The question
#blog #writing #web #design
I've never been one thing. I've always been this series of deep dives into weird niche worlds that i've been obsessed by, or orbiting around the worlds of other people Web design was best for me when I was bringing print world themes to the digital landscape and wrapping my friends and family in the drama of my observations of what I saw in them. I've done a lot of failed experimentation for like the last five years, and it seems like nothing has come natural to me since KungFu. I've been able to cobble together this pseudo portfolio and then sprinking ideas around it.
So who am I now?
I have never really wanted to be a photographer, but i love taking pictures; I relate to Vivian Maier. I help to run a business. I for godsakes do not want that to be my identity*. I'm ok with babbling about technology, consider myself absolutely still to be a technologist, but that also isn't me. How do I do me now? What does that presence look like? I've seen engineers focusing on a narrative threaded throgh their hobbies and detailing their contribution to said hobbies. I sorta do that.
I'm at a loss. I don't think I am the new me, I don't think i'm KungFu either though. I definitely don't know what I want out of a web interface anymore.
But I’m going to write myself out of this hole and I don’t know how many letters I need to spew forth, to climb out of trap, before the creep comes back and says it puts the lotion in the basket.
*I don’t mind if my identity is that I help to run a business. If you’ve never helped to run a business it is hard to explain. If you have helped to run a business, or you do run a business you get it. And if you’re like me, a small business owner who inserts himself into other slightly larger small businesses and then picks food out of that businesses teeth as it were, you really get me. That is a weird one though. I’ve never been a conventional employee and scoff at the thought of being called an employee.
This is another thought for another time.
I think I’ve decided that I’m buried in this world and I can’t feel the truth, but I’m close. We’re all searching for lost worlds. It must certainly be a struggle to realize your entire life you might go unsatisfied. You might take your last breath and still not have realized peace or how to be the person you wanted to be. What is that. I’ve seen it in the eyes of people who lost hope. I don’t know if i have good examples of people who I felt like were always unsatisfied, but still looking. Is that any kind of life to live, just realizing you haven’t found your peace? What toll does it take on those around you, if you ‘re haunted, not at night, but during your waking hours, desperate in every action to try to make things better. Really maybe, then you’re the ghost and you’re just haunting people with your certain uncertainty of things being not quite right.
I’ve never been anything.
Thorfire TG06S
What makes for a great inexpensive flashlight?
It is a rainy Saturday and at any moment the lights might go out, which is fine, cause right at my side I’m ready to fight the darkness off with my most recent flashlight The Thorfire TG06S. I came by the TG06S cause i thought it might be a budget gift for the wife. She doesn’t give one hoot about flashlights, but she is going on a camping trip, and while she doesn’t care about flashlights, she will appreciate a good flashlight over a dime store flashlight, with 12 crappy LED’s that eats three triple a batteries in an hour. I’ve always loved flashlights. I can’t count how many maglights I had growing up, or Duracell branded flashlights. There was always one thing in common, I was constantly buying batteries and the flashlights were of poor quality, so I’d get a year or two out of one, and it would eventually go on to become the kitchen flashlight.
There are hundreds of great flashlights out there and most regular folks don’t know anything about this world except for a small group of flashlights enthusiasts. And like all the other enthusiasts, we are just a little too excited to talk about flashlights. I am writing this as a common language observation, it is not a jargon filled review, for other flashlight hounds.
“The best flashlights are as dim as they are bright”
The Thorfire TGO6S can be bought for less than $20 online and for regular folks, this flashlight is all you need. On a regular AA battery you have a potent flashlight that handles your day to day and will give you years of great service. In addition to being a sturdy small flashlight, which is where most peoples interest in flashlights stop, you also have multiple modes, including a mode called “moonlight” which gives you the ability to use the flashlight when very little illumination is called for.
A lot of people would wonder why you’d want a flashlight to have a “not much light” mode, and I was certainly surprised to see that I missed it, once I got a flashlight that didn’t have it, like the TGO6S. Another interesting thing about the Thorfire TGO6S is it can also be powered by other batteries and not just the double a. In addition to blowing away casually purchased brick and mortar flashlights with their dubious lumen claims, the Thorfire TGO6S can use a battery common folk aren’t familiar with known as the 14500 and deliver 500 lumens for cheap. But what even is 500 lumen? 500 lumens is really the most light that regular people will ever care about wanting. It is an amazing amount of light. The way I like to describe 500 lumen is that this is not the setting you’d use in the house, if you were looking in a dark pantry, or under your bed, but it is great outside.
