Well, it took me several months to plow through it, but I finally finished Susan Orlean’s essay collection, On Animals.

All fifteen essays, all 235 pages. Several months…

I think you can see where this review is going….

The essays – all on animals in case that was unclear – are a collection (assuming “the best”) written over the past twenty years, most originating in “The New Yorker.” It’s not laid out chronologically, so an essay from 2020 can be followed by one written a decade earlier. Many short story collections are chronological, so one can see the writer mature/themes change as the author ages.

While I’m sure Orlean has picked up a trick or two over the years, her writing is almost always brilliant – it’s just that sometimes the essays missed the mark for me. Oft times it was just the overreaching that turned me off. Editors!

The introduction (written in 2021) really sucked me in, and it was followed by great first essay – from 2009 – about chickens. Delightful.

But I really got bogged down in a essay about tigers (too disjointed), and essays about show dogs and rabbits were just *shrug* – whatever. And while I learned a thing or two about oxen from “Carbonara and Primavera,” the abrupt ending still baffles me. Read the last line on the page, turned to continue the essay and: nada. The story was over.

She seems to genuinely love animals – her last essay, updated for this collection – is an overview of her (now sold) upstate New York menagerie, giving her time to muse on hens, turkeys, Angus beef and cats (adopted strays included). Much to love.

My favorites are the previously mentioned essay on chickens (“The It Bird”) and tale of donkeys in Morocco (“Where Donkey’s Deliver”). In the latter essay, she kept asking the donkey owners the names of their animals. She assumed that the donkey owners, like Americans, name their animals.

They don’t – they see the donkeys as tools; naming one would be like naming a wheelbarrow.

Overall it was a disappointment, but there was enough good in there to not mark it as wasted time. Just not up there with collections by E.B. White or Malcolm Gladwell, for example, and I thought Orlean could crack into their level.

One of the interesting aspects of the essays was the drawing at the beginning of each essay. It’s a line drawing – but a single, continuous line – to create the animal the essay addresses.

Here is the one for the essay on tigers:

My brother-in-law is a graphic designer, and when I mentioned these animal icons to him, he was familiar with the process and said there was a special name for it. They would do exercises with the technique in art school.

I did some research; I was expecting a fancy-pants French or Latin word/phrase.

All I could find was “continuous-line” or “single-line” drawing. Not terribly exciting.

I first saw a trailer for this off-beat indie film about a couple years ago (maybe on imdb.com?), but it was streaming on Hulu I think, which I don’t have.

But it looked quirky, so I made a note of it on my phone and would occasionally check if it hit DVD (and the library had it) or had reached Amazon Prime.

Yesterday, I saw that it had hit Amazon Prime, so I watched it.

Basically the story of an introverted guy – almost agoraphobic – who works at home as a video editor in his Brooklyn apartment. Long story short, he manages to lock himself out of his apartment, and so he has no choice but to get to know his neighbors: The piano prodigy who lives above him and her horrible mother, and a top-floor neighbor who is in the midst of a threesome with a couple from Oslo, a pregnant woman next door – and an older woman who has recently lost her husband but wants to try out online dating.

Combine that with altercations with a prickly cop (Sunita Mani, from Mr. Robot) who writes parking tickets just to stick it to folks, and it’s an interesting examination of life in a neighborhood.

I don’t know where it was filmed, but it pretty much all takes place in Brooklyn (?) on a beautiful autumn day. Nice atmosphere.

Oscar material? Nah. Just good character actors in a slow-arced, not overly-complicated indie vibe film.

Glad I ran across it.

A couple of Saturdays ago, Romy was washing dishes in the afternoon.

As she was cleaning our (oldish) coffee maker’s glass carafe, she bumped it up against the sink edge. And – of course – it cracked the bottom.

What to do? Can one even buy a solo carafe? And if so, where to buy? Will we have to buy a whole new coffee maker? We have no backup coffee maker and it’s nice to have coffee on Sunday morning.

I think you see where this is going – whipped out my phone and fired up the Amazon app, found the exact 14-cup Cuisinart glass carafe…and it was available for same day delivery (we have an Amazon warehouse near us).

Placed the order at about 3:30 pm; it was delivered before 8:30 pm – and no extra charge (we do have Prime).

Amazon has issues – especially around labor – but on that day, Amazon really delivered for us.

P.S. – Still not sure where to buy just a carafe except online. Decades ago, I bought replacement carafe(s) from Service Merchandise, but I don’t even know if they exist anymore.

Update – Service Merchandise – at least the name/logo – still exists, but only online and only sells jewelry. It was a great store for stuff like carafes and so on. Nostalgia blast. Walmart also carries the solo carafe, but online only, three days to ship and about a 30% higher price tag (and no Prime shipping…).

