www.tweetings.net/apps/) — in a [plea for continued access](http://apps-of-a-feather.com/) to the platform they helped establish on behalf of Twitter users and developers around the world.\n\nBoth Tweetbot and Twitterrific are in their 5th versions, and neither has actually changed much since iOS 7. (Twitterrific appears to still be in the same version number.) Facing the growing walls around the service, one struggles to imagine them surviving more than one or two iOS releases, but [I’ve been wrong before](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/712292559058444288). (In fact, I discovered yesterday that Lookbook is [still around somehow](https://lookbook.nu/mom).) By the time iOS 7 came around, the new native Twitter app still [looked fucking terrible](https://www.cultofmac.com/246067/twitter-for-ios-7-released-with-new-design-icon-on-iphone-and-ipad/). When Tapbots [released Tweetbot 3](https://mashable.com/2013/10/24/tweetbot-3-for-iphone-review/#SDbMxlCvFPqx), everything about its visual experience was beyond anything we’d seen on the iPhone before and its effectiveness as a Twitter tool was immediately recognizable in contrast with even Jack’s brand-new app and mobile web experience. The animations were tasteful and smooth and the “pro user” label on Tapbot’s demographic allowed them to fully explore the functionality of iPhone’s gestures separate any bond with the hypothetically least-capable user.\n\nThis is a dynamic which I am apparently unable to avoid across just about all of my subjects — including [digital media](http://extratone.com/freq) — so you may take it as generally unreasonable or extreme, but I’m nearly as tired of being treated as an idiot *user* as I am an idiot *reader*. *Readability* is to *Usability*, etc. It’s especially aggravating when I *could* do so much more if developers would just assume I’m capable of any knowledge acquisition or intellectual growth whatsoever. Except for a few leftover keyboard shortcuts, the native Twitter app’s only function are the most obvious to engage with, as per the highest possible standards of use, which would make perfect sense if it was paired with competent investments in *Accessibility*, but Twitter always appears to [detest the subject](https://theoutline.com/post/2458/there-are-still-some-people-on-twitter-who-don-t-have-280-characters?zd=1&zi=zbzf6tkp), even while quietly putting in some of the work. Thanks to Mastodon’s explicit and visible acknowledgement of accessibility by way of just one young German man and a volunteer team, we certainly know it’s *not* because it’s an expensive one at all. (The “if Mastodon can do it than Twitter can *definitely* fucking do it” argument can be expanded almost without limit.)\n\n>Somewhere out there is a social media manager using a screen reader whose professionalism has been undermined by the belief that the update is available to everyone. We deserve equal access to the tools our peers take for granted, and the security to know that we will be able to do our jobs tomorrow regardless of updates.\n>-Kit Englard for *[The Outline](https://theoutline.com/post/2458/there-are-still-some-people-on-twitter-who-don-t-have-280-characters)*\n\nI would like to commend myself now for making it this far without mentioning **Lists** — a subject which I’ve already [Tweeted](https://twitter.com/i/moments/996616971880882176) and [written](http://www.extratone.com/tech/lists/) about extensively — but this time, I have the wondrous blessing of two premiere mobile software companies who recognized the potential power in list functionality to dispel or avoid most of the inherent risks assigned to the usage of a social network like Twitter and bet heavily on it. Neither can be utilized to the fullest without lists and *wouldn’t it be such a shame* to not get your money’s worth? Tapbots expanded their curative ability tremendously by adding customizable filters to any timeline in Tweetbot, allowing the user to infinitely manipulate incoming posts with any combination of every variable supported by the core Twitter code itself. Within a matter of seconds, you could create a filter that will exclude all Tweets except for those from unverified accounts that mention “blimps” and include a media attachment and apply this filter to any of the app’s timeline views — including Home, Mentions, Profile (your own Tweets,) your Favorites, and your Searches — everything but your Direct Messages can be sorted this way.\n\nTweetBot and I accomplished a lot of sorting together, and it wouldn’t have occurred to me had it not crept to #1 Paid Social App again a few weeks ago that perhaps [my bias towards Twitter lists](http://www.extratone.com/tech/lists/) could be entirely attributed to my early use of TweetBot and Twitterrific, which allowed me to amass a [Following count](https://twitter.com/neoyokel/following) of over 5000 without physically perishing or mentally disintegrating to the point of undeniable insanity. However, by the time [TweetBot 4 was released](https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/1/9432291/tweetbot-4-ipad-iphone-available) in 2015, it had long since swapped places with the native app within my iPhone’s homescreens and was only used when I felt particularly like Tweetstorming from a stationary situation. From my wireless Apple Keyboard, this meant Cmd (⌘)-N to compose a Tweet and ⌘-Enter to send it.\n\nToday — [in Tweetbot 5](https://www.macstories.net/reviews/tweetbot-5-for-ios-brings-a-redesign-dedicated-giphy-support-and-a-new-dark-mode/) — this continues to be a tried-and-true method of Tweeting Tweets on Twitter, smoothly and efficiently, as always. Returning to Ye Olde Alternative in 2018 yields both familiar *and* newly-implemented goods: animation and audio notifications are carried over and/or updated as needed to maintain a fluid and fresh experience. The ability to switch between its intelligently-chosen color themes with a two-fingered vertical swipe, alone will be justification enough for many users like myself to hand over another $4.99 to the Tapbots developers who’ve managed against all odds to one-up Twitter’s own mobile app development one last time. Over any other alternative app, Tweetbot 5 retains the robust qualities necessary to achieve #1 Paid Social App status on the App Store despite its new API shackles.\n\n#software" | |
| uag8z4bnnyuxsz0u,honda-crv-ownership,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/honda-crv-ownership,2018-12-03T06:58:33Z,"Goodbye, CR-V","\n\n<!--more-->\n\n*I would argue that this is the best Honda’s CR-V has ever or will ever look, no thanks to [my photographic decisions](http://www.extratone.com/words/inred/iphone4/).*\n\nAfter 9 or so years and over 100,000 miles, *I* have totaled my mother’s 2010 Honda CR-V - the car I drove cross-country for the first time at significant distance (St. Louis to Washington, D.C. in essentially one sitting,) and once complimented for being the best possible aesthetic compromise of its near-universally and aggravatingly-compromised breed. It was my her first 1st owner experience, which is frankly a bit of a shame. If I’m completely honest, my late stepfather’s decision to outfit this utterly utilitarian vehicle with enough kit to break the $30,000 within a segment that has always clung to the 20s as one of its truly communicable advantages feels less-than-ideal in retrospect, but what can I say, really? It was not exactly a proud thing, but it *did* transport a lot of young families and shelter us as we’ve navigated more blizzard-like conditions than should be the norm for what is, essentially, an expensive, extended Civic.\n\nAs per some particulars of my upbringing, I tend to get almost alarmingly attached to vehicles, but it’s hard to say I’m sad to see the CR-V go from all but the most sentimental senses. Objectively, it’s simply not as high-value or as competent a vehicle as it and its contemporaries are still made out to be by automotive media, pop culture, or the presumptions in the average consumer’s discourse. Though it was never intended to be luxurious, the resulting automobile ended up costing real luxury money.\n\n## The Event\n\nIt’s odd to have been driving so long without incident (pretty soon I’m gonna be able to say “I’ve been driving for twenty years, bitch!) and then suddenly find oneself at fault for the accident which claimed the life of the single most sublime, defining object in his existence. *This* incident, though, was entirely the fault of the other driver. My best friend and I were Northbound, crossing the intersection of Stadium Boulevard and Rock Quarry Road at precisely the point where it becomes College Avenue, where we were t-boned directly on the CR-V’s driver’s side rear wheel by a mid-2000s Mazda 6 that decided to run the red light. It’s hard to guess the speed of impact, but the driver’s side side airbags deployed (as you’ll see from the attached photograph,) and the CR-V was spun nearly 270 degrees around the axis of the front wheels. Neither of us nor the 6’s driver was injured, but both of our vehicles are surely totaled.\n\n\n\n## Third-Generation CR-V Ownership in Retrospect\n\nTwo or three years ago, I [recorded](https://youtu.be/7ucf0Hp3eKk) some (not particularly conclusive or informative) thoughts with my iPhone as I drove the old engorged Civic to the grocery store, when ends abruptly after I said ""I think one time I did try to go fast."" Like most surviving crossover nameplates, though, the narrative began with a genuinely good idea: Hondarize and modernize the Suzuki Sidekick template on top of the Civic's platform and charge just a bit more for it - and like the rest, too, the concept has soured tremendously as both crossovers and the compact sedans upon which they're based have grown and fattened under their ever-increasing burden of safety and convenience features. (I say ""burden"" and not ""expectation,"" specifically because I know a grand total of zero informed people who are at all thrilled about increasing gross weights across every industry segment.)\n\nThis CR-V was my mother’s first and only crossover following a three-car line of one or two-owner-used, well-equipped V6 Accords in her garage - the later two from the era when Honda’s mid-sized sedan became a surprisingly dynamic driving machine as advances in drivetrain performance intercepted a point in the developmental timeline just before gross weights spiked up toward their current safety and electronic equipment-bloated figures. (In other words: in the sweet spot when engines were growing more powerful but just before the Accord and its peers got [*fucking fat*](http://www.speedmonkey.co.uk/2012/10/honda-from-trendsetters-to-just-another.html).) In 2010, the CR-V was *almost* attractive looking as specced by [my stepfather](http://www.extratone.com/words/inred/crosscabriolet/): the combination of the roof rack, bonnet bra, and EX-trim 5-spoke alloys managed to resolve most of the discrepancies in the shapes I've seen from other examples, but it also drove its price above the $30,000 mark. To be fair to Honda, this decision could almost be considered a sortof *breach of function* considering the CR-V's original ultra-mass-produced, utilitarian purpose.\n\n### Interior\n\nNeither the leather nor the nav/infotainment system has aged very well, but it should be said that the latter is still 100% functional in 2018: it interfaces well with my iPhone 8 Plus with only the occasional ""this device is not supported"" hiccup (easily resolvable by simply re-booting the connection, in my experience.) I'm not sure how astonished I should be by the fact that the GPS still offers reliable routes 99% of the time, albeit through a user interface design that seems to grow more and more dated by the passing few seconds one may have to wait for it to calculate. Accommodation remains about as uncomfortable as it was on day 1: thanks to its hard leather and the super-upright seating position common to crossovers, I must continue to insist that operating this car is a wholly unnatural experience, but its interior surfaces shall always place well in a contest of *robustness* and *longevity*, as they certainly should.\n\n### Drivetrain\n\nPerhaps the greatest letdown of this model year (2010) is its legacy four-speed automatic transmission, and I assume the next year's inclusion of a brand-new five-speed unit drastically improved its driving experience. The specific regret one feels when such a development arrives a year after buying any new car is one my stepfather still didn't deserve, yet he was not spared. However, if *you*, the reader, cannot be dissuaded from buying a CR-V of this generation for whatever *goddamned* reason, know that you must choose an example from 2011-onward if you want to retain your sanity. No, ye olde four-speed wasn't quite as bad as the transmission that [virtually ruined Dodge's new Dart](https://youtu.be/zs9ScPleCTw) singlehandedly, but it certainly shows its age even for the most inattentive or merciless driver. Without it, I would vouch for the 2.4L four-cylinder's performance as adequate, but its contribution was and forever shall be let down by the aging transmission's developing Alzheimer's. Simply put: they are an unacceptably mismatched team.\n\nThough I shall forever argue that part-time all-wheel-drive is almost never actually justified in normal use - and yet inadequate for any “extreme” use, for that matter - Honda’s hydraulic “Super-Handling All-Wheel-Drive” did indeed aid our CR-V’s way in a handful of circumstances throughout my mother’s ownership, though neither of our memories of these are robust enough to cite specifics. The single no-bullshit *blizzard* we experienced was the same type I managed to navigate years later in a sub-compact Chevrolet to reach MagFest 2016, if perhaps less intense. I would speculate that the system increases mechanical drag - and therefore fuel consumption - to a degree that couldn’t possibly justify what little aid it has offered in *our* use, at least.\n\n#auto" | |
| h9c2ljdwn5fwz586,siri-shortcuts-ios12-review,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/siri-shortcuts-ios12-review,2018-12-05T11:00:00Z,Profound Revelations in iOS 12,"\n\n## Apple's latest mobile OS update might've seemed mundane, but Siri Shortcuts gives users vastly more power than Apple customers have ever before experienced.\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://github.com/extratone/bilge/raw/main/audio/TTS/Profound%20Revelations%20in%20iOS%2012.m4a"">\n</audio>\n\nBack in 2016, *Pokémon Go*, overclocked Apple Watches, pissing wearables, and What You See is What You Get blogging services all claimed unprecedented casualties among consumers according to *Futureland*'s iOS 10 episode, which we did our absolute best to dramatize in order to survive what was expected to be the dullest event on record. We'd only that day been first made aware of Boomerang photos and the mysterious nature of ""Live Blogging"" as an occupation. [AirPods were introduced](https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/20/14016568/apple-airpods-wireless-earpods-earbuds-review) and subsequently shit on, and the [comparatively archaic](https://bilge.world/mono-audio-playback) 3.5mm analog audio jack was confidently parted with, finally. At least I got over ""forgetting"" about Live Photos because it's rapidly becoming difficult to keep stuff *on* the phone now. *I* am coming sincerely close to believing none of this is real, anyway. Today, though, it’s a damned straight ballgame, isn’t it? Months have passed since Apple pushed out its major mobile OS release of the year to [more little rectangular computers](https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/26/10835748/apple-devices-active-1-billion-iphone-ipad-ios) than any one person could speedcount in a lifetime and YouTube is already recommending me dozens of [videos about the next one](https://youtu.be/CXKqCWWjxSM). At this point, you and I are already aware of the iOS development community, who has already been using Internet Operating System 12 on their personal devices for more than half a year by the time your irises are landing here. Hopefully, all but two or three stranded, dying explorers in the arctic have updated their iPhones and iPads by now, and why wouldn’t they?\n\n<iframe src=""https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/end-user/siri-shortcuts-are-ios-12s--Vlsfa8engC/embed/"" height=""180px"" width=""100%"" style=""width: 1px; min-width: 100%;"" frameborder=""0"" scrolling=""no"" loading=""lazy""></iframe>\n\nOur expectations from this ritual are completely alien compared to those we’d need to anticipate from the event 5 or 6 releases ago, when one’s phone had to be sent away (in a sense) to latch itself tight to the stability of a desktop-class product in order to undergo a lengthy, destined metamorphosis. Sometimes, backups via 30-pin to USB-2.0 cables took hours, after which the custodian may or may not find their companion’s replication had completed successfully. If it had, one had to be sure to close any applications apart from iTunes to provide a working environment of utter silence – restarting after finishing the download was my own preferred method – before entrusting the despicably unreliable software to whittle away in a sometimes frantically rebooting, feverish procedure with near life-threatening stigma: it wasn’t uncommon for an update to inexplicably fail, “bricking” the subject iPhone and requiring that one take two whole steps in the wrong direction and restore it from the entire backup they’d just created (hopefully) in order to… make another, precisely-identical attempt, for lack of variables or alternatives to the process. However, if the user planned sufficiently and made a point to begin the whole charade immediately upon arriving home for the evening, these potential frustrations could be compensated for, and odds would favor counting on their smartphone to emerge safe and sound from the procedure just before bed, when even those holding the second-newest product in the lineage would have just enough screen time to notice that text entry, web page loading, and window management had noticeably slowed before sighing and tossing their device toward the darkness.\n\nhttps://twitter.com/cher/status/278053444135288833\n\nThese days, one would need to try very hard to be inconvenienced by iOS updates. My iPhone 8 Plus is two or three times more powerful than my laptop at the moment, and my new friends’ WiFi connection is better than what the State government uses internally, back home. I haven’t needed to physically back it up more than once or twice since I bought it — iCloud stores the lot for $4.99 a month anyway. I blinked once watching *Riki-Oh* with high school friends some time ago and all of the sudden, a 1.6GB download isn’t really a big deal. Siddown and watch your Instagram stories for twenty minutes, and *hey*! You’re ready to update! Somehow, I have abruptly found myself in a reality in which **I am the obvious bottleneck** and my 100 words per minute on a smartphone keyboard, even, is no longer fast enough: my fucking phone is now **waiting on me** when it updates. The keyholder is the whole goddamned holdup.\n\nSo, what possible purpose could there be in pounding out this “Review” of a free software update that’s in no way optional (waiting a month is no longer a rational minimization of risk — it’s just dumb,) not any more difficult to attain than the bills currently waiting in your mailbox, nor allowed by the nature of mobile operating systems to compete with any cross-platform alternatives? For myself, it’s proved [a gratifying tradition of sorts](http://bilge.world/ios-10-review-speed/) and a good use of my apparently-abundant time if only for the record's sake (hello, future web archivists, neohuman and otherwise!,) but this release – assuming I haven’t overlooked something – is the most globe-shucking of all because of one single featureset: **Siri Shortcuts**. However, the vast majority of the intra-Apple press' coverage of this release has come across nearly as unconcerned with them as I was originally. Take [*Macworld*'s iOS 12 Review](https://www.macworld.co.uk/review/ios-apps/ios-12-3683670/), for instance: it was the first result in my Google search for ""iOS 12 review,"" yet Siri Shortcuts are only mentioned in the bottom quarter of its first page. When I recorded the ""[iOS 12 Review](https://radiopublic.com/end-user-WdbezM/ep/s1!ba096)"" episode of my ""[podcast](https://anchor.fm/davidblue),"" I spoke as if I was somehow the only person on the planet who comprehends the profound implications of this software addition - which was, of course, more of [an absorbent acquisition](https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/22/apple-has-acquired-workflow-a-powerful-automation-tool-for-ipad-and-iphone/) - but I have since discovered one gem, at least, which has continued the conversation in a most superb manner. It's [a technology podcast called *Supercomputer*](https://supercomputer.transistor.fm/about), and it's hosted by [Alex Cox](https://twitter.com/AlexCox) and [Matthew Cassinelli](https://twitter.com/AlexCox) - the latter of whom developed a significant amount of the iOS app [Workflow](https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/16/workflow-hints-at-the-future-of-the-watch-as-a-computing-platform/) (and wrote most or all of its documentation, [apparently](https://anchor.fm/davidblue),) which Apple assimilated as Siri Shortcuts. Both are extremely knowledgeable and competent commentators on - as far as I can hear, at least - virtually **the entire iOS *lifestyle***. (For those on the outside who've never stepped in: laugh if you must, but yes it *is* a lifestyle, still, and it's new thought leader [isn't exactly coming up short](https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/3/18124416/tim-cook-apple-infowars-white-supremacy-podcasts-platform-adl) these days.) iOS is technically *software*, yes, but it leaves an intractable itch for some greater, transcendent term.\n\nhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=pxtA9n2XwAM\n\nIn just forty minutes, without any prior knowledge about this feature, I was able to create a Shortcut which sends any given handset's IP address and precise GPS location (among other mundane metrics) in a text message **to my phone number**. I could share this shortcut among my other submissions to [Sharecuts](https://sharecuts.app/) or [ShortcutsGallery.com](https://shortcutsgallery.com/), where any iOS user could download and subsequently send this information back to *my* phone. (Don't believe me? [Have a go at it yourself](https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/2873cc28684646e1904f0e80c21c8481) and I'll send back a screenshot if you'd like.) I accomplished this without any particular skills or education in software development or cybersecurity - without any real *malice*, even - I was just playing around. As far as my recollection goes, Apple has *never* included such a powerful, potentially-dangerous piece of software in a standard software update before. It's both absolutely brilliant and sortof a ripoff to be so entrusted for the first time. In many ways - like my Disable Bluetooth & WiFi shortcut - Siri Shortcuts represent an awfully half-assed solution to some of the most basic, longtime incongruencies within iOS. Sure, it's great that I can just make myself a shortcut to completely disable my phone's WiFi and Bluetooth activity with one press or Siri command (combining ""type to Siri"" with Siri Shortcuts basically enables a form of Command Line functionality in iOS,) but frankly, one should've expected the world's largest company to *do it themselves* in perhaps the second of third version of this operating system instead of saying *okay, here are the tools - you do it!* in its *twelfth*. \n\nI've found it inevitable when speaking on iOS to avoid discussing the *other* literature available on the subject at any given time. The depth to which technology media has assimilated the habits and mannerisms of a single American company is absolutely mind-boggling, regardless of its history, its market share, or even its recent trillion-dollar valuation. Dozens of media companies – *[CultofMac](https://www.cultofmac.com/)*, *[MacRumors](https://www.macrumors.com/)*, *[Macworld](https://www.macworld.com/)*, *[9to5 Mac](https://9to5mac.com/)*, [*AppleInsider*](https://appleinsider.com/), *[iMore](https://www.imore.com/)*, and... more – exist solely to cover one single independent company: **Apple, Incorporated**. One wonders how the sum total of the individuals involved with and these organizations compares with the total number of employees working for the company their careers are (for the moment, at least,) entirely centered around. (Further interesting questions: are there any comparable situations anywhere else in Western capitalism, and if not - doesn't this sort of attention constitute *some kind* of Monopoly, even if it was not necessarily an anti-competitive one?) For ""reasonable people,"" the image one conjures up of *The All-The-Time Apple Beat* does not lend to envy, but let's choose to limit ourselves to only the most casual forms of speculation. I do not wish to mock them, for I, too remember the sensation of The Apple Drug from an unfortunate time in my childhood development when I was willing to wear a cheap sweatshirt branded with a stupid Mac vs. Windows Users joke unironically to a real live public Junior High school. There are few more embarrassing admissions, except perhaps admitting that a part of me genuinely yearns to return to this level of enthusiasm, as misplaced and cringey as it was. It's the addiction to the mystic; it's aspirational in its democratization. *Billionaires* are running the same operating system and much of the same software as I am every day - even the most followed person on any given platform is still accessing it through the same interface I might be. These are incredible truths, but they also reflect a dangerous lack of competition in a product category that has become more essential to day-to-day human life than any other in just three or four blinks of an eye.\n\nhttps://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1068037512738811904\n\n*Fuck David Blue*, though. Who are the *real*, *hard-hitting* minds who've kept this industry and this company in check? Well, it's funny you should ask that, because the people's quirky *New York Times* tech critic of late - the esteemed [Farhad Manjoo](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/technology/how-to-survive-the-next-era-of-tech-slow-down-and-be-mindful.html) - has just [concluded a five-year-long technology column](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/technology/how-to-survive-the-next-era-of-tech-slow-down-and-be-mindful.html) with some essential (if perhaps a bit unoriginal) advice: ""**just slow down**."" If you're still following along, you shall surely enjoy clicking some of his links, and I would certainly encourage that you do until you're out of free articles, at least. When Manjoo speaks, Apple listens: his January decree for Apple to bend with the industry wind and build ""[a Less Addictive iPhone](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/technology/apple-addiction-iphone.html)"" is convincingly prophetic considering **Screen Time** - probably the most mulled-over iOS 12 addition. As someone who was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (however much or little that may mean to you) just one or two years after I began using my/the first iPhone, I've developed a history of what he might call *Addiction* to iPhones in variable oscillation [touching both extremes](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1042825995546320896). I carried my first-generation iPhone for almost 5 years - as you can imagine, it was far from a 100%-functional device toward the end of that bell curve. In contrast, I've also stood in line at dawn for two iPhone launches, jailbroken, listened to podcasts *only* about apps (far before they were good,) and been compelled to chronicle and reflect upon all of it for as long as I can remember.\n\nThere's no denying that the iPhone has had a profound effect on my life mostly thanks to my own choices, which is why it's worth telling the vast majority of you that features like Screen Time will never help you achieve whatever vague conception of *reduced usage* you may have. If you haven't yet quantified the figures you'll find within it in mental estimates, you aren't really concerned at all and if you *have*, Screen Time will only confirm them. Using reminder notifications to optimize your appflow makes no attempt at all to actually escape the mentality of the behavior you seek to lessen from yourself. Another app is still another app; a notification reminding you to stop using an app does nothing but add still more stimuli. If you want to stop using the phone so much, ***stop* using the fucking phone**. If you are truly concerned about how your handset companion has changed your life, turn it off for a week/month/quarter - however long you *possibly* can. By that, I mean no more or less than what you can manage without getting fired/dumped/expelled/etc. If you have *truly* reached this point, anything less is probably worth it. There is simply no other way to get a clear picture of how it's changed you.\n\nGoogle, Facebook, and the rest of the industry are well aware of this, but know they can't *actually* advocate against the fundamental mechanism that drives their businesses, so they express concern by doing what they know: **building more software**. Apple is in a slightly different situation: they still need you to buy their phones - and even to look at them - but not past the point of hurting yourself emotionally, mentally, or physically because those injuries tend to hurt one *economically*. Screen Time's purpose is to keep us thriving and buying, but the only effective solve for this can only be communicated in garbage cinema language: **you must find it within yourself**. I am *actually* the worst person from which to model your life, except perhaps for my iPhone use: unless there's little else worthy of my attention, my phone is not out. Even if checking my [emails](mailto:davidblue@gmail.com), [Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@DavidBlue), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/neoyokel), etc. are my default tasks, there are infinitely many besides that come first. Every once in a while, it's okay to finish an important message while walking down the street or waiting at a stoplight if things are urgent, but I can guarantee you that my attention is better consolidated on traveling in 95% of cases - moving with purpose and then focusing on my composition *after* I've arrived is almost always more efficient. I realize that I'm cowboying it here and sound like your Dad, but I'm better with iOS than he is, yet I've never publicly run into anything while looking down at my smartphone in 10 years of hardcore use. **Find somebody who's company makes you forget about all of this for hours at a time and treasure them**. Also: **stop playing games on your phone**. *What the hell are you doing*? Read a blog! Explore the wonders of the open web! Your peers, your battery, and your elderly future self with thank you for it. (One exception is playing word/trivia games with your partner. That's very cute and good for you.)\n\n*I was elated to see that even Apple supports my [age-old cause for Twitter Lists](https://twitter.com/i/moments/996616971880882176). Also, the new function in Apple Music allowing the user to search by lyrics [appears to work very well](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1042825995546320896)...*\n\nTo get back to specifics, the **new Photos application** is now basically what it should have been all along, [3D Touch has been virtually eclipsed](https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/9/24/17896228/ios-12-keyboard-trackpad-cursor-3d-touch-iphone-ipad) for those strange bastards among you who never liked it, and the release's most democratically-redeemable feature is **optimization**, which even on my iPhone 8 Plus was blatantly noticeable and very welcome. However, probably the best insight to come out of my long, rambly *End User* review was the revelation that basically any other human activity is a better use of time than [applauding Apple](https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/17/17862236/ios-12-review-download-features-update-speed-iphone-ipad-screen-time-notifications-siri) for learning to hold new features off until they've been thoroughly tested and focusing instead on smoothing existing software. In fact, I'd argue there is absolutely no reason for someone like me to say anything even remotely positive about the world's wealthiest company ever again, though that doesn't apply to *The Verge* or Chaim Gartenberg, who's review - for the record - was much more useful to 9999 times more people than anything I'll ever write. However, isn't it sortof unreasonable to expect anything but *absolute perfection* from Apple at this trillion-dollar juncture? A handful of varying interpretations of absolute perfection per product category, even.\n\nWith gorgeous, iCloud-enabled premium apps like [Bear](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1063486573197561857) in the picture, integrating wholly into the Apple environment has maintained its relative rank above the alternatives to its specific minimal-esque utilitarian *niceness* which appeals so strongly to *those people* among both consumer and professional buyers. Readers from within this culture recognized a short time ago that [iOS is in the process of replacing MacOS](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/ipad-pro-2018-review) as the star component of this environment across the board, though there's at least a moderate journey ahead before it truly reaches this achievement for the median user. For myself, iOS 12 improved the experience of using my 8 Plus and certainly gave me something intriguing to play with in Siri Shortcuts. For the rest of the world's billions of daily iOS users, I say *be as insatiable as possible* - always expect more.\n\n#software #automation" | |
