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Posted by 22111
Apr 9, 2022 at 05:39 PM
(The > They above, sorry.) Waiving French from the above, their “récréation” is more like “recharging of the batteries”; German’s reputation of being the more precise language of’em’all is justified.
And in our context here, English / French “recreation”, very far from being some additional, interpretional “creation” of its own, is far more utter consumption, most of the time together with appropriation without any additional thought, and even Twitter got aware of this, hopefully, and to combat the most blatant excesses, presumably, they then doubled their initial 144-chars limit per “message”, according to what I read somewhere… or then, they possibly just wanted to make more room for (direct, and indirect) citations, dumb replication?
Anyway, I adore that double-entendre in the “message” term… and you know what they say about the decisiveness of “messages” endless repetition, whatever their content; Twitter knows, at any rate.
But at the end of the day, it should be that modern mix of your (always read: Jane’s) thinking you create when in fact you consume (ideas and all) that makes the irrefutable-for-most attraction of those new offerings of outsourcing your being, most of the time…
Having made possible by that revolution indeed which made that now, consumption doesn’t consume-up anymore, as had been the rule though generations before, with very few exceptions (reading, viewing plays, listening to music… then Gaumont invented the movies…) to that ancient rule…
and with that most blatant exception indeed to that rule ever, “church going” or any other form of partaking in cult, and listening to what they told you there, reading, theatre and so on not really being for the masses in those times.
And today, we’re simply back to then, to archaic times - you see, the implications of “iPhone’s cult” are much wider than you (always read: Jane, again) probably will have suspected - but this time for almost all of us - and even reading (so-called “longer” texts that is, and of any quality) is in - permit the pun - vigorous retreat.
In other words, it’s not the masses who adopted “elites’” behaviors and predilections, it’s the other round, not full-time yet I admit though, but then, look at the ballot to more precisely ascertain the overall situation, beyond pure wishful thinking.
In the meanwhile, the French had a wonderful term for that, then much more time-limited phenomenon: s’encanailler…
whilst that term, too, has become obsolete by the sheer facts of today. To infer that, “today, canaille’s everywhere” would a little bit harsh in its wording, but then, what you typically find in iPhone’s storage (cloud or in-phone), may make you rethink some premature, idealistic presumptions.
And for most of the rest, they will have erased it in time: e.g. European Union and other top politicians, anyone? Which reminds me of the fact that those centuries ago I’ve evoked above, the elites had counted very few in numbers, just as it’s the trend now again.
In-between, that had been child-play, in so-called “developed societies”, and to mask that, real revolution while it goes, they info us now, and no, I don’t wanna say inform, I say info, from “to info”: they pour the same crap all over the masses as they did then, they just empower us now to juggle around it at will, provided it’s the crap coming from them, and you (i.e. Jane’s) iPhone and all make the endless replication of their ancient, then much more difficult to organize, cult “services”.
An’yeah, I adore the double-entendre of that now ubiquitous, muck “service” term - so much for “software / info / whatever crap as a service”, with or without automatic “adaptation” (read: rise) of your subscriptions.
In the ancient times, servants were (ok, lousily, most of the time, but) paid; now they pay for being allowed to valet, and that’s even (euphemism:) some otherwise quite smart people among them. (icon:) Shrug.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Apr 11, 2022 at 10:18 AM
Okay, no, I’m sorry, I don’t agree with the – despite all the complexity of your prose – simplistic labelling of Apple as a totem or cult.
Something I’ve mentioned before on this forum, but will mention again:
a) we moved over to macOS when Windows 7 first came out. Why? Because the idea of trying to train my (mostly remote) team on Windows 7 gave me the screaming heebie-jeebies.
As a direct result of this shift, my life (as a sysadmin) has become SO much easier. The number of user problems, complaints, major unresolvable issues etc. has plunged; resolving the ones that do happen has become so much easier. Please note that I’m making the comparison with Windows 2000, which was – in Microsoft terms – relatively straightforward and simple to use/administrate.
b) I’ve tried hard – in view of Apple prices – to move over to Android for smartphones, because you can get really rather nice Android smartphones for very little money nowadays.
But I’ve ended up (three times now) coming back to Apple simply because the Apple environment is so well integrated compared to everyone else (and, by the by, far more secure than Android). By that I mean, I can rely on Apple devices to talk to each other without exotic scripts or setups. The most exotic thing I’ve had to do recently is set up Sidecar to use my iPad as an extended screen for my MacBook Pro – and Sidecar is still in beta, so will no doubt become even easier to set up in the near future. Otherwise, iPhones just work.
