Category: Digital Life

The Cure’s “A Forest” and the Evolution of a Band

Carl Setzer

I’ve heard this song countless times. Today, Youtube popped this up in the recommended list and I happily listened. Seeing other versions in the sidebar from 1979, 1981, and 1992 made me wonder about how different each one sounded. I enjoyed witnessing the evolution of Robert Smith’s personal style as well.

Below is the 1979 version, which has a more traditional punk vibe (it says something that I can say “traditional” and “punk” without any sense of irony).

This one is from 1981. Not a huge transition, but I notice a less punk style and something that becomes much more recognized as The Cure.

 

By 1992, we have a clearly distinctive style that is The Cure, and not confusable with anyone else.

 

Thanks for giving a few minutes of your journey through the vast wasteland that is the internet. Let me know what you think in the comments, and give me a share, if you’re so led.

Food for Thought: Anil Dash’s “The Year I Didn’t Retweet Men”

Carl Setzer
Twitter's Megaphone

I’d forgotten about Anil’s post to Medium a “little ways back”, so I was able to look with fresh eyes.

“The Year I Didn’t Retweet Men”

I really appreciate his efforts to amplify responsibly. And have tried, over the years, to take the same idea to heart. I may not have Anil’s reach, but I have a significant online following. Significant enough that I feel a certain responsibility to use my platform justly.

I like how his efforts changed:

  1. the nature of his online interactions
  2. the flavor of his feed
  3. and how it changed his perceptions about the world
  4. made his experience on Twitter happier

Though not a fan of the whole “resolution” thing, and since it’s August, seems kinda silly anyway, I like the idea of making purposeful decisions.

I intend to be much more thoughtful about what I share. I have tried to avoid the meme-du-jour, and things everyone else is doing. I also have avoided any hate-retweeting. Our world has enough rage, including the things that drive me towards rage. I have been trying to focus on the positive, yet avoiding a Pollyannaish approach. Positive and effective efforts, change, thoughts: that’s what I try to amplify.

So, doubling down on this. Thanks, Anil, for the reminder and motivation.

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.