Grizzly's Growls Podcasts & Stories: Recent Episodes
David Grizzly Smith
Flatland, A Romance of Many Dimensions - Written by Edwin Abbott Abbott. Read by David Grizzly Smith. More info at http://grizzlysgrowls.com This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. A Podiobooks.com presentation.
With "Meditation Impromptu" by Kevin MacLeod
Originally posted to Libsyn under my original setup around 02/2007. When I ran out of money, my several years worth of podcasts were deleted from Libsyn's archives, and I don't have a good record for when they were originally posted, but that first one is about right.
And yes, it was and is bloody awful, but it's still the first one.
Yes, I know, if it weren't for the video (which I mostly love), there's a whole nother story that'd fit Gregory Porter's song, "Be Good." (When I saw the mini-Cupid I was expecting this story, or some Little Girl story.)
I'm thinking like Toy Story. The Lion is a stuffed toy, and thinks the little girl is named Be Good because Mommy and Daddy say that to her a lot.
Now we need the cage. Okay, how about this: The Lion was actually a favorite toy of Grandma or maybe even Great Grandma. It's an antique, and Mommy sees that as it's value and doesn't want it damaged (further, given it was a favorite toy). So she keeps it locked up in a glass cabinet.
The little girl believes toys are to be played with, and wants the Lion out, but Mommy says "Lions are meant for cages..." and so on. So the lion brushes his main and trims his claws, to be a better Lion, but Mommy Says...
And he sees the girl dance around the cabinet, but he can't get out, and she can't get in.
And of course, the ending scene is the little girl walking away with The Lion in her hand. How they get there? An exercise for the Reader, of course.
Be Good.
One of those songs, so simple, everyone understands it differently. Love song, sure, I hear that. Romantic love, could be, or familial love works, too, because it's "Be Good."He's a lion, our protagonist. She tells him to "Be Good" so often he's determined it's her name. And he tries to Be Good, brushes and cuts his mane, trims his claws, to be a Good lion. And what he gets back is "She said, 'Lions are made for cages / Just to look at in delight / You dare not let them walk around / 'Cause they might just bite.'" He can't both be free and be a Lion, because Lions are made for cages. But she dances around outside his cage, pulling his tail, being what he can't be, because of course he's a Lion, and...You'll note the song leaves him a well-groomed Lion, but still a Lion. Can't not be. I think that's Good.If you've seen Pierre Bennu's official music video, it has one possible positive ending. His little micro-Cupid keeps giving him stuff to change, "You should smile more!" "You should act more happy!" But she treats him just the same.I know it's your song. It should be, it's one of those songs. But that's me. I'm on the Autistic Spectrum. I get my tail pulled, I get smile more, be more happy, don't be so focused or unfocused or look me in the eye or... I brush my mane and trim my claws, but I'm still a Lion.And, sometimes a Dancer. Be Good.
(For others, Philip Rosedale was the creator of Second Life, and recently returned to Linden Labs as an Advisor.)
Dear Mr Rosedale,
Look at me, getting all formal and old-school...
Just read an article/interview with you from Axios on Nov 29, 2021. Quoting from the Article, "Of the metaverse, he says: “I think what we've learned — and somewhat with some sadness, given the work that I've done, I would have to agree — is that it's not for everybody, and maybe it's never for everybody.”
You may be right. Then again, almost nothing is for everybody.
I will offer a perspective for you, that it is for a lot of people who may not even know it (still) exists. Autistic people like me.
ASD folks have trouble in particular with face-to-face interactions. No actual face-to-face in SL.
ASD folks don't make eye contact much. No eye contact in SL, at least not person to person, avatar to avatar isn't much trouble at all. And no one knows if you don't make eye contact, or stare, which can also be an ASD "thing" for some.
ASD folks are often non-verbal. Some, sometimes, can manage a bit of typing. SL again.
ASD folk don't do well in crowds. Haven't noticed as much problem with virtual crowds. A little, but not near as much.
Sensory issues are at the core of much of ASD. SL does stimulate the senses, but not as much as RL for sure.
And some stuff I just flat can't do -- drive a car, fly a plane, drive a boat or a submarine or a spacecraft, or even swim -- I can do in SL. Those aren't purely ASD issues, and neither I suppose are the others. Might want to talk to author Nathan Lowell about that, he spent some years working on exactly that. (Sorry if I'm being presumptuous, Nate.)
So maybe it isn't an issue of "not for everybody," but rather of not reaching out to everybody who might find it enjoyable, healthful and liberating?
Seems like everyone who's created an online social-network-ish thing has had it turn out to be something other than they'd planned. Why would yours be different?
Something for you to consider, I'd think.
Thanks for your time.
Griz
As with so many events in my life...
