inessential: 1942 Letter to My Grandfather from His Father

inessential: 1942 Letter to My Grandfather from His Father:

Brent writes: My Dad ran across a remarkable letter and shared it with family. I volunteered to share it more widely, and Dad and his siblings agreed.

You are too intelligent to be told and believe that war is anything but a tragic mess, however, we are in this not with our consent but because of a treacherous attack that we did not invite. Regardless of the causes the effect is that we simply must win.

[Go read the whole thing. It’s remarkable history. Thanks for sharing Brent.]

Daring Fireball: Tomorrow Is Doomsday for BlackBerry Devices (Today as I post this)

Daring Fireball: Tomorrow Is Doomsday for BlackBerry Devices:

From BlackBerry’s OS services FAQ:

As a reminder, the legacy services for BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier, BlackBerry 10 software, BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 and earlier versions, will no longer be available after January 4, 2022. As of this date, devices running these legacy services and software through either carrier or Wi-Fi connections will no longer reliably function, including for data, phone calls, SMS and 9-1-1 functionality.

I wonder how many people are still hanging on to old BlackBerry phones. At one point, they truly had a cult following.

[Lots of folks said to me “They’d never switch from their Blackberry phones/keyboard.” Soooo, how’s that going?]

Tesla over the air updates.

Marco Arment on Twitter: “The designers at @Tesla “cleaned up” the bottom bar of the control screen to replace my defroster and seat heaters with this customizable app list. Thanks a lot. But the only “apps” I want there are seat heaters and THE F’N DEFROSTER, HAVE YOU EVER DRIVEN A CAR BEFORE?!

[And then Dave]

Scripting News: Why not drive a Tesla:

I found out in the latest update. I had the temperature in the car set to 65 degrees, the same temperature I have my house thermostat set to. When I got into my updated car, the temperature was 72. It said so very clearly on the big display in the middle of the dash. So I did what I did before, touched the temperature, up pops the environment panel, but I couldn’t find any way to change the temp back to 65. I know how to scan a UI from left to right and top to bottom to find the thing that should be big, in the middle the display. A slider that sets the temperature. It wasn’t there. I sat in the car in my garage for a few minutes before I had a brilliant idea. Try doing it on the phone where the UI didn’t change. Voila. Back to comfort.

[I’ve always enjoyed “over the air” updates for the apps I use. For sure, you’re at the mercy of the developers involved, but overall they’ve worked for me. But I don’t know what to make of these updates Tesla owners are “enjoying”. I’m not sure a purely virtual interface is a good thing in a car where you can’t feel the button or stalk, or more importantly engage with it with “muscle memory”. And all the touch screens seem to suffer from targets that are too small if the car is bouncing even a little (your arm extended toward the screen doesn’t make for the steadiest of platforms to poke a small spot on the screen). Breakage in a car seems like a terrible idea, and burying things so that they’re not easy to find seems even worse.]

Putting an Ear to the Ground of Apple’s Audio Efforts — Pixel Envy

Putting an Ear to the Ground of Apple’s Audio Efforts — Pixel Envy:

Parsons presses the two Apple representatives on new stuff released this year, like the third-generation AirPods and spatial audio. But it is when asked about lossless audio that Geaves gives the most intriguing answer:

“Obviously the wireless technology is critical for the content delivery that you talk about”, he says, “but also things like the amount of latency you get when you move your head, and if that’s too long, between you moving your head and the sound changing or remaining static, it will make you feel quite ill, so we have to concentrate very hard on squeezing the most that we can out of the Bluetooth technology, and there’s a number of tricks we can play to maximise or get around some of the limits of Bluetooth. But it’s fair to say that we would like more bandwidth and… I’ll stop right there. We would like more bandwidth”, he smiles.

Given that AirPods Max and Apple Music’s lossless audio option were announced within six months of each other, yet were incompatible for bandwidth reasons, it seemed like something had to give. It felt like a plot hole in both products’ respective stories.

[Feels like classic technology stuff. One group develops, another sees great potential but runs out of room. Onward!]

One Foot Tsunami: Who Would Do This, AT&T?

One Foot Tsunami: Who Would Do This, AT&T?:

Oh. Wow. They took the time to rather ludicrously assure me that this is voluntary. They made sure to note that I won’t get upsold. They even urged me to act fast on this not-exciting-in-the-least offer, so I can get my answers in before the survey closes. Finally, they thanked me in advance, with a few hollow words. What they didn’t do was offer any compensation, nor even a reason for why I would spend 20 minutes completing this survey for them.

As you can no doubt guess, I didn’t. Instead, I took that time to write this post mocking AT&T. It helpfully provides feedback about their survey request, and they’re welcome to read it for free. What can I say? I’m a giver.

As far as the information on why I switched providers though? For that, they’ll have to pony up. AT&T, I encourage a prompt response, as the cost of my time is only going up.

[I don’t get it either… but that’s BigCo thinking.]

Broadband & Internet is Growing Everywhere

Broadband & Internet is Growing Everywhere:

What’s not such good news is the cost of broadband in the United States. According to The Cost of Connectivity, a research report from the Open Technology Institute, the average cost of broadband in the US is about $68.38. That is higher than average prices in large parts of the world.

Blame it on lack of any real competition — cable and phone guys are our only broadband option. And they hate competition, especially from independent or municipal networks. Incumbents do their best to thwart progress.

[And lots of folks still cannot get broadband no matter how loosely defined. But it’s nice to see some progress on connectedness, even if the power structure continues to prevent coompetition.]

Source: On my Om

Does it make you enjoy?

Does it make you enjoy?

Making you happy is too high a bar for anything. It’s unfair to ask that of anyone or anything — it’s something you can really only ask yourself, or bring yourself.

But enjoying something? That’s possible! It’s very much within reach.

So I said, will you enjoy the car? Could you see yourself enjoying the car? Will you enjoy the drive?

And that’s a much easier question to answer. And an expectation that’s easier to accept.

Objects (and experiences) don’t make you anything, you have to enjoy them.

Enjoying something is plenty.

I think he’s going to buy one.

[Happiness is a choice.]

Source: Jason Fried