Apple – Life In A Word

Slipping Away

Every time we travel to California – this past weekend, for example – I have to be reminded about their statewide ban on single-use plastic carryout bags. You think I’d remember – Cali put the kibosh on the bags three years ago. Still, we fill our basket with groceries, head to the check-out, and the cashier goes, “want to purchase bags?” Argh. I should store a couple of reusables in my suitcase; the very ones I keep in my car in Colorado.

Plastic straws followed plastic bags, of course. Four months ago, the Golden State placed “discouragement” on the plastic variety (you must ask for them now). We sat down to a meal and our waitress brought glasses of water – with paper straws (argh again). Admittedly, “legal” sippers are pretty good. No reduction to mush like breakfast cereal sitting too long in milk. Other than the cost (several times more than plastic), and the fine ($25/day for un-requested plastic), paper straws are hardly inconvenient.

Now then, the real topic for today. California is looking to “strike up the ban” yet again – on paper receipts; the little critters we receive after credit card transactions. Say it isn’t so, West Coasters! Bags and straws I can deal with, but a ban on paper receipts? That’s just stealing another book from my old-school library.

According to a Wall Street Journal op-ed, the facts are these: paper receipts generate 686 million pounds of waste per year. (Can someone please quantify 686 million pounds – say, number of filled swimming pools?) Paper receipts also generate 12 billion pounds of carbon dioxide. (Again, quantify – number of breathing humans?) Also, paper receipts contain Bisphenol A (BPA); not exactly an appetizing compound. In other words, don’t eat your receipts just because the food was lousy.

Without paper receipts, my personal budget maintenance takes a blow. I keep everything in Quicken, so give me points for electronic accounting. But I also use paper receipts – an old-fashioned double-check mechanism. I enter the transaction from the receipt; then cross-check against the Visa statement (Jacob Marley reincarnated?) Why do I do this? Because once upon a time a waiter decided to triple my tip after I’d signed the bill and left the restaurant. Later, my paper receipt didn’t reconcile with my Visa statement. Busted. I promptly called the manager, who investigated and lo-and-behold, discovered a pattern of gouging. The waiter was fired. More points for me!

Now here’s the irony in my triple-the-tip story. What if the restaurant didn’t use paper receipts? What if I processed my transaction through Square or an iPad, self-swiping my card and choosing the percentage tip? For starters (and finishers) there wouldn’t have been gouging because there wouldn’t have been a waiter. It would be like standing over the shoulder of the processor at Visa – instant reconciliation. In effect, my story is a vote for no paper receipts.

Truth be told, I’m already evolving – slowly – from paper receipts. When given the choice (Home Depot comes to mind), I select “email receipt” or “no receipt” more often than “paper”. Unlike robo-calls, I accept the unsolicited side effects of electronic commerce (i.e. email spam). In a nod to maintaining control, I select self-check-in at airports and self-check-out at markets.

More likely, I’m caving on paper receipts because I’ve already done so with a laundry list of other paper products. My written letters have (d)evolved into email. My paper-printed books have dissolved into bits/bytes on my Kindle e-reader. My to-do lists now reside in a phone app. Bills arrive in my online inbox instead of my streetside mailbox.

Phil Dyer, one reader of the Wall Street Journal piece, commented, “California will soon attempt to regulate earthquakes”. 49 of 50 U.S. states just LOL’d. Me, not so much. After all, I never thought I’d see the day where I’d give up my paper receipts.

Super Dough

The beauty of the Super Bowl is its broad entertainment value. There’s something for everybody in the five hours between The Star Spangled Banner and the Vince Lombardi trophy. For sports fans, there’s a highly-anticipated football clash. The Super Bowl is not football at its best or most dramatic, but this year’s coast vs. coast, old coach+QB vs. young coach+QB match-up creates more than the usual intrigue.

If you’re not into football, you’re at least enjoying the musical entertainment. Maroon 5 will be there after all (rumor had it they were pulling out), and the band acknowledges “… it’s the biggest stage you could ever play…” Even if you’re not a fan of the 5, you get Gladys Knight (but no Pips) singing the national anthem before kick-off.