I have repeatedly intended to do another podcast, to restart the process of Being A Podcaster.
Facing a stack of obstacles. I've always been an audio-only podcaster, and now I don't have my Libsyn setup. My only recording environment is my lil bedroom with the computer and whatnot (always been that way), and this time of year, daytime is too noisy with the traffic out front, and nighttime is too hot and stuffy unless I run the fan, which of course makes fan noises.
It's somewhat "Best is enemy of Good," don't feel comfortable producing a merely adequate podcast, don't feel comfortable doing a terrible-looking video, but don't have the video skills and don't have the audio studio space I'd like.
I know about the closet-full-of-clothes trick. Must be nice to have a closet.
So I'm hangin' fire here.
FOLLOWUP:
Wanted to see if this still works the way I think it works...
Theodore Roosevelt's column, "Citizens or Subjects" from the KC Star, April 6, 1918 -- My live reading on my Grizzly's Growls podcast.
Just got an email from YouTube indicating folks "watched" 2627 minutes of my so-called videos on YouTube last month. My Libsyn setup had a thing that posted my audio podcasts as "videos," basically combining the audio with an extended still shot of the cover art.
So my podcast is still sort of out there, and people are still sort of listening.
Now I wonder if I want to try producing stuff directly for YouTube. Don't have to pay for it, and there's a very large potential audience there. Assuming I have anything interesting to offer. Last project I was on and never finished was the Federalist Papers. I was up to 17 out of 75, as I recall. Kinda dry stuff, much of it, but it's still important.
Then there's another project I could do.
I noticed something the other day, and I can't say this is still true. Back when I was in school, we knew Thomas Payne was an important pamphleteer before and during the revolutionary war. And we all knew he'd written an important pamphlet called "Common Sense."
But we never read it.
Don't know that many have. So I read it, and it's interesting what he considered common sense. I suspect that's why they didn't have us read it in High School -- because he didn't particularly approve of stuff we do as a matter of course now.
So now I have a three volume collection of the works of Thomas Payne. Question is whether I'm interesting enough to sustain that. Or all that interesting so far. And would it make sense to redo the old Federalist episodes? Or my other projects?
I'm not particularly pretty enough for video...
Griz
Just completely lost my Libsyn site, so Grizzlysgrowls.com now points to the blog here. At least Blogger is still free, and the domain is paid for for another three years. So, now I'm not a podcaster anymore, just another blogger.
Got laid off from my job early in the whole stay-at-home thing with the pandemic. Laid off hell, basically just fired. The Texas company that had bought the local company I worked for, packed up their carpet bags and headed back to Texas. That's happened to me twice now.
Doesn't appear to be much work here anymore. Maybe none for an older fella like me. I do have Social Security, but that's enough for nothing-in-particular, about half what I made when I had my last job. And now I can't even say I'm a podcaster.
I want to be working. I keep reading about how there's so much demand for workers. And I look, and I'm not seeing the demand, without a college degree.
I do have a Diploma for Media Studies and Production, which'd seem to show I'd be qualified for some radio station. Except of course the radio stations aren't looking, best I can tell. Really aren't "local" radio stations anymore, all corporate owned, and they don't use people, they use recordings and computers.
Most of my life I've been able to (1) get a job through a Temp agency, (2) have the employer decide to keep me for the full 90 days, then (3) get asked to stay "permanently." That's how I got the job from which I was discarded after seven years.
I'm a fair writer, I think, though not brilliant. Only talent I have realistically is sounding pretty in front of a microphone.
Now I can't do that.
That's all I got.
Listening to a podcast (old) and got pointed to The FreedomBox, which intends to provide anyone willing with the ability to host their own social media. Right now, you can pick the T place or the F place, most people do. I stuck with T, but I'm no longer F-ed.
Back in the 1990s, I used to run a BBS. Certainly had its good points, and some of the offline messaging was quite frankly more useful and usable than the current web forum horrors. This ain't that. Looks like it tries to replicate the commercial services (which has been done elsewhere) with all their attractions, and most (though not all) of their flaws.
I could buy one pre-built (looks to be about eighty bucks), which'd be nice and simple. Could download the package and install it on that laptop I use as a general-purpose server machine, someplace to park all the stuff I don't want on my main machine.
Or I could track down whatever remaining BBS software there might be. I remember finding some, years and years ago. But that doesn't do much unless there are other BBSes to connect to. Most of the message content on my BBS came via some BBS nets from other systems elsewhere in the country / world. And that's not liable to be much anymore.
I do like the idea of having my own home base, though. Assuming I can come up with the eighty bucks.