Heather “Dooce” Armstrong died Tuesday, May 9th, 2023. Dooce was 47. Her death was a suicide, which will come as no shock to anyone who followed her blog (Dooce.com, of course) over the years.

Dooce was an early voice in the nascent blogging era, a mix of drama, family drama (two daughters, dogs, husband turned ex-husband), meditations on Mormonism and more that somehow just worked.

As her following grew, she began accepting ads and became known as a “mommy blogger” – which means different things to different people.I pretty much stopped reading her then, but I missed her voice.

She was frantic and frenetic; she could do a detailed entry about teaching her dog a new trick and then, in another entry, post about postpartum blues in the clearest and shortest of entries. Those latter entries were written in blood.

As were her entries about her depression in general, her highs and lows, her battles with addiction.

She made the intertubes a better place, even when she didn’t feel the same vibe.

RIP.

When I was reading blogs in the early days, I read quite a few, but as authors have tired or moved on (in the beginning, to Twitter and Instagram) there are fewer and fewer to read.

As far as individual bloggers go, I only read a few:

• Jason Kottke – kottke.org He’s just back from a year-long sabbatical to recharge his batteries. He finds the best stuff online.
• Dave Winer – scripting news. Depending on who you ask, the first or second blogger, still going strong.
• John Gruber – Daringfireball.net. Mostly Mac stuff, but also some commentary on the world we live in.
• Kevin Drum –jabberwocking.com/. Where he set up shop after leaving Mother Jones (magazine and blog). Always a good read; focus p\on economics and politics. Even when I disagree with him he’s compelling

As for me, I’ve been blogging for a dozen years now (May 2001), but my output has been sparser & sparser as the years have gone by.

I write when I have something to say, and I guess I haven’t had much to say as of late.

For all of those celebrating the indictment of Donald J. Trump (yesterday; 3/30/2023): please don’t.

While his indictment is an affirmation of the rule of law, it’s still a somber event when a leader of a country is indicted for whatever reason, but especially one that ties to the very nature of his office (while the indictment is currently sealed, the broad arc of the probe has been campaign finance issues, especially trying to hide potentially unsavory behavior in order to get elected)..

This is a first for America, but leaders in many other countries have been tried – Israel, Brazil – and some convicted (Italy) [See Update, below].

In these cases, as well as in Trump’s case, there are certain political cheers, but I again caution against the same. High level corruption – even if just alleged – is no reason to break out the champagne. And while an indictment is serious, it is not a conviction. Very important distinction.

As for Trump, this first indictment is just that: The first.. He faces many other possible indictments, including federal indictments, where the punishment is harsher than this state (NY) charge. I expect him to be indicted for election tampering in Georgia, as well as for the handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Both of these cases seem, to an outsider/non-lawyer, much more clear-cut and winnable.

I don’t believe Trump will ever be charged for the January 6, 2021 events – the lack of connective tissue between Trump and rioters seems to preclude charges. However, there are a lot of behind-the-scenes action that we don’t know about (fake electors, plotting to replace the Attorney General with a more pliant choice, the “Green Bay Sweep” and so on and on…).

And then there’s the E. Jean Carroll civil cases (yes, multiple) against Trump. Who knows how those will play out? Or even when – the first starts in about two weeks!

Commenting on TV yesterday – Mary Trump on her uncle: “Donald knew the difference between right and wrong. He just never thought it would apply to him.” I agree with this statement, but it’s up to the courts to decide his innocence or guilt.

Sad day for our country, but a good day for the rule of law – no one is above it.

Update: Writing for the New York Times, Peter Baker outlines indictments and convictions in other democracies:

“In Israel, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spent more than a year in prison for bribery, fraud and other charges while the incumbent prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is currently on trial on similar charges.”

“In Italy, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who just regained some power as part of a governing coalition, has faced 35 criminal court cases during his long career, although he was definitively convicted just once for tax fraud and sentenced to a year of community service. Just last month, he was acquitted on charges of bribing witnesses at a previous underage prostitution trial.”

“Other leaders of democratic nations convicted in recent years include former Presidents Jacques Chirac (embezzlement) and Nicolas Sarkozy (influence peddling) in France, former President Park Geun-hye (corruption) in South Korea and former President Chen Shui-bian (bribery) in Taiwan.”

The US – like the other countries Baker lists – is not a Banana Republic or an autocratic state, as Republicans are saying as a way of defending Trump. We’re a democracy, and Trump was indicted by a grand jury – fellow citizens – and he will have a chance to defend himself in a court of law.
That’s how our system of justice works, and no one – not even rich former presidents – are above or beyond the law.