If neither live sports nor live music is your bag (and that’s a small rock you live under), you’re watching the commercials instead. I admit – especially as a sports fan – there’s as much press for the Super Bowl ads as there is for the Super Bowl itself. It’s the only sports broadcast I know where viewers fast-forward through the game to get to the commercials.

No wonder advertisers are so worked up for this Sunday. The Super Bowl is routinely the single-most tuned-in-to entertainment of the year. Viewership has quadrupled over the last fifty years. The 2018 Super Bowl drew over 100 million viewers; 25% more than second-place. And what came in second? The Super Bowl post-game show, of course (74 million viewers). Say what you will about the NFL; people watch. The four most-watched television shows in 2018 were NFL games, followed by a “This Is Us” episode… airing immediately after the Super Bowl.

Sunday’s line-up of Super Bowl commercials includes the usual products: cars, drinks (alcoholic), more drinks (non-alcoholic), foods (snack), more foods (fast), even more foods (avocados), and technology. Of course, they’re all designed to get you to remember, long after the game is over. Whether it’s a celebrity, a laugh, or a cute animal, it’s all about permanent placement of the product in your brain. But even if you don’t remember, consider this: the commercials will be watched millions more times on YouTube. Add in the Internet and the considerable cost of Super Bowl advertising is a little easier to swallow.

Speaking of cost, this year’s commercials will set producers back $5 million a spot, for a mere thirty seconds of air time. That’s just the bill to CBS. Production costs run as much as another $5 million. Try counting “one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand” every time you watch a commercial this year. You’re squandering $333,333 for every “-one-thousand” you utter. That’s what I call super dough, and it’s only rising (ha). The car companies account for 25% of the take (remember that the next time you negotiate the purchase of a vehicle), but Anheuser-Busch InBev is the “King of Advertising”, spending over $600 million on Super Bowl commercials since 1995. Yes, Clydesdale horses are cute. More importantly, they sell a lot of beer.

To pique your ad anticipation, Town & Country Magazine’s website includes a list of the “50 Best Super Bowl Commercials” (including the videos). The ads are listed chronologically, starting a-way, way back in 1967. It’s entertaining to see what products and companies paid big for Super Bowl advertising fifty years ago. Some are no longer around. I’m guessing their advertising agencies aren’t either.

Mark my words. Monday morning after the Super Bowl the water-cooler talk will not be about the game. It will be about the commercials. Which one was your favorite? Which one left you scratching your head? Which one was $5 million up in flames? And most importantly, which one will still be talked about years from now? Even this sports fan has to admit: the game will soon be forgotten, but not the ads.

Some content sourced from the Wall Street Journal article, “Why Advertisers Pay Up for a Super Bowl Spot”; and from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Two for the Money

Not so long ago people would say to me – my grandpa included – “a penny for your thoughts”. I always liked that phrase, though I was never paid for whatever was on my mind. Today you don’t hear it so much, because nothing is worth just a penny anymore. You’d be better off giving a dollar. Or two dollars. Maybe then you’d find out what people think.

The other day I was in the drive-thru lane at my bank, and the teller cashed a twenty, returning a small stack of bills – a $1, a $5, a $10… and two $2-dollar bills. I’ve seen plenty of the first three, but when was the last time you came across the double-dollar? U.S. currency may be downright boring compared to the colorful equivalents in other countries, but today I say this: the uncommon $2 is a cool bit of cash.

America’s paper money prints in just seven options today, from the $1 on up to the $100-dollar bill. Fifty years ago you could find several larger denominations ($100,000!), but the big boys were dropped from circulation to deter organized crime. Even today, the $50 and the $100 get second looks for fear of counterfeits. The lion’s share of circulating bills is the $1 on up to the $20. But the one that earns a second look? The $2.

