It snowed a few days ago. In late March. In full sun, and with flowers blooming, and green grass on the ground. Weird.
Despite this atmospheric anomaly, I'm definitely seeing signs that Spring is about to emerge. Plants are beginning to bud, and birds are beginning to sing. The former pleases my wife, who is an enthusiastic amateur gardener. She seems to possess an internal clock that sends her to the local lawn and garden center a week or two before Winter's last frost — probably similar to the urge that sends salmon upstream. Whenever I find myself driving home from Lowe's with a new collection of potted plants nestled safely in the back seat, as I did two weekends ago, I know that Spring is just around the corner.
The bit with the birdsong is my part of our hearth-and-home equation. While my wife is the family gardener, I find, to my great surprise, I'm slowly becoming a bit of a birder as I get older. Oh, not the sort that takes to the local refuge with high-powered binoculars on the weekends. Not yet, anyway. But I am definitely much more conscious of our avian friends as I go about my day; increasingly to the point of distraction. More and more frequently, I will stop in mid-walk as I try to identify the tweeting thing perching on the light pole in the parking lot. And, more and more often, I remember to refill the bird feeders parked outside my window.
If all goes well, I am able to spare a little time on Saturday mornings watching the flurry of warblers and sparrows as they vie for sunflower and thistle seeds. And slowly — very slowly — I am trying to become acquainted with the birds that call the habitat of our nearby woods home.
This morning, there was the odd Tufted Titmouse (which I particular like for its slate blue and white coloring), one or two Cardinals (my favorite since boyhood) and — just identified — a sizable family of Pine Warblers, with olive backs and yellow chests. My chief challenge at the moment is identifying a mottled brown sparrow, some of which have highlights of bright yellow hidden amid their wing and tail feathers, and some of which do not. It is our most common houseguest, and so far, our most mysterious.
It is this sort of thing that I find appealing about birdwatching — the challenge of identifying specific species amid the dizzying variety that God has given us. It appeals to my intellectual curiosity, and gives me a tiny window into the diversity of His creation. Plus, I just like the cheerful little things; hearing birdsong has raised my spirits on many a grim morning.
The other herald of Spring is, for me, rather unexpected. The other day, my wife (good woman that she is), was channel surfing, and felt the urge to stop for a moment on a pre-season Pittsburgh Pirates game. Those that know me will remember that, as an 8-year-old, I was a fiercely dedicated Pirates fan. One of the highlights of my life was when my father took me to Three Rivers Stadium, and I was able to see legendary players like Bill Mazeroski, Roberto Clemente, and my hero Willie Stargell, play in person. Later that year, I watched eagerly as that same team brought home a World Series trophy. So in my first years as a fan, my team went on to take the championship — in retrospect, a bit of a mixed blessing, but one I wouldn't trade for anything.
Since the 1971 World Series, my enthusiasm for baseball has waxed and waned — mostly waned. I slept through the 1979, when my hero led the team to another World Series win. I was awake in 1992, when we vied for the pennant, but walked away in disgust after we were shut down by the Atlanta Braves. And for a long time after that, I simply didn't have it in me to care anymore. The once-and-future worst team in the league, the Bucs had lost their shot at redemption, and (even worse) at the hands of the hated Braves. Since baseball now only evoked pain, anger and bitterness in me, I more or less walked away.
My master, C.S. Lewis, says in The Great Divorce that for a thing to be resurrected, it must first be killed. And the type of fan I was then was certainly deserving of death, in the metaphorical sense. Baseball only brought out the worst in me, though that was only a symptom of a deeper problem that I will not touch on here. As such, it was good that I ceased to follow it, and that my love for the game, twisted and warped by bitterness and disappointment, was allowed to die.
Imagine, then, my surprise when those few minutes of Grapefruit League ball woke up the 8-year-old boy who had once loved the game. Since then, I have downloaded the MLB app for my phone and tablet, begun following the team's schedule, and have taken the first steps to learn this year's lineup. I haven't watched a baseball game in years, and I've got a lot of catching up to do. But that's part of the appeal — like birding, there is a complexity to baseball that appeals to my intellectual curiosity. There are players to learn about, rules to sort out, and standings to keep track of. It's early days yet, but there seems to be lots here to sink my teeth into.
