Clawing for Attention

I understand the need for every app, especially the news ones, to claw for attention. I think the worst offenders do so and have sponsored/suggested ads peppered in through their content.

The Yahoo! Newsroom app is the worst of all the ones I have. Once I open it, I think I get 20-25 notifications within two or three days of news it believes I want to look at. Some of it is just the Yahoo! content, a good deal being videos. I’ve never been a fan of video news. Television news is fine, but video news in general has been iffy for me. Newsy has been an exception, though I haven’t quite given them as much attention as I had in the past.

Another offender is LinkedIn. They don’t do notifications quite as often, but they like to randomly have their badge light up just so anal-retentive people like me who want it gone can open the app. That then starts the cycle, because once one opens the app, more notifications come in. Pinterest too.

But it’s all free, so I really shouldn’t complain, right? Or turn off the notifications and badges? But then I might miss something.

Craigslist Moves

Pretty much every apartment except the one I’m soon about to vacate after three years and two months I’d located, prospected, and signed leases for because of Craigslist.

Craigslist, while I can’t say I’ve been on it much lately, had been a big part of my life in my twenties. Sometimes it would be idle browsing, sometimes for job searches, and sometimes it would be for apartments.

Having decided I was going to not renew my lease this time around, I’d first went via Apartment Ratings (since that’s how I’d found where I am currently). Not finding ones that jumped out at me pretty readily, I went to old reliable Craigslist.

And now I’m moving. Oh, the 21st century.

9 Additional Sins

There are nine others that are making more and more sense to me. Some of them seem more repugnant to me than others, but they’re something I just might put to memory.

New year, self-reformation some.

Reviewing

Reviewing is kind of fun.

It allows me to tell a story coherently and sometimes with a little creative wording. Sometimes I have to think about where I’d like to review, though, because the majority of places I do go aren’t where one would think of or have time to analyze.

And then I’m kind of a homebody.

Esoteric References

I'm that guy who makes references only a handful of people would get, and it's an interesting feeling.

When I get up, I listen to news podcasts, as I do when I'm alone at lunch, and when I'm doing something at work that doesn't require as much concentration. Even so, sometimes I blank. I'm even having some memory problems where I'm not as sharp at remembering what I've experienced and said than I've not.

But I know about Koeppen climates, North Dakota weather, and the population of Wyoming.

I could tell you about the seal they had to take off an airport runway in Utqiagvik sooner than I could that there, apparently a couple years ago, was a smash-though of a Chinese restaurant around the corner from my apartment and an armed altercation at the Kroger next door to it within the same month.

I know some world leaders' names a little more easily than I do my own constituency representatives.

But it's all okay. It's lonely, and I only slightly care, but it's okay.

Remember When?

I remember there was a time when I wanted to re-experience something so badly, but I had to wait for it (media-wise). In high school, I'd seen an episode of Animaniacs where The Brain had a song for the various parts of the human brain. I'd told my Anatomy and Physiology teacher, Mrs Getz, about it and she'd wanted me to bring it in.

Yet, it took the episode forever to cycle though and repeat!

I did end up promising I'd make her a copy, but yet never ended up doing so. I have a VHS tape that may still have it.

Early in iOS Game Center history there was a game called Flight Control Rocket, and I'd always wanted the Shop theme. No one had it, though, and it's just today with the screen record feature and YouTube that I now have it. I just need to strip out the audio and voilà. Another game, DragonVale, I'd had a similar want with some of the Hallowe'en music.

Now I have the set.

Imagine, now all of this is so easy. The only restriction is what tools you have to make it possible.

The future is nigh.

Ave Satani

So, I've watched Damien for the second time through (the first time live every week last year, and then finishing it up today, coincidentally Bradley James's 34th birthday, via Hulu).

