Category: Digital Life

Watching the Flash with my son

Carl Setzer

My son and I have been watching the Flash on Netflix. It’s been a fun little bonding thing. 

I love the show. Watching Barry Allen, and the people surrounding him evolve really delights me. And the ensemble of cast and crew gel very well. 

We’ve made a pledge to not watch without the other, so that were in the same place in the continuum. Now I need to add that I grew up reading Flash comics. So there are times I see what’s coming since I now the new characters. But they’re done a good enough job tweaking their TV universe that you can’t assume a character’s comicbook identity will track. It’s a clever way to give homage to the DC legacy but not be terribly predictable. 

Now, at times they flirt with the edge of cheesy. Every one of their Christmas episodes makes me worry. Though I have a bias about the weird games screenwriters play with any sort of holiday, but they’ve done well so far. Yet, I still wonder about the need for holiday specials, but that’s just me. 

Now we’re about halfway through the second season. Netflix has through season three. It’ll be fun, especially if we get more seasons. If not, we’ll then move over to Arrow and keep the DC stream going. 

Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir Live “Cloudburst”

Carl Setzer

I love Eric Whitacre’s work. His music speaks deeply to me. His Virtual Choir pieces, though, achieves the highest levels of awesome.
This one, Cloudburst (where gets bonus points from me as he based on an Octavio Paz poem) is stunning. Inspired by a Midwestern thunderstorm, the song captures the audio essence of the storm. From a musical perspective, I adore his use of clapping and finger snapping to achieve the feel of heavy rain. And his interweaving of harmony and dissonance really strikes a chord (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun).

Regarding the virtual nature, in addition to the choirs in the auditorium we have 30 choristers in 30 countries, all Skyped in. Pushing the technical boundaries, too. I delighted at the way Eric dealt with the lag: the piece was written to use it. Turning a liability into an asset is genius.

So, please, enjoy Eric Whitacre’s virtual choir performing “Cloudburst” at a TED talk.

And now, Google Music

Carl Setzer

I value knowing what’s going on in the tech world. Yet, there is so much change, coming so fast, that sometimes I miss the obvious.

I subscribed to YouTube Red some time ago. My focus: ad elimination. So much of my family’s video time is spent on YouTube, so it was a prudent investment.

I didn’t realize that the subscription includes Google Music. I discovered this today, so used it as my music delivery mechanism. Music is such a core part of my being, that the way I access it has value.

I like the interface. So far, the selection has been solid. Spotify, of late, has been quite a resource hog. Accessing via a web browser seems to use resources better, or at least more gently.

Anyway, I’m exploring shifting over fully, and cancelling my Spotify account. I’ll be diving deeper into Google Music and share what I learn.

Contemporary Communications

Carl Setzer

A current cultural value: speed. Faster, faster…get more done sooner!

So, with that, one of my recent personal observations: I need to slow down. In the grand flurry of work, I find it easy to wrap myself up in the frenetic nature of life and reactively communicate. My most common culprit: email, though other medium catch that, too.

Taking that moment to consider “what am I trying to say?” and “what do I want to happen?”, then evaluating my content against those proves itself valuable again and again.

Also valuable: thinking through medium. Is an email the best tool to get the results I need? Sometimes I end up shifting to a phone call after a few emails where we talk past each other.

Quite often slowing down, getting focused on quality ends up being by far faster. In my experience, I find that true more often than not.

Two Items Of Geek Lust

Carl Setzer

Ok, two things caught my eye over the past few days.

Number 1: Over at BestBuy, the “Kwikset – Kevo Touch-to-Open Bluetooth Key and Electronic Smart Door Lock”

Being able to open my door via Bluetooth sounds so freakin’ cool! But $230 is a bit steep for this geek delight.

And number 2: The Rocket Wave Notebook

A reusable notebook! We write to our heart’s content, use the app to upload the creations to the cloud (Evernote, Dropbox, Google Docs…amongst many others), when the notebook is full, pop it in the microwave for a few moments and, presto, back to square one. One does need to write with their special pen, but otherwise, pretty much behaves like a standard, spiral bound notebook.

For less than $30, I’ll give it a try. I know it’s carried by OfficeDepot, not sure where else, if anywhere.

Learn more about it here.

 

I delight in finding these weird little doodads. Found anything you love? Let me know in the comments below!

Today: Of Note On The Internet

Carl Setzer

Dr. Anna Haus’ Forgotten Clinic In Germany

The most recent update from the Edge of Humanity, this one features many haunting images of this forgotten and neglected space.

I’ve always been fascinated by places like this, that people simply forgot. This home (I believe they both lived and worked out of this space) still has a Steinway!

How do such things slip from our consciousness? To the point of destruction by neglect.

That would be interesting to explore.