The Pirates are, according to the admittedly meaningless Grapefruit League standings, among the worst teams in the league. But right now, I don't care. Opening Day is Monday against the Cubs, and as it stands right now, we all have the same record win-loss record. And so, it is with the spirit of optimism endemic to opening seasons that I close with a hopeful, and grateful, Go Bucs!
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Great Expectations
I'm back in Middle-earth this week, thanks to the home video release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. To celebrate, I burned two of my Audible credits to pick up the unabridged Rob Inglis narrations of The Two Towers and The Return of the King. As a result, I now carry all of The Lord of the Rings on audio, and am thinking of making yet another run at the series, this time on audio.
How many copies of The Lord of the Rings do I actually need? It depends: how many are there?
I honestly don't know how many times this will make for me reading LOTR. I first picked it up in January 1978, I believe, and have read it at 2-5 year intervals ever since. My last one was in 2009, when I was laid up with a back injury, so it's about time again.
I'm writing today because, in the midst of my internet snooping about The Hobbit movie, I've discovered several reviews that expressed disappointment about the film. Chief among these disappointments is the fact that the first Hobbit movie pales in comparison to The Lord of the Rings films. Blame for this goes all over the map, including, but not limited to, Peter Jackson's obsession with too much detail, stretching too little material over too much screen time, too much dependance on fighting and walking sequences, and so on.
So far, no one I've found has hit on what I think is the real reason someone might find The Hobbit a disappointment after The Lord of the Rings: as a story, The Hobbit isn't in the same league as The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien started dabbling in Middle-earth as a young soldier in the first World War. The Hobbit itself didn't come about until the early 1930s, when, as the famous story goes, professor Tolkien scribbled the line "In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit" on the back of an examination booklet. In 1933, the book was published to an enthusiastic enough reception that Tolkien was asked for a sequel. Five years after finishing The Hobbit, he began writing The Lord of the Rings. It was published in the latter part of the 1940s, after about 12 years of work.
Twelve years versus two or three. A children's story versus a novel. An inexperienced writer versus a well-seasoned one. An adventure story versus a fabricated history. All of these are, I think, solid reasons why one should not expect as much from the story of The Hobbit as one does The Lord of the Rings.
As a story, The Hobbit is delightful, but it is not in the same league as its successor. In fact, several of my copies of The Hobbit, including my cherished original, label it as "The Enchanting Prelude to The Lord of the Rings." The Lord of the Rings is that rarest of birds: a sequel that eclipses its progenitor. As such, The Hobbit cannot fail to be a bit of a let-down if one happens to stumble across it after reading or watching the sweeping epic that is LOTR.
Second, I'm not entirely sure it was wise to spread The Hobbit, which is thinner than the thinnest of the LOTR books, across three nearly three-hour films. Mind you, I'm not complaining — I will take as much as PJ wants to give me. But for those who's lives were not inexorably changed by Tolkien's world; for those whom it is (shudder) "just a story," it could be seen as killing them with kindness.
Happily, I do not share their fate. I am delighted to have fresh PJ/Tolkien in my life, and indeed, am a few minutes away from a sneak preview of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Sadly, in a few short years, it will all be over. I very much doubt that PJ will want to make another 3-film epic of The Silmarillion, even if he could get the rights to it (a very large if indeed). Eventually, the final Extended Cut of The Hobbit: There and Back Again will be released, followed, very likely, by an anniversary cut of LOTR, including new footage from The Hobbit cycle. After that, I fear it will be over.
But for now, we will, in the words of Gandalf, "make the most of the time that is given to us." And now, if you will excuse me, I have a conference call to New Zealand waiting for me.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Exquisitely bored
I'm about to break one of my cardinal rules of the internet. Namely, never blog about religion, politics or technology; you'll just make someone mad. I'm breaking it because I just used 50 minutes of my valuable weekend time to watch the unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy S4, the new flagship Android-based smartphone.