I have such an interesting... appreciation, I guess is the word, for blasphemy, or at the very least things that don't put God exactly in the highest light. I like the songs "Man in the Box" and "Stop Smiling". I've actually like dark-themed shows, like Damien, and then there are shows that put different spins on Christian belief, history, and lore, such as Dominion and Supernatural, both of which I've esteemed.

There are dark-themed movies like The Chronicles of Riddick that have essentially death-worshipers.

Where am I going? Who knows?

Texting While Driving

I was driving home yesterday, and when I made a turn I came on a car that was driving slowly.

For me to say this, as someone who others have called repeatedly a “slow driver,” this is saying something.

As I came next to her, I’d realized she was on her phone, typing away. I decided to drive in front of her. While I drove, for the next five blocks before my next turn to get home, I would watch her, occasionally not even paying attention that she’s a long distance (like seven car lengths at least distance) behind me and holding up traffic), still typing away. It was infuriating to behold.

What could be that engrossing that you can’t stop and park somewhere to do that? Are you single and trying to develop a relationship? Are you a wife corresponding with your husband? Are you a businesswoman who can’t seem to realize texting business is not a good thing on the road? The relatively calm look on her face didn’t make it seem like something was emergent (and if it were an emergency, I’d imagine she’d be trying to get to the emergency quickly rather than meandering along while drive-texting).

Humans…

Human Bodies

This post contains what some might see as spoilers, even though The Matrix is nearly 20 years old, and Jupiter Ascending is going on three years pretty soon.

My mother had me thinking about the Wachowsk(i/a)s/Wachowscy with an assignment she has to do.

Part of what I've liked about their worlds they've built is how they'd trivialized the human body. They've made them into nothing more than disposable robot batteries and grind-up fodder for a youth serum. They've shown that you can just shoot one dead and, while it hurts some people, they move on. They've shown that we're, in the grand scheme, not very unique because the genome is finite and eventually, as I've remarked on before, someone else will come out exactly like us genetically long after we've died.

They've show being cavalier with modifying the human body, augmenting it, pushing it, warping it.

I can't speak for their other creations because I haven't given them shots (or a care, really), but I'm sure they have those themes somewhat too. In the back of my mind, I've had the thought that it probably relates to their eventual transgender identities.

What really makes humanity so special, though, eh? Because God created us? Because we're somewhat modifying this planet to suit our needs at the expense of all the other life it has? Because we're the "only beings of merit/consequence" in the universe?

People need to remember this planet can, and has, squish/ed us flat.

Lifelogging, aka Them Making Money Off You?

It's not until I'd moved to Georgia that I'd really, really started hearing an almost hate for anything that would use your labor, however, inane, small, or otherwise not-so-energy-taxing/zapping, to make money.

I'm a lifelogger, which essentially means I'm able to go into an app and actually look back at where I've been for about 8 years now because I'd recorded my whereabouts. Looking back is nostalgic, and looking at the map of plotpoints is pretty cool, honestly. Still, it's free, and the companies (because there are multiple) are probably using this data to sell to companies who can use it to their devices.

And I don't mind that, really. Sometimes one hears of how many people go somewhere, or at what time, or during certain circumstances. It's pretty neat to hear, actually. These lifelogging tools partly make that possible. I'm also kind of helping artificial intelligence on its way in just a little way.

Because it's not like my life is oodles of fascination anyway...

“Is It Something You Do?”

I’ve been training a new guy at work and he has asked me this question quite a bit. I tell him something and he asks me if it’s something I do [myself]. It had annoyed me a little bit because I’m the type of person who wouldn’t (although my lack of wanting to say that I’m 100% certain of anything leads me to want to interject “most of the time”) say for someone to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself.

I’d kept /I keep wondering if it’s a cultural thing for him, or something that perhaps has bitten him in the back previously. Perhaps he may be a bit suspicious?

I don’t know.

I have been thinking about how people see things lately. My cousin and one other person had told me off because I typed out “[shrug]” as a response in a chat. I’d meant “I don’t know/I’m not sure”, but they’d interpreted it as “I don’t care/give a fuck”.

