Good morning. Hello. How are you? I am good. Thankfully. Yesterday I found myself so sleepy that I kept nodding off during the day and eventually had to give up, call it quits, and go back to bed. I slept an additional… three hours? On top of a perfectly reasonable 8 hours of sleep, and maybe 7 hours each night of the weekend. But I guess that wasn’t enough. Or something. Feel fine otherwise. No covid. No symptoms. I think I’m better today, though I got up early, before my alarm, so who knows. Maybe the whole cycle will happen again today.
First I would like to wish Nick a happy birthday. We visited him “for his birthday” this weekend but his actual birthday is today. Happy birthday, buddy.
Second, these Diamond League Duolingo players are not fucking around. Getting a first in Diamong League is going to be very, very difficult. I’m not sure this is the week to attempt it. Might require a bit of a setup.
Apple did its WWDC keynote yesterday. I am excited the Mac Pro is finally out, and that the Mac Studio got a bump to M2 Ultra. Now that I know the whole lineup, I will probably settle on replacing my glorious 28-core Mac Pro with a Mac Studio instead. I am in this game for raw processor speed, and don’t really use the Mac Pro’s expansion slots, so may as well save a little bit of money there. I do think we should pause and note that Apple extolled the possibility of 192 gigs of RAM like it is some sort of breakthrough, when in fact it is a serious step back on the current Mac Pro, which supported up to 1.5TB of RAM. Of course my poor Mac Pro had nothing like that, only a paltry 256 gigs of RAM. But still. Step down, there.
The “Journal” app seems kind of amazing. Not too long ago, Nick alerted me to this Wikipedia page, List of Longest Diaries, which if it is to be believed (and this is a dubious proposition), would make my journal the seventh longest in the world (I’m coming for you, Nella Last). And this does not include the extra oh, million or so words that I have written for you guys in GMHHAY. So I am something of an expert on the topic of journaling. The app looks great! I am all for a widespread public revival of journaling would probably make the country a better place. And giving the world easy access to a simple journaling app should, hopefully, increase its adoption. Because journaling makes you happier. Or at least healthier.
(BTW if you are looking for an easy entré into the world of journaling prior to the release of Apple Journal, might I recommend today’s Why is this Interesting column, written by Ally Brushi, about her “Happy Monday,” approach to journaling, which seems glorious in its simplicity and positivity).
All that being said, I am deeply disappointed that it does not appear that Apple’s Journal app is coming to the Mac? I mean, I guess I assume you can run it on the Mac through Apple’s ability to run iOS apps on Apple Silicon, not that I have that (yet). But… really? Come on. Let people type on an actual keyboard!
We shall see, we shall see.
And then, of course, was the star of the show, the new Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset. I went into the keynote profoundly indifferent and skeptical to the whole thing but I must admit… Apple kind of won me over?
I mean, there are profound problems. The price is insane. The battery life is pathetic. The complete lack of specs is very, very dodgy (though I will reserve judgement there until, hopefully, watching the “state of the platform” keynote. Somehow). I am 100% confident their “wide range of prescriptions” comments about the need for customized Zeiss lenses in your prescription will not go high enough (or low enough, I guess) to accommodate my -11 and -13 diopter myopia. (Never mind in a different part of the Keynote Apple went on about Myopia and how having screens too close to your eyes is one of the risk factors for Myopia, now they want us all to strap screens to our head). And the part where the dude said something along the lines of how it was cheaper to buy an Apple Vision Pro than a big tv and surround sound system and this and that, completely leaving out the fact that if you bought all of that, you could actually watch a movie with a friend.
That’s actually the weirdest part! For all the effort they spent on the pass-through eyes look and social cues and not feeling isolated, the software portion of the keynote was utterly devoid of anything social. I mean, sure, you can Zoom (er, Facetime). But it’s somewhat mind-boggling they did not mention you could… watch a movie with a friend. Which… honestly seems the killer app? I would almost consider paying if I could throw on Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and shoot the shit with my nerd buddies in other cities while watching it together and seeing them in the room (or at least their really not bad avatars). I have to assume that is coming. But it should come from Apple, in the form of something like SKviewparty or something, so it works the same in every app.
Licensing probably.
Anyway, all that aside… I… kinda want one now? I assumed I wouldn’t get around to buying one for another seven years. That it would be kind of like the watch where it would get better and better, cheaper and cheaper, more and more socially acceptable, and then eventually the value proposition got too good. And on top of that, I would get older and older, and the health features would get better and better, until eventually it becomes the absolute essential device for people with Alzeheimers, which I am going to get, just you watch. And whenever I looked at my daugher it would remind me that this was my daughter and fill me in on things. Or something.
But actually I kinda want one before then now. Apple did a good job getting me excited. I like the idea of virtual screens, I like the idea of reducing neck strain but not having to look down when reading. I want to put a giant Kindle book in front of my eyes. Or something.
I will say, though, that Apple Keynotes since the pandemic get me down. They took advantage of the pandemic to kill off live audiences, and they are not bringing them back. The whole thing now is pre-recorded and creepy and weird. Shadows come and go per cut. Everyone presenting is happy and confident and enthusastic and utterly devoid of any doubt, sadness, concern or introspection. They are superhuman. Not like you and me. They do not posess Steve’s faults, which made Apple seem more human. Everyone’ clothes fit perfectly, except for the guy presenting the games portion, where they gave him an oh-so-slight rumple to his shirt that was doubtlessly tested against the demographic, in order to invoke the stereotype of a gamer. All clothes are of the perfect sartorial provenence for the person and subject matter being discussed. Accents are rare, American regional accents banished. Vocal fry is non-existent. There is probably signifacant internal pushback and eye rolling against Craig Federighi’s dad jokes, Craig himself being the last throwback to the imperfections of the Steve era, his dumb jokes being the last bastian of actual humanity in the keynotes.