Remember the other day I did a post about my two defective iClever keyboards, money I'll never get back?Well, today I'm trying something stupidly simple, that in retrospect is almost obvious -- not quite, but almost.Grabbed my USB to Go adapter, plugged in a small but conventional USB wired keyboard, and plugged the adapter into my Fire tablet -- and Bob's yer uncle. Works as well as can be expected. No touchpad on this particular keyboard, but I only used the touchpad on the iClever keyboards when doing the try-the-touchpad thing.Keyboard's too damn big and the cable's too damn long to be convenient, but it does work just fine for touch typing, which is important to my aging former-secretary ass. Downside, the Fire has exactly one USB port, so if the keyboard is plugged in, the power brick isn't. So typing is inherently time-limited by the Fire battery.I should take a picture of this setup, if I can figure out which camera to use. I'm not entirely sure how many I have at this point.Mahalo.
Griz
DISCLAIMER: You'd read a blog post from me for investment advice? Are you out of your mind?
I've been all stressed for a while about some of the individual stocks I've bought. They seem to have done incredibly badly.
This was from looking at current price relative to what I paid for them. And as the fella said, "Well, there's yer trouble!"
Like a lot of people, after getting my pandemic layoff, I had way too much time on my hands. And I finally bit the bullet and moved from a strictly-managed IRA to an account where I could buy individual stocks. Then I bought a bunch of individual stocks I thought were good investments.
The heck of it is, I was right, they are good investments, most of them.
But I bought them when everybody and his cousin was doing what I was doing, buying individual stocks for the first time. I also bought them during that period when the Fed was buying stocks, too, to keep the market from going down too much. Neither of these are Bad Things. But this made many of the stock prices go much higher than they normally run. And yeah, that's when I bought them.
Well, after all that excitement, the Fed stopped doing what they were doing, and most folks went back to Normal Life. And the prices of those stocks I'd bought? Also went back to Normal Life.
So...
I went into my account and looked at the charts for some of my seemingly "worst" stocks. After checking more recently (huge drops), I checked back three years. And it turned out that before all the chaos, the price of the stock then was essentially the price of the stock now. It's not low. It's just normal again.
Eventually, give it a decade, say, some of those stocks might once again get back to what I paid. At my age, I might not be around to see that. So I sold the worst-looking ones (it's inside my IRA, so it's still what it is), and gradually I'm going to move the money to somewhere I like better. And I'll take that as a Learning Experience.
Doncha hate learning experiences?
-- Griz
Me being me, I am once again trying my second iClever keyboard with my Blogger app on my Fire, knowing the... well that one key didn't and doesn't work. According to the Amaon reviews, iClever has very good customer service. That may be. But they may have good customer service because they have so many defective keyboards being returned, so they have lots of practice.I wonder if the one I bought for my sister is at all defective. I should ask her.
I lost my job near the end of July, 2020. Like a lot of people, I did okay with the extended unemployment and supplements and such. Then I tried going to school to be a Certified Medical Records Specialist online. Thought I was doing okay, then I figured out I'd been doing the course completely wrong and had used up most of my paid-for school time. Didn't manage to finish.
I'm no longer who I was 20 years ago, when a 8 hours a day on my feet, lift 50 pounds job was my usual. A lifting injury, then too many years in front of a computer, most of that 20 years, and now I'm half-blind from glaucoma. I want to be working again, and yes there are "lots of jobs," almost all those on your feet lifting 50 lbs ones. And not many places want The New Guy to be The Old Guy.
I have skills, but I have trouble considering them special skills. I can write, but I know many who write much better. I can speak, but I know many who speak much better.
I'd love to work on the radio, but there are few such jobs for many desirous of them. It's a shrinking industry, with a growing universe of young people with YouTube shows. Besides, I'm not good-looking enough for on-camera (he said, humbly).
I have Social Security, basically half what I was making on the job I lost. I do look online for the jobs listed there, but find nothing for which I'm convinced I'm qualified. Almost all my jobs over my lifetime have been through Temp agencies, Spherion, Manpower, Kelly etc. And quite consistently, I'd start Temp, be asked to stay the full 90-some days, then asked to stay on "permanently," including my last job. Which, of course, wasn't "permanent." In any case, I've never really done job hunting as such.
Being on the Autistic spectrum makes me about the worst possible person to do a job interview. We're not good face to face, and not making eye contact gives a wrong and unfortunate impression. Even thinking about job interviews makes me. literally, painfully anxious. And I've noticed a lot of HR interviewers appear to be autistic themselves -- maybe that's just me?
You will note doing an audio-only podcast eliminates the need for eye contact. Recording public domain books removes worries about what to say, mostly -- the content starts over here, ends over there, get to the end and stop. But that is not exactly a career, ya know?
Years ago a young lady described my podcast as "Some weird guy whining." Gee, can't think why...
