Yup. Plus the nature of the playoffs compresses talent differences. The Phillies had a worse regular season record in part because the back of their rotation and mop-up relievers were worse. Those doods get to ride the pine. So coin flip indeed.
Regular season is all about who has the best 26 guys. Post-season is who has the best 16 or so guys, and the margin is much thinner when rosters are compressed.
At the risk of further (and unnecessarily) fetishizing front offices, what a fascinating roster construction problem: do you look to make sure your team is deep enough 1 thru 26 to win the division, or do you spend more money on fewer high-quality players with the idea that you'll be good enough to make the tournament come October - and your top 16 will be better than anyone else's? Obviously luck and health plays a role but right now it seems like Philly's core and Houston's core are neck-and-neck despite the regular season disparities.
I think this calculus already happens with ace starters and closers to a lesser degree. They can have an outsized effect on a small series in the way that an MVP hitter usually does not (because hitters can't control whether they come up with the game on the line).
Man, nothing compares to the disappointment of the fully animated original Atari game box/cartridge vs. the actual graphics. That was where I realized nothing was real and life was a series of unending disappointments.
To your point, those old Metroid Gameboy games still haunt me with their repetitive creepy sounds, but really disappointing graphics.
Conversely, that Donkey Kong Country II for SNES was one of my favorite games ever. Music was great, upbeat, gameplay wasn't insanely hard, just pure fun.
I've been practicing appellate criminal defense for 25 years, and after doing it for a while, it really hit me that I was a writer. For some of those years, I wrote music reviews and essays on a couple of websites, and I found that while I sometimes couldn't find the more informal voice that I think is best for writing about pop/rock music, my command of structure and organization was a real asset. As I shifted into more of an editorial capacity, I found that the way I read, or rather, how I reacted to whatever I was reading had changed. Specifically, I found myself not just reacting to the writing, but to the editorial decisions, and how poor ones impact a book.
Prior to 20 years FDNY I spent 10 years bouncing around media and journalism, including bylines in the Daily News and a HUGE double-truck piece in the Village Voice, along with stories in various other local Brooklyn mags and newspapers. I've edited and written on Wall Street, for politicians, for trade publications and various other outlets. When friends' children apply to college I'm consulted on their essays, I've edited business proposals and done ad work and consulted on doctorate theses.
Here's the rub: I'm not paid for what I do now (favors?) and so I find myself thinking that I *was* a writer and editor. Perhaps a type of self-flagellation for not currently working, in retirement, on my great book (of hilarious and tear-inducing firehouse anecdotes).
(I'm here if you need me, but from now on -- I'm charging!!)
was always a low-key background curiosity. growing up in Brooklyn had several 1sthand experiences w fires (none tragic but all influential) and covered some fires. wasn't thrilled w where my career in journalism was trending and saw a chance for dramatic change (and yes wanted to "do more") and saw how pensions and med coverage changed lives in my parents circle of friends.
still, took the test almost on a lark and then, as w other things in life, the train left the station with me almost unaware I had boarded.
on my 1st day in the firehouse after hating proby school I knew I was "home"
Craig, can you tweet out on Tuesday night at 8 pm "Democratic control of Congress would be fun?"
Any World Series that goes at least six is always better than any that go four or five. It's been pretty interesting so far, with the no hitter and the five home runs and the comeback. Lots of fodder for Jayson Stark, if nothing else. But it also hasn't been a classic, since we haven't seen any really close back and forth kind of games. And given the pitching, I am not sure we will see one. But can always dream.
I like what you said about writers. The same is true for advocates... especially those who advocate for things worth advocating for. Can't tell you how many times I've written and spoken to people to assure them that they are advocates and their advocacy makes a difference, even if it's only to one person.
I can’t for the life of me remember where I was for Halladay’s no-no. I know that I was in the car on a long drive. But I don’t know where I was going. Definitely the second most memorable game I heard rather than watched. First was 1986 NLCS game six. The teams kept going back and forth into extras as the radio went in and out during a drive from college near Cooperstown to Boston for a fun weekend. We nearly went off the road when Hatcher homered in the 14th.
I can tell you where I was when I remembered that Hallady threw a playoff no hitter. I was on my couch last night when someone mentioned it on twitter. Probably will forget about it for another 10 years or so.
I know where I was - parked on a couch in a house in Northeast Minneapolis, the last house but one in which I lived that also had proper cable television. Good game!
Now I'd probably watch it in a bar, or just listen. Cable is good for sports in realtime, but that's not enough of a thing to keep me from cutting the cord.
Joe Posnanski made a good point earlier this year. The appeal of a no-hitter is not that a team gets no hits, it's that one pitcher held them without a hit for nine innings. That's a lot more difficult to do than have a guy throw five or six no-hit innings then have the bullpen piece together the rest.
Go read Joe this morning. He talks about the last 3 innings being the beauty of a no-hitter.
The pitcher is going through the order once again and the hitters have seen most of his stuff. There's fatigue and history.
The last 3 here were all fresh arms going all out for 1 inning. We've seen this before.
I entirely understand why Dusty made the call. He wants his starter for another game and he's been criticized for leaving starters in too long already.
To me, 6 no-hit innings is where other networks start to pay attention and let you know there's a no-hitter going on somewhere else. I would turn the channel and watch in the 7th, maybe the game I was watching would cut to it in the 9th.
I think I might be a writer, too. I should do more of it - not that I’m good, but I enjoy it. Is it weird that I also like editing? One of my very favorite things to do is to take a document and get it under a page/word limit – uses the same mental muscles as writing a haiku, or solving a tough crossword – creativity loves constraint and all that.
