Friday read: Wimbledon’s other servers

Posted by William Gallagher

LONDON—Outside, it’s about 35 degrees Celsius (95F) and close to 100 percent humidity. Hat-wearing tennis lovers fan themselves with genteelly flailing limbs, or whatever else they have to hand, while they sip on a cup of Pimm’s. Down here, though, away from the punishing sun and thronging crowds, I’m bathed in the soothing susurration of servers (of the computer variety), and—more importantly—some really powerful air conditioning.

At the heart of Wimbledon lies the IBM bunker – Sebastian Anthony, Ars Technica (2 July 2015)

Read the full piece.

Is this good? Musicians become venture capitalists

Posted by William Gallagher

How do musicians make money today? Album sales are down 14%, single downloads are down 11%, and only the streaming services are up, 28%. Technology has forced music artists to completely rethink the way they approach their businesses. We’ve all had to adapt.

The most successful artists in this new landscape have begun to look at new business models and new industries to strengthen their existing brands. They’re extending their brand into areas like technology, gaming, fashion, and lifestyle content — essentially becoming entertainment platforms.

What Happened When Linkin Park Asked Harvard for Help with Its Business Model – Kiel Berry, Harvard Business Review (23 June 2015)

It’s a detailed and absorbing read but also a bit depressing. In order to keep going as a band, Linking Park long ago became a business. There’s nothing wrong with artists being business people, it’s even good that this is necessary, yet surely there are limits, right?

Linkin Park even sounds like an industrial estate.

Read the full piece.

The Onion: Study: U.S. Wastes 2 Million Hours Annually Figuring Out Where Tape Roll Starts

Posted by William Gallagher

BLOOMINGTON, IN—A new study published Friday by researchers at Indiana University revealed that U.S. citizens waste approximately 2 million hours annually trying to figure out where a roll of tape starts. “According to our data, thousands of hours are squandered each day by Americans running their fingers along the outside of a roll of tape until they stumble upon the frayed edge where the tape begins,” said the study’s co-author Bethany Cohen, who noted that the amount of time Americans fritter away bringing the roll of tape up close to their face and slowly tracing their fingertips around its perimeter accounts for nearly $15 billion annually in lost productivity.

Study: U.S. Wastes 2 Million Hours Annually Figuring Out Where Tape Roll Starts – News in Brief, The Onion (29 June 2015)

Read the full piece.

Depression and junk food

Posted by William Gallagher

Listen, depression is depression: you can have it regardless of your circumstances and if you think you can cheer someone up out of it with a tickling stick, you’re off my Christmas list. And I mean my Christmas present list, not just the cards.

But it’s also true that there are things that do and don’t help. Plus, depression like anything else is affected by our bodies and the stuff going on in there. So this Time feature on research into whether junk food nobbles us is interesting, if a bit inconclusive:

Diets higher on the glycemic index, including those rich in refined grains and added sugar, were associated with greater odds of depression, the researchers found. But some aspects of diet had protective effects against developing depression, including fiber, whole grains, whole fruits, vegetables and lactose, a sugar that comes from dairy products and milk that sits low on the glycemic index.

Added sugars—but not total sugars or total carbohydrates—were strongly associated with depression.

Though the authors couldn’t pinpoint a mechanism from this study—it was associative—they note that one possibility is that the overconsumption of sugars and refined starches is a risk factor for inflammation and cardiovascular disease, both of which have been linked to the development of depression.This kind of diet could also lead insulin resistance, which has been linked to cognitive deficits similar to those found in people with major depression.

The Strange Link Between Junk Food and Depression – Mandy Oaklander, Time (29 June 2015)

Read the full piece.

Apple Music is good

Posted by William Gallagher

As I write this to you, it’s about 5am and I realise I’m not in the mood to listen to any music. More often, though, if I’m here working away on my own and most especially when I have to really concentrate on the job, I will be playing music – and now I think that means I will be playing Apple Music.

Certainly for the next three months while it’s free, anyway.

Apple Music is like Spotify, Pandora, Rdio and many other services: you can listen to just about any music you like, just about whenever you like. Streaming music should be a familiar concept to me because that’s surely what radio has always been yet somehow I find it hard to get used to the idea. I’m so used to buying music, whether that is on vinyl, CD or download, there is the choosing and the buying and the playing.

Now there’s really just the playing as you don’t buy an album per se and I think you don’t choose in quite the same way. You explore, you sample, you don’t think about whether to invest some cash in this artist or that album.

I’ve liked the idea enough that I got a free Spotify account to try it all out and for over a year I’ve been playing it a lot in the car. Only, Spotify defaults to trying to recommend music to you and I always disliked or even loathed its choices. They made me feel very old and I don’t need any help feeling very old.

Spotify stops recommending stuff if you create a big enough playlist of favourite choices. I created such a playlist: 50 or so tracks that I like a lot. Only, I’ve ended up playing just those 50 over and over. I’m not unhappy: sometimes it’s perfect, sometimes it’s not.

It’s not as if I play the same 50 in the same order: unless you pay for a Spotify account, you can only play things on shuffle. It did just feel that some days Spotify got my mood exactly right and other days it didn’t.

You also get ads on Spotify every three songs or so. I got very used to those and, I don’t know, maybe I got close to paying for an account. That would remove the ads, that would allow me to play the song I wanted when I wanted, it would let me play an album in sequence.

I’ll never know how close I came, not now. For if I do end up paying for a streaming music service, it will not be Spotify. Not any more. It will be Apple Music.

I’m just trying to define why. Writing for MacNN.com about it, I concluded that I and we like it a lot:

We’d say love, but come on, the paint’s still wet, let’s take this affair a little slow for a time: we’ve got three months of dating before we have to make a commitment.