This is fascinating and worth reading.

My poetry site has been making me proud

Carl Setzer

I created this site a couple of years ago to be a focus for my poetry.

I didn’t think too much of it at the time. Just was following the advice to focus your content. My writings scatter across many interests, so I broke apart my stuff into more focused sites.

Well, A Poet’s Journey has done quite nicely. 1266 subscribers, and the most stable/solid stats (sessions, pageview, etc).

Funny that another experiment, Not Just Seattle, has taken up most of my vanity SEO. The Carl Setzer who opened a brewery in Beijing, getting featured by Fortune magazine, amongst others, has the lion share of SEO for my name. But my Keller Williams Realty page, and Not Just Seattle are on page 1 as well.

As of today, my namesake page, CarlSetzer.com, is on page 3. Crazy that an experiment took over the whole thing! And the site that’s getting the most action is down on page 3.

 

And the Google Docs Phishing Scheme Continues

Carl Setzer

I just got this message from my college (taking an AutoCAD class at Edmonds Community College). It’s the Google Docs phishing scam. You get an email from someone you know that has “shared a document on Google Docs with you”.

Rule #1 with this sort of thing: DON’T CLICK THE LINK!

This has been around the interwebs for some time. The very first of these I saw, I called the sender and asked. And I’m sure you know what they said.

Now, if someone says they got one of these from you, it’s possible your account’s been compromised. It’s also possible you’re being spoofed (someone forged your email address in the “from” spot…it’s pretty easy, actually). I recommend immediately changing your password, since it won’t hurt. You should be regularly changing your passwords, anyway (yeah, yeah…I know…).

Anyway, live your digital life with a healthy dose of suspicion. Trust but verify, and any of a number of other security-esque cliches.

Clearly this is starting to grow again. Here are two articles to explore this fun further (both posted today)

Practice safe computing!

 

 

Subject: “<some name you may recognize> has shared a document on Google Docs with you”

Message:

 

“_______ has invited you to view the following document:”

 

 “Open in Docs” <—– DO NOT click on this link!

————————————————————————————————————————————-

Do not open the document! Immediately mark the email as Spam or Delete it. This is a widespread phishing scam targeting Google Apps. If you accidentally opened the Doc, your email account may be compromised, and your email address will continue to send the scam to everyone in your contact list. Several people at EdCC have already been fooled by this scam, so you may receive this email from someone familiar, such as your instructor, staff at EdCC, or other students.

We urge you to change your password and visit your account security page in EdMail to verify the applications that have access to your data in Google Apps.

Working Past Exhaustion: A Recipe For Mistakes

Carl Setzer

Oh, the frustrations of long, long days!

I generally work normal work hours. Sure, at times I’m on my computer on weekends or after hours. But I’d be doing that anyways.

However, I’m taking an evening class right now. The class meets one night a week, so that demand isn’t that much. But after an 8+ hour day, a 3 hour class can get wearying. And the class is mostly sitting in front of a screen, which is what I tend to spend all day doing.

Tonight, by 8:45, I was pretty much toast. I hadn’t noticed it until I saw several dumb mistakes. And those mistakes caused me the aggravation of redoing about a 1/2 hour’s worth of work. Fortunately, it took less time to re-do than to do originally. But that means extra work, needless extra work.

I was clever enough, though, to see that and, after fixing the mistakes I’d made (at least I’m pretty sure I fixed them), I opted to stop.

At times, when effectiveness hits the floor…and punches right on through, any effort at all will be counter-productive. That’s a hard lesson to learn, internalize, and keep in mind regularly. I, too, suffer from the mindset that “if I only worked harder/more/whatever…”.

I know that sometimes the only way to be effective is to stop and rest, get my head back together and then restart.

It’s just living it that’s the challenge.

Fitbit Fun

Carl Setzer

Last night my Fitbit Blaze‘s charge dropped super low. This has rarely been a problem, but sometimes it makes things quirky when I first turn it on after the recharge. So, when I pulled it out of the charger this morning and the time was off by 3 some odd hours I didn’t think about it. Once I got in the car, I opened the app, pulled down to sync, and then proceeded to forget about it. Well, that didn’t work and the thing just didn’t sync.

Later, amongst other things I tried:

  • Restarted the Fitbit
  • Restart Bluetooth on my S7
  • Disconnect and attempt to re-pair the fitbit with the mobile app

Nothing worked. Then I had the idea I should’ve had far, far earlier: reboot the phone. And that’s what solved the problem.

Lesson: sometimes having deep understanding of systems can get in the way. Don’t overlook the easy answers early on. It’s far too easy to get hung up on the complex, deeper down solutions that you forget the simple/basic solves.

Duh!

Have you ever over-complexified a solution? What did you learn?