What makes the $2 so tony? Try finding one. I asked my bank how many they have in the drawer at any given time. They said none. In fact, I didn’t just get my couple of $2’s – I had to ask for them – and the teller had to go back to the vault to find them. The $2 just isn’t in demand anymore – hasn’t been for a long time. The U.S. Mint stopped printing $2’s in 1966, but thanks to America’s bicentennial, started the presses again in 1976. The most recent printing of the $2 was 2016 – almost 200 million – but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the U.S. currency clan. If you could shake the globe over a big basket, you’d find 40 billion U.S. bills in circulation right now. But the overlooked $2 represents less than 0.5% of the lot.

I like the $2 because of its unique look. Thomas Jefferson is on the front – oval-framed as in a portrait (only George on the $1 has the same look). The words “Federal Reserve Note” curve gracefully over TJ’s head; on all other bills those words are in a mundane straight line. Finally, the $2 is the only bill without a building on the back, like the Lincoln Memorial or the White House. Instead, you have an edge-to-edge top-to-bottom rendition of the signers of the Declaration of Independence (replacing TJ’s Monticello home from earlier versions).

The two-dollar bill has several chapters of urban legend much more colorful than other denominations. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak purchases $2’s in uncut sheets; then has them perforated and glued like a Post-It pad. He enjoys tearing off several for tipping. U.S. Air Force pilots of the U-2 spy plane keep a $2 in their flight suit; a sort of badge of distinction. $2’s are often used by gun rights activists to show support for the Second Amendment. The website Where’s George? keeps track of the circulation of over five million registered $2’s.

Despite my enthusiasm for the buck-buck, it’s not without its challenges. The $2 is not accepted at most vending machines. The common misconception the $2 is no longer circulating leads to suspicion of counterfeiting. Two years ago at Christa McAuliffe Middle School in Texas, a 13-year-old was denied lunch privileges for using a $2 at the cafeteria window. A man in Baltimore was jailed for using $2’s to pay for a purchase at Best Buy.

My couple of $2’s will stay with me a little while, at least until the novelty wears off. Maybe I’ll spend one of them just to see what happens. Maybe I’ll return the other to the bank vault for safekeeping. Today’s lesson; there’s more to American money than fives, tens, and twenties. $2’s have a place at the U.S. currency table as well, just as they did when first minted in 1862.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Wait For It

Let’s wager a guess over something that happened to you in the past few days. It probably happened several times in the past few days. It wasn’t by choice, nor were you alone. It might even be happening right now. What is this recurring, oft-maddening event in your daily world (and mine)? Somewhere, for some good reason, in person or in the car, deliberately or unintentionally, you found yourself waiting in line.

Call it a common courtesy or call it the primary by-product of consumer demand. Waiting in line is a timeless (or time-wasting) necessary evil with no satisfactory alternative. While the world behaves efficiently with smartphones, computers and even data-consuming “IoT” appliances, those snaking, switch-backing, several-option, several-category lines of humans seem to grow ever longer. Including traffic on the highways – another version of waiting – you’ll spend one to two years of your life in line.

Consider some of the common reasons why we wait in line:
– store cashiers
– airport security
– phone calls (on hold)
– amusement parks
– voting
– public restrooms

If I wrote this post fifty years ago, I would’ve listed the very same reasons why we wait in line. We have options now, but let’s face it; those options are waiting-in-line in disguise. Store cashiers now work side-by-side with an area of self-check-out machines (which draws its own line). Airports promote pay-for lines like TSA Pre and CLEAR. Telephone on-hold mechanisms offer callbacks instead of waiting (“for an additional $0.75”). Disneyland installed “FastPass” lines; again, for a fee. Voting can be done by mail (forcing your ballot to wait in line instead of you). And public restrooms? Okay, there’s no option to waiting for the potty. Maybe reconsider that second beer.

The Brits refer to a line of people as a queue. I like that (and not just because we need more words beginning with the letter “q”). Leave it to those on the far side of the pond to class up the most mundane activity imaginable. At least we have our phones as distractions when we “queue”. But the old-fashioned distractions still work. It’s why they put candy bars by the cashiers, magazines in the waiting room, mirrors by the elevators, and televisions in the airport. Anything to help you forget you’re waiting in line.

