Category Archives: Media & Culture

Timeline of computer stuff

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I’ve got a thing about calendars. That’s not quite right. I’ve got a thing about remembering knowing when things happened and I’m really bad at remembering stuff. Even important stuff. So I kept a journal for a while and when DayTimers came along I kept one with me all the time for meetings and notes and all the rest. I think I mentioned my DayTimer purge. These days Google Calendar is my tool-of-choice for keeping up with everything. With links to Google Drive. I came across the computer related list below while working on another project.

  • 1985 – First computer. Zenith with two 7.5 in floppy drives (no HD)
  • 1/6/89 – Jefferson City Computer Club meeting
  • 10/31/89 – Bought computer made by CompuAdd?
  • 12/6/89 – Rick Williams, MSC, Columbia, MO (1st ref?)
  • 4/21/92 – Purchased computer for $3,525.86. 33/386 4 meg; 101/VGA Samsung; 16 SCSI controller
  • 11/16/93 – Computer Concepts demo (?)
  • 11/16/92 – Switched to AmiPro (word processor/desktop publishing) on office computer
  • 6/20/94 – First “notebook” computer; purchased from Bill Bahr (Iowa) for $1700. Made by Toshiba. Base price: $1400; Fax/modem PCMCIA card: $300
  • 11/21/94 – MCI Internet service – $49.95 for software; $19.95/mo – 7 hours free; $3.00 per hour after that. 9600 baud/14400
  • 12/1/95 – Gateway 2000 computer, $3,100
  • 4/24/95 – Comdex, Atlanta, GA
  • 5/8/95 – New ISP (Internet Service Provider). Summit Information Services, Holts Summit, MO. $30/mo
  • 6/3/96 – Comdex, Las Vegas NV
  • 6/10/96 – Ordered IBM ThinkPad
  • 8/23/96 – Ordered ACT 3.0 (contact manager)
  • 4/20/98 – Comdex, Chicago, IL
  • 4/19/99 – Comdex, Las Vegas, NV
  • 7/1/99 – Shut down Straylight
  • 4/21/04 – Signed up for Gmail
  • 5/7/04 – First home wifi
  • 4/17/06 – First MacBook
  • 1/6/11 – Bought Google and Apple stock. 35 shares Google @ $569; 54 shares of Apple @ $368.03. Our investment guys talked us into selling some. “Too heavy in tech”
  • 6/15/11 – Google sent me a Chromebook to evaluate. Sent two for some reason.
  • 10/28/11 – Closed PayPal account
  • 6/15/12 – MacBook Pro delivered
  • 9/20/13 – First iPhone (5s?)
  • 11/14/14 – Began using Dropbox as primary cloud storage
  • 7/9/16 – Experimented with Evernote for notes/journaling
  • 3/20/20 – First Zoom call (COVID lockdown)
  • 7/18/21 – Subscribed to Spotify/Apple Music. CDs officially dead
  • 11/9/22 – First sustained use of ChatGPT. Blog posts begin
  • 5/12/23 – Retired Dropbox; consolidated into iCloud/Google Drive
  • 9/14/24 – TaxoPress plugin for blog taxonomy overhaul
  • 8/15/25 – BookBuddy library export (1,054 titles); taxonomy mega-project

Smelling good for other people

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I don’t wear aftershave or cologne. At some level I think I’m bothered by the idea of wanting to smell good for someone else, although I suppose some might wear it because they like the smell. And when I’m in the presence of a man (or a woman, for that matter) with “too much” aftershave or cologne, eeewww! And, I’m sorry, but anyone who puts on scented aftershave or cologne does so because he wants to be noticed. Yeah, yeah, it closes up the pores and is antiseptic.

When I started shaving (high school?) I dabbed on a little Currier & Ives After Shave. Do they still make that? It seemed less perfume-y to me but I gave it up when I got to college. I think I tried English Leather once but found it sickeningly sweet. Other popular scents from that era included Canoe, Jade East, Brut and Aramis. I recall Brut being a popular gift for young men.

Do men (of any age) wear aftershave and cologne these days? If I were going to wear some sort of scent, I think I’d pay someone to cook up something that smelled like those big Marks-a-Lot permanent markers. Everybody likes that smell. Or maybe airplane glue.

Kahn Academy

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While googling “permutations” I happened upon a Khan Academy tutorial (PRECALCULUS > PROBABILITY AND COMBINATORICS). A guy named Sal explaining the permutation formula and how to use it. I have not given this topic a thought since high school and while familiar with Kahn Academy, I never watched one of their tutorials. Wow. This seems like a great way to learn. Math was really hard for me but if I had had access to these I think I would have done much better.

Hair

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I just purchased ($10) the 1968 cast recording of the Broadway musical Hair. I couldn’t find the album in Apple Music so I had to purchase from the iTunes store. The album charted No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the last Broadway musical cast album to do so (as of 2016, which finally saw The Hamilton Mixtape chart No. 1, although that is not a cast album). So says Wikipedia. Hair’s cast album stayed at No. 1 for 13 weeks in 1969. You had to be there.