| e4zz1290vwzk69dr,chuck-klosterman-x,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/chuck-klosterman-x,2018-12-12T02:00:00Z,The Case for Chuck Klosterman,"\n\n## The genius of one Chuck continues to perform to the refreshing benefit of scholars in American culture.\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://github.com/extratone/bilge/raw/main/audio/TTS/chuck.m4a"">\n</audio>\n\nThanks to [an episode of Peter Kafka's](https://www.recode.net/2017/8/22/16184520/transcript-writer-chuck-klosterman-music-sports-recode-media) [*Recode Media*](https://www.recode.net/2017/8/22/16184520/transcript-writer-chuck-klosterman-music-sports-recode-media), I've just now discovered that former *New York Times Magazine* Ethicist, author of *Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs*, and longtime men's interest media-affiliated sports and music columnist Chuck Klosterman pronounces his surname *kloa-ster-men* instead of *klaw-ster-men* as *I* have been, shamefully – even within earshot of other human beings on a handful of occasions. I am willing to submit myself for punishment for these transgressions under the single condition that I be allowed to call him *Cuck Klusterfuck* the next time he ends a spoken sentence with ""or whatever"" in an interview – an unfortunate habit he's [maintained for years](https://youtu.be/NMzPX-MERbU). If my own byline had any pedigree in the world of literary criticism, I would now collect his penance simply by including those hateful, 90s stoner-kid buzzwords in every quote, unedited, but it most certainly does not. I've searched moderately hard for any reason to bother contributing any criticism of books or their authors and returned with very little. I've read *The Broom of the System* and *White Girls* this year, yes, but I'd have to be a [Fuck Boy](http://www.revelist.com/books/books-fuckboys-read/3289) to write anything about David Foster Wallace, and [Hilton Als’ elegant, genre-busting masterpiece](https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/hilton-als-white-girls) is so far beyond both my societal rights and perceptive capacity that I wouldn't dare utter a single editorialized peep about it – aside from a log line-length recommendation – even under immediate threat of certain death.\n\nGiven my recent [voluntary relocation to Portland, Oregon](https://www.instagram.com/p/BhArAZNF6W7/) and the word-y pursuits on which I choose to spend all of my money and energy, I should adore everything about Chuck Klosterman and in turn he should be completely invisible across the under-30 demographic, yet I’ve found a special originality in his voice since first exploring it and I think it might be worth requalification. A good friend of mine once dug his [first novel](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/books/review/Meehan-t.html) [*Downtown Owl*](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/books/review/Meehan-t.html) out of a bulk box of bargain books she’d bought as a preteen, long ago and became an enthusiastic fan of his perspective and a harsh, but fond critic of his persona. It was her copy of his second that I read first: [*The Visible Man*](https://www.npr.org/2011/10/04/141015210/visible-man-asks-what-if-no-one-were-watching) – ultimately a surprisingly-original take on the *psychologist of a gifted outcast* tale that classically exemplifies the easy-to-digest yet thoughtfully-exploratory reputation of his craft. Thanks to her library card, I was able to follow it up immediately with Chuck’s latest, most topical work – an anthology of past essays written for publications like *The Guardian*, *Grantland*, and *GQ* entitled *X: A Highly Specific, Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century*, which proved an impossibly entertaining, even more polished execution of The Quaint Chuck’s Explanations in non-fiction form, beginning at onset with refreshing brevity in its [introduction](http://bit.ly/ckintro).\n\n> I’m not fully accredited by either side of the professional equation (sportswriters think I’m too pretentious and music writers don’t think I’m pretentious enough,) but I’m able to write about whatever I want, as long as it actually happened.\n\nUsing “pretentious” even when just vaguely and loosely expressing other readers’ thoughts about your work is the first of many miniscule technical infractions against convention laid down in *X*’s arrangement which proves to act toward the benefit of its experience. If you substitute *car nerds* for *sportswriters*, I’d personally identify with this picoautobiography in a big way, but more importantly as a *reader* I had never encountered anything written about sports which I would describe as *pretentious*, per se, and that realization could very well have birthed enough curiosity to land the sale, had I been skimming in a bookshop, which I would’ve eventually been pleased with.\n\nNow, during what we should hope to be the first dawn of a new microera of sincerity, we must recognize how valuable it is for Klosterman as an observer to be comfortably engaged with his subjects, emotionally, and confident in the value of his commentary in middleage without the need to insist upon his eccentricity, as so many cringey, culturally-daft Dads do, these days. He uses keywords in his writing and spoken publicity that *should* dismiss him immediately as one of these – a nostalgic, out-of-time dork – but are instead somehow magically manipulated to *serve* him in articulating reasonable, even profoundly-innovative insight. As I have explored his bibliography and his publicly-expressed thoughts, I have been caught up and hinged on a single supposition: **Chuck Klosterman is the only white, 46-year-old bearded Portland Dad you should be reading**. Do mind that I am in no way exempt from this lens, but it’s still my job to determine his viability as an intellectual – a “thought leader,” even – for those of us who were conceived around the same time he was wrapping up his collegiate sentence at the University of North Dakota.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nFor a solid hunk of the American reading audience, a quick, elemental vector of quality and mastery we look for in an essayist is the ability to “transcend” their subject matter for even the most presumptuous and conceited among us, usually to deliver a more abstract sentiment to leave with. Here, Klosterman’s significant career experience is irrefutably evident – in *X*, he achieves this transcendence organically with a fluidity unlike anything I’ve read before. We can already check a single box: convincing even a young professional twenty-something to shell out for a physical hardback of contemporary non-fiction requiring any sort of academic effort to consume is going to be nigh-impossible, even though *X* actually happens to be the best-looking specimen of print product design I have ever handled across cover, type, and layout. It’s been difficult having to convince myself to give this copy back.\n\nIn the interest of full disclosure, I must take special care to emphasize [just how highly](http://www.extratone.com/?s=recode media) I regard Peter Kafka as editor and interviewer extraordinaire within the Media beat – well-proven to be capable of hitting consistently hard on both [novel](https://www.recode.net/2017/8/10/16115548/patreon-jack-conte-fan-pledges-subscription-paywall-recode-media-peter-kafka-podcast) and [old guard](https://www.recode.net/2018/2/1/16957324/wired-paywall-nick-thompson-magazine-advertising-subscription-peter-kafka-recode-media-podcast) industry personalities with refined, [seemingly unimpeachable](https://www.recode.net/2018/5/22/17380908/youtube-music-launch-10-lyor-cohen-interview-peter-kafka-recode-media-kanye-west-childish-gambino) stone-faced skepticism. However, this Chuck Klosterman interview for *Recode Media* is an uncharacteristically disarmed display of serious admiration: he introduces *X* with an outright confession: ""It’s great. I bought it. I bought a signed copy,"" which is an unexpected oddity (though not an unwelcome one – I’m glad Peter enjoys his life.) Their conversation dips briefly in personal history (Chuck and his wife moved to Portland from Brooklyn for its proximity to family) before plopping down upon the substance of his clearly superb and matter-of-fact interview technique. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a conversation between Kafka and any previous guests with whom he was quite so obviously alike in general disposition.\n\n> The only reason I’m able to ask you these questions is because I’m a reporter and I can ask you questions now that I probably wouldn’t feel comfortable asking you if we were friends, so I’m not going to pretend that we are and I’m not going to create some fake thing where we’re going to have a relationship beyond this conversation. I’m just going to ask you the things I want to know about and I hope that you respect the fact that I’m just being straight with you. I find that that works much better.\n\nFrom the broadest possible pop cultural lens, Chuck's most spectacular and widely-circulated work, demographically (I assume) is his [2015 interview and cover story](https://www.gq.com/story/taylor-swift-gq-cover-story) for *GQ* with Taylor Swift – then ""the most popular human alive."" Yes, it really *is* worth dwelling on the image: ***this guy***... this very Dorky Dad, just hanging out with the most highly-demanded teen idol who's ever lived, sitting awkwardly next to her in the backseat of her car as she maniacally panics to accept a call from Justin Timberlake. When one Chucks such a distinguished contrast upon such a high-profile contemporary medium, the weight of the potential scrutiny becomes palpable, but Klosterman anticipates and braces for this (very risky) business in the only manner he can: acknowledging it over and over and *over* again in the second paragraph of his every interview appearance.\n\n> It doesn’t matter if it was complimentary or insulting necessarily. It would seem as though I wasn’t taking her seriously as a musical artist, and the idea is that I do. That’s why I’m writing about her is because I do think she’s a meaningful, significant artist. It’s not worth the risk of having the story then get shifted by other people who perhaps just perceive themselves as somebody who’s a watchdog for certain signifiers or certain elements of the culture and that their job is to be on the watch for this. If your story then gets moved into that silo, that’s all it’s going to be remembered for... It’s a touchier thing now. It’s a more dangerous thing.\n\nIn the [print itself](http://bit.ly/ckswiftpreface), the cover story is prefaced by a very short but uncomfortably-telling complaint about changing expectations for culture writers. One might reasonably suggest that Klosterman regards the practice of calling out or remarking on “creepy misogyny” as “dumb” – nothing but the byproduct of changing “times.”\n\n> Something you may notice in the following 2015 feature on Taylor Swift is that I never describe what she looks like or how she was dressed, even though I almost always do that with any celebrity I cover... If I did, it would be reframed as creepy misogyny and proof that I didn't take the woman seriously as an artist. It would derail everything else about the story. It would **become** the story.\n\nBut… *is it*? Note how desperately close his language comes to the *common white guy whining about feminism* classification without *actually* fitting the bill. Right…? It *doesn’t*? Surely, it must be certified Awake through some combination of keywords or format I’m unfamiliar with or unable to visually register because Klosterman’s ass would have long been grass, otherwise. These 224 words are *X*’s most contentious, which you could call impressive, all things considered – he appears to care enough about his public image to curate it somewhat diligently. When a motherhood blogger published [an open letter](https://atypicalson.com/2013/11/07/an-open-letter-to-chuck-klosterman-the-new-york-times-ethicist/) in 2013 citing three very ableist uses of the R-word in his work, it only took him two days to [respond](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kari-wagnerpeck/i-am-the-author-of-the-op_b_4319577.html): “I was wrong. You are right.”\n\nMore than any other writer of his demographic, **Chuck Klosterman has a close, wary relationship with the everchanging contextual boundaries of public expression**. He knows when to be transparent with his feelings on progression, and he's careful to avoid what could be ""problematic"" for the sake of functioning better as a writer (I assume.) For *Slate*'s *I Have to Ask* podcast, he managed to [speak extensively](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/02/chuck-klosterman-on-how-the-approach-to-cultural-criticism-has-completely-flipped.html) about these mechanisms for nearly an hour without bellowing anything definitively cringey.\n\n> I can’t say it’s better or worse. It’s just different, and because it’s different, it makes me feel uncomfortable, but there’s actually like an adversarial relationship with the history of anything, and that somehow that history is seen as oppressive. And you shouldn’t even know about it. It’s better to live in now.\n\nA quick jaunt from pretty horrendous to almost-ideal, then. If we are to place our faith in Chuck as our last bearded champion, we must hope that last sentence is sincerely intended to be his lens to the changing world. Granted – even if it *is* the truth – it’s not as if persistent acknowledgement of one’s position can miraculously wash away any systematic patriarchal dynamics involved in authoring (or reading, for that matter) a high-profile feature of a young woman on cover of a magazine which explicitly seeks most to speak to ""[all sides of the male equation](http://www.condenast.com/brands/gq/),"" (are you *sure about* *that*, Condé Nast?) especially considering how unlikely it would've been for me to read anything about Taylor Swift outside of this very white man's anthology. Fundamental themes of power and control are threaded throughout both his fiction and non-fiction, which is especially prevalent in the Macho Big Boy cultures of the athletics and music industries. In profiling Taylor Swift – the undisputed apex of the latter in 2015 – Klosterman provided a firsthand account of the grueling maintenance of a public and private personality under tremendous strain from said factors as they were magnified to the max by the most extreme celebrity.\n\n> Here we see Swift’s circuitous dilemma: Any attempt to appear less calculating scans as even more calculated. Because Swift’s professional career has unspooled with such precision, it’s assumed that her social life is no less premeditated.\n\nI’m right there with Chuck: I’ve even found a fundamental pillar in Power and Control relationships supporting my own fiction experiments: **how we attain them**, **how we lose them**, and **how best to make use of them** – all of which had apparently been quite problematic for Taylor Swift for most of her adult life, though we wouldn’t be allowed to *really* comprehend how deep her inner turmoil had drilled until it overwhelmed even her expertly-designed self-control four years later, [boiling over entirely](https://youtu.be/3tmd-ClpJxA) with such unexpected violence that all of America’s pseudorural glam-pop-country-glossy-chode-hipsters let out a simultaneous, dangerously-alarmed holler of *OH FOR PETE’S SAKE* that was actually heard and recorded from the overflying orbit of the International Space Station.\n\n> It’s somehow different when the hub of the wheel is Swift. People get skeptical. Her famous friends are marginalized as acquisitions, selected to occupy specific roles, almost like members of the Justice League ('the ectomorph model,' 'the inventive indie artist,' 'the informed third-wave feminist,' etc.). Such perceptions perplex Swift, who is genuinely obsessed with these attachments.\n\nNo, it’s not *only* worthwhile as an exercise in superbly athletic self-awareness – the Taylor profile is profound. I’d recommend reading and treasuring it with or without the rest of the anthology because bizarre intersections like these are rare to come by from anybody else. Short, sharp, and occasionally somewhat petty notions are what Chuck Klosterman does best and most originally. Thanks to a digression of Kafka’s beginning with “you and I are about the same age…,” he arrives (by way of REM, believe it or not) at a significant statement about youth and identity.\n\n> It seems strange to me to be into music for its coolness outside of high school. That seems like that’s the only time when you’re a young person and you’re using art basically to create a personality because you don’t have a real personality yet.\n\nKlosterman is debatably exempt from the traditional academic abstract of “objectivity” for the vast majority of his notable work because of its stated primary subject: his “interior life.” Perhaps the success of his voice could be at least partially attributed to his development of an existential muscle – a perspective unique enough to entertain, yet no less recognizably Midwestern with which he’s been able to reflect particularly clearly on the profession in tandem with the experience he’s accumulated over the course of his career.\n\n> You know, when you’re young, you’re a real emotional writer if you’re a writer… If I was a young person now, I would be incredibly attracted to the idea that when you’re 22 you can be a national writer, which was impossible when I was 22.\n\nIn a way, Klosterman does surmise that it *was* indeed its objectivity that media lost, and that writing is no longer a “one-way relationship,” but a sort of ridiculous dance in which “many people feel the reason they’re consuming media is to respond to it… that it’s not for the content.” I would remind old Chuck that there are very few functioning adults outside of academia or retirement in the United States who spend much of their time reading anything solely for the sake of absorption, and the disparity between those who were and weren’t was exponentially greater in the past. The story of American media is defined by its cycles of waning and waxing democratization, but many of the more traditional avenues in the business have bet on the “two-way relationship” to keep them relevant.\n\nMy own favorite chapter of the collection is a [2500-word personal essay](http://grantland.com/features/space-time-dvr-mechanics/) constructed for *Grantland* to answer a single incongruity: “**Why is watching a prerecorded sporting event less pleasurable than watching the same game live**?” Some form of this question has at least mildly troubled every American since the 1960s, including myself, and Klosterman manages to provide an entertaining and concise analysis of this plight through his own wisdom. In its [short preface](http://bit.ly/ckdepressed) in the volume – which was written “in 2008, in Europe, when [Chuck] was pretend depressed” is the story of his encounter with a house-painting stranger, to whom he explains the meter for success in his opinion-manufacturing profession, as he sees it: “If a large number of strangers seem to think one of my opinions is especially true or wildly wrong, there is somehow a perception that I am succeeding at this vocation.”\n\n> Last weekend I was in a hashish bar in Amsterdam. It was post-dusk, pre-night. The music was terrible (fake reggae, late-period Eric Clapton, Sublime deep cuts.) I was sitting next to a British stranger with a shaved head and a speech impediment. Our conversation required subtitles, so I imagined them in my mind. He told me he had lost three family members within the past year: his mother, who was sixty-six; his uncle, who was fifty-six; and his sister, who was forty-six. He said he'd just turned thirty-six. He asked if I saw a pattern developing. ""Yes,"" I said. ""But only numerically.""\n> I asked what he did for a living. He said he was a housepainter. He asked me the same question about myself. “I manufacture opinions,” I said.\n> “Really?” he asked. “How do you know if you’re any good at that?”\n> “By the number of people who agree or disagree,” I said in response. “If a large number of strangers seem to think one of my opinions is especially true or wildly wrong, there is somehow a perception that I am succeeding at this vocation.”\n> “That’s interesting,” said the bald British man who could barely speak. “I guess house painting is a totally different thing.”\n\nRarely are situations or discussions that begin with *back in my day* actually constructive in any sense, but Chuck Klosterman appears to be the exception. If you’re willing to indulge him, you may find yourself reassured. He now writes from a remote cabin (with WiFi,) was tortured – like all of us – in sifting through and compiling his old work for *X*, and finds its index to be his favorite part.\n\n> Exploring the index from a book you created is like having someone split your head open with an axe so that you can peruse the contents of your brain.\n\nHe is [willfully and completely ignorant of the *Harry Potter* franchise](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a3556/klosterman1107), yet able to sincerely [witness and convey](http://grantland.com/features/taking-concert-doubleheader-creed-nickelback-world-most-hated-bands/) the nuances of back-to-back Creed and Nickelback concerts in a confident, fascinating technique of which any other music or culture writer would deprive you. He is “almost embarrassed” by his [emotional attachment](http://bit.ly/exrfastnet) to the Charlie Brown peanuts. (See: [Chuck Klosterman on Charlie Brown](https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/Chuck-Klosterman-on-Charlie-Brown-7jHNnij3saNFwtHt9Nika).)\n\n> I haven't watched A Charlie Brown Christmas in at least twenty-five years, solely because I can't emotionally reconcile the final scene.\n\nYou’ll notice that his entire answer to the live television debacle is – again – entirely about control (or the lack thereof.) In fact, his relationship with and desire for control also contributed to his choice of profession.\n\n> Part of the reason I became a writer is because it was this completely controlled reality where I could do this thing by myself where you’d go out and you’d do the interviews and stuff, but then you’re back by yourself, transcribing and then writing. Then, when the story is done and you send it off, that’s the end. Now that’s the middle. Now it’s like, when the story is published, it’s the middle of the process very often because the consumer feels differently now.\n\nWhile Klosterman’s voice is pleasant to someone like me, neither it nor himself necessarily belong to The People. In his [*X* review for *Paste Magazine*](https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/05/x-chuck-klosterman.html), B. David Zarley proclaims essays to be “a love letter to a moment,” concluding that Chuck is “’effectively narcissistic,’ proving that culture essays can teach us something about ourselves *and* the people around us.” [For *The Washington Post*](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sportswriter-and-rock-n-roll-philosopher-treading-two-sides-of-opposite-worlds/2017/06/30/3aba0fb8-23a5-11e7-bb9d-8cd6118e1409_story.html), Justin Wm. Moyer notes “it’s hard to think of another writer who could make a 30-page, deeply reported essay about a North Dakota junior-college basketball game interesting,” suggesting that this new collection marks Klosterman’s ascendance from **critic** to **philosopher**. From what I’ve read to date, I would counter that he has always fulfilled the term to the extent of its usefulness in the 21st century and is even now beginning to redefine it. Last January, he braved the “dystopic” Google Gates to [speak critically for a crowd of Googlers](https://youtu.be/HhGA9e-OiFY), describing them as “an umbrella over the entire culture,” and urging caution and reflection in the coming future to keep them from doing “something bad.” His engagement with them – especially during [the Q&A](https://youtu.be/HhGA9e-OiFY?t=36m35s) – is a fascinating insight into the Greater Google Mind, and I would encourage any invested parties in Chuck Klosterman’s role as a philosopher to watch the talk in full. I was unfamiliar with “the boat-sails-wind analogy” before I read [James Murphy’s interview](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/apr/24/lcd-soundsystem-this-is-happening) for LCD Soundsystem’s “last album.”\n\n> Your life is a boat, the sails are your emotions, and drugs are the wind. When you're a kid, your boat is small and your sail is huge, and drugs are like a hurricane.\n\n**Control x Time = the Klosterman beat**. I suppose this must be what other entertainment writers are referring to when they [accuse Chuck of nostalgia trafficking](http://www.dallasobserver.com/arts/pop-culture-critic-chuck-klosterman-talks-about-his-new-essay-collection-x-9559383), but I can’t be so sure. Though I’d like to think my own snout for the stuff is especially well-tuned, I am undeniably from a different planet – even auditorily. All but one or two of the musicians interviewed throughout *X* were entirely unknown to me by name, which Klosterman’s voice managed to make even more compelling – *not to mention* the included stories of athletes and the sports industry, which include stories of the human ego, paranoia, and complex drama that always manage to transcend their setting when articulated with such dexterity.\n\nI’ve never before written a book review of any sort – nor am I defensibly qualified to compare culture writers – but with good ole’ Chuck, I dove much further in order to tackle one very important question: **should Klosterman be recommended reading for anyone under 30** above or alongside bestsellers like George Saunders or groundbreaking essayists of color like Hilton Als? In many a case, I must conclude by saying, simply, that *something* of value would be forgone if we shunned Chuck, even if his insight is old news to all but the most rudimentary yokels. I have little to offer women or people of color, but I’d bet *X* would prove itself worth a library trip for any idiot white guys in their lives who may be falling far behind. I don’t know of any other voices who are in a better position to introduce these issues, nor any who are quite so practiced at handling them delicately. While Jenna Wortham-level readers will gain little to nothing from this examination or the ecology of its subject (and will likely find themselves pausing momentarily for a deserved jest before moving on and returning to their high-level plane of complex neoliberal commentary,) but most of their less-aWoken fathers should find in Chuck a man they can truly trust, who manages to consistently distill and articulate the need-to-knows of the most complex pop culture and pop science conversations without using any of the academic language found in most institutional discourse which daddy finds too condescending and superfluous to bear. Those readers who’ve absolutely fucking *despised* my voice so far in this essay should give Klosterman a go – I take as much time as I can muster to fiddle with and season the words in context like this work because **I basically \*enjoy\* the bullshit**, yet I’ve found both *X* and *But What If We’re Wrong?* remarkably refreshing and impressive exercises. \n\n> [These are] the cultural conditions in which I was raised under and which I pursued journalism under. That was part of the thing that drew me to the idea of being a reporter was I was like, this is something I can do, I think. My ability to detach my personal emotions from what I am investigating, while not perfect, I can do this. And now it turns out that the opposite is what’s desirable. I think it’s really going to change the kind of person who goes into media going forward.\n\nReading Chuck Klosterman is going to be perturbing, but true sincerity is almost always uncomfortable. Comprehensively, his nonfiction represents perhaps the most important possible behavior to encourage from both the critic and his readership because it incubates and exudes **sincere curiosity** and a **genuine interest in learning to listen**. From the perspective of quantified societal contribution, I’d argue that Klosterman’s craft is a significantly more honorable and worthwhile pursuit than greater academic literature in its unique and entertaining treatment of subjects the establishment tends to pulverize into minutia. Unless he’s broke and/or bookish, buy *X* as a gift for your Dad and at least give it a try when he’s done. If nothing else, *at least* **read the Taylor Swift interview**, okay? If he doesn’t enjoy the book, I’m always available if one or both of you need to blow off some steam: **give me a call at (573) 823-4380**. (*Normal text messaging / talktime rates will apply*.)\n\n🗎 [**PRINT/PDF**](https://eileenlong-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/david_eileenlonglcsw_com/ERGpy2Rlfv1CsXzXcmUAZRsBTSeSTE2Q7nj3muE-9J0Szw)\n\n#media" | |
