Tag: iPhone

CenturyStink

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
When a modem becomes a no-dem.

Our Innertubes punctured at 11 a.m. Friday, a flat that that didn’t get fixed until 8 p.m. So that was … fun.

Actually, it was hardly an annoyance at all, barring the dealing with CenturyLink “customer service,” a maze of domestic bots and overseas humans whose basic American is much better than my Hindi but still something of a guessing game, tech-support-wise.

Herself wrangled the bots with her iPhone while I dealt with the Subcontinent on mine, and as per usual she brought home the bacon. So I got to tell my guy, “James,” that yes, there was an outage in our area and it would not be resolved until 11 p.m. Ever the newsman, even in retirement. I should’ve sent him a bill.

Anyway, even when it works, we have shit Innertubes in our little corner of The Duck! City (“Gateway to Los Lunas”).

We pay top dollar for bottom-of-the-barrel DSL, same price as in Bibleburg for half the speed, and it inches ever higher from month to month because of course it does.

Our Actiontec C1000A modem-router dates to 2012, making it two years older than the MacBook Pro I’m using to write this. It is of course “retired” — the Actiontec, not my Mac — and I don’t see any point in replacing either device because El Rancho Pendejo apparently isn’t wired for the zoom-zoom all you fiber-optic types take for granted.

When the place was built in 1970 the telephone pedestal box was installed at the east end of the property, as far from the house itself as it is possible to get without actually being in the arroyo. The wiring to said box may have been upgraded over the past five decades; the wiring to the house has not.

Thus we limp along with download speeds ranging from 6 to 12 mbps, and uploads under 1 mbps.

So, when we lose our DSL, well — ain’t no thang. Because our iPhones — with maybe two bars from Verizon down here at the bottom of the cul-de-sac — turn into personal hotspots that work just as well as our DSL router-modem. When it works.

So, winning? I guess. In a losing sort of way.

OK, say ‘cheesy’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
A fuzzy Beaver Moon, which I suppose could be considered appropriate.

Betimes I wish I had an actual camera instead of an iPhone, especially when zooming in on something like the last full supermoon of the year.

But then I remember that I’m no great shakes as a shooter and the phone that I already own is exactly my speed. I’m not exactly Ansel Adams. More like Gomez Addams, or maybe Uncle Fester.

Hell, people who know what they’re doing shoot movies — actual films, not TikTok dances or cute-animal videos — using iPhones.

Not me, of course. Because (a) I don’t know what I’m doing, and (2) I don’t really want to learn.

When I was shooting bike reviews for Adventure Cyclist and teasers for Charles Pelkey’s Live Update Guy it was occasionally fun, kinda, sorta. But also complicated, because I was using a GoPro, or a more traditional camcorder — Sony VIXIA mini X or Panasonic HC-V770 — and there’s a whole lot of wobble when you’re recording video and audio in the wild, especially when the production crew is dumber than a bag of hammers and your leading man has a radio face.

Anyway, them newfangled consarned moving pictures do all the work for the audience. When you read or listen to a story, your imagination has to break a sweat. With video it just sorta slouches on the couch with one hand in the popcorn bowl and the other thumbing a phone, checking to see if there’s something better on.

¡Feliz año nuevo!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

Another one bites the dust.

Well, here we are. 2020. A whole new year to play with. It’s like bringing that new bike home from the shop. Can’t wait to take it out for a spin.

Actually, I’m in no rush. It’s still below freezing out there at the moment, and it wasn’t much warmer when I took an old bike for a spin yesterday afternoon.

It was a Steelman Eurocross, and the only reason it and I were on the trails was to squeeze one final drop of fun from the old year. There was a chilly wind from the north, and I was wearing my heavy-duty bib tights, two long-sleeve polypro undershirts, a stout long-sleeve winter jersey, tuque plus cycling cap, winter gloves, wool socks, and winter shoes.

The trails were just a bit tacky, which was fine, especially when I took a detour through a gravel wash. This is a long, gradual uphill, and not ideal for 33mm tires in dry conditions unless you’re Belgian or Dutch. I put ’er in 36×28 and ground me some gravel, just like the Kool Kidz do.