Hands On: Apple Music (iOS, OS X, Windows) – William Gallagher, MacNN (30 June 2015)

Read the full piece for more specifics about how it works and what’s good but after a night’s reflection, I think it comes down to two things that will help me while I work.

I think.

There’s the way I could just leave it running playing fairly random tracks but generally ones I like or am going to like: you give it some nudges about what you’re into as you set it up and it seems to do rather well with that information. That’s good.

But there is no question: the ability to just say aloud “Hey, Siri, play ‘Life is a Celebration’ by the Kids from Fame” and have it do that, that is startlingly great. Siri doesn’t work on Macs, which is going to be an issue as that’s where I spend most of my day, but using it via my iPhone and iPad for one day, I’ve become addicted to this feature.

They used to do this on Star Trek: “Computer, play some Bix Beiderbecke”. And it’s here.

My iMac returns home later today from having a repair done: when it’s here and I’ve updated iTunes, I’m going to see if I can use Siri to control it via my Apple Watch. My entire working day may change if it works.

NOTE: To play Apple Music, you need iTunes on your Mac or Windows PC, or an iPhone or iPad. Android stuff coming later.

Un-send an email if you’re quick and on Gmail

Posted by William Gallagher

It’s not quite what it looks like, but if you’re a Gmail user and you switch this feature on, you can now have between 10 and 30 seconds to change your mind about sending an email.

Around the web this is being touted as a way to stop the hellstorm of an ill-thought, kneejerk angry email you sent in a fury. I think more practically it’s going to be to save you some of the times you forget to add the attachment you meant.

Here’s what Google says:

Previously a popular feature in Gmail Labs, and recently added to Inbox by Gmail, today we’re adding ‘Undo Send’ as a formal setting in Gmail on the web.

‘Undo Send’ allows people using Gmail to cancel a sent mail if they have second thoughts immediately after sending. The feature is turned off by default for those not currently using the Labs version, and can be enabled from the General tab in Gmail settings.

Google Apps update alerts: Undo Send for Gmail on the web (22 June 2015)

It isn’t really an undo. It’s a not-do-so-quickly. What happens is that the email just doesn’t go when it says it does, it waits in a little limbo for a moment. That’s why you can have a brief time to ‘unsend’ it but you can’t, for instance, undo the bitter message you sent yesterday to your ex.

This also isn’t new. It’s a feature in other email services but Gmail is definitely the biggest one and it’s so big that you can bet money both Microsoft with Outlook and Apple with Mail will surely introduce it soon.

Read the full piece for a bit more detail.

Pixar’s method for staying creative

Posted by William Gallagher

Don’t read this article, read this book instead: Creativity, Inc by Ed Catmull. He’s one of the founders of Pixar and while the book is laden with Paxarian references and anecdotes, it’s a startlingly absorbing read about all creativity and specifically about how to keep it going.

However, I’ve had this book on my reading list for ages and even though I’ve enjoyed the start so much that I’ve recommended it before, it was only when The Creativity Post summarised it lately that I got it out again.

I don’t honestly think that Creativity Post adds anything to the topic but I’m not doing much better here. So take a look their full piece but, seriously, go buy the book.

Evolving mentoring

Posted by William Gallagher

Let’s see. Most recently I’ve mentored teenagers looking seriously at journalism, I’ve worked with a novelist on fitting her writing in around a demanding day job, tomorrow I’m mentoring a fella exclusively on the use of OmniFocus.

That’s unusual: only twice now have I been hired to mentor someone solely on one application they wanted to use – hang on, that’s a thought, both times it’s been OmniFocus – but it’s interesting because the software is the same yet their needs are not.

What I do particularly like, though, is stepping away from software and getting in to what you do and how you do it and how we can make it better and easier for you. Most importantly; how exactly we can get you more time to do what you need to do.

That’s my Blank Screen mentoring service and I’m conscious that I haven’t mentioned it for some months while I’ve been booked up. I’m still a bit booked up but I’m also dying to know what you’re up to so if you think I can be a help, let me know.

And take a look at my site’s mentoring page for details.

Caring for your partner with technology

Posted by William Gallagher

Over on MacNN.com there is a quietly remarkable article about using and being required to use technology when caring for someone. In the last few days, Managing Editor Mike Wuerthele’s wife had a stroke. Naturally you know where he is now both physically – constantly in hospital with her – and emotionally. During these especially hard first days, he’s finding that technology and particularly iPads are a recurring feature. Reading his piece, you feel that sometimes this is aggravating as it’s another form on another iPad but other times that it’s a help, that these devices and others are helping the recovery process.

It’s a fascinatingly personal article despite his efforts to avoid being personal at all: he doesn’t name his wife, he doesn’t say which hospital they’re in. He’s written it and will be back writing more specifically to bring some attention to medical aid and hopefully let others know what is available and what it all achieves. His article does exactly that but read it to see how a partner and a carer’s pain trembles just under the surface.

Read Technology in Recovery: Out of the ER, into the fire on MacNN.

Blowing bubbles before your next meeting

Posted by William Gallagher

Not you. Your calendar. You can’t actually buy it, I’m afraid, but there is a concept device called monYay: Notifly – and that’s a really hard thing to type because autocorrect goes crazy trying to fix that cap Y and change the second word into notify – which sits on your desk until it’s time to go to your next meeting. Then:

The monYay bit of the name comes from wanting to change Mondays into Mon-yays! and I can get behind that even though I quite like Mondays. Read a little more on the official website, along with lots of other excellent ideas.

Via Swiss Miss.