I See Your Point(er)
You know what I’m totally used to now that would probably shock anyone else who looked at my computer screen?
My big-ass cursor.
If you recall, I (somewhat jokingly) made my cursor the size of Andre the Giant when I got my new big monitor. I’ve since scaled it down a bit, but it’s still much bigger than a normal cursor. Behold:
Cursor next to the Google logo.
Pointer finger pointing aggressively at Gmail.
I love it.
Hahaha, I remember these!
My mom? A PC person.
My dad? A Mac person.
I remember going to his office on campus and he’d have one or two of those original iMac computers (the ones with the big backs and transparent color cases) in there for his grad students to use. He also had one at his condo and we had a tangerine iBook clamshell.
Lotsa Mac, is what I’m saying.
Back in…junior high?…he gave me one of the old iMacs and I would set up a little cushion fort in the living room around the coffee table (where the iMac was) and just play and type and do random stuff on that computer.
One of the things I’d do was play with the MacInTalk voices because they were fun and I was 12.
Anyone else remember these?
That “Hey you! Yeah, you! Who do you think I’m talking to, the mouse?” whispered phrase still lives in my head today.
Hey, Chrome?
Can someone tell me the purpose of this? Why would anyone ever need this option?
“Man, I’m bored. I wish I knew which internet thingy to look at today. PFFT SCREW IT LET’S LOOK AT ‘EM ALL!”
What’s even worse is that it’s easier than it should be to accidentally click this option. You get to that drop-down menu by right-clicking on the “Bookmarks” button. So if you accidentally right click and then move your mouse down slightly while correcting your mistake to left click, you’re screwed.
At least I would be. 200+ suddenly opened tabs?
…
[intrusive thoughts intensify]
…
Okay, I guess there is an “oops, did you really mean to click that option, you stupid fart?” failsafe.
BUT STILL. WHY IS THIS A THING.
[Chrome just froze on me. It didn’t do anything else, haha.]
AI is Terrifying
This is frightening, y’all.
Is it perfect? No. But that’s because it’s really just beginning. It’ll get better and better and it’ll get harder and harder to distinguish this stuff from reality.
As I’ve said before, the future is bleak.
So apparently this isn’t a super new iPhone feature…
…but I just discovered it today!
You can do animated stickers, too.
That’s…that’s pretty cool. Now I can spam my mom with even more Pepper pics, haha.
This is the most FRUSTRATING SEMESTER
Which means seeing JerryRigEverything assess the durability of expensive electronics via scratching, bending, and burning is very satisfying.
Font Face
I don’t feel like this happened.
*checks word*
Nope, still freaking Calibri. But let’s compare, shall we?
Calibri on top, Aptos on bottom.
I don’t like the way the lowercase “L” looks in the Aptos font and I don’t like the shorter ascenders/descenders in Aptos, but I do appreciate that Aptos keeps the double-storey font type consistent when you make the text italicized. That was something that really bugged me with Calibri.
Also, I like that Aptos is…blockier? I don’t know if that’s the right way to describe it, but it’s a bit more “in your face,” which I like.
So eh.
RGuides Redux
So remember in August like two years ago when I put all my R stuff on a Google Sites page?
Turns out you can only view a Google Sites page if you have a Google account and are signed into it.
Which pretty much sucks.
So GoDaddy it is, then.
(In case anyone cares.)
iPad?
So I’m looking to get an iPad. I have an iPad, but it’s an old boy. Like…iPad 2 old (which was discontinued in 2014 just to give you an idea of age). He’s so old that YouTube won’t even work on him anymore because the app requires a software update in order to run and…well…2014.
I’d also like to get an Apple Pencil because DEAR GOD anytime I see a video of someone tippy-tapping with one it’s so wonderfully satisfying that I want to tippy-tappy as well.
I’m thinking an iPad Air. In purple. With Apple Pencil and a Magic Keyboard for typing.
What the hell, let’s go all out.
TACTICAL GARMIN
Are you a spy?
Are you a sniper?
Do you want to pull an Ocean’s 11 but still want to be able to look at your wrist and see what time it is?
This thing is intense. Weather reports. A ton of navigation stuff and maps. A ballistics calculator. Golf. Green and white flashlights. Night vision. Stealth mode. Ways to save geo positions to find your way in future situations. Some doohickey to help you jump out of a plane without dying. A way to track something (someone?????) you’re hunting. A freaking kill switch in case you get caught and need to mind-erase the data from your Garmin.
ALL FOR THE LOW, LOW PRICE OF $1600!
(That actually doesn’t sound too bad for all you’re getting.)
I had no idea Garmin made such serious gear. Kinda dig it.
Bro.
This is simultaneously obscene and one of the most impressive architectural things ever.
Do…do you get an in-house chef? What if you just want to live there alone? What if you just want to cook plain-ass spaghetti every night and then eat it in your underwear while watching Riverdale?
(Not that I do that ever.)
Can the chef watch Riverdale with you?
And it comes furnished, right? What if you want to use your own furniture? How hard is it to get all of that out of there and replace it with your Walmart spatulas and La-Z-Boy chair?
Excess like this is weird to me. Like, on one hand: why? But on the other hand: why not?
But also also: living in the most expensive house in the world is not something I’d ever want to be able to say. Think of all the other things you could do with that money.
But also also also: it is art, to an extent.
You still get bird poop on your windows, though. Money can’t buy poopless birds.
And that’s probably one of the weirdest sentences I’ve ever written.
New Compy!
ALLO, NERDS!
So I finally got a new computer a few weeks ago (my old one was from 2015 and the Online Learning Era pretty much murdered it) and just got around to setting it up. I also got a giganto new monitor.