| 70fhvbv9is3m71qy,microsoft-surface-laptop-2-review-windows-future,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/microsoft-surface-laptop-2-review-windows-future,2018-12-25T05:00:00Z,Microsoft's Surface Laptop 2 Was Built for Me but You Should Buy One Too,"#### by [David Blue](http://twitter.com/neoyokel)\n\n\n\nAssuming Jesus Christ is in your thoughts this evening before yet another anniversary of his birth, I am infinitely astonished by the truth in what I’m about to suppose with you. If the Son of God was living today, most of us have agreed for a long time now that he’d use marijuana recreationally – big fuckin whoop. I think it’s far more interesting and appropriate (we all know his birthday was [wholly reconfigured into a consumerist holiday](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/47/christmas-and-commerce) long ago) to speculate on how he’d behave after finding himself inadvertently in the market for a new laptop within the ~$1000 range (following a *stubbed toe whilst walking on water* incident, perhaps.) Surely, it would not be entirely holy for him to opt in to the Foxconn-complicit world of Apple, Incorporated, nor the [openly-blasphemous](http://www.extratone.com/tech/google/) one created and exuberantly grown by Google LLC, and I’m afraid he’d be too much of an *End User* idiot to integrate any of the sparse Linux-dedicated hardware available. In May of 2017, however, Billy Gates’ old Microsoft finally released “[the laptop we’ve always wanted them to make](https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/5/15557738/vergecast-podcast-255-microsoft-surface-laptop-samsung-dex-i-clicked-the-doc),” but could its recent update be truly worthy of our Lourde and Saviour? Or your newly-enrolled offspring? Should you sprint downstairs and swap out the new MacBook Air you just bought?\n\n<iframe sandbox=""allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-popups"" scrolling=no width=""100%"" height=""185"" frameborder=""0"" src=""https://embed.radiopublic.com/e?if=end-user-WdbezM&ge=s1!fb997569626371bb19366d2dc0e4a0be2793e9b4""></iframe>\n\nFrom an entirely valid perspective, an observer might declare my last two months of 2018 to be an outright shameful period defined by hypocrisy and traitorous betrayals. After finally taking the time to explore the full narrative surrounding Linux and the bloody tale of Microsoft’s cruel genocidal destruction of countless creative software projects throughout computing’s adolescence (see: “[Embrace, Extend, Extinguish](https://youtu.be/TVHcdgrqbHE?t=425),”) I eventually declared myself “100% Open Source” and began outlining an essay designed primarily to express that *Linux is finally ready to be the operating system of the people* without succumbing immediately to the brand of cybercrackpot illegitimacy associated with the L-word in the minds of the general public so readily thanks to decades of misinformed, condescending neckbeards. Such a feat would require entire new planes of cultural awareness and dialectal delicacy, yet certainly result in zero personal reward from even the best possible outcome, yet I proceeded to ponder the subject very deliberately all the way through October because I genuinely believed in a new democratized future of computing. 2018 had been my Grand Awakening to the idyllic possibilities of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) across the whole applied spectrum from office suites to [social networks](http://bilge.world/federated/), yet – as two thousand eighteen comes to an end – I’ve managed to find myself among the most [jaded, soul-sapped](https://youtu.be/O0RSeFcv3Qs) tech community I have yet encountered: **Microsoft Administrators**.\n\nComplimenting this Linux-laden culture in which I was not so long ago deeply embedded was a confused and frustrated outlook regarding what I felt were excessive and completely idiotic sacrifices across the industry’s hardware design to the greedy, gluttonous god of Lightness. It seemed only reasonable to Myself As Consumer that the entire buying public should exclusively seek designs prioritizing greatest possible performance and battery life, even from portable computers and smartphones, so I assumed my perspective on this updated iteration of Microsoft's most laptopy Surface laptop – which exists in large part to [compete directly with](https://www.pcmag.com/news/364728/spec-down-apple-macbook-air-vs-microsoft-surface-laptop-2) Apple's beloved (and just-updated) MacBook Air – wouldn't be at all useful. However, a few weeks ago, my employer prompted me with a sweet sweet ultimatum: *for the sake of a tax break, I want to spend ~$1000 on a laptop for you as soon as possible*. Yes, I know I should consider myself a very fortunate man - this [wasn't even the first time](http://bilge.world/hp-spectre-x360-best-buy-consumerism/) I'd been surprised with the ""hey, I want to buy you a laptop but it has to be today"" experience, and may even be considered a sort of sequel to my *Tales of Whirlwind Manic Consumerism*, but it’s ultimately one of the most idiotic strategies to achieve a major purchase decision and completely inadvisable for anyone on a budget. Still I was indeed thankful to be put in a nearly-identical situation of Consumer Electronic haste, and have come to be especially appreciative of the specific time I was approached as such: just one week after [Microsoft launched the Surface Laptop 2](https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/16/17979516/microsoft-surface-laptop-2-review-specs-price-features-windows-10).\n\nConsidering the vast majority of its users are [trapped inside my television](https://theoutline.com/post/2923/the-popularity-of-microsoft-surface-is-the-least-realistic-thing-on-television), there’s no harm in covering the Surface brand with our virtual palm for a moment. If you’ll indulge me so, you’ll notice that Microsoft has actually delivered unto us **The Laptop II** – as in, the sequel... the *successor* to *every other laptop computer* yet conceived... but does this one machine truly represent the second coming of the *Notebook Christ*? Naturally, it would be a bit zealous to stand behind this extreme statement with 100% sincerity, but there truly *are* certain elements of this Personal Computing product's execution which do indeed will its user to expect and/or desire from others in coming years. As I've stated before, I also simply cannot help but be jazzed by such bravado from the mouths of even a company with as crooked and hateful history as Microsoft's. (Note: no other technology company has actually achieved what Microsoft historically has in this regard, and hopefully none ever will again.)\n\nI must be honest: it hasn't yet been two months and I've already scuffed and perhaps even *stained* the beautiful maroon alcantara surrounding my machine’s touchable body, but it’s occurred to me that I might draw upon the vast library of [automotive interior tutorials](https://youtu.be/PM-FbFIBoCs) available on YouTube – and even purchase some of the alcantara care-specific products they recommend – in order to *really* maintain the exterior of the Laptop II. After all, [alcantara was undeniably car culture’s material first](https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a9653/what-is-alcantara/). I should also confess that objectively, the Surface Laptop II is the best-suited computer for *my personal uses* that I’ve ever owned *or* used for any length of time. Subjectively, I don’t think all of the hardware design touches that make it so – like its keyboard layout, divine 3:2 aspect ratio, and particular I/O complement – have yet had the chance to seduce my emotional brain into truly *loving* it as much as I certainly should by any reasonable measure. For my own sake, I hope I’m able to fall in child-like infatuation with its magic, but in the interim, I believe the coldness of my heart should hopefully preserve any useful commentary I might have to add. Though this is undoubtedly the most timely review of a hardware product I’ve ever published, I’d still ask that you indulge my perspective suggesting the importance of considering it part of a *package* with its operating system, considering that the whole of tech media would’ve unanimously declared it the year’s “[best laptop](https://mashable.com/review/microsoft-surface-laptop-2/)” were Apple’s aging, but still widely-adored MacOS absent from the frame.\n\n> I've tested a bunch of laptops this year, running the spectrum of 2-in-1s, Chromebooks, MacBooks, gaming laptops, etc. Everyone's needs are going to be different, which is why there's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all for laptops. But enthusiasts’ laptops aside, I strongly feel the Surface Laptop 2 is the best laptop of the year. And by that I mean the best laptop for most folks' needs.\n\nWith as much humility as possible, I must add that I myself am *anything* but “most folks,” yet my experience so far with the product has been one of astonishing compatibility and battery life. Using recommended power settings, the Surface Laptop 2 endured [**four hours and twenty-two minutes**](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1080514545062477825) of a workload it wasn’t particularly designed for including heavy web browsing, image manipulation, brief audio/video capture with OBS, and moderate subsequent editing in Audacity and OpenShot. Dan Seifert – Vox Media’s “[only Windows user](https://www.recode.net/2017/5/12/15628228/microsoft-surface-laptop-apple-macbook-air-windows-10s-dan-seifert-recode-podcast)” – reported “about seven hours” of Microsoft’s claimed 14.5, but frankly, I don’t know what any of y’all are doin – I’m just thankful this machine is a better marathoner than any other I can recall owning. While we’re on the subject, I consider Microsoft’s inclusion of a magnetically-attached power cable and unassuming auxiliary USB charging port on the attached power supply to be [personal godsends](http://bilge.world/laptop-disabled-even-speedier-tone/) – further evidence, even, that the Surface Laptop 2 was *actually designed to be nice to use*. For the sake of those readers **actually in the market for a new laptop** who’ve somehow found themselves here, though, Raymond Wong’s review for *Mashable* is the most thorough offering you’ll find – it’s quoted front and center on [Microsoft’s web page for the Laptop II](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-laptop-2/8XQJKK3DD91B), even – but it’s important to mention that his critical comparative perspective predates the late launch of its ultimate competitor, [the new MacBook Air](https://mashable.com/review/apple-macbook-air/). Rather pitifully, however, his colleague’s “good, but not great” resolution suggests that Apple failed to challenge Microsoft’s relatively moderate update enough to warrant any revision, and that *Mashable* as a publication stands by my new laptop’s *Best of the Year* title, for whatever it may or may not be worth to you. \n\n> If the new [MacBook Air](https://zdcs.link/zjWl1?pageview=06Fe2GZo26XvMYZgLndTadT) came in at the same price as the old one, it would be a steal. Sure, you pay for the privilege of being able to use macOS on the Apple ecosystem. But in years past that also meant access to cutting-edge features and design. As pretty as the MacBook Air is, there's nothing that innovative about it. In today's Apple, it seems, privilege amounts to just staying current.\n\nYou won’t find many others who regularly invest editorial merit in publishing 2500+ word laptop reviews anymore, which I’d concede is plenty reasonable in the Surface Laptop’s case, at least. Perhaps your first point of comparative entry should be [a barely-dated conversation](https://www.recode.net/2017/5/12/15628228/microsoft-surface-laptop-apple-macbook-air-windows-10s-dan-seifert-recode-podcast) between Kara Swisher, Lauren Goode, and Dan Seifert on *Too Embarrassed to Ask* regarding the original’s odds of truly competing in the “premium laptop” segment (if you’d prefer to hear from those who struggle to take it seriously, that is.) Assuming [the original product direction of the Surface line](https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-oems-desperately-need-to-learn-from-microsofts-surface/) still stands, Microsoft doesn’t actually intend to sell at high volume, especially when it comes to this runt of the marque, which does not hesitate to omit itself from the popular discourse of the moment surrounding tablets as the future of all computing to which all of its siblings have [contributed so much](https://www.theverge.com/2014/5/23/5743416/microsoft-surface-pro-3-review). Though I shall always remember my dearest Libel (the special edition Spectre x360 with which I built most of *Extratone*) with great respect and deep fondness – I think it’s even worth mounting on some sort of plinth – the significantly-cheaper Laptop II has already demonstrated true value in its “premium” segment bragging rights with *far* superior materials and build quality. If you’re looking for the prettiest possible slice of magnesium lightness but aren’t the sort to have followed the story of Microsoft’s first venture into personal computer production since it began in the last year of the Mayan calendar, it’s worth your while to read [Joshua Topolsky’s projections of the project’s impact on the popular narrative surrounding Microsoft](https://www.theverge.com/2012/6/19/3097726/surface-microsoft-next-chapter/in/2859835) from history’s freshest possible perspective: the eve of the first Surface tablet’s launch.\n\n> The entire tablet was designed in-house by Microsoft's teams, and if you believe what was said in the presentation yesterday, design and functionality in hardware has suddenly become a big deal in Redmond. That's a big shift, and it's an important one. The announcement of the Surface shows that Microsoft is ready to make a break with its history — a history of hardware partnerships which relied on companies like Dell, HP, or Acer to actually bring its products to market. That may burn partners in the short term, but it could also give Microsoft something it desperately needs: a clear story.\n\nA pungent stigma festered from Microsoft’s history of inadequate and inelegant public relations (especially compared to its greatest longtime rival) has remained in relentlessly obvious orbit around every “significant” Windows and Office update for so long that its status quo has grown into a truly inhibitive force for *all* parties involved. Topolsky is unquestionably a compromising favorite of mine, but it’s hard not to decry then-CEO Steve Ballmer’s failure to comprehend Josh’s day-after insight in the *whole three months* that passed before [his Seattle Times interview in September, 2012](http://old.seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2019168601_microsoftballmer16.html). Ultimately, The Big M is either **incapable** of understanding any alternative utopic Visions of Computing to its own, or simply **overwrought** with the same counteraspirational carelessness its culture has always depended upon. In analytical terms regarding Ballmer’s utilization of the forum’s opportunity to finally *tell the fucking story*, at least, the timidity of a term like “pre-eminent software” as a viably bright new beacon in contrast with “*people* would say we were a software company” (emphasis mine) – as if Steve-O himself doesn’t even have the power to publicly *describe his company’s function* as its #1 man – combined at the apex of what was almost impressively-negligent behavior.\n\n> I think when you look forward, our core capability will be software, (but) you'll probably think of us more as a devices-and-services company. Which is a little different. Software powers devices and software powers these cloud services, but it's a different form of delivery...\n\nDon’t make the same mistake I did and wear yourself out trying to extract the meaning from these three sentences – there’s none to be found. Ultimately, whatever opportunity the Surface project could have provided for Microsoft’s identity has been vastly overshadowed by its success as last resort supercatalyst to restore *any* sense of dignity and pride within the hardware companies who produce the vehicles. In Fall 2017, *The Register* [quoted industry gossip](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/04/surface/) regarding the company’s new CEO Satya Nadella and his intent to “exit the product line” because “overall they are not making money [and] it doesn’t make sense for them to be in this business,” but newcomers to this conversation should know that no subsequent reporting has corroborated anything but a [sustaining future of the line](https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/5/18125306/microsoft-fluent-design-windows-office-surface-future), though the measurable rate of innovation in Microsoft’s products continues to leave much to be desired. Now that you’ve heard from the experts, though, allow me to expand our lens a bit and examine what the Surface Laptop 2’s existence suggests as per *The Present & Future of Computing*.\n\n## The Clam Clan\n\nIn case I’ve yet to mention it, all of my tech writing is in substantial debt to my much-older and child-oriented siblings for providing 8 nieces and nephews over the course of 11 years – if not for any reason but the perspective offered by the slightest observation of their day-to-day lives. In this profoundly bizarre and historic technological sprint our species is experiencing, the differences in their respective relationships with consumer tech as they’ve grown up are fascinatingly… disturbingly significant. My eldest niece Abby was born four years after myself in 1998, and her younger sister Amber just quite three years later in 2001. All three of us are Aquarians who went to the same public schools (aside from 2 exceptions on my part,) and the two sisters have been close, significant influences on each other all their lives, yet the way Abby and I use and think about computers differs significantly from Amber’s. Our first real PCs introduced an important social and intellectual vehicle to our pre-teen lives, and both of us still “live on” our machines as young adults. For us and many others from this short-lived microgeneration of ours, budget laptops like the Dell Inspirion 2200 (which served as the first “real computer” for both of us) introduced the internet and Being Online as a State of Being with AIM groups, MySpace, and Yahoo! chain mails before smartphones and tablets were capable of doing so.\n\nAmber prefers to use her iPhone for most everything and regards her computer as a tool for work – it’s booted up and down exclusively for that purpose, which is significantly healthier than the habit Abby, myself, and many of my Online friends developed: we left our computers running and Logged On all the time because we were otherwise unreachable. We learned from origin to depend on them for 100% of our computing tasks – from streaming Pandora to playing Flash games within six billion open browser tabs – which likely explains both our ADD and its resulting influence on the ease with which our personal computers can distract us. As a Journalism student and professional photographer, Abby uses the new 15-inch MacBook Pro, and [Insane Blogger] David Blue has spent years looking for an alternative, becoming [the first and only iPhone user to make extensive use of its Bluetooth keyboard support](http://bilge.world/ios-10-review-speed/) in the process, but both of us are entirely uninterested in the rest of the industry’s insistence on [convertibles](https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/2/17515896/dell-xps-2-in-1-convertible-laptop-review), [removable keyboards](https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/16/17979504/microsoft-surface-pro-6-review-tablet-features-price-windows-10-matte-black), or [‘professional’ tablets](https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/5/18062612/apple-ipad-pro-review-2018-screen-usb-c-pencil-price-features). I wish the Linux community was finally ready to drop the elitist pretenses plaguing its nerdy history; I wish I could finally tell someone like Abby that a machine like the [System76 Galago Pro](https://www.pcworld.com/article/3198671/linux/the-system76-galago-pro-is-a-fierce-featherweight-competitor.html) could slot itself into her workflow without losing her time or compatibility – that the reputation surrounding Linux People had finally lost most of its validity and her desire to learn more about computing as a young woman and Power User would be met with respectful and worthwhile conversation from their end. Unfortunately, I’ve still found some of the Old Guard to be elitist, socially behind, and juvenilely possessive, as if computing was still the niche interest from their 1980s and 90s childhoods. Though this conversation certainly warrants its own essay in the future, I’ll just express now that it’s a real shame some folks don’t realize the entire point of making great things is ultimately to **give them to the world**.\n\nThe opportunity I’ve had in the past year to finally get my Linux distro frenzy over with and out of my system managed to both radicalize and democratize my understanding of MacOS, Windows, and Linux as they are in the present. While I had nothing better to do, fiddling with Ubuntu Studio and Linux Mint to the extent I did throughout Spring and Summer led me to further appreciate [the value of keyboard shortcuts](https://mastodon.social/@DavidBlue/101073796864823479), gave me [my first real proficiency with a command line](https://mastodon.social/@DavidBlue/100917824456128537), helped [globalize my comprehension of my own technological privilege](http://bilge.world/internet-connection-withdrawals-telegram-opera/), reacquainted me in a huge way with both [the true history of software](https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/9hpqov/lotussmartsuite_and_the_year_2000/) and my own personal past as [an experimental test tube baby of Microsoft’s](https://mastodon.social/@DavidBlue/100771954295147256), and helped to answer a lot of questions I’d [worried over for years](http://www.extratone.com/audio/futureland/sorghum/) about why software seemed like it simply *couldn’t improve* anymore. While it’s true that important open source projects like [ElementaryOS](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2018/09/10/elementary-os-first-impressions-a-great-linux-doorway-for-macos-users/#231f4faa4289) continue to sprout from the Linus Extended Universe and the [growing Open Source community on Mastodon](http://bit.ly/dbmastodon) is filled with brilliant, helpful, unpretentious, and remarkably curious enthusiasts (probably because many of those I’ve interacted with so far are non-cis and/or non-white,) little ole me was able to stumble upon some totally unnecessary and excruciatingly ignorant sociopolitical commentary by way of the white, middle-age host and his undoubtedly-white and staunchly libertarian caller on a live broadcast of the *Ask Noah Show*. (It’s not as if I haven’t said ignorant and very ugly things too, but I wasn’t a forty-something *father* on a semi-professional talk show representing an entire community.)\n\nEssentially, I was quite frustrated and disappointed to find that **Linux is still let down most by its own community**, but the operating system itself is still *much* further along on its way to becoming a real alternative for the average user than mainstream tech journalism would have you believe. However, in my case, finally taking the time to *really* learn about Open Source computing *also* helped me understand (surprisingly) why Apple and its environment continue to be the best and most popular choice for professional applications. Linux Mint gave me tremendous power in enabling me to alter, specify, and redesign the most minute details of its interface, but I couldn’t have foreseen how all-consuming such power would be for someone like myself. In retrospect, I’ve realized that I ended up spending more time perfecting my custom LibreOffice Writer shortcuts than I did *actually writing* – I somehow found myself in a mind state which justified unironically creating *a shortcut for the Shortcuts menu*. Though I swore I’d never succumb to the bewildering hobby of collecting and exploring different Linux Distributions, it took no time at all for me to fill a folder with disc images of the installers for almost a dozen different interpretations of the operating system after I’d made the simple concession to myself that *I’ll just try Ubuntu, that’s all*. The most profound realization from all this (arguably otherwise wasted) time: **for a user like me, a walled garden is actually the best place to be productive** because *apparently*, I don’t have the self-control to keep myself from *running away* and/or fixating on completely unproductive tasks without its boundaries. I think this phenomenon is perhaps the worst culprit in the persistence of the aforementioned divide between “computer people” and everyone else who simply *uses* computers, as I’m sure any one of the latter could tell you after all of five minutes with a Linus type.\n\nThe most comprehensive and somewhat-urgent revision to illustrate the significance of this contrast from my perspective regards the exceptional iOS/MacOS markdown-based notetaking app Bear. Frankly, my own “[Word Processing Methodology](http://www.extratone.com/words/processing/)” essay from June has already become problematically out of date (and therefore embarrassing) in terms of my own knowledge of the segment and its history. Though I promised the conversation was “done,” I’ve continued to explore further into word processing’s history as well as its current state. “I had a go at Bear’s free iOS experience and saw little functional difference from DayOne,” the old, negligent, cursory David Blue noted, but if I’d simply been willing to cough up a bit more time and just $1.49 a month for [Bear Pro](https://bear.app/#pricing), I’d have spared myself such shame and realized that the hype around this app really is 100% justified. **Bear is the most beautiful iOS app I’ve ever seen**, but I’m now also fully qualified to declare it the most effective execution of “distraction-free” writing software to come along in the past 25 years. Developer Shiny Frog’s secret is their perfect balance between capability and simplicity. It turns out, [Daily Content Lord Casey Newton’s word on this matter](https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/2/14785264/evernote-replacement-bear-app) *really was* worth more than mine, not to mention more succinct: “Bear may look simple, but there’s power underneath the surface.”\n\nThose longtime Linux and Windows diehards who’ve tolerated me thus far, listen up: MacOS may be ancient, neglected, and full of incongruencies, but its single-minded methodology paired with Apple’s iCloud *really does* make it the most effective and elegant environment for most people to simply *get shit done*. It’s clear that many of you have realized the importance of simplicity for compact and/or educational distributions, but let me just add that **the democratization of Linux provides a gargantuan development opportunity to make something that beats MacOS at its own game** without starting from such a shitty premise and all of its resulting compromises – all without detracting from any other technically-minded distributions whatsoever. *That* is the magic of *The Distro*, remember?! If you’ve existed in a similar state of confusion to that of my entire adult life regarding the appeal of Apple products – despite having once been an extensive OSX user, myself – *you’re very welcome* for the insight. Instead of paying me for the profound self-improvement I’ve just provided, try prioritizing this newfound knowledge the next time you talk to your MacBook Pro-loving friend about their workflow. If you’re like myself, you’ll find their arguments have magically transformed from the bewildering bullshit they’ve always seemed to be into challenges for future competing operating systems to surpass Apple’s old bitch and excel in because MacOS and [even its much-younger iOS counterpart](http://bilge.world/ios-12-review-siri-shortcuts/) – as well as the billions of people who depend on them – *desperately* need real competition in order to maintain their viability, much less become what products of the world’s wealthiest company *should* be.\n\nYes, the manner in which these operating systems are perceived really *is* an important discussion prompted by a product as insignificant as the Surface Laptop 2 because as you read, the industry is bracing for another *paradigm shift* in computing, which many believe (preposterously, I might add) could be as significant and disruptive as 2007’s introduction of the iPhone. This machine of Microsoft’s and its “new” MacBook Air counterpart could potentially be the last designs to carry us to a computing future where the tried-and-true clamshell design is forgone entirely by the mainstream, but [Apple’s release of this year’s new iPad Pro](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/30/apple-new-ipad-pro-launched-all-screen-design-face-id-usb-c-processor-magnetic-keyboard) prompted even [the most Cupertino-loving](https://supercomputer.transistor.fm/13) tech commentators to respond with *genuine discord* along with a few long-overdue shouts of “*are you crazy*?!” I’m very proud of *The Verge*’s [Nilay Patel](http://twitter.com/reckless), in particular, for so eloquently deconstructing its usability for all but the very wealthy. “It is impossible to look at a device this powerful and expensive and not expect it to replace a laptop for day-to-day work,” he reminds us in the introduction to [his full review of the updated product](https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/5/18062612/apple-ipad-pro-review-2018-screen-usb-c-pencil-price-features), along with a beautifully transient sentiment which I think we all needed to hear again: “I don’t think people should adapt to their computers. Computers should adapt to people.” Even something as consumerist and bourgeois as the introduction of another pricepoint-burgeoning Apple hardware flagship can turn a simple tablet review into a much-needed manifesto for a user-centric way forward for the industry, which is itself worthy of celebratory encouragement.\n\nI’ve favored *The Verge* and its cast long past the point of excess [throughout the span](http://bilge.world/?s=verge) of my work about technology, but Nilay’s review and its [accompanying episode of *The Vergecast*](https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/8/18075992/vergecast-podcast-330-ipad-pro-macbook-air-review) are *truly* special and profound gems of content that shouldn’t be passed up. Apparently – as the Editor-in-Chief immediately insists as the episode begins – his “ongoing theory” that “the more important you are, the less actually important work you do, and the more likely you are to be an iPad user” roused anger from “that whole class of [billionaires,]” but the experiences behind his argument actually suggest that Apple’s own favorite child of late – into which it has begun investing and thereby implicitly *sponsoring* over its much older brother as the ultimate heir of the majority’s future computing – has unequivocally **failed** to do its part in growing the iPad Pro into the “laptop replacement” we’d all heard so much about. Of iOS 12’s performance as an operating system beneath true work-related tasks, he exasperates “you have to spend all of your time figuring out how to do stuff instead of doing stuff,” which I couldn’t help but hear as echoes of my own late Linux lamentations. As thankful as I am to have finally achieved enlightenment of the Planet Apple, I’m afraid I was pitifully late: its very natural laws underwent their most brutal tests of the 21st century this past year. Now that I’ve finally come to adore the elegant effectiveness of a new generation of iOS apps like Bear, I’m faced with yet another of the episode’s statements of weight: “I think it’s time to stop pretending that the future of computing looks like Apple’s restrictions.” On the opposing end of the line, the world’s first trillion-dollar company’s *other* major product release of 2018 [managed to disappoint](https://www.engadget.com/2018/11/09/apple-macbook-air-review-2018/) even the most fanatical fans of its original operating system’s best-selling platform with [an insultingly mediocre update to the MacBook Air](https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/6/18064552/macbook-air-2018-review-retina-keyboard-apple-features-battery-price) marque upon which it [once so fondly doted](https://www.engadget.com/2008/01/25/macbook-air-review/).\n\nMy best friend’s parents bought her [the original Surface tablet](https://www.theverge.com/2012/10/23/3540550/microsoft-surface-review) when she enrolled in art school, and her frustration with its lackluster keyboard (among others) leads MacOS alternative-seeking users like us to wish Microsoft had started with a traditional design like the Surface Laptop first. Perhaps Apple and Microsoft’s emphasis on their tablets is nothing but a bit premature for the *most* current crop of users, and the rest of my nieces and nephews will expand upon an entirely different methodology of usership when they receive their freshman computer. Those elders of us who still take the Clamshell form seriously and love printing our documents are apparently facing a future industry saturated with products we can’t believe in, but it’s up to you to decide if this issue is worth expending your energy in advocacy for either camp. With my 120+ word per minute proficiency with physical keyboards, *I* for one have been completely bewildered by the iPad as anything but an indulgence for reading text on the web, and I’m pleased as punch with my Surface Laptop 2. Even if it proves to be the last new computer I’ll ever own to come as optimized for my use, I’m just grateful and astonished it happens to be the best yet.\n\n#hardware #microsoft #future" | |
