Look out! After a few years of neglect I have decided to put some time back in to this blog site. It’s one of the oldest sites I still have so the record goes back pretty far. I’m putting a new look on it and that will be developed over time. But the point is, suddenly I have things to say that I don’t have another great place for.
Stay tuned!
A couple days ago i was listening to a podcast and the speaker was describing a URL for a website and he said something like www.blahblah.com backslash somepage.
Backslash? I always thought it was a forward slash. Here’s a backslash \. Heres a forward slash /. Am I wrong? I don’t know. because there seems, after all these years, to be some cnfusion. The backslash is usually used in local computer paths. \files\images\picutresoofmydog\fido3.jpg for exambple. But URLs are someplace.com/thispage. A forward slash.
But I know there is confusion about which is which because I have tried to give people URLs over the phone and they often say: “Backslash or forward slash?” And I just don’t know what they are talking about so I say “leans to the right slash’. But usually I just give up and say, “Give me your email address and I;lll send you a link and you just click on it. Of course, then I have to be sure I get their email address exactly right, meaning they know how to tell it to me and I transcribe it correctly.
People hear what they hear. I have said my domain and email address includes morsemedia.net. I don’t know how much email I have lost with people sending to morsemedia.com or morrismedia.net. I say “Morse, like the code”. But who remembers Morse Code, or thinks it’s Morris Code?
I am often amazed that anything of value ever gets communicated.
I try out a lot of shows. I like winding down with a good show on the tube/pad/laptop/phone/some device. Netflix, Amazon Prime and iTunes. They’re everywhere I am. What a world we live in.
So, when we still subscribed to premium cable channels I started getting hooked on HBO’s Silicon Valley. Then along came the trial season of Betas on Amazon Prime. The shows have a very similar premise: A team of young geeks striving to make it with their innovative app amid the crazy, over amped, high rolling tech world in the Bay Area. There are so many parallels between the two shows I kept thinking the characters from one would run into characters from the other.
Despite the similar premise there are differneces. The production values on Silicon Valley seem a little higher, the characters a little less extreme. There is a kind of coolness to the show that seems to emulate the image we have of the real Silicon Valley and its high tech, Apple like atmosphere.
But for some reason, I came away liking Betas overall better. I thought it was funnier, the characters more like-able. As the season went on I grew to empathize with them more.
Silicon Valley
Betas
I don’t know, maybe now that we don’t have HBO any more, I’m rationalizing, settling for what’s available. Now that old HBO stuff is showing up on Amazon Prime, I guess I could go back and watch them side by side. Yeah, that’s right. I have all the time in the world for that.
Travelling can be fun. It can also be fraught with trouble and misshaps, especially when you depend on technology to keep your life and work moving while on the road.
My work is all on line. So communication and work tools (phone, iPad, laptop) are essential. Two days into this road trip to Colorado I dropped my iPhone on a cement slab while trying to take a picture of a Clive Bundy supporter’s pickup at a rest stop in Nevada.
The screen was shattered. While the phone still worked, I knew it could easily deteriorate with dust or water getting in through the cracks. So, using my phone I made an appt. at an Apple store outside Salt Lake City. It got resolved ($280 later) and we were back on the road pretty much on schedule.
Today, I did an OS update on my MacBook Pro. I downloaded the update through the App Store and set the thing to reboot while I went out for a run. When I returned, the thing wouldn’t boot. So, it’s back to another Apple Store this afternooon.
Update
We’ve started offering our home again, via the Warm Showers website, to cyclists passing through town. I know, it sounds a little illicit, but it’s really quite innocent.
Most people offer up a place to stay in trade for when they themselves go out on a bike tour. But I’m not touring much any more beyond an occasional bike ride around Eureka or the McKay Tract or the Arcata Forest. Our reward is meeting interesting people and hearing their stories.
Some people are just on a lark, riding along the coast because they have the time, the youth and the resources. Some are on a personal quest or attempting to burn out some trauma. Then others are riding for a cause.
This week we had a bit of all that, but the most recent was a rider with a cause. Will King is raising money to help fund research into leukemia and cystic fibrosis. Motivated by the loss of two friends, Will, who lives in London, is riding from Canada to Mexico and looking for sponsors and donations. Visit his site, read his story and donate if you can.
I wanted to share a small victory. A relative had proclaimed herself an anti-GMO person to my consternation. She started sending me links, all of which I refuted. Then she told me she’d watched these 2 movies: Genetic Roulette and Genetic Chili, which, so help me, I watched on a Sunday afternoon.
After I watched Genetic Roulette, I sent her to this page which refutes point by point the assertions from the first film (actually from the self-published book that the film was based on).
Then, I watched the second one, Genetic Chili and saw it was directed by the same guy. So, I looked him up on Wikipedia. From his entry:
A variety of American organic food companies see Smith “as a champion for their interests”,[1] and Smith’s supporters describe him as “arguably the world’s foremost expert on the topic of genetically modified foods”.[20] In contrast, Michael Specter, writing in The New Yorker, reported that Smith was presented as a “scientist” on The Dr. Oz Show despite his lack of any scientific experience or relevant qualifications.[3] Bruce Chassy, a molecular biologist and food scientist, wrote to the show arguing that Smith’s “only professional experience prior to taking up his crusade against biotechnology is as a ballroom-dance teacher, yogic flying instructor, and political candidate for the Maharishi cult’s natural-law party.”[3].
I also noted that much of the assertions in the second movie were based on the findings of debunked studies by French microbiologist Gilles-Eric Séralini
After that, she wrote these magic words: “You are starting to persuade me. The de-bunking of Genetic Roulette is pretty thorough.”
Yes! OK, it’s not definitive. It’s just a start. But hey, any movement toward the light I will take. The rest, now that she has the skeptical spark, is up to her.