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The Bad Review Revue

Under the Tuscan Sun: “Who thought combining Under the Tuscan Sun with The Godfather was a good idea?” — Dustin Chase, Galveston Daily News

The Super Mario Bros. Movie: “It is the laziest possible version of a Mario movie, and for most viewers, young and old, that’ll be totally acceptable.” — Dylan Roth, Observer

Renfield: “To watch Renfield is to get the impression that someone made a successful elevator pitch, then panicked.” — Alan Zilberman, Spectrum Culture

Love Again: “Your heart will go on, and your eyes will look away in embarrassment.” — A.A. Dowd Chron

Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Champion of the World: “This corny and awkward biopic of boxing champ George Foreman makes his unusual life look dreadfully formulaic. The entire movie is like a limp punching bag filled with nothing but hot air.” — Carla Hay, Culture Mix

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Apple Earnings Report Q2 2023

In its first calendar quarter of the year, Apple revealed its financial performance for the second fiscal quarter of 2023.

During the quarter, Apple generated $94.8 billion in revenue and $24.1 billion in net quarterly profit, or $1.52 per diluted share. This compares to the year-ago quarter when the company recorded revenue of $97.3 billion and net quarterly profit of $25.0 billion, also at $1.52 per diluted share.

While Apple achieved a new all-time high in Services revenue, generating $20.9 billion, and also established a new March quarter record for iPhone revenue at $51.3 billion, the Mac product line experienced a substantial year-over-year decrease in quarterly revenue. The Mac revenue dropped from $10.4 billion to $7.2 billion.

Apple CEO Tim Cook:

“We are pleased to report an all-time record in Services and a March quarter record for iPhone despite the challenging macroeconomic environment, and to have our installed base of active devices reach an all-time high. We continue to invest for the long term and lead with our values, including making major progress toward building carbon neutral products and supply chains by 2030.”

Even on what might be considered a “bad” earnings call, Apple still dominates the space.

Here are some pretty charts.

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Why Music Festivals Sound Better than Ever

As this video explains, line array speakers in sound system design have revolutionized audio quality in live music events. Dave Rat, a sound engineer and sound system designer who has provided audio for Coachella since 2001, explains the differences between point source and line array speakers and how the latter has helped improve the even distribution of sound across large festival areas. Additionally, advancements in technology, such as laser range finders and 3D mapping, have helped sound designers create precise and targeted sound systems, minimizing sound bleeding and creating a better experience for festival-goers. Next time I’m at a concert, I’m going to notice the speaker arrangement and appreciate how far we’ve come in sound design.

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Redesigns and Revamps: Utah’s New State Flag and My ATA Local’s Logo

I’m not a graphic designer but I that’s basically what the New Media program at the U of L taught me to be so I’m interested in good design and want to share some examples of recent logo and flag redesigns:

Back at the end of the 90s I spent a year living in Utah, the flag they had then is basically just the state seal on a blue background. Some 24 states still sport this style of seal on a blue “bedsheet”.

They’ve recently redesigned it and, in my opinion did a pretty good job. Modern design dictates that good logos should be simple enough that one could draw them from a basic description. The new flag meets that criteria. It’s got a great use of the beehive (a symbol of Deseret), the red rocks below, and the white peaks of the mountains. Good job.

Speaking of redesigns, my ATA local recently updated their logo. When they were talking about doing the new logo I thought about volunteering to do it myself but I was worried that I wouldn’t create something in the same ballpark that a full time professional designer could come up with.

The new logo incorporates some symbolism of hoodoos (in the south) to the willow trees that exist in the northern part of our local. It doesn’t meet modern design’s trend of being easily drawn — it’s much too detailed.

I decided to make my own attempt and this is what I came up with:
I suppose my design doesn’t pop in this black and white format, but I’m confident that adding a little colour would give it the same life as the one they chose. C’est la vie. Anyway, I’m disappointed that they’re not going to use my logo, I should have volunteered when the time was right.

(via One Foot Tsunami)

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Pickleball Wars: The Bouncing Menace

Yesterday at pickleball a women told me about one of the other players calling out a teenager who was kicking his soccer ball into one of the pickleball nets. The player asked the kid to stop but he refused and continued booting his ball into the net. She said things didn’t escalate but couldn’t believe how rude the kid was while being confronted about damaging the nets. The woman asked me what I would have done and in the moment I said, I would have told the kid off. I’m not sure why the story hit me the way it did or why exactly I felt the need to establish the fact that I would have taken such a hard line about someone damaging the facility’s equipment but I’m sure it was part of what set me up for what happened next.

