WitGlass Unfiltered

In this episode, I discuss Manhattan cocktail recipes, my recent experiences with the Mimo app designed for learning to code, a recently-created-and-soon-to-be-revealed WitGlass Playlist, Evernote’s uselessness, Serena Williams, and Brett Kavanaugh. It’s a doozy.

In this episode of *WitGlass Unfiltered,* I discuss some miscellany related to the mission of WitGlass, to the recent Hurricane Florence, and to our new dog Matilda Jane Huntington. I also present the first public reading of the first draft of a recent poem, “Every Day on Earth.”

It’s been only two weeks since the last episode, so I’m warming back up. Today I talk about two—yes, two—small lot coffees from Trader Joe’s, and I delve into more about why I despise Evernote. My complaints about Evernote may seem small, but I believe that in reality, they affect the entire service experience. I provide a brief teaser about how to fix America’s dismal education system. And I offer an exciting announcement for our family.

It’s been quite a while since my last podcast episode was published, but it’s time to begin again. This episode brings back my Coffee Talk segment with this year’s version of a wonderful “Honey Processed” limited release coffee. It also briefly covers the recent Evernote app update. Finally, it offers a sad announcement from our family to yours.

No matter how dark things look, don’t forget that evil has existed in every age, every generation. The great evil politician, the overweening boss, the big fish in the little pond (and the big fish in the vast ocean)—they all shit like the rest of us. Remember that we still fight the evil resident in our own hearts, and there is always hope for tomorrow.

Apple hosted a big event on Tuesday. Have I mentioned that? I offered some initial, visceral responses to the event and the devices it announced. In this episode, I continue the discussion, adding more measured responses to the visceral ones already offered. I discuss the top-notch on the face of the iPhone X, the advanced power of the new A11 Bionic chipset, and John Gruber’s thoughtful piece on Apple’s iPhone event.

In this episode, I talk about the major products announced in Apple’s latest event: AppleWatch Series 3, AppleTV 4K, iPhone 8, and iPhone X. I begin with a discussion of gin martinis, David Wondrich, and cocktail recipes.

This episode follows on the heels of Episode 75, and I discuss some important technology issues related to Apple’s upcoming iPhone event tomorrow (12 September 2017), in which Apple is expected to announce its latest round of new iPhones, potentially presenting two completely new designs. I also discuss again the importance of Artificial Intelligence and Siri to the future of Apple and computing in general.

iCloud and Siri are the heart of Apple’s future. In this episode, I discuss Apple’s upcoming event, and I focus on the tie that binds it all together: Artificial Intelligence (and Machine Learning). At one point, I even compare Apple Maps to Google Maps. I also discuss the importance of offline dictation using Siri.

In this episode, I discuss some recent headlines, including DACA, college students, millennials, student loan debt, and college costs.

Morality is an essential feature of sound education. Those who try to distance education from morality are inherently undercutting quality education, because in arguing that morality does not belong in education, they are using a moral argument to argue against morality by saying that its inclusion in education is immoral, thereby starting education with logical inconsistency and destroying the foundation of what they claim to be defending. Plus I talk about coffee.

In this episode, I discuss coffee grinder settings, French roast coffee, and Trader Joe’s Guatemalan Extra Dark Roast. I also discuss *You’ve Got Mail,* *Notting Hill,* *How I Met Your Mother,* *New Girl,* and the power of song in building the emotion of a scene.

In this episode, I discuss the Lys Kaffe Norwegian Light Roast from Trader Joe’s. I discuss a few ways to prepare it. I also discuss a couple of headlines, one light-hearted, one serious, and then I follow up with a plea for truly civilized discourse with those who oppose us.

In this episode, I discuss the difficulties of life along with a reminder that life isn’t all dark clouds and lightning bolts. It is full of beauty and light and love and kindness—and we can choose to enjoy it or not. Plus I talk about Napoleon Hill and read a couple hymn lyrics.

It’s that time of year! Apple will soon be holding their September event to announce new iPhones and other hardware and software. Other companies have new announcements and releases coming out this fall, as well. I also continue the discussion about bias and clickbait headlines.

This is a headline hodgepodge episode, covering mostly political articles, including Charlottesville, racism, the American Confederacy, slavery, and so much more.

Every one of us is damaged, an imperfect version of humanity, and if we want to participate in civilized discourse, we must be honest about this reality. Recent events in Charlottesville, VA, and around the country draw out the importance of admitting our own weaknesses and flaws, and treating other people fairly means recognizing the log in our own eye. This episode addresses the idea of the brokenness in each of us, and I read some original poetry related to this idea, including a poem titled “Racial Unrest,” written nearly a year-and-a-half prior to this episode.

