John Gruber posted about a tweet from Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge, in which his Apple Watch responds to the question, “What time is it in London?” by showing the time in…London, Ontario.
Gruber later found that his Watch and HomePod both gave different answers, which only underscores how fractured and broken the Siri experience is (if you didn’t click the first link, the HomePod gave the time for London, England.
While this is not the biggest error (or technically an error at all), it demonstrates how sort-of dumb Siri is. When people ask what time it is in London, they are almost certainly asking about London, England. People understand this because London, England is one of the most famous cities in the world (sorry, London, Ontario). But Siri seems to (sometimes, sometimes not) go by proximity and misses the obvious answer.
And is often slow in doing so.
And will sometimes report no connection when there is, in fact, a connection (the servers at Apple apparently lose connection from time to time and Siri will not answer even the most basic questions when it is down).
As a side note, I asked Siri on my watch what time it was in London and it gave the time for London, Ontario. But worse, it didn’t even list the province. It just said “London” because I guess I’m in Canada and should automatically know which London it’s referring to? Even though if I did, I probably wouldn’t be asking what the time was in the first place.
Today at lunch I somehow found myself troubleshooting an intermittent issue with my CTRL keyboard repeating certain letters, usually the E key. This led me to a possible solution: update the firmware. Or more properly, flash the default firmware again.
I downloaded the appropriate files, ran the command and the LEDs on the keyboard turned off, as expected, the command reported Success! as expected, but then nothing else happened. The LEDS never came back on. I tried repeating the steps. I tried resetting the keyboard using a pin in the tiny hole on the bottom of the keyboard where the reset button lives. Nothing.
I then put it aside and started hunting for a replacement keyboard as my current setup really needs a backlit keyboard and none of my other thousand keyboards feature backlighting.
Tonight, I decided to try reviving the keyboard again. More failure followed. I pressed on, though, out of stubbornness or insanity. I decided to download the default firmware file again and it was then I noticed that somehow, I had not been using the default file. How this happened I can’t say. But I followed the steps with the fresh copy of the firmware, and it worked exactly as expected, allowing me to type this post.
I was already wound up over YASUUPSD (Yet Another Screwed Up UPS Delivery), so I suspect that played a factor.
I’m also reading A Complaint-Free World again to help keep my brain calm and relatively happy. We’ll see how that goes.
For now, I’m happy to have my zombie keyboard return to the land of the living.
As a footnote, I’m still looking for another keyboard, so I can have at least a backlit replacement ready to go in case the CTRL keyboard gets accidently tossed into a cement mixer or something.
This was actually a re-read, though I should note that I originally read this book in 1979, when I was 13 years old. My perspective has shifted a wee bit in the intervening 42 years, though my love for schlocky horror remains unchanged.
I have been in a reading funk these past few months because my usual reading time–an hour-long commute to work–was suddenly gone, thanks to the global pandemic. I found it hard to work reading back into my new routine, though on the plus side I am finally getting more sleep.
As I cast about for the book that would get me going again, I looked over a few ancient paperbacks I’d kept and among them was a yellowing copy of The Amityville Horror, its now wrinkled cover still asserting “A True Story.”
When the paperback first came out, I immediately snapped it up and read it in a blur, drawn in even more than normal due to the alleged authenticity of the story being told. As I re-read I began recalling the details, but what was once a scary read now seemed tame, and my mind turned to the gaps, disputes and lawsuits that followed in the wake of the book’s original publication.
The story is simple: A young family moves into a huge old Dutch Colonial on Long Island in December 1975 and 28 days later flee in terror, convinced the house is possessed by evil spirits or demons. But what seems like an improbable series of increasingly weird and menacing events is really more the story of a young family in trouble and how they may have enhanced what happened at 112 Ocean Avenue (and yes, you can easily recognize the house on Google Maps even today) in order to extricate themselves from a series of bad decisions.
The real horror here is bad finances. While author Jay Anson (who died only a few years after publication) may not have done so intentionally, he sprinkles the story with enough clues to suggest a non-occult origin at the root of the Lutz family’s problems: a combination of over-extending themselves financially, moving into a new home and neighborhood just a few days before Christmas, and integrating a new family, as Kathy brings in three children from a previous marriage.
