One of Those Lazy “Looking Back at 2011″ Posts (Except Unpaid)
Look closely, and you’ll notice I’m holding only half a kayak paddle. Which could be a metaphor for how I feel writing about my own year in review. Yup. (Photo by Jennifer Phillips)
Man, this week was slow. This last week, the one between Christmas and New Year’s? Really slow. I never liked it when, as a reporter, sources would answer questions with, “Slow news week, eh?” But I’ll say it to myself. Nobody wanted to read much of what I get paid to write about this week. So I did what everybody else does and just ran out the annual clock with a year-end review. Of myself.
What I Learned from Organizing TEDxBuffalo 2011
This post was originally published at the TEDx blog/Tumblr. It was written quickly, and at least one fellow English major shook his head in dismay after seeing the first draft. But it was written very soon after the event, and I’m hoping it provides some lessons to learn from, and maybe some nostalgia on some distant day.
TEDxBuffalo took 17 months to launch, but there were really only five months of solid planning. That is, there was a year-long initial attempt that fell apart on very short notice, followed by a rather quick revival. But our first actual event, put on by about a dozen core volunteers and many more contributors, made everyone hungry to do it again.
The Android Apps I’m Still Actually Using
These are a few of my favorite things
Google+: The Missing Manual just entered the review phase, after months of effort by yours truly and O’Reilly’s very capable team. So now is a good time to peek above ground and look around. Scoping out the Android landscape, there’s a lot to see. Ice Cream Sandwich, or Android 4.0, is on its way, promising a unified, simplified foundation for smartphones and tablets. As soon as I can get my head around it, an update to the Complete Android Guide should follow.
As a kind of warm-up, and as a way to clear the air, I thought I’d note the apps, features, and little tricks I’ve found to be essential to enjoying an Android phone since I first picked up a G1 in June 2009. More than just my latest obsessions, these Android bits have stuck with me a long time, or significantly changed my experience. First up, the apps, with other tricks to follow.
So Grateful
If nothing else, this Wednesday morning still life will help me look back one day and reminisce. “Hey, remember when everybody screwed with their color settings on photos from $200 phones?”
Everything I have, everything I’ve been able to do, and everything I am is due to the compassion of others. Friends and relatives who tolerated and encouraged me in my upbringing. Teachers, professors, editors, coworkers, and contacts who trusted me not to embarrass them too much. And, today, a growing network of people I can turn to and ask dumb questions. I bet it’s much the same for you. It’s nice to be thankful and grateful, when you can, for all the people who have a hand in helping you do things and not starve while doing them.
Also, my wife, without whom I would have a very different, very dollar-menu-oriented existence. I have proof of this.
Szekely’s Principle (a.k.a. an Ode to the Nexus One)
Unlocked and ready to roll.
Moore’s Law is a popular tech journalism touchstone. It states, roughly, that the raw processing power of electronics will double every two years, and it’s been generally true for the last 45 years. It’s why trying to make a smart computer, tablet, or smartphone purchase these days feels like choosing a car in a Formula One race happening 18 months from now–after alien xenomorphs have arrived on Earth and started working with Ferrari engineers.
There’s a parallel to Moore’s law in how we appreciate bold-for-its-time technology. Call it Szekely’s Principle, derived from this inspired oration. Read the rest of this entry »
Hand-Cranked Grinding
Photo by dennis.tang.
I’ve become something of a coffee snob lately. The snobbery took root in research for a Lifehacker feature, then quickly grew to encompass two kitchen cabinet shelves, quite a few spare thoughts, and whatever discretionary dollars I can justify. It’s at the point where, standing outside myself, I can see what it looks like to make a pained decision between single estate Colombian and triple African Kona blends. The word “precious” comes to mind, but here’s how I can forgive myself. Read the rest of this entry »
The Android Book, Fanboys, Printable Check-Ins, and Goodbye to 2010
That’s not my black nail polish, or my hand, or Mac setup, even if they’re all pretty nice. Photo by @cassandrarife.
If you want something done, the saying goes, give it to a busy person. Except a personal blog post.
The busiest people I know, especially those that write online for a living, wear their guilt about personal blog neglect in constant, public fashion, like one of those rubber fundraiser bracelets (CMStrong?). But forces outside the reluctant ego-blogger occasionally align and conspire against them. Forces like a tardy FedEx deliveryman, two cold fronts, a reluctant Jet Blue, and an eight-hour train ride. So, here goes: Read the rest of this entry »
What My Dad Taught Me About Tech
Not the exact same dialer my father carried, but pretty close. (Via PhishMe.)
Note: This post inspired by Gizmodo’s feature on what our dads taught us about tech.
My father didn’t enjoy gadgets for gadgets’ sake. He bought fish from Nova Scotia, Iceland, Florida, and other places a long way from our home in upstate New York. He and a handful of employees cut it all up and sold the filets. He grew up in rural Long Island, then on a working upstate farm, and couldn’t type beyond finger pecking. Still, the very first device I can ever remember thinking was amazingly cool–or whatever equivalent of “cool” a 6-year-old had in the mid-1980s–was a tiny device he held up to the phone receiver at five in the morning.
