[When I first thought about the title for this post, I wasn’t sure “gilded” was the right term, but after reading the description on Wikipedia, I realized there are a lot of parallels between the Gilded Age and the time we’re in right now.]
As I sit, read and absorb (what I can handle of) the news and reactions of Apple’s September 9th Keynote I can’t help but think of a clip I saw a few years ago of Louis CK as a guest on the Conan O’Brien Show. The clip starts out with Louis sadly admitting,
“Everything is amazing right now and nobody is happy.”
During the Keynote Tim Cook & Company announced two new iPhone models as well as a brand new Apple Watch. Many of specifications for the new iPhone models were leaked way in advance of the event, but little was known about the Watch. No one knew what the “wearable” would look like or what did (the press had been calling it the ‘iWatch’ for the last year).
Everything about the new 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus was as expected to nerds (myself included): bigger screens, a better camera, more storage capacity and the new iOS 8 operating system, pre-installed. Meh, no big deal. Status quo. Phones with technical stats—mind you—better than the original (desktop) iMac.
Then Cook announced “one more thing…” and we got to see the Apple Watch for the first time.
The Apple Watch is a device that works in conjunction with your iPhone. Some of it’s features are extensions of what the iPhone does: you can view maps/directions, push notifications from email, texts and notifications from other apps you choose.
Then there are other, brand new fitness tracking features only the Watch can do like monitor your pulse, elevation and distances you travel. It then aggregates all this data so you can track your progress. Oh, and you can wirelessly and securely pay for things with it as well.
What you’re able to do with the new iPhones and Apple Watch (as well as all the other smart watches and smartphones) is amazing. Forget going back in time 50 years and showing people an Apple Watch (or even the flat-tire Moto 360). If you just went back in time 10 years people would be blown away.
But in 2014? Not so much.
“Yeah, that’s kinda cool, but the battery only lasts for a day. Weak.”
“The screen is so tiny. I can’t read anything.”
“The watch is HUGE. I can’t wear that on my wrist.”
“I wish it read my mind.”
“Why can’t it start my car?”
Now I don’t think the Apple Watch is for everyone and I don’t expect everyone to get excited about it. What irritates me is the disappointed and negative reactions to the Apple Watch. Many people have been so conditioned by the day-to-day advances in technology they’re numb to even amazing—albeit incremental—advances.
I also acknowledge the tech press has a long track record of being critical of new gadgets, but in last 5-7 years though, they seem to have become increasing critical of the king of the hill, Apple. Forget the fact every other smart watch on the market lasts a day on a charge, but for Apple’s Watch, lasting just a day on a charge is a disaster. Add to this the psychology of the human brain and its tendency to focus on the negative more than the positive (loss aversion comes to mind).
Here’s a some of the many negative headlines that have passed through my RSS stream (I know what you might be thinking, maybe stop reading BGR):
BGR: The iPhone 6 feature that’s great, but hardly good enough: Wi-Fi Calling
PCMag: 5 Wearables More Interesting Than the Apple Watch
The Verge: Apple Watch will likely require nightly charging
BGR: It’s confirmed: You’ll have to recharge your Apple Watch every night
BGR: The iPhone 6 feature that’s great, but hardly good enough: Wi-Fi Calling
Reuters: Fashion world divided on first look at Apple Watch
ZDNet: Apple’s appalling iPhone 6 camera compromise
Telegraph: Apple Watch ‘too feminine and looks like it was designed by students’, says LVMH executive
Everything is amazing right now and nobody is happy.

Last year, I got it into my head that I could write a book. Check that, I’ve known I could do it for a long time. Last year was when I finally figured out that, in order to be a writer, one must write, instead of thinking about writing. So, I sat my ass down four or five days a week and banged out a first draft. I then inflicted the book on friends and family. Many revisions and tweaks later I felt I had something polished enough to begin shopping it around to literary agents. The literary agents, so far, do not agree. I chose to go the traditional route for publishing a book because it is still a valid business model. But, following the traditional route, unless an author is picked up by an agent, said author’s book remains a lonely file on a lonely computer.

Well, the hell with that!

This is the 21st Century. I have other options, which, in lieu of traditional publishing, I am choosing to exercise.

I wrote a book. It’s called Impact Winter. It’s a post-apocalyptic sci-fi story set about a year after a meteorite impact with the earth. Dust from the impact has shrouded the earth and plunged it into a winter that will last for years. In this bleak setting, humanity struggles to survive. My book is now available for purchase as a Kindle eBook. As soon as the legal stuff is taken care of, it will be available from iBooks and other retailers.