People at work have interpreted when I have my earbuds in listening to podcasts (and even then, most people seem to think I’m listening to music rather than podcasts) that I don’t want anyone to talk to me. I’ve literally had to say to people they can indeed approach me whenever I have earbuds in because I don’t mean for them to think I don’t want to talk to anyone. Whenever anyone’s walked into a room while I’m wearing them, I’ve greeted that person.

Yes, I’m an introvert and have some social anxiety, but it doesn’t mean I’m standoffish or wanting to be/seem rude intentionally.

It’s just strange how so many social cues that I suppose people use in one way to be passive-aggressive (passive-aggressiveness being something I’ve come to about loathe lately) I somehow use innocently and people may think I’m using them the same way. I’ve often not even thought of it until someone brings it up.

It may be just a slight removal from someone being unaware the way they use a phrase may actually offend someone. We humans interpret things in different ways. But fuck-all if it’s annoying.

iOS 11, Day 1

I’ve never been an early adopter of most things, often either letting other try it so see how it’s worked for them, or just that I’ve not gotten around to something/couldn’t afford to time or money-wise.

iOS releases, since I’ve had an iPhone, have been the rare exception to that. Probably my favorite iteration is still iOS 6, but here I have five full versions later.

I’d gotten home and downloaded it directly via my phone while the backup was processing; the entire download took about 20 minutes. That’s mounds more admirable than a few versions ago, where it had taken about 3 hours (it may have been the first version they’d introduced over-the-air updates).

I’m getting used to some of the revisions they’d done, such as accessing notifications on the lock screen, and the look of the play screen. I don’t like what they’d done to the Podcasts app, which essentially stopped the ability to play podcasts automatically in the order they appear without having to add each to a “Play Next” queue. I’d readopted Stitcher Radio partly because of this, even though I have to sacrifice a few local news outlets’ feeds to do it.

I have yet to try the Screen Recording feature, though I think that may be trouble for some people in the future (even though I’d like to believe most apps to what this would be relevant might either have some kind of notification or lockdown for it. I have yet to try that, though.

Since I’m working on a 6 Plus, it’s naturally a little slow at first, and it will be since this is probably the second-lowest tier of Apple phone still in support. It’s okay; I’m not in any particular rush for a new phone, so long as it does what I need it to do.

I’m glad they’d worked on the on-device Library portion of the TV app, because its bugginess in iOS 10 was bothering the fuck out of me. They’d also re-enabled landscape views, for which I’m thankful. The disintegration of the Facebook/Twitter apps from the core is slightly surprising, but they’d also done that with iOS 7 from iOS 6 (the accessibility of both for status updates immediately as a widget in iOS 6 was another thing I’d liked.

Let’s see what else I discover as the days and weeks go by, since it seems this version they’d catered more to the iPad than iPhone anyway…

Why I Chose… Vanilla

I love the flavor and smell of vanilla.

When I was a kid (and even as an adult when I'm around my mother baking) I'd love when my mother poured Benjamin's vanilla extract into the batter. The sweet aroma of the thing, along with the buzz of the small amount of alcohol, were addicting.

Whenever we'd get vanilla ice cream, I'd eat helpings of it by the soup bowl. Whenever we'd get Neapolitan ice cream, I'd eat the vanilla part, my sister the chocolate, and my brother the strawberry. I'd eat the strawberry too, sometimes, but the vanilla was my thing. Chocolate, it just had too overpowering and bitter a flavor. That's something I still feel.

I think it's partly because vanilla soothes me why I love it so.

The Biggest Wuss

Okay, maybe not the biggest…

I'd lost power two days ago because of Irma, and the way I'd spoken about it, bearing in mind there are other people who'd had it worse or who go through worse, it was almost a tragedy. One could interpret my words that way, at any rate.

