Category: I84D

An emoticon smile of a post

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Gull on a Spar

I’m a gull on a spar —so much sea,
so little far

this perch is so unsteady
I wonder what my bearings are

the roll and sway and pitch,
the other gull-calls I am hearing

as ship slides into ditch of trough,
this captain must be drunk the way he’s steering

or the helmsman is asleep, his compass eye is off,
the sluggish rudder’s answer is as drawn-out as a stutter

and I’m clinging to this spar like a baby to its mother
as the sun is going down wind screams or it is singing

the moon is coming up …—the image in that mirror,
is that me or is that other?

Jim Culleny
6/24/20

Via 3 Quarks Daily

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Sushi tacos:

“Sushi tacos” sounds like something you’d only find far, far away from Japan. It’s the sort of thing you expect to find at a strange, independent fusion cafe run by a guy who’s never had the opportunity to eat authentic Japanese food, or that your semi-Japanophile college buddy would press together out of two half-eaten sets of leftovers since his palate isn’t fully adapted to Japanese flavors yet.

But as it turns out, you can get sushi tacos in Japan right now, and at one of the country’s largest kaitenzushi (conveyor belt sushi) chains, Sushiro.

My first skeptical reaction was “how can a warm dish like tacos meet a cold dish like sushi?”

My first reaction was spot on: they don’t.

It’s a hard taco, with a crunchy tortilla shell, and inside you’ll find ground beef and pork, shredded lettuce, sliced onion, cheese, and vinegared sushi rice.

No sushi to be found other than it is delivered in a sushi restaurant.

I have eaten ceviche, fresh seafood pickled or “cooked” in citrus juice, presented in a tortilla like a taco. That is as close as I’d care to come to a sushi-taco fusion dish.

This is new:

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JavaScript enables many things. Requiring it for security to the point of denying readership is laughable at best. That I ran into this in my RSS feed reader where JS plays no role is, well, weird. I emailed the site under the assumption that it is a misconfiguration.

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A tool in the least useful senses of the word: Armed U.S. protesters enter Michigan capitol to demand lockdown end – Japan Today:

A person used as an instrument by another person; – a word of reproach; as, men of intrigue have their tools, by whose agency they accomplish their purposes.

I was not made for a minion or a tool
– Burks.

Also, an obscene terms for penis; – a stupid, irritating, or contemptible man.

That guy is such a tool.
– Jorgensen.

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Recently a lot of Apple-ish writers spent their e-ink reserves reviewing the new iPad Pro Magic Keyboard. The reviews vary from Very Good to Glowing. I’m going the other direction. I’m getting rid of my iPad Pro.

I had a clear use case when I got the iPad Pro 12.9″ S2 (2017?) in Japan a few or more years ago. The 2015 MacBook Air issued by work was underpowered with a low resolution screen. I asked for a MacBook Pro 13″ but was denied (a topic for another post). I realized that I could do almost everything I needed on the iPad. What bits I could not work on with the iPad rarely had any urgency, so those bits waited for the MBA. I registered my BYOD iPad Pro in the corporate MDM.

Part of my use case was the Japanese work day: I would travel by train into the office or a client site, I would move around to other sites and coffee shops, and I would go home by train. Sometimes, a drinking party after work popped up. All of these were easy places to lose a laptop, which would be a thing. The iPad? Remotely wipe-able and less easily hackable.

The iPad Pro pencil was kind of nice. I could pair a Bluetooth keyboard for heavier work. I bought the keyboard folio which I then rarely used because it was so bad for my typing experience. Pairing a Magic Keyboard was far more useful, or even the old Logitech K810 was better for me than the Apple product. I sold the iPad Pro keyboard folio for the same price I purchased it.

Personally the iPad was good for consuming occasional media, though the case I bought – a generic hard case with a folio-type lid – lacked the rigidity I had come to expect from the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (which I sold to pay for the iPad). The result was that the iPad would sometimes smack me in the face after I fell asleep with it propped up on my chest. The F… fine thing split my lip more than once. I’m still surprised I didn’t fling the thing off my 37th story balcony out of frustration.

Regardless, and made better by my not having made it an illegal flying disk from my balcony, by the time I left Japan I recouped my sunk investment in the iPad Pro. It delivered enough utility over the two-ish years, personally and professionally, that it was a good investment.

When I returned to the US my workflow changed. The new work-issued MBA, an underpowered 2019 model, had a better display if lousy keyboard (and a US keyboard at that – I vastly prefer the Japanese keyboard, but that’s another post). The customers I supported didn’t allow extra devices in their sites. My work issued iPhone XS Max was the one mobile (read: non-laptop) device allowed. When I was out and about on my own time I detested pulling out the iPad because of its size.

I commented on this site about a year ago that I should have bought an iPhone SE instead of the iPhone XS Max and an iPad Mini instead of the iPad Pro. I don’t have an SE, but I bought myself a 5th generation iPad Mini for my birthday. It is almost the perfect device for me. There was rarely an instance where the iPad Pro was a better choice for me than the Mini. It had become a sometimes third monitor for my work MBA. I do wish the iPad Mini had more storage.

Now it is repurposed as a general purpose machine for my sister’s family while they remote school their kids and telecommute for work.

To be clear, I think the iPad Pro is one of the best pieces of technology available today. The hardware is the best an average person (with the appropriate budget) can get. The OS is the weak link with the cost of the accessories the second biggest drag on the platform.

The new iPad Pro Magic Keyboard is not for me, just like the iPad Pro is not for me. My needs will change, and maybe these tools will become useful to me again. Your mileage may vary.

For those considering an iPad Pro, I suggest saving money by going with a 10.2 model (or Air or Mini) with a regular Magic Keyboard and a Magic Trackpad. The whole thing will cost less, weigh less, be more portable, and offer more flexibility. YMMV.

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I read all four Murderbot Diaries novellas by Martha Wells last weekend. Well, actually it was about a 36 hour stretch from Friday evening to Sunday morning in between working on a big proposal. The fast read was due to two chief factors.

  1. The novellas start with the shortest one first and get longer as the series progresses; and
  2. It was a fun adventure story.

For science fiction books there is actually very little science fiction in the story. Those elements are often window dressing or “magic”, in the best sense in both cases.

I am excited for the first novel in the series, Network Effect, which is due next week. Tor Books, in preparation, offered the four novellas for free the week before I read them. I took advantage. I am glad I did.