For the past year, I’ve been plagued by a sort of paralytic ineptitude that I suppose one could equate with writer’s block. But it’s more than that, and please forgive me if I find it hard to articulate it as I’m a bit rusty. In the discombobulating future we all find ourselves in, there’s a kind of subversive pressure on writers everywhere to write better than AI can. In a world now full of what has been disparagingly called “AI slop”, to convince the reader that you are indeed human is a burden I never thought I’d ever have to bear.
It hurts. It hurts that there are topics I’ve written here and elsewhere that AI can now write more convincingly than I can. I am also guilty. Guilty of regularly using AI for all kinds of writing tasks I don’t have time for. But that’s not quite right either. I could make the time. After all that’s what everybody did before 2023. The problem is that the lure of efficiency and accelerated output outweighs any desire to start with a blank page.
And let’s be honest - nobody likes the blank page. It’s a daunting and terrible abyss that screams to be filled with words that are agonizingly pulled from your brain syllable by syllable only to form an incoherent mess that needs to be edited two or three more times before it begins to flow and make sense.
The antidote, you may rightly pronounce, is to be vulnerable and authentic and write about human experiences that no AI can duplicate. This is the reason I entitled this post The Buttcracker. My wife was texting about The Nutcracker upon which the phone’s auto correct worked it’s hilarious magic. No AI would have come up with something random like that, right? But, the truth is that AI is really good at faking it. It could probably have written all this and you wouldn’t know any better.
All I can do is promise that I will never resort to using AI to write these posts and hope that you’ll believe me. Now, in the interests of proving I am human, let me tell you about a time before the Internet. A time I got stuck playing King’s Quest III.
Yes, I’m still alive - just working on some other writing projects! Thought I’d better check in after my last post where it sounded like I was dying.
I guess I am still dying - we all are - just more slowly.
What did I miss?
The summer months of July and August zipped by before I could catch a tan. We camped at Ellison Provincial Park on Okanagan Lake for one of our trips. On another, we explored the northern part of Vancouver Island, including a stay on Malcolm Island, a Finnish colony.
In September, there was a dull iPhone 16 event that wasn’t even worth writing about.
And that brings us to October, which means we’re all caught up!
But I can’t resist leaving you with a little something…
So, a brutal sinus infection has thrown off my posting schedule. My sinus is so inflamed that it’s put massive pressure on the nerves in my gums so that it feels like I have toothache in about ten teeth. And it’s lasting a long time with nothing I can do to speed up the healing process. It sucks. But, as one doctor said, all I can do is take a big dose of Vitamin P (Patience).
Normally, I like to obsess about software for a couple of months before we head into the summer tech detox. And even though I missed the end-of-month deadline, May was a good month. In past years, I’ve written an entire post dedicated to Google I/O. But this year, we were treated to three major tech events in May: Apple’s “Let Loose” iPad event, OpenAI’s introduction to GPT-4o, and of course, the 2024 Google I/O keynote.
I’ll be using my traditional thumbs-up-and-thumbs-down format for this post because all three of these events threw down some unexpected highs and lows. It was wild.
Let’s get into it.
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve done a grab-bag post about nothing important. The last time was exactly one year ago last April. So, let’s make it a tradition, as making things a tradition is a tradition around here, after all.
No real narrative thread here, folks. I’m going to talk about music, games, tv shows, and books. To wrap up, I’ll check in with the AI scene. Given that it was so hyped up last year, what’s the status quo in AI these days?
And, needless to say, this bespoke post has been lovingly and meticulously handcrafted for you - the discerning reader, without the assistance of generative AI.
Winter is over. Spring is upon us. And on this beautiful Easter Sunday, I’d like to wish anyone who’s reading this rejuvenation, light, and inspiration.
That’s all.
So, after working as a Technical Writer for more than fifteen years, I decided it was time to change my job title. I pitched my case to Management, and they agreed. And thus, I am now an Information Developer. Some may claim that these two job titles are synonymous. But I don’t believe they are.
According to the surprisingly great Wikipedia entry on technical writing (although I shouldn’t be surprised it’s well written, given who is probably editing it), “technical writer” became an official job title during World War II.
It is no surprise that the profession of technical writing was established in the military and aerospace industries. When you marry a monolithic bureaucracy with products that are highly likely to kill you if you use them wrong, technical writing is the perfect love child.
But it’s been a while since World War II, where a Technical Writer furiously clacking away on her typewriter in some dark, locked-down war office would lose sleep at night because unclear instructions could mean the difference between life and death for soldiers on the battlefield.
