works of wanderlust

Category: technology & toys

I am a nerd by nature and a geek by trade, and I have a few things to say about all kinds of technology from enterprise platforms to playful games.

  • social games

    I spent nearly a decade feeding the massive social media networks like Facebook and Instagram with my creative output.

    What did it get me?

    I could tell you that I learned some skills in social media engagement, but that would be a bit of an exaggeration because an invisible algorithm did most of the work.

    I could tell you that it gave me an excuse to write and create, but that would be something of a cop out because one shouldn’t need such excuses to practice one’s craft.

    I could tell you that it gave me an audience, but honestly I could have currated an email list of my friends and family and had nearly as many eyes to see what I made.

    What it really did was create value for someone else.

    What the social media networks never admit is that the house is only one guaranteed to win, and it’s always their house. Sure, some folks hit a jackpot and walk out richer and wiser, but most of us spend our creative chips and they vanish into the coffers of the app or network.

    I can’t tell you that you shouldn’t play the social media game, but I can suggest that there are far fewer winners there than there are the rest of us. And I can tell you that I have lately been, and will continue to be, putting more effort into building my own (much smaller and less social) networks with my creative energies.

    I wrote the first half of this post as a professional reflection on social media itself and maybe as a bit of shrouded advice about starting your own blog. But the truth is I’m feeling a little more than bitter about the whole thing. In fact feel more than a bit taken by these systems. Conned. Duped. Played. As have almost all of us.

    I remember participating in the early forum sites. Usenet, in particular, was really pretty much a crude ancestor of Facebook or Reddit: alt.movies.obsessive the joke went. But there was never any pretense that we were doing anything besides chatting with passing strangers, ghosts in the night, words on a screen that we knew were some other person but that person maintained a reputation that was as transient as the dial up connection.

    Obligatory Simpsons reference? Check out Radioactive Man Issue #42 for more explanation, huh?

    What we really did with the social media networks was recreate fame. We invented a way for people to be famous online, and if they were already famous offline to milk that fame even more online. The social networks invented the online celebrity: the influencer, so now rather than clambering to become a tv star or a movie a-lister, anyone with a smartphone, anyone posting anything, anyone participating was really just auditioning for the i-list.

    That was the whole game: the whole point of creating from that moment on was to build a following, become noticed, attract clicks, and generate revenue from it all. The new dream: and we all dreamed that dream because participating was playing was dreaming.

    Even now, you may be reading this going: well, what’s the point then? Why are YOU writing a blog if not to have people read it, if not to create content that persists and, in playing all that, rolls the dice on internet celebrity?

    I don’t know. I don’t know how to break free of that idea other than to do what I have been inclined to do from the beginning: share for the love and zen of sharing, and simply hope that it is enough to exist in a quiet corner of this infinite internet casino avoiding putting any more tokens into the house than needed to keep from getting booted out the door.

  • books if by foot

    I bought a new ebook reader.

    I mean, I don’t really want to go on and on about it. I don’t think I need to elaborate too much on the simultaneous desire to read more “literature” versus doomscrolling on the net. I don’t think I need to bemoan the need to get away from suckling at the teat of Amazon whose billionaire owner has leaned hard into modern corporate fascism. I don’t think I need to to explain the simple techno-joy in upgrading a beloved device to a newer, fancier version. I don’t think so.

    But I upgraded.

    I bought one of the nicer Kobo colour ereaders.

    What I wanted to write about instead of all those other things was that I’ve taken to walking while I read. You know—going for a stroll outside along the clear and obstacle free asphalt paths with my ebook in my hand and just snarfing through a half dozen chapters.

    I’ve completed three books inside of one week, and I’ve got three more on the go. Three!? Yeah. Some fiction, some light non-fiction, and then a big old economics text for when I’m freshly caffienated.

    I dunno.

    Maybe it’s a phase.

    Maybe I’ll get over it. Maybe I’ll trip and hurt myself. Maybe I’ll decide I’d rather look at nature than another screen. But for now, the spring muck is still pretty brown and the world is still pretty empty and the book reader is still pretty new, and I’m enjoying checking some books off my reading list from somewhere besides the couch.

  • Moka Express

    In my quest to find a great replacement for my afternoon cup of coffee, having ditched the pod machines and spent a solid year tuning and enjoying my pour over game, Santa was kind enough to bring me a moka pot for Christmas this year.

    And I’ve been having a great, well-caffeinated time learning to use it.

    As I understand it, the moka pot is a bit old fashioned. Originating in Italy, it was a popular home brewing gadget after the Second World War but prior to the proliferation of the drip machine.

    A three part contraption, the funnel-filter in the middle is filled with ground coffee and as the water boils in the bottom chamber it pressure-rises through and up, percolating and filling the upper chamber with espresso-like coffee.

    The result is not a true espresso, though it’s close. An yet it’s much stronger than drip coffee.

    I’ve been mixing hot-to-boiling water into mine at a ratio of roughly 1 part moka brew to 2 parts water, and the result is an almost-Americano-like drink that is full of flavour and body in a way that even my best drip coffee pour overs have trouble achieving.