| dvim67m6d585202l,microsoft-surface-laptop-2-review,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/microsoft-surface-laptop-2-review,2018-12-25T05:00:00Z,Microsoft's Surface Laptop 2 Was Built for Me but You Should Buy One Too,"\n\n## Another accidental hardware acquisition astoundingly ended up becoming my favorite of any portable computer I've ever owned. \n\n<!--more-->\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://davidblue.wtf/audio/SurfaceLaptop2.m4a"">\n</audio>\n\nAssuming Jesus Christ is in your thoughts this evening before yet another anniversary of his birth, I am infinitely astonished by the truth in what I’m about to suppose with you. If the Son of God was living today, most of us have agreed for a long time now that he’d use marijuana recreationally - big fuckin whoop. I think it’s far more interesting and appropriate (we all know his birthday was [wholly reconfigured into a consumerist holiday](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/47/christmas-and-commerce) long ago) to speculate on how he’d behave after finding himself inadvertently in the market for a new laptop within the ~$1000 range (following a *stubbed toe whilst walking on water* incident, perhaps.) Surely, it would not be entirely holy for him to opt in to the Foxconn-complicit world of Apple, Incorporated, nor the [openly-blasphemous](https://bilge.world/google-soul-ledger-dont-be-evil) one created and exuberantly grown by Google LLC, and I’m afraid he’d be too much of an *End User* idiot to integrate any of the sparse Linux-dedicated hardware available. In May of 2017, however, Billy Gates’ old Microsoft finally released “[the laptop we’ve always wanted them to make](https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/5/15557738/vergecast-podcast-255-microsoft-surface-laptop-samsung-dex-i-clicked-the-doc),” but could its recent update be truly worthy of our Lourde and Saviour? Or your newly-enrolled offspring? Should you sprint downstairs and swap out the new MacBook Air you just bought?\n\n<iframe src=""https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/end-user/microsoft-designed-its-new-AY29WFlPczw/embed/"" height=""170px"" width=""100%"" style=""width: 1px; min-width: 100%;"" loading=""lazy"" frameborder=""0"" scrolling=""no""></iframe>\n\nFrom an entirely valid perspective, an observer might declare my last two months of 2018 to be an outright shameful period defined by hypocrisy and traitorous betrayals. After finally taking the time to explore the full narrative surrounding Linux and the bloody tale of Microsoft’s cruel genocidal destruction of countless creative software projects throughout computing’s adolescence (see: “[Embrace, Extend, Extinguish](https://youtu.be/TVHcdgrqbHE?t=425),”) I eventually declared myself “100% Open Source” and began outlining an essay designed primarily to express that *Linux is finally ready to be the operating system of the people* without succumbing immediately to the brand of cybercrackpot illegitimacy associated with the L-word in the minds of the general public so readily thanks to decades of misinformed, condescending neckbeards. Such a feat would require entire new planes of cultural awareness and dialectal delicacy, yet certainly result in zero personal reward from even the best possible outcome, yet I proceeded to ponder the subject very deliberately all the way through October because I genuinely believed in a new democratized future of computing. 2018 had been my Grand Awakening to the idyllic possibilities of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) across the whole applied spectrum from office suites to [social networks](http://bilge.world/federated/), yet - as two thousand eighteen comes to an end - I’ve managed to find myself among the most [jaded, soul-sapped](https://youtu.be/O0RSeFcv3Qs) tech community I have yet encountered: **Microsoft Administrators**.\n\nComplimenting this Linux-laden culture in which I was not so long ago deeply embedded was a confused and frustrated outlook regarding what I felt were excessive and completely idiotic sacrifices across the industry’s hardware design to the greedy, gluttonous god of Lightness. It seemed only reasonable to Myself As Consumer that the entire buying public should exclusively seek designs prioritizing greatest possible performance and battery life, even from portable computers and smartphones, so I assumed my perspective on this updated iteration of Microsoft's most laptopy Surface laptop - which exists in large part to [compete directly with](https://www.pcmag.com/news/364728/spec-down-apple-macbook-air-vs-microsoft-surface-laptop-2) Apple's beloved (and just-updated) MacBook Air - wouldn't be at all useful. However, a few weeks ago, my employer prompted me with a sweet sweet ultimatum: *for the sake of a tax break, I want to spend ~$1000 on a laptop for you as soon as possible*. Yes, I know I should consider myself a very fortunate man - this [wasn't even the first time](https://bilge.world/hp-spectre-x360-review) I'd been surprised with the ""hey, I want to buy you a laptop but it has to be today"" experience, and may even be considered a sort of sequel to my *Tales of Whirlwind Manic Consumerism*, but it’s ultimately one of the most idiotic strategies to achieve a major purchase decision and completely inadvisable for anyone on a budget. Still I was indeed thankful to be put in a nearly-identical situation of Consumer Electronic haste, and have come to be especially appreciative of the specific time I was approached as such: just one week after [Microsoft launched the Surface Laptop 2](https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/16/17979516/microsoft-surface-laptop-2-review-specs-price-features-windows-10).\n\nConsidering the vast majority of its users are [trapped inside my television](https://theoutline.com/post/2923/the-popularity-of-microsoft-surface-is-the-least-realistic-thing-on-television), there’s no harm in covering the Surface brand with our virtual palm for a moment. If you’ll indulge me so, you’ll notice that Microsoft has actually delivered unto us **The Laptop II** - as in, the sequel... the *successor* to *every other laptop computer* yet conceived... but does this one machine truly represent the second coming of the *Notebook Christ*? Naturally, it would be a bit zealous to stand behind this extreme statement with 100% sincerity, but there truly *are* certain elements of this Personal Computing product's execution which do indeed will its user to expect and/or desire from others in coming years. As I've stated before, I also simply cannot help but be jazzed by such bravado from the mouths of even a company with as crooked and hateful history as Microsoft's. (Note: no other technology company has actually achieved what Microsoft historically has in this regard, and hopefully none ever will again.)\n\nI must be honest: it hasn't yet been two months and I've already scuffed and perhaps even *stained* the beautiful maroon alcantara surrounding my machine’s touchable body, but it’s occurred to me that I might draw upon the vast library of [automotive interior tutorials](https://youtu.be/PM-FbFIBoCs) available on YouTube - and even purchase some of the alcantara care-specific products they recommend - in order to *really* maintain the exterior of the Laptop II. After all, [alcantara was undeniably car culture’s material first](https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a9653/what-is-alcantara/). I should also confess that objectively, the Surface Laptop II is the best-suited computer for *my personal uses* that I’ve ever owned *or* used for any length of time. Subjectively, I don’t think all of the hardware design touches that make it so - like its keyboard layout, divine 3:2 aspect ratio, and particular I/O complement - have yet had the chance to seduce my emotional brain into truly *loving* it as much as I certainly should by any reasonable measure. For my own sake, I hope I’m able to fall in child-like infatuation with its magic, but in the interim, I believe the coldness of my heart should hopefully preserve any useful commentary I might have to add. Though this is undoubtedly the most timely review of a hardware product I’ve ever published, I’d still ask that you indulge my perspective suggesting the importance of considering it part of a *package* with its operating system, considering that the whole of tech media would’ve unanimously declared it the year’s “[best laptop](https://mashable.com/review/microsoft-surface-laptop-2/)” were Apple’s aging, but still widely-adored MacOS absent from the frame.\n\n> I've tested a bunch of laptops this year, running the spectrum of 2-in-1s, Chromebooks, MacBooks, gaming laptops, etc. Everyone's needs are going to be different, which is why there's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all for laptops. But enthusiasts’ laptops aside, I strongly feel the Surface Laptop 2 is the best laptop of the year. And by that I mean the best laptop for most folks' needs.\n\nWith as much humility as possible, I must add that I myself am *anything* but “most folks,” yet my experience so far with the product has been one of astonishing compatibility and battery life. Using recommended power settings, the Surface Laptop 2 endured [**four hours and twenty-two minutes**](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1080514545062477825) of a workload it wasn’t particularly designed for including heavy web browsing, image manipulation, brief audio/video capture with OBS, and moderate subsequent editing in Audacity and OpenShot. Dan Seifert - Vox Media’s “[only Windows user](https://www.recode.net/2017/5/12/15628228/microsoft-surface-laptop-apple-macbook-air-windows-10s-dan-seifert-recode-podcast)” - reported “about seven hours” of Microsoft’s claimed 14.5, but frankly, I don’t know what any of y’all are doin - I’m just thankful this machine is a better marathoner than any other I can recall owning. While we’re on the subject, I consider Microsoft’s inclusion of a magnetically-attached power cable and unassuming auxiliary USB charging port on the attached power supply to be personal godsends - further evidence, even, that the Surface Laptop 2 was *actually designed to be nice to use*. For the sake of those readers **actually in the market for a new laptop** who’ve somehow found themselves here, though, Raymond Wong’s review for *Mashable* is the most thorough offering you’ll find - it’s quoted front and center on [Microsoft’s web page for the Laptop II](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-laptop-2/8XQJKK3DD91B), even - but it’s important to mention that his critical comparative perspective predates the late launch of its ultimate competitor, [the new MacBook Air](https://mashable.com/review/apple-macbook-air/). Rather pitifully, however, his colleague’s “good, but not great” resolution suggests that Apple failed to challenge Microsoft’s relatively moderate update enough to warrant any revision, and that *Mashable* as a publication stands by my new laptop’s *Best of the Year* title, for whatever it may or may not be worth to you. \n\n> If the new [MacBook Air](https://zdcs.link/zjWl1?pageview=06Fe2GZo26XvMYZgLndTadT) came in at the same price as the old one, it would be a steal. Sure, you pay for the privilege of being able to use macOS on the Apple ecosystem. But in years past that also meant access to cutting-edge features and design. As pretty as the MacBook Air is, there's nothing that innovative about it. In today's Apple, it seems, privilege amounts to just staying current.\n\nYou won’t find many others who regularly invest editorial merit in publishing 2500+ word laptop reviews anymore, which I’d concede is plenty reasonable in the Surface Laptop’s case, at least. Perhaps your first point of comparative entry should be [a barely-dated conversation](https://www.recode.net/2017/5/12/15628228/microsoft-surface-laptop-apple-macbook-air-windows-10s-dan-seifert-recode-podcast) between Kara Swisher, Lauren Goode, and Dan Seifert on *Too Embarrassed to Ask* regarding the original’s odds of truly competing in the “premium laptop” segment (if you’d prefer to hear from those who struggle to take it seriously, that is.) Assuming [the original product direction of the Surface line](https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-oems-desperately-need-to-learn-from-microsofts-surface/) still stands, Microsoft doesn’t actually intend to sell at high volume, especially when it comes to this runt of the marque, which does not hesitate to omit itself from the popular discourse of the moment surrounding tablets as the future of all computing to which all of its siblings have [contributed so much](https://www.theverge.com/2014/5/23/5743416/microsoft-surface-pro-3-review). Though I shall always remember my dearest Libel (the special edition Spectre x360 with which I built most of *Extratone*) with great respect and deep fondness - I think it’s even worth mounting on some sort of plinth - the significantly-cheaper Laptop II has already demonstrated true value in its “premium” segment bragging rights with *far* superior materials and build quality. If you’re looking for the prettiest possible slice of magnesium lightness but aren’t the sort to have followed the story of Microsoft’s first venture into personal computer production since it began in the last year of the Mayan calendar, it’s worth your while to read [Joshua Topolsky’s projections of the project’s impact on the popular narrative surrounding Microsoft](https://www.theverge.com/2012/6/19/3097726/surface-microsoft-next-chapter/in/2859835) from history’s freshest possible perspective: the eve of the first Surface tablet’s launch.\n\n> The entire tablet was designed in-house by Microsoft's teams, and if you believe what was said in the presentation yesterday, design and functionality in hardware has suddenly become a big deal in Redmond. That's a big shift, and it's an important one. The announcement of the Surface shows that Microsoft is ready to make a break with its history — a history of hardware partnerships which relied on companies like Dell, HP, or Acer to actually bring its products to market. That may burn partners in the short term, but it could also give Microsoft something it desperately needs: a clear story.\n\nA pungent stigma festered from Microsoft’s history of inadequate and inelegant public relations (especially compared to its greatest longtime rival) has remained in relentlessly obvious orbit around every “significant” Windows and Office update for so long that its status quo has grown into a truly inhibitive force for *all* parties involved. Topolsky is unquestionably a compromising favorite of mine, but it’s hard not to decry then-CEO Steve Ballmer’s failure to comprehend Josh’s day-after insight in the *whole three months* that passed before [his Seattle Times interview in September, 2012](http://old.seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2019168601_microsoftballmer16.html). Ultimately, The Big M is either **incapable** of understanding any alternative utopic Visions of Computing to its own, or simply **overwrought** with the same counteraspirational carelessness its culture has always depended upon. In analytical terms regarding Ballmer’s utilization of the forum’s opportunity to finally *tell the fucking story*, at least, the timidity of a term like “pre-eminent software” as a viably bright new beacon in contrast with “*people* would say we were a software company” (emphasis mine) - as if Steve-O himself doesn’t even have the power to publicly *describe his company’s function* as its #1 man - combined at the apex of what was almost impressively-negligent behavior.\n\n> I think when you look forward, our core capability will be software, (but) you'll probably think of us more as a devices-and-services company. Which is a little different. Software powers devices and software powers these cloud services, but it's a different form of delivery...\n\nDon’t make the same mistake I did and wear yourself out trying to extract the meaning from these three sentences - there’s none to be found. Ultimately, whatever opportunity the Surface project could have provided for Microsoft’s identity has been vastly overshadowed by its success as last resort supercatalyst to restore *any* sense of dignity and pride within the hardware companies who produce the vehicles. In Fall 2017, *The Register* [quoted industry gossip](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/04/surface/) regarding the company’s new CEO Satya Nadella and his intent to “exit the product line” because “overall they are not making money [and] it doesn’t make sense for them to be in this business,” but newcomers to this conversation should know that no subsequent reporting has corroborated anything but a [sustaining future of the line](https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/5/18125306/microsoft-fluent-design-windows-office-surface-future), though the measurable rate of innovation in Microsoft’s products continues to leave much to be desired. Now that you’ve heard from the experts, though, allow me to expand our lens a bit and examine what the Surface Laptop 2’s existence suggests as per *The Present & Future of Computing*.\n\n## The Clam Clan\n\nIn case I’ve yet to mention it, all of my tech writing is in substantial debt to my much-older and child-oriented siblings for providing 8 nieces and nephews over the course of 11 years - if not for any reason but the perspective offered by the slightest observation of their day-to-day lives. In this profoundly bizarre and historic technological sprint our species is experiencing, the differences in their respective relationships with consumer tech as they’ve grown up are fascinatingly… disturbingly significant. My eldest niece Abby was born four years after myself in 1998, and her younger sister Amber just quite three years later in 2001. All three of us are Aquarians who went to the same public schools (aside from 2 exceptions on my part,) and the two sisters have been close, significant influences on each other all their lives, yet the way Abby and I use and think about computers differs significantly from Amber’s. Our first real PCs introduced an important social and intellectual vehicle to our pre-teen lives, and both of us still “live on” our machines as young adults. For us and many others from this short-lived microgeneration of ours, budget laptops like the Dell Inspirion 2200 (which served as the first “real computer” for both of us) introduced the internet and Being Online as a State of Being with AIM groups, MySpace, and Yahoo! chain mails before smartphones and tablets were capable of doing so.\n\nAmber prefers to use her iPhone for most everything and regards her computer as a tool for work - it’s booted up and down exclusively for that purpose, which is significantly healthier than the habit Abby, myself, and many of my Online friends developed: we left our computers running and Logged On all the time because we were otherwise unreachable. We learned from origin to depend on them for 100% of our computing tasks - from streaming Pandora to playing Flash games within six billion open browser tabs - which likely explains both our ADD and its resulting influence on the ease with which our personal computers can distract us. As a Journalism student and professional photographer, Abby uses the new 15-inch MacBook Pro, and [Insane Blogger] David Blue has spent years looking for an alternative, becoming [the first and only iPhone user to make extensive use of its Bluetooth keyboard support](http://bilge.world/ios-10-review-speed/) in the process, but both of us are entirely uninterested in the rest of the industry’s insistence on [convertibles](https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/2/17515896/dell-xps-2-in-1-convertible-laptop-review), [removable keyboards](https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/16/17979504/microsoft-surface-pro-6-review-tablet-features-price-windows-10-matte-black), or [‘professional’ tablets](https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/5/18062612/apple-ipad-pro-review-2018-screen-usb-c-pencil-price-features). I wish the Linux community was finally ready to drop the elitist pretenses plaguing its nerdy history; I wish I could finally tell someone like Abby that a machine like the [System76 Galago Pro](https://www.pcworld.com/article/3198671/linux/the-system76-galago-pro-is-a-fierce-featherweight-competitor.html) could slot itself into her workflow without losing her time or compatibility - that the reputation surrounding Linux People had finally lost most of its validity and her desire to learn more about computing as a young woman and Power User would be met with respectful and worthwhile conversation from their end. Unfortunately, I’ve still found some of the Old Guard to be elitist, socially behind, and juvenilely possessive, as if computing was still the niche interest from their 1980s and 90s childhoods. Though this conversation certainly warrants its own essay in the future, I’ll just express now that it’s a real shame some folks don’t realize the entire point of making great things is ultimately to **give them to the world**.\n\nThe opportunity I’ve had in the past year to finally get my Linux distro frenzy over with and out of my system managed to both radicalize and democratize my understanding of MacOS, Windows, and Linux as they are in the present. While I had nothing better to do, fiddling with Ubuntu Studio and Linux Mint to the extent I did throughout Spring and Summer led me to further appreciate [the value of keyboard shortcuts](https://mastodon.social/@DavidBlue/101073796864823479), gave me [my first real proficiency with a command line](https://mastodon.social/@DavidBlue/100917824456128537), helped [globalize my comprehension of my own technological privilege](https://anchor.fm/davidblue/episodes/Revelations-of-Network-Withdrawals-e2d7aq/a-a235vs3), reacquainted me in a huge way with both [the true history of software](https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/9hpqov/lotussmartsuite_and_the_year_2000/) and my own personal past as [an experimental test tube baby of Microsoft’s](https://mastodon.social/@DavidBlue/100771954295147256), and helped to answer a lot of questions I’d worried over for years about why software seemed like it simply *couldn’t improve* anymore. While it’s true that important open source projects like [ElementaryOS](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2018/09/10/elementary-os-first-impressions-a-great-linux-doorway-for-macos-users/#231f4faa4289) continue to sprout from the Linus Extended Universe and the [growing Open Source community on Mastodon](http://bit.ly/dbmastodon) is filled with brilliant, helpful, unpretentious, and remarkably curious enthusiasts (probably because many of those I’ve interacted with so far are non-cis and/or non-white,) little ole me was able to stumble upon some totally unnecessary and excruciatingly ignorant sociopolitical commentary by way of the white, middle-age host and his undoubtedly-white and staunchly libertarian caller on a live broadcast of the *Ask Noah Show*. (It’s not as if I haven’t said ignorant and very ugly things too, but I wasn’t a forty-something *father* on a semi-professional talk show representing an entire community.)\n\nEssentially, I was quite frustrated and disappointed to find that **Linux is still let down most by its own community**, but the operating system itself is still *much* further along on its way to becoming a real alternative for the average user than mainstream tech journalism would have you believe. However, in my case, finally taking the time to *really* learn about Open Source computing *also* helped me understand (surprisingly) why Apple and its environment continue to be the best and most popular choice for professional applications. Linux Mint gave me tremendous power in enabling me to alter, specify, and redesign the most minute details of its interface, but I couldn’t have foreseen how all-consuming such power would be for someone like myself. In retrospect, I’ve realized that I ended up spending more time perfecting my custom LibreOffice Writer shortcuts than I did *actually writing* - I somehow found myself in a mind state which justified unironically creating *a shortcut for the Shortcuts menu*. Though I swore I’d never succumb to the bewildering hobby of collecting and exploring different Linux Distributions, it took no time at all for me to fill a folder with disc images of the installers for almost a dozen different interpretations of the operating system after I’d made the simple concession to myself that *I’ll just try Ubuntu, that’s all*. The most profound realization from all this (arguably otherwise wasted) time: **for a user like me, a walled garden is actually the best place to be productive** because *apparently*, I don’t have the self-control to keep myself from *running away* and/or fixating on completely unproductive tasks without its boundaries. I think this phenomenon is perhaps the worst culprit in the persistence of the aforementioned divide between “computer people” and everyone else who simply *uses* computers, as I’m sure any one of the latter could tell you after all of five minutes with a Linus type.\n\nThe most comprehensive and somewhat-urgent revision to illustrate the significance of this contrast from my perspective regards the exceptional iOS/MacOS markdown-based notetaking app Bear. Frankly, my own “[Word Processing Methodology](https://bilge.world/evernote-dropbox-paper-word-processing-history)” essay from June has already become problematically out of date (and therefore embarrassing) in terms of my own knowledge of the segment and its history. Though I promised the conversation was “done,” I’ve continued to explore further into word processing’s history as well as its current state. “I had a go at Bear’s free iOS experience and saw little functional difference from DayOne,” the old, negligent, cursory David Blue noted, but if I’d simply been willing to cough up a bit more time and just $1.49 a month for [Bear Pro](https://bear.app/#pricing), I’d have spared myself such shame and realized that the hype around this app really is 100% justified. **Bear is the most beautiful iOS app I’ve ever seen**, but I’m now also fully qualified to declare it the most effective execution of “distraction-free” writing software to come along in the past 25 years. Developer Shiny Frog’s secret is their perfect balance between capability and simplicity. It turns out, [Daily Content Lord Casey Newton’s word on this matter](https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/2/14785264/evernote-replacement-bear-app) *really was* worth more than mine, not to mention more succinct: “Bear may look simple, but there’s power underneath the surface.”\n\nThose longtime Linux and Windows diehards who’ve tolerated me thus far, listen up: MacOS may be ancient, neglected, and full of incongruencies, but its single-minded methodology paired with Apple’s iCloud *really does* make it the most effective and elegant environment for most people to simply *get shit done*. It’s clear that many of you have realized the importance of simplicity for compact and/or educational distributions, but let me just add that **the democratization of Linux provides a gargantuan development opportunity to make something that beats MacOS at its own game** without starting from such a shitty premise and all of its resulting compromises - all without detracting from any other technically-minded distributions whatsoever. *That* is the magic of *The Distro*, remember?! If you’ve existed in a similar state of confusion to that of my entire adult life regarding the appeal of Apple products - despite having once been an extensive OSX user, myself - *you’re very welcome* for the insight. Instead of paying me for the profound self-improvement I’ve just provided, try prioritizing this newfound knowledge the next time you talk to your MacBook Pro-loving friend about their workflow. If you’re like myself, you’ll find their arguments have magically transformed from the bewildering bullshit they’ve always seemed to be into challenges for future competing operating systems to surpass Apple’s old bitch and excel in because MacOS and [even its much-younger iOS counterpart](https://bilge.world/siri-shortcuts-ios12-review) - as well as the billions of people who depend on them - *desperately* need real competition in order to maintain their viability, much less become what products of the world’s wealthiest company *should* be.\n\nYes, the manner in which these operating systems are perceived really *is* an important discussion prompted by a product as insignificant as the Surface Laptop 2 because as you read, the industry is bracing for another *paradigm shift* in computing, which many believe (preposterously, I might add) could be as significant and disruptive as 2007’s introduction of the iPhone. This machine of Microsoft’s and its “new” MacBook Air counterpart could potentially be the last designs to carry us to a computing future where the tried-and-true clamshell design is forgone entirely by the mainstream, but [Apple’s release of this year’s new iPad Pro](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/30/apple-new-ipad-pro-launched-all-screen-design-face-id-usb-c-processor-magnetic-keyboard) prompted even [the most Cupertino-loving](https://supercomputer.transistor.fm/13) tech commentators to respond with *genuine discord* along with a few long-overdue shouts of “*are you crazy*?!” I’m very proud of *The Verge*’s [Nilay Patel](http://twitter.com/reckless), in particular, for so eloquently deconstructing its usability for all but the very wealthy. “It is impossible to look at a device this powerful and expensive and not expect it to replace a laptop for day-to-day work,” he reminds us in the introduction to [his full review of the updated product](https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/5/18062612/apple-ipad-pro-review-2018-screen-usb-c-pencil-price-features), along with a beautifully transient sentiment which I think we all needed to hear again: “I don’t think people should adapt to their computers. Computers should adapt to people.” Even something as consumerist and bourgeois as the introduction of another pricepoint-burgeoning Apple hardware flagship can turn a simple tablet review into a much-needed manifesto for a user-centric way forward for the industry, which is itself worthy of celebratory encouragement.\n\nI’ve favored *The Verge* and its cast long past the point of excess throughout the span of my work about technology, but Nilay’s review and its [accompanying episode of *The Vergecast*](https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/8/18075992/vergecast-podcast-330-ipad-pro-macbook-air-review) are *truly* special and profound gems of content that shouldn’t be passed up. Apparently - as the Editor-in-Chief immediately insists as the episode begins - his “ongoing theory” that “the more important you are, the less actually important work you do, and the more likely you are to be an iPad user” roused anger from “that whole class of [billionaires,]” but the experiences behind his argument actually suggest that Apple’s own favorite child of late - into which it has begun investing and thereby implicitly *sponsoring* over its much older brother as the ultimate heir of the majority’s future computing - has unequivocally **failed** to do its part in growing the iPad Pro into the “laptop replacement” we’d all heard so much about. Of iOS 12’s performance as an operating system beneath true work-related tasks, he exasperates “you have to spend all of your time figuring out how to do stuff instead of doing stuff,” which I couldn’t help but hear as echoes of my own late Linux lamentations. As thankful as I am to have finally achieved enlightenment of the Planet Apple, I’m afraid I was pitifully late: its very natural laws underwent their most brutal tests of the 21st century this past year. Now that I’ve finally come to adore the elegant effectiveness of a new generation of iOS apps like Bear, I’m faced with yet another of the episode’s statements of weight: “I think it’s time to stop pretending that the future of computing looks like Apple’s restrictions.” On the opposing end of the line, the world’s first trillion-dollar company’s *other* major product release of 2018 [managed to disappoint](https://www.engadget.com/2018/11/09/apple-macbook-air-review-2018/) even the most fanatical fans of its original operating system’s best-selling platform with [an insultingly mediocre update to the MacBook Air](https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/6/18064552/macbook-air-2018-review-retina-keyboard-apple-features-battery-price) marque upon which it [once so fondly doted](https://www.engadget.com/2008/01/25/macbook-air-review/).\n\nMy best friend’s parents bought her [the original Surface tablet](https://www.theverge.com/2012/10/23/3540550/microsoft-surface-review) when she enrolled in art school, and her frustration with its lackluster keyboard (among others) leads MacOS alternative-seeking users like us to wish Microsoft had started with a traditional design like the Surface Laptop first. Perhaps Apple and Microsoft’s emphasis on their tablets is nothing but a bit premature for the *most* current crop of users, and the rest of my nieces and nephews will expand upon an entirely different methodology of usership when they receive their freshman computer. Those elders of us who still take the Clamshell form seriously and love printing our documents are apparently facing a future industry saturated with products we can’t believe in, but it’s up to you to decide if this issue is worth expending your energy in advocacy for either camp. With my 120+ word per minute proficiency with physical keyboards, *I* for one have been completely bewildered by the iPad as anything but an indulgence for reading text on the web, and I’m pleased as punch with my Surface Laptop 2. Even if it proves to be the last new computer I’ll ever own to come as optimized for my use, I’m just grateful and astonished it happens to be the best yet.\n\n<!--comment-->\n\n#hardware" | |
