Hey Mark, that GO game may be Chinese in origin not sure. Hockey quiz are the Wild wearing the old Walters jerseys? Whatever happened to the Walkers my fav fish logo ☺️ Answered the poll for less spam. Thanks for the music clicks gotta scroll and enjoy
For me, my cellphone is a tool, nothing more. I have a Motorola, btw, but I miss my old bare bones old fashioned flip cellphone (which my kids referred to as a dumb phone)... I just used it so I would have a way to make emergency calls, in these days of the vanished public phones. I was forced into joining the smartphone crowd when Tracfone got new cell towers and my dumb phone became obsolete. I chose my current cell phone because it was cheap. 😂 I do like being able to read on the Kindle in bed, though... it's too dark for paper books!
I also like the anti-skid technology on my Subaru - it's helped me avoid a few accidents in snowy conditions. I'm pretty sure the smart cars would have trouble up here with the snow, since the lines on the roads can be pretty hard to find, especially on the usually badly plowed rural roads.
I also love Google, even though it sometimes seems a little creepy the way ads pop up related to recent searches. But I've come to rely on Google maps, Google news, and Google searches, so I guess having to put up with a few ads is okay - I usually ignore them anyway!
The Internet Archive is pretty cool, too. They are collecting all kinds of material, including music, movies, and of course books. You can check them out here, if you're interested: https://archive.org/
Jeannine -- your pov is refreshing and sounds very sensible! I was a long-time real book only person but the Kindle is so easy and perfect for certain situations.
I work a bit at a private library nowadays. On a given day it seems 80% of the vehicles are either Subaru's or small Toyotas with good traction. Everybody loves their Subaru's!!!
I am also active in a history book club. Gotta love the Internet Archive!
I am guessing smart cars and ecars will struggle here also in the winters
My husband is a techie and latched onto Kindle years ago. I'm a bit of a Luddite and finally started recently... I still love reading real books, but I'm getting used to the electronic version.
Subarus are built like tanks. I was in a rollover accident in my previous Subaru - my poor car was totaled, but I walked away with nothing more than a few bruises. My car saved my life!
Our main librarian drives one and SWEARS by it. In my experience, Subaru owners often have great stories to tell. Subaru has a very unique character to it in the age of a lot of me-to cars. When I get together with my writing group we discuss the books we are currently reading. I now get a bit of side-eye when I talk about books on the Kindle -- my friends are commited to the printed page generally.
Still reading this ( it's a long one!), but just wanted to let you know that your link to "It Starts in Your Head" is broken. However, Substack's search feature found it for me: https://markdolan.substack.com/p/it-starts-in-your-head - I'll read it after I have time to finish your current essay. 😉
Today in general has been too long ( and I'm not referring to your column!). I'll finish it up in bits and pieces. It sounds like you're having the same sort of day. 😂
The WONDERS of technology allow me to have my phone as a hotspot and responding to the column comments on my portable Chromebook while I clean up a yard freshly exposed to spring. Too wet and ground too cold to fertilize but soon enough. I am sure my Dad (who long ago passed) would shake his head in amazement at the world we live in.
We've been working around a few persistent snow banks as well. I don't mix internet with yard or housework because I don't multitask well. Where many people can end up completing a bunch of unrelated chores, I would (and have!) end up with a bunch of incomplete chores, as I abandon one thing for the other. I know myself well! 😂
Always glad to see anything about AI that walks the middle path between the typical anti-technology crowd and the people who watched the Terminator films too many times.
I am one of those Apple/Gmail people. I don't have a strong anti-Google feeling but I have a preference against their products. On numerous occasions I've tried to pivot from Gmail but I've been using it since 2005. The effort of changing my email always seems too great and I relent.
Finally, I'll show my rural, working class roots here and note you're drastically underestimating how passionate the competing car camps are! Specifically Ford vs Chevy. We seem to have a wonderful ability to become tribal about anything.
I remember when I did my post about Coal Rollers, it was you Antonia that made me laugh as you concurred their existence in Montana. I think until you see it...it would be interesting to draw the Venn Diagram of likelihood of the Ford v Chevy vibe and then the Coal Roller Pickup. I wonder if there is an intersection...It seems with this thread starting with Daniel T we may have something.
Daniel -- thanks for reading and the comment. I had a strong feeling this was entirely too long so thanks for enduring!