Realizing that, I'd felt like a wuss. I'd felt like, me having grown up mostly in the United States, having accustomed myself to the conveniences of coming home and having a relatively set routine with relatively no interruptions, I was not adapting well (even though I suppose I somewhat was; my sister had told me not to be hard on myself).

I'd made a Facebook post about marveling that I'd still had some hot water though the power had gone out. The next day I didn't have that fortune. I'd gone to bed early because there was very little to do, and I was conserving my phone's power. I didn't have my podcasts. I had little light to read the few books I'd elected to keep after purging my collection.

I'd felt like the type of American person Jamaicans scorn as being soft and inflexible. I didn't/don't want to be that person. I don't want people thinking I don't or couldn't measure up.

The power returned yesterday, and so continues my life of relative comfort. #firstworldproblems

Recommended Reading

I've, for quite a bit of my life, described myself as an information vampire. Whenever news apps like Flipboard and Apple News, as well as the Google Search app, have asked for my opinion on keywords and/or topics I'd like to see more of, I'd found myself tapping on many of them. I'd wanted to know about a lot of them (especially with countries/states that I don't hear about often, as I'd talked about somewhat before), even though there were limits to what I could read, or that the app would allow me to read in the case of Apple News.

There's only so much information I can take in because of biological need to sleep, limitations of my mind, and lack of desire to read certain stories (usually reality TV- or sports-related). Still, sometimes because something is "trending", it may still appear on my dashboard, which is a little annoying.

I'm generally not inclined to read sports just about as much as I tend to not watch certain videos. I don't want to outright say, or put into their minds, that I don't want to see those types of recommendations, but I don't really care to see them either.

That rationale sounds rather familiar ("I'm not racist, but I don't date Black/Asian/Latin@/White/whatever else people."). I guess this mindset comes in all kinds of forms, except some people just block people rather than have to possibly deal ("all the time") with having to reject someone because they don't fit your definition of "ideal".

We're hurtful creatures, humans.

Ultimately Why We Work

Yes, this is not scholarly. I have no sources, and have done no research. It's not even original. It's just what I've been thinking about on the way home... from work.

We work, though, because we, somewhat, fear what idleness can do. I'm certain when we all didn't work, when we meandered and thought, socialized and did whatever else idle humans do, we got into trouble. We see sometimes how children behave when they can do whatever they want, and I suppose even adults may do the same. We'd found we could do things, construct things, put things together, and went with that.

Someone worked, and then eventually more worked. Then we'd started deciding things had relative worth, and that we could trade one thing for another. We got the idea of fairness, because this person shouldn't have to work harder than someone else and not get more out of it than that someone else.

We began having an ethos of gaining things, wealth. Our populations expanded, meaning we had to make sure resources lasted, even though people with more wealth could buy as many resources as they wanted, leaving others without. Or they would sell those resources to gain more wealth. We created governments as we'd learnt about power and resource apportioning, including that governments could raise funds from land just as individuals found they could.

People who don't want anything to do with the regular scheme of things -- working for pay, having a mortgage, living in a proper house, creating more humans -- don't propagate the system humanity has created. Other human beings sometimes look at those who would take what they have and go out on their own with some amazement and some jealousy. "Why does he get to not work? I don't want to work." The person striking out on his own would have a time trying to do that, though, because the system wants everyone to pay for land.

The system has budgeted that so many people who make money will put a certain amount of that towards the system to keep it going. Having less people doing so undoes the system. People can't have tiny tracts of land for tiny houses because the system wouldn't make enough to sustain itself, so they'd set rather large minimum plot sizes.

Minimalism in a culture that treasures having more is a sin, something awkward and unseemly.

We work to keep ourselves busy and because it keeps the system that developed out of keeping ourselves out of idleness going.

Creepy Revenge

	Kristopha Hohn (@seishin17)
9/1/17, 7:26 PM I really don't get the mindset of not-clinically-crazy people who *save* excrement (liquid/solid) specifically to use it on/against someone.

