Category: Musings

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Like tears in the rain.

I don’t know if that phrase is from an older work, or if it originated in the script of Blade Runner.

Nonetheless, it’s a great visualization.

Afghanistan has fallen. Apparently President Biden was shocked, according to some reports. This, less than a month after he told America and the world that the Afghanistan Military could handle the country’s defense.

Uh huh.

There are tons of articles all over the net with various takes on this situation.

The most poignant was one I read on Apple News. It’s actually an article that appears in The Guardian here .

We’ve spent 20 years in Afghanistan. In that time we’ve lost troops, had others maimed, still others remain profoundly affected by what they saw and endured in that country. Those men and women did an outstanding job and their duty, of that there is no question.

I’m less certain that we should have remained in Afghanistan after we’d broken the Taliban. But that wasn’t really an option now was it?

The beliefs that allow the Taliban can’t be changed overnight, and apparently they can’t be changed in 20 years. I suspect that even 100 years wouldn’t change the underlying belief structure that creates monstrous ruling bodies like the Taliban.

You’d have to systematically destroy every mosque, kill every Imam, burn every copy of the Quran, wipe all memory of Islam from the internet, and destroy all of that religion’s adherents everywhere.

US soldiers take up their positions as they secure the airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021, after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan’s 20-year war, as thousands of people mobbed the city’s airport trying to flee the group’s feared hardline brand of Islamist rule. (Photo by SHAKIB RAHMANI / AFP)

First of all we don’t have the stomach for that kind of bloodshed. Second of all, it would be wrong for us to try. Third of all, it would be doomed to fail right from the start.

We have historical examples of failure to eliminate beliefs. Rome tried it with the Christians. Hitler wasn’t successful with Jews. Even the Ottoman Empire couldn’t eradicate the Jews in Spain, nor could the Inquisition. The kind of oppression required to attempt something like eliminating a religion would simply drive it underground.

You have to kill not only the practitioners of a religion, you have to kill all memory of it entirely. Which is something that the Taliban understands all too clearly. That is why no world heritage site, or non-islamic archeological dig is safe in Taliban territory. They understand how to destroy “false beliefs”. Their brutality in this is unmatched.

Which brings me to the point I want to make.

We as a nation must enact a non-interference policy. It is not our job to free anyone from their dogma, or give them a democracy by force. Our military is ours. It exists to defend us and our interests from invaders, or conquerors. That’s it. Our allies are by definition in our best interests and they too deserve our protections just as they offer their armies under treaty to our protection.

Taliban fighters sit on a vehicle along the street in Jalalabad province on August 15, 2021. (Photo by – / AFP)

That being said, when we’ve done the job, we should leave. To do anything else leads to decades of misery and unintended consequences.

Think of the misery the young woman in The Guardian article has to endure now. Had the Taliban remained in force for the past 20 years, she’d still have lived the misery to be sure. But now she knows there’s another way, she knows what she’s lost, she’ll feast on that bitterness for the rest of her life.

Were I in her position…

I’d develop a pretty healthy hatred of the US and all Americans for abandoning her to her fate after showing her how things could be different. I’d be teaching all my children to hate Americans, America is a lie, America cannot be trusted, America deserves to be destroyed.

That’s how the cycle of violence continues.

We MAKE our enemies, and frankly, we do it very well. How many more generations will spring from this one woman and all the others like her, enlightened and abandoned by our actions?

We shouldn’t have long term student visas for any country outside our allies. Short term upper division students perhaps, but not long term college educations.

Long term students simply become contaminated, then return to their countries with knowledge of a very different life. How can one of those folks ever be content returning to cooking over a fire pit or defecating in a hole in the ground, when they’ve lived the convenience and ease that Western civilization enjoys?

I know what I’m saying sounds cruel. But I think it far more cruel to “give” someone 21st century knowledge and then send them back to the 6th century.

President Biden’s legacy will be his Baghdad Bob moment a month ago. But the legacy of hatred and terrorist activities to come, belongs to our government from Bush through Biden, perhaps even further back than that.