So today at pickleball, I got into a row with a different teenager. Two teenagers, actually, but one more than the other. The kid rubbed me the wrong way with our first interaction. He strolled listlessly through our court and in front of me as I was about to serve. We all shared a “what’s up with this guy” look. The teenager went on to meet with a buddy beside our court and each commenced bouncing a tennis ball off the wall. After a missed bounce came near our court my partner politely asked if they would take the bouncing balls someplace else. They pretended to agree but then immediately continued bouncing balls off the walls next to our court. After a short spell my partner once again asked them if they would mind going someplace else because their bouncing balls were distracting and coming into our play area. They said that they were waiting for their turn to play volleyball on this court. My partner asked if they would mind going to an empty court in the meantime? One of the boys acquiesced to go, but I guess the other one talked him into staying because in that very moment they resumed bouncing their tennis balls. I clenched my teeth.

More time passed and the fact that they agreed to leave but then just stayed was hitting a nerve. I went over and explained to him why we wanted them to move and asked him to please go. He told me no. I started to repeat the word please a few times, each time adding more emphasis and feeling a little more agitated and then quite loudly asked him to go to the empty court. He wouldn’t have any of it. At this point I was feeling heated and I told him to take a hike. I guess the point got through because they finally moved on. They still didn’t head over to the empty court but at least they were no longer throwing balls against the wall next to our court.

When I finished my match Andrea asked me if I told somebody to, “take a hike”? She seemed amused and later commented how she thought it was so out of character for me to have an interaction like that even when she agreed, the kid deserved it.

A worker at the facility came over and asked us if we had told someone to leave our court. Even knowing that those kids had no right to be bothering us I wondered if I was somehow going to be in trouble. The other player said yes we did and the employee said no problem but next time just come get him and he’ll get them to move.

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Insert Title Here

I’ve been reading Dave Winer’s Scripting.com blog lately and it’s made me jealous of his blogging software. Because he was blogging before he invented RSS he’s never felt the compulsion to title each of his posts. It’s a lot more like tweeting than blogging when everything doesn’t have to fall neatly under a title.

I guess WordPress will technically let me post without a title, but it’s not the same as his stream of consciousness posts that build from the start of the day to the end, as well, he’s got a separate link-blog stream which I also think is pretty nifty.

That’s it, that’s just what’s been bothering me and every time I have gone to create a new post lately I keep thinking about how I wish I didn’t have to be so formal. Maybe getting it out there will clear my writer’s block.

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Apple Earnings Q1 2023

Apple News:

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2023 first quarter ended December 31, 2022. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $117.2 billion, down 5 percent year over year, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $1.88.

Breakdown per category:

• iPhone: $65.775 billion (down 8% YoY)
• Mac: $7.735 billion (down 29% YoY)
• iPad: $9.936 billion (up 30% YoY)
• Wearables, Home & Accessories: $13.482 billion (down 8% YoY)
• Services: $20.766 billion (up 6% YoY)

Sixcolors has the charts.

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ChatGPT on Backmasking

GPT-3 (short for “Generative Pre-training Transformer 3”) is a state-of-the-art language generation model developed by OpenAI. It is designed to generate human-like text by predicting the next word in a sequence based on the words that come before it. I’ve been excited about the capabilities of ChatGPT and the ease at which one is able to generate human sounding responses to questions on obscure topics. I was also intrigued when I found out what it could do to explain how a specific section of code works.

Here is its quick response when I asked it to tell me about backmasking:

Backmasking is a recording technique in which a message is recorded backwards onto a track that is meant to be played forwards. This technique has been used by artists in various genres of music, from rock to hip hop, to add hidden meanings or subliminal messages to their music.

Some people believe that backmasking can have a powerful and even dangerous influence on listeners, particularly when it comes to subliminal messages that are meant to manipulate the listener’s thoughts or behavior.

However, the effectiveness of backmasking as a means of influencing the listener is a topic of much debate. Many scientists and experts have conducted research on the topic and have found that, while it is possible for subliminal messages to be processed by the brain, they do not have the power to significantly change someone’s thoughts or actions.

In addition, the use of backmasking as a means of subliminal messaging has been largely debunked by the scientific community. While it may be possible to hear a backwards message when a track is played in reverse, the brain is not able to comprehend and process the message in the same way it would a message that is played forwards.

Despite the lack of scientific evidence supporting the power of backmasking, the technique remains a controversial and interesting topic in the world of music and popular culture. Some people continue to believe in the power of backmasking, while others see it as a harmless and even humorous gimmick.

Regardless of where you stand on the issue, it is important to approach the topic of backmasking with an open mind and to be aware of the limitations and limitations of this recording technique.

While it’s still early days as far as GPT-3 taking my job as a teacher, I also checked out what it could write up for lesson plans for grade five health class and it was impressive. It does play fast and loose with the facts however — I was asking about world record information and it remixed some real world divers and their records.

I would warn users that just like the complacency that can overcome drivers in a “full self-driving car”, the facts gleaned from GPT-3’s responses should be considered with the same dose of skepticism one would apply to secret backward messages. Not everything you hear, read, or see, is as legitimate as it appears.

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