Why did I, a documented fan of Cupertino-based technology, check out the competition? It wasn't to make fun of "the other guy," although Samsung certainly has no qualms about making fun of iPhone users like me. If anyone from Samsung is reading this, ridiculing people = not a great way to make them customers. For the record, I've been using Apple gear since 2005, and I've never once had to queue for it — of course, common sense, aided and abetted by my bank account, have cause me to wait for a couple months after product launches. I have also never bought a Samsung phone for any of my non-smartphone-using family, and hopefully, never will.
Despite the fact that I pretty much loathe Samsung, I decided to watch, Mostly, because I really do love new tech, and I'm always intrigued with what we can do with it. While economics and an extreme dose of common sense dictate that I limit my technology buying to one platform, I sympathize with, and am even a little jealous of, comedian Stephen Fry, who currently uses five different phones — a Samsung Galaxy III, a BlackBerry Z10, an iPhone 5, an HTC Windows 8x and an LG Nexus 4 — because he loves exploring the differences in their varied approaches and capabilities. If I had the deep pockets that he had, I'd be strongly tempted that way myself.
So that curiosity, coupled with an inexplicable interest in product unveilings and informercials, was one of the reasons I decided to watch. The other was that I'd heard that it was weird — "Samsung weird" — and was really curious what that entailed.
I came away thinking the event at Radio City Music Hall was a perfect illustration of the differences of approach between Apple and Samsung, the two undisputed giants of the smartphone trade.
For starters, there are the phones themselves. The new advances in the iPhone 5 are increasing the screen from 3.5 inches to 4, making it lighter and thinner, improvements to the camera and processor, and the addition of 4G LTE. There's also the addition of the panorama function on the camera. Great stuff if you own an iPhone 4 or earlier, but not compelling reasons for an upgrade if you own last year's 4S.
While I'm not as well versed on the Galaxy series, the S4 seems to be a similarly incremental upgrade: slightly bigger screen (from 4.8 inches to 5 inches), more megapixels on the camera, faster processor, more internal RAM, and so on. Again, good news if you're in the market for a new phone, but not a vast improvement over the S3, from what I'm led to believe.
To differentiate the new phone, Samsung has piled a series of features on it. Things like being able to pause a video by just looking away from the screen. Or scroll by gesturing at the screen (called, I believe, air gestures). Or a built-in translator app. Or a built-in pedometer, thermometer and barometer. Or the ability to share the song you're listening to with other S4 users (one would be the left channel stereo, another right channel, etc.)
Very few of these strike me as either practical or useful. For example, the scrolling gestures are done, not with short, quick Jedi-like hand flicks, but with broad arm swipes that look kind of silly, and not as efficient as just tapping the screen. I seldom have call for translation services, and while I know a few people that have my make and model of smartphone, the times when we would want to kick out the same jams are almost non-existent. In the end, it seemed like Samsung was adding more stuff, not because it was something people needed or wanted, but just for the sake of adding more stuff. Some of the reviews I've read have pretty much nailed what these features are good for — used once or twice to show off the new phone to coworkers, then forgotten about. It is, as I said, more for the sake of more.
The product launch was absolutely a demonstration of this philosophy. As an Apple follower, I'm used to product keynotes being emceed by one guy — typically the CEO — who brings on department heads to help explain features or products; Steve Jobs bringing out then iOS-head Scott Forstall to demonstrate iOS 4, for example.
Samsung had two emcees: an actor, and the company's head of marketing. One would have sufficed — preferably, the marketing guy, who actually talked specifics about the phone, while the actor provided asides.
These were aided and abetted by a top executive who's title escapes me, a full orchestra, and a cast of about ten who demonstrated how the phone was going to make your life easier by using a series of flat jokes and ostensibly amusing stereotypes, including a lady who could benefit from air gestures because she didn't want to put down her drink (CNET's Molly Wood has a great rant on how sexist the whole thing was here). Again, the whole over-the-top production number seemed to be more for the sake of more.
To be fair, Apple sometimes leans too far the other way where the products themselves are concerned. While the iOS interface is unfailingly intuitive, there are times when I wish I had a tad more control over things: at the top of that list is being able to change the resolution of YouTube videos myself instead of having it done for me depending on my internet connection speed. But I can think of very few features built into the iPhone that I haven't picked up and run with at some point (at the top of the list is Passbook, an electronic ticketing app that I'm still waiting for companies I actually use to adopt).