I think it is time for us to exit the role of “good guys”, it’s time for us to stop trying to remake the world in our image. It’s time for Americans to be mythical beings in undeveloped parts of the world. Something whispered of, but never seen.

It is well past time for us to stop feeding our enemies, or pumping trillions of dollars, material, and American lives, into a hole that will never never be filled.

People make war on each other, and people die every day, disease and natural disasters happen all the time, these are facts of life. We need to get past our messiah complex and focus on our own problems.

There is no shame or guilt in recognizing that we can’t help everyone. The shame is in telling those people we will help, then breaking that promise.

Close our borders, allow visitors from allied countries only. That way we don’t contaminate and destroy primitive cultures.

We have historical examples of cultural contamination starting with the European conquest of North and South America. (Damage done. There’s no going back) We have examples of other indigenous people having their lives turned upside down in the South Pacific during World War II. (See Cargo Cults.) We even have contemporary examples of possible cultural contamination with all the hubbub surrounding UFOs and Alien contact.

Just the rumors of Aliens causes shockwaves and distractions in our “enlightened” culture. If they actually exist, it would make sense for them to be circumspect. Especially if they’re doing some kind of anthropology study.

We’re advanced compared to some of the folks on our planet, but we’re not superior.

We certainly don’t have enough positive outcomes to be dictating how any one else should be living.

It’s time for us to come to grips with our limitations and recognize that;

“Sometime you have to be cruel to be kind.”

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Congratulations to Richard Branson!

Very well done Sir!

I was astounded, that in the wake of Branson’s achievement instead of congratulations, there were pundits, politicians, and wags, saying things like, “This is why we need a billionaire wealth tax.”

SAY WHAT???

Branson, used his own money, legally earned, requisite taxes paid, and he built a space craft. Then he further put his money where his mouth was and climbed aboard for a flight.

The thing could have malfunctioned, and freeze dried Branson and his crew, it could have exploded, it could have crashed. Thankfully it didn’t, but there was a rather high element of risk in the adventure.

All you have to do to recognize that is look at our planetary history of space travel. That particular history is littered with brave pioneers who died due to various accidents. Remember the Challenger? How about Columbia? Both of those were tried and true pieces of technology which had flown many times before. So much so, that the shuttle launches had become almost ho-hum.

Were I a Branson, Bezos, or Musk. I too would be working to get my own ships into space. The moment my technology worked well enough that I could build a space station, I wouldn’t come back to Earth.

Why bother? The petty politics of this planet and stupidity of our leaders make space look pretty darn attractive.

Space is like international waters. I could keep what I salvaged, and there’s not a damn thing the politicians or practically anyone else could for to stop me.

My next move would be to make the long assed journey to the asteroid belt and start claiming mineral rights on various asteroids. I’d catalog the minerals, and then start the bidding.

“Oh China, you need 220 million tons of nickel? What’s your opening bid?”

“Russia, you need iron? How much? What’s your bid?”

“Germany, you need copper? I’ve got a nice little asteroid just full of the stuff, What’s your bid?”

The whole while I’d be telling politicians, “TAX THIS”

I wouldn’t be asking for money, I’d be asking for Oxygen, Food, Water, and only materials that I couldn’t mine, make, or make use of from the asteroids themselves. I’d be looking for Ice (Water, Methane, Co2) you name it, because I suspect in short order I could make my asking price machines that would be able to refine those materials in my space station too.

Earth would always be my point of origin, a pretty blue speck in the solar system. But a shithole of politics and petty disagreeable people. I’d market employment to folks that could and would work for a living.

I’d give folks another choice, if we decided to take Mars for ourselves, colonize it, and build a better world there’d be no-one who could stop us.

You wouldn’t want to be “fired” from my enterprise because that would mean being sent back to Earth, the shithole, the place where you’d be detained, questioned by moronic politicians looking for some “Crime”, and then taxed on your presumed profits.

Space wouldn’t be an easy, or a safe life, but it would be your life. A life where you were directly in control of your destiny.

