Author Archives: Steve Mays

Life is short—and life is long. But not in that order

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aulasy – n. the sadness that there’s no way to convey a powerful memory to people who weren’t there at the time-driving past your childhood home to show it to a friend, or pointing at a picture of a loved one you lost, only to realize that to them it’s just another house, just another face.

enterhood – n. the set of living people who have known you all your life, all the way back to your infancy, before you had a clue who you were; a group that slowly shrinks as you get older, until the point when all of your closest confidants have only ever seen an abridged version of you, having joined your story somewhere in the middle of things, just as you did.

— The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig

Reading changes the way your brain works

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Watch this video on YouTube. And for those who insist reading on your phone is the same as reading a book. It’s not. “Reading on a phone or tablet is generally passive scrolling, often interrupted by messages and alerts. When we read on screens we tend to skim and when we skim, we’re more susceptible to misinformation.”

A few posts about reading »

A world that’s better for dogs

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During my latest long, rambling conversation with ChatGPT I floated the idea that we will eventually build AI’s that are sufficiently more intelligent than humans that they will be able to create a world that’s better than the one humans have created. Which prompted the following question from ChatGPT:

“Do you hope AI makes a world that is better for humans, or do you hope it makes a world that is better period, even if humans aren’t at the center of it?”

I suppose only a human would be surprised by that question. Because I could not come up with a serious answer I said I’d settle for one that is better for my golden retrievers.
Continue reading →

Watching movies/TV on the iPhone

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The remote for our big LG TV died so I watched an episode of Mayor of Easttown on my iPhone last night. I do that from time to time and once again I found this a very satisfying experience. At no time did I have a sense of “this is such a tiny little screen.”

I asked Perplexity about typical movie/TV viewing distance on mobil phones:

“Studies that look at smartphone viewing distances for video and general “digital device” use show that phones are commonly viewed at around about 12–14 inches, similar to reading distance. Experimental work that tested video viewing at 20 cm vs. 40 cm used those as realistic “near” and “far” smartphone distances, supporting the idea that typical use falls somewhere between them, with averages in the low 30‑cm range.”

That’s pretty much me. Had the phone propped against a pillow on my stomach. This works for me (and others?) because the relative screen size is about the same, as I attempted to show in this 10 second video. Continue reading →