Two Great Techs That Tech Great Together (part one)

This was going to be a single entry, but it ran a bit longer than I meant it to, and the flow got lost along the way. That other half is an impression of the recently-released Microsoft Surface Duo. I bring this up because I want to make clear that I do in fact consider ink and paper to be technology. I'm even going to be that hoity-toity type and stake the claim ink and paper is the most important technological breakthrough in human history. Simply put, we found a way to make words easily-transferrable from person to person across time and space. If that's not a breakthrough, I don't know what is. 

I forgot my wallet today at breakfast. Fortunately, I was with my roommate and the place is practically down the street from us, so I was there and back again inside of 5 minutes. My French toast had just arrived and my coffee was still hot. When it came time to pay at the register, I noticed the tap symbol on their card reader and asked if they took Apple Pay. They did not. From what I understand, it's some kind of opt-in feature on card readers and most restaurants simply don't bother. By contrast, the place we used to go to for breakfast before the pandemic claimed they took Apple Pay, but it never worked. 

Over my life, I've had many different types of wallet. The one I probably had the longest was a chain wallet. They're sometimes called skater's wallets, but the first time I had ever seen one, it was labeled as a trucker's wallet. It was a good, sturdy little number whose only serious issue was its button closures as they would bite off the corners of the cards placed in it, including my driver's license. The chain was useful for keys when I was still working retail at the electronics counter. I even had a convenient little pen on a carabiner. Overall, it was secure, durable, and versatile to the point it almost made up for eating cards. 

The wallet I had immediately after that one was an old neoprene case for my MiniDisc player. It was a bit bulky, but at least if I had to put it in my back pocket, I could sit down without feeling like I was sitting on a brick. That's probably the best example of something being repurposed as a wallet this side of an Altoids tin. Some time later, I remembered a cigarette case my brother had given me and my fellow groomsman. I didn't smoke, neither did he, nor did most of his friends, but they're just about the size of a credit card, and the little straps or springy paddles used to hold the cigarettes in place was a decent way of keeping cash folded. I gathered a small assortment of those, but rather than a daily driver, they ended up being storage for rarely-used cards or business cards I'd gathered over the years. A Gerber knife served as a money clip for a few years before I got sick of the clip scratching up the cards. It was a bad situation; either you had the numbers of your cards partially visible, or you wound up erasing the signature off the back (along with those 3-4 little numbers you need to verify your purchases). 

Fortunately, when it's holstered, it doesn't look like a knife, meaning far less nervous looks when I reach for my wallet to pay for something upon hearing the total. 

I don't carry cash with me anymore. If I ever do have cash, it's because someone's given it to me. The last time I had cash, I ended up making some Girl Scouts very, very happy. I feel embarrassed asking if their parents have one of those card reader add-ons for their phones. I've been seeing those more often at fairs, conventions, swap meets, and the like, but I imagine it may create some liabilities for the Girl Scouts if parents are effectively becoming the middlemen in the transaction as opposed to the cashbox being the intermediary. 

Sidenote: I don't buy into the whole conspiranoid narrative about a cashless society. For all intents and purposes, we've been living in a cashless society since the 1960s when the Gold Standard was phased out by Nixon. Call me paranoid, but the only reason I can see for anyone to insist on cash in this day and age is not wanting a paper trail. Maybe I'm simply not enough of a thorn in the government's side to be worried about waking up an unperson with a few keystrokes and mouse clicks. You say Doubleplusgood, I say Viddy Well. 

This is Holst. Everyone assumes he's named for a holster. He isn't, though that does tend to be a common nickname when we just don't know what to do with him sometimes. 

This is my current wallet. I bought it from the Rooster Teeth website a little over 2 years ago and it's been great. I only have 3 cards in it including my driver's license. I like how lightweight it is, even if it does occasionally mean leaving it in my other pants. 

Instagram has been a surprisingly big influence on nearly all of my major purchases of late.

Lately I've been seeing advertisements for something called the Sketch Wallet. It was a very successful crowdfunding campaign that's surprisingly still going strong this long after the campaign ended. The typical story with crowdfunded projects is once the initial production run of the bright, shiny object is sold out, the creators have scattered to the winds and moved on to other bright, shiny projects. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; clearly whatever niche needed to be filled has been left a happy customer. Those who were on the fence or wanted to wait and see missed the bus and simply have to wait for another one. Such is life. 

