Jarrod Whaley

If you haven’t tried to process decade-old 24p standard-def DV footage on a modern Mac lately, I congratulate you on your good fortune.

I’m really sick of Bill Maher’s disdain for the phenomenon he calls “political correctness,” which might more properly be named “simply not being an asshole.”

Amazon’s delivery options are increasingly bizarre. I don’t understand how the concept of asking customers to let delivery drivers enter their homes and cars ever got past the smell-test stage.

Took a break this afternoon with Ginger and walked around in the redwoods. I love living here.

Google is doing away with chatbots. How was this conclusion not broadly obvious within the first five minutes of the existence of chatbots?

Please, just quit giving your data away. Please?

We were startled by this sight out over the ocean tonight. It seems SpaceX launched a rocket from Vandenberg Airforce Base. That’s 279 miles South of us.

No.

Imagine for a moment that we lived in a country which prosecuted open, wanton felonies.

I’m just going to say this: the NBC app for Apple TV is hands down the absolute worst piece of software ever inflicted upon this sad Earth.

Sometimes I seriously wonder if we’d all be better off if we just burned the Internet down forever.

This goes without saying, but Google’s iOS apps continue to be wet trash.

California voter tip: if you see an ad for a ballot proposition, vote the opposite way. If there’s a commercial, there’s dirty money behind it.

I am pulling the trigger on MacOS Mojave. I know some key things are going to break in the process. Why do I do this to myself?

Analysts Totally Surprised by Entirely Predictable Decade-Long Phenomenon

I continue to be baffled, personally, by the rise of all this talking-furniture crap:

Amazon proceeded to announce a new $60 Amazon Basics Microwave, which of course, has Alexa built in. Yes, you still have to put the popcorn in the box yourself, but if you’re too lazy to hit one button, you can ask Alexa to get the popping started.

If I am standing at the microwave already—to put the food in it—why in this or any other world would it be easier, better, etc. to talk to the thing rather than simply to tap a few buttons?

What is wrong with people?

Bean Hollow State Beach. I’ve been indoors too much lately.

This moron has to go. Now.

Nike’s sales jumped 31% when they introduced the Colin Kaepernick ads.

If you burned your shoes…sorry you don’t have shoes anymore, I guess?

The people burning their shoes in objection to Nike’s Colin Kaepernick ads realize that they’re only destroying their own property, right? They understand that Nike has already received the money for those shoes, don’t they?

The New York Times asks: Should You Track Your Teen’s Location?

Easy. No.

UPDATE: Also, here is even more No.

Yuval Noah Harari lays out a sobering scenario in The Atlantic in which vast swaths of humanity are relegated to a “useless class,” and in which AI and machine learning permit new and extremely powerful authoritarian social structures:

Currently, humans risk becoming similar to domesticated animals. We have bred docile cows that produce enormous amounts of milk but are otherwise far inferior to their wild ancestors. They are less agile, less curious, and less resourceful. We are now creating tame humans who produce enormous amounts of data and function as efficient chips in a huge data-processing mechanism, but they hardly maximize their human potential.

I generally like and have no problem with the keyboard on my 2016 MacBook Pro. However, I am constantly typing semicolons when I mean to type commas, and spaces when I am trying to hit a key on the bottom row. Pretty annoying.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has upheld an FCC ruling which posits that markets with a single ISP can be classified as “competitive.” Meanwhile, I fondly remember when words had meanings which weren’t their own opposites.

Our Dear Leader, The Dishonorable Resident Dump, has ordered Google to do more to let stupid people read stupid bovine excrement, written by stupid bovines (presumably with their hooves). The move is largely seen as a token gesture toward the powerful Stupid People lobby, given the fact that Stupid People can’t read words.

Several non-dumb people familiar with the matter placed their palms upon their faces, looked down at the ground, wept, and prayed for Bob Mueller to Bring The Ruckus Al-Freaking-Ready.