I remember an old story about Abraham Lincoln. He was a friendly man, even to those who might be his enemies.
And some told him, "You should want to destroy your enemies!"
And he replied, "Do I not destroy my enemies by making them believe they are my friends, til they trust me enough I can slit their throats?"
Something like that. My memory isn't what it used to be.
Why yes, I did reactivate my Twitter account.
I am posting nowhere near as often, and reading Twitter nowhere near as often. I don't like who I became for a bit there. And I have some things -- generally useless and pointless -- I'm enjoying on Second Life.
I haven't done a new podcast in a very very long time. That first one after so long is hard, as I've found all the other times I've stopped. And I don't have that much to say.
Someone did ask on YouTube about that whole Federalist Papers thing I was doing, so I suppose I could restart that. But I no longer have confidence in the quality of my work. At least that's part of it.
I'm about half retired, I'd have to say. I'm getting Social Security, but that's about half what I was making back when I was working, and not enough to really live on. So while I'd rather be fully retired, I don't have the resources to stay without a job of some sort.
I'll try to update whoever cares periodically.
Griz
One of those little things I'd have put on Twitter, back before I deactivated my account there.
I've continued my habit of listening to "historical" podcasts, that is telling my podcatcher to play all episodes in order instead of just grabbing the latest, as is more usual. Found one called "Coronavirus 411," apparently having something to do with the CDC.
In any case, it is interesting to hear them list the cases in the US so far, currently from February 2020.
All 15 of them.
Repeatedly being shown this commercial on Bloomberg TV (for the little graphs of the market indexes) without listening to the audio. And over and over I get annoyed with this lady bending over to pick up one of those five-gallon plastic water bottles to replace the one she'd emptied.
Sure, it's possible to safely move the things, I've done it many times. But certainly not the way she does it. Apparently the character she's playing (I doubt the actress injured herself) doesn't realize how heavy that much water is.
Basic rule I learned in the late 1980s in cooking school, "A pint is a pound the world round." That's the approximate weight of a pint of water. It's actually 1.04 pounds and change, at 62 degrees F, but close enough for estimating.
So, a pint is a pound, roughly. Two pints in a quart, so a quart weighs about 2 pounds. Four quarts in a gallon, so eight pounds in a gallon. So... that five gallon bottle weighs about 40 pounds.
You do not try to lift 40 pounds with your back, you use your legs.
I know this far too well, given I foolishly decided I'd be fine to throw a 50-pound sack of chemicals on my shoulder to haul it up to my line at the plant, cause all the younger machine operators were doing it.
Then I went to the Workers Comp doctor, got surgery, and spent six months on extremely light duty. I knew better, but "all the other guys do it..."
Water doesn't seem like it should be all that heavy. We lift a gallon here and there with no major concern (eight pounds), so we don't think of water being that heavy, especially when we're still young, immortal and indestructible.
Till we get injured.
Lift with your damn legs, lady! Geesh.
I've listened over and over to the various narratives applied to what happened when so many Americans didn't come back from the lockdown, and inconveniently, also didn't die. The news outlets often call it "The Great Resignation."
When the lockdown started they said folks who could work from home would be fine. Since I'd already been working from home for a couple years, I figured no problem, we're all set. Yeah... not so much, because my work depended on other folks being able to go work at people's houses, and those people wouldn't want that anymore.
After various short-term attempts to keep us on the payroll, a whole lot of us got laid off. I lost my job within a week or so of hitting 62, so I started collecting Social Security, and unemployment, and the supplements. Funny thing, all of the senior folk I know of got discharged. At least some of the younger folks (like my neighbor) kept their jobs (at the same company). Musta been an oversight.
So I have particular reasons I'm not working right now, I'm too damn old for anyone to want to hire me. But what about overall, what about so many folks not being willing to risk their lives to come back to work? Lots of stories They tell. And you know who They are.
I've heard the one where we're lazy. To which I reply words roughly like "Thank you, the horse you rode in on and everything you stand for."
I've heard the one where we're not patriotic enough. See above, let's not be repetitive.
Here's what I discovered, determined, whatevah. I sat down with my calculator (yeah, the one on my Windows computer), looked at what my regular State unemployment was and how that would work out as an hourly wage. Came out to about seven and a half bucks, basically what the Minimum Wage has been since about 2009 if I recall correctly.
Then I added the State amount and the Federal supplement together, and calculated what that would be as an hourly wage. And the result was about $15 an hour -- what folks have been saying recently the minimum wage should have been if we hadn't been suckers for more than a decade. Or longer, but that's another discussion.
So for a fair number of months, I was making what should have been the minimum wage, and several dollars more than I'd been making per hour for all those years in my job.
