At around 9:00 at night, the temperature in Magelang finally drops to a more hospitable 28°C from the 37° or so that it’s been hovering at. My girlfriend and I are in Magelang for this leg of the trip and we’ve stopped at a warung for dinner — think of a small trailer that can be pulled behind a bicycle serving ridiculously tasty food. This warung is known for several noodle dishes, but we’ve asked for mie godog — literally, “boiled noodles”. The broth from this cart is made with candlenut and it’s cooking overtop some hot coals in a wok with spring onions, garlic, some mustard greens, and the aforementioned egg noodles. Every few seconds, someone on a scooter or motorbike putters past, inches from the trio of younger men sitting and smoking on the stoop of the karaoke bar next door.
I’ve taken a couple of Live Photos of the scene and play them back, and I realize that it’s captured the sights and sounds well enough that I’ll be able to show my friends and parents back in Canada, but something’s missing: the smell of this place. It’s a distinct blend of engine fumes, clove cigarette smoke, burning wood, and this incredible food. This, to me, says worlds about the immediacy of place of Live Photos, as well as the limitations that they have. They are a welcome step closer to better capturing a moment in time, but the technology isn’t quite good enough yet for this moment.
I’ve been using an iPhone 6S since launch day — “Space Grey”, 128 GB, non-Plus — and I’ve read all the reviews that matter. But when I boarded a plane on October 24 from Calgary to Surabaya, I was unprepared for the way that this product would impact my travels, and how my travelling would impact my understanding of mobile technology.
Keyboards are gross. How can they not be? Most of us spend hours every day on them, transferring all sorts of good stuff back and forth from our hands to the keys. So, while looking closely at my keyboard recently, I got to wondering just what types of bacteria and other microorganisms were growing on it. Thus began an experiment to find out.
Over the past few years, I've gotten a lot better at managing what's on my phone so that I never hit the 16GB mark — in large part thanks to some helpful new apps. It's a bit of a hassle, but it's worth it if you want to save $50-$100 or so when buying your next phone. Here are six key things to do to keep your storage down.
If you want Siri to help you with your history, it seems you should talk to her in the present tense!
So, once again, Silicon Valley is behind the curve in Washington, and it will be harder to close the distance this time.
Even as some playwrights embrace the integration of digital communication into stage scenes as a new form of naturalism, other theater people worry that their art form will be affected by communication that values brevity over elegance and, increasingly, images over words.
I've finally unsubscribed from the This American Life podcast. Not because I don't enjoy the show. Not because I don't like any of the topics they've chosen. Not even because they ran the episode with made-up stories about Apple factories.
But simply because the podcast feed mixes up new episodes with reruns.
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Thanks for reading.