For all of you reading this that are thinking., “That will never happen. These billionaires are just playing around because they have the money to waste,” Think again.

Musk has already set his sights on Mars. Branson is talking about space tourism. God only knows what Bezo’s goal is. But each of these guys became a billionaire by seeing opportunity and exploiting it.

If you think they’re doing all of this just to see who’s dick is bigger think again!

One ex NASA engineer was quoted as saying something like, these guys are making advances, spending in a year, what NASA spent in a month. Think about that. How fast do you think innovation is going to happen now that private companies know it’s possible to make their own ships?

With the ability to make ships comes competition about who makes the best ships, the fastest ships, the best engines, the best navigation, Branson’s Unity will probably look like the Wright Brothers plane in 70 years or so. Earth will probably become a quaint little backwater where people are still bitching about politics, religion, poverty, skin color, equity versus equality, and who to tax next.

The real power brokers of humanity will be stretching across our solar system, and beyond.

Space, work ethic, and capitalism, will be the great equalizers. You fuck up in space, and no one will ever hear you whine or scream about the unfairness of it all. If you’re beyond the orbit of Mars and fuck up, you’ll likely be dead and frozen for an hour before anyone gets your first call for help.

Space makes no judgement about you, it will kill you given a chance. All meat is dead meat to the harshness of vacuum.

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Not Sure if this is better… or worse.

I’ve been noticing over the last few months more and more “Cookie Notifications”.

Hell, even I post a cookie notification on this site.

I don’t collect or indeed look at the metrics provided by these cookies but the blog application collects them. I don’t monetize the readership of this blog, I’ve thought about it, but decided against it .

While I could use the money, ultimately it’s more important to be able to speak my mind without worrying about someone having leverage to force me to take down or apologize for a post.

I posted the cookie notification because you, the reader, have the right to know that information is being collected about you.

That being said, I’ve noticed while reviewing the various cookie policies of sites that I visit, a shocking amount of information is being collected.

The most egregious site thus far, is a site of an adult nature that I’ve enjoyed for many years. This adult site posted their cookie policy sometime in the past few weeks, (Hey, I enjoy the site, but don’t live on it.)

Reviewing their policy presented me with over 100 “Affiliate” companies all of whom set tracking cookies, share information about my interests, have access to my location as listed on site, and pretty much anything and everything I’ve provided about me. Given the nature of the site, the immense sharing of information is troubling.

On the one hand, they’ve probably always been sharing this information, such is the nature of monetization. On the other hand knowing what they’re sharing, and the breathtaking length of companies they’re sharing information with, gives me considerable pause.

Any reasonable adult knows (or should know) that sites of an “Adult” nature are risky by nature, these sites are “The Wild West” and often beyond the reach, or notice of law enforcement. These sites come & go without warning. If you’re a “Free” user they’re going to sell some of your information. After all, they’re in it to make money.

As a reasonable adult, we each must make a value choice. Do we really want to see what’s on the site versus how much we’re willing to “pay” to see it.

That thought leads me to question if these sites will make the next logical move. A move where paid membership affords you privacy from tracking and monetization. If the site is making money from memberships do they need to also share the member’s data?

I’d actually pay a membership fee, if I knew that I’d be excluded from having my peculiarities broadcast to hundreds of unknown advertising agencies attempting to target me with their wares.

Essentially, if you’re using a paid VPN service that’s what you’re doing when you’re surfing the web but not logged into Bing, Google, Yahoo, or whatever. Most of the people I know, use a “Burner” email address for questionable sites.

I wonder about all the information that’s already out there on us all as individuals. The genie is pretty much out of the bottle. Will I forever be followed by an ad showing ‘Fat bottomed Blow Up Slut doll’ because once in 2000 while operating my computer intoxicated, I thought it was interesting to click on that particular genre of ad?

This line of thought has also led me to wonder about my overall membership, free or otherwise on the small number of sites that I frequent.

Much as I’ve enjoyed the site I visited last night, do I really need to visit it, or any sites? I really appreciate their upfront attitude and transparency. For me that is a definite check in the “Plus” column. But as someone who tries to keep a low internet profile, (this blog not withstanding,) how much do I want to share?

