Category: Technology

Stock options

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
“Stock” art. That’s a publishing joke, son!

What can society do with some well-heeled, ne’er-do-well swell like Mark Zuckerberg, who persists in skullduggery, but unlike your corner dime-store hood has a fine-proof wallet and thinks a cell is something the rubes use to check Facebook?

How about a stint in the stocks? If we can’t shame him, or slammer him, let’s slime him. Food for thought, que no?

Yes, yes, yes, it’s another exciting episode of Radio Free Dogpatch. Grab a basket of rotten eggs, warm up your pitching arm, and take your place in line.

Hur-ry, hur-ry, hur-ry, step right this way! It’s showtime!

P L A Y    R A D I O    F R E E    D O G P A T C H

• Technical notes: This episode was recorded with an Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB microphone and a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder. I edited using Apple’s GarageBand on a 2014 MacBook Pro. The music is some medieval Viking ditty from Kyster at Freesound.org. It may have been performed by these dudes here. Other sounds liberated from Apple’s iMovie library. Tim Cook will probably have me put in the stocks for that, if Pøbel doesn’t beat him to it, but they’ll have to catch me first.

Polishing the Apple

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments
The “new” iPhone 5.

I may be smashing the State today, but yesterday I was helping Tim Cook turn Apple around.

No, I didn’t buy one of the new Minis, or even a new-used iPhone.

I had the battery replaced in the old iPhone 5. Set me back all of fiddy magic beans.

You’re welcome, Timmy old hoss. Don’t spend it all in one place.

‘Rubbish is money’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
From malaise to Malaysia? Let’s hope not.

The 2009 iMac is heading for the Last Roundup.

Its fans have cranked up to 11 for no discernible reason for the final time. No more will its internal not-so-SuperDrive refuse to read a disc, its USB 2.0 ports decline to recognize the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 audio interface, or its attempts to record and play back sound through same bring back memories of trying to tune in distant FM stations at 2 a.m. while piloting a ’74 Datsun pickup along U.S. 50 in Nevada, with a sixer of tallboys between the knees and rings of marching powder around the nostrils.

This iMac ran $1,200 new, but 10 years later Apple considers it worthless for any purpose beyond recycling, and frankly, so do I. P’raps Tim Cook will make a new MacBook Air or Mini out of the auld beastie and try to sell it back to me (at top dollar, it goes without saying).

That will be a tough sell, Timmy old scout. We already own a 2012 MacBook Air and a 2010 Mini. Both remain functional yet underemployed, like me, and so I think we can struggle along for a while before deploying the Visa card in the direction of Cupertino yet again.

I just hope this goddamn thing doesn’t wind up in Malaysia, where all the rest of our old crap seems to be piling up, when it’s not being buried in landfills or mysteriously catching fire.