Going back to power the 14500 is a type of rechargeable battery, similar to the double a in size, but with much more power. Some 14500 batteries can be up to a quarter inch longer, and/or a hair thicker, but devices built for the 14500/AA configuration accommodate both sizes and usually take any 14500 you throw at them. As with all non standard rechargeable batteries, you also need a nonstandard charger. You’ll have choices, with either the route of getting a charger that just recharges your one weird battery, or a more pricer model that charges the lions share of weird batteries.
Ok, let’s talk specs and performance a little. On a double a battery your profile for the the Thorfire TGO6S is very exciting. You will start on your highest setting, this is 150 lumen, this is totally fine for the pantry or under the bed, and walking the dog at night. Life is good. From there you go to the next settings of 80 lumen. this is a moderate light level, it is about what you’d expect from a store flashlight on a fresh battery. Your next light level is 20 lumen which is on par with a key ring flashlight. The last setting is your moonlight mode. This setting is great for reading a book, or walking through the house and looking for something. It is supposed to be half a lumen, but it is probably more like five lumen, still very nice, just not as low as some of the other more premium flashlights. This again is not the feature most folks want out of a flashlight.
I personally like for my Every Day Carry “EDC” flashlight to start high. it feels very unpleasant to not have my light be strong when I call on it, but I feel the opposite when around the house.
Ok, let’s talk performance with a rechargeable14500 battery. Your high setting is now 500 lumen. 500 lumen on a fresh battery is best described as being probably too bright for most people to use inside the house. If you were walking outside you could light up the branches in the highest tree you could find, either directly in front of you or many houses down. You could go to a football field and your light would reach all the way to the other side. 500 lumens is magnificent.
On the highest setting The TGO6S will lower output as the bulb and battery generate heat, but you have a few minutes, and even then the Thorfire will reduce you to approximately 300 lumen, which is still a staggering amount of light, but you will notice the difference. The other settings will not step down, they don’t generate nearly as much heat. The next level is 200 lumens which is still higher than the highest level the double a battery can produce. After that you are at 50 lumens. The thing though is that the moonlight mode is way too bright on the 14500 battery, you’re probably at 10 lumens or so, which is way more than you what you want for a low key light.
These flashlights use a lot of energy, and the initial brightness of a fresh battery is significantly higher than a battery you’ve put some clock minutes on. But you’ve got so much brightness to begin with, that said. If you use a rechargeable battery for power, you might find yourself hard pressed to run the battery down to low and then charge, and why should you?! I get a week of use out of my EDC and that is me using it daily multiple times and then by the middle of week two I start thinking “weak sauce” by the end of week two I can’t take it anymore, cause I know what it can do, so I charge back up. When I had maglights and cheap LED lights in the past I used them till the light was useless, cause I’d be tossing out disposable batteries. I don’t use disposable batteries anymore. Rechargeable batteries pay for themselves, on the second recharge. By the third or fourth recharge you’ve recouped the cost of even the charger.
The TGO6S is about the length of your forefinger and the size of a breakfast sausage and it fits in your pants pocket, or waist band, bout like a thick sharpie would. It is not a large flashlight, but it is capable of giving you this incredibly robust amount of light. Let’s talk more about how you operate the light, at the end of the light is tail switch, you will first turn it on with a full click and then half clicks will cycle you through the lower power modes. A double half click will get you to a strobe mode, which is good for personal defense, signaling and annoying people. This is a pretty simple interface, typical for the price range.
The TGO6S is a inexpensive and well produced product, but you’re missing out on some of the nuance of the more pricey lights out there. Most folks don’t care about nuance though.
nu·ance
noun
1. a subtle difference in or shade of meaning, expression, or sound."the nuances of facial expression and body language"
See what I mean...
A comparison of battery sizes. The 14500 battery spec varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. Most 14500 devices are accomadating to these varied sizes.
I think there are three kinds of people the Thorfire TGO6S could appeal to. For the conventional battery person, who is also likely to use the flashlight infrequently(?), it will just be a great compact and very bright flashlight, and ultimately they’ll get better brightness and a nice product to carry around, or throw in their glove box, or walk the dog with. For the person who has rechargeable double a batteries around the house, the TGO6S is a lot of guilt free fun. You’ll charge often, but it will be worth it. For people who are willing to get 14500 batteries and a special charger, you will absolutely find yourself with a level of performance that amazes you. It will cost you a little cash, like another twenty five dollars or so, to get some special batteries and their charger, but you now have a incredibly bright light, and when you run out of juice you, you can still use store brought, when needed.