On the one hand, you get a priest coming to bless the house and alleging that he heard a male voice tell him to “Get out!” On the other, George’s surveying business struggles with finances, and is due a visit from an IRS agent. The five-year-old daughter Missy reports an invisible friend named Jody, who she describes as a pig and cloven hoof prints are found in the snow outside a window–but records show no snow on the ground on the day in question.
The main thrust of the story revolves around perfectly mundane tensions–the two boys fight, George becomes obsessed with keeping the rattling old house warm by constantly stoking the fire, and Kathy plays referee, keeping the factions together as best she can.
The demonic manifestations are, for the most part, also mundane–odd noises, doors and windows opening or closing on their own, the persistent chill in some rooms. Others seem stranger–a large ceramic lion in the living room seems to shift position on its own–but could be easily explained without invoking a catalog of demonic influences.
The weirdest stuff–seeing the red eyes of the pig Jody in a window, or a white hooded figure standing menacingly at the top of the stairs–defy logical explanation, but also present themselves with no evidence at all, just “this is what happened, yep!”
Did the Lutzes leave after 28 days because they feared for their family’s safety? Maybe. Or did they leave because they had gotten in over their heads and needed to hang their sudden decision to cut and run on a cover story and the more sensational the better? I know which seems more plausible to me, and it has nothing to do with psychic manifestations.
Putting aside the veracity of the events, is this an entertaining story? Well, not really. Because Anson is working with real people and some actual verifiable happenings he is constrained a bit. The story is told in straightforward fashion, which may make it seem more authentic, but also results in a somewhat bland presentation. How can the sudden sound of a marching band in the living room in the middle of the night come across as unremarkable? You will find out here. On the plus side, it’s a quick read at only 300 pages for the paperback version (at least the one I have from 1978).
What I may have most enjoyed from re-reading this book in 2020 is how it now serves as a chronicle of life in the mid-70s. Some of the most fascinating details are the smallest–people having to phone from their homes to reach others, and needing the other person to pick up right away, as even answering machines are not to be found. Cash is used to pay for most things. Everyone smokes. George has to drive to another city early on a Monday to get to a bank, so he can transfer funds to cover a check. Now imagine all of these people dressed in typical fashions of the time. Yes, amazing.
Overall, The Amityville Horror is not something I recommend, except as an historical slice of urban 70s horror for the most dedicated.
I booked today off and went for a walk in the afternoon because it was pleasant out and I like pleasant things.
In The Truth Equation Neil Pasricha suggests doing one of three activities every day, for 20 minutes:
write in a journal
read fiction
walk among trees
Each activity is supposed to put you in a positive frame of mind, with the tree one working apparently because trees secretly spray you with feel-good chemicals or something. You know, like the spores in that episode of the original Star Trek, but les evil.
I ended up doing a full loop of Burnaby Lake and am a little pooped as a result, because I am soft and flabby. But it was nice.
And unnerving.
It was nice because the weather was warm but not hot, the breeze gentle and inviting. I stopped and took pictures (see below). It was everything Pasricha had promised in his book.
But of course, we are in the middle of a pandemic right now, so there are still signs all over asking everyone to stay 2 meters apart, don’t sneeze into each other’s faces and so on.
For stretches, especially the first few km, it was fine. There were few people out–it was a workday and most people, despite all the closures, are still working. But it is also a long weekend and others like me were obviously getting an early start. All good.
So, the walk was relaxing. Except when other people came by, because of the ones who passed me, there was exactly one small group of three that made an actual effort to make as much space as possible between them and me. Everyone else just walked straight by, as if we weren’t in the middle of a pandemic.
Realistically, the chances of catching the virus while walking past someone outdoors is exceedingly small. I had no real need to be concerned. But it still created a tension that began to wear on me as I progressed around the lake. I even diverted temporarily onto the Freeway trail at one point just because I knew there would be few if any people walking it (there were a few cyclists, it turned out). But the Freeway trail is not very scenic and, being next to the freeway, is noisy. It’s the kind of trail you walk on if you have to, not because you want to. I returned to the Burnaby Lake loop at the second opportunity to do so and finished my walk.