All in all this proved a relaxing interlude between bouts of tech support at Herself the Elder’s place. She’s been having trouble getting her iPhone and hearing aids to make nice together via Bluetooth. The cable-TV setup is likewise challenging. Once again we find engineers making things more complex than they need to be, just because they can.

“Lookit me, I’m engineering!” Indeed you are, Poindexter, and I hope your granny writes you out of her will.

So, yeah, studying the catechism of elder tech, pondering the mysteries. Lacking faith, but doing the works in hopes of enlightenment.

After some success that can be described only as limited Herself and I came home to El Rancho Pendejo, warmed up some leftovers, watched a bit of standup on Netflix, and called it a night long before the ball dropped in Times Square.

Tomorrow, we agreed, would be another day. Year. Whatevs. Where the gravel at?

DT, phone home

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments

We’re five days into another lap around the Sun, but we’re flying blind — that big yellow ball is proving hard to locate here in the Duke City.

Though we do have plenty of ice and snow left over from the old year, for anyone who likes that sort of thing.

Our unseasonably wintry weather is a mouse fart compared to the shit monsoon swamping the nation’s capital, though.

And with Darth Cheeto angrily dumping pretty much everyone except his storm troopers onto a dole he won’t pay, and the Chinese more interested in exploring the moon than the wowie-zowies of Apple’s latest and greatest black monolith, you have to wonder how much longer it’ll be before we’re all debating property rights with thigh bones around the ol’ water hole again. Ook ook ook.

That’s right, Star Child, it’s time for the first Radio Free Dogpatch of 2019. Put a glide in your stride and a dip in your hip, and come on up to the Mothership. Mind the yellow snow. …

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 AT2035 microphone, a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB audio interface, Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack, and a 2012 MacBook Air. Additional jabber via an Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB mic and a Behringer XENYX 1200USB mixer wired to a 2014 MacBook Pro with an external LG 24MP59HT-P monitor, which I used to edit the audio with Apple’s GarageBand. Doc Strangelove and his backup band, Monk and the Monoliths, appear courtesy of Stan “The Man” Kubrick, who has Gone Beyond and will never know. Tires on ice from Freesound.org. Snow-shoveling performed and recorded by Your Humble Narrator using a plastic grain hog and a Sony ICD-UX533, which also did a fine job of capturing the sounds of a blizzard from inside El Rancho Pendejo.

Red (not so) Delicious

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

Well, here’s one I can afford.

Apple has surprised a bunch of folks (and maybe itself, too) with a less-than-stellar revenue estimate based largely on sputtering sales of iPhones, particularly in China.

Huh. Did everybody suddenly get tired of skimming the kids’ inheritance for a new handheld computer every couple of years, or what?

I’m not Chinese, and I could do with a new iPhone, but I sure wasn’t excited about pissing away $749 for the cheap one. Or about Face ID. Or about paying the AppleCare vig’ because you just know you’re gonna fumble the pricey little mother somehow — spill your coffee on it, drop it in a toilet, or yardsale onto it while shredding the gnar.

I’ve been sort of keeping an eye casually peeled for a refurbished iPhone 8, but that seems to be a unicorn. Either that or the Chinese got ’em all. Refurbed 7’s are available, but even those run $469.

Think about it. Nearly five hundy for a used phone so bots can ring you up in the middle of the night and pitch insurance to your voicemail. And then sell your number to other bots because the whole selling-insurance thing isn’t working out for them.

Plus the impertinent Xr and Xs map your mug before they will do your bidding. And since you didn’t pony up for a new one, you skinflint penny-pincher, you, that cheapo good-enough 7 or 8 is probably programmed to sell your selfies to a deepfaker who’ll fuse them into a viral video in which you are simultaneously the Sonoran donkey and the person of questionable moral fiber who … who … no, let’s not go there. It’s too early in the year for that image.

Y’think Apple will take a hint and make an iPhone in a proper size at a proper price that doesn’t ask more of you than you ask of it? Nah, me neither. It’s only a few billion.

Anyway, the next iPhone will blow the donkey so you don’t have to. Whoops, I went there. Must be later than we think.