Brietbart is an interesting case study in persistence. Almost every time I go to their site I’m being asked to accept tracking and cookies. Every single time I tell them they’re not allowed to sell my information and confirm that choice. But they keep asking, I suspect they’re hoping that one day I’ll just cave in and say “Accept All”. That is somewhat ironic because they’re always ‘banging on’ about freedom and privacy. Them constantly asking the way they do is also degrading the user experience and I find myself less inclined to visit their site at all.

Generally, the same is true, for me, of all websites. I’ve noticed that when I’m confronted with yet another “Cookie / Privacy notice” I’m more prone to not click beyond the notice, instead I’ll close the page.

Maybe that’s a good thing.

If people get tired of answering questions about cookies and tracking, perhaps they’ll stop relying on the internet for all their information… I doubt it.

I can say that since I’ve put the cookie notice up on this site, the traffic through the site has decreased. That data is gleaned not from cookies, but from a count of incoming ip addresses the site maintains over a 24 hour period.

From my perspective, the usability of the internet is degraded. It’s like getting gas at some gas stations or making a purchase with my debit card. I don’t think it’s reasonable to be asked if I want a car wash, to donate to this or that cause, do I want a receipt, or be shouted at with advertisements from a blaring screen, or whatever… I just want to get on with my day.

The internet is becoming another case of answer 50 questions get the simplest things done.

In that regard… I’m leaning more to closing accounts I don’t absolutely need and moving back to good old fashioned printed books and reference manuals.

I’ve been using cash for purchases a lot more lately. It’s really nice, transactions the way they’re supposed to be.

Some would say that’s a sign of paranoia.

For me, it’s about not wanting to be bothered.

When I was much younger, I worked at Radio Shack. We didn’t use a cash register, we wrote out orders on a receipt book and had only a cash drawer. We were supposed to ask each and every customer for their name and mailing address. Many customers, young and old refused to provide this information. It’s amazing to me how much has changed and in such a short time.

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As I stated… I’m completely against COVID passports

It’s not that I’m an Anti-Vaxxer.

I’m concerned about the creation of two distinct classes of individuals. I’m concerned about the abuses that become possible. We’ve actually been down this road before.

Smallpox was technically eradicated worldwide by a vaccine push, according to The WHO in 1980 smallpox became a thing of the past. That is a good thing. It demonstrates that there are times when we can and should take action.

This got me thinking about HIV.

There was a time when people who had HIV were isolated and in some cases denied housing, medical care, jobs, or insurance.

At the time ethicists, rightly concluded that discriminatory practices on the basis of actual or supposed infection did not abrogate the rights of the individual. Granted, we learned over a period of years much more about HIV and its transmission routes.

During those early years however, testing positive for HIV was essentially the end of your life. Not only did you just find out your had an incurable mostly fatal disease, if that knowledge became public information you could find yourself looking at an ugly accelerated death living on the streets.

That was when I became aware of moves to create legislation designed to protect medical privacy and add more protections against discrimination.

At the time. we were teetering on the edge of allowing rules that actively discriminated based on a health condition.

Imagine what could have been. Camps of the HIV infected, men and women swept under the carpet, out of sight and out of mind waiting to die.

I remember religious TV personalities implying that HIV patients, due to their sin in the eyes of God deserved nothing better. IV drug users were only slightly more important in the opinions of religious pundits. (After all, at least they were having heterosexual sex…)

Fortunately cooler political heads prevailed, and researchers provided various methods to deal with HIV allowing patients to live with the disease.

There was even a brief flirtation with nationally mandated HIV tests for all citizens. This idea was shot down pretty fast because of privacy concerns.

In this age of COVID there are a lot of folks who have forgotten those early HIV years. Here we are again. Even if the government doesn’t step in and create a national Vaccinated Passport system, private institutions are embracing the idea.