Overall, it was fine. I get it, people are tired of walking on virtual eggshells, and of being cooped up all the time and being asked to stay home. Parks are one of the few public places that are open and available. But if what I saw today is an indication of how seriously people are treating physical distancing right now–well, let me say that I won’t be surprised if we see an uptick in cases in a few weeks.
On a more pleasant note, photos!
Burnaby Lake from the bridge over Deer Lake BrookButtercups and plenty of ’emWildflowers along Cariboo Place.Another shot of the lake, with lily pads starting to cover the surface.
And finally, one last shot of the lake with the Metrotown towers in the distance and some god rays in the top left. At least I didn’t get my thumb in this one (something I’ve done several times recently for reasons unknown).
The sign at Hume Park warning that the playground (er, “park feature or area”) is currently closed now has a new sticker on it warning of a $200 fine.
“You there, little boy. Let’s see some ID. You’re being fined 200 clams for riding on that swing set.”
“But I don’t have any clams.”
“It’s a metaphor, kid.”
“A meta for what?”
But while the city is turning up the heat in some ways, they are turning it down in others, as the first signs of going back to a kind of normal have emerged. Here’s another sign, this one at the tennis courts.
As long as you are unorganized and have few, if any, friends, you are good to play tennis again. So that’s something.
In the meantime, a weekend of unseasonably hot weather meant people were jamming the parks and beaches, physical distancing be damned. It will be interesting to see what new cases look like in a few weeks. The week ahead appears to be largely wet, so that should dampen a lot of venturing out.
Also in the meantime, I got confirmation today that the college is committed to online courses for the entire summer, as well as for the fall semester, barring those that require specialized equipment or face-to-face interaction–but only if it’s deemed safe to do so. It is expected that “most” classes will remain online.
My thinking on this is that they realize how difficult it is to do physical distancing on the campus–it’s essentially designed to jam people together, not keep them apart–and want to delay this until a vaccine or other effective workaround can be ironed out that would keep the majority of people safe, rather than turning an education into a trip through the plaguelands.
What this means is that I’m all but guaranteed to be working from home until September and may be working from home until December. Basically, for the rest of the year.
While I like my new no-commute very much. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this.
Attempt #1: Kool Aid Attempt #2: Cooler Attempt #3: Containers. Hooray.
I pronounced the word “container” the same way, with the same inflection each time. This is why the reports that say Siri is better than Alexa ring false to me (or they are testing something else, like depth of trivia knowledge). When Alexa fails, it’s usually because it can’t process the command, either because I’m asking something impossible, or just phrasing it in a way that it’s not been programmed to recognize. It could be as simple as omitting a key word.
Siri is different. Siri will sometimes just fail completely, offering up a baffling “no internet connection” error when the internet is right there, or asking me to try again later because maybe someone at Apple has tripped over the server’s power cord again or worse, insisting that I have no such list to add an item to, after which I will ask Siri to show me that list and it does–then still refuses to let me add items to the list because it still doesn’t exist. But more often than these, Siri will misinterpret what I am saying, giving me Kool Aid instead of containers.
It does this often enough that it doesn’t surprise me. It doesn’t even bother me, really, I just accept that it’s part of the whole Siri experience. But Siri has been around since the iPhone 4S (2011)–it really should be a whole lot better than it is. Bad Apple.
First, I realize the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is a business class laptop and business class means expensive. But this pricing just seems silly.
I get newsletters from Lenovo (I have a 6th gen X1 Carbon) and they’ve just announced the 8th gen model, which uses 10th gen Intel CPUs. There’s a lot of generational stuff here. Anyway, I’ve modified part of the newsletter below to highlight my concern.
