“A Ballad and Bosch Novel”

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Just finished the latest Harry Bosch novel (Dark Sacred Night) but but we really can’t call it that. Right there on the cover it says “A Ballad and Bosch Novel.” In 2017 author Michael Connelly introduced the character Renee Ballard in The Late Show and she gets equal billing with Harry in the new book.

In the previous novel (Two Kinds of Truth) Harry was getting on in years. 68 by my count. In this latest story, Renee does some of the more physical stuff it would be difficult to imagine someone Harry’s age doing. He must be getting close to the big seven-oh.

This seems like a real challenge for an author with a beloved character that’s been around for a lot of years. Lucas Davenport — the main guy in John Sanford’s Prey series — is getting on in years but Sandford gave us Virgil Flowers some years ago and he could bring Kidd out of mothballs. I try not to think about how old Lucas Davenport is for the same reason I don’t think about how old my dog is. I don’t want to know.

The late Sue Grafton froze Kinsey Millhone in the 80s but that ruled out tech like mobile phones and personal computers. I much prefer Connelly’s (and Sandford’s) approach: let the characters age. Teaming Renee and Harry in this new book worked for me. They make a good team.

Thermometer tells company were to advertise

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“This flu season, Clorox paid to license information from Kinsa, a tech start-up that sells internet-connected thermometers that are a far cry from the kind once made with mercury and glass. The thermometers sync up with a smartphone app that allows consumers to track their fevers and symptoms, making it especially attractive to parents of young children. The data showed Clorox which ZIP codes around the country had increases in fevers. The company then directed more ads to those areas, assuming that households there may be in the market for products like its disinfecting wipes.” (New York Times)

Another old Scout

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Paul Bandelier loves old cars but he’s got some sweet old trucks sitting outside his shop and I’ve fallen in ‘like’ with one. I’m hoping he finds a buyer for it before I brake down and buy the thing. Yesterday I stopped by his shop and introduced myself and he showed me his latest acquisition.

I can’t recall the year but he said he found it in Colorado and plans to “fix it up and find it a good home.”

Experience Self vs. Memory Self (Daniel Kahneman)

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  • Being happy “in” you life, vs. being happy “about” your life
  • We don’t choose between experiences, we choose between memories of experiences
  • We don’t think of the future as experience, we think of the future as anticipated memories
  • Why do we give so much weight to memories, relative to the weight we give experiences?
  • We do not attend to the same things when we think about life and when we actually live.

“Social media is making the world a better place”

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I gave up Twitter two years ago, never did Facebook and said goodbye to Google+ recently. Social media seemed only slightly less afflictive than opioid addiction. But this post by Kevin Drum offers a glimmer of hope:

The internet boasts an immediacy that allows it to pack a bigger punch than any previous medium. But this is hardly something new. Newspapers packed a bigger punch than the gossipmonger who appeared in your village every few weeks. Radio was more powerful than newspapers. TV was more powerful than radio. And social media is more powerful than TV.

Broadly speaking, the world is not worse than it used to be. We simply see far more of its dark corners than we used to, and we see them in the most visceral possible way: live, in color, and with caustic commentary.

The money quote: “If you want to make things better, you first have to convince people that something bad is happening. Social media does that.”

What Apple knows about its customers

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A week ago Apple started allowing U.S. users to download all of their data from the company, following a GDPR-mandated feature for EU citizens that launched in May. A friend and long-time Apple user took them up on the offer and after almost a week he got it.

They have a lot of info on me.  Every item I purchased from Apple since 2003.  Every time I called Support.  Every time I had something repaired.  Every survey I replied to and how I answered.  Every app or song I downloaded and the IP address I downloaded it from.  Every time they sent me marketing email and if I opened it and what device I looked at it on.

Honestly, I’m not sure I want to know. Same for Amazon.

Forty Great Years

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And we dated for six years before getting married. By my account, we never had a serious argument. (To her credit) If you’re only going to get one thing right in life, finding the right partner is at the top of the list.