I doubt those lukewarm would-be customers would have to wait especially long, if at all, since there's nothing all that special about the idea of this wallet. It is essentially a travel journal. You could find its cousin in any office supply or stationary store as it's simply a small notebook with a leather (or fabric) cover that just so happens to have a slot or two for some cards and maybe cash. 5 minutes of searching could probably land you a half-dozen DIY patterns to breathe new life into that old purse or those the legs from your cut-offs if you were feeling adventurous. Speaking of adventure, try looking up "passport covers," though the real adventure may be trying to find a notebook that fits the standard 125x88mm size.   

What the guys behind Sketch Wallet have done to stand out from the crowd is appeal to artists. As I said, pocket (refillable) notebooks are nothing new. Similarly, pocket sketchbooks are nothing new, but applying the "it's also a wallet" label is admittedly a not-too-well-worn path to tread. That said, I'm going to try and read all of your minds and guess your impressions of this product thus far. 

"It's too big and bulky to be a wallet and too small and insubstantial to be a sketchbook." 

Was I right? 

Credit where credit is due, it is abundantly clear that the crew behind the Sketch Wallet knows their audience. They're not simply appealing to artists to stand out from similar products, but because they understand those products don't quite tick all the right boxes that artists may need in a small, refillable sketchbook. For starters, travel journals are typically for writing, an informal iteration of the classic reporter's notebook, or a less ephemeral take on Post-It notes. The Sketch Wallet, by contrast, offers their refills in a small variety of styles, including blank (obviously), dotted (the minimalist's graph paper), and tan-toned. 

There are currently three sizes of wallet. The smallest size has pages about the size of an index card folded in half, distinctly rectangular. The medium wallet (arguably the most popular given most of the available options are sold out) is almost square. This was the marketing blurb that convinced me without question these dudes were on the level: 

"great for Instagram"

Albeit pickings are slim on their happy medium, the refills are still readily available and even without the cover are a decent value. They come in packs of 3 with 60 pages (30 sheets) apiece for around 10USD. For comparison, the Moleskine Cahier style notebook also comes in packs of 3 for around the same price, though offering 80 pages (40 sheets), the major difference being not square and not offering any sort of toned paper option. We could entertain a healthy debate about which is the better value. However, just like the awful truth about your precious, precious cash is that the value is in the eye of the beholder. Indispensable to you is redundant to me is intriguing to her is useless to him. 

I've been a card-carrying member of the man-purse club since at least November of 2017 as I take my iPad with me everywhere. Along with the iPad is at least one Moleskine notebook (typically graph paper). This is completely, 100% normal for me. 

The patch does serve a distinctly practical purpose. It covers up an old employer's logo.

A term that often gets brought up with many new gadgets and life hacks and the like is "A solution looking for a problem." it's one we hear more and more, but it also seems to be losing some of its stigma. As our avenues for communication spread and grow, direct feedback and specialized manufacturing allows for a more tailored end user experience. While I have little to no use for a less-than-agreeably-sized sketchbook pulling double duty as a wallet for my shrinking library of embossed plastic and laminated paper, it's obvious there are people out there who have been waiting their whole lives for this little gizmo. 

Speaking of which:

Next time, Gadget... Next time.

Dropped a Pin in my Coffee on Twitter

OR:

The Painful Sting of Spam

When I posted my Ko-Fi link to Twitter and pinned it to the top, I was very surprised by the response it got. It got a number of likes, and even a few retweets. I was very appreciative of this. Unfortunately, it also got replies in the form of spam. A self-proclaimed artist who steals most of his assets and then slaps his own name on them has a habit of posting spam links on forums on Thingiverse. He's been banned from Thingiverse at least twice by now, and had some of his models taken down on other sites for violating the Creative Commons agreements on his stolen assets. I've written about him several times and talked with many of the artists he's ripped off. I've openly mocked him, for which I make no apology, and he's done absolutely nothing to prove me wrong. 

There was retribution, however. It's extremely petty retribution, but annoying in its toxicity nonetheless. 