| ibotj9eg32l1hr11,licking-missouri,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/licking-missouri,2019-05-05T13:43:17Z,"3AM, Licking","\n\n<!--more-->\n\nMy girlfriend very generously offered to go for a drive with me yesterday evening, though neither of us particularly expected to end up parked at 5:40AM outside a little Diner called Ziggie’s some four hours away from home. I managed to learn a bit about driving apps and briefly flood my Jetta’s intake long enough to stall it after fording some flood water a wee bit too rapidly.\n\nSince I’ve begun working in Kansas City and occasionally commuting from Columbia, I’ve found incentive to revisit the crowdsourced driving directions mobile app [Waze](https://apple.co/2PJuh5y), which I recall being very excited about in early 2016. It’s smoother now, yet devoid of that pseudocountercultural sense in a design sense. Functionally, it is still *the* most reliable method of police detection I’ve ever encountered - in this Second Era of my Waze usage I have yet to see a single Missouri Highway Parol car sat in the center of I-70 that hadn’t been reported on Waze first - even at crazy hours on weekday mornings - which should be all the reassurance one needs regarding the immediate future of their userbase.\n\n\n\n> I'm using Waze to drive to to Licking, MO, arriving at 2:24. Watch my drive in real-time on the Waze map! [David Blue on Twitter](https://t.co/b6InZBSRdc) \n\nSomehow, I was unaware until this morning that Waze allows you to “share” your route by generating a link to a web app of theirs that will live track your progress. Though I can’t actually imagine too many use cases for this, I still think it’s cool. Anybody who’s interested in stalking my every move should [follow me on Twitter](http://twitter.com/neoyokel) - where I’m sure I’ll be sharing more drives from now on - and/or DM me and just ask me to enable 24/7 location-sharing for ya!\n\nOn the topic of mobile apps for those folks like me who’s only real hobby is just fucking driving around, I did actually find mention in a listicle from a *real motoring enthusiast’s publication*. “[Seven Apps That Will Help Improve Your Driving Experience](https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/travel/tips/g6477/seven-best-apps-for-driving-road-assistance/)” is not exactly the sort of advisory article I remember seeing in *Road & Track* considering that it actually only contains one single app even vaguely related to True *Driving Pleasure* called [Greatest Drive](http://www.greatestroad.com/).\n\n> Users contribute their favorite routes and with Yelp integration you can either pick a destination to find the most scenic way to get there or find a good spot to eat along the route you've already chosen. \n\nOf course, it’s nowhere to be found on the App Store, but it sounded relatively foodist anyway.\n\n## Other notes:\n\n* ***Licking***, Missouri may have a silly name, but [the data says it’s struggling](http://www.city-data.com/city/Licking-Missouri.html). Look for the median household income.\n* Apparently the premier mile-tracking app right now is Microsoft’s [MileIQ](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mileiq-mileage-tracker-log/id578830929?mt=8), which I’m going to continue to try because I can’t resist [automatically-generated PDF reports](https://miqreports.blob.core.windows.net/miles-email/9IPQSm8XEemkb6ISxfkacQ/miles/mobile/monthly/134f21f6-3634-41ab-8196-d1910003f48e/MileIQ__May%2001%202019%20-%20May%2031%202019_6fb774d0-6f34-11e9-9d6a-0a580af40224.pdf?se=2019-06-19T12%3A51%3A01Z&sp=r&sv=2018-03-28&sr=b&sig=HAeULISGzXfAomSVQ41Xm%2BHTNCcAFlwUmFqPY3G/Lc0%3D), ever. \n* I gave my girlfriend administrator roles for my derelict joke Facebook page *[Boiler Explosion Memes](http://facebook.com/boilerexplosionmemes)* and she’s somehow managed to get it to almost 100 likes / +25,000% impressions in just a matter of days!!!!\n\n#photography" | |
| otvdnrsdrnclytiy,about,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/about,2019-05-26T01:34:56Z,About,"[](https://github.com/extratone/bilge)\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://davidblue.wtf/audio/whitesnares.mp3"">\n</audio>\n\n## ‽‽‽\n\n*The Psalms* (alternatively/interchangeably entitled Bilge) is a monobyline World Wide Web Blog written by [**𝒟𝒶𝓋𝒾𝒹 ℬ𝓁𝓊ℯ**](https://bit.ly/whoisdavidblue) (good morning!) observing and selectively amplifying the characters, organizations, and stories surrounding the most abrupt, profound, and spectacular communicative renaissance in the history of the human species. \n\nLess abstractly, its beat is **wholly digital**, namely in **tools** (software, services, and methodologies) and **culture** (music, film, podcasts, and media) from a distinct lens established at good distance from California.\n\nIt is [unlicensed](https://gist.github.com/extratone/140a11428b5dd1dda500b3928e0438b1) and entirely [written in public](https://tomcritchlow.com/2020/07/23/thinking-in-public/) largely via [**this GitHub Repository**](https://github.com/extratone/bilge), supplemented by experiments on a variety of [other platforms](https://www.notion.so/rotund/9fdc8e9610b34b8f991ebc148b760055?v=c170b58650c04fbdb7adc551a73d16a7), including (arguably) [my Twitter account](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel).\n\nFor better or worse, my voice as represented in *The Psalms* has continued to be saturated with self-referential and occasionally self-disparaging/deprecating qualification. If I am indeed an authority on myself, I would suggest that these are essential tools rather than crutches, and note that I have made some progress in excusing myself for them out of the (perhaps cliché) realization that “life” - and especially *truth* - can be infinitely complicated, and therefore worthwhile thought on just about anything is inevitably going to be (sometimes aggravatingly) tedious in its complexity.\n\n**I am not a paid journalist** and **I don’t break stories**. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t if an opportunity happened upon me, but it is not where I’m at my best.\n\n### What does *The Psalms* cover?\n\nPrimarily, this blog exists to amplify [undercovered](https://github.com/extratone/bilge/wiki/Terminology:-Undercovered) developers, musicians, writers, curators, and media professionals, most often through the process of **analyzing their work**. \n\nSome recent examples include [my interview with Brad Varol](https://anchor.fm/davidblue/episodes/Brad-Varol--Father-of-Whyp-es12ge), who’s creating a handy web tool for sharing audio (replacing Clyp) and [my guide to music apps on iPhone](https://bilge.world/iphone-ios-music-apps).\n\nTwo more *significant* examples: [my interview with Mastodon creator Eugen Rochko](https://bilge.world/eugen-rochko-interview) and [my huge case for Bandcamp](https://bilge.world/bandcamp-streaming-music) as the streaming service we’ve all been asking for.\n\n[](https://pixelfed.social/DavidBlue)\n\n### How do you see the world?\n\nAnyone *truly* curious about the answer to this question, for whatever reason, should read my very-autobiographical essay “[Why I Write About Technology](https://bilge.world/why)” from 2018, though my perspective has changed quite significantly in the time, since. \n\nI’m going to take further cue from [Casey Newton’s about page format](https://www.notion.so/About-Platformer-22cd48a5514d404b9c2dd130d7724b93) and list a few important assumptions of mine about consumer technology in bullet form:\n\n- The delivery of technology media to the mainstream has lessened its ability to truly write critically about the big tech companies it now shares office buildings with.\n- The Open Source/Open Web community continues to struggle with their *brand image* (if you will) in both old and new ways that needlessly alienate (and sometimes obfuscate) some of their most important contributions from the average user. Technology media has failed in their responsibility to address this issue.\n- Women have had a more than equal share in building the digital age and have yet to be recognized for it. \n- Black people have important contributions of all sorts to technology that have yet to be recognized.\n- The software development community is a source of insights in many aspects of life *other than technology*. It is also often hopelessly blind to others. \n- Technology media has failed to discuss consumer technology’s presence in the lives of working class people, to their own detriment.\n- The narrative surrounding consumer technology has been allowed by technology media to shift from products toward organizations and figureheads, perhaps inevitably. \n- The power dynamics found in the stories of Software History have thus far been underutilized in technology media’s critical eye on the same elements in today’s narratives.\n\n### How do you get your information?\n\nVery likely from the same sources you do. As a ""self-taught"" technology writer, my go-to sources are constantly changing over time. Recently, I have been actively making cold emailing a habit whenever I set upon a given subject, which has produced good results so far. I will more often than not mention any particulars regarding how I found a specific piece of information, reference, web page, etc. *in the post itself*. Handily, [my various Raindrop feeds](https://raindrop.io/user/517010) should prove particularly useful in answering this question in infinite detail. On the social side, [my public Twitter Lists](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/lists) should perform the same function.\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 450px;"" allowfullscreen frameborder=""0"" src=""https://raindrop.io/davidblue/embed/me/theme=auto"" allowfullscreen></iframe>\n\n### How can I interact with *The Psalms*?\n\nEmailing [**davidblue@extratone.com**](mailto:davidblue@extratone.com) and/or engaging me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel)/[Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@DavidBlue) are the simplest ways of getting in touch, but for those interested and/or uncomfortable with those, there are infinitely many more:\n\n- Because *The Psalms* is integrated with the annotation service [Hypothesis](https://hypothes.is/), users can literally post public annotations/page notes ~~via the pullout bar on your right~~ (apparently this isn't currently working unless you have the [Hypothesis extension](https://web.hypothes.is/start/) installed in your browser.)\n- GitHub users can engage with [*The Psalms- Repository](https://github.com/extratone/bilge). (In theory... This has yet to be tested, so I'd very much appreciate you giving it a try if you've got time.)\n- I've continued to use [*Extratone*'s Discord server](https://discord.gg/0b9KQUKP858b0iZF) as my general hangout - don't be afraid to post there.\n- All other social profiles of mine can be found in this ""[Social Directory](https://www.notion.so/rotund/Social-Directory-aea1bee51a64461b91bf4de241a4a16d)"" (which is a Notion database.)\n\n<!--emailsub-->\n\n*Technical details about this blog and the best CMS/hosting service to ever grace the web can be found on [the Colophon](https://bilge.world/colophon).*\n\n\n---\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 1600px;"" allowfullscreen frameborder=""0"" src=""https://raindrop.io/davidblue/social-directory-21059174/embed""></iframe>\n\n---\n\n[](https://davidblue.wtf/services)" | |
| 60k46wo1xdq0jmte,colophon,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/colophon,2019-05-26T02:35:49Z,Colophon,"\n\n## *The Psalms* is proudly hosted by [Write.as](http://write.as/about) - a new sort of blogging content management system built atop [Markdown](https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/) and maintained by a company which [explicitly shares](https://write.as/principles) my commitment to a better, Open web.\n\n**I truly, deeply love my host CMS/service and do not pay enough for it. Can you say the same?** Use my [invite link](https://write.as/join/4bqc8482) and give Write.as/WriteFreely a try. It [literally saved my life](https://write.as/community/chat-with-david-blue).\n\nA somewhat-outdated version of this site's theme is [listed among others](https://write.as/themes/bilge) in Writeas' official themes list. The full, up-to-date CSS and JS can be found below and on in [this GitHub repository](https://github.com/extratone/bilge), which I created in November, 2020 as an experiment in using Git to track editorial changes. (*That means you can see [current in-progress drafts](https://github.com/extratone/bilge/tree/main/Drafts)!*)\n\n- Download the entirety of this blog in EPUB format **[here](http://bilge.world/.epub)**.\n- Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed **[here](https://bilge.world/feed/)**.\n- This blog is federated at **@b@bilge.world**.\n- This blog is integrated with [Hypothes.is](https://hypothes.is/users/DavidBlue). (See [CJ Eller's guide](https://discuss.write.as/t/adding-comments-to-your-blog/1146).)\n- See [the Tiny version of this blog](https://tiny.write.as/bilge) if you absolutely despise my CSS.\n- As of 2021, this blog is integrated with [Remark.as](https://remark.as) - Write.as’ Discussion platform. You can view my profile [here](https://remark.as/extratone). Otherwise, look for this link:\n\n<!--comment-->\n\n<!--emailsub-->\n\n## Typography\n\n**Body Text**: [Adobe Caslon Pro](https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/adobe-caslon)\n\n**Nav/Headers/Other**: [Proxima Nova](https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/proxima-nova) & Variations\n\n## Colors\n\n\n\n- [Expired Sour Cream](https://colornames.org/color/fff4e6)\n- [David Blue](https://colornames.org/color/00006b)\n- [Red](https://colornames.org/color/ff0000)\n- [Alarmed Suburbanite](https://colornames.org/color/f43f32)\n- [Shife](https://colornames.org/color/da2573)\n- [Royal Chafe](https://colornames.org/color/1c0021)\n\n## Code\n\n[_The Psalms’_ GitHub Repository](https://github.com/extratone/bilge) also hosts the technical documentation for its Write.as theme. Download the latest “release,” [**here**](https://github.com/extratone/bilge/releases) and/or view the raw CSS [here](https://github.com/extratone/bilge/blob/main/Custom%20CSS.css).\n\n\n\n### Drafts Theme\n\nIf you happen to be a user of agiletortoise’s infamous [Drafts app](https://getdrafts.com) on iOS and/or MacOS, I have published [**a quite-uncanny theme**](https://actions.getdrafts.com/t/1km) on the Drafts Theme Directory mimicking the reading experience of this blog." | |
| zcjv5o8y8ginx1eu,mastonaut-for-macos,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/mastonaut-for-macos,2019-05-30T20:30:00Z,Mastonaut for MacOS,"\n\n## Premium desktop Mastodon clients incoming?\n\n<!--more-->\n\nSince you last heard from us, the federated social network [Mastodon](https://extratone.com/mastodon-eugen-rochko-federated-social-network) has scaled tremendously in usership and steadily grown technologically into an incredibly robust and dynamic platform. Perhaps inevitably, Eugen Rochko and his gaggle of open source developers have continued to embarrass the living fuck out of Twitter's team - at least for those who've continued to pay attention (i.e. those of us whose sense of aspiration has yet to perish.) \n\nI planned on getting ahead of an innovative wake in iOS development by watching closely for the first ""premium"" Mastodon clients to come out, which I suspected (quite correctly) would carry the first substantial risk-taking on the part of plucky social apps to be seen on the goddamned App Store in what felt like eternity. Unfortunately, I've ended up far too deep in screenshots/insights from **[Toot!](http://bit.ly/tootios)** and **[Mast](http://bit.ly/mastios)**, creating a bit of an overwhelming obstacle in comparing and/or reviewing the two without sinking deep in my regular, pretentious hole. (Though both of them are absolutely gorgeous, fascinating, and impressive projects which you should invest in and follow if you're interested in the future of federated social whatsoever.)\n\n<iframe width=""auto"" height=""350"" src=""https://www.youtube.com/embed/k7KDk-VV6wc"" frameborder=""0"" allow=""accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture"" allowfullscreen></iframe>\n\n**That said**... I'd like only to mention and [briefly demonstrate](https://youtu.be/k7KDk-VV6wc) the first premium *desktop* Mastodon client, ***[Mastonaut](http://bit.ly/mastonaut)***, which I had the privilege of experiencing momentarily last night.\n\n\n\nIn the interest of brevity (and because I was unable to continue fucking around for any length of time,) I'll just list some observations:\n\n* The entire GUI experience is distinctly uncluttered (or perhaps *barren*, depending on your subjective desires from this sort of thing,) but duplicates dearest [TweetBot](https://extratone.com/tweetbot-5-ios-review-twitter-client)'s functionality impressively well considering its age as an independently-developed product.\n* Keyboard shortcuts! Fuck me, God.\n* I love the live-updated instance directory search (above) as a second landing for first-time users.\n* Though I did actually have to repeat the first-time login process after freezing and subsequently force-quitting Mastonaut, I think you'll probably place the blame on my own immediate and inpatient window management mania considering how smoothly it all went the second time around.\n\nTo be honest, [Bear](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bear/id1091189122?mt=12), [Spark](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spark-email-app-by-readdle/id1176895641?mt=12), and recent other beautiful Mac applications beckon me to buy or hack myself into MacOS again. If I have time in the near future, I'll show you why.\n\n#software" | |
| 0gh2p56uoazi85ru,keeps-david-blue,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/keeps-david-blue,2019-06-28T14:00:00Z,Keeps,"\nrelentless, the country keeps\ndoors and walls reverberate\nall but rest in summer’s heat\n\nI remember the dawn and dusk - the open palette, gradiented above\nopposite a front\novertaking me, \non the 4030,\ntilling terraces ’round the North 180\n\ngrowing here is not a war with Earth,\nbut a chronological board game, \nwon by the punctual\nand patient\n\nI am neither of these,\nbut I am fond of a good emergency\n\nand it all plays out for me; \nthe torrent released in Missouri haste\nbig drops turn to steam on the labored muffler \ntoo much to do;\ngetting it over with,\nGod cries in heaves, quickly,\naround here \n\n#poetry" | |
| 0op2ptsgwt4tr87k,blank-banshee-metamorphosis-mini-album-bandcamp,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/blank-banshee-metamorphosis-mini-album-bandcamp,2019-07-03T03:45:43Z,Blank Banshee Releases Mini-Album 'Metamorphosis',"#### by [David Blue](http://twitter.com/neoyokel)\n\n\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1786310437/size=large/bgcol=f7ff85/linkcol=00008b/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://blankbanshee.bandcamp.com/album/metamorphosis-2"">Metamorphosis by Blank Banshee</a></iframe>\n\nPerhaps [nearest and dearest](https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/62268/Blank-Banshee-Blank-Banshee-0/) of all to the hearts of more casual, Twitter-bound vaporwave fans, Canadian-sourced [Blank Banshee](https://twitter.com/blankbanshee) has apparently been distinctly *Offline* as of late. When Bandcamp's Simon Chandler interviewed them about their last full release - *[MEGA](https://blankbanshee.bandcamp.com/album/mega)* - in 2016, he asked ""[will we have to wait another three years until the next Blank Banshee release](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2016/10/17/blank-banshee-interview/)?"" Banshee replied with a definitive ""no,"" and they were technically correct - it's 2 years, 9 months later and *[Metamorphosis](https://blankbanshee.bandcamp.com/album/metamorphosis-2)* has been on Bandcamp for two whole weeks. \n\nConsidering the lack of results my queries for reviews of the thing have returned so far, I thought it prudent to make you aware of its existence. I'm not even remotely qualified to assess vaporwave records, but if you have some thoughts you'd like to publish, I'd love it if you [dropped me a line](mailto:davidblue@extratone.com).\n\n#music #news" | |
| 1nl2qmmay959fyf2,colophon,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/colophon,2019-07-18T19:04:16Z,Colophon,"\n\n*Extratone* is proud to be hosted by [Write.as](http://write.as/about) - a new sort of blogging content management system built atop [Markdown](https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/) and maintained by a company which [explicitly shares](https://write.as/principles) our commitment to a better, Open web.\n\n[Write.as is the social media hater’s blogging platform](https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/write-as-is-the-social-media-hater-s-blogging-platform-1.3566923) | *The Irish Times*\n\n### Typography\n\n- [Lora](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Lora)\n- [Open Sans](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Open+Sans)\n- [Hack](http://sourcefoundry.org/hack/)\n\n### Colors\n\n- [#F7FF85](https://bilge.world/tag:F7FF85) — “Panic Urine”\n- [#272C30](https://colornames.org/color/272C30) — “Shunned Chaff”\n- [#00008B](https://www.colorbook.io/hexcolors/view/00008B) — “Dark Blue”\n- [#B7B7B7](https://colornames.org/color/B7B7B7) — “Gary”\n- [#62707c](https://colornames.org/color/62707c) — “Forlorn Fugue”\n\n" | |
| pf14jw57jn9v9lqt,other-people-philip-roth-american-pastoral,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/other-people-philip-roth-american-pastoral,2019-07-28T12:31:57Z,"Philip Roth, *American Pastoral*","You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at people without unreal expectations, without an overload of bias or hope or arrogance, as untanklike as you can be, sans cannon and machine guns and steel plating half a foot thick; you come at them unmenacingly on your own ten toes instead of tearing up the turf with your caterpillar treads, take them on with an open mind, as equals, man to man, as we used to say, and yet you never fail to get them wrong. You might as well have the *brain* of a tank. You get them wrong before you meet them, while you're anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you're with them; and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again. Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is really a dazzling illusion empty of all perception, an astonishing farce of misperception. And yet what are we to do about this terribly significant business of *other people*, which gets bled of the significance we think it has and takes on instead a significance that is ludicrous, so illequipped are we all to envision one another's interior workings and invisible aims? Is everyone to go off and lock the door and sit secluded like the lonely writers do, in a soundproof cell, summoning people out of words and then proposing that these word people are closer to the real thing than the real people that we mangle with our ignorance every day? The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that—well, lucky you.\n\n#quote" | |
| lsu4abbs5tvf76ps,david-blue-vine-video-montage,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/david-blue-vine-video-montage,2019-07-29T11:12:28Z,David Blue on Vine: The Platinum Collection,"<div style=""padding:56.25% 0 0 0;position:relative;""><iframe src=""https://player.vimeo.com/video/350714498?autoplay=1&color=ff401a&title=0&byline=0&portrait=0"" style=""position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"" frameborder=""0"" allow=""autoplay; fullscreen"" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><script src=""https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.js""></script>\n\nYes, I am still managing to waste my time digging up and re-arranging some *very* old content, but I just couldn't resist. Somehow, it didn't occur to me until yesterday evening that I could sort through the original video files of my old vines fairly easily in fucking Google Photos and blast them through iMovie for iOS into a full montage relatively easily. \n\nSome of these are very cringey... \n\nYes, I'd love to finally get around to my ultimate romantic editorialization on that most dearly departed social network, but things are way too jumbled right now, obviously.\n\n#meta #spectacle" | |
| viq6bw22fyqxbaof,open-web-living,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/open-web-living,2019-08-04T09:07:23Z,The Open Web Is Living and Lovely,"\n\n## A not altogether-cohesive review of July reads and research.\n\n<!--more-->\n\n**In case you're similarly long overdue for a reminder that beautiful things are still being made on the internet...**\n\nAfter nearly a year of relative sobriety from my old, once-severe addiction to Web Site hunting, it occurred to me just yesterday that some explicit wandering as I once did for days at a time - through the clever, innovative, and uniquely tasteful projects through which an astonishingly-original few give their whole thinking (and often physical) selves in obscurity despite how little financial (and often professional) incentive is maintained by those who unknowingly need it the most - might be the best feasible remedy to my current, most perplexing state of faithlessness and bafflement toward the ambitions of trades and cultures I feel I once so thoroughly understood. A great portion of you are surely undergoing your own manifestations of the same hopelessness - I cannot *ever* remember a time in my life when global events were so *utterly* discouraging so relentlessly. \n\n## Design and The Open Web\nIn this present when every element of American reality is so much more incessantly ugly than we could’ve ever imagined, let’s take at least a momentary respite to look at some visually irresistible and/or *super sick* Sites on the truly-resolute Open Web to assure our existential selves that *yes, beauty shall not cease to exist*. For better or worse, my #1 goto source to find innovative, delicious web design has always been *Typewolf*, who [announced last fall](https://www.typewolf.com/blog/goodbye-to-favorite-sites-posts) that he will not be continuing his “Site of the Month” section, though his relentless “[Site of the Day](https://www.typewolf.com/site-of-the-day)” roll will continue, unhindered.\n\n\n\n\n### Recent Discoveries\n\n**[Poolside.fm](http://poolside.fm)**\n""[Poolside.FM is a retro digital oasis for your summer](https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/26/8931651/poolside-fm-website-retro-summer-80s-soundcloud-playlist)"" | *The Verge*\n\n## Audio\nThose of us for whom the Podcast medium became a trusted and relatively regular one in our lives long before anyone figured out how to make a real business out of it - certainly *[eons](https://www.macworld.com/article/1048271/podcastword.html)* preceeding the original startup podcast-only (apparently [HBO-like](https://www.niemanlab.org/2015/07/gimlet-wants-to-become-the-hbo-of-podcasting-heres-what-its-founders-learned-trying-to-get-there/) publication - [Gimlet Media](https://observer.com/2015/02/gimlet-media/) - to be successfully launched. Now, though, your mom - perhaps even *her* mom - listens to podcasts, and what was once a The single Missouri alumni at *The Verge*, Ashley Carmen, **[explored the proliferation of podcasting](https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/19/20699360/podcasts-business-advertising-revenue-serial-apple-spotify-big-picture)** and the process by which it became profitable.\n\n> In 2009, only 11% of the U.S. population had listened to a podcast in the past month. \n[How podcasts became so popular](https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/19/20699360/podcasts-business-advertising-revenue-serial-apple-spotify-big-picture) | *The Verge* on YouTube\n\n<iframe width=""100%"" height=""166"" scrolling=""no"" frameborder=""no"" allow=""autoplay"" src=""https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/659798723&color=%2300006b&auto_play=true&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true""></iframe>\n\nWhilst trying out [Garageband for iOS’](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/garageband/id408709785) new sample packs, I sampled the [accompanying video](https://youtu.be/DvisTHAvaIE) to the article and produced [the best “track” I’ve ever made with the app](https://soundcloud.com/chordoslut/everyone-has-a-podcast-none-but-god-are-listening/s-ICt6x) (for whatever that’s worth.)\n\n*Speaking of* Gimlet Media: [the latest episode](https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/xjhx3l/146-summer-hotline) of my longtime favorite of their podcasts, *Reply All*, is a sort of condensed remake of [my favorite podcast episode of all time](https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/llhezj) (of any show, not just this one) in which hosts [Alex Goldman](https://twitter.com/AGoldmund) and [P.J. Vogt](https://twitter.com/PJVogt)maintained an open telephone line for 48 hours and spoke with a whole bunch of people (mostly Americans) about... whatever. The result was beautifully *human*, if you’ll forgive my use of the cliche. I tend to revisit it when I’m feeling particularly isolated from and/or confused about the general ambitions of the people around me. I’ll be honest: I didn’t pay much attention to my first listen through the new episode, but I can tell you that it is worth your time, at least.\n\nI was distraught when Spotify bought both the aforementioned Gimlet Media *and* [the social audio turned podcasting app Anchor](https://medium.com/anchor/anchor-is-joining-spotify-70356e3ac23f) - both of which I (rather ridiculously) felt a special personal ownership over. (The latter, especially, because they reached out to me early on to feature [*Extratone*’s channel](http://anchor.fm/extratone) on their music section.) However, it appears that both are being treated fairly well in the 18+ months since their acquisition - probably because [they’ve been making Spotify money](https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/31/20748337/spotify-earnings-q2-2019-podcasting-growth-users-subscribers).\n\n### Further Reading\n* [On And On And On: A Guide to Generative Electronic Music](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2019/07/19/generative-music-guide/) | *Bandcamp Daily*\n* [808](https://www.20k.org/episodes/808) | *Twenty Thousand Hertz*\n* [Listen to Her: Gender on This American Life](https://pudding.cool/2017/09/this-american-life/) | *The Pudding*\n\n## Other Favorites\n* [5,000 Top-Selling Book Covers, Arranged by Visual Similarity](https://pudding.cool/2019/07/book-covers/) | *The Pudding*\n* [A chronicle of the anti-vaccination movement](https://pudding.cool/2019/06/science_etc_2/) | *The Pudding*\n* [Review: Quentin Tarantino’s Obscenely Regressive Vision of the Sixties in “Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood”](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/review-quentin-tarantinos-obscenely-regressive-vision-of-the-sixties-in-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood) | *The New Yorker*\nI can’t believe Quentin Tarantino is still alive... [I would argue](https://twitter.com/neoyokel/status/1154894491075129344?s=21) that his existence has been entirely unnecessary.\n* [Why Are Right-Wing Conspiracies so Obsessed With Pedophilia?](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/why-are-right-wing-conspiracies-so-obsessed-with-pedophilia/) | *Mother Jones*\n* [Microsoft Teams overtakes Slack with 13 million daily users](https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/11/20689143/microsoft-teams-active-daily-users-stats-slack-competition) | *The Verge*\n* [The Lingering of Loss, by Jill Lepore](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/08/the-lingering-of-loss) | *The New Yorker*\n* [After Nearly Five Years, I’m Saying Goodbye to My Favorite Sites of the Month Blog Posts](https://www.typewolf.com/blog/goodbye-to-favorite-sites-posts) | *Typewolf*\n* [Killed By Crossovers: The Volkswagen Golf SportWagen and Golf Alltrack](https://jalopnik.com/killed-by-crossovers-the-volkswagen-golf-sportwagen-an-1836447514) | *Jalopnik*\n* [German schools ban Microsoft Office 365 amid privacy concerns](https://thenextweb.com/privacy/2019/07/15/german-schools-ban-microsoft-office-365-amid-privacy-concerns/) | *TheNextWeb*\n\n#software" | |