It was roughly the size of today’s iPhone, though small in my dad’s gargantuan hands. The label read “Radio Shack,” it was sharp-edged and brown plastic, and it had a big speaker under its flip-open cover. If you slid open the case in the back, there were lots of switches, and maybe even transistors. The main magic, though, was when my father would pick up the kitchen phone handset, hold the speaker up to it, and generate a series of squawks and beeps. When the analog argument was over, he’d maybe punch in a few numbers, then put the device away and start talking. “Jim? Rick Purdy. I need Icelandic Cod by Thursday …”
I picked up my tech obsession, indirectly, from my dad’s cast-offs. After he sold off and closed Statewide Foods the first time, to try a white-collar job and spend more time with his kids, I inherited his office’s bookkeeping computer. It was a Gateway 486DX-33, “Turbo” switch and all. I installed Windows 95 when it arrived from a dozen or more 3.5″ floppy discs. I upgraded it with a CD-ROM (4x) and sound card (Creative, 16-bit) for proper gaming capacity, but then had to check out every single Windows setting, BIOS switch, CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT script, and potential hardware problem when System Shock wouldn’t stop crashing with a terminal-type “Divide Overflow” message. In the end, the culprit was an obscure BIOS setting that put the hard drive into a necessary “Turbo” mode. I will never again buy, name, or accept anything in my life with a “Turbo” label–ever.
Cut to 2010, and I’m a 29-year-old writer who earns his wages detailing the kinds of work-arounds and system fixes that filled my formative years. Interviewed by the local alternative weekly, I brought up that brown box of my father’s. I mentioned it again in my next phone call with my father, and he explained the mystery I’d managed to never directly ask him about.
The device was a Radio Shack tone dialer, and he discovered it in the world of long-distance brokers. It was a kind of “red box” phreaking tool. Rather than pay then-monopoly rates to AT&T/Bell/NY Telephone for long-distance calls, the tones and squawks from the device activated something deep within the local phone switching station, which in turn connected and authorized him to use his own much cheaper carrier to call Iceland, Canada, or wherever he needed fish from.
The conversation about the “brown box” was the last I’d ever have with my father. He passed away on March 23, 2010. A heavy manila envelope had arrived four days earlier. Inside was a brown, dust-flecked device, with a speaker and all the switches still set up.
Every generation thinks they’re the first to stumble across everything. I’m typing this from a smartphone tethered to my laptop to avoid Panera’s unusable lunchtime Wi-Fi. My dad was sneaking around legitimacy to get things done long before his son.
The Still Pool of the Personal Brand
“What’s your Twitter handle? Are you looking for VC money? On Foursquare? HELLOOOO?!?” (image via Wikimedia Commons).
Over a long weekend in September 2007, and right before I sent an overly earnest pitch letter to the editors at Lifehacker, I created this web site so that I might appear impressive, experienced, and engaged in the wider world of tech.
Once I’d made the jump to being actually engaged as a full-time, at-home, independent editor and freelancer, I made updates to the site so as to appear busy and important. Once I was busy, and at least self-important, I wanted to appear responsive, involved, and all kinds of quirky.
These days, I have no time to appear anything at all. Or appear most anywhere, unless it’s tangentially work-related or deductible from taxes. Free food, sure, but otherwise, no dice. Read the rest of this entry »
Remember When It Used To Be Warm?
A single ShackBurger, crinkle-cut fries, and a glass of their own ale. This was a great moment to have a G1 camera handy.
I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya. Long time, like, since before the national health care debate started. Long time like, I still lived in Rochester. Long time like, everybody still thought the Bills had a great passing game ready to roll out.
So! Here’s the notable stuff. I’ll skip the minutiae of professional/Lifehacker-related material, since I should really be a good “personal brand” and round that stuff up on the professional page.
- I got to eat at Shake Shack. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it was part of a very nice two-day jaunt to New York City, wherein I got to work at the Gawker office, see three old friends, and enjoy Manhattan in the not-too-cold-to-walk fall. But I’ve been fiending for this particular combination of meat, sauce, bread, and greenery since I posted about making your own at home. It did not disappoint. Honest food and good ingredients, cooked well and served up straight, and I’m totally in love.
- Among other media appearances, I was quoted in the Wall Street Journal, following a very fun interview with Alexandra Levit. This is important mostly because the WSJ is something my parents and relatives can say they’ve actually heard of, so family get-togethers now have one gimme conversation point.
My wife and I moved back to Buffalo, so now I’ve got new home office digs and an endless tab at Home Depot. I miss many things about Rochester, but overall, it’s been great to get back to the business of shivering, connecting, and eating with the great people here.- Having settled in a bit, I’ve been writing material for Buffalo Spree (ooh, new web site!), a twice-monthly tip column for ITworld, and the occasional piece somewhere else, like Popular Science.
- I have started watching The Wire, sequentially from the first episode, for the third time. This is notable mainly because it represents an approximate, cumulative total of 150 hours dedicated to the study of this five-season masterpiece, being early into Season 3, and not counting Season 5 episodes I totally watched twice, because I downloaded them early and then pretended I hadn’t when they aired on HBO, which I subscribed to solely for the purpose of getting on-demand Season 5 episodes, and yes I’m aware this is a comically overlong sentence.
Since you asked, yes, I find Season 2 to be vastly underrated, and Season 3 to be very loose and faulty at points, despite having two of the strongest plot arcs (Hamsterdam and Stringer Bell’s quest to “go straight”). I could certainly go on–and I have in the past–but let’s just say that I’m very eager to discuss this with you at any point when we meet. Midway through your surgery? Tie off that morphine drip, fellow watcher, and let’s get down to brass tacks.