The way many sites handle spam is not to delete the comment so much as obfuscate it. The first time I saw this was on DeviantART, when I was dealing with an art thief and all-around bully who didn't quite understand how comments worked. What would normally have gone in a private message or even the main comment thread on my profile page went straight onto my most recent upload. I didn't want to outright delete the comment because that would leave a "comment deleted by artist" label, which looks really tacky and potentially makes it look like I'm censoring criticism rather than cleaning up spam. The matter's academic by now since DeviantART handles comments a little differently since then, and this particular individual had been banned before for similar behavior, so now those comments have their own special sort of "There Once Was a Hole Here" label. In short, he's gone and I get to save face. 

Bringing it all back to the semi-current situation (I did this circa October of last year and kind of forgot about it until today while rearranging my Wordpress page), this spammer replied to my pinned tweet about my Ko-Fi page with his own damn site. Now, you would think I could simply delete a tweet that is a reply to my own post, but Twitter isn't set up that way; every reply is a comment unto itself, so to speak. This isn't necessarily a problem, except that when it comes to spam, what I would hope should be an obvious thing to spot, Twitter likes to give the benefit of the doubt a little too much. It's funny to me how much people complain about Twitter being trigger-happy with suspending accounts and deleting tweets that are barely offensive, while I can't seem to get spam off my own pinned tweet. 

If I pin a tweet linking my own Ko-Fi page, how does a reply that's nothing more than a URL to someone else's website not qualify as spam? Better question, when he replies two or three times with the same URL to his own site, how is that not spam? Why does that report need to be queued? Harassment and bullying can have a lot of reasonable doubt to it when it isn't outright racist or life-threatening, but a URL with no context posted multiple times not only to me, but to several others virtually picked at random should be as open and shut a case as it gets. 

It may seem that the obvious solution would be to block the user in question. Sure, but blocks aren't retroactive. Yeah, my page would effectively be invisible to him, as he would also be to me, but everything he's already posted as replies to my tweets are still there, and still visible to anyone else. It's literally the same problem as reporting his replies as spam. The only difference is that the spam may eventually be dealt with, whereas if I block, the best I can hope for is he gets banned and all his tweets receive the unperson treatment. 

Sadly, it seems Twitter is holding onto a very archaic idea of what spam is. They're more than welcome to prove me wrong, but it's based on whether or not they think there's a real person behind it or simply a bot programmed by someone and left to run. I don't know if these are really a thing anymore (I haven't seen them on Twitter in years, and they only cropped up on Instagram for about a month before disappearing), but there used to be these "promotional service" accounts that would temporarily take control of your account and tweet a self-promotion on your behalf. It would seek out relevant hashtags and then add your message as a reply. For example, if you were trying to push your 3D printing services, your stock reply would show up attached to any tweet that used the hashtag "3DPrinting" or whatever. If this sounds like a bot, that's exactly what it is, but here is where things get a bit Kafkaesque. The bot works at a speed that is only about equal to a human being. That is, there's enough of a delay between posts that it could just as easily be done by someone casually browsing the hashtags and typing up the reply themselves. The idea is twofold, that this tricks any automatic algorithms searching for hummingbird levels of communication, and that it doesn't violate Twitter's terms of service anyway because it's self-throttling. 

I've heard some sects of the Amish have a similar attitude about technology, that there's nothing wrong with them using a machine to do a job, so long as it only works as well as a person or an animal. That's fine for them, but Twitter isn't trying to maintain a lifestyle consistent with a particular era of history. Spam in 1998 is no different than the spam of 2018, and every bit as irritating and unwelcome. The only difference is that I am fundamentally lord and master of my e-mail's inbox, while my social media page is a little more democratic by comparison. The former is a letter SLIPPED UNDER my door while the latter is a wheat-pasted flyer SLAPPED ON my door. 

My point is Twitter may be more aggressive with spam than I am giving them credit for, but my experience has not given me any reason to rethink my position to the contrary. When I flag something as spam, and it only hides it from my view until the report is deemed worthy of action at a later point in time (possibly never), that is not even addressing half the problem. I don't want my front door used as someone else's billboard, and the fact that I can't see it from inside my house is not peace of mind. 