| 75f1763kfwrg00xj,crossing-church-digital-worship,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/crossing-church-digital-worship,2019-08-04T21:00:00Z,"Digitizing the Soluble Protestant: Apple, Inc. & The Megachurch Industry","\n\n## Askeptical spectacle in the day-to-day typhoon of Faith’s modern enterprise.\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<audio controls>\n <source src=""https://davidblue.wtf/audio/applechurch.mp3"">\n</audio>\n\nThe year I was given my first generation iPhone was the last of 14 through which my mother was still comfortable enforcing my obligation to attend Sunday morning church service. She and my stepfather had migrated 18 months or so prior from [Suburban Church of Mediocre Dope Christ-Appropriated Lukewarm Diluted Prog Rock and The Occasional Teachings of Protestant-ish Side-Glances at The New Testament] to the [*New York Times*-appointed champion](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/movies/how-the-true-false-film-festival-and-a-church-work-together.html) of Columbia Missouri’s [20-Year-Long](https://www.komu.com/news/mega-church-growth/) *Quirk the Church!* Sovereignty Crusade: *The Crossing*. Like its competitors (of which my parents’ previous church had ranked quite poorly,) the blatantly death-cult-sounding House of God includes its own artisanal, latte-equipped coffee shop (I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s *actually* a Starbucks affiliate at this point,) a regularly-replenished catering table full of doughnuts immediately to the side as one enters, and a sophisticated childcare operation staffed no less thoroughly than my public elementary school.\n\nSince 2007, the church has been expanding from its first home (as a functional place of worship, anyway,) which lies within 1) line-of-sight from one of [Nancy Walton](https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/dance/2013/7/31/nancy-walton-laurie-ballets-next-best-friend.html)’s properties, 2) a mile of the southernmost exit off US-63 - mid-Missouri’s primary North⟺South roadway - and includes a powered pump-arrogated pond, though the majority of the acreage is blackened by pragmatically-arrayed big box store-caliber multi-rowed parking. Ye, by night, it is flooded in coordinately-distributed cold white light suspended by the same uniform steel poles which guard long-term airport lots. Naturally, the entry and exit points for the asphalt spread are arranged deliberately opposed so that four figures’ worth of God’s children may be fed, digested, and evacuated through their weekly appointment with Christ as efficiently and *hassle-free* as possible.\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rhSDfm1ZEc\n\nGod’s ~white~ children become *especially* sensitive to entirely-trivial delay or other perceived deviation from Their Expectations when inside an automobile thanks to a rampant misconception that simultaneously allows them a renewed sense of control over their environment. Psychoanalytic observation has suggested it is catalyzed by delusions of physical anonymity, exemption from civic responsibility, and a titanically-inflated perception of their personally misattributed contributions to the perpetuation of the universe. This vehicular component of the customer experience is a fundamental ingredient in *The Crossing*’s stellar member retinenance record - the single metric above all quantifying a Christian organization’s overall effectiveness in accomplishing the faith’s (mostly cross-denominational) evangelistic Prime Directive / General Order Number One as [abridged by Christ himself](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+28%3A18-20&version=NIV) to the Pharisees after his resurrection: “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of [The Holy Trinity].” I did not take the opportunity to sample *The Crossing*’s baptismal services, but I’m sure sufficient combing of [the church’s Yelp! page](https://yelp.to/qTKq/U3zCk0HlEY) would yield as qualitative an analysis of such a “service” as you could possibly imagine. (Notably, it would appear the “lowest” review is [the singular 4/5 star entry](https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-crossing-columbia?hrid=1iW1Q9KCi9WlM3mDzNFvKw&utm_source=ishare).)\n\nI do not mean to disparage *The Crossing*, specifically nor even organized religion, generally, but instead to emphasize the absurdities which have leapt just as readily into what I’d specifically call *The Business* of white protestant Christianity over just the course of my own maturation as it has into any other aspect of our lives. The difference, of course, is the universal set of exceptions - and the particular *age* of said exceptions - which religion maintains, societally. The perspective formed by my own experiences having grown up wholly embedded across the spectrum of white midwestern Christianity - including two years of vigorous and quite academic study of the Bible in a tiny private school headquartered in the basement of a Lutheran church - lends to a particular skepticism, amusement, horror, offense, and existential astonishment that latches my fascination into a not-entirely-voluntary hold. \n\n(Before I go on, I suppose I should also note that it’s been at least two or three years since I last set foot inside the church building at all - my *only* recent experiences/engagement with *The Crossing* has been with their digital content from a relative distance.)\n\n\n\n\nThe ludicrous parallels between Apple events and services at *The Crossing*, especially, come immediately to mind every single time I watch one (live or otherwise,) as they did just weeks ago when I first engaged with [this summer’s WWDC keynote](https://youtu.be/psL_5RIBqnY). Pastors [Dave Cover](https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/dave-cover/), [Keith Simon](https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/keith-simon/), and [Shay Roush](https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/shay-roush/) all look, dress, speak, and photograph *exactly* like Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, Scott Foristell, Jony Ive, and just about any [public-facing leadership figure](https://www.apple.com/leadership/) we’ve ever seen giving an Apple Keynote. They’re hilariously interchangeable, as are other explicit aspects of the typical Sunday morning service at *The Crossing*. As far as I can tell, the church as a whole *only* uses Mac computers and the projections in the main auditorium/worship hall - mostly sing-along hymn lyrics and referenced bible verses - are exclusively created through Apple’s office presentation software, Keynote, just as the company itself does for its “Keynotes.” This was immediately obvious to me upon first entering that space because **they both use the default theme** - typography, color palette, transition animations and all. Indeed, during the sermons, the three pastors would take command of the slides by fairly inconspicuously clicking what I’d imagine must be a very sweaty Apple Remote in the *exact* same manner in which Tim Cook and his underlings still do.\n\n**I JUST REMEMBERED DAVE EXPLICITLY USING MENTION OF APPLE PRODUCTS IN HIS SERMONS**\n\n\n\nNay, the likenesses do not diverge when comparing the fundamentals of the two organizations more broadly: *The Business* of the faith is very much a *volume* business, which also describes Apple’s contemporary strategy with perfect precision. It’s been a few years since “[ecosystem](https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2014/06/03/apple-isnt-a-hardware-or-software-company-its-an-ecosystem-company/)” ceased to be an [exhaustive buzzword](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US&tz=300&date=today+5-y&q=apple+ecosystem&sni=3) in tech media discourse, perhaps because the term falls very short in expressing the change in global Apple **scale**. My recollection of high school biology has failed to produce a scientific substitute, but I find Matt Honan’s “[very lovely swamp](https://www.wired.com/2014/09/apple-ecosystem/)” exceptionally said in 2014, but the fact of the swamp’s becoming generally lovelier in the interim - in a less linear fashion than would have been ideal, mind you - leaves ample room, I think, to fear and respect whatever it was that we then called *The Apple Ecosystem* in 2014 as a **ruling deity or daemon** (just as [Google’s sought to be](https://extratone.com/google-soul-ledger-dont-be-evil), recently.)\n\n\nhttps://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/825951279910440960\n\n\nThe church [live streams](https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/livestream/) every fucking ~~keynote~~ sermon in HD on *Vimeo*, not *YouTube*. (I had no idea Vimeo offered “[professional streaming services](https://vimeo.com/features/livestreaming)” until this moment.) They have a **[fucking iOS app](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-crossing/id436071694)** (apparently developed by an outfit called [Subsplash](http://www.subsplash.com), who had the audacity to include analytics meta tags following the *root of their website* within the in-app attribution button) which features a calendar-bound tool containing full-text preparatory reading material from scripture, on-demand audio and video recordings \n\n\n\nI genuinely wonder quite often if the individual who set the digital template for the sign in front of our Portland neighborhood's Episcopalian church paused to look at the text he was arranging: “PRAYER REQUESTS BY EMAIL.” I'm not sure any of this really means anything, but it's sure spectacular to look at. \n\n#spectacle #software" | |
| 0ee0f2s3r86yqk6r,links,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/links,2019-08-05T23:31:32Z,David Blue Master Link Index,\n\n------\n\nhttp://extratone.com/\nhttp://bilge.world\nhttp://asphaltapostle.tumblr.com/\nhttps://davidblue.bandcamp.com/\nhttps://bandcamp.com/davidblue\nhttp://vk.com/davidblue\nhttps://500px.com/NeoYokel\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Extratone\nhttps://facebook.com/asphaltapostle\nhttps://flickr.com/davidblue\nhttps://imgur.com/user/NeoYokel\nhttps://getpocket.com/@extratone\nhttps://github.com/neoyokel\nhttps://instagram.com/asphaltapostle\nhttps://linkedin.com/in/cyberyokel\nhttps://medium.com/@NeoYokel\nhttps://open.spotify.com/user/12186620218\nhttps://open.audio/@DavidBlue \nhttps://snapchat.com/add/mommilitia\nhttps://soundcloud.com/chordoslut\nhttps://twitter.com/NeoYokel\nhttps://vimeo.com/extratone\nhttps://vine.co/asphaltapostle\nhttps://www.imdb.com/name/extratone\nhttps://www.last.fm/user/Crazyhooligin\nhttps://www.twitch.tv/Dieselgoth\nhttps://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=seYjUMcixeGvpOehekSOXg\nhttps://youtube.com/extratone\nhttps://peertube.live/accounts/extratone/videos\nhttps://pixelfed.social/Davidblue\nhttps://pleroma.tilde.zone/b\nhttps://tilde.zone/@b\nhttps://writing.exchange/@b\nhttps://diasp.org/public/davidblue\nhttp://davidblue@diasp.org/\nhttp://fedigram.social/davidblue\nhttp://mastodon.social/@DavidBlue\nhttp://mastodon.technology/@DavidBlue\nhttp://radical.town/@DavidBlue\nhttp://toot.cafe/@DavidBlue\nhttp://www.extratone.com/tech/mastodon/\nhttps://baptiste.gelez.xyz/@/davidblue/\nhttps://dolphin.town/@e_4030\nhttps://expshift.com/@b\nhttps://fosstodon.org/@DavidBlue\nhttps://github.com/Plume-org/Plume\nhttps://linuxrocks.online/@blue\nhttps://mastd.racing/@blue | |
| b4t9rvi4y23lye5y,saint-pepsi-mannequin-challenge-vaporwave-futurefunk,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/saint-pepsi-mannequin-challenge-vaporwave-futurefunk,2019-08-28T01:00:00Z,Identity Thief Releases Sentimental Vapordisco Album Credited to SAINT PEPSI,"#### by [David Blue](http://twitter.com/neoyokel)\n\n\n\n## Counterfeit record *Mannequin Challenge* proves to be a lively, heartfelt reflection for cassettehype lovers.\n\nIn a surprising turn of events, an anonymous actor uploaded, metatagged, and published **[a fabulous futuredisco tape](https://saintpepsi.bandcamp.com/album/mannequin-challenge)** this evening on [the official Bandcamp page](https://saintpepsi.bandcamp.com) owned by the KEATs-affiliated Groove Guru using stolen credentials. SAINT PEPSI (now Skyler Spence) himself [revealed the breach on Twitter](https://twitter.com/skylar__spence/status/1166454251926773760) just before the end of workday on the coast, disclaiming ""SOMEONE HACKED THE SAINT PEPSI BANDCAMP AND PUT UP A NEW ALBUM! NOT ME.""\n\n<blockquote class=""twitter-tweet"" data-conversation=""none"" data-dnt=""true"" data-link-color=""#00006B""><p lang=""en"" dir=""ltr"">This album was inspired by the feeling I got when I found out 100% ElectroniCON sold out in under an hour. I was on the way to see my brother graduate from college. We all know how college was for me. It was a wonderful weird circle of events and it made me want to live.</p> <a href=""https://twitter.com/skylar__spence/status/1166456867385696256"">@skylar__spence</a> </blockquote> <script async src=""https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"" charset=""utf-8""></script>\n\nAt press time, it is unknown how long the account's security has remained compromised, nor how long the release will remain live. The investigative process so far has been hindered severely by effects voluminous playback of the work itself has had on staff in our newsroom. \n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=3124362558/size=large/bgcol=f7ff85/linkcol=00006B/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=896986995/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://saintpepsi.bandcamp.com/album/mannequin-challenge"">Mannequin Challenge by SAINT PEPSI</a></iframe>\n\nSkyler Spence has been often (quite-cringely) credited by music journalists and bloggers as their [introduction to vaporwave](http://web.archive.org/web/20150105035916/http://www.liveforthefunk.com/spreads/post/unearthed-saint-pepsi-hit-vibes/), which was hilarious in the moment, yes, but in fact represents one of the first [puncture events into mainstream music media discourse](https://www.gq.com/story/skylar-spence-interview-prom-king) for the precious Twitter and generally net-born community of truly boundary-pushing electronic musicians for whom this magazine was created.\n\n> Saint Pepsi is in many ways the apotheosis of blog disco, this wave of young musicians poring over the internet for samples of classic smooth electro-funk from 1980-84 to turn, via Ableton, into new works of nostalgic yet somehow future-perfect art.\n> -""[New band of the week: Saint Pepsi](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/sep/05/saint-pepsi-new-band-of-the-week)"" | *The Guardian*\n\nLike its attributed creator, *Mannequin Challenge* is very special and far more substantial than we've come to expect from the futurefunk sound: it's imbued through and through with *real sentiment* - and **why shouldn't it be**? In reflection, the role of cultural ambassadorship is as surreal (read: absurd) as it is spectacular.\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1373394289/size=large/bgcol=f7ff85/linkcol=00006b/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=1186647246/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://keatscollective.bandcamp.com/album/hit-vibes"">Hit Vibes by SAINT PEPSI</a></iframe>\n\nIf you'd told me that Pepsico had discovered SAINT PEPSI and threatened him with copyright law in the years post-high school when I was first introduced to the like purveyors of the sound, I would've heard it as a hypothetical (and died laughing.) However, the shit *did* occur in 2015: in a [hilarious internet micro-controversy](http://diymag.com/2015/01/15/saint-pepsi-changes-name-to-skylar-spence), SAINT PEPSI *really was* pressured - under the threat of legal action, one assumes - to change his name. ([My own little experience](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/860239756743004160) confirmed that Pepsi had no patience for contemporary humor.) As an ancient relic of a American brand punished him, though, another no-less-surprising one - none other than *GQ Fucking Magazine* - would celebrate him as ""[Pop Music's New Disco Whiz Kid](https://www.gq.com/story/skylar-spence-interview-prom-king).""\n\nI don't know the whole story, but I'm comfortable declaring in the now: *Mannequin Challenge* represents a sincerely touching gift for those of us who've been listening. Or that is... **It certainly would were it not the product of digital hijacking and therefore <u>completely inattributable</u>, legally, to SAINT PEPSI.**\n\n------\n\n**<u>Favorite track</u>**: ""**Mr. Wonderful, pt. 2**"" (Bonus track requiring download/purchase on Bandcamp)\n\n#music" | |
| fpqz4fcfmpa7p1yq,five-star-hotel-gray-data-cassette-release,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/five-star-hotel-gray-data-cassette-release,2020-01-30T04:21:39Z,Five Star Hotel Dubs Reissued Edition of 2014's 'Gray Data' ,"#### by [David Blue](http://twitter.com/neoyokel)\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 350px; height: 786px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=6519636/size=large/bgcol=f7ff85/linkcol=00006b/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://fivestarhotel.bandcamp.com/album/gray-data-deluxxx"">Gray Data Deluxxx by Five Star Hotel</a></iframe>\n\n<blockquote class=""twitter-tweet""><p lang=""en"" dir=""ltr"">you can officially dl+preorder the tape for the new 2020 edition of my 2014 album ' GRAY DATA ', including 2 previously unreleased bonus trax from 2014 & some updated tape art since last time around. <br>& thx to <a href=""https://twitter.com/BluelightTapes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"">@BluelightTapes</a> for the dubbing/printing :)<a href=""https://t.co/NzljaenAft"">https://t.co/NzljaenAft</a> <a href=""https://t.co/BWjoLv9QKR"">pic.twitter.com/BWjoLv9QKR</a></p>— 🕷️ melanie 💻 (@fivexhotel) <a href=""https://twitter.com/fivexhotel/status/1222590256375107590?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"">January 29, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=""https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"" charset=""utf-8""></script>\n\n> Originally released in 2014 on Visual Disturbances, now reissued for the first time since. Presented to you with 2 bonus tracks, one cut from the original album and one produced shortly after its release.\n\n**[Preorder *Gray Data Deluxxx* now on Bandcamp](https://fivestarhotel.bandcamp.com/album/gray-data-deluxxx)**.\n\n#music" | |
| txnasxxfu85fprhf,you-will-listen-to-this-playlist,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/you-will-listen-to-this-playlist,2020-02-09T23:59:40Z,You Will Listen to This Playlist,"#### by [David Blue](http://twitter.com/neoyokel)\n\n## C̸ ̵O̷ ̴N̵ ̶T̸ ̵A̵ ̴C̶ ̵T̴ is my best (and only, really) recent contribution of worth and I guarantee you will gain something from listening.\n\n<iframe allow=""autoplay *; encrypted-media *;"" frameborder=""0"" height=""450"" style=""width:100%;max-width:660px;overflow:hidden;background:transparent;"" sandbox=""allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"" src=""https://embed.music.apple.com/us/playlist/c-o-n-t-a-c-t/pl.u-oZylavgspbBNgA""></iframe>\n\n## On [Apple Music](http://bit.ly/toucheddb)\n\n<iframe width=""100%"" height=""450"" scrolling=""no"" frameborder=""no"" allow=""autoplay"" src=""https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/playlists/982100401&color=%2300006b&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true""></iframe>\n\n## On [SoundCloud](https://soundcloud.com/chordoslut/sets/c-o-n-t-a-c-t)\n\n<iframe vsrc=""https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/2amoV4nVW3epcxDZXW18nW"" width=""300"" height=""380"" frameborder=""0"" allowtransparency=""true"" allow=""encrypted-media""></iframe>\n\n## On Spotify. **http://bit.ly/dbtouched**\n\n## On [YouTube Music](http://bit.ly/dbytouched)\n\n<div style=""position: relative; padding-bottom: 100%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%;""><iframe src=""https://embed.tidal.com/playlists/c1cf2f19-cf4d-4edb-b2db-0e23b19bfe15?layout=gridify"" frameborder=""0"" allowfullscreen style=""position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 1px; min-height: 100%; margin: 0 auto;""></iframe></div>\n\n## On [Tidal](http://bit.ly/dbtidal).\n\n## On [Pandora](http://bit.ly/pandoradb).\n#music" | |
| k3ikw1hoj28q2338,porsche-911-rsr-extratone-racing-livery,chaff,https://chaff.writeas.com/porsche-911-rsr-extratone-racing-livery,2020-03-19T01:59:23Z,Porsche 911 RSR Extratone Racing Livery,"## I'm getting better at replicating this one look, at least.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n#gtsport #liveries" | |
| yxx89uqlooncckwm,three-years-of-good-reads,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/three-years-of-good-reads,2020-04-06T13:44:59Z,Three Years of Good Reads,"#### by [David Blue](http://twitter.com/neoyokel)\n\n## Looking back on the Extratone Reading List\n\n\n\nSince the beginning of *Extratone*, I've done my best to consolidate important reads of my own into our publicly-available **[reading list channel](http://bit.ly/extraread)** on Discord, which has also served as a place for others to share their favorite links as well. Using the [Discord chat exporter](https://github.com/Tyrrrz/DiscordChatExporter), I've created an **[HTML file](http://bit.ly/extraread42020)** of the channel's entire history as of today (4-6-2020). \n\nI'll be posting some of my all-time favorites from the past few years in [this Twitter thread](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1247152287379861504).\n\n<blockquote class=""twitter-tweet tw-align-center""><p lang=""en"" dir=""ltr"">here is the entire history of the Extratone reading list as of today in HTML format. literally years of good reads! <a href=""https://t.co/8wFoiDE7SU"">https://t.co/8wFoiDE7SU</a></p>— David Blue (@NeoYokel) <a href=""https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1247152287379861504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"">April 6, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=""https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"" charset=""utf-8""></script>" | |
| tmj85dvzk7jy3c3g,2019-volkswagen-atlas-sel-vr6-review,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/2019-volkswagen-atlas-sel-vr6-review,2020-04-12T05:56:50Z,2019 Volkswagen Atlas Review,"![[2019 Volkwagen Atlas SEL w/4MOTION]](https://i.snap.as/XzLvAnV.jpg)\n\n## VW's Jumbo new offering is titanic to live with and genuinely amusing to drive, but is it a condescending German prank on America?\n\n<!--more-->\n\nUpon meeting an elderly recently immigrated German friend of my mother's for the first time yesterday, she exclaimed *He looks German!... and so tall!* Both of these compliments were *relatively* true, but certainly not extremely. I am more German-looking than not, perhaps. Supposedly, I am half a product of a very large family whose elders are only one and two generations from German royalty - my legal last name is on a state sign in front of a small black castle somewhere in *Der Vaterland*. I slacked through two years of high school German language classes - Frau Rosa once took me aside to ask *you’re not going to shoot up the school or anything, right?* (Sorry Frau & peers.) Though my much-older half siblings grew up mostly in the town of Schweinfurt, I have never actually set foot in Germany, yet I’ve come to identify with and admire its culture enough to (perhaps unjustly or inappropriately) feel comfortable joking about Deutsche peculiarities as vain self-mockery.\n\n<iframe width=""auto"" height=""auto"" src=""https://www.youtube.com/embed/REchJ_BD5G0?controls=0"" frameborder=""0"" allow=""accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture"" allowfullscreen></iframe>\n\nDespite all of this (carefully nationalism-free) affection, the real truth of myself is an American one. I have long since broached the point of no return: no matter how hard I might try, I would never be able to mold the Me another perceives in such a way that I’d become observably German-native. I’m just a midwestern boy with a Germanic name on his paperwork, and therefore have more in common with Volkswagen’s newish entry into the *dramatically* different full-size Sport Utility Vehicle segment. The Atlas bears a [remarkably good name](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-17/what-s-in-an-suv-name-redemption-with-u-s-consumers-vw-hopes) (annoyingly, [literally everyone's reviews](https://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/9083/the-2018-volkswagen-atlas-finally-solves-vws-america-problem) seem to begin with a comment on how *decipherable* the new name is for Americans) - especially among new automotive products introduced to market in recent memory. Honda’s *Clarity* **should** be clever alongside the definitively 21st-century *Insight* marque, but violates an unfortunately universal law in the industry: never name a car for a *state of being* (Introducing the New 2020 Honda *Ambiguity* [*Insolence*, *Fugue*, *Debacle*, *Setback*]) ~especially~ one so obtusely irrelevant to the product itself. *Insight* comes from a chat with a colleague over coffee, but *Clarity* is a metaphysical, zealous plane that sounds our ever-inadequate platitude alarms in a very unsettling manner. *Um... Is Honda doing okay?* It not only ends up irritating and off-putting: after Hannah’s season of *The Bachelorette*, it’s just dumb, lazy, and foul.\n\n> After decades of trying to force Yankees into models that many found too small, VW has figured it out: Big-ass SUVs are what Americans want, and the Atlas is designed around the biggest asses you can imagine.\n\nIn contrast, the fucking Nissan *Kicks* ages so swiftly and uncomfortably that it’s pitifully tacky before it even hits the lot, which is particularly disappointing considering the most cleverly bestowed *Juke* name was. One marvels at the situation Nissan has found itself in: *young American black men love our brand, but they also love shoes!* Atlas, though, is on par with Honda’s *Odyssey* inspirationally, though a smidge more grounded through the distinctly Earthen science of topography, just as it should be. Originally billed as a replacement for [VW’s Routan minivan](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/09/23/vw-routan-suv-crossblue/2856593/), the three-row Atlas is Volkswagen’s newest bid for the Panic Room-loving American parent demographic. Therefore, it’s crucial for us to examine it thoroughly for [any signs of condescension](https://www.businessinsider.com/vw-atlas-crossover-suv-review-2017-11) from the Germans and their brand “whose business in the US is built on providing small, fun-to-drive cars like the Golf, the Beetle, the Jetta, and the Passat.”\n\n> From our perspective, what we have here is a German take on the American family SUV. A Ford Explorer by way of Wolfsburg, if you will. Well, sort of. The Atlas is actually built in Chattanooga, Tennessee alongside the Passat sedan.\n\nUnavoidably, the most notable, remarkable, and extraordinary item to note about the Atlas is simply that **it is fucking fat**. Just about any review you watch or read will mention this. Even *CNET* calls theirs ""[a very broad boy](https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/reviews/2019-volkswagen-atlas-review/)."" After I first read the number - **5997 lbs.** - I was never able to escape it throughout the entirety of my time with it. ***Three tons*** is unbelievably, inexcusably, violently, hopelessly heavy. *Hopelessly* not because it stands out in its segment, but that [*it does not*](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/457289420174000150/698509904629202996/2017_Vehicles_with_GVW_over_6000_lbs.pdf). Obesity is still a problem in America, but it's our automobiles now. While we continue to worship safety and fuel economy together, we skew the triangle (the other side is performance) further and further, and yes – a good portion of the blame can be placed on [our obsession with SUVs](https://www.npr.org/2016/05/09/477301486/why-americans-are-buying-more-trucks-and-suvs-than-cars). I spent 2018 driving a 1976 Lincoln Continental Mk. IV around - the second-longest two-door car ever sold at 228.1 inches from its pointed nose to its massive ass. Despite being a full *thirty inches longer* than the 2019 Atlas, my 460-powered mammoth yacht weighed some 700 pounds *less*, and it was filled with *real wood*. I'm no expert in physics by any means, but I can tell you that every pound has [expounding effects](https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/sites/www.nrcan.gc.ca/files/oee/pdf/transportation/fuel-efficient-technologies/autosmart_factsheet_16_e.pdf) on the energy required to move, turn, and stop a vehicle, which just about sums up the ultimate formula to [pulverize efficiency](https://www.autoblog.com/2009/10/29/greenlings-how-does-weight-affect-a-vehicles-efficiency). When our friends at the IIHS say that ""fuel economy can be improved without sacrificing safety,"" they are just... **fundamentally wrong**, (though *technically* correct.)\n\nI'm not entirely sure why the Atlas weighs so much, but its mass is inevitably a major variable in just about every facet of its experience as a product. The best potential hoot to be had from it as a driving device should be sought by ordering it to shuffle briskly on curving country blacktops in Sport Mode with all the assists (save for lane-keeping) *on*. Not to be too crude, but it's fun to make the fat fucker run. Through your ass, you can feel the suspension squirm and struggle to redirect all [266 lb.-ft. of VR6 oomf between 4 wheels](https://www.motortrend.com/cars/volkswagen/atlas/2018/2018-volkswagen-atlas-se-long-term-update-1-review/) beneath an entirely separate war against the physics of such top-heavy body roll.\n\n*Scrambling* is definitely the correct verb. Pleasantly light steering in Comfort Mode (where I'd advise you leave it in virtually any situation) combined with a supple-ish ride from multilink suspension provide a trace of a past luxury sentiment not unlike the energy exhibited by my old Connie through and through. It's all about the sensation of **power**. Not in the horse sense, but in the satisfaction achieved from the manipulation of maximum mass with minimum effort. Comparatively, the level of actual ego-stroking is of course quite miniscule, and unfortunately, it is the numbness that is most noticeably left over with very little gain.\n\nAlso unfortunate: I did not end up making the opportunity to truly test whatever offroad capabilities the Atlas may posses in any sort of formalized test. My example came with Hill Descent Control and Hill Start Assist, and I was able to find a small hill just steep enough to [trigger the former](https://youtu.be/REchJ_BD5G0?t=232). I cannot say I'd put my money on the Atlas winning the Dakar as it is, but we now know it can handle wet grass on a mild incline. What about county road gravel? Realistically, these are the two extremes 99% of Atlas' will ever face in their usable service lives. I found an entirely quiet section of back rock road and [walked through the steps](https://youtu.be/REchJ_BD5G0?t=321) to disable all of the traction and stability control assists before stomping on the throttle, but was unable to provoke any significant wheelspin. In [an episode of *Autoline After Hours*](https://www.spreaker.com/user/autoline/aah-382-can-the-atlas-lift-volkswagen_3), Michael Loveti (Vice President, Product Line Mid/Full-Size, Volkswagen Group of America, Inc.) confirms the drivetrain *really is* **all-time all-wheel-drive**, (though the dual exhaust ports in the rear are [unfortunately fake](https://youtu.be/wCTUgQ-X4mw?t=395),) and that the Atlas is actually based on [the MQB platform](https://www.motortrend.com/news/explaining-volkswagen-mqb-architecture/), which is astonishing. Prospective buyers should definitely have a listen.\n\n<iframe src=""https://widget.spreaker.com/player?episode_id=17362733&theme=light&autoplay=false&playlist=false"" width=""100%"" height=""200px"" frameborder=""0""></iframe>\n\nThis theme of ""thoroughly German, yet somehow distinctly Americanized"" occurs [over](https://www.digitaltrends.com/car-reviews/2019-volkswagen-atlas-review) and [over](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/04/the-volkswagen-atlas-reviewed-a-peoples-wagon-for-the-american-people/) and [over](https://www.consumerreports.org/suvs/2018-volkswagen-atlas-suv-first-drive-review) and [over](https://youtu.be/wCTUgQ-X4mw?t=444) again in the Atlas' story. Its horizontal lines match both the Jetta and Ford's Explorer. In that way, surely it is a success. I cannot imagine a better execution of its marque's directives as stated by Mr. Loveti than what I drove.\n\n> Cover the Volkswagen logo and you might think the Atlas was made by someone else. The hard lines and boxy shape are a sharp departure from the rest of the VW lineup. But look at its competitors here in the states, especially the Ford Explorer. It’s almost like Volkswagen tried to build its own Ford with the Atlas.\n\n> Even though it has been on the market for only a year, the Atlas had become VW's second-most-popular car in the German automaker's lineup in March 2018, showing that the American car-buying public's thirst for crossovers and SUVs remains unslaked.\n\n### Place in The Segment\n\nThe only other modern SUVs I've spent significant time with was the Range Rover Evoque I crashed and the VW Tiguan I reluctantly borrowed (and had [absolutely nothing](https://twitter.com/search?q=""Tiguan"" %40neoyokel&src=typed_query&f=live) to say about,) so my authority in comparing the Atlas with its competitors is severely lacking. However, I can at least send you the way of *Regular Car Reviews*' [Roman reviewing his mother's Ford Explorer](https://youtu.be/Dij6fkrOSfs), *Business Insider*'s [direct comparison between their long termer Atlas and the Explorer](https://youtu.be/Dij6fkrOSfs), or *Cars.com*'s [vs. the new Subaru Ascent](https://www.cars.com/articles/subaru-ascent-vs-volkswagen-atlas-the-family-suv-feud-begins-1420700698096/). *Car & Driver* also [compared the Atlas to the intriguing Kia Telluride](https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/comparison-test/a27354538/2020-kia-telluride-vs-2019-volkswagen-atlas/).\n\n> In the splitting of already fine hairs, it's the new Telluride that makes a stronger case over the Atlas, thanks to its price advantage, its plush and thoughtful appointments, and its slightly more comfortable third-row.\n\n## The Passive Safety Fairytale\n\n**Define**: [Active safety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_safety)\n\n**Freedom through security**. In truth, neurotypical people are naturally driven to minimize risk, yet also to romanticize the sick, inhibitionless madmen - to envy them both internally and externally (in a most restrained way.) Collectively, our authority in (or mastery of) risktaking remains pathetically irrational. If we were to itemize our ability to asses risk into a sixth physical sense, it would rank just as poorly against the rest of the world's creatures (or perhaps neck-and-neck with those of the squirrel or the deer.)\n\nSo many struggles of the too-often-cited ""Human Condition"" are grounded in the incompetence of this sense. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that risktakers in general are a very special topic amid The Middle Class - those who occasionally find themselves atop *just* enough excess to call it ""capital."" This equates in day-to-day life as only the most potent - yet almost entirely inert next to the cushion of multi-millionaires - subject, catalyst, and indicator of dire fret. By far the most widespread affectation of this petty affliction spreads like divine wrath over the upper forty percent of this Middle Class. Thus, we must ask ourselves *how safe doth the Atlas make me feel*?