Forget about the batteries discussion, this is the kind of flashlight everyone should own.
Tidbits...
People already in the world of LED flashlights, will appreciate the cost, good construction, and the Cree XP-G2 bulb, but they might scoff at the fact that the Thorfire TGO6S has PWM (a flicker we can’t see with our eyes, but that cameras can detect, it is a sign of a cheaper flashlight) but regular folks don’t care about such things.
So the thing about the Thorfire TGO6S is that I did not give it to my wife. I bought this much more expensive light for her, it starts low and has a more advanced User Interface “UI” and is incredibly small. This light is the Olight S1A, but I purchased the Thorfire TGO6S, two, one for a good friend, and one for myself and it replaced my much more expensive flashlight. The Olight S1A is hard to find and ultimately has been discontinued. You can search around and dig one up. The truth is though that I had no idea how much I really appreciate those advanced features, cause I didn’t know till I got the Thorfire TGO6S. The TGO6S has these other features which I really appreciate and it beats out the Olight S1A on some levels. While it doesn’t have a proper moonlight mode. The beam center is tighter and brighter and the Olight S1A is more “floody” as they say, which means the beam comes out of the light very wide. it is a different experience, nice, but not as precise. I have no regrets about the Thorfire TGO6S, I’d absolutely prefer it over the Olight, if it had a good moonlight mode.
#blog #KFO #writing #reboot #2019
Aspirational vs practical.
Thinking out loud.
An aspirational reconnection with an online archive (blog/journal/central point) of my life would not be design first? Dude... An Aspirational reconnection with what I’m writing is absolutely design first, at least it is if you’re approaching it from a design standpoint. The problem is and always has been, what kinda shell do you erect that presents you in your many ways?
I’d I go in messy (choosing a new template/design first,) without a story board and well thought out goal, I’m likely to get off to quick a start but i could type cast myself into a template that is not what I ultimately wanted, also a problem...
The working title was terrible for this piece about technology.
“Constant Craving vs Does it work or does it not work...”
In the movie Heat Robert Deniro has a famous line, it is a maxim about how you should live life.
“A guy told me one time, "Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner”
That quote has stayed with me for twenty years, except I remember the quote more like this
“You gotta be able to walk away from anything in fifteen minutes.”
In my mind, I think I was taking the gravity of the quote and giving myself some room to think. 30 seconds isn’t a long time and I’m not a bank robber. But I’ve come to apply this sentiment to technology. I love any equipment that augments my day to day experience, but I’m not into the thrill of new and I’m not going to stick around if it doesn’t work. I think the question I’m asking a lot in writing is “What does that mean?” What does it mean if you want technology to improve your life? If you ‘re a regular person the answer is different from an early adopter or a technologist.
Regular people buy something and they use it till they it absolutely no longer works. They will suffer slow downs, tape it together. Ignore broken pieces and just suffer what ever inconvenience there is till they just can’t stand it anymore. The vast majority of them will then replace it, begrudgingly, with the cheapest most ill suited replacement they can find and they will repeat the cycle, which is why you can go online or to a store and buy a blender for $14. Nobody wants a $14 blender, even the person who bought the $14 blender doesn’t want it. If you gave them a Vitamixer they’d stare in disbelief, at what a blender can do when it has a boat motor underneath it.
As an aside this piece isn’t necessarily going where I imagined it. This is usually where I wander what I’m talking about. When I started this piece I wanted to question my desire to try new stuff and being willing to pay for new stuff, but not wanting to keep a product if it didn’t really deliver on the augmentation it was promising.
I used to be an early adopter, I also used to take drugs, both are poor decisions. I walked this weird line with buying cheap stuff instead of purchasing the best example of something. It doesn’t mean I never bought nice stuff, I did, just not consistently, and now I think I just want to buy things that work; with less concern for costs. I accept that sometimes I’ll be justified in buying the cheaper thing, but I’m only going to keep it if it actually works for me. That is the Heat quote for me. I will buy it, try it and then return it as soon as possible if it doesn’t work. And I’ll then write an epilogue and extol the virtues or lack there of.