Fella on a financial podcast, one of those from CNBC, made what he thought was a telling point on that subject, "Well, like one percent of workers actually get minimum wage." Might even be true. But if that $15 bucks an hour is what the minimum wage should have been, I spent the last decade working for less than the Minimum Wage.
Well, part of it, and part of it as a Displaced worker after the last big financial disaster. Again, another discussion.
And that's not just affecting the folks who've been getting what the Minimum Wage has been. That's affecting all the people who've been making less than $15 an hour, and probably still are. Including me, if I wasn't forced into a half-assed retirement.
So it ain't laziness or lack of patriotism. It's way too much time to think, and clear evidence that while we were spending X years working hard, "keeping our noses clean," taking what we were given and saying "Thank you sir may I have another..."
...we were getting screwed blued and tattooed, while billionaires became trillionaires. And all the people stuffing money in their bank accounts and selling $100 phones for $1000 knew that very well, and didn't give a crap because They Got Theirs.
We had felt resigned to being treated that way till we died. And then we stopped feeling resigned.
Heard a fella on one of those investing podcasts talk about how ridiculous it is for someone like me to feel I should be able to be retired at such a young age. And how it'd even be healthier for me to still be working till I retire two years before I die, if that.
Must be nice.
I'm still not back on Twitter, so even brief things I want to comment about end up here. Honestly not sure if I'll go back; I've been off Facebook for a long time now, and I don't plan on returning, even though I'll never hear about the next High School Reunion.
Anyway, Daily Tech News Show just mentioned something called "Zoom Dysmorphia." People seeing themselves on screen while doing video conferences are becoming uncomfortable about their perception of their appearance, and even seeking plastic surgery to correct perceived flaws.
Had a couple passing thoughts about that.
After more than a decade of (intermittent) podcasting, I'm pretty comfortable with the sound of my recorded voice. I also DJ in Second Life, same deal, same comfort. In fact, I think I sound pretty good, and people tell me I do.
So I'm a bit frustrated with folk who won't be on the podcast because they're anxious about how they sound in recordings. You probably sound better than you think, and you at least don't sound as bad as you think. That's true for most people, albeit not everybody.
And I think it's the same sort of discomfort as this visual dysmorphia. It's a new context for your self-image, you haven't changed.
I'm also struck by the fact that if conferences were held in Second Life instead of Zoom, to quote an old saying, "nobody knows you're a dog." And as for voice, well, everyone sounds like crap on SL Voice.
Then again, I am likely not the only one who's known for a long time that Second Life is really a better option in most senses. Some smart coder needs to create Zoom compatibility in Second Life, which you'll note would do what some of these Virtual Reality conference systems are attempting to offer.
I get that Ford "invented" the automobile, to a certain extent. But let's not claim he invented the wagon, or the wheel, or the internal combustion engine.
Nobody's built the VR version of the Model T yet.
So in the meantime, hitch up the mule you've got to the cart you've got, you'll still get there. The Shiny New Thing isn't always the best choice.
"Zoom dysmorphia." (sigh)
As part of trying to put my YouTube content into Playlists, I started listening to "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill.
Now I will grant that Mill's stance on most things was one a Christian of his time would have taken. But ya know, I listen to his arguments for listening to those who disagree and realize I'm not listening.
And then...
I counter to myself that my objection is not to disagreement with me. My argument is with listening to those who are not at all interested in disagreeing with me, because that might result in me disagreeing with them. They don't want to dispute, they want to insult. In their inflamed eyes, I am not wrong because of what I believe, I am wrong because I am stupid, I must be because I don't immediately agree, and bow down to their indisputable superiority.
If you're looking to explain why you think I'm wrong, I'm likely to listen.
If you looking to explain how I'm a stupid POS for having the nerve to have a belief other than yours, thank you and the horse you rode in on and everything you stand for.
And your mother, and your mother's Army boots. And your father, not that you know his name...
A great number of people disagree with me, and they are quite often correct.
On the other hand, I learned about bullying in Kindergarten, and my "zero tolerance for bullying" is a bit more radical than any school with a "Zero Tolerance For Bullying" policy, but has not zero bullying. Gave me a whole 'nother attitude toward bullies.
I'm all about free speech. But (a) your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose, and (b) your freedom to attempt to insult me ends at the end of your nose, if'n ya know wudda mean.
Let's talk. (grin)
Griz
As it happens, for many of my podcasts over on grizzlysgrowls.com there are corresponding copies in automatically created video form over on YouTube.com. Basically it's a "card" of the cover graphic for the audio version with the audio attached.
Some folks have asked if I could turn those copies into playlists, and that isn't very hard if all the files actually made the trip to YouTube. Where they didn't I'd have to find a way to either get the rest over or manually create these half-baked YouTube videos. Or, I could re-record them with me in talking-head mode, thus making them more (or less) acceptable in YouTube.