LOOK AT THIS BOX!
LOOK AT THIS MONITOR! Cup for scale.
Edit: Yo, I changed my cursor size to the “Andre the Giant” setting and it’s HUGE. I love it so much; I think I’m going to keep it like this.
3.5 Inch
Bro, we have a set of floppy disks in the mail room at work:
My dear Millennial friends, do you remember having “2 floppy disks” as an item on your back-to-school list for junior high? We had that. I remember those colorful transparent ones were sold in like packs of five or ten. I also remember how we played fast and loose with our data by pinging that metal covering back and forth and trying to touch the disc inside.
Y’know, ‘cause we could store an ENTIRE WORD DOCUMENT on there.
Fun times. It’s wild that we have little tiny flash drives that can now hold terabytes of data.
I’m the next Steve Jobs, yo
So this is a fun little doodad that lets you design an iPhone. You can give it a try, but I seriously doubt your design can be better than mine. Check out this bad boy:
And the back:
If your smartphone doesn’t have a handle on it, is it really a smartphone?????
???
??
?
????????
DankPods
I found this guy a while back and he’s great. This is one of his best ones.
Calling the manual “Manuel” and screaming about that giant AirPod speaker were fantastic.
Oh my god there are people out there like me!
LOOK!
I have SO MANY BACKUPS of my nonsense, you have no idea. I have backups on flash drives. On hard drives. Three different computers. In clouds. In my email. In my other email. Google Drive. I carry three of the backups with me. I carry a separate one when I run. I keep one in my office. I keep one in the FREAKING UNITED STATES. I keep one in our safe.
I got the backups, let’s just put it that way.
I’m also a big proponent of physical copies of things if you can get them or make them; that’s the main reason I’m printing all my old blogs. They’re a huge part of my life and I’d be so sad if I ever lost them.
Anyway.
AirPods for Me!
So when I got my phone the other day, I also decided to spring for some AirPods.
Because why not.
And dudes, they are GLORIOUS.
I didn’t think I really needed them, because a) I like my cheap-o Koss headphones well enough for outside music time, and b) I have the Bose and FREAKING SENNHEISER headphones for inside music time.
But I do like to talk to my mom sometimes when I’m out walking, and fiddling with the old wired Apple headphones was getting obnoxious (and mine are REALLY old, so they aren’t in the best shape).
So I got these.
And I love them!
They’re way more comfortable than the wired ones, infinitely more convenient, and have pretty great sound. Plus, I got mine a little silicone case, which had to be red to match my new phone.
Woo!
Well, my phone’s dead
It had to happen sooner or later.
My phone, an iPhone 8, has been through it. I’ve taken it on hundreds of walks and runs, many of which have been in very cold temperatures. Because of this (most likely), I’ve had some battery issues off and on, including days where my phone would go from 100% charged to 20% charged without me even using it.
Tonight, though, it finally crapped its last crap and died completely on me. The screen is completely dead. It will turn on, but the screen is black.
I was going to wait until the new year to get a new phone, but I guess this kind of forces the issue, haha. Luckily, I was able to order a phone online through apple.ca and get it delivered to the Apple Store at Market Mall. It will be available for pickup tomorrow afternoon, which is pretty freaking cool!
Now I just have to wait.
Edit: It’s so hard not to be able to call or text my mom, even for such a short period of time, haha.
Rogersgate
What happens when one company owns all the phone/internet/cable in a province?
BAD THINGS, THAT’S WHAT
(Today was an adventure)
Kodak Yellow
I’ve mentioned on here several times how obsessed I was with my mom’s camcorder when I was a kid/teen. I made hours of stupid videos…in fact, enough to fill a shoebox with those old mini tapes.
I’d love to digitize these things before they crumble to dust, and perhaps this is the answer.
There are probably local places that do it, too, so I might want to check those out. But just being able to mail the mass of them to Kodak and then get the digitized stuff back sounds SUPER EASY.
As if any of you care, but whatev.
iNoise
HEY BUTTBAGS!
Did you know your iPhone can play ambient noise for you?
Go to Settings > Accessibility > Audio/Visual > Background Sounds
Then you can choose to make a sound available to you to play and help you focus. Mine has six ambient noise sounds (white noise, rain, etc.), but I’ve only got an iPhone 8, so newer models might have more.
Supah cool!
New Garmin!
So I’ve had my Garmin Forerunner 35 since…2018 I think. A good amount of time, at least. And during that time, it’s been used a LOT and has been exposed to all sorts of very cold and reasonably hot temperatures.
As expected given how much I’ve used it, it’s starting to wear down, battery-wise. It’s getting harder to make it through a longer walk, and sometimes it just freezes up and needs to reset when I try to start a run/walk.
So my mom and I went to Best Buy and I got a (slight) upgrade!
Meet my new Garmin Forerunner 45. He unfortunately does not have the lime green band like my 35 did, but he’s got a color display and does a few extra things over my old version.
It was SO TEMPTING to get a bigger upgrade (and the Apple Watches were tempting as well, haha), but all I do is run in the city and thus can’t justify a fancier watch that has all the trail maps, etc. built in. Plus, this one really does do everything I need.
Woo!
iPhone Needed
So yeah, I definitely need a new phone soon. Apart from the screen issues, I’ve murdered my current phone’s battery by taking it out on walks in the negative Fahrenheits so frequently.
It sounds like I can just get any phone I want and replace the SIM card in it to keep my current plan. So the phone I’m looking at is the iPhone 12 mini in that awesome lavender color. Here:
I love that color! The only downside is that I’d have to get a clear case for it in order to show off its color (instead of some ostentatious case instead).
Eigenblogger 