And so we embark upon a shiny, fresh New Year!
Most years can be summed up thusly: similar to last year, but different from next year. But we are rarely propelled into the future by a sea change. The typical - and boring - emergence into the future is through all the tiny, iterative changes that add up over time. The answer to that classic riddle - What is always coming, but never arrives? - is “the future” (actually, the answer is “tomorrow”, but you get my drift).
Just a year ago, we were all worried about generative AI stealing our jobs. Now we are all walking around chatting with AI like it was our best friend and casually using it to do incredible things. Rather than being laid off by ChatGPT, we’re simply integrating it into our workflows as we would any new technology.
A toaster, after all, was only mind-blowing for a few weeks after we learned how much more convenient it was to make toast. Now it is another appliance. Another tool in our extensive Homo Sapiens toolkit.
In the original 1960s Star Trek series, baby-boomer Trekkies had the suave Captain Kirk to aspire to. But Gen Xers were even more fortunate to have the genteel Captain Picard gracing the small screen in Star Trek: the Next Generation (TNG).
TNG was my Star Trek. I eagerly awaited every new episode that aired Friday nights. Watching it was a family affair. There was no better science-fiction show on television (albeit the choices were slim back then). TNG not only had terrific writers, but also a cast that gelled like no other.
When we moved to Canada, we lived out of a hotel room for a few months. I was amazed to discover there were cable channels that played non-stop reruns of TNG. We sat in our hotel room watching episode after episode (this constant exposure is how we converted my sister into a Trekkie).
After TNG aired, a few more live-action Star Trek shows came out over the intervening years, including Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery, and Strange New Worlds. But, even though these shows had some fantastic Captains at the helm (Captain Janeway was marvelous), Captain Jean-Luc Picard is still widely regarded as the best Star Trek Captain of all time. In 2020, when Star Trek: Picard came out, it was an absolute gift to the fans.
And, although the writing could never hope to equal TNG levels, it was just grand to see Picard back in action. Of course, without the camaraderie of the original TNG crew, Picard’s solo adventures were lacking that nostalgic spark. Until the old crew got back together in Season Three.
The first eight episodes of Season Three were terrific - sharp writing, great characters, and an intriguing plot. But, disappointingly, it all fell apart in the final episodes.
(Needless to say, this post contains major spoilers for Start Trek: Picard, so continue at your own discretion.)
At the end of 2021, I decided to ditch my iPhone 6S and pick up a refurbished iPhone XS for around $500. Better for the environment, better for the pocketbook, and guaranteed to keep me going for at least two years - my XS served me well.
But now, two years is up, and it’s time to move on. Yes, the XS will be supported until the end of next year. But, similar to what happened two years ago, the XS is starting to feel a bit outdated.
It’s still a great phone and will continue to be used by the next family member in the hand-me-down line. Honestly, it’s amazing how consistent the basic iOS experience is, even in really old iPhones.
But, for “my next”, I’m going with the iPhone 12 Pro.
With the latest and greatest iPhone 15 Pro starting at over $1600 CAD after tax, you’d have to really want in on titanium and USB C to drop that kind of hard cash without flinching.
But, at around $500 for an eBay Refurbished model, the 12 Pro win the price-to-performance-ratio game when comparing it to the 15 Pro - especially if you’re coming from a XS or older.
Here are ten reasons why.
I’m not really into Halloween, largely because it was never part of my childhood. In South Africa, we celebrated Guy Fawkes Day, where we burned an effigy and set off fireworks. Celebrating the failed attempt of a group of Catholics to blow up the Protestant King of England is a far cry from celebrating the pagan ritual of wearing costumes to ward off ghosts.
To be honest, it’s hard to identify with either of these celebrations.
Of course, I would have loved to go trick-or-treating as a child. But in South Africa, it would be unthinkable to go door to door around your neighbourhood. Even if you could somehow circumvent the barbed-wire fences and guard dogs, you would likely be shot before reaching the front door.
When I came to Canada as a young adult, I attended a few Halloween parties over the years. But, every single one of them was absolutely awful. Some of these parties even started off as disappointing and ended up as traumatizing. I won’t get into it.
Fortunately, as a parent, I’ve greatly enjoyed seeing the wild delight on my kids’ faces as they dress up and stuff their pumpkin-shaped buckets with candy. Experiencing Halloween vicariously through them has saved this North American tradition for me.
However, the fact that I’m writing a Halloween Special is evidence that I’ve completely run out of other ideas for this month’s post. So, I’ll just go with it -
To mark the occasion where ghosts and ghouls rule the night, here are some scary things…