One whole book (Eugenics) is now a playlist there, because I had all the files.
Everlasting Man is very popular, but not all the files are on the YouTube side.
There may be others I can turn into playlists successfully, but we'll see.
Really don't feel comfortable trying to do live or recorded videos. Might be a lack of enthusiasm for my own appearance, might be an Autistic thing, might be a current lack of capacity to edit video. Used to have a program for video editing, but that was when I was in broadcasting school, and that's long gone for whatever reason.
So... guess I'll do what I can, and scratch my head over the rest?
UPDATE: I've now created playlists of five of the books I've recorded on my podcast. Still have several to do. In one, I wasn't able to include one chapter because I couldn't get Libsyn to resend the file, so I couldn't include it.
So possible, yes. Easy, not so much.
So, two things:
Since I don't have Twitter anymore, I don't have a place to drop short bon mots I think are clever -- if they're not clever, they're not bon mots.
Other thing, Kewl Term from the "It's a Thing" podcast, namely: Google-splaining. (Punctuation my own, choose your own.) Somewhat derived from the term man-splaining, which same term annoys the heck out of me. But I digress.
Basically, when someone did a Google search or two ("my own research") and then feels they can explain the details of something to everyone, including people who actually understand the subject, they're Google-splaining. They may have used any of the search engines, but it's Google-splaining.
I like the term for a number of reasons, especially that when you hear or see it you instantly know what it means.
Didn't ya?
Was being let through a bunch of YouTube shows about Star Trek, and ended up in "Star Trek Continues," a fan fiction collection of episodes intended to follow ST:TOS in the same style, with the same characters, albeit different actors.
Nice to see that Grant Imahara got to play Sulu. I'm sure he was thrilled to have the opportunity, or so it seems to me. Died a while back, but got to live some dreams.
Live your dreams while you're young enough, strong enough and healthy enough. You won't get more later, of any of the four.
So, I made one really horrible pun on Twitter and got a big response.
Then I said something impulsive and in extremely bad taste and got a big response. Most of it angry, and rightfully so, it was a terrible thing to say.
So I deleted the post and deactivated the account, and 30 days from now my account will be deleted, as long as I keep my hands off of it.
I don't want to be that guy, and I don't want to be in a place that makes me feel that way, so I am liable to just let it die. Already quit Facebook months ago, I honestly forget how long.
Social media is not media, and neither is it particularly social. So barring major changes, I'm done with it.
I apologize. That was hideous.
Well his is awkward. Wanted to do a gadget video for the Gi Wi show. I was going to show all three, well four, of my bluetooth keyboards, including this new iClever keyboard I really like. When it works.
My third one was an iClever keyboard, foldy thing, lovely form factor. Had to stop using that one when the D key stopped working. iClever keyboards are tri-fold, and it happened the D key is right on a fold, so I figured that was why it failed, so I got another of the same kind. Worked fine, until the one letter key stopped working, not on a fold. Can"t directly tell you which key stopped working, because I can"t type that one. But okay, alphabet, X, then Y, and then... yeah, that one.
Hard to write an email to the GisWis without that key doncha know. (sigh)
Was chatting with @jangles on Twitter and decided much of my post-by-post on twitter should be a longer-form article. And this ain't it, but this was easier.
Funny, as you'd of course, know, we at #SecondLife have "owned the term" #metaverse for a long while now.
I'm often struck by the similarity between the current "story" and GK Chesterton's "The Everlasting Man," where the character of The Church keeps coming back with "we've been doing that for ages now..."
I am an expert on absolutely nothing, but I'd be happy to come on FIR and rant outrageously on the ongoing missed bet of #SecondLife. I'm sure @LindenLab wouldn't want me to. Not that they can apparently be bothered. (Heck, you've been on -my- podcast...)
I shall have to skip ahead a bit then, I'm about a year behind on one of my podcatchers, not quite as far on the other, but I follow the FIR podcasts on both. So you and I are publicizing #SecondLife. Where's @LindenLab ? Didn't they used to have @EdelmanPR ??
Stop by and say hi to Grizzly Silversmith sometime you're in the neighborhood. (grin) If they listened to me (they don't), @LindenLab would have you lead their PR efforts.
"Including the community." The community is not virtual (checks) yep, I'm still a real person, all of us are. As for SL being "too fringe," well by definition if it does achieve mainstream adoption it's not "too fringe." And as for that technobump, all of them have one.
Every online service has a "learning curve," a bump to get over to understand it enough to live there. The Wild West was supposed to be the theme, but the Rail Barons made an uglier and more industrial foundation, till it was no longer wild.
