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Small Tech Victory

Small Tech Victory

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Though I envision the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day as a black hole of relaxation, a time when I need do nothing but read, write, walk and watch movies, reality does intrude. Yesterday I even had to boot up my work computer — horror of horrors — to check on the old flexible spending account, a time sink if ever there was one.

To do this required the overcoming of several tech challenges, including the export of an Excel document. I was charged up by the fact that I did this without error, a small tech victory that inspired me to attempt others.

If increasing technical complexity is the sea in which we must swim, then small tech victories are the life rafts we must celebrate.

Typographical Tone of Voice

Typographical Tone of Voice

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If this post goes according to plan, I may insult you several times. That’s because I am, in that old-school, print-based way, using periods at the ends of sentences. (See, I just did it again. And again.)

In Because Internet, Gretchen McCulloch brings the term “typographical tone of voice” to my (somewhat luddite) attention. Exhibit A, she says, is considering all caps to be shouting (which is hardly news to anyone, even luddites). But a more subtle expression of typographical tone of voice is what she calls the “sincerity exclamation point.”

Ah yes, I think, this is why I’m using using exclamation points so much despite inwardly chafing at them. This is not due to grammatical sloppiness, but to friendliness and cooperation. When I say “Thanks!” at the end of a business email, I’m merely indicating that, sure, I don’t mind editing this piece quickly. I’m happy to do it (even if I’m not).

Periods are another matter. “For people whose linguistic norms are oriented toward the offline world, the most neutral way of separating one utterance from the next is with a dash or a string of dots,” McCulloch writes. But for someone whose linguistic orientation is more modern, the line break is the most effective way of separating utterances. In that case, then, the period is extraneous, and perhaps holds other meanings. In fact, it could even be considered passive aggressive.

But don’t worry, McCulloch assures us, in formal writing periods are still emotionally neutral. To which she adds this puckish footnote: “Or at least, I sure hope they are, because otherwise you’re halfway through a book where I’ve been passive-aggressive to you the whole time. SORRY.”

Hot Spot

Hot Spot

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I’ve gotten away so far and so thoroughly that I almost thought I wouldn’t be able to get online long enough to write this post. As it is, I will make this one quick because I’m using my phone’s “hot spot,” and I’m not sure how long it will last.

The little cabin where I’ve escaped prides itself on lack of connectivity. There’s even a cellphone lockbox where you put away the pesky item while you roast marshmallows over the fire and look at the stars.

Alas, though I am not addicted to the internet in general, I have become pretty attached to writing this blog, so I have circumvented the cabin’s best intentions and have gone online anyway — but gone online only to extol the pleasures of being away from things, out of the loop, disconnected.

It’s ironic … but true!

Farewell, Express

Farewell, Express

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Yesterday I picked up the Express newspaper offered to me by our Vienna hawker Bobbie. I don’t always get this abbreviated, tabloid giveaway version of the Washington Post. But when I don’t have the parent paper or something else to read, I pick it up. And I always take it if Bobbie offers it to me. He’s a kind soul whose feelings might be hurt if I did not.

But sometimes when I do have the parent paper and Bobbie holds out the Express, I pick it up … then gently place it on top of the trash can at the entrance to Metro. I don’t throw it away — no one has read it yet! — but I do put it up for adoption.

That’s what I did yesterday, not even glancing at the headline. Then, on the way home, I saw a copy of Express someone had left behind on the bus. “Hope you enjoy your stinking’ phones” said the headline, which caught my eye, then below, the small print: “Add Express to the list of print publications done in by mobile technology. Sadly, this is our final edition.”

As you can tell, I’m not an everyday Express reader, but I’m a common-enough one to mourn its passing. There was an irreverence about it, and it was informative, too. Now, another print publication bites the dust, 20 journalists lose their jobs, and a community culture goes away (because Express hawkers drew commuters together).

I’ll let Express have the last word here. This is from a small item on its inside front cover:

Nation Shocked! Shocked!
Traditional print news product abruptly goes out of business
In news that scandalized a nation, The Washington Post Express abruptly shut down Thursday, citing falling readership and insufficient revenue. Apparently, everyone riding the D.C. Metro now looks at their phones instead of reading print newspapers. Express editors will miss the newspaper and its readers very much. It has been a pleasure and an honor to provide commuters with this daily dose of this odd news.

Gains and Losses

Gains and Losses

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Over the weekend I started reading about the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, which we will celebrate next month. One of the tributes was in Parade, which bills itself “the most widely read magazine in America.”

I couldn’t help but notice how thin this most widely read magazine is. And this got me thinking about what we have lost in the 50 years since humans first stepped foot on the moon — in particular the rich print culture that has been slowly dying during the last two (three?) of those decades.

I’m a print girl from way back, and though I quite happily ply my trade in a mostly-web way these days, I miss the heft and gravitas of ink on paper. I miss the smell of it and the feel of it, the weight of it in my hands.