At the end of the day, I think it comes down to a question of focus. Apple often talks about developing products by looking at them from the perspective of the user — keeping what is useful, and discarding what is not; Samsung, on the other hand, seems to be throwing features and technologies at the wall and hoping they'll stick.While both have apparently made a very good phone, I know which approach I prefer.
The good news for everybody is that either of these devices are absolutely amazing, multi-faceted wonders that would have been unimaginable when I was born, and that are now becoming quite commonplace. Matt Honan of Wired did a piece when the iPhone 5 debuted called "The iPhone 5 is Completely Amazing and Utterly Boring"in which he says that, while the iPhone 5 is an amazing device, it's an evolved product that is now commonplace. It's still quite cool, but it's also the latest version of old news. Which means that this pocket computer/gps/video recorder/gaming device/media player/e-reader/digital camera/cellphone I carry around that makes the communicator from Star Trek look crude is now an everyday object. And that, in itself, is extremely cool.
(By the way, Honan's latest piece came out Friday. The title? "The Samsung Galaxy S4 is Completely Amazing and Utterly Boring." A nice way to keep the trolls on both sides happy, and a nice elaboration on the themes he explored in his piece on the iPhone).
I am becoming more and more convinced we are living in the future we used to talk about when I was a boy. Yesterday, my parents and I talked to my sister and my niece using Apple's Facetime videoconference app on an iPad. We had a face-to-face conversation across 1,800 miles using a 10-inch sheet of glass and aluminum about as thick as my little finger. My sister touched a screen on one side of the country to make the call, I touched a screen to answer, and the technology did the rest.
When I leave work, I routinely push a button, and tell my phone to send a text message to my wife that I'm on the way home. It transcribes what I've said, knows who I mean when I say "my wife," and sends her a (mostly) accurate version of what I just said.
At one time, I thought this was pretty amazing stuff, and it still is. But increasingly, though, it's just the way things work. Like the car, and the airplane, and the phone, and the computer, the smartphone is becoming commonplace. The same phone that millionaires and software designers carry can also be found in the hands of schoolteachers, shopkeepers and grandparents.
Personally, I think that is completely amazing, and not the least bit boring.
Why did I, a documented fan of Cupertino-based technology, check out the competition? It wasn't to make fun of "the other guy," although Samsung certainly has no qualms about making fun of iPhone users like me. If anyone from Samsung is reading this, ridiculing people = not a great way to make them customers. For the record, I've been using Apple gear since 2005, and I've never once had to queue for it — of course, common sense, aided and abetted by my bank account, have cause me to wait for a couple months after product launches. I have also never bought a Samsung phone for any of my non-smartphone-using family, and hopefully, never will.
Despite the fact that I pretty much loathe Samsung, I decided to watch, Mostly, because I really do love new tech, and I'm always intrigued with what we can do with it. While economics and an extreme dose of common sense dictate that I limit my technology buying to one platform, I sympathize with, and am even a little jealous of, comedian Stephen Fry, who currently uses five different phones — a Samsung Galaxy III, a BlackBerry Z10, an iPhone 5, an HTC Windows 8x and an LG Nexus 4 — because he loves exploring the differences in their varied approaches and capabilities. If I had the deep pockets that he had, I'd be strongly tempted that way myself.
So that curiosity, coupled with an inexplicable interest in product unveilings and informercials, was one of the reasons I decided to watch. The other was that I'd heard that it was weird — "Samsung weird" — and was really curious what that entailed.
I came away thinking the event at Radio City Music Hall was a perfect illustration of the differences of approach between Apple and Samsung, the two undisputed giants of the smartphone trade.
For starters, there are the phones themselves. The new advances in the iPhone 5 are increasing the screen from 3.5 inches to 4, making it lighter and thinner, improvements to the camera and processor, and the addition of 4G LTE. There's also the addition of the panorama function on the camera. Great stuff if you own an iPhone 4 or earlier, but not compelling reasons for an upgrade if you own last year's 4S.
While I'm not as well versed on the Galaxy series, the S4 seems to be a similarly incremental upgrade: slightly bigger screen (from 4.8 inches to 5 inches), more megapixels on the camera, faster processor, more internal RAM, and so on. Again, good news if you're in the market for a new phone, but not a vast improvement over the S3, from what I'm led to believe.
