There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." - Isaac Asimov (1980)
Tyler K. Nothing

Tyler Knows Nothing

All the nothing Tyler knows in one place!

Listening

Album Art

Reading

Book Art

BLAME! 1

Tsutomu Nihei

    ...

    Apple

    freeware

    Spaced | macOS Freeware

    I was a Bartender user for a few years. It was quite nice to get a handle on my Mac’s menubar. But I was paying $10 a month for SetApp and access to their library of around 240 applications and utilities. I could have purchased Bartender for $16 instead, but I didn’t. I paid SetApp $240 for two years to end up using about six apps. 

    That's not a value in my book.

    So, I cancelled my subscription and started looking for an alternative, and I found it in the form of Spaced, an entirely free utility available on the App Store. Now, truth be told, Bartender is really nothing more than a menubar management tool that makes it easier to put your icons where you want them (mostly, as there are some restrictions imposed by macOS itself), …

    ...

    capitalism

    Dollarnomics

    Save The Web: Advanced Dollarnomics

    In the first part of this series I started last year, I spoke about the idea of Dollarnomics, describing it in some detail. If you want to get the basics of the concept, then you should go read that first. It’s not a long piece and I’ve linked it below. I do outline a few ideas there, but there needs to be some additional context so that you might fully understand the power that I believe resides both in the $1 bill and in the people who are tired of always being on the bottom of the economy, even if you only have a few million dollars in the bank, an amount that is nowhere near as comforting as it was a decade or two ago.

    Saving the Internet for Humanity: Dollarnomics 101

    Here in this second part, I will be outlining how certain groups …

    ...

    A writer's prayer

    They always do the same thing, words. They hide away under the folds of my mind, deep in the shadows, keeping as silent as death. My ability to search for them is limited, so I try my best to shine light into those darkened box canyons of brain tissue, but words are not bound by the laws of physics and my feeble light is obscured by a thick fog. The multi-verse is popular these days, so I imagine that words exist in their own pocket universe and they can control when and where the two realities intersect, allowing me to access them again, but only for a short time.

    I try to force myself to create new words when the ones I seek refuse my peace offerings and woeful cries for respite. This piece was born of that method. Here, now, I sit …

    ...

    Work arounds because Twitter sucks

    Since Felon Musk has destroyed Twitter, I'm just going to blog a bit like it's Twitter. I blog on PostHaven, which is a wonderful blogging service you should definitely check out if you hate the Technogarchy, would like to adhere to a reasonable budget, and appreciate actual ethics. Here's a short list of the tools I'm using to achieve something of a social media presence:

    • PostHaven - As I said above, it's a blogging service that costs $5 a month and allows for ten blogs, each of which can have it's own personal domain, but by default uses a subdomain of posthaven.com something like Tumblr or Medium. They've committed to building a service that will last at least 100 years and add a sweet twist; if you maintain your account for one year, …
    ...

    Apple

    editorial

    Apple's Notes cannot be exported, and that's wrong...

    Ok, this is annoying. Apple Notes is a wonderfully capable notes app that allows you to bulk import all manner of rich text file formats, even entire Evernote exports, and organize them the way you like... with one exception. If you want to stop using Notes, you have to leave everything you created in Notes behind, or export them one by one.

    I have over 300 notes.

    This is not only annoying but terribly wrong of Apple. I shouldn't have to explain why. I didn't spend a few thousand dollars on Apple gear to lose control over the data I create. I have personal notes, drafts of articles, detailed project concepts, musings, recipes for loads of gluten-free foods, and a bunch more categories. And now that I'm not using Apple Notes anymore... …

    ...

    television

    movies

    editorial

    How J.J. Abrams broke Star Trek

    Star Trek: The Next Generation 30th Anniversary Print by Dusty Abell, Copyright © 2017, Roddenberry Entertainment Inc. Reprinted with permission. All Rights Reserved. Dusty Abell is a comic artist who has pencilled countless comic books, is an illustrator, and has been involved in the animation industry as a character designer since 2000. He has worked on productions such as Batman: Return of the Caped Crusader, Batman vs. Two-Face, Young Justice, Mike Tyson Mysteries, King of the Hill, The Official Handbook of the Invincible Universe for Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead, and many, many others.

    The first Star Trek television show, known colloquially as The Original Series, ran from 1966 to 1969. The series, produced by …

    ...

    editorial

    Medium's stats are broken, so I left...


    This is my stats page. This is not helpful.

    Much like today’s other causes of cultural constipation such as race relations, government, cold medications, etc., etc., ad nauseam, the page you see above appears functional, but is not.