The thing, though, is what does that absurdly high (starting!) price of $3149 get you? It’s really just standard specs for any decent ultrabook:
8 GB ram
256 GB SSD
14 inch 1920×1080 non-touch display (not even 16:10)
You get a few minor extras like a fingerprint reader (which is pretty standard on ultrabooks now, anyway), the infamous red nub for navigation (which I find a mild irritant when typing), an alleged 19.5 hours of battery life (take this one with a huge grain of salt–like, jumbo salt), a promise of ruggedness (which I can verify from my model) and the rest is really just configurable options, like a privacy screen, touch display and so on.
Now, compare this to the just-updated MacBook Pro 13 inch model (the one with the 10th gen Intel CPUs). It starts at $2399. This is also a lot of money, but it’s $750 less than the X1 Carbon. What do you sacrifice for that?
No USB 3.0 ports
No Wi-Fi 6
Battery life rated at 10 hours instead of “19.5”
Heavier at 3.01 pounds
No shutter on webcam
Aluminum case will dent and scratch when treated roughly
What do you get over the X1?
Four Thunderbolt 3 ports instead of 2
Touch Bar (OK, some might consider this a negative)
13 inch display–smaller, but running at a higher resolution of 2560×1600 and at a more productivity-friendly 16:10 ratio
Wide color support
True tone (display can detect ambient light and adjust automatically)
Faster integrated graphics
16 GB ram (twice as much)
Ram is significantly faster
512 GB SSD (twice as much)
Faster CPU (2.0 GHz vs 1.6 GHz)
Really, unless you absolutely need Windows (which you can still run on the MacBook Pro, actually) or some of the privacy features, or must have Wi-Fi 6 now, the MacBook Pro is not just a better deal, it’s a significantly better deal.
How weird.
But good for Apple. I’ll be posting again about my own laptop possibilities again soon. I will not be considering an 8th gen ThinkPad X1 Carbon.
I subscribe to the Bookbub newsletter, which delivers a daily list of bargain-priced ebooks covering any genres you highlight as your favorites. It’s a handy way to find the occasional bestseller for cheap, but better still for finding new authors with minimal financial risk. I’ve started reading several new authors, so can recommend at least checking it out.
This post is not about the Bookbub newsletter.
Rather, it’s about the coveted ad space that appears at the bottom of the newsletter. This is where authors can highlight their efforts and reach a potentially wide market.
Most of the ads are new, but I’ve seen a few repeats. This is about one of them. It is a bad ad.
Here it is:
Why is it a bad ad?
The image of a young woman with blood splattered on her face and finger is obviously meant to be provocative, but something about it just screams stock photo. Visually, I find it dull. I guess the story is about a murderer?
There’s no description of the story, not even a pithy little blurb or one of those mash-up quotes. “It’s Jaws meets the Stepford Wives!”
There’s no title. What is this story called? Beats me. You have to click the link (where does it go?) to find out. But why would I? If the author can’t be bothered to even include the title of their own novel, how much should I care about it?
The quotes feel a little too selective. “Evocative of Stephen King” sounds positive, but for all I know the rest of the quote could be, “but fails to match the horror master’s craftsmanship.”
Also, the author expects people to know what KU is. I do, because I’ve been a longtime Bookbub subscriber, have read up on self-publishing and am familiar with Kindle Unlimited. But what about someone who is new to Bookbub? I’ll concede this part may be aimed at a more specific segment of the Bookbub readership.
This ad has come up a few times and I have yet to click on it. I was tempted to for this post, but still couldn’t be bothered enough. It’s a mystery, but not one I care to solve.
It is a bad ad.
UPDATE: But it is also a ubiquitous ad, as it ran for the next week in the Book Bub newsletter. This prompted me to finally click the link and discover that I had actually checked out the book before, then forgotten about it. I don’t blame the book for this, just my addled mind.
It’s called The Demon King and the basic plot reads a lot like Stephen King’s IT, which is where they “evocative of King” quote likely comes from. It’s also the first book of three in something called “The Bloodletters Collection”, is rated 4.5 out of 5 stars on amazon.ca, and costs $4.25 in Canada thanks to our lowly Canadian dollar. Each book appears to be longer than the previous, also evocative of King. The price is fine, but I ain’t committing to a trilogy from an author I’ve never read that spans over 2,000 print pages. But I’ll probably remember it now.