To differentiate the new phone, Samsung has piled a series of features on it. Things like being able to pause a video by just looking away from the screen. Or scroll by gesturing at the screen (called, I believe, air gestures). Or a built-in translator app. Or a built-in pedometer, thermometer and barometer. Or the ability to share the song you're listening to with other S4 users (one would be the left channel stereo, another right channel, etc.)
Very few of these strike me as either practical or useful. For example, the scrolling gestures are done, not with short, quick Jedi-like hand flicks, but with broad arm swipes that look kind of silly, and not as efficient as just tapping the screen. I seldom have call for translation services, and while I know a few people that have my make and model of smartphone, the times when we would want to kick out the same jams are almost non-existent. In the end, it seemed like Samsung was adding more stuff, not because it was something people needed or wanted, but just for the sake of adding more stuff. Some of the reviews I've read have pretty much nailed what these features are good for — used once or twice to show off the new phone to coworkers, then forgotten about. It is, as I said, more for the sake of more.
The product launch was absolutely a demonstration of this philosophy. As an Apple follower, I'm used to product keynotes being emceed by one guy — typically the CEO — who brings on department heads to help explain features or products; Steve Jobs bringing out then iOS-head Scott Forstall to demonstrate iOS 4, for example.
 |
| Photo from The Verge |
These were aided and abetted by a top executive who's title escapes me, a full orchestra, and a cast of about ten who demonstrated how the phone was going to make your life easier by using a series of flat jokes and ostensibly amusing stereotypes, including a lady who could benefit from air gestures because she didn't want to put down her drink (CNET's Molly Wood has a great rant on how sexist the whole thing was here). Again, the whole over-the-top production number seemed to be more for the sake of more.
To be fair, Apple sometimes leans too far the other way where the products themselves are concerned. While the iOS interface is unfailingly intuitive, there are times when I wish I had a tad more control over things: at the top of that list is being able to change the resolution of YouTube videos myself instead of having it done for me depending on my internet connection speed. But I can think of very few features built into the iPhone that I haven't picked up and run with at some point (at the top of the list is Passbook, an electronic ticketing app that I'm still waiting for companies I actually use to adopt).
At the end of the day, I think it comes down to a question of focus. Apple often talks about developing products by looking at them from the perspective of the user — keeping what is useful, and discarding what is not; Samsung, on the other hand, seems to be throwing features and technologies at the wall and hoping they'll stick.While both have apparently made a very good phone, I know which approach I prefer.
The good news for everybody is that either of these devices are absolutely amazing, multi-faceted wonders that would have been unimaginable when I was born, and that are now becoming quite commonplace. Matt Honan of Wired did a piece when the iPhone 5 debuted called "The iPhone 5 is Completely Amazing and Utterly Boring"in which he says that, while the iPhone 5 is an amazing device, it's an evolved product that is now commonplace. It's still quite cool, but it's also the latest version of old news. Which means that this pocket computer/gps/video recorder/gaming device/media player/e-reader/digital camera/cellphone I carry around that makes the communicator from Star Trek look crude is now an everyday object. And that, in itself, is extremely cool.
(By the way, Honan's latest piece came out Friday. The title? "The Samsung Galaxy S4 is Completely Amazing and Utterly Boring." A nice way to keep the trolls on both sides happy, and a nice elaboration on the themes he explored in his piece on the iPhone).
I am becoming more and more convinced we are living in the future we used to talk about when I was a boy. Yesterday, my parents and I talked to my sister and my niece using Apple's Facetime videoconference app on an iPad. We had a face-to-face conversation across 1,800 miles using a 10-inch sheet of glass and aluminum about as thick as my little finger. My sister touched a screen on one side of the country to make the call, I touched a screen to answer, and the technology did the rest.
When I leave work, I routinely push a button, and tell my phone to send a text message to my wife that I'm on the way home. It transcribes what I've said, knows who I mean when I say "my wife," and sends her a (mostly) accurate version of what I just said.
At one time, I thought this was pretty amazing stuff, and it still is. But increasingly, though, it's just the way things work. Like the car, and the airplane, and the phone, and the computer, the smartphone is becoming commonplace. The same phone that millionaires and software designers carry can also be found in the hands of schoolteachers, shopkeepers and grandparents.