I suppose you could draw a line from rocket technology to the waning of print. After all, the information age was in part launched by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). But that’s not where I’m going with this.

I’m merely musing that our technological gains come with quality-of-life losses. And I don’t want us to forget about them.

(A small printing press, from an exhibit at the Museum of the Written Word in May 2013.) 

Happy Global Big Day!

Happy Global Big Day!

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Today is Global Big Day, when hundreds of thousands of birders from the U.S. and around the world list the birds they see and hear on the eBird app designed by the Cornell Ornithology Lab. The data they supply is used to tell people where birds are in real time and also to do cool things like have farmers flood their fields to give wetland-loving birds a place to land.

Using the information supplied by regular birders tramping through woods and fields, binoculars and phones in hand, Cornell has built a citizen science powerhouse that is actually saving the lives of hundreds of thousands perhaps millions of birds every year.

The flooded fields are one example of this. The birders’ information feeds a digital map that tracks the travels of migrating species. Knowing that a flock of water birds is heading their way, farmers can flood their fields, giving the birds a temporary wetland in which to land for the night.

This concept originated with a Nature Conservancy scientist who came up with the idea of “renting habitat” instead of buying it. The flooded fields accomplish just that. But it’s the eBird app that makes the flooded fields possible.

Wouldn’t it be nice if more technology was like this?

(Tufted titmouse photo courtesy Cornell eBird)

Mellow Mueller

Mellow Mueller

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Everyone was talking about it, reading it and tweeting about it, but by the time the Mueller Report finally came out yesterday, I just felt fatigued about it. I imagine many of us did.

I perked up a bit this morning, when the banner-headlined Washington Post landed in my driveway. (As is typical for a newspaper reader, I take my news a day old and more digested, thank you very much.) But on the whole, I’ve been ignoring the media feeding frenzy.

Maybe it’s because I’m distracted by the new leaves on the Rose of Sharon bush, or the carpet of petals underneath the Kwanzan cherry.

Or maybe it’s because I’ve been preoccupied with tech problems lately (email issues, Skype for Business issues, RAM issues, even voice recorder issues!).

But whatever has made me mellow about Mueller, I’m grateful for it.

Switching Browsers

Switching Browsers

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Continuing on the tech theme, I write today from the office. It’s been many weeks since this was possible, all due to a log-in problem I could have solved much sooner had I just switched browsers.

Switching browsers is often the remedy to the problem at hand. I should know this by now. Is there a stubborn streak at work here? Am I making things more difficult by failing to switch browsers first?

Possibly, but it’s unconscious on my part. It’s part of being a digital emigre, someone not born to swim in these waters. I may find a solution, eventually, but it will never be an easy one. It’s as if my brain circuits won’t work that way.

Maybe writing this post will help me remember that before I pull my hair out, before I decide to completely redo my blog (which I hope will happen soon anyway), it’s better to take one simple, elegant action — switch browsers.

Calmer Computing

Calmer Computing

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It was a day to rake leaves, plant bulbs, do laundry and prepare the house for visitors later this week. It was also a day to be frustrated by various computer glitches.

There was a new system update with all of its attendant woes, the retrieval of passwords once entered automatically, the held breath that formerly well-oiled systems would start up again.

There was the banishment of junkware called Gilpierro, which slipped onto my machine when I was downloading a schedule from a third party. That took about two hours.

With each snafu I worried that I wouldn’t be able to access this blog or my email or the document I’d just been working on. But so far, so good.

I like to think I’m becoming a little saner during times of software distress. One might not notice this by looking at me, but I have a little more faith in the power of machinery than I used to. It’s a calmer computing I engage in now.

(The photo doesn’t have much to do with computing, but it’s a calm scene.)

Creeping Numeralism

Creeping Numeralism

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It was called the zoning improvement plan, but went by its chipper acronym, Zip. And it wasn’t adapted quickly, wrote John Kelly in yesterday’s Washington Post. Zip codes met with “pockets of resistance,” he said, including from the White House, which omitted “20500” from its official stationery, even though President Lyndon Johnson had ordered federal agencies to start using the five-digit code a month or so earlier, in June 1965.

Americans may have been sick of numbers, Kelly said. Three years earlier they’d had to start including Social Security numbers on their tax returns. That same year, 1962, AT&T introduced “all-number” calling — which put an end to such notable exchanges as BUtterfield 8 and MUrray Hill 6. 
In fact, Kelly reports, there was an “Anti-Digit Dialing League” created to fight “creeping numeralism.” 
I wonder what the anti-numeralists would think of life in 2018. Today I created three new passwords, all letter-number-symbol combinations. In the course of doing that I was sent at least four different codes that would expire in minutes or hours. Numbers were texted to me, which I then used to create new letter-number codes. 
As I wrote recently, the world has been heading toward numeralism for at least 400 years. Now we have Zip-plus-four. Put me in the words column, though. I’ll fight “creeping numeralism” wherever I find it. 
(Mr. Zip courtesy Wikipedia)