    Sure, you can click on things and you can see numbers and charts, but none of it is functional to the point where you can derive real, usable data regarding any of the indicated data points.

    Take the chart above for example. The Views chart only shows you how many articles were “viewed”, but not which articles. It’s just a number. The Claps indicate how many times the Clap button was clicked, but not by how many users. You need to click the number of claps (as seen in the image below. Yes, it’s that tiny, …

    ...

    Apple

    editorial

    Apple's Butterfly keyboard tragedy & potential e-waste disaster


    Without official unit sales numbers from Apple, we have no idea how many hundreds of thousands of these machines are in the wild.

    I am a life-long fan of Apple. Born in ‘68, I grew up in the thick of the consumer electronics and personal computer boom of the late 70's. Keeping to myself at times, loudly evangelistic at others, a shame-free Mac Ex-pat, reluctant Windows user for a decade, and always the staunch critic, my fandom runs deep. From my early experiences with Apple ][e machines, to all of the Macs I’ve had since, and arriving at now with the two Mac Minis on my desk, one an M1 and the other a last-gen Intel model, I have had my most satisfying and productive years on Macs.

    Fortunate for me that I missed Apple’s Butterfly …

    ...

    capitalism

    Advertising is dead. Please flush on your way out…


    Ads are almost literally everywhere.

    It is rare, but every once in a while I presume to speak for everyone. It’s not like this is breaking news or a controversial hot-take, either. No need to sit down or get a stiff drink:

    Nobody, but NOBODY likes advertisements… except ad people.

    When I was working IT at Saatchi & Saatchi LA back in the mid-2000’s, Toyota was paying them tens of millions a year to make a handful of splashy national ads. Sure, they were epic, for ads, but all that money floated a five story building bursting with 500 worker bees that would pump out a half dozen ads a year.

    This is the kind of crap SSLA would spend their massive budget on. All this for a 30-second TV spot. This ad was made just before the Great Recession …

    ...

    editorial

    I don't like my mechanical keyboard


    The Keychron K5 SE Low-Profile Mechanical Keyboard is anything but low profile. It’s also a clicky, sloppy, error-prone mess for a writer who taught himself to touch type using his own system.

    CLACK CLACK CLACK… TIKTIKTIKTIKTIK… CLACK CLACK… TIKTIKTIK… AUUUUUUGGGHHHH!!!

    Tap tap, goes my Keychron K5 SE. It takes nigh on nothing to press a key, an advantage I’m sure is prized by gamers more rabid and entrenched than myself, but when I’m writing I’m forced to BACKSPACE to repair something that was rendered illegible every third or fourth word. So, I’m typing this review on my Dell tablet PC with a typecover-style input device, and my typing accuracy rockets back up to normal levels.

    I’m a touch typist in the loosest of terms. I taught …

    ...

    Apple

    open source

    It’s time to open source MacOS 9: An Open Letter to Tim Cook

    The now legendary Mac OS 9 desktop, a refinement of what came before and the influence for today’s macOS releases. Even to this day, untold thousands, likely tens of thousands, classic Mac OS machines are being used & loved, traded & developed for. [SOURCE: Wikimedia Commons]

    Dear Tim,

    How’ve you been? Good, I hope. I’ve been watching Apple’s events and your production quality is just top notch. Serious kudos to your production team. Gotta love those drone shots and slick transitions :) I’ve also been tracking the transition to Apple Silicon and I’ve been impressed. I got myself an M1 Mini that I’ve very pleased with, so much so I bought one for my wife.

    Having been born in ’68, I was exposed to Apple ][, ][e, and //c machines at school …

    ...

    Accelerationism is stupid


    If you think Musk is going to get you to Mars, just check out how he’s been managing Twitter… er, X. This guy’s no genius. Don’t be fooled. Yes, this was made with some dumb AI thing I found.

    A conversation I had with a friend of mine. In addition, the term "Longtermism" has been replaced with Accelerationism. I've updated this piece with some more context at the end.

    > Bryan:
    Late night realizations and insights. I’m afraid that, on my deathbed, I’m going to realize that nobody ever helped me live, they just helped me die.
    No, I’m not suicidal or wanting to die or anything. But I can only imagine that if I ever end up in a hospice and I know I’m going to die, and a kind nurse dispenses me with a lethal dose of morphine — or more likely — …

    ...

    capitalism

    Dollarnomics

    Saving the Internet for Humanity: Dollarnomics 101


    Or not…

    The Internet of 2023 sucks.