Another often forgotten aspect of the Snowcrash Metaverse. SL tried to create the Metaverse and then bring businesses in. In Snowcrash, the businesses created their own connections, -then- everyone else came. Why and how is a good question. Check out M. Darusha Wehm 's series.
Darusha's series creates imagery of a society built around a 3D immersive online reality, true. But the interactions of most are very pragmatic -- it's where you work, and on top of that it's a place to live. And life there can be as intense as anywhere else. Anyway...
So many of the obstacles of the Metaverse have already been faced, and to an extent overcome, well or badly. So many we haven't resolved are dealt with by the VR wannabes with vague waving of hands. Wanna see how AR does and doesn't work? Come to SL.
Wanna see what happens when you open up your society to all comers, nice or not so much? " Ich bin ein Berliner." We've already been there, and we didn't find a great solution, but I suspect neither will They. But we will "pay any price, bear any burden..." We've proved that.
So "I for one welcome our new Metaverse Overlords." Yeah, right. I ran a BBS back in the 1990s, and along came the Web with their so-much-better alternative, which doesn't work near as well, and sometimes not at all. I'm not skeptical, I'm realistic, because I live the reality.
So, yeah, Metaverse guys, bring it on. But don't bring something lesser or something phony. Bring something better, or don't waste my time.
I note that, sure, the VR Metaverse wannabes sometimes might produce a "butterflies and flowers" loving and cozy environment. But that's what you get if the only people who -can-come have to afford an expensive 3D headset. We've got "regular folks." Many are nice, not all are.
If you want a snide comparison, the founders of the US created a noble society "where all men are created equal." In a society where all MEN were also land owners and often slave owners. Easier to be noble when you own someone else who does the work, and they're not included.
Ditto for what the US actually became. Easy to say if you give folks all the truth they'll make wise decisions. But many won't, many will be manipulable, and some of those fooled will be the loudest voices when the news is circulated. And then there's news.
I have a half-assed theory. Human societies always depended on our storytellers to inform us what is normal and righteous in our tribe. In the '60s our storytellers were TV fiction and TV/newspaper news. Now our storytellers are algorhythms, in particular Facebook and YouTube.
But those algorhythms are -not- at all focused on providing with truth, righteousness or what should be. They search for engagement. And getting y'all pissed off is more engaging. So I suspect we're taught our truths are all about being pissed off. Anger and indignation are News.
So my suspicion, my theory if you want to go that far, is that we're being taught our societal truth, our normal, is anger and rage and hate. We may, to save ourselves, need to kill the messenger. We need our storytellers back.
I don't think you can kick off the bad behavers, because the algorhythms are telling them that hate and rage are anger are our social norms. So the behavers aren't going to stop, because they're being told by our Storytellers that -this- is Normal and Right.
The part about convincing Managers to convince employees to support righteous behavior assumes that Our Glorious Leaders at the top actually want employees to actually -have- opinions, rather than wanting them to shut up and not say anything negative about the company.
I saw with my last employers on the one hand create several mechanisms for employee communications -- and then make sure that "regular" employees never say anything they weren't told to say by the Bosses. Communication is both ways, or is non-existent.
I understand why, I don't know I'd do better as a Boss, it's unlikely I would. But if you're unwilling to ask, you can't complain when you don't get answers. And when you get a Potemkin workplace, you get what you asked for, worthless as it is.
And no, I understand exactly why I'm mostly unemployable. Might be another Autistic thing. I will tend to give an honest answer. And I tend to be utterly baffled by less-than-honest questions.
Was thinking about content this morning, while trying to go to sleep, and failing. Happens a lot lately. What, you, too?
Back in the 1990s, I was a full-charge secretary. I spent much of my time typing correspondence and some articles for newsletters. Typing, not doing data entry, which is what I've basically done for the last couple decades. Back then, there were two popular word processing programs, WordPerfect and Microsoft Word. And they had two very different philosophies about content creation, philosophies which are still influencing us today.
I was a WordPerfect guy, and at the time, WordPerfect (5.1 for DOS by the way) was the most popular word processing software. Arguably it still is, since nobody does word processing as such much anymore. Microsoft being MS, came out with Word, I'd suppose because they needed one of their own.
I wasn't around for the creation of WordPerfect. But WP felt to me like it was created for all those folks who'd been typing for years, professional typists, back when typing was a skill with both hands, not an accident with your thumbs and spell-check. Typing was up front. Creating content was the first thing you did, and in many cases the last thing and all you did. WP did a fair amount of predetermined formatting, including full justification, and you could just go with that and have a perfectly serviceable letter come off the printer -- at least in a world where "letter quality" meant looking like it came out of a decent typewriter.