    About a scoop and a half of ground coffee fills the filter and less than ten minutes on my simmer burner has a steaming cup of better-than-average-joe in my mug and ready to fuel the afternoon office push of video meetings and budget plotting and government paperwork.

    None of this is push button, but between my pour overs (which are cheap, fast, and simple) and my moka pot americanos (which are slower, use a bit more raw ingredients, but overall tastier) I think I’m narrowing in on some old fashioned solutions to a modern problem: single serve simple afternoon coffee for the work-from-home desk jockey.

    At the end of the day, my whole scheme here is one of reducing the number of plastic, disposable pods I formerly used to create mediocre (and relatively expensive) afternoon cups. Pour overs and moka pots are about exploring something quick and easy in the coffee brewing effort.

    And overall I’m rating this adventure quite high.

    Also… the Coffee Singularity Has Arrived

    I asked ChatGTP how to make coffee with a moka pot. Here’s it’s answer:

    A Moka pot, also known as a stovetop espresso maker, is a simple and traditional way of making coffee. Here’s the basic process for using a Moka pot to make coffee:

    1. Fill the bottom chamber of the Moka pot with cold water, up to the level of the pressure valve.
    2. Add ground coffee to the metal filter basket in the middle chamber, tamping it down lightly.
    3. Assemble the Moka pot by placing the middle chamber with the coffee and filter basket on top of the bottom chamber with the water. Make sure the gasket and filter plate are properly in place.
    4. Place the Moka pot on the stovetop over medium heat. Do not use high heat or let the water boil.
    5. As the water in the bottom chamber heats up, it will begin to create pressure, forcing the water through the coffee and into the top chamber. Once the coffee has started to fill the top chamber, you can hear a gurgling noise, at this point you can remove it from the heat to prevent the coffee from getting burned.
    6. Once all the water has passed through the coffee, the pot will make a distinctive “hissing” sound, indicating that the coffee is ready. Carefully pour the coffee into cups, being careful not to burn yourself on the steam or hot metal.

    Note that, Moka pot often extract a strong coffee with a bold, rich flavor and a thick crema on top. Also remember, to clean the pot after each use, to ensure that you’ll always get the best flavor out of your coffee.

  • Clock Works

    As my 101 year old grandmother transitions between living situations, she found herself giving away some of her most carefully curated possessions.

    At some point in the last forty-six years I (apparently, though unintentionally) impressed upon her that my (genuine) interest in her cuckoo clock, the same clock that hung on the wall of her house for most of my childhood, the same clock that my (late) grandfather would wind daily by pulling the chains down to the floor each night, the same clock that would fascinate us with it’s animations when we visited, that such a clock should end up on my wall some day.

    That day was today.

    I am feeling a little emotional and humbled, to be honest.

    As my parents and relatives assisted with the job of packing up her room and sorting out what needs to move to the next place, my grandmother firmly asserted that the clock was to go to me.

    So, suddenly there I was, with something of a family heirloom in a heap on my kitchen table after a short delivery visit by my folks.

    As it turns out, my grandmother got tired of the tick-tocking and hourly cuckoos about fifteen years ago, so the beautiful beast has done little more than hung lifeless on her wall as a decoration for that whole time.

    I hung it up, set it up, reset it all, and … the ticking doesn’t tock as well as it used to.

    The pendulum ticks and tocks for a few seconds… or a few minutes… as long as eight minutes once, keeping accurate time for a fraction of an hour, but then tick-tock-tick… tick…. tick… silence.

    I opened it up to see if there was something obviously wrong, but clock works are not my specialty (nor, if I’m being completely honest, a thing that I have anything other than a passing experience) in diagnosing or fixing.

    So, for the moment, the family clock is hanging decoration-like on my wall looking sharp and elegant and like it belongs there. But thus starts an adventure to restore it to the glory of the 70s and 80s and those days I remember from my youth, and to bring back the ticks, tocks and maybe even a cuckoo or two.

  • Inflatable Summer

    December 7 of 31 December-ish posts

    Following my (un)inflatable winter, when last spring finally rolled around I was able to unpack my inflatable kayak from it’s box, spread it out on my small backyard lawn, and figure out how to work this fabulous new toy that had spent the winter taunting me from my basement storage room.

    What excited you most in 2022?

    We took the new kayak out multiple times over the spring and summer.

    Our inaugural trip was a twelve klick journey down part of the river that winds through the middle of our city, the dog perched with her paws on the edge of the craft and all of us watching the world drift by as we slowly paddled downstream to where we’d left our truck.

    The rest of the season had us carting the gear around the province in the back of our car wherever else we found ourselves travelling. To the lake with friends where the boat rarely left the water for the entire day as everyone took turns, or out to the mountains for a chilly traverse of an expansive reservoir, we pumped, paddled, and deflated our new vessel on many of our little local adventures.

    Enjoy some photos I didn’t get around to posting earlier this year.

    Our not-so-new-anymore kayak is all dried and folded up for the winter, now, but I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of it next year again.