Colleges requiring COVID vaccinations to enter campuses, restaurants in some cities requiring their employees to not only be vaccinated but to subscribe to a private database where they upload their status and receive a bracelet with a QA code linking to their records, other employers are requiring you be vaccinated before you return to in-person work.

This is only the beginning. Acceptance of these “Private” standards will eventually lead to the same outcome as a Government Passport. I strongly suspect that the Government will evaluate the various standards and then nationalize the one that works best. (Meaning the one that provides the most private information.)

My concern is that it won’t simply stop there.

Is it going to be okay for your employer to dictate what vaccines you take as a condition of employment? We already have to provide ID, our SSN, and Citizenship status to employers at the time of hire, what if next we must routinely provide our vaccination records too? How about our other health records?

15 – 20 years ago, I was in the hiring process with a company, their HR person noted that I have a motorcycle endorsement on my driver’s license.

She told me that the company couldn’t permanently hire me unless they saw a bill of sale showing I’d sold my motorcycle to another party and that I had 60 days to produce the bill of sale. “It’s an insurance thing,” she said. I asked her what about SCUBA Diving? “Oh no, you can’t do that either it’s too risky, and you can’t smoke while in our employment either. If we find that you’re doing any of these things it’s grounds for immediate termination.”

She was very confused when I said I no longer wanted to work for the company.

The pay was mediocre at best, and the insurance coverage was really crappy. I tore up the W-4 and associated employment paperwork and continued looking for a job.

Having my employer that deeply embedded in my life made me very uncomfortable. It was almost as if I was signing an indentured servant contract. Yeah, I wanted a job, but not badly enough to give up my personal freedom.

Nowadays my choice could be viewed as selfish, because I didn’t want to give up hobbies or activities that I took pleasure in.

Where is the proverbial line? Would it be reasonable for an employer to say you can’t engage in oral sex because you might develop TMJ, thereby raising the cost of their dental insurance?

How about a celibacy clause in your contract? After all, if you’re not married, you don’t need to be having sex and the insurance premiums could be lowered because there’s less risk of the single employees catching STDs?

Would it still be thought of as selfish to say, “No, I will not give up these activities?”

Having experienced several companies (to greater or lesser extent, a couple of which for whom I did work,) using health insurance as a pretext for dictating to employees what activities they may participate in, I perhaps am overly concerned about mandated vaccinations and vaccination passports.

It’s very much like employers monitoring employees social media accounts. Once the employer has the ability, they will inevitably use the ability to press their advantage.

Would it be right for an employee to be denied a well deserved promotion because of a social media post from a decade before, when they didn’t work for the company? It’s clearly not right on the part of the employer. Yet I suspect that scenario is happening or will happen in the very near future.

Can you imagine being questioned about why you didn’t get a COVID vaccine sooner than you did? What happens if your reluctance to get vaccinated is conflated with an assumption that you’re an insurrectionist? Unpatriotic? A Trump supporter? How about just not enough of a team player?

What impact might any one of those assumptions have on your life or employability in this culture of compliance & conformity?

It’s because I’m wondering about these things and realize that there is zero protection against them that I’m against a vaccine passport. By the way, have you noticed that now it’s just called a Vaccine Passport? Most of us think it’s still just about COVID but already the naming convention is less specific and more inclusive of Vaccinations in general.

To my way of thinking, this loss of specificity is the next step. I have a vaccination record on paper. It won’t be long until the Vaccination Passport will be marketed as a convenient and secure method to maintain all your vaccination records. People will flock to the idea for convenience and put all those records voluntarily into databases sponsored by the Government or not. At that point we’ll lose another bit of privacy.

Does my school, the mall, or my employer really need to know that I’ve been vaccinated against Hepatitis?

When I was younger and traveling for work a lot, I was often sent on trips because I was single. The other guys had families and needed to be home for various reasons. They too were paid a lot more than I was but I always drew the short straw. At one point, I was traveling so much that I simply asked my employer to keep me on the road all the time and told them I’d give up my apartment, (which I wasn’t using anyway.) This inadvertently caused my employer to evaluate how much traveling I was actually doing. When they got the report they were very disturbed. (About 48 to 50 weeks a year.)