Basically, I wanted to use a paint scraper, but had to get a new front door. I deleted the pinned tweet (which I hated doing), reposted it (likely to the annoyance of followers), and repinned it (effectively erasing all the likes and retweets along with the spam). Twitter, we need a better solution than this. 

Adblock Mendel Test

It is better to believe in science. 

Look, whatever happens with this Adblock campaign to "use ads to get rid of ads," or whether or not you agree with Gene Lee's point of view (about how him working hard sans pay justifies passing judgment on how others earn an income), one fact remains above all else: I cannot tell you not to use Adblock. I don't have that right, something I don't believe the "minds" behind the Adblock campaign have any respect for. 

You are adults, and if you're not technically an adult, you at least want to be treated like one. As such, all I can ask is that, if you use Adblock, please use it responsibly. What do I mean by that? Simple, you understand that while certain content creators insist on not being paid for what they provide for your entertainment or even insist you put up with a few ads, that is not the case for all, and it is unfair to judge or otherwise ostracize them for it. If you do not like the content someone produces on their site, nothing obliges you to continue visiting their site. If, however, you enjoy their content and frequent their pages, all we ask is that you acknowledge the time and effort put into their work, that there are real and legitimate expenses to producing even the most barebones text weblog. Your internet access bill does not offset those costs. That's access, not content. That's a road, not the stores along the road. After all, wouldn't you rather more of your money went to the sites you enjoy than simply everything all at once? Moreover, whatever you're unable to contribute to those sites can be aided by advertising. The point is you have options, very few of them essentially bad. 

Here's where I have to get a little mean: If you're upset by this, or you think what's being asked of you right now is unreasonable or unfair to you, or if you disagree with the outlooks and viewpoints I'm here advocating, that's fine. You are more than welcome to disagree with me, but I do want you to do something for me. I want you to get a piece of paper and something to write with (or open a new text file) and make an itemized list of what makes someone a sellout in your view. If someone says anything along the lines of what I've said above, put that there. If someone earns any amount of money from something you don't think is a proper job, put that there. If someone offers something for sale in addition to whatever they may give away, put that there. If someone takes on a sponsorship from an organization you dislike, put that there. Don't second-guess yourself, put it all on there, fill out that list, and see exactly how many people you can find that don't tick off a single box on it. If and when you do, tell as many people as you can about them, and ask if they agree with your findings. You may be surprised. 

Good night, and good luck. 

Full disclosure: I do not use Adblock. The closest thing to Adblock I use is the "block pop-ups" feature that's equipped with all browsers I've ever used. It does not hide banner ads and has no effect on the ads attached to videos. In fact, when a pop-up is detected, a bar appears asking me if I wish to allow the pop-ups to appear (it's opt-in, not opt-out, unlike Adblock's whitelist feature). I hate pop-up ads as much as you do, if not more. I feel that of all the types and styles of ads out there, the pop-ups are arguably the worst, the most distracting, and the most invasive form of advertising. In other words, I don't hate the message, only one particular medium for it.

This Is What It's All About

The creator of Adblock has launched a crowdfunding campaign to buy up as much ad space as possible (including Times Square, the New York Times, and The Superbowl) to promote Adblock in the hopes of creating “an internet without ads.” I’m not going to link to it because they don’t deserve that attention. Gene Lee, however, believes in this cause to the point of appearing in the campaign video and hosting it on his own YouTube channel. He disabled comments and ratings, instead “moving the discussion” onto another video on his channel (which has since been deleted). 

Obliviousemi is the artist for Jaltoid, an animation team on YouTube I recently subscribed to. The couple earns ad revenue through the partnership program, making it a notable source of income for them. They are successful because of their talents and skills. 

Gene Lee apparently hates that, and has taken the “I’ll take my bat and ball and go home.” approach to getting his way by insisting that content creators go along with this campaign and find other ways to support themselves. The thing is, he doesn’t have a bat and ball. He probably didn’t even swing, let alone get struck out and find himself sore about the whole affair. 

I asked him about this retort on the “discussion” tab of his channel, asking him why he felt like his misfortune (if he ever tried) gave him the right to dictate policy to others who have succeeded where he may well have never even tried? My comment was hidden. Maybe he found my calling him a bully for it too insulting.