I first read Lauren Hough’s brilliant – and depressingly hilarious – essay, “I Was A Cable Guy. I Saw The Worst Of America” sometime shortly after it came out (on huffpost.com) sometime around the end of 2018.

I recently ran across it a week or so ago and re-read it.

Still smart, sad, funny and oh-so-true.

There’s much to like – and Hough writes so well. Please click on the link and enjoy (it’s kind of a long read for the web; just a head’s up.).

This second reading – a couple of years following the first – struck me a little differently; I had already read the many bizarre and funny anecdotes, so I focused a little more on the actual life experiences of the author in a way that I hadn’t the first time.

This excerpt in particular struck a chord:

That’s the thing they don’t tell you about opiate addiction. People are in pain because unless you went to college, the only way you’ll earn a decent living is by breaking your body or risking your life — plumbers, electricians, steamfitters, welders, mechanics, cable guys, linemen, fishermen, garbagemen, the options are endless.

They’re all considered jobs for men because they require a certain amount of strength. The bigger the risk, the bigger the paycheck. But you don’t get to take it easy when your back hurts from carrying a 90-pound ladder that becomes a sail in the wind. You don’t get to sit at a desk when your knees or ankles start to give out after crawling through attics, under desks, through crawl spaces.

And that’s why so many blue collar workers become pain-medication addicts. They almost – almost – need to. (Note: the author was/is not an addict; she did weed, but that’s about it.)

White collar workers, on the other hand, become cokeheads because, well, they can.

Big difference.

Again, great essay, and for the most part really funny.

And a good picture of our not-so-united states of America.

I think I first heard about the smartphone weather app Dark Sky on John Gruber’s Daring Fireball blog about five-10 years ago (closer to the latter).

He was pretty enthusiastic about it, so I checked it out at their then site Forcast.io (now resolves to Darksky.net).

Looked good, so I downloaded the app to my iPhone 4s – I think it was $4.99, but whatever.

Instant favorite.

Some folks raved about the radar penal, which attempted to show, though a series of images, the past, present and future radar. Pretty cool, because you could see if the rain was about to end or whatever. Slick. Accurate? I can’t recall.

To me, what made this a killer app was the hourly breakdowns when you drilled into a day.

Most weather apps at the time were “High of X, Low of Y, Z% chance of rain or snow.”

With the hourly drill-down, you could see when precipitation was supposed to start or stop. Sure, 90% chance of rain, but won’t start until 10pm or so. Can still do those after-work chores and not worry about getting soaked.

Game changer, to me.

Apple thought so, too – they purchased the company in March 2020 – and the Android app was shut down August 2020. Apple started porting pieces of Dark Sky into the native iOS app..

And at midnight, Jan. 31, 2022, the iOS app became obsolete.

Now it’s the Apple weather app – which has improved.

Still sad – I’d grown fond of Dark Sky.

Dark Sky had another, less heralded feature: It had an API, a nice light JSON API that was a simple call (with key & lat/log) to get a JSON file that one could extract whatever one wanted from the pretty detailed file.

I used it on Geistlinger.com’s top page, in the right-hand rail. I loaded it with my home weather, and a link to toggle between Weather Now (top box) and Weather Details (bottom box) of current conditions (AJAX calls).

The API is going away shortly, as well (March 31, 2023).

Apple, however, is offering an API replacement (still free for light users like me), but it’s a little more hard-core. I haven’t pulled that data yet (have to go through and official Apple Dev account blah blah. I’ll get to it eventually).

Good Night Oppy
Director/Writer: Ryan White

This 2022 Prime Video documentary isabout the twin Mars’ landers that bounced (remember that touchdown technique?) on separate sides of the Red Planet in 2004: Spirit and Opportunity (Oppy).

Each rover had an expected duration of 90 days: Spirit lasted just over six years until wheel issues ended its mission.

And Oppy – the focus of this documentary – lasted almost 15 years! That’s an endurance record that stands to this day.

The documentary is presented in an interesting format: It mixes live footage/photos, animations of how Oppy moved and what it saw on Mars, and contemporary interviews of the program’s principals (many featured in the live footage from years ago). The interviews added some backstories that a normal live film and voice-over narration sometimes miss. Mad Oppy even “more human.”

For space nerds only, this 1h 45m documentary is a good look back at the remarkable pair of rovers. It’s not as polished as some science documentaries, but it’s still a feel-good film of (mainly) Oppy, that plucky little rover that just kept going and going…

All movies

For reasons that I’m not going to get into here, I recently got a pretty much free Google Pixel 6a smartphone (had to pay the tax and get a USB-C -> USB-C charger).