    Every site, every service, every entree and every destination on the modern Web of today is controlled by corporations. Blood and treasure is expended, our personal data and real money is hoovered up to feed bottomless C-suite salaries…

    While the World Wide Web may be comprised of an endless cavalcade of corporate entities vying for ultimate control, there remains a much, much larger contingent that has yet to stand up and take it’s own power: we average peeps.

    Yup. The rest of us. The rank and file, as it were. The NOT 1% of Americans who just want to get on with life minus all the drama and violence.

    So, within this unpleasant and difficult context, I’d like to offer my thoughts on fixing our ailing …

    ...

    A short horse tale | Short Fiction


    MERRY FREAKIN’ CHRISTMAS, that’s craaaaaaaazy lookin’! Photo by Mikael Kristenson on Unsplash

    One day long ago, a horse I was fond of came to me and bit my arm, breaking the skin.

    As blood seeped from the wound I asked, “Why did you bite me.”

    The stallion shook its proud head, stamped its powerful hooves, and whinnied, “Because I can, small human.”

    “That is sad,” I replied.

    The horse said incredulously, “For you maybe, but not for me. Now you ride when I choose. If I choose.”

    “It is sad because I liked you,” I replied, then sprung onto its neck and ripped out its throat with my own teeth, its raging eyes wide with shock and terror. Before the beast could topple over dead, I dropped from the animals neck and stood in the shower of its hot, …

    ...

    “Picking yourself up by your own bootstraps” is stupid.


    If this were even remotely possible, people would be flying off into space willy nilly. I think, I’m not a scientist. Photo by Nik on Unsplash

    What even are bootstraps? I’ll keep this brief. I’m particularly fond of this tidy explainer from Etymonline, a language etymology website:

    bootstrap (n.)
    also boot-strap, tab or loop at the back of the top of a men’s boot, which the wearer hooked a finger through to pull the boots on, 1870, from boot (n.1) + strap (n.).
    To pull (oneself) up by (one’s) bootstraps, by 1871, was used figuratively of an impossible task (among the “practical questions” at the end of chapter one of Steele’s “Popular Physics” schoolbook (1888) is, “30. Why can not a man lift himself by pulling up on his …
    ...

    How to use an elevator

    " “>


    A bank of elevators in the lobby of a skyscraper. Photo by Edwin Chen on Unsplash

    It happens all the time. You’re walking along, getting stuff done, and an elevator comes into the equation. Now what?


    One kind of elevator call button. Any single call button means that you are either at the top or bottom floor. Photo by Ashwini Chaudhary(Monty) on Unsplash
    1. First, breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth so you focus on doing that instead of thinking. Slow and measured. If your heart is beating fast, breathe deeper than usual, and feel your heart calm. Practice after you exert yourself so you can do it whenever you feel the need.
    2. If the Call Button is not active, touch it. Do not stand in front of the …
    ...

    editorial

    I desperately want a lightweight OLED Switch

    " “>


    Just make a bigger one, Nintendo.

    It was a mistake that when I finally bought a Switch, I got a Switch Lite. Sure, it’s a gorgeous indigo blue, but I’m old and the screen is too small. So, I bought an OLED Switch. It was also likely a mistake when instead of returning the Lite, I put it on a shelf and forgot about it. I’d made my new OLED Switch my main, so I’d just forgotten about its little brother.

    A few months back, I was sorting through some stuff and found it. I pulled it out again and stuck in my Mario+Rabbis Kingdom Battle cartridge. I didn’t put it down again for three hours.

    I’ve now found myself picking up the Lite more often, despite the small screen and my old eyes.

    Mario+Rabbids doesn’t have a lot of tiny …

    ...

    Where the hell is the American Bidet Revolution!?

    " “>

    I’m going to guess that at least 12% of you will be reading this on a toilet.

    Nothing makes people feel at ease more than a very public discussion about pooping… Right?

    Fortunately for you, I’m not making this a video or podcast, so you can read it anywhere. Even on a public toilet.

    Let’s talk about conservation of energy. Now, I know that’s a scientific principle of something, but I’m no scientist so I’m not sure how accurate I’ll be, but this whole thing seems rather obvious to me. So much so, that I’m more than a little shocked no rabid capitalistas have leapt on the Bidet Bandwagon. And no, that bandwagon doesn’t sound very fun, but we’ll get to the bidet in a moment. First, we need to talk about toilet paper. …

    ...

    animation

    An Open Letter to Blue Sky's Chris Wedge

    " “> Hey look! It’s you!! Chris Wedge!!! Nice pic. Great movie.