Ok, so you’re not using a Celeron laptop with a broken hinge, and you’re not buying everything new thing that comes around. But you are still buying stuff. There are times when you see something, Bluetooth accessories first come to mind, and you think “I could have seven different versions of a device meant to distribute sound to my ear drums” This is ok. You can still buy shit, you’ve not taken a vow of poverty. You aren’t sidelined from upgrading when you want to, there should just be a reason for it, hopefully other than boredom. In the case of Bluetooth headphones, no different than corded headphones of yesteryear, one earpiece usually goes south before the other and that headphone suddenly becomes the “nightstand” headset; though sometimes I think I should repair or donate that stuff and move on in my life.
I still may not have any point to draw to in conclusion. I’m talking about desire and practicality but addressing neither, save for the thought that I don’t mind buying stuff, I want to be happy with it though. When i buy things now i aggressively look for what I dislike about the product.
The Airpods got disconnected from my phone before a walk and I had to hard reset them and reconnect them while fending off mosquitos, this happened a quarter mile into my walk and was infuriating. I know why this happened though and I suspected they were not connected before I left the house. This extra layer of connectivity is a double edged sword, a more complex repairing instance if you will, despite that issue the Airpods are still amazing. The same thing goes for the Apple Smart Keyboard, if it acts weird, it is a weird like no other keyboard manages to do. For example, in some text entry fields on websites, even on Apple sites, the Apple SmartKeyboard can’t type into the field. The first time it happened I thought the keyboard had disconnected. The next seven times it happened I also thought the keyboard was disconnected. This does not appear to be the reason, it just seems as if the Apple SmartKeyboard can’t type into some website text fields; that shit doesn’t happen with a regular keyboard.
Nothing is perfect. This isn’t the point. The question is can you assess the good and bad of a product, acknowledge when it isn’t going to work for you and walk away when it doesn’t work. The other big question is, can you distinguish when the good outweighs the bad. For example, if the Apple Smart Keyboard is more convenient than a Bluetooth keyboard and increases your productivity, is it worth it to spend Vitamixer money on it when you could have just bought a $14 blender. In my situation the Apple Smart Keyboard is thinner, more convenient and I’ve been typing for work and pleasure on it, so much more than I was when I had the other Bluetooth keyboard.
Here is where it gets really funny. The more I thought about the Apple SmartKeyboard and how much i enjoyed a real keyboard along with the fact that the Ipad does not work with any websites that are mouse-only in interface: Squarespace, Wisemapping, Smartsheet, I began to ask myself whether or not I just needed a laptop. Here I am with this delightful tablet that I’ve now mated to this keyboard. I’m writing again, and really the iPod doesn’t do everything i need to do, why don’t I have a laptop? I had to remind myself that the reason I got the IPad is cause I needed a portable note taker, that could replace pen and paper, because the laptop form factor does not work in the field. And yes, the iPad does not and will not (for the foreseeable future) do everything I want it to do, but it is damn nice, And even though it doesn’t do everything, the Apple Pencil is shockingly nice. The Apple Smartkeyboard is mostly a joy, and the iPad tablet is amazing, but I’m sometimes gonna need to set it aside and work on a regular computer, which is a bummer, but life is pretty good in the meanwhile.
Getting out of the rut
I have tried to make this commitment to write daily. I always write, but most of what is going on the page is communications to clients. I have had a pretty good run doing technology writing, but that has created this whole question for me about understanding what my motivations are.
For about three years now I’ve had these concepts that i’ve played around with. Do I want to document stuff from the past? Do I want I want to talk about these historic restorations? Do I want to everyman the use case of technology in a detailed way? A part of me has wanted to greatly document projects with glorious pictures and a lot of detail. Another part of me wants to just get some good thoughts out there.
None of this is really so much for an audience or niche anymore. I’m just trying to bring some sense of purpose to daily activities.
I used to be really good at the routines sleep, work, create, and fucking off. Somehow I was able to produce and relax and do all those other things. it seems of late though, work, sleep and not accounting for my time (decompression,) has really been the crux of it and I know that is mostly just cause family life is tricky and I’ve gone back to a heavy work schedule.
I’ve started a few things in preparation of this most recent attempt to write more and store my work. Last year I started some new hosting, it was a deal and I wanted to go back to hand coding my pages. I hoped the novelty of coding and wanting to write would just really reinvigorate me; that was a failure. Adding another obstacle to writing in the form of obsessing over page detail was not relaxing.
