Andrew Shell emailed to say he bought a copy of ThinkTank for the Apple II. He has a IIe to run it on. #
Tone-deaf means something in music, but in politics it's bullshit. There are lots of points of view. Saying something is tone-deaf means you don't agree. Why can't you just say it that way? Why do you have to insult the person? To me it says you're not really confident in your own beliefs. In speech the only thing that's really tone-deaf is saying some else is tone-deaf.#
Blocking people from reading things posted publicly is weird. You can always get around it by viewing the same page in a different browser or an incognito tab. Something is public or not. If it's public it seems everyone should just be able to read it without phony barriers.#
One of the great things about having the email service in place is that I'm hearing from friends who are now reading my blog, maybe for the first time. Anyway I heard from Chris Lydon and Scott Love about yesterday's piece about the hero-making of big-dollar academic institutions for the reputational rehabilitation of billionaires. I've collaborated with both Scott and Chris, on successful projects, decades apart. They know what can be accomplished with very little money. The money can buy you the illusion of creativity, the actual creativity is invisible to the eye, but is reflected in the product of the work. There's an inverse relationship often between appearances and what comes out the other end of the innovation assembly line. #BTW, a recent episode of Chris's podcast is about Quentin Taratino's latest. I haven't listened to it yet, but I'm glad to discover that Chris is a QT fan, as I am. It's perhaps similar to Lisa Simpson being a fan of Itchy & Scratchy. Why do nice people love violence in video so much? A mystery.#
Joi Ito is here to stay on the web. How do I know? Earlier today I was searching for a reference to my longtime friend Scott Love. Scott worked at Living Videotext, the outliner and presentations company I started in the 80s. He went on to write his own outliner. Joi used it. How do I know? Joi is a blogger. He wrote a review, the way bloggers do. He told you how he heard about it, what it was like talking with Scott, and what the product was like. His body of work is there and useful. #
If you find yourself having a strong emotional response to something you see on the net, take a step back and remember there's a good chance you're being programmed. You don't have to take the bait. And you shouldn't accept emotional appeals at face value.#
I'm starting to catch up on binge-watching. I saved the whole of season 2 of Big Little Lies to watch in a binge. It was good. Meryl Streep, omg. I won't spoil it, but she plays a character from my neighborhood growing up. Something bad happened in her life, and we'll never know what role she played in it. The story is just as gripping as the previous season, and the acting superb. In other binges, I've started to work on season 2 of Succession, just watched the first episode. I'm going to savor this show. One of the characters reminds me of Jason Calacanis for some reason. Just as the main character of Despicable Me, Gru, reminds me of Mike Arrington, even though he looks nothing like him. But I digress. I still have to do something about Orange is the New Black. I stopped watching toward the beginning of Season 5. I have no idea how to get back up to speed. Same with the third season of The Handmaid's Tale, and Counterpart -- both of which were very entertaining, but complex. Getting back up to speed in multi-season shows is hard. It might be a good idea to have a digest, maybe in written form, to help you get rebooted in these shows.#