Anti-Social


I deactivated my Facebook account today. I haven’t deleted it yet, but I think I will before long. I just don’t find it interesting or useful. I’ve never learned anything from it, and anything I put up on it will just be there forever, possibly causing trouble for me in one way or another, so seeing an thorough end to it seems more worthwhile than finding out what games or silliness one person or another more or less remotely connected to my life, past more than present, mostly, may be up to.

Twitter, too, I think. It can be entertaining – more so than Facebook ever was – but unless you’re following some users who use it well, it’s only entertaining for about five minutes. And you really need to be following lots and lots of people, none of whom you’re ever likely to meet (or like in real life, probably). And most of them are likely not to use it well. Frankly, two dozen updates in a row are more boring than not, evidence that someone needs a blog. Or a friend. A physical one.

I’m also considering closing down my blog. It’s been fun, but if I want to collect hyperlinks to pages of things I find interesting there are more useful methods than this. I can’t remember the last time I looked back for something I’d blogged about. And if I want to communicate with friends and family, again, email works well, and my Googlepages site (or whatever they’re called now) can be used to post photographs or whatever else just as easily, and probably more so.

My own updates to these so-called social media sites or web 2.0 or whatever are less than worthwhile. I don’t even care about what I think that much, so I can’t expect anyone else to be interested. If you need to get in touch, you’ve got my phone number or my email address, so look for me there.

Robots & Magazines
One of those Groupon deals came through to my email account the other day, offering an iPad2 with a Phillips docking station for under a grand. A pretty good deal, even if the tablet discount wasn't where most of the value offered lay.

The iPad doesn't offer much to me: I've got a PC and a wired modem, and I already have a phone (that isn't an iPhone), but one thing I could have by buying an iPad is a reliable subscription to the New Yorker magazine, and for about half the price.

Every week it's a toss-up as to which issue will arrive in my mailbox: the current week's, last week's, maybe one a month old, or none at all. They arrive still in their sealed plastic, so I don't suppose the postman is reading them first, but how I can walk into a new agent's and see the current issue on time and not have received my subscription copy, well, I reckon it's either the distributor or the fact that the newsstand issue is $15 and my subscription would cost them money if they delivered it.

The potential for it to be a problem with the distributor is pretty high. Conde Nast was using Pitney Bowes, and the addressing slip included a "how's my distribution" website link, to which I regularly posted every week, highlighting for them their failures to be timely in delivery. At some point in the last year, a different distributor was chosen, still with a website to report problems to, but the delivery was nearly always on time. My updates to the website warmly congratulated them on their performance. So Conde Nast switched back to Pitney Bowes. And delivery is woeful once again. And there's no website.

If I bought an iPad, there'd be no issue with issues, but I can't really justify the spend for the equipment, although it would be only a matter of years and years before the subscription discount paid for the hardware. Assuming the software, i.e., internet connection for the weekly download, didn't eat that up.

And then there was Sony. They've got a new tablet, due to hit the market soon, and I like the sound of it. It's an Android-based tablet, for one thing, so it would be compatible with my phone, more or less. It's got a USB port, and its memory can be upgraded via SD card. It folds up. Folded halfway and turned horizontally, you get a mini-PC interface, screen on top and "keyboard" down. eBook pages can be presented verso-recto, just like a real book.

And Next Issue Media offer subscriptions to publications from five publishers, including Conde Nast's New Yorker. (The others are Time Inc., from whom you can get Fortune and Time; Meredith, who publish Fitness and Parents, and Hearst, for Esquire and Popular Mechanics; New Corp's in there, too, but not offering anything yet.)

My original dilemma became somewhat more acute when an online auction site started offering iPad's for bids starting at $40, but I like the sound of Sony's tablet, even though I don't give much of a stuff to games and movies and music on it. Since it's not even on offer until later this month, though, I can do some research. Like, how much can it be used to replace my aging laptop? With both 3G and WiFi connectivity, I could go WifFi only with my current internet provider and ignore the 3G calls in favour of my Optus account, maybe. Seems worth waiting for.

Now if the Atlantic Monthly would get on board. . . .

You Pad
On Friday, I passed the Apple store on George Street, to find a line of people camped out waiting to buy the iPad2. The line extended around the block, and by six, when I left work, had gone even further. Appple guardians were managing the crowd, which I found beneficial. I had to come to work on Saturday, too, and the line was still there, if smaller. Interestingly, because it was raining, Apple had provide umbrellas to those without. I didn't ask if they'd have to give them back, but they looked like those special wind-proof umbrellas, and I'd guess they weren't gimmies.

