Recently there was a story about how Apple was changing policies so
e-books from other companies could no longer be bought on Apple
devices. Amazon Kindle user anger was expressed in article after
article on the web. Tech savvy writers typed or dictated lots of text
about how awful this was and what an infringement on their ability use
established apps by Apple competitors.
As an avid reader who uses a Kindle device and the Kindle app to read
I had to check it out for myself. I went to buy a book in my Kindle
app on my phone like I had done in the past and an alert popped up
saying "purchases via this device are no longer supported" or
something like that.
So it was true! They had tied off the ability to purchase ebooks on my iPad.
Having grown up before personal computers were hot and after using the
pre-Internet things like America Online and CompuServe I opened up the
browser on my mobile device and browsed to the Amazon website. I
searched for the book that I wanted to purchase, found the Kindle
format button and made sure I was logged into my Amazon account in my
browser. And I purchased the book with no issues. I then switched
over to the Kindle, downloaded my newly purchased book, and commenced
to reading it.
"Apps" make things very convenient at times, but they have become
herding devices. By that I mean they heard us into a sales funnel
where the app or service progressively moves us closer to the point at
which we part with money. Apps also tend to soak up the data all
around them and sometimes even that they have no right to be accessing
unless we allow it. I tend to shy away from apps because I just don't
trust the company or I just live without whatever it is that the app
is providing.
That's not to say I don't have a lot of apps on my mobile device. I
do! But I don't let what happens get in the way of what I'm trying to
do. If silly stuff like this battle between the giant companies gets
in the way I tend to go to the source of what the app is doing, the
website, and just keep going. So many times I've found that an app is
just a quick exoskeleton that is actually running a browser and
browsing the website anyways but with extra overlays and limits put on
you so that they can control what you're doing.
I guess the moral of the story is don't lead the battles between the
tech giants stand in the way of what I'm trying to accomplish. You
shouldn't either!
Tuesday, October 10, 2023
Thursday, October 5, 2023
Seasons ~
It's funny how seasons work in my head. I enjoy the passing of
seasons and I actually enjoy all of them (Spring, Summer, Fall,
Winter). I think my favorite is summer although I love cold dark
winter days. I enjoy the fall days with the leaves blowing and cool
crisp nights but also enjoy spring when everything is bursting forth
and turning yellow from pollen where I live.
One of the things that I notice and myself though is a tendency to think about the opposite of the season that I'm in. It's summer as I capture this and so it's usually a warm day with an okay evening but typically not cool. It's been summer for some time and so I'm finding myself this week thinking about winter and cold weather and wearing a jacket all the time and breaking out my warm shirts instead of wearing thin moisture wicking shirts all the time. Although I tend to wear them all the time anyways.
But I've always noticed in the deepest part of winter after Christmas when people are talking about skiing trips and all that I start thinking about summer heat and how nice it is to take my shirt off and soak in some sun. Although not too much for me since I really don't want to get skin cancer anymore.
But it's funny how I am in the moment enjoying what God has given us but still thinking about the opposite and looking forward to the upcoming season changes.
Weird.
One of the things that I notice and myself though is a tendency to think about the opposite of the season that I'm in. It's summer as I capture this and so it's usually a warm day with an okay evening but typically not cool. It's been summer for some time and so I'm finding myself this week thinking about winter and cold weather and wearing a jacket all the time and breaking out my warm shirts instead of wearing thin moisture wicking shirts all the time. Although I tend to wear them all the time anyways.
But I've always noticed in the deepest part of winter after Christmas when people are talking about skiing trips and all that I start thinking about summer heat and how nice it is to take my shirt off and soak in some sun. Although not too much for me since I really don't want to get skin cancer anymore.
But it's funny how I am in the moment enjoying what God has given us but still thinking about the opposite and looking forward to the upcoming season changes.
Weird.
Saturday, September 30, 2023
Words mean things - midget ~
I saw a story yesterday about a man that makes a lot of money acting
in TV shows commenting on the use of his kind of people in a live
action remake of an animated feature movie.
What? I described the story without saying all the words that offended him and offend some of the others. So now I'll use the words.