And that sums up the true reason for Apple’s popularity (as my elderly mother would agree): on the whole, it just works. No, it’s not perfect, but it’s far more reliable and elegant than anyone else out of the box (I’m aware that Linux proponents will argue that you can set up a far more reliable, far more secure ecosystem using all-Linux solutions, but don’t tell me they work out of the box!).
For a sysadmin working at remote, this is a huge relief – not an invitation to totemic worship! ;-)
There are also some truly gorgeous Apple apps out there. Just sayin’!
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by Amontillado
Apr 11, 2022 at 12:06 PM
Bill, you forgot that lovely Unix heart beating inside MacOS. But it’s OK. It just works. You don’t have to think about it. :-)
Posted by 22111
Apr 11, 2022 at 12:14 PM
Notwithstanding some special, particular, “useful” uses of mobile devices which I don’t deny, iPhone / Android mobiles are a world-wide “mass phenomenon”, a phenomenon of the now allegedly “empowered” masses, and I’m trying her to identify that phenomenon.
Please allow one, just one - I will not try to give follow-up proofs of my point, promised! -, but brilliant exemplification of what I’ve been trying to say above, about the pseudo-empowerment of the masses who, by “SHARING” “NEWS” from and by their iPhone / Android mobile, feel - in fact fool themselves - they, now and with the advent of the new technology (hardware plus software = “social media” “contributive access”, (that they) “have their say now”, (that they) can “create” “something of their own”, in lives where, otherwise and at most, a child or two is or are created by them and their spouse (of some time, in most cases and in most Western countries now, as far as the “white” population is concerned), and so, with all that alienation on the workplace, they now believe they have found “their” “ideal” “device of expression”, whilst I’ve said above, most of the time, they just replicate - citing, sometimes even rewording: wow! - the propaganda they receive as “news”, thus volunteering as multiplication valets of and for the forces in power, in their respective jurisdictions - with this empowerment illusion, it’s no wonder they so highly value their iPhone and such: there, they find a fulfilling “existence”, which they neither find at the workplace, nor at home anymore, and their device becomes existential ersatz, they outsource their own life into the device which is far more than just a communication instrument, but, as said, a totem for their existence itself. (And to give just one example, cf. the studies pretending that with more and love-over-web, there was less and less love-in-person.)
And indeed, it’s a revolution that for the first time in history, the traditional term of “consumption”, “to consume”, which erenow meant “aufbrauchen”, “use / eat up”, become available to the masses (I mentioned reading, then the movies, radio, TV), not earlier than just about a century ago, for non-consuming (sic! that’s the English term!) activities, i.e. of that ilk which doesn’t (inherently at least) render them poorer than before (well, there are public libraries, there is Netflix… whilst some Hollywood cinemas seem to charge rather admission prices indeed, but of course, we’re not speaking of the consumers’ purse in the end, but of the object of consumption, and that, now, will leave on indeed, and that’s the first revolution.
With the second revolution just having taken place some years ago, and before our eyes, by iPhone (and its replicas of any quality) - since before the iPhone, and as said, there had finally been non-consuming (thus “free” in some ways: thus access / (partly) availability for the masses) consumption: you read “papers” (often quite expensive on paper, or then, some of them in some parts, free”, even on-screen), and it had been like that for about a century: you (always continue to read: Jane m/f/d) had read, had listened to radio, had watched television… but then, for sharing your experience, your multiplication factor remained very low, for most of us, and you had to convey your views-on-news to your addressees one-by-one, mostly, and lately, even within the family: remember, even before the kids got their own mobile, they had got their own room, their own tv set, for many of them, so father preaching to his family (the Germans, again, have got a just wonderful term for it: “zu den Seinen”), sitting and listening to his voice around the dining table, that’s a concept which had already died with the Fifties, and you will perhaps remember that old ad with a dog (sic!) in such a deferent position, in front of a records player(s attached horn).
But now, the SHARING AGE came to the masses, and gave’em back THEIR voice, allegedly, not just for replicating the voice of their master (cf. the doggie ad), and on an unconscious level, people got back their own voice indeed, since it was the babbling toddler’s one they once had, both form- and content-wise, before their parents - in most cases that is, and that applies everything I say - had more or less silenced it, since it went onto their nerves.
Eureka then, the masses got their voice back… but to very poor use I’m afraid, and the rare voices which tried to be heard with their own thoughts, instead of echoing what they read, heard, saw - i.e. were shown: seeing’s believing, but cutting’s the mastery, not only in movies -, those rare voices quickly learned they were discarded from almost any public discourse, not only by means of group dynamics, but more and more but elementary technical measures (and with the eager help of third-world countries’ men and women who often had to feed more than just 1 or 2 children’s mouths, them now more and more at risk though, AI taking over).