When my supervisor was questioned, he said plainly I was young and single so I didn’t have family obligations.

He wasn’t wrong. What he failed to realize was that with that kind of travel schedule, I was never going to have a family because it was impossible to actually date.

I’ve wondered how a vaccine passport might be used in a similar fashion to determine who gets sent to third world countries.

Imagine your boss looking for someone to send to India. They’d pull up their employees vaccination records and filter for everyone who’d had, say COVID, and Hepatitis vaccines. From that list your boss could decide to send you. You probably wouldn’t get any more pay, you might not even get any better chance at promotion. You’d be their India person though.

That might not bother you the first or even the tenth time you got sent to India. Being chosen based not on your skill but on vaccinations might not be the best career path. When you did get tired of it, and asked for a different assignment, you might find that you didn’t ever have a choice. Much as I did when I asked to just stay on the road.

I’m not saying that Vaccination Passports will be abused, I think it is likely they will, because they’re ripe for abuse.

The other concern is that Vaccination Passports inevitably create a two caste society. I’m not alone in this line of reasoning. There are a lot of folks (a lot smarter than me,) writing opinion pieces expressing their concerns over this issue.

Florida’s Governor DeSantis spelled it out pretty concisely when he signed Florida’s law outlawing vaccination passports. However he can only outlaw them for State business or State contractors. What private companies in Florida do is their own business.

Other Governors are requesting similar legislation for their states for the same reason. Generally the reasoning seems to be, The imposition of a two caste system defined by vaccination status is asking for trouble. These Governors want no part of the legal challenges that are sure to happen.

In my entire life, I’ve never been asked for any of my vaccination records, not even smallpox.

When traveling to other countries. As a responsible person, I’ve always checked with the State Department to find out if there was anything special I should be protected against. I’ve also checked with my doctor before traveling outside our borders. Otherwise with the exception of my Passport, and visas being required on the issue of diseases it’s been caveat emptor.

I find it ironic that inside our own country we may be required to produce “papers” to attend sporting or musical events, or perhaps just engage in our normal daily lives.

This concerns me greatly. I just don’t like the NAZI-esq feel of it.

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Apple, You Kinda Screwed up…

From the moment that Apple HomePods were announced, I was interested.

That being said, I wasn’t going to pony up 600-700 bucks for a pair unless I could hear them. Therein was the problem.

You see you could look at them in an Apple Store you could play with the colorful Siri swirl. But you couldn’t actually hear them. Anyone who’s been in an Apple Store knows the chaos the customers endure to shop there.

People playing with every device at every counter. The loud talking, the kids shouting, the Apple Representatives talking louder to be heard over the din.

Boops, Beeps, suddenly loud music from various corners of the store, the Apple Training person giving a class, people trying to get their computers working, and asking endless questions about their new devices they’re in the process of setting up, all over the drone of the latest popular music that the store is playing to “enhance” the customer shopping experience…

You get the picture.

If someone wanted to hear the HomePods with music similar to what they actually listen to in a quiet environment they were pretty much SOL. Against the cacophony of the store there’s no way you could actually hear Mozart, or the delicate pluck of a string. There was no way to actually hear the speakers… Just the speakers.

When Apple released the HomePod mini at $99 it put a HomePod device in the realm of buying one just to try it out. Worst case scenario the sound was crappy but you had access to Siri and could ask about the weather as you made coffee in the morning.

That’s how we came to have a HomePod mini.

We were astounded at the quality of the sound from such a little device. So astounded in fact, that we bought 3 more.

Several weeks after that, we were visiting a neighbor’s house and he had two full size HomePods. He also had a regular set of very nice speakers for listening to his vinyl collection.

I asked if he liked the HomePods. He said, “Yes, very much,” He went on to explain while switching off the turntable that they sounded great when he was streaming music and that he also had several HomePod minis scattered about the house in the bedrooms and his office.

Then he started streaming music to the HomePods.