You’d think waiting in line is mindless – no-brainer science really – but I have experienced flaws in the system. Recently in Lowe’s, waiting patiently in a single, central line at the self-check-out area, I was confronted by the person behind me, who demanded I “choose one side or the other” (as if logic demanded a separate line for each row of self-check-out machines). My response to him was not one of my finer moments. Another example – at the airport – my wife and I waited at the curb with a dozen others for the parking lot shuttle, only to discover the “front of the line” was a variable determined by the point on the curb where the driver chooses to stop his vehicle. If you want to see what not waiting in line looks like, try to catch a parking lot shuttle at the airport.

In today’s world, we have new reasons why we wait in line:
– to purchase the latest iPhone
– at restaurants, with pagers (clever disguise for waiting in line)
– on-line (i.e. for concert tickets or sports tickets at a specified time)
– Black Friday sales

Finally, we will always stand in line for our kids, whether to see Santa Claus at the mall or to buy something they simply must have. Years ago, I remember taking my kids to the local bookstore for the latest “Harry Potter” (which they started and finished before the next sunrise). It was the only time I’ve stood in line for the right to stand in line again. The bookstore insisted on selling a limited number of tickets at noon, to be exchanged for the book later that same day, when the publisher allowed its release.

I believe the longest I’ve ever waited in line is five hours – to see the first Star Wars movie in 1977. With no electronic devices to keep my friends and I company back then, five hours was even longer than it sounds, especially knowing two consecutive showings of the movie would run before I even entered the theater. Then again, the truly morbid among us believe we are all simply waiting to die. If that’s the case, let’s hope we’re in a really, really long line.

Knight Watchman

This week’s headlines are full of speculation about Apple’s soon-to-debut iPhone X. We’re still a month away from pre-orders, yet iPhone X headlines carry the weight of those for the hurricanes and North Korea.

Images courtesy of www.apple.com

iPhone X’s new/improved features sound impressive: “”It’s all screen”, facial recognition, surgical-grade stainless-steel, water resistance, wireless charging, superior camera functionality, and an “A11 Bionic” smartphone chip capable of 600 billion operations per second. Sounds like a noticeable upgrade from the iPhone 7.

Despite this fanfare, my eye is still drawn to the iPhone’s most basic app: those numbers at the top of the “elegantly-rounded screen” silently telling the time-of-day.

I wear a watch. Always have. I wake up every morning, get dressed, pocket my wallet, handkerchief, and keys, and “wrist” my watch. It’s a habit I’ve had since college days. Granted, my wallet gets slimmer by the year, as the need for cash and physical cards dwindles. My key chain is no longer a chain; not even a set of keys (rather, a small fob controlling my car without ever leaving my pocket). Mercifully, my handkerchief hasn’t changed whatsoever (other than the purchase of a new one every couple of months).

My analog watch – though threatened by technology – remains steadfastly on my wrist. I started wearing watches when I was a kid, and several decades later I still have the first two I ever owned. My Snoopy watch was the wind-up type, telling time with its hours and minutes “paws”. My gold (colored) Pulsar was one of the earliest of its brand, and seemed to say, “time to grow up”.

Several years after my Pulsar I purchased (or received) another wristwatch, followed by another and another and another. At some point in the process my watches became too nice to part with, and “replace” became “collect”. Today, I choose from half a dozen.

Recently, I gave smartwatches a try. I figured, why not get my time and all those other time-saving applications on my wrist? But it just didn’t take. Like digital-display watches, I missed the elegant mechanics of a real analog watch. For a short time, I tried wearing an analog on one wrist and a smartwatch on the other. Also didn’t take (and probably drew a few curious looks in the process).

On yesterday’s commute talk-radio, the discussion was the iPhone X, and the host said, “anyone 40-and-older probably still wears a watch”. That statement applies to me (both age range and habit). I simply cannot forego my wristwatch for a smartphone. No knock to smartphones, mind you. In fact, with its $1,000 price tag, the radio host asked callers to predict whether the iPhone X would sell. All ten callers I heard said people would buy, just as they did at the $500 threshold. To anyone who thinks $1,000 is excessive, consider this: the smartphone has become a cultural necessity; a here-to-stay personal computer appendage (gather dust, ye laptops and desktops). And $1,000 is a reasonable price for a personal computer these days.

