Tag: iphone

A couple of things

On By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching1 Comment
  1. no-bullshitWent ahead and installed iOS 8 on the old phone despite the fact that the new phone shows up tomorrow.  No particular feelings about it at the moment; cosmetically it’s about the same.  I think I’m going to grow to like the predictive text feature and the HealthKit app scares the crap out of me.
  2. I am fully aware that every employed person in the world thinks that their job is either entirely bullshit or at least contains elements that are bullshit, but I swear to you that there is no bullshit more bullshitty and lame and insulting than education-related professional development.  It cost a thousand dollars plus just for the hotel rooms for my team to attend this required PD today and within fifteen minutes of the start of the thing they were asking grown people with Master’s degrees to stand up in front of a roomful of people and put napkins on their heads.  I have decided I am going to start to be actively rude when asked to participate in this sort of nonsense.  My salary costs taxpayers too much for these fuckers to waste my time.
  3. That said, the beds at the Hilton Garden Inn in Fishers, Indiana are outstanding.  I want one in my house.  And the sheets, and the comforter.  I have seriously never slept so well in a hotel bed.  I didn’t want to get up this morning at all.

Tomorrow will also be quiet, as I’m double-shifting and won’t have time to write, and right now I don’t have an early morning post scheduled.  However, big thing coming on Saturday to make up for it.

ALERT

On By Luther M. SilerIn GeekLeave a comment

Mischief managed.

Wanna hear a funny story?

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy3 Comments

Apple’s located in California.

12:01 AM *Pacific* time.  Not Eastern.

Fuuuuuuuck that.

Old defeats nerdery!  Flawless victory!  Fatality!

Oh that’s JUST GREAT

On By Luther M. SilerIn Geek, idiocy6 Comments

I will never stop being entertained and/or completely creeped out by the search queries that lead to my blog:

Screen Shot 2014-09-11 at 4.49.50 PM

I want so badly to know what the unknown search terms are each day, guys.  So badly.

Tonight will be an interesting test; my nerdery will be put head-to-head against my advancing age and inertia.  I want to stay up to preorder an iPhone 6 (12:01 AM provided no technical issues, and we allll know there are gonna be technical issues) but I am old and I like sleep and I have to work tomorrow.  Will I make it?  Or will I go “fuck it,” and get up a little early tomorrow, and maybe omg end of world have to wait an extra week for my new shiny to arrive?

Keep in mind that I waited in line for three days for tickets for Episode One, and do not regret it.  I am an old hand at this shit.  The problem is the “old” bit is literal.

We’ll see what happens.

In which gimme gimme gimme

On By Luther M. SilerIn Geek11 Comments

101985502-Screen_Shot_2014-09-09_at_2.20.27_PM.530x298No one is more surprised than me– mostly because no one but me cares– to discover that Apple’s big nerd prom today has probably sold me a Pebble Steel.  I love my Pebble– it is, hands down, my favorite piece of technology since my first cell phone– but I was fully expecting to trade it in for Apple’s smart watch when they finally got around to introducing one, mostly on account of I’m wearing what looks like a piece of cheap plastic on my wrist.  I didn’t want an iWatch because of the functionality; I wanted one because it would look more like a watch a grown-up should be wearing.

Reactions are unsurprisingly mixed, but I love the look of the thing, and I love the word “fluoroelastomer,” but I don’t love the fact that they didn’t mention battery life other than, apparently, claiming that you’d charge it “every night.”  I have gotten used to wearing a watch to bed because my watch is also my alarm clock.  I don’t ever want to be awakened by a sound again, folks; that’s how much better a wrist vibration is as an alarm clock.  It’s wonderful.  And if the Apple Watch doesn’t have at a minimum four or five days in between charges (which is about what I get with the Pebble) I don’t want it.  I won’t spend $350 (minimum!) on a watch that I can’t use as an alarm clock.  That’s half the reason I have a smart watch.

Now, the iPhone 6, on the other hand, is an auto-buy.  My phone is reaching the end of its useful life (I’m having to have to have a charging cord with me at all times) and plus I’ve long since accepted the fact that I’m the guy who gets a new phone almost every year anyway.  So there is no if dimension to the upgrade, only when.  And I could go into the details of the when except I’m pretty sure this post is already nerdy enough.  Needless to say it involves deciding whether I’m less pissed at Sprint for having shitty service or Verizon for generically being assholes.  I’m tilting toward going back to Verizon except that involves porting my number over in time to still preorder the phone, which is, uh, kinda complicated, blah blah blah nerdwank nerdwank.

What did normal people think about today?

In case you ever thought I was smart

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy3 Comments

Screen Shot 2014-07-16 at 11.07.47 AM

I’d like to point out that Chuck Wendig is a Real Author and this is therefore somewhat more humiliating than it ought to be.  I have literally been complaining about “ducking” since I got an iPhone and this is the first time it’s been pointed out to me that ducking actually is a goddamn verb.

I is a writar!

SQUIRREL!

On By Luther M. SilerIn Reviews, TeachingLeave a comment

photo

I live in the future now; I’ve upgraded my two iThings to iOS 7, which means that for right now I’m fascinated and playing with the NEWSHINY and very soon I will be crying about battery drain and other horrible things and something I liked will stop working.  (My prediction for the first gripe:  while I like the new Control Center, I’ve already activated it accidentally several times while swiping around on websites.  This is going to be a problem.  Also, the battery drain on the phone is so horrendous that I’m predicting I already know what the first thing they address with an update is going to be.)

I also have iTunes Radio now, which is going to be a Pandora killer, I think.  Then again, I created an Atmosphere station first off (my favorite Pandora station) and right now it’s playing a song called “My Dick.”  Which is… something.  For sure.

(The song contains the line “We got dicks like Jesus,” by which I assume they mean circumcised, and I immediately forgive it.)

It’s been an uncommonly good couple of days at school, and my two biggest dickheads both got suspended today, so it ought to be a decent few more days as well until they come back.  While this year has been pretty high stress in terms of things not involving my classroom, I’m continually amazed at how well the Don’t Yell at Kids policy is affecting my actual teaching.  I almost never raise my voice in the classroom anymore; it’s amazing.  And it’s not just that I’ve got better behaved students this year, although that’s part of it– I don’t have to raise my voice in the morning class either, and that group, pound-for-pound, ought to be worse than either of my groups were last year.

Not much else right now, I don’t think, although I plan on gluing myself to the computer once the boy goes to sleep later– I need to get working on my two grant applications and there’s no good TV on tonight.  Plus iTunes Radio needs a good workout.  We’ll see if I find it superior to Pandora or not.

I almost forgot– add this awesome person to your blogroll and start reading her immediately.  Because I said so.