The guy is a dwarf. Midget, dwarf, little person, height-challenged, whatever. It's not a bad thing, it's just a descriptor to put him in a box so that when we talk about him you know who we're talking about.
The feature movie is one that was made in the early 20th century by Disney. And he was talking a lot about Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
I think it's a shame that our attention-driven economy is so hungry for controversy that it looks for all the "content" that will catch and capture attention and generate discussion like this that one guys being offended causes an entity like Disney to react the way that it did.
I think it's comical in general that the "social-minded" among us are so right and righteous that they get upset that an actor who is playing somebody else isn't actually just like the somebody else that they're playing in whatever special classifier that they're focused on this week is. Like the people who get upset when they see an old Lone Ranger show and see that a white man is playing Tonto. Or when the see a non-homosexual (read heterosexual) play the part of a homosexual in a show.
It's a show! They're actors! They are paid to study and learn and think about being somebody else.
Furthermore, the show is fake. It is not reality! It is exaggerated escapism from the reality of a person's daily life made to manipulate your emotions!
I just wish people would go by the maxim that was taught when kids were spanked and punished for not acting correctly and people actually got put in jail when they broke the law: "If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all."
What? I described the story without saying all the words that offended him and offend some of the others. So now I'll use the words.
The guy is a dwarf. Midget, dwarf, little person, height-challenged, whatever. It's not a bad thing, it's just a descriptor to put him in a box so that when we talk about him you know who we're talking about.
The feature movie is one that was made in the early 20th century by Disney. And he was talking a lot about Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
I think it's a shame that our attention-driven economy is so hungry for controversy that it looks for all the "content" that will catch and capture attention and generate discussion like this that one guys being offended causes an entity like Disney to react the way that it did.
I think it's comical in general that the "social-minded" among us are so right and righteous that they get upset that an actor who is playing somebody else isn't actually just like the somebody else that they're playing in whatever special classifier that they're focused on this week is. Like the people who get upset when they see an old Lone Ranger show and see that a white man is playing Tonto. Or when the see a non-homosexual (read heterosexual) play the part of a homosexual in a show.
It's a show! They're actors! They are paid to study and learn and think about being somebody else.
Furthermore, the show is fake. It is not reality! It is exaggerated escapism from the reality of a person's daily life made to manipulate your emotions!
I just wish people would go by the maxim that was taught when kids were spanked and punished for not acting correctly and people actually got put in jail when they broke the law: "If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all."
Monday, September 25, 2023
Women taking care of business ~
One of the most interesting things about our society right now is they
encourage men to be responsible and do the right things but it's funny
to see women huddling together taking care of things and older women
raising younger women trying to teach them the right ways to do
things. It's kind of sad in some ways because you don't see the man
there. Or if you do see a man he's got two kids with him because he's
divorced and it's his weekend of the kids.
But it's such a weird time right now because there's so much pressure to change our societal norms and it's having a profound effect. It's fascinating because what's happening is more more people think that you know whatever goes is normal to the point that a show about a hospital in New York City in the third season has a scene where a woman kisses another woman and the other woman that has been heterosexual her whole life but says this is the only normal thing in my life and goes with it. Kissing another woman and being with that woman sexually is the only normal thing in that heterosexual woman's life. Wow!
So I like it when I go to church. I like it when I go to the Catholic Church on the Friday night fish fry during Lent and talk to a man who's been married to his wife for 60+ years. I like it when I see what I know as normal and I get to be with people like. I don't like to see all the stuff that I do not consider normal on TV and video.
But it's such a weird time right now because there's so much pressure to change our societal norms and it's having a profound effect. It's fascinating because what's happening is more more people think that you know whatever goes is normal to the point that a show about a hospital in New York City in the third season has a scene where a woman kisses another woman and the other woman that has been heterosexual her whole life but says this is the only normal thing in my life and goes with it. Kissing another woman and being with that woman sexually is the only normal thing in that heterosexual woman's life. Wow!
So I like it when I go to church. I like it when I go to the Catholic Church on the Friday night fish fry during Lent and talk to a man who's been married to his wife for 60+ years. I like it when I see what I know as normal and I get to be with people like. I don't like to see all the stuff that I do not consider normal on TV and video.
