Covered this week; From last week, George H.W. Bush, dead at 94… Gillian Genser’s Beautiful Death… New York City sets the nation’s first minimum pay rate for rideshare drivers… Apple releases iPhone XR Clear Case… Now the Nuns are getting in on the dysfunction in the Catholic Church… iPhone XR camera review… Panoramic photographs, think different…
December 3, 2018
George Bush, the 41st president of the United States and the father of the 43rd, who steered the nation through a tumultuous period in world affairs but was denied a second term after support for his presidency collapsed under the weight of an economic downturn and his seeming inattention to domestic affairs, died last Friday night at his home in Houston. He was 94.
Over this past weekend I couldn’t help but notice how overwhelmingly positive all the coverage of Bush’s life was… almost no coverage of the negative, which made the appearance of this story in the NY Times ring so true.
We like our villains without redemption and our heroes without blemish, and we frequently assign those roles in overly strict alignment with our ideology.
But we do seem to be getting worse at complexity. At nuance. At allowing for the degree to which virtue and vice commingle in most people, including our leaders, and at understanding that it’s not a sign of softness to summon some respect for someone with a contrary viewpoint and a history of mistakes. It’s a sign of maturity. And it just might be a path back to a better place.
December 4, 2018
The sad story of Gillian Genser. Her art turned out to be toxic and that bit her bad… but she’s most concerned about the underlying reasons and the natural habitats that are being impacted.
I’m now 59 years old, and my quality of life is poor. But while I continue to work, even though it’s more difficult every day, I feel a terrible sadness. When we talk about environmental damage, we speak of declines in populations. Numbers and species. But I’ve experienced the suffering of so many creatures trapped in their polluted habitats. I now hope their voices can be heard—that my art might create a sense of awe, a sense of connectivity and reverence for the natural world.
December 5, 2018
This is good news… and I hope it spreads across the nation… also good that it’s in motion before both Uber and Lyft start the IPO process. As far as human drivers go, ride share companies will replace them with self-driving cars as soon as is absolutely possible, so in the meantime, let’s get what we can get.
The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission voted this morning to mandate the wage floor of $17.22 per hour after expenses for drivers — or $26.51 per hour before expenses. This will raise the average pay for over 77,000 drivers by around $9,600 a year with “minimal disruption to passengers,” according to the commission’s analysis, although ride-sharing app companies say it could lead to an increase in rates for riders.
December 6, 2018
Camera cases are one of those things that seem so insignificant they’re hard to give any importance too… but in reality, you buy a phone, it stays with you for a year or two… is held in your hand a staggering amount of cumulative time and probably goes in and out of your pocket a couple thousand times at least… so we should talk about ’em when the time is right I guess… and now is that time for Apple’s new clear iPhone XR cases… When I picked up my new XR yesterday I bought an OtterBox Vue Series case for the lack of any other choices, today I returned it… too big, bulky and rubbery.
“Clear” is really hard to do well, and it’s no surprise to me that Apple has done it best — I think they’re the leading material design company in the world.
December 7, 2018
Not wanting the Catholic priests to have all the fun, a couple of Long Beach nuns have gone all-in on some Catholic Church dysfunction of their own.
A Southern California Catholic school recently discovered that two of its nuns were low-key bon vivants who embezzled approximately $500,000 to go gambling and take vacations — a clear violation of that whole vow of poverty thing.
December 8, 2018
Geeking out? Probably… but sticking to the theme of the iPhone XR, here’s a piece review of the phone’s camera and the quality of pictures you can get… some nice side-by-side comparisons, I was pleasantly surprised. Now to put my own new acquisition into use.
Despite the different camera hardware, on the software and image processing side of things, the XR comes with the same innovative feature as the XS models — for example, when shooting stills, the camera continuously captures a multi-frame buffer at different exposures, allowing for simultaneous zero shutter lag and HDRprocessing. Thanks to this technology, the latest iPhones can display HDR images in real time, making for a true “what you see is what you get” preview image.
December 9, 2018
It’s Sunday and I’m feelin’ lazy… this is still pretty cool though… you probably use the ‘panoramic’ mode on your phone just like everyone else does… so consider this inspiration to think different.
