blueridge

Separate frustration: needing a timed-entry permit for everything. It used to be you could wake up, glance at the sky and check the weather and decide where you're going and how far you might want to go. Now you have to hover over the computer days in advance, or refresh at just the right time to book a spot because certain time windows for entry haven't been released on the website yet, and won't be available to book until the day prior at a specific time.

And if the weather is bad on the day, you're probably out of luck for the next few days, and potentially the next week if you didn't think ahead and buy permits for any other days you might want to go.

I gave up on trying to get camping reservations altogether. They were gone within minutes of release.

I know a lot of people have different experiences with this stuff, and I'm sure the features have saved asses a few times, but she can't stand it. And for me, when the car is constantly alarming, and I have to constantly look at the screen to figure out why, it makes me hesitate while driving and I feel less confident on the road.

I've got an old (2002) car, I love the buttons and knobs. No cameras, no screens, no key fob, no voice control, no electronic "safety" features, no tracking. The 4L straight six engine is still going strong at almost 300,000 miles.

What's funny is watching my friends attempt to back out of the driveway or parking lot without a camera and screen. They put it in reverse and their eyes go right to the center console, expecting a screen, then they dart from mirror to mirror, unsure of what to do or where to look or how to judge, and they keep glancing at the dash, as if a screen is going to magically appear.

At no point do they just throw their arm on the backside of the passenger seat, and turn around to look out the windows while keeping one hand on the wheel. It is as if this movement, this posture, is completely new to them. Asking them to use just one side view mirror to back all the way out of a gently curved driveway would be impossible. They need the digital guidance lines on the screen to go in reverse.

And: Yuval Noah Harari argues that AI has hacked the operating system of human civilisation

https://archive.is/KIJ0j

Typography 2020

https://practicaltypography.com/typography-2020.html

I don't have Google accounts, I browse with a handful of privacy extensions to block ads and trackers, I use custom DNS, my iPhone is mostly a brick, my old car is also a brick, I don't have any smart home devices, I'm mindful about what I sign-up for, I make a point to cancel accounts I'm not using, I don't have an Amazon account, I don't shop with my phone in store to avoid the Bluetooth beacons, etc.

But I still use a credit card, I pay bills, I have Comcast service, I buy things online, I use GPS, I still have a handful of subscriptions, and who knows what happens to personal information when applying for jobs—I'm sure it changes hands over and over via the ATS company.

For those of us who care about maintaining a sense of privacy—what are some things people can do to meaningfully minimize their footprint? Or am I not thinking about this the right way?

It feels like a losing battle. Maybe that's the point: a "sense" of privacy is as far as one can get.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/blood-meridian-or-the-evening-r...

"I really like the food, I like the space, but I can't keep buying a $15 bottle of juice and a $22 sandwich with a single slice of meat, and I don't know why I'm on the hook for all of these extra fees..."

One of our local eateries recently closed their doors because they just couldn't make it work. They ruined goodwill with customers by substantially increasing the cost of everything, every few weeks: sandwiches, drinks, small baked goods, small bags of chips, etc. On top of that, they added one service charge after the next, and it always came with a plea to help them stay open.

But they made a lot of bad decisions along the way, like opening up a fancy organic eatery in a part of town with no foot traffic and no parking, by taking on even more debt to expand their space and open up another pop-up store before they had got the basics rights with their first location. Fewer and fewer people came to visit and that was that.

Lots of small businesses in our area have kept the "fair wage and wellness fee" they added during COVID times and there's a long paragraph of text on the bill that explains why it's important and how it's helping them pay staff, yadda yadda. Seems like the entire cost of running the business and keeping people employed has been passed on to the customer.

I enjoy a good meal and a good show, and I am happy to support local businesses. But a $5.25 latte and a $24 pizza and $14 for a salad that is only three pieces of lettuce or a $100 ticket that becomes $175 after fees...I'm starting to opt-out entirely.

You can do this slowly and asynchronously over email, or in a Google Doc, or even in a shared Apple Note. Less about the tool or the product, more about clearly setting expectations for commentary and communication.

Three more for you:

https://social.ayjay.org/uploads/2023/f168a184cc.pdf

https://social.ayjay.org/uploads/2023/90c73d25f1.pdf

https://social.ayjay.org/uploads/2023/1b7dca0a29.pdf

The last phone I had before this one was an iPhone 8, and before that an iPhone 5—both setup in the same way. I've never used my phone for entertainment or for socialization. It's always been a tool and I think it's better this way.

Wendell Berry, The Vacation (1994):

Once there was a man who filmed his vacation.

He went flying down the river in his boat

with his video camera to his eye, making

a moving picture of the moving river

upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly

toward the end of his vacation. He showed

his vacation to his camera, which pictured it,

preserving it forever: the river, the trees,

the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat

behind which he stood with his camera

preserving his vacation even as he was having it

so that after he had had it he would still

have it. It would be there. With a flick

of a switch, there it would be. But he

would not be in it. He would never be in it.

+1 to earplugs when vacuuming the car.

Good use of AI: detect delivery drone, fire Nerf sentry guns to eliminate noise.

Attention. This, too, is a scarce commodity, with all the media competing bitterly for a piece. Watching the melee of money and politics, sports and art, technology, and advertising, leaves little attention leftover. Only the person who turns his back on these overbearing claims on his attention and turns off the roar of the channels can decide for himself what is worth his attention and what is not. In the barrage of arbitrary information our perceptive and cognitive capabilities decline, they grow when we limit our attention to those things and only those things that we ourselves want to see, hear, feel and know. In this we can see an occasion for luxury.

Quiet. This, too, is a basic requirement that has become harder and harder to satisfy. Anyone who wants to escape the everyday din must be very extravagant. In general, apartments cost more the quieter they are; restaurants that do not pour musical pollution into the ears of their guests demand higher prices of their discerning clientele. The raging traffic, the howling sirens, the clatter of helicopters, the neighbor's droning stereo, the month-long roar of the street fair—the person who can elude all of that enjoys luxury.

Postman's 6 questions about technology:

1. “What is the problem to which this technology is the solution?”

2. “Whose problem is it?”

3. “Which people and what institutions might be most seriously harmed by a technological solution?”

4. “What new problems might be created because we have solved this problem?”

5. “What sort of people and institutions might acquire special economic and political power because of technological change?”

6. “What changes in language are being enforced by new technologies, and what is being gained and lost by such changes?”

Also:

Neil Postman on Technopoly (1992) and Collapse of Civilization

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFj6-z8KeeU