There are many of the Apple/Gmail people and it is humorous to me at some level. I am fascinating by the change in behavior and approach we are seeing at Apple and Google. They are each converging and becoming more like each other. Apple is advertising, building a search engine and mapping services. Google is beginning to erect its own little walled garden around the Pixel franchise and beyond and extending it rapidly. Apple has likely extracted about as much premium hardware revenue and there aren't new smartphone customers at least in the states. Google had options when iOS opted to break apps on an excruciating notification by notification basis. This was the catastrophic revenue hole that nearly sunk Meta. Google leaves enormous revenue on the table ignoring the walled gardens and building things everyone can use rather than making them pay to play. Better to make products AI focused that would require new development and a datacenter model. The best example of this may soon be reality wherein Google Maps/Waze become pay to play for iPhone users in Apple CarPlay. This is the blue/green bubble strategy and would be quite disruptive. I think the last time I looked it up, 12 of the 50 top apps on an iPhone are made by the evil empire :)
While I am not that familiar I would imagine a lot of iPhone users who "don't like Google" probably use Google Maps or Waze everyday of their lives. I'm sure they express worry but appreciate knowing when there is traffic ahead :)
I have a close family member who is a retired auto company guy. He advised me many years ago the lack of availability of Apple CarPlay or Android Auto is a DEALBREAKER for many car buyers. In surveys, perhaps by Pew have shown that consistently the percentage of people left to choose between owning a car and having a smartphone consistently don't care about the car anymore. I think the car thing still exists but it is waning. I would definitely agree this trends differently in rural areas. Kids born and raised in the suburbs have no earthly idea what MOPAR is :)
Well, I continue to lament about the cars. ;) The key thing for me is, and has always been, not that technologies are good or bad, but that humanity should get to have some time and breathing space to get to know them and their effects on our lives. That's what the Luddites were protesting -- not the machines themselves, but at how they were being deployed for the benefit of only a few. With cars, I don't think it's okay that we have now upwards of 40,000 deaths a year in the U.S. from crashes, or the pollution from burning fuel, or the materials needed to make them. I want a world where we can all walk places safely and where we wish and have clean air! It's not cars that took that away, but how they were deployed and how we built, and continue to build, our world for them rather than for people. That can go for any technology I think -- all just iterations of the precautionary principle.
Have you really never heard Buick and Ford owners get into it?! Okay, maybe not that one, but I remember many, many arguments between Ford and Chevy owners in my younger years that were not at all about the cars but about people's identities. Identity runs very deep with humans, and doesn't lend itself easily to persuasion of facts!
So insightful. I'll send you a private message about a program I am engaged in. Starting Module 2. It's about a different mindset, perhaps like you describe in the first paragraph.
As to your point about cars, I think that is RIGHT. What has happened in the last 25 years is the car has been displaced by the phone as an identity for many. Similar nonsense. It is not sufficient to say I like my phone X but it is necessary to attribute bad behavior or motive to phone Y. Very strange but profoundly human and perhaps an example of a bug in our design, not unlike seeing images upside down. We are amazing creatures but still a work in progress and evolution is slow.
It is indeed slow. I suppose it's true phones have become that kind of identity. So are jobs, sports teams, nations, ... . I think it would take a pretty huge shift in human consciousness to shake that out of ourselves at any kind of scale.
So eloquent Antonia. A satire site I favor (TheOnion) used to sell a t-shirt "My hometown team can beat your hometown team". It captured the foolishness of the pattern we easily align to. I think your job and nation examples are similar.
TheOnion is a gem. Your take on it is even better. I am never disappointed when I spend a couple of minutes with it.
They have been running THE SAME HEADLINE for more than a decade on the occasion of a mass shooting as you know. 'No Way To Prevent This', Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens. They merely change the location and the body count. It shakes me every time I see it.
This latest is in response to the breaking news story in Louisville
Yes ChatGPT is cool. My daughter showed me how to ask it to make my Substack articles funnier. Im not kidding!
Hey Mark, that GO game may be Chinese in origin not sure. Hockey quiz are the Wild wearing the old Walters jerseys? Whatever happened to the Walkers my fav fish logo ☺️ Answered the poll for less spam. Thanks for the music clicks gotta scroll and enjoy
Hi De -- Yes, Go is a Chinese game! The Wild wear the Walleye jerseys occasionally. Very fun! Enjoy the music
For me, my cellphone is a tool, nothing more. I have a Motorola, btw, but I miss my old bare bones old fashioned flip cellphone (which my kids referred to as a dumb phone)... I just used it so I would have a way to make emergency calls, in these days of the vanished public phones. I was forced into joining the smartphone crowd when Tracfone got new cell towers and my dumb phone became obsolete. I chose my current cell phone because it was cheap. 😂 I do like being able to read on the Kindle in bed, though... it's too dark for paper books!