But I don't get it. What's the iPad got that's so essential? It's bascially a hypertrophic smart phone, as far as I can tell, and only half a laptop, if that. There must be something that makes it worth such attention, but if I can't upload to it or download from it, it's just eye candy and Facebook updates.

Whatever.

Oops
I knew the Blackmores Half Marathon was an early start, but somehow I thought it was in October, ten weeks from now, not five weeks. I'll have to adjust my training schedule for the last three weeks, but I should get some long runs in the meanwhile. 76% as it stands now; I can bring it up to 89% before the race, barring accident or injury.

Like the Sound of Enormous Bees Right Up in Your Face
I've tried to watch the world cup. I got home from the game late last night so stayed up for the Socceroos, but I can't stand the constant drone of the vuvuzelas. I know it's part of the experience of a game in South Africa (although I'll bet it's nothing like this bad normally), but surely television broadcasters have the technology to eliminate it? Even live games are digital, so it seems hard to accept that they wouldn't be able to introduce some sort of noise-cancellation filter in place.

DIY Checkout
Local supermarket giant Coles recently introduced self-service checkout terminals and have been strongly encouraging of its customers to use them. I did, once. I may never do it again.

I pretty much do my own bagging anyway, but, as in the article linked from the BBC, that “unexpected item in bagging area” error is annoying, but only because I got caught answering “no bag” on a couple of things that I decided belonged in a separate bag from the food items I was otherwise processing. It was easy enough to rectify, but still an addition to a tedious process.

Scan. Do you want to bag this? Yes. Bag. Scan. Do you want to bag this? Yes. Bag. Scan. . . . Scan. . . . SCAN! For the love of God, Scan! No, o.k. then type in the 85-digit code, written in tiny characters that even with reading glasses I can’t see easily.

Somehow it all works so much more easily and quickly when there’s an employee present to do the scanning for you. Although the self-service option doesn’t appear to have resulted in a reduction in staff at the checkout. I was “helped” by at least two separate persons on three separate occasions – one who insisted on teaching me how to operate the machine, which is pretty obvious, and then who struggled over the scanner after seeing that the item I was attempting to purchase wouldn’t scan. (And he couldn’t enter the 500-digit code either), and another who helpfully removed items from my bag even if they weren’t actually the offending items preventing the completion of my transaction, let alone all of them.

Checkout clerks may not be terribly efficient, and nobody seems to know how to bag things properly anymore, but even when they’re surly or simply non-responsive, that’s still a better interaction than staring at an uncooperative computer.

I don’t doubt that it will be sooner rather than later nevertheless before I am all lost at the supermarket.

0101010101...
Last weekend I bought a digital t.v. set-top converter, but couldn't for the life of me get it to work. Luckily, the salesman at the store was helpful, acknowledging that pretty much everyone who'd bought that particular model had tried to bring it back as defective, when really it was just the instructions failing to mention a few crucial configuration matters. Like which wires to plug in where. (Not just a matter of swapping out the aerial feeds, apparently.) And how to get the menu displayed.

Never mind, it's working now, and I have two whole additional channels, leaving aside the additional public access stuff (one of which broadcasters was presenting the results of the 2007 Sculpture by the Sea awards - a repeat, I guess). Unfortunately, it's also altered my ability to record one program and watch another, and not for the better. Suddenly, entering the digital age returns me to something slightly pre-digital. Not that I record very much generally. Frankly, the DVD mail-order thing is more worthwhile than anything on broadcast television anyway, HD or SD. Other than getting cable, which is expense, this is probably as far as I need to go.

I heard that the digital change-over recently accomplished in the US wasn't entirely successful - I wonder how many people have no t.v. now, having failed to get a converter - but the anecdote's I've seen have largely been in regard to signal strength. What with the numbers of drop-outs I experienced last night, I'd guess there are a few people back home who are not entirely pleased with Congress right now.

Oh, Shut Up, All of You
Not really, but I made the mistake of "upgrading" my blogger template, which means that my haloscan.com comments feature has been lost, at least until I can figure out where it goes. I'm putting things back in, but it could take a little while, especially the third party stuff.

On the other hand, I rather like some of this new content management. Look: post labels.

(Meanwhile, I'll switch on Blogger commenting, just in case.)