We're Not Who You Think We Are
Today’s links of interest:
Three years ago, I was really excited. Though the magic of serendipity, I had purchased an original iPhone while driving from L.A. to Seattle, and I was just beginning to discover the seemingly limitless possibilities of having a web-connected personal computer in my pocket.
Sure, there were problems here and there, but, at first, the iPhone was new, it was transformative, and most of all, it was a helluva lot of fun to own. Apple had done amazing stuff in the past, but this felt like the pinnacle of their work. The iPhone combined everything great about Apple into a single beautiful device.
Fast-forward three years, and all that joy is gone. Kaput. My iPhone 3G is used as an iPod at work, to check traffic while driving, and (occasionally) make phone calls. It’s gone from being a fun device to something that is kind of a drag to own. And I blame Apple.
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
On Twitter, there is a hashtag for complaints like this: #21stcenturyproblems, which adds a level of irony to the tweet by acknowledging that a few years ago, noone could have complained about this, and — by the way — most people probably don’t give a shit in the first place. Fair enough, and yet because the iPhone permanently established the smart phone as a must-have device, it’s weird that we’ve gotten to this point in such a short period of time.
[Read more…] about How Apple Took The Fun Out of Owning an iPhone
Today’s links of interest:
Today’s links of interest:
To me, the 1970s is the canon. Because it’s the decade where I became a music lover as a way of defining who I was, but — until the very end — was mostly about catching up with the past, it feels different from the 1960s (ancient Boomer history) or the 1980s (when I was fully immersed).
So unlike my previous lists for the 1980s, 1990s and (especially) the 2000s, maybe I hold some of this music in awe, because it already existed and was just sitting out there for me to discover. And discover I did. When I was 14-15, a central focus of my life was riding my bike to Tower Records and spending $15 on two records — Love Gun and Foghat Live; Rocket to Russia and Marquee Moon; Who’s next and Aqualung — and listening to those records over and over and over and over. Oh, and over.
Good ones, bad ones, it didn’t matter. It was all about figuring out what I liked, and by extension, who I was. Or maybe the other way around. It was sitting in my room and determining that I loved Quadrophenia but not Tales From Topographic Oceans or that I loved Close to the Edge but not Who Are You.
Then, in 1978 (a year too late) (but still too early for Fresno): punk rock. I’d been resisting — it just seemed like fashion-oriented noise nonsense — but spurred on by that first Cars album and Creem magazine, I took the plunge. Ramones. Television. The Jam. The Clash. Talking Heads. The Sex Pistols. And a host of lesser new wave and power pop and whathaveyou bands. The world was changing, I was on the ground floor, and it was thrilling.