I also like the anti-skid technology on my Subaru - it's helped me avoid a few accidents in snowy conditions. I'm pretty sure the smart cars would have trouble up here with the snow, since the lines on the roads can be pretty hard to find, especially on the usually badly plowed rural roads.
I also love Google, even though it sometimes seems a little creepy the way ads pop up related to recent searches. But I've come to rely on Google maps, Google news, and Google searches, so I guess having to put up with a few ads is okay - I usually ignore them anyway!
The Internet Archive is pretty cool, too. They are collecting all kinds of material, including music, movies, and of course books. You can check them out here, if you're interested: https://archive.org/
Jeannine -- your pov is refreshing and sounds very sensible! I was a long-time real book only person but the Kindle is so easy and perfect for certain situations.
I work a bit at a private library nowadays. On a given day it seems 80% of the vehicles are either Subaru's or small Toyotas with good traction. Everybody loves their Subaru's!!!
I am also active in a history book club. Gotta love the Internet Archive!
I am guessing smart cars and ecars will struggle here also in the winters
My husband is a techie and latched onto Kindle years ago. I'm a bit of a Luddite and finally started recently... I still love reading real books, but I'm getting used to the electronic version.
Subarus are built like tanks. I was in a rollover accident in my previous Subaru - my poor car was totaled, but I walked away with nothing more than a few bruises. My car saved my life!
Our main librarian drives one and SWEARS by it. In my experience, Subaru owners often have great stories to tell. Subaru has a very unique character to it in the age of a lot of me-to cars. When I get together with my writing group we discuss the books we are currently reading. I now get a bit of side-eye when I talk about books on the Kindle -- my friends are commited to the printed page generally.
Still reading this ( it's a long one!), but just wanted to let you know that your link to "It Starts in Your Head" is broken. However, Substack's search feature found it for me: https://markdolan.substack.com/p/it-starts-in-your-head - I'll read it after I have time to finish your current essay. 😉
Today has been a BAD DAY for mistakes...if this were baseball I would have struck out once.
I haven't seen any other mistakes...
Today is entirely too long so if you give up so be it!!! -- I will fix the link thanks to you :)
Today in general has been too long ( and I'm not referring to your column!). I'll finish it up in bits and pieces. It sounds like you're having the same sort of day. 😂
The WONDERS of technology allow me to have my phone as a hotspot and responding to the column comments on my portable Chromebook while I clean up a yard freshly exposed to spring. Too wet and ground too cold to fertilize but soon enough. I am sure my Dad (who long ago passed) would shake his head in amazement at the world we live in.
We've been working around a few persistent snow banks as well. I don't mix internet with yard or housework because I don't multitask well. Where many people can end up completing a bunch of unrelated chores, I would (and have!) end up with a bunch of incomplete chores, as I abandon one thing for the other. I know myself well! 😂
Know thyself and life gets better. You sound like you've done that!
Always glad to see anything about AI that walks the middle path between the typical anti-technology crowd and the people who watched the Terminator films too many times.
I am one of those Apple/Gmail people. I don't have a strong anti-Google feeling but I have a preference against their products. On numerous occasions I've tried to pivot from Gmail but I've been using it since 2005. The effort of changing my email always seems too great and I relent.
Finally, I'll show my rural, working class roots here and note you're drastically underestimating how passionate the competing car camps are! Specifically Ford vs Chevy. We seem to have a wonderful ability to become tribal about anything.
I said the same thing on Ford vs. Chevy 😂 Hailing from small-town Montana here, it’s no joke!
Based purely on one person-one vote, it seems you and Dan & Jeannine carry the day and have taught me the error of my ways
I remember when I did my post about Coal Rollers, it was you Antonia that made me laugh as you concurred their existence in Montana. I think until you see it...it would be interesting to draw the Venn Diagram of likelihood of the Ford v Chevy vibe and then the Coal Roller Pickup. I wonder if there is an intersection...It seems with this thread starting with Daniel T we may have something.