\n\n\n\n### Inside\n\nMy Atlas’ interior was finished in Titan Black Leatherette, which sounds both grandiose and a bit like a kink. ""Volkswagen is known for good build quality and tight-feeling interiors,"" [writes Danny Geraghty](https://www.auto123.com/en/car-reviews/2019-volkswagen-atlas-review/65887/) for *Auto123*, ""but I found I was encountering just a bit too much hard plastic, making for a somewhat dated feel."" Perhaps my loaner was less worn in because neither I nor my girlfriend found anything wrong with the Atlas’ interior quality – even after bombing gravel roads to the point of sustaining a left-rear puncture, we did not encounter any annoying squeaks or rattles. She spent an entire afternoon sleeping in the passenger’s seat reclined and described it as “comfy.” For [*The Car Connection*](https://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1109777_2018-volkswagen-atlas-first-drive-super-sized), Senior Editor Andrew Ganz writes:\n\n> It’s not much to behold, with a chunky shape as conservative as they come that is not offset by a distinct lack of flair inside. Instead, the Atlas is quietly competent and exceptionally good at carrying seven humans—even seven adults.\n\nStandard with the SEL trim is Volkswagen’s “Digital Cockpit” instrument panel, which I like much more than I expected to, though its color options are already dated and [unfortunately unchangeable](https://www.periscope.tv/AsphaltApostle/1nAKEZmYpQOGL?t=4m12s). Ageability is an inevitable issue with these sorts of bespoke graphic design decisions automakers are making now, but at least you’ll be able to tell your friends that your Volkswagen has a digital dashboard “just like the Rolls-Royce Phantom,” which is, of course, the ultimate Queen of timelessness in the industry. Perhaps it’s telling that the only layout I found acceptable for the digital dash was the one with simulated analog needles for the tach and speedo, and how often do you *really* use a compass in day-to-day driving? For that matter, how useful could a digital compass in the speedometer’s center hub really be in an “offroad” situation? It’s a bit petty, but I also really despise the typeface shared across the instruments and infotainment system. It’s just… bad.\n\n\n\n### Outside\n\nIn Platinum Gray Metallic, the Atlas looks authoritative enough in a very ordinary way. Unless you’re on the lookout for one, you’d hardly notice it, and you certainly wouldn’t expect what you see to cost as much as it does. That is why I’d prefer *any* one of the [other exterior finishes](https://web.archive.org/save/https:/www.elginvw.com/blog/what-colors-does-the-2019-volkswagen-atlas-come-in/), especially (in order): Pure White, Tourmaline Blue Metallic, Pacific Blue Metallic, and Fortana Red. The real wonder is how VW managed to execute a seven-seat SUV with its existing design language. Though the Atlas is by far Volkswagen’s largest vehicle, it fits neatly within their lineup.\n\n<iframe style=""border: solid 1px #dedede;"" src=""https://app.stitcher.com/splayer/f/52690/50908015"" width=""220"" height=""150"" frameborder=""0"" scrolling=""no""></iframe>\n\n## Road Rage\n\nMy only authentic Road Rage experience in some 5000 miles of rideshare driving occurred on All Hallow's Eve when I stopped - no more illegally than usual - on the opposite corner from a popular downtown Mexican restaurant called The Nap with hazards and all courtesy interior lights shining. The car immediately behind me hesitated no more than necessary, but the Biggest Big Infiniti behind them (a QX80 - the Atlas' competitor) just... stopped. There was honking and frenzied, hoarse screaming of *what the fuck are you doing?* and such.\n\nI responded with pleasantly amused but relatively-encouraging glances at the impersonal black mass of the Infiniti's windshield through my mirrors. I rolled down the Atlas' driver's side window and politely gestured that they go around me, but failed to coax any movement whatsoever from the ugly behemoth through at least two full cycles of the nearby traffic light. There must be some aquatic authority in the bulbous black ass of the QX80, for no one behind it seemed willing to pass either. The driver waited significantly longer than you'd imagine before emerging, huffy. She was wearing a classic poofy black North Face vest some sort of slate gray turtleneck. Nothing below these were stimulating enough to retain any memory of. *Uggs?*\n\nHow positive are *you* that the truth has absolutely zero consequence: contrasted silver-beige eyeliner and little eye contact, dirty-ish straight blonde hair over a spray-tanned face, exhibiting zero anxious tics or hesitation. She was obviously the New Matriarch, and she was obviously *much* more of an authority on traffic law than I. As she approached, she scanned the street as one naturally does when they enter a busy one... except it was completely empty, thanks to her blockade. She first informed me that I was ""not *supposed*"" to be stopped there. I tried to listen and respond with as much sincerity as possible as I realized all at once that my behavior had genuinely *perturbed* this woman - that her choice to leave the huge hideous warmth of the guppy wagon to speak as humans to one another required great courage. \n\n\n\nI inserted the next logical question which I'd been screaming telepathically: *can you not get around me?* I began to pity her when I then saw in her face the distinct possibility that *going around* as a concept had not occurred to her whatsoever. She stuttered a wee bit in retorting ""I could go around, but I don't want to get a ticket."" Here, one of the most fascinating avenues of suburban psychology is explored: Guppy Mom is not being ingenuine with this expression, nor has she had an untoward experience with law enforcement, ever. Guppy Mom did know her excuse was bullshit - nobody has ever been written a traffic citation for carefully circumventing an obstacle in the road. Given the opportunity to interrogate this kernel of entirely uncompromising obedience to utterly delusional traffic law superstitions, I think we'd simply discover a life of unnaturally positive interactions with LEOs. We must conclude, then, that the source of her fear was either myself or the Atlas.\n\nGranted, to her I am still a *Young Man*, and am therefore instinctively programmed to believe myself more informed than literally everyone - even the very foundational architects of modern civilization. Her Stucco Highness may have felt a representative of these builders (edgy take: *she is in fact their servant*.) Her own folks surely complain regularly about their distaste for disrespect, and my gig-economy, Austin Powers-looking ass was somehow disrespecting the order laid down by her would be (entirely fantastical) forefathers. Though her expression of her quaint fear of such ""ugliness"" (if you will) is hard-headed, an ugliest decision of hers (or her kin) idled behind me, its giant seafood-looking mouth gaping, unhinged. It'd almost be more redeemable if it was a hardcore, chronic mouthbreather. (The QX80 is actually [powered by a comparatively oldschool V8](https://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2019/05/2019-infiniti-qx80-pros-and-cons.html).)\n\nFreedom from fear is the sum desire of all the most primitive compulsions we share. Ultimately, the only efficient and reasonable response to Mrs. Guppy's kind in such a situation is to very kindly oblige, which I did, of course, with great respect and great pity. In the months since this encounter, I'd been wondering what was missing from the outline of this Atlas review. I recently realized that it is this analysis of fear as a factor for the American carbuyer.\n\nThough it has been disproven over and over again for [decades](http://www.accessmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2016/07/access21-01-are-suvs-really-safer-than-cars.pdf), consumers often cite *safety* as their primary motivation for buying full-sized SUVs. Mrs. Guppy's Great Guffaw led me to realize why this particularly disconnected supposition/folktale continues to thrive so uninhibited by the truth: the *brand image*, physical presence, and actual driving sensation must communicate and ""feel"" **safe** - these are far more integral to buyers' perception of a product than the testable reality. Even the people of the [world's most Christian nation](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/01/the-countries-with-the-10-largest-christian-populations-and-the-10-largest-muslim-populations/) do not have faith - they trust not unless they see with their own eyes; feel with their own asses. They entrust their souls to the Word of the Lord, but not their lives to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. (I recently gave both of mine to NHTSA for All Eternity.)\n\n\n\n### The Collegiate Take\n\nThe two or three nights I spent Uber/Lyft driving around my college town shuttling Halloween party traffic in the Atlas were expectedly uneventful. I had to create a preset text message to send immediately upon connection with a rider to communicate as succinctly as possible that I was *not* going to be arriving in the Jetta Sportwagen on my profile but instead in the Atlas, and to transparently try to make sure that was okay. (No, drivers are not supposed to do this and you should reserve the right to bail on a ride should you find yourself opposite my own position in this situation because nobody refused me.)\n\n> Hello! Just a heads up: My Jetta is in the shop so I'm driving a **gray 2019 Volkswagen Atlas**\n>\n> (It's VW's largest SUV and has 7 seats.)\n>\n> License: **FATLAS**\n>\n> If this is inconvenient or uncomfortable for you, please let me know.\n>\n> Thank you!\n\nI made a point to try and ask most of the riders if they had any thoughts on the Atlas without sounding like I was just desperately fishing for compliments on my own car, but I don't remember any significant thoughts being imparted whatsoever - certainly nothing negative. Folks here are just too polite - they won't speak up no matter how many times you insist that you *do not own the car*. We experienced this phenomena years ago when we tried to [interview people on the street](https://youtu.be/MLYdky3BKa4?t=443) regarding the horrid Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet. Regardless, there's no reason to expect young people to have anything to say about the Atlas - it is neither extraordinary nor cheap.\n\nIf you are an American carbuyer, you might give a shit about the sort of awards manufacturers love to quote in their television commercials like [the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's ""TOP SAFETY PICK,""](https://web.archive.org/web/20180108051011/http:/www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/new-volkswagen-suv-earns-2017-top-safety-pick-award) which the Atlas won for 2017. For 2019, it won [*MotorWeek*'s Best Large Utility Driver's Choice award](https://media.vw.com/en-us/releases/1123). How about [*Cars.com*'s 2020 Family Car of The Year](https://www.cars.com/awards/2020/family-car-of-the-year/)? How quickly can this story turn into [churnalized](https://www.torquenews.com/3769/second-year-vw-atlas-wins-motorweek-suv-award) commercial copy? From Scott Keogh, Volkswagen Group America CEO:\n\n> [Atlas] was designed and built specifically for American families, and buyers and critics alike are letting us know that we’re hitting the mark with this seven-seater SUV.\n\nIt's immediately evident from the outside that the Atlas is the most Americanized product in Volkswagen's lineup - indeed, [in its entire history](https://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/9083/the-2018-volkswagen-atlas-finally-solves-vws-america-problem). For [*Car Magazine*'s review](https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-reviews/volkswagen/vw-atlas-2017-review/), Ben Barry notes ""the square-jawed front, Jeep-like wheel arches, and the suggestive utilitarianism of the stampings in the bonnet and roof"" before remarking on [just how much more you can spend](https://www.vw.com/builder/tab/trim/model/touareg/) on the Porsche Cayenne's cousin, the beloved Touareg.\n\n> Ultimately, the Atlas is far from a dynamic, agile machine, but it feels comfortable and unintimidating to drive, and perfectly at home on US city streets and the slower-paced driving of California highways.\n\n\n\n\n\n## Efficiency, the Other Fixation\n\nSurprisingly, the Atlas carries a rare and precious jewel of automotive history under its broad, satisfying hood. The VR6 ""zig zag"" arrangement is actually one of [Volkswagen legend](https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a9988768/volkswagen-vr6-dying/) - defining icons like the Corrado. As [Dan Prosser explains for *Evo* magazine](https://www.evo.co.uk/volkswagen/corrado): \n\n> ‘VR’ stands for V-Reihenmotor, which translates to V-Inline, describing both vee and inline cylinder layouts. That is, of course, contradictory. The unit is actually a very narrow-angle V6, displacing 2861cc, with two offset banks of cylinders at 15 degrees to one another. Unlike a conventional V6, but exactly like an inline six, there’s just one cylinder head. The result is a six-cylinder engine that’s both much narrower than a typical V6 and shorter than a straight six. In fact, it’s more comparable in size to a four-cylinder than a six, which meant it could slot easily into a Golf floorpan. A creative and borderline ingenious engineering solution.\n\nThe Atlas' 3.6L VR6 makes 276 hp and 266 lb-ft. of torque. Though [other reviews](https://www.motortrend.com/cars/volkswagen/atlas/2018/2018-volkswagen-atlas-se-long-term-update-3-review/) cited highway mileage figures of 23-25 mpg, I was able to coax a whole *twenty-eight* miles-per-gallon on a [live Periscope stream](https://www.pscp.tv/AsphaltApostle/1MnxnEBYwgdJO) without air conditioning or cruise control through a two-way simulated 20 minute commute, through which I suffered for the hard data. My average before resetting the odometer for that feat, though, was 14.7mpg. ""Good range and miles between trips to the gas station are criteria I look for in a good car, and the fuel-gulping Atlas rates low in this department"" may be the blandest statement of all time, but *MotorTrend* does have a point – with the same 18.6 gallon fuel tank shared between the four and six cylinder models, the latter realistically has 250 miles of range between fillups, which is pitiful for a modern vehicle in just about any segment. [Crossing one State](https://goo.gl/maps/cW8GwjGNRhnffo2Y9) is not enough.\n\nhttps://vimeo.com/406373165\n\n\n\n## An Attempted Conclusion\n\nSo, is the Atlas indeed just a lucrative German prank on Americans? If it is, the subtleties are beyond even me. In the time since I drove the Atlas last year, [Volkswagen has unleashed](https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a31215717/2020-vw-atlas-cross-sport-drive/) the Atlas Cross Sport on American roads. Apparently, it is [the ideal SUV for ""dual incomes, no kids](https://www.autoweek.com/drives/a31151883/the-2020-volkswagen-atlas-cross-sport-is-the-suv-for-dinks/),"" or ""DINKS"" (surprisingly, not a homophobic slur.) *MotorTrend*, on the other hand, argues the ideal buyer has ""[teenagers who are growing faster than dandelions](https://www.motortrend.com/cars/volkswagen/atlas-cross-sport/2020/2020-volkswagen-atlas-cross-sport-interior-review/).""\n\n> It's a straightforward conversion from Atlas to Atlas Cross Sport. In the name of perceived sportiness, out goes that most minivan of things: the third row of seats.\n\nNormally, I'd be disgusted with such a thing, but from where I'm sitting, the Cross Sport *appears* to be what the Atlas should've been all along. The third row seats in my example wasn't any more comfortable than that of a 10-year-old minivan, so removing them for the sake of the second makes perfect sense. According to *Car & Driver*, [the 2021 Atlas will ""adopt"" the Cross Sport's styling](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30186943/vw-atlas-2021-preview/), though there are some technologies - like road sign recognition- which are [exclusive to the Cross Sport](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a29105149/vw-atlas-cross-sport-2020-tech-features/).\n\n> Instead of getting 20.6 cubic feet of cargo space behind the third row in the Atlas, you get 40.3 behind the second row. Fold that down and it becomes 77.8 cubic feet to work with. And that’s from an SUV with the same wheelbase as the upcoming 2021 Atlas at 117.3 inches, yet it is 5.2 inches shorter and 2.2 inches lower to the ground.\n\nThere was even a [one-off concept Atlas pickup called the Tanorak](https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/first-drive-volkswagen-atlas-tanoak-pick-concept), and no one seems to yet know whether or not it (or something similar) will be put into production. As far as longevity and extended livability is concerned, enough time has passed since the Atlas' release for long-termer conclusion posts to be published from the likes of [*Car & Driver*](https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a26897709/2019-volkswagen-atlas-reliability-maintenance/), [*Cars.com*](https://www.cars.com/articles/2018-volkswagen-atlas-road-trip-kansas-city-here-we-come-1420702979148/), and [*MotorTrend*](https://www.motortrend.com/cars/volkswagen/atlas/2018/2018-volkswagen-atlas-se-long-term-verdict/). The last of these reported an [odd turning radius issue](https://www.motortrend.com/cars/volkswagen/atlas/2018/2018-volkswagen-atlas-se-long-term-update-4-review/) which was eventually [fixed by Volkswagen](https://www.motortrend.com/cars/volkswagen/atlas/2018/2018-volkswagen-atlas-se-long-term-update-5-review/).\n\n> Once we got the steering fixed, my opinion of the Atlas did grow sunnier, though it's still not perfect. Maybe it's not fair to compare the driving experience to my previous long-term vehicle, the slightly smaller Mazda CX-9, but in my opinion the Mazda still sets the ride and handling bar for the competitive set. Setting the Mazda aside, if you hop behind the wheel of one of the newer competitors like the Kia Telluride, there's a noticeable disparity in the refinement in ride quality and body control in the Atlas... **Volkswagen should have made the GTI of three-row SUVs, not just another minivan alternative**.\n\nThis pullquote from [Andrew Ganz’s *The Car Connection* review](https://www.thecarconnection.com/overview/volkswagen_atlas_2018) is as good a summary as I could ever come up with:\n\n> The 2018 Volkswagen Atlas does little wrong, but it's light on personality and a little low-rent inside—and it guzzles fuel. It's worth a look, but mostly rivals do more for less.\n\nVolkswagen’s first substantial entry into the SUV market is well-named, relatively well-endowed, fairly bland for its price tag, and very, very heavy. Also, Start/Stop is still unbearable – thanks Obama – but the Atlas is not a scam.\n\n🗎 [**Print/PDF**](https://eileenlong-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/david_eileenlonglcsw_com/EaroYKb0EkpCmNWXZfff08cBsqpjSx4q6t_sl5y1Asbizw?e=aiWx97)\n\n\n\n* [**2019 Volkswagen Atlas Technical Specifications**](https://eileenlong-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/david_eileenlonglcsw_com/EU8sW8HoIi9Dv7yfHyzY9RsB169foMvzXrEurtQzM4v0TA?e=myVb5V)\n\n* [**2019 Volkswagen Atlas Pricing**](https://eileenlong-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/david_eileenlonglcsw_com/ET3qaPIGju1DlvqiNerFu4UBeblZMtEqmnbT4XC1PdLe0g?e=PpB1uT)\n\n## Further Reading\n\n- ""[Why Americans Are Buying More Trucks And SUVs Than Cars](https://www.npr.org/2016/05/09/477301486/why-americans-are-buying-more-trucks-and-suvs-than-cars)"" | *NPR*\n- ""[SUVs are safer than cars in front crashes, but there is more to the story](https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/05/suvs-are-safer-than-cars-in-front-crashes-but-there-is-more-to-the-story/index.htm)"" | *Consumer Reports*\n- ""[2017 Volkswagen Atlas revealed for US market](https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-la-motor-show/2017-volkswagen-atlas-revealed-us-market)"" | *Autocar*\n- ""[Volkswagen Atlas 2017 Review](https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/volkswagen/atlas/first-drives/volkswagen-atlas-2017-review)"" | *Autocar*\n- [Volkswagen Atlas Two-Row SUV - Expected Coming to U.S. by End of 2019](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a27185328/volkswagen-atlas-two-row-teramont-x-future/) | *Car & Driver*\n- [2019 Volkswagen Atlas Review](https://www.auto123.com/en/car-reviews/2019-volkswagen-atlas-review/65887/) | *Auto123*\n- [2018 Volkswagen Atlas First Look](https://www.automobilemag.com/news/2018-volkswagen-atlas-first-look/#2018-vw-atlas-launch-rear-three-quarter-boardwalk-yellow) | *Automobile Magazine*\n- ""[Quick Take: 2018 Volkswagen Atlas SEL 4Motion](https://www.automobilemag.com/news/quick-take-2018-volkswagen-atlas-sel-4motion/)"" | *Automobile Magazine*\n- [Toyota Highlander and VW Atlas SUV comparison: Which is better?](https://www.businessinsider.com/toyota-highlander-and-vw-atlas-suv-comparison-which-is-better-2018-8) | *Business Insider*\n- “[The Slow Death of the Volkswagen VR6](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15355584/the-slow-death-of-the-volkswagen-vr-6/)” | *Car & Driver*\n- [2020 Lincoln Corsair Compact SUV – Specs, Release Date, Info](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a27155236/2020-lincoln-corsair-photos-info/) | *Car & Driver*\n- [10 Best Full-Size SUVs of 2019 – Every Large SUV, Ranked](https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g15379566/best-full-size-large-suv/) | *Car & Driver*\n- [2019 Ford Expedition: Full-Size SUV Brawn and Brains](https://www.forbes.com/sites/nickkurczewski/2019/06/09/2019-ford-expedition-full-size-suv-brawn-and-brains/#32fbc48625b7) | *Forbes*\n- ""[2019 VW Atlas 4MOTION Review - It's Huge](https://youtu.be/wCTUgQ-X4mw)"" | *TheStraightPipes*\n- [2019 VW Atlas Reviews | Price, specs, features and photos](https://www.autoblog.com/2019/05/18/volkswagen-atlas-review/) | *Autoblog*\n- ""[2021 Volkswagen Atlas Price: Styling Updates, Tech Upgrades Will Cost You Nothing](https://www.cars.com/articles/2021-volkswagen-atlas-price-styling-updates-tech-upgrades-will-cost-you-nothing-419074/)"" | *Cars.com*\n- ""[2018 Volkswagen Atlas Road Trip: Kansas City, Here We Come](https://www.cars.com/articles/2018-volkswagen-atlas-road-trip-kansas-city-here-we-come-1420702979148/)"" | *Cars.com*\n- ""[2020 Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport first drive review: Higher style, same relaxed fit](https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/2020-vw-atlas-cross-sport-first-drive-review/)"" | *Roadshow* by *CNET*\n- ""[The refreshed 2021 VW Atlas has arrived, and the 7-passenger SUV still starts at $32,000](https://www.businessinsider.com/2021-vw-atlas-refreshed-7-passenger-suv-photos-specs-2020-4)"" | *Business Insider*\n- ""[Auto review: VW Atlas Cross Sport has what it takes to run with the best 5-seat midsize SUVs](https://www.gmtoday.com/autos/auto-review-vw-atlas-cross-sport-has-what-it-takes-to-run-with-the-best/article_5684d944-7d9d-11ea-9fe0-eb9ef7ce6df3.html)"" | *Greater Milwaukee Today*\n- ""[Volkswagen aims for the Goldilocks zone with shrunken five-seat Atlas](https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/volkswagen-atlas-five-seat-concept/)"" | *Digital Trends*\n- ""[2019 Volkswagen Atlas Review: A Huge Family Hauler For Nearly Every Budget](https://www.tflcar.com/2019/10/2019-volkswagen-atlas-review-a-huge-family-hauler-for-nearly-every-budget/)"" | *The Fast Lane Car*\n- ""[Chattanooga-built Volkswagen Atlas lands Parents magazine nod](https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2020/apr/09/chattanooga-built-volkswagen-atlas-lands-parents-magazine-nod/520238/)"" | *Chattanooga Times Free Press*\n- ""[20 Best Family Cars of 2020](https://www.parents.com/parenting/money/car-buying/best-family-cars/)"" | *Parents*\n- ""[2018 Volkswagen Atlas: Looks Like VW Can Make A Pretty Decent Honda Pilot](https://jalopnik.com/2018-volkswagen-atlas-looks-like-vw-can-make-a-pretty-1797407734)"" | *Jalopnik*\n- ""[Don’t Shrug: Six Things You Should Know About the Volkswagen Atlas Line](https://www.automobilemag.com/news/volkswagen-atlas-line-six-things-you-should-know-about/)"" | *Automobile*\n- [Business Update September 2019](https://newspress-vwusamedia.s3.amazonaws.com/documents%2Foriginal%2F10263-VWSeptemberFINAL.pdf) | Volkswagen of America - [LOCAL BACKUP](https://eileenlong-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/david_eileenlonglcsw_com/EcTz0gIdThZOiuh5sv4MtbQBkf9ywaQC3wCYiBLOTpuRGw?e=kOB6Jo)\n- ""[2018 Volkswagen Atlas first drive: Super-sized](https://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1109777_2018-volkswagen-atlas-first-drive-super-sized)"" | *The Car Connection*\n- ""[2018 Volkswagen Atlas Review](https://www.thecarconnection.com/overview/volkswagen_atlas_2018)"" | *The Car Connection*\n- [2018 Volkswagen Atlas short review](https://www.autoblog.com/2018/04/25/2018-volkswagen-atlas-sel-v6-quick-spin-review/) | *Autoblog*\n\n> Volkswagen traditionally tuned its suspensions closer to the European ideal, firm but well-damped, which incidentally made even non-enthusiast Volkswagens more pleasant than average to drive (with a few recent exceptions). But Volkswagen made a conscious decision to soften up the Jetta for American tastes, beyond what softening Volkswagen traditionally applied, and it seems like this philosophy scaled up to the much larger Atlas. Maybe the soft ride impresses on test drives, but a firmer setup would likely make life nicer for occupants over the long haul.\n\n#auto" | |
| s929n5vxsfaefi3q,submissions,extratone,https://write.as/extratone/submissions,2020-04-18T00:44:48Z,Submissions,"\n\n*Extratone* is proud to resume accepting submitted work thanks to the magic of [Submit.as](https://submit.as/). Prospective contributors will find current prompts on our [**Submit.as page**](https://submit.as/extratone). \n\nIf possible, please do your best to [format your post in markdown](https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax). Contact **[davidblue@extratone.com](mailto:davidblue@extratone.com)** for questions or requests to host images. For more details on how to use our CMS, visit [howto.write.as](https://howto.write.as/)." | |
| x3b5ep9igh3b4x85,you-know-im-blogging,bilge,https://write.as/bilge/you-know-im-blogging,2020-04-18T02:23:26Z,You Know I'm Blogging,"\n\n## When I have to pee too much to actually finish anything.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nI've updated the look of this blog with a theme adapted from ""[Anxiety](https://write.as/themes/anxiety)"" by Max Henderson but I've yet to update the [colophon](http://bilge.world/colophon) with the new colors (partially because I don't have the energy to name them yet.) [*Extratone*'s theme](https://write.as/themes/extratone) was listed on [write.as' new themes project](https://write.as/themes) a while ago, of which I am quite proud. I've begun [crossposting](https://crossposter.masto.donte.com.br/) to [Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@DavidBlue) from [Twitter](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel) again.\n\n<iframe src=""https://mastodon.social/@DavidBlue/103996681159684671/embed"" class=""mastodon-embed"" style=""max-width: 100%; border: 0"" width=""350"" height=""200"" allowfullscreen=""allowfullscreen""></iframe>\n\n## Autos And Such\n\nI'm mostly blogging because I am fairly stuck on the [Volkwagen Atlas review](https://bit.ly/2XJvcsQ) I promised to get done this week. (That link is to an online Word doc of my live progress, on which I'd love any comments on if you have them.) I've been playing enough [Gran Turismo Sport](https://dieselgoth.com/tag:GTsport) that I've created a new blog specifically for automotive writing at [**dieselgoth.com**](https://dieselgoth.com). There, on Titanic day, I made [a post](https://dieselgoth.com/review-progress-updates-and-social-links) including an [""exclusive"" invite link to mastd.racing](https://mastd.racing/invite/vc8GBJqX), which I would compel any enthusiasts among you to oblige.\n\n\n\n*Hanging out with myself trying to get Zoom-bombed.*\n\n## Listening\n\n<iframe style=""border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;"" src=""https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1158757778/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=e99708/tracklist=false/artwork=small/track=860711920/transparent=true/"" seamless><a href=""http://ceasedesist1.bandcamp.com/album/join-the-future-uk-bleep-bass-1988-91"">Join The Future - UK Bleep & Bass 1988-91 by Various Artists</a></iframe>\n\n[This feature](https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/uk-bleep-and-bass-feature) on the *Bandcamp Daily* regarding ""Bleep"" has really been my shit. Imagine my 70-year-old mother dancing to [this](https://ceasedesist1.bandcamp.com/track/nightmares-on-wax-21st-kong).\n\n> [Matt] Anniss subsequently went on a local Bristol internet station, penned a blog post, and posted [a DJ set of Bleep](https://www.mixcloud.com/sellbydave/bass-ment-jacks-bleep-history-mix-for-hivemindfm/), as a way to convince those same DJs that his thesis had some merit. He wrote an in-depth feature on the form for electronic music site [Resident Advisor](https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/2349)—which caused him to think bigger about this formative, unsung moment in UK dance music history. “I found the sound itself alien and otherworldly, but also endlessly fascinating for some reason,” he says. “It seemed so fresh and futuristic still, but also mysterious.”\n\n## Software and Stuff\n\nStill waiting on my tax return/possible Corona stipend, I have lost my subscription to Google One, meaning the business Extratone Gmail (ihadtopee@gmail.com) is about to be unhooked(?)/deleted/no longer able to receive mail. As such, I've spent the past few days moving accounts to davidblue@extratone.com including the newsletters I'm most fond of (like [Nextdraft](https://nextdraft.com/).) This has given me a good opportunity to weed out those I don't particularly care about *and* to try using Outlook as my primary email client once again. Somehow, this has got me reverted into trying to make use of my Microsoft Office business subscription once again - I have (eeek!) *not* been writing in Markdown. May the Gourd have mercy on my text format-fucking soul.\n\n\n\nThe *other* project I've been trying to distract myself from the Atlas review with is my list of poweruser/especially handy Windows/iOS/MacOS applications/tricks that I believe just about *everyone* should be using. From ""[Dirty Dave's Poweruser Tips](https://eileenlong-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/david_eileenlonglcsw_com/EUuSyGOkq-pBiluCgHpOovwBOQIYkIMB6rsk_R7f3_olcA?e=tWYyQq)"" (working title):\n\n> I want you to come away from this list feeling as liberated and powerful as I do now when I’m On My Computer without any condescension or tedium. Unfortunately, there’s probably going to be some of both, so please stick with me and don’t take it personally. I do *a lot* of online reading, writing, and fiddling. I’ve been compelled to do these things in one form or another since very early childhood, and what follows could be described as a list of my favorite tools to accomplish things. Almost all of them are entirely free to use and the vast majority of them are easily and beautifully functional as well. They are what I suggest for my own mother to use, for what that’s worth, and I would argue sincerely for their extreme importance. **Don’t waste your life on bad software.**\n\n## Fucking Medium\n\nIn late March *Nieman Lab*'s [Laura Hazard Owen](https://twitter.com/laurahazardowen) published ""[The long, complicated, and extremely frustrating history of Medium, 2012–present](https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/03/the-long-complicated-and-extremely-frustrating-history-of-medium-2012-present/#footnote_0_169692),"" which includes the most complete, linear timeline of the website's existence anyone could ever ask for. Naturally - in classic medium fashion - she begins many of her sentences with ""But,"" which [I really hate](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1250153204014288902).\n\n> Why spend so much time worrying about what Medium is? Maybe because we wanted to know whether it was a friend or an enemy. The answer is that it’s neither. It’s a reflection of what the media industry has worried about, and hoped for, and not received. But Medium was never something that we would get to define. Instead, it’s turned out to be an endless thought experiment into what publishing on the internet could look like. That’s not much fun for people who got burned along the way, but Medium was never exactly ours to begin with.\n\n## Other Stuff\n\n* I wrote *Extratone*'s sparse [submissions page](http://extratone.com/submissions) today after signing us up for [Submit.as](http://submit.as). I'd encourage you to check out the prompts and to [send me](mailto:davidblue@extratone.com) any suggestions you might have.\n\n* Extratone.com's favicon has been updated thanks to the beautiful geniuses at write.as. (They literally just [take requests for this via email](https://discuss.write.as/t/favicon-or-browser-icon/582/4).)\n* I encourage you to watch [this video](https://youtu.be/m2s0nB2VPvs), which has been stuck in my head for days now. (Here it is [backed up on the *Extratone* telegram channel](https://t.me/extratone/4011).)\n\n#meta" | |