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
Weird experience at Walmart ~
I had one of the weirdest experiences in my life at a local Walmart recently.
I was moving through the store purchasing things from all over the place. I was pushing my cart and doing my thing. I was being a good consumer.
I'm 58 years old at this point. I move will and feel like I am physically fit. And I don't feel like I appeared to be an aged person.
I made it to the bread and coffee and tea file. There is peanut butter and jelly on one end, a lot of curio egg instant coffee things at the other end. And on the other side a lot of bread and tortillas.
I made the mistake of parking my cart on one side of the aisle while reaching for a package of tortillas on the other side of the aisle. When I started by motion there was nobody on the aisle with me.
As I reached to select some tortillas from the stack of extra-large carb friendly protein rich tortilla packages on the other side of the aisle I heard the telltale sound of another card approaching me.
From my peripheral vision I picked up a massive person pushing a normal sized cart and bearing down on my current location.
As this person approached my current location I looked up and saw the fierce look on the face of a female with her hair pulled tightly up to the top of her head in a bun with a man in tow behind her looking pleadingly at me. She was bearing down on me as if I was a possum in the road blinded by headlights at 2:00am in the morning.
I grabbed for a package of tortillas and then stepped back across the aisle behind my cart for some protection. Foolish, because the cart was on the other side of me and she would've hit me anyways. As my snatch at tortillas happened I pulled the perforated plastic off of a package of tortillas but left the package there on the shelf.
This woman bore down on my position and then blew through where I had just been standing one second ago as if I did not exist or as if I was a squirrel or possum on the road.
"Bitch" was my first thought. My second thought was pity. My third thought was racism, sadly.
Common decency says you pause and wait for people, especially the aged like me. She apparently had no intention to do that. I must not appear aged enough for her to have any pity on me. Or maybe it was the color of my skin or the color of her skin and the experience she has had over life.
All in all it was an interesting but valuable lesson. Don't try to buy across the aisle at Walmart. You'll get run down no matter where you are or who you happen to be.
Lesson learned!
I was moving through the store purchasing things from all over the place. I was pushing my cart and doing my thing. I was being a good consumer.
I'm 58 years old at this point. I move will and feel like I am physically fit. And I don't feel like I appeared to be an aged person.
I made it to the bread and coffee and tea file. There is peanut butter and jelly on one end, a lot of curio egg instant coffee things at the other end. And on the other side a lot of bread and tortillas.
I made the mistake of parking my cart on one side of the aisle while reaching for a package of tortillas on the other side of the aisle. When I started by motion there was nobody on the aisle with me.
As I reached to select some tortillas from the stack of extra-large carb friendly protein rich tortilla packages on the other side of the aisle I heard the telltale sound of another card approaching me.
From my peripheral vision I picked up a massive person pushing a normal sized cart and bearing down on my current location.
As this person approached my current location I looked up and saw the fierce look on the face of a female with her hair pulled tightly up to the top of her head in a bun with a man in tow behind her looking pleadingly at me. She was bearing down on me as if I was a possum in the road blinded by headlights at 2:00am in the morning.
I grabbed for a package of tortillas and then stepped back across the aisle behind my cart for some protection. Foolish, because the cart was on the other side of me and she would've hit me anyways. As my snatch at tortillas happened I pulled the perforated plastic off of a package of tortillas but left the package there on the shelf.
This woman bore down on my position and then blew through where I had just been standing one second ago as if I did not exist or as if I was a squirrel or possum on the road.
"Bitch" was my first thought. My second thought was pity. My third thought was racism, sadly.
Common decency says you pause and wait for people, especially the aged like me. She apparently had no intention to do that. I must not appear aged enough for her to have any pity on me. Or maybe it was the color of my skin or the color of her skin and the experience she has had over life.
All in all it was an interesting but valuable lesson. Don't try to buy across the aisle at Walmart. You'll get run down no matter where you are or who you happen to be.
Lesson learned!
Friday, September 15, 2023
The GOAT ~
I've watched as things that I was taught were corrupted and turned
against what I believed. Things taken to such levels of exaggeration
that went around to the other side and became the accepted norm. And
it's hard!