I don’t like it, I don’t like any of it. Did I work for Apple for almost a decade as a vendor? Sure. Do I feel utterly excluded from this version Apple, with my rumpled shirts, non-mainstream tastes and paunchy gut? Absolutely. Do I know many people who work at Apple who do not perfectly fit this stereotype? Eh, some. Less and less.
Other random observations: it is dumb that Vision Pro only comes in white I am so sick of that shit. Apple’s focus on myopia and depression in iOS speaks to me and I am very thankful for their health work, where I do think they can make a real difference in the wold. I am very, very excited about Safari’s use of “web apps” and it will reduce the number of browsers I need by…. four. Hopefully. If they integrate it with their new profiles feature well. I’m glad the Vision Pro works with an actual, physical keyboard and mouse. Deeply skeptical of Apple’s ability to handle voice-only and gestures.
And the porn on Vision Pro is gonna be lit.
The other thing I suppose is worth commenting on today is the alien article. Here. Read it yourself. Basically a very, very respectable intelligence official is saying that there has been a century-long conspiracy by the governments of the world to wage a secret “cold war” by harnessing alien tech that they all seem to have independently obtained from various crash sites or something because I guess advanced alien species just keep crashing on our backwater planet. This is where we got silicon. It seems to imply basically the aliens and our benevolent shadow masters are responsoible for most of human advancement, kinda like that Marvel movie with the big ocean statue. And each country does this and some cooperate but some don’t etc. etc. It all reads as very possible and lots of people back this guy up and he has filed a whistleblower complaint, yadda yadda.
It does not bother to say whether, you know, any of this is told to the president.
So, couple possibilities here:
It’s all kinda BS and the whole thing will fade from the news soon enough because no one can corroberate it, which seems most likely but also real weird because why go the effort of making the whole thing about special whistleblower acts and imminent public testimonials and whatnot if it’s just going to disappear but that is probably what’s going to happen because the world we live in is just weird and people do weird shit because they don’t journal enough. Maybe they hope it’ll inspire someone to come forward with “real” info, but they don’t. Or something.
Democracy as we know it is a complete lie and the shadowy powers that be have decided they know what’s best and the populace of the country should get zero say in what would be the most consequential decisions humanity could possibly face. Unlikely but not a zero percent chance! Because that is exactly what they would do if this were real.
Democracy’s only sort of a lie because the shadowy powers nominally keep the president informed, which is not how any of this is supposed to work but at least, you know, the one person we elect nationally has a vague notion of the whole thing (multiple people have told me about an infamous meeting during the Obama administration where afterward he STFU about mocking UFOs). To believe this of course you have to believe that not one of the country’s greatest political grandstanders ever politically grandstanded about it, and that Trump kept his trap shut, lol. East to believe Obama could lie about it, hard to beliebe Trump could STFU about it. Of course it’s possible that the shadowy powers-that-be took one look at that guy and said “nope” to telling him, but then we’re back to the “Democracy is a complete lie” possibility above.
I’m gonna roll with option 1 for now, because I’m lazy, and its easiest. But of course the paradox of conspiracies is that sometimes they’re real. But really most people can’t separate their ego out of the whole affair and believe they’re the ones to unravel a conspiracy. Well, my view on the situation is: it’s not my problem, who cares. Plenty of more easily accessible evidence out there that democracy as we know it is a complete lie.
Had a related epiphany lately. I’ve been thinking a lot about how awful the world is, and how continuiningly, unrelentingly awful the radical right is being, and how the plastics and climate change are killing the planet and Silicon Valley’s utter lack of humility is exacerbating the problem and seriously it’s all just so fucked up.
But also at the same time: I want to live live live. I want to be happy. I want to do my shit. I choose happiness.
When I told Emma about the UFO thing she said “Whitley Streiber believed that they were time travelers sending us tech to try and help us save us from ourselves. This is what I choose to believe about it.” This is a tightly wise statement: resolves some of the actual problems with the whole “sophisticated aliens keep crashing on this backwater planet” situation, is no more or less improbable, and is optimistic. Nicely done, wife. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the Military Industrial Complex can’t fuck it up, but.. choose hope.
Anyway, I don’t think I drove that epiphany home enough. Yeah the world sucks, but I do not find myself letting it get me down anymore. I think I used to use it an excuse to mope but now it is… something different. The awareness of the bad is heightened, and I struggle to do more about it than I used to, but the desire to live, to be happy, is heightened as well.
I can’t quite explain this. But I’ll get there.
Daddy Jane Dance Party last night. Lotta Goldfrapp. Some Linda Lindas. No Madonna, thankfully. Robyn. Beabadoobee. Hole. The Go Gos. She put the kibosh on Blur: “no boy singers”.
Da Club mix today. I don’t really know what to say about it. Spotify recommends these things, I listen to them, put them on here, never listen to them again. I don’t mind club music — I quite like the Orbital track, especailly. But I never, like, listen to it consciously. On repeat, that is. Except in clubs, which I am totally going to all the time these days, honest.
Oh shit I just realized I was supposed to do fiction Tuesday. Whoops. You will have Dottie’s next episode tomorrow, instead. It’s a doozy.