Personally, I think that is completely amazing, and not the least bit boring.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Checking in
With a third of March gone, I thought I slap a couple quick thoughts on the wall about my Facebook holiday.
On the whole, the thing is going fairly well. As I suspected, the traffic to my blog is pretty much unchanged. After all, I didn't specifically invite anyone, so my audience remains confined to my wife, my nephew (sometimes) and niece-in-laws (mostly) and the many, many people who leave anonymous posts directing me and my 6 readers to websites for payday loans, Canadian prescriptions and porn.
This latter group has actually been out in force lately — so much so that I reluctantly had to close down the ability to leave anonymous posts entirely. After I got four in one morning from the payday loan guy (or, more likely, payday loan comment 'bot), I decided I didn't need THAT MUCH attention, especially of the artificial variety.
I'm actually not at all a fan of anonymous anything on the internet, since it apparently brings out the worst in people. One of my friends from work has adopted a "never read the comments" policy. "No good can come of it," he says. I'm afraid I must agree; the mean-spirited often hide behind the cloak of the internet, though I have known some who haven't minded being known for who they are. Facebook is full of them. In any case, I think it will become my policy, too.
Unfortunately, I don't think I can adopt a no-Facebook policy for long. It's not because I miss it so much. Once the habit of checking went away, I got over missing it fairly quickly (apart from the odd "did you see what so-and-so said on Facebook" encounters). But I cannot shake the feeling that while this boycott has been good for me, it's ultimately a selfish act. I may be keeping my temper down, but it's at the price of being more involved in the lives of people I care about. We are supposed to care more, not less.
As for the hiatus itself, it's going pretty well. I was becoming amused by the increasingly persistent emails from Facebook reminding me of all the great stories from my friends that I was missing by not logging in. Unfortunately, shortly after that, a friend of my mother's told her that she was going to send me something for her. Since this lady didn't have any of my email addresses, I knew she could only mean Facebook. Reluctantly, I checked my message section (empty) and my wall (pretty much as I left it, safe for a few 'likes' from friends on my hiatus message. I still feel a little guilty about "falling off the wagon," but it was in a good cause.
On the whole, the thing is going fairly well. As I suspected, the traffic to my blog is pretty much unchanged. After all, I didn't specifically invite anyone, so my audience remains confined to my wife, my nephew (sometimes) and niece-in-laws (mostly) and the many, many people who leave anonymous posts directing me and my 6 readers to websites for payday loans, Canadian prescriptions and porn.
This latter group has actually been out in force lately — so much so that I reluctantly had to close down the ability to leave anonymous posts entirely. After I got four in one morning from the payday loan guy (or, more likely, payday loan comment 'bot), I decided I didn't need THAT MUCH attention, especially of the artificial variety.
I'm actually not at all a fan of anonymous anything on the internet, since it apparently brings out the worst in people. One of my friends from work has adopted a "never read the comments" policy. "No good can come of it," he says. I'm afraid I must agree; the mean-spirited often hide behind the cloak of the internet, though I have known some who haven't minded being known for who they are. Facebook is full of them. In any case, I think it will become my policy, too.
Unfortunately, I don't think I can adopt a no-Facebook policy for long. It's not because I miss it so much. Once the habit of checking went away, I got over missing it fairly quickly (apart from the odd "did you see what so-and-so said on Facebook" encounters). But I cannot shake the feeling that while this boycott has been good for me, it's ultimately a selfish act. I may be keeping my temper down, but it's at the price of being more involved in the lives of people I care about. We are supposed to care more, not less.
As for the hiatus itself, it's going pretty well. I was becoming amused by the increasingly persistent emails from Facebook reminding me of all the great stories from my friends that I was missing by not logging in. Unfortunately, shortly after that, a friend of my mother's told her that she was going to send me something for her. Since this lady didn't have any of my email addresses, I knew she could only mean Facebook. Reluctantly, I checked my message section (empty) and my wall (pretty much as I left it, safe for a few 'likes' from friends on my hiatus message. I still feel a little guilty about "falling off the wagon," but it was in a good cause.
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