One of the latest things is the focus on promoting the "greatest of all time". The culture I'm in is so focused on sport and competition and winning the "honor" of being "the best there ever was" and "the greatest of all time". Being Americans of course we shorten that to GOAT. And so now I'm watching the symbol that people have used for devil worship be promoted as representing the greatest thing in the world.
As I watch "settled science" on biology get overturned in the name of personal preference of sex and sexual orientation, as I watch men get declared as the greatest female athletes of all time, as I watch the church turned in to the butt of jokes and the villain in movies and video games, as I watch more and more people do illegal things because nobody is watching them I have to wonder
I read chapter 1 of the letter to the Romans and the Bible and wonder again if we are living that out right now.(https://www.bible.com/bible/97/ROM.1.MSG)
As they keep talking about limiting and tracking all cash transactions with digital currencies and other symbols that we will just have to wave over a sensor and I see fellow Christians react in fear but I actually welcome it. Because the sooner these things happen the sooner my Savior comes back. Come, Lord Jesus!
One of the latest things is the focus on promoting the "greatest of all time". The culture I'm in is so focused on sport and competition and winning the "honor" of being "the best there ever was" and "the greatest of all time". Being Americans of course we shorten that to GOAT. And so now I'm watching the symbol that people have used for devil worship be promoted as representing the greatest thing in the world.
As I watch "settled science" on biology get overturned in the name of personal preference of sex and sexual orientation, as I watch men get declared as the greatest female athletes of all time, as I watch the church turned in to the butt of jokes and the villain in movies and video games, as I watch more and more people do illegal things because nobody is watching them I have to wonder
I read chapter 1 of the letter to the Romans and the Bible and wonder again if we are living that out right now.(https://www.bible.com/bible/97/ROM.1.MSG)
As they keep talking about limiting and tracking all cash transactions with digital currencies and other symbols that we will just have to wave over a sensor and I see fellow Christians react in fear but I actually welcome it. Because the sooner these things happen the sooner my Savior comes back. Come, Lord Jesus!
Sunday, September 10, 2023
Running on empty ~
A few weeks ago I did something uncharacteristic for me. I ran my
vehicle recently to a point where the empty alert light came on.
I'm a "VIP" with our grocery store and we had built up enough points for $0.60 off per gallon of gas to maximize our savings when I fill my truck up with gasoline so I drove around for three days watching the fuel gauge to get closer and closer to the E.
Finally on the day that I knew I could stop by us at the grocery store I checked the gauge and decided to go for it. I drove to work in the fuel tank was almost empty. When I got off of work and started the engine of my truck I looked at how low the fuel was on it, said a prayer asking God to stretch out my last little bit of gasoline to help me make it to the store, drove by six other gas stations thinking that I was being foolish for doing this and that I'd end up running out of gas and have to call my wife to come and save me, and set out.
I made it! The gas light came on a few miles before I got to the store. I pulled in to the store thinking I was about to run out of gas. Then when I filled the tank I discovered that I was down to about half a gallon of gas left in my tank. Thrill! I felt like I had accomplished so much by saving so much on my full tank of gas. And then it hit me because of all the stress and fretting probably wasn't worth the little bit of money that is saved. What a ride!
I'm a "VIP" with our grocery store and we had built up enough points for $0.60 off per gallon of gas to maximize our savings when I fill my truck up with gasoline so I drove around for three days watching the fuel gauge to get closer and closer to the E.
Finally on the day that I knew I could stop by us at the grocery store I checked the gauge and decided to go for it. I drove to work in the fuel tank was almost empty. When I got off of work and started the engine of my truck I looked at how low the fuel was on it, said a prayer asking God to stretch out my last little bit of gasoline to help me make it to the store, drove by six other gas stations thinking that I was being foolish for doing this and that I'd end up running out of gas and have to call my wife to come and save me, and set out.
I made it! The gas light came on a few miles before I got to the store. I pulled in to the store thinking I was about to run out of gas. Then when I filled the tank I discovered that I was down to about half a gallon of gas left in my tank. Thrill! I felt like I had accomplished so much by saving so much on my full tank of gas. And then it hit me because of all the stress and fretting probably wasn't worth the little bit of money that is saved. What a ride!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)