A Nugget of Knowledge

Writing

I recently signed up for MasterClass, as there were more than just a few people giving courses that I'd love to hear from. I started with Steve Martin's course on comedy. I don't think I learned anything specific that I'd call out, but I did get a solid overview of his thought process and I found it very enlightening. I then took Shonda Rhimes Teaches Writing for Television, and found it even more useful, as I'm working on a television screenplay (don't worry, it's for fun. It's going to suck. But I want to do it).
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You're Already Connected

Bit.Parts I, Developer

When I was in high school, in the 80s, I was part of a group that hacked into corporate voicemail systems so that we young hackers could communicate. Voicemail was pretty obscure then. You could find me, around lunchtime, at the payphone on campus, picking up and leaving messages. (Note for the young, look up "payphone" if you need to).
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Match.com's Fake Problem

ChrisSplaining Popular

UPDATE, 26 September, 2019 - The FTC is suing Match.com for just the situation I describe in this blog post! 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/us/match-com-lawsuit-ftc.html

Match.com has a fake problem. That is, they have a problem with fake accounts and there is a clear reason why they have, for years, refused to do a single thing about it.
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The Ultimate Counter to the Exposure Pitch

Best Practices Popular

There are a decent number of stories going around the Internet about how artists should push back on being asked to work for free. Let me state up front that I agree with this position to the tune of about 80%.
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He Knows, You Know...

Best Practices Popular

Donald Rumsfeld was the United States Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President Bush. He is known for many things, but will always be remembered for his statement of an old truism, as quoted -
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A Nugget of Knowledge
You're Already Connected
Match.com's Fake Problem
The Ultimate Counter to the Exposure Pitch
He Knows, You Know...

What me? Paranoid?

Nothing puts fear into the hearts of nerds like installing a CPU, heat sink, and RAM.
 
So many avenues for "oops."
 
It takes ten times longer than it should, and for good reason. Slowly. Carefully. Visualize before acting. Triple-check alignments. Finger-tighten, step back and evaluate before locking down. Question every move.
 
A little paranoia.

Software Subscriptions

I get the idea of software subscriptions. Back in the day, you'd buy software, get a CD (or a stack of floppies if you're that tenured), install the package and away you'd go. After a while, a new version would be available and you'd either get it as part of your original purchase or have to decide if you wanted to pop a few bucks for the new version, almost always at a discounted price.

These days, most software now costs a monthly fee to use. Stop paying that fee, and some packages lock you to the current version while some go as far as to just stop working at all. That is, you get to use the software as long as you keep paying. It's almost like renting the package.

Now, in the case of something like, say, Adobe Photoshop, I can see this model as viable. Adobe regularly pushes not only performance improvements, but refinements and new features as well. Consider what the suite used to cost, including the typical 12-18 month update cycle, and the subscription comes pretty close. Adobe provides value to the. model.

On the other hand, I'm looking at a package that automates an Internet task. For the most part, the package is very static. Now and again the producers have to make a small change to adapt to changes in third party integrations, but those are few and far between. Further, they support eight platforms and charge $29.99/month for one, and $59.99/month for all of them. Those are the options. Yet knowing how this software works, the differences are almost non-existent. The configuration considers all platforms and it's just an upload task that differentiates them. 

There is absolutely no value added in paying monthly for this software that not only doesn't change, but has very little differentiation and uses zero resources provided by the author. That is, it's not even a web service. It's a reasonably robust automation engine. That's it.

Further, this is the kind of package you'd use initially, and then would likely sit unused for months until you had another need for some automation. You'd be paying a monthly fee for no updates and just the option to have it available should you need it.

But people are conditioned now to pay a subscription, even for software that doesn't justify it. Thus, almost all software now carries a subscription model.

I believe this is where I say, "get off my lawn!" :-)

Something I've Noticed

Nothing helps build patience like waiting on trademark applications.
 
Except, perhaps, waiting on patents.

Art Predicting the Future

Have you noticed that in science fiction movies made decades ago, electric cars had a particular noise? That whining-whirring noise that everyone thought electric cars would make? And have you noticed that, sure enough, that's exactly the noise that they make now?

Maybe it's just me, but I think that's kinda cool and interesting. 

Or I'm just killing time before lunch ;)

Update on Learnings

I oversubscribed my time to see which learnings services I liked best. Here's where I've landed:
 
1. Amazon Kindle Unlimited - jettison. The selection is meh, at best, and I simply don't have time for a non-vetted book. I'll buy those I want to read and be selective.
 
2. Wondrium - reluctantly keep. Reluctantly because they have some courses that run 40-60 hours of material *each* and are stunning. I could watch here for years. So this will be my enjoyment learning, doing one unit per evening (30 minutes on average).
 
3. CuriosityStream - jettison. These are no better than the History or Discovery channel features, and many worse. Boring. Learning nothing. And they started with a decent catalog but haven't been adding to it much, at all. Also, a lot of their science was wow-wow 10 years ago, but is out of date by now.
 
4. MasterClass - keep. This gives me at least one gem per quarter. Worth the price.
 
5. Audible - keep, because it's free. Amex gives a full credit per month, at least for the next year.
 
6. Fluenz - bought and paid for. Working on Italian.
 
7. Rosetta Stone - bought and paid for, for life. This isn't my primary learning source, as it's not my way, but since I own it outright for all languages, I use it like flash cards.
 
8. A Cloud Guru - not going to renew after this year is over. My new job doesn't require that I stay up to date 100% and certified, and those areas that I do need to be there, I'll one-off and let my company pay for it.
 
9. LinkedIn Learning/Lynda - wish I still got this free, but since I don't, I can't justify paying for it, even though it has good content on hobby things like Adobe products. It is what it is.

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