Carl – Page 44 – Tech in the Trenches

Political Discourse, 2017 finds its roots in Fight Club.

Today’s tough-guy posturing seems rooted, paradoxically, in threat and fear: fear of defeat, fear of lost status and fear that society is growing increasingly ill suited to tough-guy posturing in the first place. The narrator of “Fight Club,” source of that “snowflake” mantra, was a delusional man coping with modernity by inventing a hypermasculine alter-ego, imagining himself as the man-cult leader Tyler Durden. But making an entire alternate masculine identity is a lot of work. It’s always much easier to just call other people wimps and snowflakes — and hope they’ll be intimidated enough to melt away.

Via – How ‘Snowflake’ Became America’s Inescapable Tough-Guy Taunt – The New York Times

T.J. Miller’s Tiny Movies

By Carl

On June 10, 2017

In Audiobooks and Podcasts

From 33 minutes, 54 seconds in:

Even in the advertising space, you know what, I will absolutely collaborate with Mucinex and Slim Jim and anybody because in a capitalistic society, you’re seeing those advertisements either way. So why not make them funny?
A great insurance commercial should make you cry a little bit. Life is so sad that when Allstate does it right, you should tear up a little bit.
It’s a tiny movie about how sad and hard life is. It’s a 30 second expose on how we’re going to die and we should leave the most we can to those who survive on.

Pocket Casts Timestamped Link: The Nerdist – T.J. Miller #3, 33m, 54s

Add custom episodes in Pocket Casts

By Carl

On June 9, 2017

In Links and Quotes

Thanks to Marcus Mangelsdorf for pointing out this feature no longer works. Pocket Casts has now added the ability to upload files and cloud stoarage to their Plus offering.

The downside is it’s no longer free, the upside is that it’s much easier to manage the files and the process isn’t as convoluted.
Pocket Casts detailed information on what kind of media is supported from which platform.
Updated: Oct 31st, 2019

This is now out-of-date. See update above.

I recently had a strange issue with a certain podcast not loading on my phone. For some reason, the phone can’t load the domain even though it works from my computer on the same network. And the phone fails to load the page on cellular and wifi. So I set out to see if I could manually load the episodes into Pocket Casts.

I’ve used this for a couple of shows and single audio files and it works great. The instructions are for Android.

Locate the custom_episodes folder. By default it’s located here: /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/ au.com.shiftyjelly.pocketcasts/files/PocketCasts

Move your episode files into the folder

Open Pocket Casts and refresh by tapping on the Pocket Casts icon in the side menu.

You now find a Custom Episodes podcast in your Podcasts tile screen, tap it to view the list of custom episodes.

Note: Only the following file types are supported: mp3, m4a, aac, mov, m4v, mp4, 3g2 and 3gp.
Note: Pocket Casts will only pick up files in the custom_episodes folder, not any sub-folders.

Here’s how much you would need to afford rent in your state

By Carl

On June 9, 2017

In Links and Quotes

The most expensive state for housing is Hawaii, where workers would need to make $35.20 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment. They would need to make $33.58 in the District of Columbia, $30.92 in California, $28.27 in Maryland, and $28.08 in New York.

Did I mention we’re trying to buy a home in Maryland? My wife and I make good money but we are still DC Poor. My wife and I make well above minimum wage, but many people in our fields do not.

In the District, where the hourly minimum wage is $12.50, a household — say a single parent — must earn $69,840 a year to be able to afford the fair market rent of $1,746 a month for a two-bedroom apartment.

Do you know people who work multiple jobs to pay for the roof over their heads?

Someone making the federal minimum wage would need to work 117 hours a week — or nearly three full-time jobs — to be able to afford a two-bedroom apartment.

There are plenty of people in this area who are working hours like this. Going from job to job to job to afford to live in a house they never see. To support their children and their families and allow them to have a home. Affordable housing is vital to everything else. What would you do without a place to keep what you value safe? Without that peace of mind and basic level of security, you have nothing.

Source: Here’s how much you would need to afford rent in your state – The Washington Post

Live reading of 1984

By Carl

On June 8, 2017

In Observations

In January of 2015 the DC Public Library held an event titled Orwellian America. Included a reading of 1984 in its entirety and streamed across YouTube. Those videos are no longer available.

I was reminded of this event today when I saw a similar event today.

The Orwell Foundation and UCL Festival of Culture are delighted to announce a live, start-to-finish reading of Nineteen Eighty-Four in Senate House, University of London. For the first time in the UK, hear Nineteen Eighty-Four read by a host of actors, writers, journalists and members of the public over the course of a single day in the centre of London. This unique event, part of the UCL Festival of Culture 2017, is free and open to the public.

Unlike the DC event, London’s event is available in its 11 hour entirety. (I’ve skipped the first 11 minutes, 15 seconds as they are silent.) I’ve read this book many times and look forward to listening to it again.

Carl T. Holscher fights for the customers.

Author: Carl Page 44 of 151

How ‘Snowflake’ Became America’s Inescapable Tough-Guy Taunt

T.J. Miller’s Tiny Movies

Add custom episodes in Pocket Casts

Here’s how much you would need to afford rent in your state

Live reading of 1984