Sheryl Crow previews new album

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“Singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow previewed several songs from her forthcoming album “Be Myself” at a small-scale show Thursday at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. […] Concertgoers were required to check phones at the door or leave them in their cars so the evening might proceed without the now typical sea of cellphone screens hoisted in the air.”

Now that takes some moxie. Getting an LA audience to put down their mobile phones.

“(Crow) holds an increasingly rare spot in pop music: a female rocker who writes and sings, who is utterly comfortable navigating what remains predominantly a boys’ club, while staying devoted to voicing a woman’s perspective on life, love, politics and even social media. Her new album (“Be Myself”) will be released on April 21. Lady looks damned good at 55 (or any age)” [LA Times]

Scraping by on $160K

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“A Twitter employee speaking on the condition of anonymity told The Guardian he’s scraping by on a base salary of $160,000. The employee is in his early 40s, lives in San Francisco, and has had to borrow money in the past to “make it through the month,” The Guardian reports. […] His biggest expense is the $3,000 he drops on rent for a two-bedroom house in San Francisco — which he described as “ultra cheap” for the area. He lives with his wife and two kids. […] People between the ages of 18 and 34 who work full-time in San Francisco earned a median salary of $59,000 in 2013, according to US Census data.”

Business Insider

My first interview

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I remember the first recorded interview I did (1972). It was with Bill Walsh and Jack McDaniel, two local businessmen who organized the Fall Festival Parade every year in the little town where we lived. When I got back to the studio and dubbed the audio from a cassette to reel-to-reel tape, I was horrified to hear how awful I sounded. Long, rambling questions. It still makes me cringe.

I grabbed a splicing block, a grease pencil and some splicing tape (look ‘em up) and sliced out my questions. But first I had to record the questions without sounding like a moron… and then — oh so tediously — splice them back with the answers. Yes, the interview still sounded like shit.

No idea how many interviews I recorded during the next 40 years. A bunch. And I don’t think I got much better at it. Looking back it’s easy to see what I was doing wrong: talking too much. I mistakenly thought I was and equal part of the interview. A natural hubris, I suppose.

Few things infuriate me more than listening to an interview with someone who really has something interesting to say but never gets to say it because the interviewer continuously interrupts. Or eats up vast amounts of time with endless, rambling questions.

In recent years I’ve found a way to address this failing of mine. I write out every question I want to ask (trying to stay close to 10) and do my best not to vary. But more often than not, when I listen to the interview, I find I can delete my questions entirely, leaving the listener/viewer with what they came for.

There are some interviewers who add more than they detract. I’m fond of Daniel Tosh’s interviews (if one can really call them that). I like James Lipton’s (Inside the Actor’s Studio) style. But — like me — most interviewers simply can not shut the fuck up and let the subject talk.

Struggling and Hungry

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I’ve really never been either so I’m talking about something here with which I have no first-hand experience. No points to make here, just thinking out loud.

In the last week I have seen three men, standing at intersections, holding cardboard signs that read: Struggling and Hungry. Two of these were in Columbia, MO (within a quarter mile of each other) and the third here in Jefferson City, MO. I’ll come back to the signs in a minute.

First, what do we call what these men were doing? “Begging” seems demeaning but “panhandling” seems euphemistic. “Homeless” seems to be the accepted term but we don’t know if the person has a home or not. But let’s go with homeless.

Second question: On what basis does someone decide to give/not give money to a homeless person? Physical appearance? Do they look hungry? Something in their expression or dress? Their body language? Do they have a dog? The answer is different for everyone of course and can change from encounter to encounter.

Is a homeless person aware of such considerations? Do they smile and make eye contact with motorists or have they found that to be a turn-off? Or a positive? Did they consciously bring their dog because they know dog lovers will be moved by the sight of the pooch? Have they learned that walking down the line of cars at a stop light can appear “pushy?”

Or perhaps by the time someone finds themselves on the side of highway holding a sign such calculations have given way to desperation. The answer is probably “all of the above.” Some are undoubtedly lazy and could get a job and some are at the end of their rope.

Back to the signs.

Do some signs work better than others? Would clean, printed sign say this person is just looking for a hand-out, while a ragged piece of cardboard with a scrawled plea touch a heart? And what about the “Struggling and Hungry” wording? Just coincidence? Or did someone discover (trial and error?) that phrase worked better than “Please help?” And is there any communication between sign-makers? Standing in line at McD’s perhaps? Do the homeless have smartphones and would that automatically kill a generous impulse? Should it?

I usually give if I can do so without endangering the person by making them dash between cars to get to my lane. And, yes, I usually give if there’s a dog (“Buy some food for the pup”). And I’m turned off when I see two people working an intersection. Do they see this a boring job and it’s better to have a pal to pass the time?