I'd written this after hearing that, apparently, sometime fairly recently a guy had thrown a cup of pee at a bus driver. The guy was on a bus... and had a cup of pee ready to throw on a bus driver. That's... insane.

It's about as insane as this woman I'd heard about who'd been having a conversation/argument with her husband. He'd fallen asleep, so (naturally) she'd set him on fire and then put out the fire with some urine she'd had conveniently. At least with this one, they were at home, so she conceivably could have had a bedpan or something to put it out. Setting him on fire and then putting it out with pee, that's... interesting.

I'd also had on the thought docket the anecdotes and comedy movie fodder I've seen over the years of people putting bags of dog feces in front of people's doors, lighting it on fire, ringing the doorbell and then running. This leaves the occupant of the house to open the door (almost always male), see the flames, and stamp on the flames (and the bag of shit) to put it out. What person waits for their dog to need to defecate, collect it in a paper bag, and then store it (somehow) until it comes time to play the prank? What person?

I've heard of really extremist (and, in my opinion, cracked) PETA folks throwing combinations of feces and urine on their targets.

Then, this still doesn't give me reasons on my tweet: what non-crazy person does this, and why?

Well, the why, I can understand somewhat. Excrement is something we as humans really dislike for the most part. We want to get rid of it. We want nothing to do with it, and we want to remove ourselves from it as quickly as we're able. I've said excretion is one of the vital human functions I'd rather not have to do (along with eating, and most times, sleeping). Using excrement against someone is a giant insult to that person, then, or at least a way to demean that person.

The storage of it, though, that's... dedication.

Why I Chose... Florida

Okay, so I didn't have much of a say in it. My immediate family just migrated there.

When I was a very young kid, my mother applied successfully for my sister and me both to become naturalized British Citizens, a status at least I still have to this day. It was a prelude to probably moving to England. Meanwhile, my dad had other ideas.

His father and stepmother both lived in Florida, and that's where he wanted to go. So, that's where we went.

Florida, I adore, though, at least Fort Lauderdale. Miami, not so much. Miami Beach, I like.

I like Florida for its raininess. I like that it's breezy enough that I don't have to use the air conditioning much during the summer like I do here in Georgia. And it doesn't have the ghastly pollen season, either.

I like that there's actually a walking culture both in the suburbs and cities, and that in city-adjacent neighborhoods (or even the city where I'd grown up) one can walk places and not have to have much concern about someone drunkenly mowing you down because the "sidewalk" is literally a part of the road with a solid line dividing the two.

I'd had, relatively, better dating prospects there, or at least people seemed to like me better. But then I was still in my 20's, too, so that helped.

Being a Man

I've been thinking the last few days about the word "man", and how I've been reticent to use it when taking about myself. Sex-wise, I'm a male. Gender-wise, I suppose that's the only time I may use the word "man" since it's clinical: "I'm a cisgender man." It may be because I use cisgender with it.

Otherwise, I'm a guy. I very rarely call myself a man, and O wonder why that is.

Is it a lifetime thus far of seeing images of what Western society sees as a man and somehow not feeling I'm up to that level? Is it because I tend to be very non-committal in language because there's "always something that could undo it". I tend to be rather careful with absolutes, and I suppose I may view "man" as absolute. It's rigid. It's hard.

"Guy", that's flexible enough. It evokes some sense of softness that I definitely do have.

And I suppose, Daniel Jackson, you have your answer.

The World

The world is the United States president saying one thing, then another, then another thing. It makes only some people ridiculously happy because they get to speak about it incessantly.

The world is vehicles that become murder weapons throughout Europe… because why not?

The world is political figures constantly trying to one-up each other just to say they're better, even though when they die they'll all become dust.

The world is businesses that try to innovate even when they've reached maximum saturation. It's only because they feel they must always expand.

The world is taking advantage of debt, reselling it, gouging on interest, passing it around, and forgetting about it via bankruptcy.

People wonder when I hesitate to acknowledge others' thoughts that human beings are the pinnacle of creation.