My book! Mine. I love writing those words. Check it out. Also, many thanks to Daily Exhaust Mike for the cover art, as seen above.

One of the smaller bits of Apple news from yesterday was Apple retiring the iPod Classic.
But the end of the click wheel? Not so fast.
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the Wheel lives on except now it’s called the Digital Crown:

Yes, this is a real screen shot.

Were you like me this morning? Hearing the audio of the Chinese translator for Apple’s keynote alongside the audio of the actual white dudes in Cupertino? Maybe you got a few dozen error pages in Safari after numerous page refreshes?
Well, here’s why:

Unlike the last live stream Apple did, this time around Apple decided to add some JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) code to the apple.com page which added an interactive element on the bottom showing tweets about the event. As a result, this was causing the page to make refresh calls every few milliseconds. By Apple making the decision to add the JSON code, it made the apple.com website un-cachable. By contrast, Apple usually has Akamai caching the page for their live events but this time around there would have been no way for Akamai to have done that, which causes a huge impact on the performance when it comes to loading the page and the stream. And since Apple embeds their video directly in the web page, any performance problems in the page also impacts the video. Akamai didn’t return my call asking for more details, but looking at the code shows there was no way Akamai could have cached it. This is also one of the reasons why when I tried to load the Apple live event page on my iPad, it would make Safari quit. That’s a problem with the code on the page, not with the video.
Fuck me.
Apple, you need to step it up.

Richard V. Reeves about writing biographies on intellectuals:

When the subject of a biography is a great politician or military leader, the life is what makes the story: what they did, and said, not what they thought. A subject who has had an important and interesting life during interesting times can, in skilled hands, be brought to life like the character of a good novel.
And:
The life of an intellectual, Mr. Ignatieff claims, provides a petri dish for the universal human experiment of thinking, being and doing. It’s a lovely idea. The trouble is that intellectuals seem no better at it than anyone else. They often think great thoughts, while being ignoble characters. Maybe Mill and Berlin and John Dewey were noble characters. But Marx was a serial adulterer, Karl Popper was a pompous narcissist, and Heidegger was a fascist. Elite thinkers, maybe: but as amateurish humans as the rest of us.
Ideas are beautiful. Life is dirty.
It’s just how it is.

—Fight Club

I want to focus on my favorite visual update in Yosemite — the dock icons. Before Yosemite, Apple maintained a system for icon design through a checklist of mostly unstated and understood guidelines paired with a few specific recommendations in the Human Interface Guidelines (HIG). With Yosemite, that system becomes more consistent, and regular, yet the HIG remains silent on the specifics.
—Nick Keppol doing an awesome job inspecting the icons in OS X Yosemite

If the awesome tie I wore today wasn’t enough to kill The Mondays then this little bit of Microsoft news is:

In among the larger-than-life humans on NFL sidelines this season, you’ll notice a slew of Microsoft’s Surface Pro 2 tablets helping out. Used by players and coaches to review photos of plays, the tablets are encased in chunky cyan protective cases and have been attracting the attention of the broadcast commentators when put to use. The only problem is that the announcers don’t seem to have been briefed on the name, leaving them to describe Microsoft’s slates as “iPad-like tools.”
Hahahahahahaha.
Oh boy. Nothing like a nice cup of schadenfreude in the morning to get ya going.

Analysts and trend-spotters agree that a major shift in teenage trends, and in teenage spending, is underway. John Morris, a retail analyst at BMO Capital Markets, says that his regular focus groups with teenagers about what trends they find most appealing often stray from clothing.

“You try to get them talking about what’s the next look, what they’re excited about purchasing in apparel, and the conversation always circles back to the iPhone 6,” he said. “You get them talking about crop tops, you get a nice little debate about high-waist going, but the conversation keeps shifting back.”
—Elizabeth A. Harris and Rachel Abrams, Plugged-In Over Preppy: Teenagers Favor Tech Over Clothes

This week Michael and Bryan discuss fall in New York, appreciating jazz and classical music, the celebrity iPhone hacking drama and Apple’s expected wearable computer device thing we didn’t know we wanted. The episode opens with the exhaust from a Lamborghini Countach.
Weekly Exhaust – Episode 15

via Twitter

—found in The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch

—American Dreaming Teaser from Jim Toscano on Vimeo.
taken from The Combustion Chamber