Monthly Archives: March 2018

Continuity error in a John Sandford novel?

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I’ve been reading John Sandford novels since he started writing them. Every Lucas Davenport, Virgil Flowers, Kidd book he’s written. And the handful of other characters and co-authored novels. In all of these books I don’t recall finding a continuity error. Every plot seamless. But I came across the following while re-reading Dark of the Moon (Virgil Flowers)

“Knock at the door. Bad news. Bad news always knocks quietly. He thought of his son in Minneapolis, this daughters in Alberta Lea and Santa Fe.’
— Page 111, Dark of the Moon

And just six pages later…

“This is brutal, Virgil said, standing with his hands in his jeans pockets. “The family hear yet?”
“Not much family, not that we k now of — maybe she has cousins. They never had children.”
— Page 117, Dark of the Moon

I checked and double checked and the reference is to the same minor character. I guess this could be explained by the speaker (a deputy) in the first quote not knowing the dead couple (locals) had children, but that’s a stretch.

Panache

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I spotted this in the parking lot of the Ecco Lounge here in Jefferson City. Belongs to one of the guys that work there. I’m going to try to learn the story behind this and share it here. Do you love the cup holder?

There is no way of transforming yourself

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“Wanting to overcome the mess and not have it anymore is precisely the mess. […] There is nothing anyone can do to be anyone else than who they are, or to feel any other way than the way they feel at this moment. […] There is no way of transforming yourself. The “you” that you imagine to be capable of transforming yourself does not exist.”

— Still the Mind (Alan Watts)

Distance yourself from social media

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That’s Mike Elgan’s advice and it resonates for me. If someone tells me they get their news from Fox and Breitbart that affects my opinion of that person. They don’t give a shit about my opinion, I get that. And if they spend hours a day on Facebook and Twitter (as I did for years), that tells me something about them.

Events this week prove that a social network’s public reputation can sour so suddenly and so thoroughly that, if you’re active on that network, it rubs off on you and damages the reputation of you or your company.

Elgan advises a return to older technologies.

The new imperative is to build your own social networks. Re-embrace older technologies that keep you in control of the access you have to fans, customers, colleagues and the public. […] Favor the content subscription model. Pour your energies and budgets into email newsletters, blogs with RSS feeds and podcasts.

Tapplock

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Let me say up front… I didn’t need this padlock. You probably don’t need this padlock. I was curious and I bought one (more on that later). Been playing with it for the last hour or so but I won’t try to explain the features because this guys does a better job than I could.

This thing — in my limited experience — works as advertised. And it seems very well constructed. Stores up to 500 prints; can be opened with your phone via Bluetooth (on-site or remotely); you can give limited (10 min) access to someone remotely; even has Morse Code backup if the battery goes dead. (2 hour charge lasts for one year)

Where might one use this? Barb has a house in Destin, FL with a coded door lock (runs on juice from the house). Installed and supported by a local company for x dollars a month. Works fine, most of the time.

But she has a storage room (with all the beach shit) that’s secured with a padlock and I guess the key is hidden somewhere close by. The Tapplock might be a better solution. First impression: pretty fucking slick.Yes, $99 is pricey. But how many padlocks have you purchased but now have no idea where the key is (see below). Or all those keys in the kitchen drawer that will never slip into a lock again?

Thanks to George Tergin for photos proving the point.

The mystique of vintage Land Rovers

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It’s been just over a year since I got the Land Rover bug and — with a little luck — my truck will be ready to ship by the end of the week, but probably a month before I have it (I assume this is what it would be like to be 12 months pregnant). I’ve watched a lot of vintage Land Rover videos on YouTube, including a few restoration series. The one by a Brit who calls himself Maximus Ironthumper is my favorite but I have high hopes for this one as well.

Watching these guys (I haven’t come across a female Land Rover mechanic yet) I’m struck by two things. First, how did they ever learn how to do this? Second, all of the tools required to restore and old truck. It takes a garage full of tools to tackle a project like this. (I have a hammer and a screwdriver) Let me add a third observation. How much fun these guys are having.

As far as I can tell, there are really only a couple of ways get a vintage (mine is a 1979 Series III) Land rover. You can drag one out of the weeds and spend a year or two rebuilding it… or you can pay someone to restore one for you (or purchase one that has been restored). As noted above, the first option takes a lot of time, experience/knowledge and a bunch of tools. The second involves a fair amount of risk, a bunch of money, and — in my case — a lot of patience.

The expression “They don’t make ‘em like that anymore” comes to mind. I’ve thought about this a bit since starting this project. Nobody is manufacturing 1979 Land Rovers anymore. And they never will again. Someone could build a reproduction but it won’t really be a 1979 Land Rover. However many there are, that’s all there will ever be. That’s real scarcity. And I wanted one. But that’s really not what hooked me (possessing something rare). I loved the look of these old trucks. And the simplicity. I have a minimalist itch that occasionally needs scratching.

A month from now I expect to be driving my Land Rover and we’ll see if the reality lives up to my imagination. Will it be fun to drive and mess with… or will it be a pain in the ass? Like the expectant first-time mom, there’s no going back now.

AirDrop

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The following excerpts are from a piece by Joe Tonelli (AirDrop Is Your iPhone’s Most Underrated Tool). I love this feature and, like Joe, use it daily to move file between my phone and my laptop.

AirDrop is kind of a miracle. Without any internet connection or cell service whatsoever, you can still send documents, photos, videos, nearly anything, between any Apple devices, as long as they are physically relatively close to each other. You might think you need a wireless network or cell service to send things because your iPhone will prompt you to turn on wifi and Bluetooth before you use AirDrop, but that isn’t the case. Apple is simply using the wi-fi’s radio signal to cleverly create an encrypted peer-to-peer connection between the devices. Once Bluetooth senses another device nearby, you’re in business.

One of the best things about AirDrop is that there appears to be no file size limit. I don’t think the importance of that fact can be overlooked. Consider the other primary ways of sharing items between computers. Assuming you don’t have AirDrop, you’d likely email something to someone (or to yourself). Gmail’s file size limit is 25MB. So you go through Google Drive, fine. However you’re still stuck with the lengthy process of uploading and then downloading the (presumably large) file. Without a solid internet connection (pretty much anything less than LTE or a reliable wi-fi connection) this will be near impossible or take hours and hours. Sure, wireless internet is nearly ubiquitous these days but even in NYC there are places where I don’t get signal (or don’t want to connect to public wifi).

Of course there are Apple alternatives like AnySend or Deskconnect, and interspecies options like Zapya or Xender for you Windowsheads out there. They largely accomplish the same thing, and I’m sure that software all works fine. But AirDrop is already on your damn phone.