Note: This is the first time I’ve spent any significant hands-on time with an Android device; it’s the first Pixel I’ve ever touched.

I’m pretty much a (very happy) iPhone dude.

Here are some first impressions, especially vis-a-vis Apple smartphones. In no particular order:

• Lovely (full) screen; solid build feel.
• USB-C. Come on Apple, join the rest of the world…
• Hate that I had to enter/set-up a Google account to continue. I don’t think Apple requires this (encourages so you can back up to iCloud, but not required). I, of course, have an account, but didn’t want this phone to be an extension of my Google universe…
• Fingerprint reader is under the screen (yay! – no chin like my iPhone SE) but it works at best about one out of every ten times. Apple’s home button is phenomenal.
• Battery life seems kinda weak, and I was just using it on WiFi.
• Gestures are a little weird, but I come from an iOS world. I’m pretty sure it’s just a case of getting used to the different environment.
• Interface for calls (it’s a phone, remember?): iOS kicks the Pixel’s ass. Hands down.
• There was a Google rep in the store when I got the phone, and she touted the camera. I have yet to try, so I can’t say.
• While I’m certain I can change the color scheme, the default is, in most areas, dreadful. This is where Apple rocks – design, including the UI.

Again, pretty and solid phone but it is the Pixel SIX – not just a work in progress.

Overall, slightly unimpressed.

I remember helping a friend set up his email om a Samsung Galaxy a couple of years ago, and that was a sweet phone. Hardware and software – impressive with just a few minutes handling it. Rivaled the iPhone.

Subtitled “How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution,” this lengthy (480 pages) overview of the foray into computers and the connected world is an impressive survey. And the first of it’s kind, as far as I’m aware.

It begins at, well, the beginning of it all: The early 19the Century with Charles Babbage and his “difference machine” and Ada Lovelace’s ruminations on concepts of programming (which would not be borne out until the mid-20th Century: Loops, logic, subroutines/libraries).. It continues on a chronological path, sometimes forking to show how multiple groups were working – often without the other’s knowledge – to crack the same problem. For example, the integrated circuit was developed by two teams almost simultaneously. Yet only one got a Nobel Prize for the discovery, simply because the other team leader had died (there are no posthumous Nobel Prizes)..

Isaacson does a good job of when to dwell on a subject and when to just note a milestone and briefly outline its significance. There is a lot of history – and a lot of characters – to talk about, and the book doesn’t go astray too often (one nit to pick: Isaacson spends a couple of pages talking about Ada Lovelace’s father, the poet Lord Byron. Why? Yes, he was a famous writer and womanizer, which would be germane in a book about the lives of poets, but here?).

In tracing the history of the digital revolution, Isaacson comes to two main conclusions:

1) Progress was not spurred by solitary geniuses, but by collaborative groups:

Math and physics are often powered by keen insight of gifted individuals – think Newton or Einstein. But the digital revolution almost always needed teams, to overcome wide-ranging problems, such as electrical and material expertise for the transistor or integrated circuit. No one person could really tackle this alone.

And that leads to another truism Isaacson uncovers:These groups, often duos, often worked most effectively when one individual was technical, the other a visionary/salesman. Think Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple, or Paul Allen and Bill Gates at Microsoft: The former in the group knew how to sell products, the latter knew how to build stuff.

2) The digital revolution is roughly divided into two eras: Hardware, and then software:

Back in the day, the nerds knew about memory addresses and how to read the colored bands on transistors to figure out its properties and so on. Today, few know – and really don’t care – exactly how a computer or router works. Hardware is for huge companies with billion-dollar factories, not for people geeking out in their parent’s basement.

The transition to software began around the rise of Microsoft – the difficult and time-consuming tasks of building computers and connecting them (both locally with ethernet and remotely via the internet) was over. Now was the race to devise tools to use the hardware/networking.

And software development could still be done by individuals, or small groups.

VisiCalc – the vision of one man – became the first “killer app.”

Others followed, but software, much like hardware before it, became too large for individuals or small groups. I can’t even imagine how many lines of code were in even early editions of Adobe Photoshop!

As computers – and their underlying software – became more flexible yet more complex, computers and networks once again allowed groups – this time often far-flung groups – to collaborate, this time with small fixes to big projects (Linux and other open-source software) and content collaboration. For the latter, Isaacson ignores Facebook, Twitter and Reddit and instead focuses on Wikipedia. He ties Wikipedia’s “anyone can edit” structure back to home brew clubs of the past, where hardware and software was freely shared.

Interesting – and accurate – take.

Isaacson is a good writer, and he makes good choices about what to include, what to gloss over and what to ignore. It’s a good overview of almost 200 years of digital development without having to really understand the tech it describes.