If I wanted something bold or underlined, I could certainly go back later and bold it or underline it, check spelling and capitalization, use different fonts, create headers and footers and such. But content creation came first.
MS Word (in my view as a WP guy) started from the other end. Pick your fonts, headers, footers, formatting of various kinds. Define your paragraphs, sub-paragraphs, sub-sub-paragraphs. Insert pictures and graphs and clipart and borders and-and-and... and after all that, if you had any time or space left, type a little content. Yes, I'm being snide, I'll say that freely. But I wouldn't say I'm being inaccurate.
The result was a lot of contentless content, a lot of more or less wordless, worthless works.
These days, pointing that out is like arguing about preferences for PCs or Macs. Few seem to have a use for either. And hey, I'm old enough to talk about something I did in the 1990s, so many didn't bother to read this far anyway. I'm typing this in a Blog, which is ancient tech these days, too.
But seriously. What do we have for content these days? We talk about the Death of Print Media, and maybe that's happening. But that's text printed and distributed on paper, with all the troubles that go with that. Paper has it's place and it's advantages we should talk about sometime. The business model, certainly, is falling apart. But that business model is vastly changed from when newspapers started.
And it's still text. Still the "written word." Still "long-form content," with all the thought and research and consideration and preparation that entails. (Present company excepted; I just started typing.) It still has value. Add a picture, if the picture adds value and meaning and information. But start with the words. Start with the content.
Newspapers had headlines, sometimes huge "lurid, large type" headlines. But those would hopefully be followed by actual content, explaining what the headline means, who did what when and where, and how they did it. Not why, why ain't news, that someone said "this is why," that's maybe news.
News. There's a word for ya. Everyone wants to be a Journalist. But Journalist had a particular meaning from particular circumstances. There's a perfectly respectable job called News Reporter. Tell folks Who What When Where and How, you're a news reporter. And don't get me started on "unbiased Journalism." Oops, too late.
Way back when I was a wee tot, it was hard to travel to other countries, or even to other states or cities for most people. (Still is, but we pretend it's not.) Someone got the opportunity to travel to someplace "exotic," they might keep a Journal of their travels, and send occasional excerpts from their Journal to a paper back home for publication. That'd be a Journalist. They'd be sharing their own experiences and their own impressions and their own, very personal, feelings about that place and time and those events. Biased? Of course. There is absolutely no such thing as "unbiased Journalism."
Then there's news reporting. Respectable, honorable, ancient profession. Who did what when and where, and how they did it, and often what people said about it. By definition, if you're doing it right, it's not particularly biased. If the writer is expressing their opinion, then it's Opinion, not news reporting. Perfectly legit to give an opinion, while making clear that's exactly what it is. There's usually a page or two devoted to exactly that in a "newspaper" of whatever format.
Now, I'll grant ya, newspapers and other outlets are owned by people who want to make money. And there's some owners who lean on their outlets to push their own agendas. Been happening since Gutenberg. Sure, there's the Hearst papers, and the newer clones. Most of the founders of the US owned printing presses, seems like. Feel free to check my math on that, though.
We have TV, we have various media resources via the Interwebs, some of which are TV-ish, as blogs and such are newspaper-ish (some with more "ish" than others) in terms of the technical style of the content. But look closely. How much of that YouTube channel isn't actually content? How much is gee-whiz graphics and chatter and what they used to call hail-fellow-well-met?
Non-video websites (rare as they are anymore) are more of the same, seems to me. Plenty of graphics and borders and pictures, and yeah, video. Lots of "Hi there, I'm such-and-such..." and pictures of their pets and their lunch. And not much to say, really. They give their opinions, and don't make much effort to say that's what they're offering. Or they basically offer nothing much. "Lorem ipsum" in 40-point bold italics. Very pretty, I suppose.
Let me declaim my disclaimer here. This is rambling and somewhat incoherent. To quote a Robin Williams bit, "That's not writing, that's just typing!" But it's conceivable I have a point. And it's a point about paper, certainly, but also YouTube and Twitch and all the others like them, and it's about blogs and podcasts and what-have-you.
Please, create content. Start with content. If you need a picture or a graph, add one. Don't turn your work into an illuminated manuscript. We haven't fallen that far quite yet, I hope.
If it's Opinion, say so, if it's Journalism then be clear to yourself and everyone else that's exactly what it is. If you're going to provide news then provide news, and not Journalism and not Opinion. And be proud of being a News Reporter if that's what you're going to do. Don't let anyone or anything turn it into something else.
Start with the Content. Worry about the Pretty later, if you have time and think it's important. But do that part in privacy, and wash your hands after.
Further Deponent Sayeth Not.
Episode Zero for the new We Should Talk More podcast with Lady J.
Show Theme "Hot Swing" from Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com.
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