In this episode, I go all in on coffee. I discuss coffee preparations. I discuss coffee rituals. I discuss the best coffee shops in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I discuss the importance of sustaining existing healthy culture and creating new healthy culture. Yes dear we'll figure it out

In this episode I talk about the probable upcoming Apple Event in September, when they usually announce new iPhones, and I discuss all the big iPhone rumors (at least the ones that are important to me).

In this episode, in honor of the start of the 2017-2018 school year, I discuss some basic education principles. I read from *Leftism: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse.* I also read from *The Art of Thinking.* I reference *The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.* And fundamentally I defend rationality and rational discussion, which begins with truth and honesty.

This episode launches from a recent Tweet about the state of the national debt since Trump took office on January 20, 2017. There was some discrepancy about whether the national debt has increased or decreased since then, so I provide the current number and compare it with the starting number. Then I unpack the debt situation under the previous three U.S. presidents.

This episode covers three recent headlines that address Putin and Trump, KKK and White Supremacists, and Racism and Power.

In this episode, I pretend that I’m going to cover several categories of headlines but in the end only cover one category: the one regarding the Trump CNN WWE Meme, focusing on the ideas relating to claims of anti-semitism and free speech. It’s so important, that I use the whole episode to discuss it (except for the coffee talk, of course).

The new *Wonder Woman* film is a beautiful piece of cinema, and in this episode, I offer my first impressions of the film, its place in the pantheon of superhero films, and the need we all feel to have heroes and, when possible, to be heroes.

In this episode, I discuss all the recent hubbub about the Trump CNN WWE Meme, including CNN’s bad choice to take it seriously, bullying bullies, and the sad state of bullying tactics on Twitter.

This is a real smorgasbord that touches on local culture, Twitter, the struggle with self, changing ourselves, not changing others, doing what’s right, influence, everyday conversation, and why coffee is more important than politics.

This episode covers several topics related to Apple and Security, including new iMessage features, Apple’s end-to-end encryption claims, tech security, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

In this brief episode, I discuss civilized discourse further, drawing attention to the importance of focusing our attention on local conversations, but also of treating others online with the same courtesy we would treat them if they were in our living room.

In this episode, I return to education to talk about the failure of schools to teach students to read beyond the basic skill of reading individual words. There is so much more that students could do with their reading, if schools would continue teaching their students advance reading techniques. If schools did, students would enjoy school—and more importantly, learning—and they would get so much more out of the experience. That’s what this episode is about.

In previous episodes about civilized discourse, I have already described the importance of truth-telling, but of course there is more to it than that. Mankind was built to tell stories. In order to properly understand the importance of civilized discourse and how to engage in it properly, we must understand the importance of not only storytelling, but also storyhearing. Too often, we spend our time wanting to tell our own story, without hearing the other party’s story. In this episode I discuss that, as well as the inherent flaws in the design of Twitter that make both storytelling and storyhearing extremely difficult (if not nearly impossible), and therefore why Twitter is—by nature of its very design—an enemy of civilized discourse.

In this episode, I discuss some guidelines for creating good-tasting coffee. Then I discuss important principles for planning summer education initiatives for our children. I also discuss the importance of getting out of the way of our children/students when they are striving to learn.

In this episode, I jump back into technology, which I hadn’t touched much since my initial responses to WWDC. When I started, I thought I was going to talk about a lot more than just the new iPad Pro 10.5, but there really was plenty to talk about just regarding the new iPad, especially because any discussion of any iPad moving forward (for the next year, at least) must include iOS 11, which looks like it will at long last bring the iPad to maturity.

Boy, oh, boy, do I get deep into it with this one. I talk about coffee in Paris, McCafe, the shooting of GOP congressmen, Preet Bharara, and Bill Maher and the N(bigger)-word. Plus—as a bonus—I completely butcher the name of Kathy Griffin.

If you’ve been listening to the show the past few weeks, you know how excited I’ve been about getting to visit with one of my favorite singer-songwriters, Lex Land. In this episode, she fulfilled the dream. She was as gracious as you can imagine, through the whole process, and she kindly talked with me for a full hour. As with all *WitGlass Unfiltered* episodes, there was no do-over, no second take, no editing. So what you get is an unfiltered conversation with Lex Land. Enjoy!

Of course I talk about the Jura Impressa C60, but this time I also talk about the Keurig and a recent experience with paper filters in both the Keurig 1.0 and the Keurig 2.0. Then I talk about the relationship of politics and culture, and the importance of utilizing accurate generalizations. Then I talk about the circus that is politics—particularly American politics—and I express (mild) remorse that I’m not a funnier person so I could draw out just how hilarious I find politics. And I end the episode with a brief analysis of James Comey’s disastrous *feelings.*

In a previous episode, I discussed the concept of perfect social systems, making the point that they don’t exist. In this episode, I take that idea further and apply the principles related to social systems generally to education systems specifically. Toward the end of the episode, I also briefly discuss school vouchers.