Here’s a more concrete argument for the $1,000 price tag. Make a list of the iPhone’s basic apps, and consider the cost of say, five years of physical materials to replace those apps. Note pads, address books, calendars, paper maps, wallets, cameras, telephones, stereos, calculators, newspapers, and postage stamps (a wholly incomplete list). Watches. Well, what do you know; you just spent a lot more than $1,000! Any further arguments?

No arguments from me either: the X will be a good and popular buy. But you’ll still find a watch on my wrist.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

This April, a movie called The Circle will arrive in theaters, and it just might generate enough buzz to displace political headlines. The previews start innocently enough: a wide-eyed young woman “Mae”, who can’t believe her good fortune at being hired into the thoroughly glamorous Internet company “Circle” (a super-hybrid of Apple, Google, and Facebook). Predictably, things take a turn for the not-so-good when Mae realizes her new employer seeks a singularly “true” Internet identity for its consumers, revealing all there is to know about a person.

The previews for The Circle intrigued me enough to give the book a try, even though the reviews were mediocre at best. But no matter; the premise draws me in and keeps me reading. What resolution can possibly exist in a not-so-distant future where an individual’s “privacy” goes completely out the window? The Circle proposes an all-knowing (and therefore) all-exploiting Internet service; a corporate version of totalitarianism. I can’t imagine a happy ending, can you? As Ray Bradbury would say, something wicked this way comes.

Ray Bradbury authored countless short stories placing believable humans in not-quite-so believable circumstances, yet seeking a peek into a probable future. “Fahrenheit 451” is perhaps his most famous example, but I have my own favorites, including “The Golden Apples of the Sun”, “A Sound of Thunder”, “Skeleton”, and “The Veldt”. I own a collection of Bradbury’s “hundred best”, and find them just as compelling as when I first read them forty years ago. Why? Because they still aren’t quite believable. The presumptions and technologies and societies of Bradbury’s stories are still somewhere around the corner of the world of today. But I have no doubt they’re coming.

The same case can be made for the cult-classic neo-noir film Blade Runner, produced in 1982 but based on a book written decades earlier. Blade Runner made several far-reaching assumptions about a dystopian Los Angeles of the future: a) climate change, creating an environment dominated by darkness and rain, b) culture change, where its inhabitants, language, and food are decidedly Asian, and c) technological change, where “replicants” (robots) perform the mundane tasks humans no longer care to do. Blade Runner’s mystique is in the depiction of a familiar place transformed by radical changes; the kind that aren’t so unbelievable. Not now perhaps, but they’re coming. (Also coming: a sequel to Blade Runner later this year).

Here’s another example from Hollywood. Logan’s Run (which was an on-screen disaster just begging to be remade thirty years later), depicted a completely controlled, pleasure-filled world inside a giant, sterile dome – but only until age thirty, when its inhabitants were ceremoniously put to death (to conserve the resources of a supposedly dying planet). By default, Logan’s world is a society where everything is new and clean, everyone is “young”, and a day in the life is controlled by some behind-the-scenes, largely technological presence. “Logan 5” and “Jenny 6” (a delightful nod to the loss of individualism) are too dependent on the comforts of their world to ever acknowledge its limitations. Considering how technology shapes our actions and decisions today, perhaps Logan’s world is not so far-fetched anymore.

The appeal of Ray Bradbury, Blade Runner, and Logan’s Run – even today – is stories about worlds that are (still) not believable. We can enjoy them yet keep them at arm’s length, comforted by the thought “can’t really happen”. And that’s what makes The Circle a serious conversation piece (even if it’s a box-office flop): a taste of an all-powerful, all-knowing Internet – if governments and corporations let it get that far. Once we reach that point is there any turning back, or will “drones” more aptly describe humans than cool little flying machines? Terrifying foresight for sure, but hopefully not prescient thinking.

Okay, you’re done reading now. Back to your Facebook feed.