| x63sw519ca3r98m0,2019-volkswagen-atlas-review,chaff,https://chaff.writeas.com/2019-volkswagen-atlas-review,2020-04-19T02:28:50Z,2019 Volkswagen Atlas Review,"## VW's Jumbo new offering is titanic to live with and genuinely amusing to drive, but is it a condescending German prank on America?\n\n![[2019 Volkwagen Atlas SEL w/4MOTION]](https://i.snap.as/XzLvAnV.jpg)\n\nUpon meeting an elderly recently immigrated German friend of my mother's for the first time yesterday, she exclaimed *He looks German!... and so tall!* Both of these compliments were *relatively* true, but certainly not extremely. I am more German-looking than not, perhaps. Supposedly, I am half a product of a very large family whose elders are only one and two generations from German royalty - my legal last name is on a state sign in front of a small black castle somewhere in *Der Vaterland*. I slacked through two years of high school German language classes - Frau Rosa once took me aside to ask *you’re not going to shoot up the school or anything, right?* (Sorry Frau & peers.) Though my much-older half siblings grew up mostly in the town of Schweinfurt, I have never actually set foot in Germany, yet I’ve come to identify with and admire its culture enough to (perhaps unjustly or inappropriately) feel comfortable joking about Deutsche peculiarities as vain self-mockery.\n\nDespite all of this (carefully nationalism-free) affection, the real truth of myself is an American one. I have long since broached the point of no return: no matter how hard I might try, I would never be able to mold the Me another perceives in such a way that I’d become observably German-native. I’m just a midwestern boy with a Germanic name on his paperwork, and therefore have more in common with Volkswagen’s newish entry into the *dramatically* different full-size Sport Utility Vehicle segment. The Atlas bears a [remarkably good name](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-17/what-s-in-an-suv-name-redemption-with-u-s-consumers-vw-hopes) (annoyingly, [literally everyone's reviews](https://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/9083/the-2018-volkswagen-atlas-finally-solves-vws-america-problem) seem to begin with a comment on how *decipherable* the new name is for Americans) - especially among new automotive products introduced to market in recent memory. Honda’s *Clarity* **should** be clever alongside the definitively 21st-century *Insight* marque, but violates an unfortunately universal law in the industry: never name a car for a *state of being* (Introducing the New 2020 Honda *Ambiguity* [*Insolence*, *Fugue*, *Debacle*, *Setback*]) ~especially~ one so obtusely irrelevant to the product itself. *Insight* comes from a chat with a colleague over coffee, but *Clarity* is a metaphysical, zealous plane that sounds our ever-inadequate platitude alarms in a very unsettling manner. *Um... Is Honda doing okay?* It not only ends up irritating and off-putting: after Hannah’s season of *The Bachelorette*, it’s just dumb, lazy, and foul.\n\n> After decades of trying to force Yankees into models that many found too small, VW has figured it out: Big-ass SUVs are what Americans want, and the Atlas is designed around the biggest asses you can imagine.\n\nIn contrast, the fucking Nissan *Kicks* ages so swiftly and uncomfortably that it’s pitifully tacky before it even hits the lot, which is particularly disappointing considering the most cleverly bestowed *Juke* name was. One marvels at the situation Nissan has found itself in: *young American black men love our brand, but they also love shoes!* Atlas, though, is on par with Honda’s *Odyssey* inspirationally, though a smidge more grounded through the distinctly Earthen science of topography, just as it should be. Originally billed as a replacement for [VW’s Routan minivan](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/09/23/vw-routan-suv-crossblue/2856593/), the three-row Atlas is Volkswagen’s newest bid for the Panic Room-loving American parent demographic. Therefore, it’s crucial for us to examine it thoroughly for [any signs of condescension](https://www.businessinsider.com/vw-atlas-crossover-suv-review-2017-11) from the Germans and their brand “whose business in the US is built on providing small, fun-to-drive cars like the Golf, the Beetle, the Jetta, and the Passat.”\n\n> From our perspective, what we have here is a German take on the American family SUV. A Ford Explorer by way of Wolfsburg, if you will. Well, sort of. The Atlas is actually built in Chattanooga, Tennessee alongside the Passat sedan.\n\nUnavoidably, the most notable, remarkable, and extraordinary item to note about the Atlas is simply that **it is fucking fat**. Just about any review you watch or read will mention this. Even *CNET* calls theirs ""[a very broad boy](https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/reviews/2019-volkswagen-atlas-review/)."" After I first read the number - **5997 lbs.** - I was never able to escape it throughout the entirety of my time with it. ***Three tons*** is unbelievably, inexcusably, violently, hopelessly heavy. *Hopelessly* not because it stands out in its segment, but that [*it does not*](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/457289420174000150/698509904629202996/2017_Vehicles_with_GVW_over_6000_lbs.pdf). Obesity is still a problem in America, but it's our automobiles now. While we continue to worship safety and fuel economy together, we skew the triangle (the other side is performance) further and further, and yes – a good portion of the blame can be placed on [our obsession with SUVs](https://www.npr.org/2016/05/09/477301486/why-americans-are-buying-more-trucks-and-suvs-than-cars). I spent 2018 driving a 1976 Lincoln Continental Mk. IV around - the second-longest two-door car ever sold at 228.1 inches from its pointed nose to its massive ass. Despite being a full *thirty inches longer* than the 2019 Atlas, my 460-powered mammoth yacht weighed some 700 pounds *less*, and it was filled with *real wood*. I'm no expert in physics by any means, but I can tell you that every pound has [expounding effects](https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/sites/www.nrcan.gc.ca/files/oee/pdf/transportation/fuel-efficient-technologies/autosmart_factsheet_16_e.pdf) on the energy required to move, turn, and stop a vehicle, which just about sums up the ultimate formula to [pulverize efficiency](https://www.autoblog.com/2009/10/29/greenlings-how-does-weight-affect-a-vehicles-efficiency). When our friends at the IIHS say that ""fuel economy can be improved without sacrificing safety,"" they are just... **fundamentally wrong**, (though *technically* correct.)\n\nI'm not entirely sure why the Atlas weighs so much, but its mass is inevitably a major variable in just about every facet of its experience as a product. The best potential hoot to be had from it as a driving device should be sought by ordering it to shuffle briskly on curving country blacktops in Sport Mode with all the assists (save for lane-keeping) *on*. Not to be too crude, but it's fun to make the fat fucker run. Through your ass, you can feel the suspension squirm and struggle to redirect all [266 lb.-ft. of VR6 oomf between 4 wheels](https://www.motortrend.com/cars/volkswagen/atlas/2018/2018-volkswagen-atlas-se-long-term-update-1-review/) beneath an entirely separate war against the physics of such top-heavy body roll.\n\n*Scrambling* is definitely the correct verb. Pleasantly light steering in Comfort Mode (where I'd advise you leave it in virtually any situation) combined with a supple-ish ride from multilink suspension provide a trace of a past luxury sentiment not unlike the energy exhibited by my old Connie through and through. It's all about the sensation of **power**. Not in the horse sense, but in the satisfaction achieved from the manipulation of maximum mass with minimum effort. Comparatively, the level of actual ego-stroking is of course quite miniscule, and unfortunately, it is the numbness that is most noticeably left over with very little gain.\n\nAlso unfortunate: I did not end up making the opportunity to truly test whatever offroad capabilities the Atlas may posses in any sort of formalized test. My example came with Hill Descent Control and Hill Start Assist, and I was able to find a small hill just steep enough to [trigger the former](https://youtu.be/REchJ_BD5G0?t=232). I cannot say I'd put my money on the Atlas winning the Dakar as it is, but we now know it can handle wet grass on a mild incline. What about county road gravel? Realistically, these are the two extremes 99% of Atlas' will ever face in their usable service lives. I found an entirely quiet section of back rock road and [walked through the steps](https://youtu.be/REchJ_BD5G0?t=321) to disable all of the traction and stability control assists before stomping on the throttle, but was unable to provoke any significant wheelspin. In [an episode of *Autoline After Hours*](https://www.spreaker.com/user/autoline/aah-382-can-the-atlas-lift-volkswagen_3), Michael Loveti (Vice President, Product Line Mid/Full-Size, Volkswagen Group of America, Inc.) confirms the drivetrain *really is* **all-time all-wheel-drive**, (though the dual exhaust ports in the rear are [unfortunately fake](https://youtu.be/wCTUgQ-X4mw?t=395),) and that the Atlas is actually based on [the MQB platform](https://www.motortrend.com/news/explaining-volkswagen-mqb-architecture/), which is astonishing. Prospective buyers should definitely have a listen.\n\n<iframe src=""https://widget.spreaker.com/player?episode_id=17362733&theme=light&autoplay=false&playlist=false"" width=""100%"" height=""200px"" frameborder=""0""></iframe>\n\nThis theme of ""thoroughly German, yet somehow distinctly Americanized"" occurs [over](https://www.digitaltrends.com/car-reviews/2019-volkswagen-atlas-review) and [over](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/04/the-volkswagen-atlas-reviewed-a-peoples-wagon-for-the-american-people/) and [over](https://www.consumerreports.org/suvs/2018-volkswagen-atlas-suv-first-drive-review) and [over](https://youtu.be/wCTUgQ-X4mw?t=444) again in the Atlas' story. Its horizontal lines match both the Jetta and Ford's Explorer. In that way, surely it is a success. I cannot imagine a better execution of its marque's directives as stated by Mr. Loveti than what I drove.\n\n> Cover the Volkswagen logo and you might think the Atlas was made by someone else. The hard lines and boxy shape are a sharp departure from the rest of the VW lineup. But look at its competitors here in the states, especially the Ford Explorer. It’s almost like Volkswagen tried to build its own Ford with the Atlas.\n\n> Even though it has been on the market for only a year, the Atlas had become VW's second-most-popular car in the German automaker's lineup in March 2018, showing that the American car-buying public's thirst for crossovers and SUVs remains unslaked.\n\n### Place in The Segment\n\nThe only other modern SUVs I've spent significant time with was the Range Rover Evoque I crashed and the VW Tiguan I reluctantly borrowed (and had [absolutely nothing](https://twitter.com/search?q=""Tiguan"" %40neoyokel&src=typed_query&f=live) to say about,) so my authority in comparing the Atlas with its competitors is severely lacking. However, I can at least send you the way of *Regular Car Reviews*' [Roman reviewing his mother's Ford Explorer](https://youtu.be/Dij6fkrOSfs), *Business Insider*'s [direct comparison between their long termer Atlas and the Explorer](https://youtu.be/Dij6fkrOSfs), or *Cars.com*'s [vs. the new Subaru Ascent](https://www.cars.com/articles/subaru-ascent-vs-volkswagen-atlas-the-family-suv-feud-begins-1420700698096/). *Car & Driver* also [compared the Atlas to the intriguing Kia Telluride](https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/comparison-test/a27354538/2020-kia-telluride-vs-2019-volkswagen-atlas/).\n\n> In the splitting of already fine hairs, it's the new Telluride that makes a stronger case over the Atlas, thanks to its price advantage, its plush and thoughtful appointments, and its slightly more comfortable third-row.\n\n## The Passive Safety Fairytale\n\n**Define**: [Active safety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_safety)\n\n**Freedom through security**. In truth, neurotypical people are naturally driven to minimize risk, yet also to romanticize the sick, inhibitionless madmen - to envy them both internally and externally (in a most restrained way.) Collectively, our authority in (or mastery of) risktaking remains pathetically irrational. If we were to itemize our ability to asses risk into a sixth physical sense, it would rank just as poorly against the rest of the world's creatures (or perhaps neck-and-neck with those of the squirrel or the deer.)\n\nSo many struggles of the too-often-cited ""Human Condition"" are grounded in the incompetence of this sense. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that risktakers in general are a very special topic amid The Middle Class - those who occasionally find themselves atop *just* enough excess to call it ""capital."" This equates in day-to-day life as only the most potent - yet almost entirely inert next to the cushion of multi-millionaires - subject, catalyst, and indicator of dire fret. By far the most widespread affectation of this petty affliction spreads like divine wrath over the upper forty percent of this Middle Class. Thus, we must ask ourselves *how safe doth the Atlas make me feel*?\n\n\n\n### Inside\n\nMy Atlas’ interior was finished in Titan Black Leatherette, which sounds both grandiose and a bit like a kink. ""Volkswagen is known for good build quality and tight-feeling interiors,"" [writes Danny Geraghty](https://www.auto123.com/en/car-reviews/2019-volkswagen-atlas-review/65887/) for *Auto123*, ""but I found I was encountering just a bit too much hard plastic, making for a somewhat dated feel."" Perhaps my loaner was less worn in because neither I nor my girlfriend found anything wrong with the Atlas’ interior quality – even after bombing gravel roads to the point of sustaining a left-rear puncture, we did not encounter any annoying squeaks or rattles. She spent an entire afternoon sleeping in the passenger’s seat reclined and described it as “comfy.” For [*The Car Connection*](https://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1109777_2018-volkswagen-atlas-first-drive-super-sized), Senior Editor Andrew Ganz writes:\n\n> It’s not much to behold, with a chunky shape as conservative as they come that is not offset by a distinct lack of flair inside. Instead, the Atlas is quietly competent and exceptionally good at carrying seven humans—even seven adults.\n\nStandard with the SEL trim is Volkswagen’s “Digital Cockpit” instrument panel, which I like much more than I expected to, though its color options are already dated and [unfortunately unchangeable](https://www.periscope.tv/AsphaltApostle/1nAKEZmYpQOGL?t=4m12s). Ageability is an inevitable issue with these sorts of bespoke graphic design decisions automakers are making now, but at least you’ll be able to tell your friends that your Volkswagen has a digital dashboard “just like the Rolls-Royce Phantom,” which is, of course, the ultimate Queen of timelessness in the industry. Perhaps it’s telling that the only layout I found acceptable for the digital dash was the one with simulated analog needles for the tach and speedo, and how often do you *really* use a compass in day-to-day driving? For that matter, how useful could a digital compass in the speedometer’s center hub really be in an “offroad” situation? It’s a bit petty, but I also really despise the typeface shared across the instruments and infotainment system. It’s just… bad.\n\n\n\n### Outside\n\nIn Platinum Gray Metallic, the Atlas looks authoritative enough in a very ordinary way. Unless you’re on the lookout for one, you’d hardly notice it, and you certainly wouldn’t expect what you see to cost as much as it does. That is why I’d prefer *any* one of the [other exterior finishes](https://web.archive.org/save/https:/www.elginvw.com/blog/what-colors-does-the-2019-volkswagen-atlas-come-in/), especially (in order): Pure White, Tourmaline Blue Metallic, Pacific Blue Metallic, and Fortana Red. The real wonder is how VW managed to execute a seven-seat SUV with its existing design language. Though the Atlas is by far Volkswagen’s largest vehicle, it fits neatly within their lineup.\n\n<iframe style=""border: solid 1px #dedede;"" src=""https://app.stitcher.com/splayer/f/52690/50908015"" width=""220"" height=""150"" frameborder=""0"" scrolling=""no""></iframe>\n\n## Road Rage\n\nMy only authentic Road Rage experience in some 5000 miles of rideshare driving occurred on All Hallow's Eve when I stopped - no more illegally than usual - on the opposite corner from a popular downtown Mexican restaurant called The Nap with hazards and all courtesy interior lights shining. The car immediately behind me hesitated no more than necessary, but the Biggest Big Infiniti behind them (a QX80 - the Atlas' competitor) just... stopped. There was honking and frenzied, hoarse screaming of *what the fuck are you doing?* and such.\n\nI responded with pleasantly amused but relatively-encouraging glances at the impersonal black mass of the Infiniti's windshield through my mirrors. I rolled down the Atlas' driver's side window and politely gestured that they go around me, but failed to coax any movement whatsoever from the ugly behemoth through at least two full cycles of the nearby traffic light. There must be some aquatic authority in the bulbous black ass of the QX80, for no one behind it seemed willing to pass either. The driver waited significantly longer than you'd imagine before emerging, huffy. She was wearing a classic poofy black North Face vest some sort of slate gray turtleneck. Nothing below these were stimulating enough to retain any memory of. *Uggs?*\n\nHow positive are *you* that the truth has absolutely zero consequence: contrasted silver-beige eyeliner and little eye contact, dirty-ish straight blonde hair over a spray-tanned face, exhibiting zero anxious tics or hesitation. She was obviously the New Matriarch, and she was obviously *much* more of an authority on traffic law than I. As she approached, she scanned the street as one naturally does when they enter a busy one... except it was completely empty, thanks to her blockade. She first informed me that I was ""not *supposed*"" to be stopped there. I tried to listen and respond with as much sincerity as possible as I realized all at once that my behavior had genuinely *perturbed* this woman - that her choice to leave the huge hideous warmth of the guppy wagon to speak as humans to one another required great courage. \n\n\n\nI inserted the next logical question which I'd been screaming telepathically: *can you not get around me?* I began to pity her when I then saw in her face the distinct possibility that *going around* as a concept had not occurred to her whatsoever. She stuttered a wee bit in retorting ""I could go around, but I don't want to get a ticket."" Here, one of the most fascinating avenues of suburban psychology is explored: Guppy Mom is not being ingenuine with this expression, nor has she had an untoward experience with law enforcement, ever. Guppy Mom did know her excuse was bullshit - nobody has ever been written a traffic citation for carefully circumventing an obstacle in the road. Given the opportunity to interrogate this kernel of entirely uncompromising obedience to utterly delusional traffic law superstitions, I think we'd simply discover a life of unnaturally positive interactions with LEOs. We must conclude, then, that the source of her fear was either myself or the Atlas.\n\nGranted, to her I am still a *Young Man*, and am therefore instinctively programmed to believe myself more informed than literally everyone - even the very foundational architects of modern civilization. Her Stucco Highness may have felt a representative of these builders (edgy take: *she is in fact their servant*.) Her own folks surely complain regularly about their distaste for disrespect, and my gig-economy, Austin Powers-looking ass was somehow disrespecting the order laid down by her would be (entirely fantastical) forefathers. Though her expression of her quaint fear of such ""ugliness"" (if you will) is hard-headed, an ugliest decision of hers (or her kin) idled behind me, its giant seafood-looking mouth gaping, unhinged. It'd almost be more redeemable if it was a hardcore, chronic mouthbreather. (The QX80 is actually [powered by a comparatively oldschool V8](https://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2019/05/2019-infiniti-qx80-pros-and-cons.html).)\n\nFreedom from fear is the sum desire of all the most primitive compulsions we share. Ultimately, the only efficient and reasonable response to Mrs. Guppy's kind in such a situation is to very kindly oblige, which I did, of course, with great respect and great pity. In the months since this encounter, I'd been wondering what was missing from the outline of this Atlas review. I recently realized that it is this analysis of fear as a factor for the American carbuyer.\n\nThough it has been disproven over and over again for [decades](http://www.accessmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2016/07/access21-01-are-suvs-really-safer-than-cars.pdf), consumers often cite *safety* as their primary motivation for buying full-sized SUVs. Mrs. Guppy's Great Guffaw led me to realize why this particularly disconnected supposition/folktale continues to thrive so uninhibited by the truth: the *brand image*, physical presence, and actual driving sensation must communicate and ""feel"" **safe** - these are far more integral to buyers' perception of a product than the testable reality. Even the people of the [world's most Christian nation](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/01/the-countries-with-the-10-largest-christian-populations-and-the-10-largest-muslim-populations/) do not have faith - they trust not unless they see with their own eyes; feel with their own asses. They entrust their souls to the Word of the Lord, but not their lives to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. (I recently gave both of mine to NHTSA for All Eternity.)\n\n\n\n### The Collegiate Take\n\nThe two or three nights I spent Uber/Lyft driving around my college town shuttling Halloween party traffic in the Atlas were expectedly uneventful. I had to create a preset text message to send immediately upon connection with a rider to communicate as succinctly as possible that I was *not* going to be arriving in the Jetta Sportwagen on my profile but instead in the Atlas, and to transparently try to make sure that was okay. (No, drivers are not supposed to do this and you should reserve the right to bail on a ride should you find yourself opposite my own position in this situation because nobody refused me.)\n\n> Hello! Just a heads up: My Jetta is in the shop so I'm driving a **gray 2019 Volkswagen Atlas**\n>\n> (It's VW's largest SUV and has 7 seats.)\n>\n> License: **FATLAS**\n>\n> If this is inconvenient or uncomfortable for you, please let me know.\n>\n> Thank you!\n\nI made a point to try and ask most of the riders if they had any thoughts on the Atlas without sounding like I was just desperately fishing for compliments on my own car, but I don't remember any significant thoughts being imparted whatsoever - certainly nothing negative. Folks here are just too polite - they won't speak up no matter how many times you insist that you *do not own the car*. We experienced this phenomena years ago when we tried to [interview people on the street](https://youtu.be/MLYdky3BKa4?t=443) regarding the horrid Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet. Regardless, there's no reason to expect young people to have anything to say about the Atlas - it is neither extraordinary nor cheap.\n\nIf you are an American carbuyer, you might give a shit about the sort of awards manufacturers love to quote in their television commercials like [the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's ""TOP SAFETY PICK,""](https://web.archive.org/web/20180108051011/http:/www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/new-volkswagen-suv-earns-2017-top-safety-pick-award) which the Atlas won for 2017. For 2019, it won [*MotorWeek*'s Best Large Utility Driver's Choice award](https://media.vw.com/en-us/releases/1123). How about [*Cars.com*'s 2020 Family Car of The Year](https://www.cars.com/awards/2020/family-car-of-the-year/)? How quickly can this story turn into [churnalized](https://www.torquenews.com/3769/second-year-vw-atlas-wins-motorweek-suv-award) commercial copy? From Scott Keogh, Volkswagen Group America CEO:\n\n> [Atlas] was designed and built specifically for American families, and buyers and critics alike are letting us know that we’re hitting the mark with this seven-seater SUV.\n\nIt's immediately evident from the outside that the Atlas is the most Americanized product in Volkswagen's lineup - indeed, [in its entire history](https://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/9083/the-2018-volkswagen-atlas-finally-solves-vws-america-problem). For [*Car Magazine*'s review](https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-reviews/volkswagen/vw-atlas-2017-review/), Ben Barry notes ""the square-jawed front, Jeep-like wheel arches, and the suggestive utilitarianism of the stampings in the bonnet and roof"" before remarking on [just how much more you can spend](https://www.vw.com/builder/tab/trim/model/touareg/) on the Porsche Cayenne's cousin, the beloved Touareg.\n\n> Ultimately, the Atlas is far from a dynamic, agile machine, but it feels comfortable and unintimidating to drive, and perfectly at home on US city streets and the slower-paced driving of California highways.\n\n\n\n\n\n## Efficiency, the Other Fixation\n\nSurprisingly, the Atlas carries a rare and precious jewel of automotive history under its broad, satisfying hood. The VR6 ""zig zag"" arrangement is actually one of [Volkswagen legend](https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a9988768/volkswagen-vr6-dying/) - defining icons like the Corrado. As [Dan Prosser explains for *Evo* magazine](https://www.evo.co.uk/volkswagen/corrado): \n\n> ‘VR’ stands for V-Reihenmotor, which translates to V-Inline, describing both vee and inline cylinder layouts. That is, of course, contradictory. The unit is actually a very narrow-angle V6, displacing 2861cc, with two offset banks of cylinders at 15 degrees to one another. Unlike a conventional V6, but exactly like an inline six, there’s just one cylinder head. The result is a six-cylinder engine that’s both much narrower than a typical V6 and shorter than a straight six. In fact, it’s more comparable in size to a four-cylinder than a six, which meant it could slot easily into a Golf floorpan. A creative and borderline ingenious engineering solution.\n\nThe Atlas' 3.6L VR6 makes 276 hp and 266 lb-ft. of torque. Though [other reviews](https://www.motortrend.com/cars/volkswagen/atlas/2018/2018-volkswagen-atlas-se-long-term-update-3-review/) cited highway mileage figures of 23-25 mpg, I was able to coax a whole *twenty-eight* miles-per-gallon on a [live Periscope stream](https://www.pscp.tv/AsphaltApostle/1MnxnEBYwgdJO) without air conditioning or cruise control through a two-way simulated 20 minute commute, through which I suffered for the hard data. My average before resetting the odometer for that feat, though, was 14.7mpg. ""Good range and miles between trips to the gas station are criteria I look for in a good car, and the fuel-gulping Atlas rates low in this department"" may be the blandest statement of all time, but *MotorTrend* does have a point – with the same 18.6 gallon fuel tank shared between the four and six cylinder models, the latter realistically has 250 miles of range between fillups, which is pitiful for a modern vehicle in just about any segment. [Crossing one State](https://goo.gl/maps/cW8GwjGNRhnffo2Y9) is not enough.\n\n<iframe src=""https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m28!1m12!1m3!1d3172371.1612356915!2d-94.63245342670429!3d39.06048773301584!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!4m13!3e0!4m5!1s0x87c0f75eafe99997%3A0x558525e66aaa51a2!2sKansas%20City%2C%20Missouri!3m2!1d39.099726499999996!2d-94.5785667!4m5!1s0x87d8b4a9faed8ef9%3A0xbe39eaca22bbe05b!2sSt.%20Louis%2C%20Missouri!3m2!1d38.627002499999996!2d-90.19940419999999!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sus!4v1586923335319!5m2!1sen!2sus"" width=""350"" height=""300"" frameborder=""0"" style=""border:0;"" allowfullscreen="""" aria-hidden=""false"" tabindex=""0""></iframe>\n\n<div style=""padding:177.5% 0 0 0;position:relative;""><iframe src=""https://player.vimeo.com/video/406373165?byline=0&portrait=0"" style=""position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"" frameborder=""0"" allow=""autoplay; fullscreen"" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><script src=""https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.js""></script>\n\n\n\n## An Attempted Conclusion\n\nSo, is the Atlas indeed just a lucrative German prank on Americans? If it is, the subtleties are beyond even me. In the time since I drove the Atlas last year, [Volkswagen has unleashed](https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a31215717/2020-vw-atlas-cross-sport-drive/) the Atlas Cross Sport on American roads. Apparently, it is [the ideal SUV for ""dual incomes, no kids](https://www.autoweek.com/drives/a31151883/the-2020-volkswagen-atlas-cross-sport-is-the-suv-for-dinks/),"" or ""DINKS"" (surprisingly, not a homophobic slur.) *MotorTrend*, on the other hand, argues the ideal buyer has ""[teenagers who are growing faster than dandelions](https://www.motortrend.com/cars/volkswagen/atlas-cross-sport/2020/2020-volkswagen-atlas-cross-sport-interior-review/).""\n\n> It's a straightforward conversion from Atlas to Atlas Cross Sport. In the name of perceived sportiness, out goes that most minivan of things: the third row of seats.\n\nNormally, I'd be disgusted with such a thing, but from where I'm sitting, the Cross Sport *appears* to be what the Atlas should've been all along. The third row seats in my example wasn't any more comfortable than that of a 10-year-old minivan, so removing them for the sake of the second makes perfect sense. According to *Car & Driver*, [the 2021 Atlas will ""adopt"" the Cross Sport's styling](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30186943/vw-atlas-2021-preview/), though there are some technologies - like road sign recognition- which are [exclusive to the Cross Sport](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a29105149/vw-atlas-cross-sport-2020-tech-features/).\n\n> Instead of getting 20.6 cubic feet of cargo space behind the third row in the Atlas, you get 40.3 behind the second row. Fold that down and it becomes 77.8 cubic feet to work with. And that’s from an SUV with the same wheelbase as the upcoming 2021 Atlas at 117.3 inches, yet it is 5.2 inches shorter and 2.2 inches lower to the ground.\n\nThere was even a [one-off concept Atlas pickup called the Tanorak](https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/first-drive-volkswagen-atlas-tanoak-pick-concept), and no one seems to yet know whether or not it (or something similar) will be put into production. As far as longevity and extended livability is concerned, enough time has passed since the Atlas' release for long-termer conclusion posts to be published from the likes of [*Car & Driver*](https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a26897709/2019-volkswagen-atlas-reliability-maintenance/), [*Cars.com*](https://www.cars.com/articles/2018-volkswagen-atlas-road-trip-kansas-city-here-we-come-1420702979148/), and [*MotorTrend*](https://www.motortrend.com/cars/volkswagen/atlas/2018/2018-volkswagen-atlas-se-long-term-verdict/). The last of these reported an [odd turning radius issue](https://www.motortrend.com/cars/volkswagen/atlas/2018/2018-volkswagen-atlas-se-long-term-update-4-review/) which was eventually [fixed by Volkswagen](https://www.motortrend.com/cars/volkswagen/atlas/2018/2018-volkswagen-atlas-se-long-term-update-5-review/).\n\n> Once we got the steering fixed, my opinion of the Atlas did grow sunnier, though it's still not perfect. Maybe it's not fair to compare the driving experience to my previous long-term vehicle, the slightly smaller Mazda CX-9, but in my opinion the Mazda still sets the ride and handling bar for the competitive set. Setting the Mazda aside, if you hop behind the wheel of one of the newer competitors like the Kia Telluride, there's a noticeable disparity in the refinement in ride quality and body control in the Atlas... **Volkswagen should have made the GTI of three-row SUVs, not just another minivan alternative**.\n\nThis pullquote from [Andrew Ganz’s *The Car Connection* review](https://www.thecarconnection.com/overview/volkswagen_atlas_2018) is as good a summary as I could ever come up with:\n\n> The 2018 Volkswagen Atlas does little wrong, but it's light on personality and a little low-rent inside—and it guzzles fuel. It's worth a look, but mostly rivals do more for less.\n\nVolkswagen’s first substantial entry into the SUV market is well-named, relatively well-endowed, fairly bland for its price tag, and very, very heavy. Also, Star |
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