The sound was glorious. Amazingly glorious, the room was filled with well balanced music. The bass was strong but not overwhelming and the treble was crisp and clear. Had I known what HomePods really sounded like in a quiet room I’d have bought a set shortly after they came out, and I said so.

Then the neighbor said, “If you want a pair you’d better hurry. Apple just discontinued them today.”

I was bummed out.

The other half who is not often impressed with speakers or reproduced music asked a few questions and I thought that was it. I’d missed out on something that was really great.

Two weeks after that a couple of boxes addressed to the other half arrived via UPS.

Magically, two space gray HomePods had appeared. The stereo pair of HomePod minis moved into my office and a new stereo pair was created in the master bedroom. The HomePods are on the credenza flanking the TV now. They handle music in the living room and serve as speakers for movies being played on the Apple TV.

They support the Dolby Atmos stream from the Apple TV and the sound is amazing when playing movies or even TV shows.

There have been some articles calling the HomePod a failure. I don’t think the devices are failures, Apple’s marketing department failed. They clearly didn’t understand that while people will pay 2 or 3 thousand dollars for a computer they’ve never seen or used, folks will need to be a little more “Ears On” for a set of speakers. Even if those speakers are $299 each.

A computer, will adapt and you can hammer it into what you want or need.

Speakers on the other hand either please your ears or they don’t. We all hear differently, it’s not a one size fits all solution.

There are some magna planar speakers that I really like and yet I’ve heard others that I didn’t care for. Some models “hiss” while in operation and that hiss seems to be independent of the speaker’s input source. I find the hissing to be irritating. So even if I had enough cash and space to buy a set of magna planars I’d still be listening to them very carefully as I was making my selection.

Spending $600 on a set of machines I’d never heard before was simply too big a leap of faith for my budget. Sure, I could have bought a set and if I didn’t like ’em I could have returned them, but who wants that hassle?

As I sit here writing this, my Office HomePod minis are playing a selection of guitar solos that are quite beautiful and quiet. I could never have listened to this kind of music in an Apple Store.

The Apple Store venue would have made this music sound like the speakers weren’t of good quality regardless of it being played on full size HomePods or the HomePod mini.

As I said, if there was a failure, it was on the part of Apple’s marketing.

I think they were a bit too arrogant in believing that slapping an Apple logo on something would entice people to buy whatever that thing was. Sure there are lots of Apple fans who salivate yearly for the next Apple widget.

There are a lot more people out here that look at Apple products from a more objective position. We want to evaluate the product and we want to be able to think about the product and it’s utility to our lives.

I didn’t get on board with the Apple Watch until Gen 3. Only then had the watch’s utility caught up to the hype and expense in my mind. Yes, there were other reasons for my purchase of the Gen 3 at the time. I eventually upgraded to Gen 5 and don’t anticipate another upgrade until Gen 7 or 8. Then, only if the Watch provides additional utility that is well beyond what my Gen 5 provides.

I would recommend HomePods (The big ones) if you can find them. I’ve been very pleased with mine, and I continue to appreciate and enjoy my HomePod minis on a daily basis.

That may be in part because there is so little I want to watch on TV and I’ve been shifting more to music and reading a good book.

On music, I have to mention that since I started with Apple Music at 9.99 a month I’ve not been disappointed. Perhaps its because I have access to a world of music that I’m listening to more. Being able to stream literally anything without the worry of buying a crappy album and being stuck with it. I’ve become far more likely to listen to new artists and Apple’s curated lists of music. “Guitar Chill” is my latest discovery.

These lists are updated typically every week and they’re usually quite good. The HomePods let me enjoy them without having something stuffed in my ear. Being able to say, “Siri Stop” is really nice when the phone rings. Although you can use the HomePods to answer the phone and then they’ll act like a speaker phone. I use that option rarely since I don’t like speakerphones in general. I’ve got to admit that it’s nice if I’ve got my hands full.

Thinking about it, I wonder if it would be too over the top to have a set of HomePod mini’s in the garage? If I was doing a lot of work in the garage or working out daily there, it might just be worth it.

Hmm… Nah, I’ll give that one some more thought.