I imagine that Venn Diagram would indeed be a simple circle.
So funny -- for those trying to tie this conversation together, the Coal Roller lives here -- enjoy for a laugh and a bit of disbelief -- https://markdolan.substack.com/my-toes-are-warm
Daniel -- thanks for reading and the comment. I had a strong feeling this was entirely too long so thanks for enduring!
There are many of the Apple/Gmail people and it is humorous to me at some level. I am fascinating by the change in behavior and approach we are seeing at Apple and Google. They are each converging and becoming more like each other. Apple is advertising, building a search engine and mapping services. Google is beginning to erect its own little walled garden around the Pixel franchise and beyond and extending it rapidly. Apple has likely extracted about as much premium hardware revenue and there aren't new smartphone customers at least in the states. Google had options when iOS opted to break apps on an excruciating notification by notification basis. This was the catastrophic revenue hole that nearly sunk Meta. Google leaves enormous revenue on the table ignoring the walled gardens and building things everyone can use rather than making them pay to play. Better to make products AI focused that would require new development and a datacenter model. The best example of this may soon be reality wherein Google Maps/Waze become pay to play for iPhone users in Apple CarPlay. This is the blue/green bubble strategy and would be quite disruptive. I think the last time I looked it up, 12 of the 50 top apps on an iPhone are made by the evil empire :)
While I am not that familiar I would imagine a lot of iPhone users who "don't like Google" probably use Google Maps or Waze everyday of their lives. I'm sure they express worry but appreciate knowing when there is traffic ahead :)
I have a close family member who is a retired auto company guy. He advised me many years ago the lack of availability of Apple CarPlay or Android Auto is a DEALBREAKER for many car buyers. In surveys, perhaps by Pew have shown that consistently the percentage of people left to choose between owning a car and having a smartphone consistently don't care about the car anymore. I think the car thing still exists but it is waning. I would definitely agree this trends differently in rural areas. Kids born and raised in the suburbs have no earthly idea what MOPAR is :)
Well, I continue to lament about the cars. ;) The key thing for me is, and has always been, not that technologies are good or bad, but that humanity should get to have some time and breathing space to get to know them and their effects on our lives. That's what the Luddites were protesting -- not the machines themselves, but at how they were being deployed for the benefit of only a few. With cars, I don't think it's okay that we have now upwards of 40,000 deaths a year in the U.S. from crashes, or the pollution from burning fuel, or the materials needed to make them. I want a world where we can all walk places safely and where we wish and have clean air! It's not cars that took that away, but how they were deployed and how we built, and continue to build, our world for them rather than for people. That can go for any technology I think -- all just iterations of the precautionary principle.
Have you really never heard Buick and Ford owners get into it?! Okay, maybe not that one, but I remember many, many arguments between Ford and Chevy owners in my younger years that were not at all about the cars but about people's identities. Identity runs very deep with humans, and doesn't lend itself easily to persuasion of facts!
So insightful. I'll send you a private message about a program I am engaged in. Starting Module 2. It's about a different mindset, perhaps like you describe in the first paragraph.
As to your point about cars, I think that is RIGHT. What has happened in the last 25 years is the car has been displaced by the phone as an identity for many. Similar nonsense. It is not sufficient to say I like my phone X but it is necessary to attribute bad behavior or motive to phone Y. Very strange but profoundly human and perhaps an example of a bug in our design, not unlike seeing images upside down. We are amazing creatures but still a work in progress and evolution is slow.
It is indeed slow. I suppose it's true phones have become that kind of identity. So are jobs, sports teams, nations, ... . I think it would take a pretty huge shift in human consciousness to shake that out of ourselves at any kind of scale.
So eloquent Antonia. A satire site I favor (TheOnion) used to sell a t-shirt "My hometown team can beat your hometown team". It captured the foolishness of the pattern we easily align to. I think your job and nation examples are similar.
I must have missed that one but love it! The Onion rarely misses the mark. And humor always seems to point us to the depth of our absurdities ...
TheOnion is a gem. Your take on it is even better. I am never disappointed when I spend a couple of minutes with it.
They have been running THE SAME HEADLINE for more than a decade on the occasion of a mass shooting as you know. 'No Way To Prevent This', Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens. They merely change the location and the body count. It shakes me every time I see it.
This latest is in response to the breaking news story in Louisville
https://www.theonion.com/louisville-no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-w-1850319203
The perennial headline ... it's so depressing.