Ok now, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4aVKaMn9EM - it’s from the YT “presence” of one of the very big German publishing houses, “Zeit” (von Holtzbrinck / von Holtzbrinck heirs, some say they’re both billionaires, I don’t dare verify).
The video (published in this form by Zeit today) is part of a self-defending statement of a now German federal minister who, as a German “Bundesland” (“state”) minister, was according to some - I don’t dare comment - (co-? predominantly?) responsible for a 3-digit body count last summer), let’s assume here: not at all.
Zeit says, legally responsible for the video - and thus, also for its current form, published by Zeit though? - is Reuters, but Zeit perfectly know what they are doing by publishing it in this form, even if the following is done by Reuters.
Then, Zeit - not Reuters - ask for your “comprehension” that they cannot “moderate” (i.e. censor) comments below “all news videos”, but then, this video is not a news video but one the finest propaganda masterpieces I’ve ever encountered.
Since, to the end of that video, there is an almost imperceptible cut where the minister (who’s paid about 20,000 € a month, possibly 13 or 14 times p.a., can’t say for sure) stops and addresses her (public relations?) aide standing to her right, asking for advice and tentatively suggesting, “Jetzt muss ich es noch irgendwie abbinden…” - I have heard that’s public relations speak, now using the technical intransitive verb setting (of cement or concrete) now transitive to hammer the “message” (cf. my musings supra about that term’s double-entendres) of your narrative into the recipient’s brain.
And now, submissive Zeit readers will multiply this de-information by sharing it, probably in the 6- or 7-digit numbers, all over the “social media”, and most of them - you all know the term of “info bubble” (and most other big “news"paper corporations in Germany have done similar, albeit not in such incredibly professional way…) will even believe they thus share “information”...
Whilst in fact, they will have been infoed, and now info (not inform, but de-form their addressees’ knowledge, “experience”, brains) half a million, or even millions, of other - who on their turn will do the same, all of them valeting the government and the government’s agenda.
Most (?) of’em people (not sure in this “Zeit” situation for the term “most”, since their readers think they’re are “elite”, many of them being paid, lavishly paid by the State, but the term “most” will certainly apply in general, for the masses that is) who seriously think they make use of their new empowerment, make use of “free speech”, and have their voice back finally: in a word, they think: it’s revolution time!
But then, Scott Heron all said it in 1970 already: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised:
“The revolution will be no re-run, brothers
The revolution will be live”
Obviously, that will be for next time if there is any which I doubt; this time, instrumenting you even better than ever before, they just had you, optimizing make-belief.
(And another 134 dead people, our’ass, some of’em obviously say.)
So that’s why I am so much against iPhone and the rest, and not even speaking of’em gps-sing an’spying on you an’all that.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Apr 11, 2022 at 12:16 PM
I am not a tech specialist, but having a foot in both Windows and Mac environments, I agree entirely with Bill. I hate Windows (which I probably would not, if I didn’t have the Mac experience to compare it to). And I find the apps for Mac to be far more creative and useful. For instance, I don’t think there is anything on Windows that compares to Agenda, Noteplan or OmniOutliner (with the possible exception of InfoQube) for elegance and utility. Admittedly, with so many of the apps I use regularly being browser-based, this distinction is becoming less crucial.
My computer service company, which is a two man team, used to be an Apple retailer, but Apple took the franchise away because they didn’t sell enough. They now are Lenovo dealers. If anyone would have a reason to resent Apple it is them. But when I spoke to them recently about getting a Window laptop to access browser apps, they told me I was crazy, that MacBooks are ten times the machines Windows PCs are. (They may not have said “ten times.”) They were eschewing a possible sale to recommend I stick with my Mac! That’s an endorsement that’s hard to ignore.
Steve Z.
MadaboutDana wrote:
>And that sums up the true reason for Apple’s popularity (as my elderly
>mother would agree): on the whole, it just works. No, it’s not perfect,
>but it’s far more reliable and elegant than anyone else out of the box
>(I’m aware that Linux proponents will argue that you can set up a far
>more reliable, far more secure ecosystem using all-Linux solutions, but
>don’t tell me they work out of the box!).
>
>For a sysadmin working at remote, this is a huge relief – not an
>invitation to totemic worship! ;-)
>
>There are also some truly gorgeous Apple apps out there. Just sayin’!