I also wanted to rethink navigation in the sense that I wanted to write with less of a linear post mentality and I hoped to just let my mind wander. We haven’t really seen this kinda inter site linking for a long time, everything is in a CRM of late and just waterfalls down the page. This concept felt really good in my head, but the thought of touching on a subject and then a series of expounding companion pieces also did not lend itself to more writing.
In the last decade I went from being a very public figure, to remarrying and then leading a private life and watching as the internet turned into a pornographic lynch mob. A lot of my concerns about self expression are now quaint, though the burden of setting boundaries about what is and is not acceptable to talk about, in my personal life is still to be worked out.
Words have meaning.Thoughts must be reflected on.Posting online is not writing in a journal.I see why it feels safer to muse on gadgets...
Apple Smart Keyboard - 1st & 2nd impressions
Apple Smart Keyboard
When I first tried the Apple Smart Keyboard I found myself unimpressed. What does that mean though? I’ll start with my first impressions
First impressions
Dislikes
- Lack of Apple function keys
- Tapping the keys feels like your finger is smashing crackers.
- Lack of protection
- The keyboard is too heavy to stay stuck to the screen
- One angle fits all. This is not the Smart Cover with a keyboard, you can only place the iPad at one angle
- How much?
- Keyboard sits close to the ipad
- Am I losing connectivity sometimes?
Likes
- Looks pretty cool
Those were were my first impressions over the course of three visits to the Apple store. Crazy thing though, I’ve had it a few days and I think I really like this keyboard
2nd impressions
Dislikes
- Lack of Apple function keys
- Lack of protection
- The keyboard is too heavy to stay stuck to the screen
- One angle fits all. This is not the Smart Cover with a keyboard, you can only place the iPad at one angle
- How much?
- Am I losing connectivity sometimes?
- Where the fuck is the backlighting?
Likes
- Looks
- Weight, when carrying-while walking or when in use
- Tapping the keys feels like your finger is smashing crackers
- Preferred to external keyboard
So what changed? Three days in I’ve not had to switch to my Bluetooth keyboard, so i could get work done. In no particular order I’ll say these things.
Ok, so smashing crackers doesn’t feel terrible. This keyboard has the same dome witches that the current generation MacBook has. But there is an additional membrane and it rests on top; so you won’t be getting any stuck keys. It feels very similar to the MacBook keyboard, but maybe it is better. That might be cause the keyboard cover seems to be vacuum sealed and glued, giving more bounce to the keys when they return to their upright position. I’d have to get access to a MacBook to really speak better about how close the two seem.
The position of the iPad Pro 12.9 is pretty perfect. I’ve not once wanted to reposition it, but that is kinda crazy. I regularly reposition my laptop screen, I mean, I used to. I don’t actually use my laptop anymore. My relationship with my laptop is a whole other matter to discuss. Back to the IPad Pro 12.9...
Only having one position doesn’t feel right, at least when i think about it, it doesn’t feel right, but I haven’t thought about it while using the ipad and the Smart Keyboard. Just to be clear. The one position they chose for the ipad to lean at is perfect. I haven’t found an instance yet where it doesn’t work. Weird.
I have a fourteen dollar Bluetooth keyboard that is modeled off of the small Apple Bluetooth keyboard. This keyboard is fine, it takes triple a batteries, has a solid connection, is not connected to the IPad and work for weeks on a single charge. This is what I was willing to spend on a keyboard. I was not able to bring myself to buy the Smart Keyboard when I was at the apple store. It wasn’t till I returned my Airpods that I even considered it and to be honest, I just wanted to test drive the SmartKeyboard till the new 2018 summer event, with he assumption i was going to buy something else.
I really like this keyboard though.
Three times in three days I’ve felt like the keyboard has disconnected. But I think two of those times I was in Amazon Prime and one of those times it wasn’t seated well. I’ll keep an eye out for it. I dunno.
This Keyboard is not backlit, I totally dig why it isn’t, but it sure should be, for the price.
This keyboard works on your legs like a laptop! Not in a half hearted way, you can really work in a similar manner as you might with a laptop. That doesn’t sound exactly the same though and that is cause it isn’t. You don’t have a trackpad, dude, it is an Ipad; that means no wrist rest either. So my usual bed or couch way of using a laptop or keyboarded ipad would be to have a lap board or a couch pillow. I don’t actually use laptops in my lap very often, if I have a say in the matter. The Smart Keyboard totally works on your legs though.
I don’t think I’m supposed to review or describe stuff and use “totally” in my description of things. The Apple Smart Keyboard is pretty pleasing, I think i can break a few rules.