In this episode, I offer some thoughts on civilized discourse in the current United States. Some accuse Trump of causing this, but the civilized discourse problem existed in the U.S. long before Trump became president. I discuss the importance of treating others with dignity, and when it’s acceptable to utilize ridicule and certain “name-calling.” And I end the episode with *Star Trek: The Next Generation* reference.

This is a quick and dirty episode with little preparation. I didn’t want to wait to discuss some initial follow-up to Apple’s WWDC Keynote yesterday (Monday). In this episode I discuss new features in the works for subscribers only, Apple’s New HomePod, Siri improvements, the needed shift to personal clouds, and DEVONthink Dropbox database syncing.

Apple’s WWDC is coming up this week, starting with the keynote address on Monday, June 5th, at 10am PDT / 1pm EDT. This episode is the first of two parts covering Apple’s potential announcements. This second part continues with potential hardware announcements that seem most likely, given that WWDC is related primarily to programming and development. But this show discusses the recent Foxconn Insider leaks, particularly related to Apple’s Augmented-Reality Glasses. I touch on that and more in the final episode before the WWDC keynote.

Apple’s WWDC is coming up this week, starting with the keynote address on Monday, June 5th, at 10am PDT / 1pm EDT. This episode is the first of two parts covering Apple’s potential announcements. This first part focuses on the potential hardware announcements that seem most likely, given that WWDC is related primarily to programming and development. I touch on chipsets, including the dedicated AI chip that Apple is rumored to be developing.

First I talk about coffee, then a couple headlines related to Kathy Griffin, Trump, and the Paris Climate Accord. Next, I’ve been talking about Lex Land’s new project, One Big Dark Room, for a couple weeks now, and at last I’m delighted to introduce you to her newest release, *From Hell, With Love.* First I talk about a couple headlines related to Kathy Griffin, Trump, and the Paris Climate Accord. Finally, I am delighted to offer you another original poem titled “Shards of Memory.”

Andy Rubin is back in the news with Essential Phone and upcoming home automation and smart security hardware. Apple is reportedly working on an AI chip. And privacy and security are hard to come by. In this episode, I discuss these things, plus a five-minute rave about the Jura Impressa C60.

Memorial Day is usually celebrated as a holiday of joy and relaxation, but it is—at least in its origins—more importantly a day of remembrance of the ones we’ve lost. These are not necessarily contradictory ideas, however. I address the nature of Memorial Day, along with the problem of treating systems as if they are agnostic—or worse, as if they bear causational responsibility for our own errors.

I’ve been promising headlines and commentary, and here they are. There’s no real rhyme or reason to it, except that it touches on some important topics I’ve been wanting to cover.

In this episode, I talk about some new features coming to the website, James Blount’s album *Moon Landing,* and a couple annoyances about education. I wanted to get to headlines, but I took too long on the rest of it—so, next time we’ll talk headlines.

My new Apple Watch Series 2 broke two days ago. The screen cracked clean across, with no clear cause. In this episode, I describe the circumstances and discuss my interactions with Apple Support.

The theme of this episode is authenticity in communication. I drop the good news that Lex Land has agreed to join WitGlass Unfiltered for an interview, coming up hopefully some time in June. I am still working out details. From there, I move to headlines about censorship and Trump, and I address the important topics of slander, libel, and defamation—more generally considered as *honest representation of information.* Finally, I move into education, and I offer two fundamental principles of education that connect to the concept of honest representation of information, focusing on the exchange of information between teacher and student.

I’ve been promising original poetry, and here it is, my first-ever public performance of my original poem “Long Ago.” The performance is recorded live, in the WitGlass Unfiltered tradition. There is no touching up, no do-over. It’s a live spoken word performance for your listening pleasure.

In this episode, I discuss headlines touching political and technology topics. I start with a reference to ABC’s *Designated Survivor,* when President a character compliments President Kirkman on his rhetorical skills and another character responds, “That’s because he means it.” That is the essence of this episode’s theme: Say what you mean and mean what you say. Unfortunately, we can’t trust mainstream media of any stripe to do that, and we certainly can’t trust the overwhelming majority of our politicians to do that. Insincere bluster is the name of the game in national American politics. But it isn’t just in politics; the insincere bluster related to technology “reporting” is just as bad. Enjoy!

This episode is all about the Show Notes. Each episode has Show Notes now. The level of detail in the show notes will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. I use the show notes discussion as a launching point to discuss Evernote and a variety of topics related to app design, including featuresets, usability, and more.

One of the techniques that the mainstream media and politicians in general use to confuse their audience (whether that audience agrees or disagrees) is by changing the definitions of words and phrases. Net neutrality is one such phrase. What it means is not what they mean. I examine this and point out a few flawed headlines and articles along the way.