    Dear Chris,

    I heard the news. I’m sorry I didn’t write sooner. Things have been a tad crazy of late, what with the pandemic and gun violence and political division and illegal wars and whatnot. I started writing this before the war and Uvalde, but I felt it was important to acknowledge these facts of life and death we are facing before I launch into this escapist fever dream. Anyway…

    Disney can be quite the pain in the ass these days, what with all the acquisitions and late-stage Capitalism and all. I recently read the Paste piece, An Oral History of Scrat Tales: The Death and Legacy of Blue Sky Studios, and I feel for you and your peeps. For the record, I don’t …

    ...

    politics

    The Preamble of The U.S. Constitution | Shallow Thoughts

    " “>

    How do we define the United States of America? We call it a country, but that just means a plot of land with established borders. Land certainly tells stories, but those tales are woven over millennia, and definitions within that context just don’t scale down for the convenience of our human time-frame.

    The first quote I think of in regards to the makeup of our government is that it is formed…

    …of the people, by the people, and for the people…

    Sounds familiar, right? Well, it’s not from the US Constitution. The quote comes from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and the idea had been discussed by others for centuries. That might disappoint you, if you didn’t know that until now, but we do have an actual Constitution. If you …

    ...

    Outlook Junkmail Arrives Flagged ... By Spammers

    " “>

    I’ve been having a problem lately. It’s not an enormous issue, but it bothers me. As you have likely already gleaned, I am receiving junk mail in my Outlook.com account which is already flagged, like so:


    An example of a pre-flagged spam message.

    I don’t think most people have noticed it for a couple reasons:

    • I don’t think a lot of users flag their emails unless they are using the desktop version.
    • Flagging is a visual cue that has only recently started to become a component of organization tools, i.e., Microsoft To Do.

    Outlook.com, however, is an interesting beast; at once the best damned email client on the planet while being rather terrible at handling spam… sorta. I’ll get to the best part in a sec, but Google’s …

    ...

    music

    editorial

    Francis Dunnery’s Let’s Go Do What Happens | Album Stories

    " “>


    Everyone calls him Frank. Let’s Go Do What Happens was released in 1998.

    I’m quite sure that it was early Fall in Vermont; leaf turning season. It drew the leaf peepers and they brought their money. We didn’t turn in those circles, or any circles for that matter. We spent time at home or at school or with the baby or at various jobs. She worked at the Vermont State Department of Corrections for a time. I worked at the nearby IBM plant for a spell. I attempted another go at college. I’d like to think we failed each other.

    Have a listen to the album while reading this piece.

    The radio station that had to be on in the car at the time was The Point FM, de rigueur for any self-respecting AAA aficionado. Where else …

    ...

    The Nothing | Short Fiction

    " “>



    The stairwell spirals down into the darkness. Well, not spiral, really, but there is no term that describes a rectangular shaped stairwell in a multi-story building. It didn’t matter, though. There was already a name for it. It was called The Nothing, and it had been named a few generations back, long before I was born. I come to stare into The Nothing quite often. There isn’t much else to do and it wasn’t forbidden. In fact, the Elders encouraged it, likely to instill a sense of dread. People fear the dark. It’s not that it’s darkness, but that you don’t know what could be hiding inside of it. After all, there isn’t anything threatening about an absence of light.

    Back in “The Day”, people would venture down into The …

    ...

    How to destroy Twitter in 30 days or less

    " “>


    “The Man Who Can Do No Wrong Even When He Clearly Does”

    Step 1. Be Elon Musk.

    Step 2. Buy Twitter for $45 billion.

    Step 3. Tweet.

    Step 4. Never, ever apologize for anything.

    Now just sit back, soak in the sun on some private island, sip on your cocktail, check your stocks and bank balances, and wait. Of course, your tweets may or may not have an impact on how long the process takes, so you may not wish to stop or have some unpaid interns handle it for you. Regardless, your mileage may vary. Now, there’s a very strong chance that you are unable to overcome the requirements for Step 1, but I have faith in you!

    Once in the “Zone” though, Step 2 is likely even more difficult, but stay strong. You’ll just have to get …

    ...

    editorial

    technology

    Can we please end the stupid "Natural" vs. "Reverse" scrolling debacle?

    " “>

    I am quite well versed in the extensive history of the operating system wars. Apple effectively created the home computer industry, and Microsoft has been doggedly chasing after ever since. This is not a new story in the slightest.

    Historical documents tell us that Steve Jobs managed to arrange a tour at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center, frequently called Xerox PARC, which had been tasked by their parent company with developing a wide range of modern computing technologies for the future. The PARC teams were responsible for laster printers, Ethernet, the desktop paradigm for graphical user interfaces, e-paper, Very Large-Scale Integration or VLSI, the process which made all of the computer chips we use today even …