As a piece of culture, Into the Woods holds deep, personal significance for me. As a junior in high school, I played the Baker in our school production, and it was an amazing, empowering experience. One snag was that I didn’t really have the pipes at the time to give the pivotal song “No More” the power it needed, so it was with some satisfaction that at the theatre program’s 25th anniversary celebration last month, I was able to perform the... Read more
I am a man riddled with anxieties, hangups, doubts, and regrets, but I aspire to a greater sense of self-worth (or any sense of self-worth, frankly). And this is why I have discovered a new hero in Kirk Gleason. Kirk is a character from the show Gilmore Girls, which my wife started watching on Netflix, and that I have taken a liking to as well (with one enormous caveat*). He is at best a tertiary townsperson, and at least from... Read more
John Gruber has a running joke he used to tell on his podcasts, his Rules for Success on the Internet, meant to poke fun at himself and the folks in his circle. The rules were, paraphrased: Have a clicky keyboard Be fussy about coffee Own a Sodastream It’s so amusing to me and his audience because it’s an acknowlegdement that he and his ilk have the luxury of having quirky predelictions about certain trivial things that, in their lives, seem so... Read more
ThinkGeek is now selling gloves that also serve as a Bluetooth handset for talking on the phone…by actually making that thumb-and-pinky sign with your hands! Where has this been??? Why are we seven years into the smartphone revolution and this only comes about now??? What has the rest of the industry been wasting its time on??? Well fuck it. I hate talking on the phone very, very much, but if I had these, I’d suck it up. Here’s their super-weird video. Read more
Technology is all about change, and rapid change at that. But even with the pace of technological development being dizzyingly fast, there are still larger paradigms, grander assumptions and codes of conventional wisdom, that are more or less static. In 2014, though, a lot of those paradigms shifted, and many of our preconceptions and understandings were altered, enlightened, or totally overturned. Here’s a short list of some of those paradigm shifts in tech in 2014. Microsoft the Scrappy Upstart In... Read more
I really like Google+ for the most part (as much as I hate the name), and I find the interactions that I have there to be, on the average, much higher in quality than those I have over Facebook or Twitter. Part of that I know is because there just aren’t all that many people there, so there’s less noise in my individual feed, and those who are there are going to be, well, at least a little more like... Read more
Update from almost two months later: I now pretty much recant this entire post. Here’s what’s up. Is it time to jump on board the phablet bandwagon? I’ve never owned one of these large phones before, being cursed with wee mitts, but I’ve always been a little googly-eyed at the idea of a portable large-screen device. I was one of the few who, when the first Samsung Galaxy Note was unveiled, didn’t think it was ridiculous like many... Read more
That is, if you’re a cosmic particle traveling at 99.9999999999991% the speed of light. What a fascinating way to look at the basic shapes of All Things that we take for granted. But no, there’s no need to join the Flat Earth Society, unless, of course, you’re talking about Thomas Dolby’s fan club. The man says: Friends have often asked me why I’m sensitive about my height Read more
Today I reach the age of Dennis, the filth-digging peasant who loathes the self-perpetuating autocracy in spite of which his autonomous collective operates. He’s not old, you see. He’s 37. He’s not old. Read more
Sometimes, getting new gadgets feels a little like this. But I quickly get over it. I mean, I do have a birthday coming up, and I could have a phone with an 801 processor instead of an 800. You know, life-changing shit. Read more
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