PS Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like every time a team has an offensive blow out in a game, they go almost completely dry in the next one – although maybe not to the extent the Phillies did last night. I put it in the same category of “guy who makes amazing defensive play is first one up next inning”.
PPS Craig: did your flyer arrive like that, or did you start to crumple it up and think “wait – I could use this for the newsletter”?
I'm surprised the Elias people didn't come up with a graphic saying "this is only the nth time a team has hit 5 HR in one game and was no-hit the next"
In your defense, these parody tweets are very on-brand for MCR. When I first saw this yesterday, I just thought that Gerard Way intentionally/ironically misspelled “official” in the Twitter handle
I'll never forget in the mid-2000s seeing the local head of a Chamber of Commerce talking about a raffle with a My Chemical Romance guitar as a prize, and his eyes looking a little bit more hollow and confused than usual as he had no idea who they are or why anyone should be excited.
To me, a combined no-hitter is just an interesting curio. It bears no relation to a single starter who has pitched through a lineup at least 3 times without so much as a bloop single. What happened last night was a statistical anomaly, not an all-time post-season performance. (Four pitchers?!).
I revel in all no hitters, but I think the big takeaway is more that the Phils went from dominating at home to being silenced. In the regular season, a combined no-no is a blip. In the World Series, it can be a defining moment.
Every narrative in sports is made up after things happen and can be adjusted as needed. Like Craig was saying McCullers was tipping his pitches, and maybe he was. An article at The Athletic yesterday had every Astro denying it, so the story is McCullers was known to throw off speed stuff and missed his spots. That's the story now.
Well, I hope you're right about the idea that there's no momentum in baseball because last night was about the most depressing thing I've experienced as a fan. I'm more or less convincing that the Series is over. Sure, Verlander could get rocked but it feels like the odds of that happening again are extremely low.
Which given Oz's idea of abortion being between a woman, her doctor, and local politicians and a failson running for Congress in NC thinking there should be a "community level review process" before an abortion can be obtained, it should be effective messaging. But who knows what can break through.
It's maddening. The voting populace has the attention span of the proverbial goldfish, especially if the goldfish found the cost of gas in one country to be indicative of an entire party's platform success or failure.
So many people think that either they will NEVER be in that situation (which, hahaha, they have no idea how much can go incredibly wrong with a wanted and planned pregnancy that makes an abortion necessary) or that of course whatever situation they might be in will be an exception to the rule, because no one could possibly imagine that the rules that are clearly for irresponsible sluts who have abortions on a whim and for fun also apply to clearly responsible women who need one for important and serious reasons. 🙄🙄🙄
This calls to mind a recent Post Reports podcast that discussed the historically Republican vote of the Ukrainian communities in Ohio and how this year it's different, and how it once again shows us how often voting comes down to whether a person has been personally impacted or not.
The no-hitter got me looking up other WS stats. We all know that the list of all-time WS home runs is quite different from the all-time post-season home runs, due to the expanded playoffs. But two names caught my eye in the all-time WS HR list. Chase Utley and George Springer are tied for 10th in all-time WS HRs each. But Utley got his in just 15 games, and Springer in 14. The other people tied with 7 played in at least 32 WS games. The 3 players with 8 played in at least 26 games. The leader, Mantle, hit his leading 18 in 65 games. I usually poo-poo contemporary post-season stats but the Utley/Springer totals really jump out, especially when you look at the names and games played around them.
Utley got five of those HRs in 2009, where the Series was three games in Citizens Bank and three in the Bronx. Those are places you can hit some dingers. And Minute Maid can also be good for homers.
That must be my problem. I got a mix of both so didn't get 5 of either, plus didn't check with my service provider to see if they are Moderna or Pfizer compatible. Oops.
No 5G for me either, probably due to mixing and matching, but we’re all supposed to be dead like 19 times over by this point from the government/big pharma pushing a kill button or whatever, so should probably just count our blessings.
I listened to a book called “After Steve”, about Tim Cook and Jony Ive as they each stepped into a brighter spotlight after Jobs’ passing, and AirPods being designed as basically disposable really tracks with Cook’s entire vision of people just shrugging and taking on the cost to pay for more convenience. Because my god are truly wireless headphones convenient as hell. It’s just too bad that instead of simply charging people an Apple premium to change batteries, customers are funneled into an every other year replacement cycle.
I can't wear airpods or any of the little buds from other vendors that are supposed to just stay in your ear without any support. They fall out if I move at all. Just typing this would cause them to shift with the massive movements of my fingers on the keyboard.
I haven't read that book, but I from afar as a consumer and teeny tiny shareholder, it feels that Cook pushed Ive out pretty quickly after Jobs' death. Certainly the changes to the iPhone haven't been visual or tactile design focused and I think that Jobs is spinning in his grave over the three camera look. Adding a pen to the iPad was definitely anti-Ive.
The way the book describes it, Cook was and remains a logistics and cost-saving/profit-gaining wizard who isn't super creative except in how to get more money (see: Apple Card), and Jony Ive is a visionary designer who obsesses over all the little things but doesn't always consider usability, and Jobs was able to temper that (as they, in turn, tempered him as much as anyone could with their own tendencies and demeanor). I mean, Ive designed the new campus as this perfect glass saucer that kept people walking into doors and walls and needing medical care because it was an achievement in vision but not FOR PEOPLE TO USE.
It serves as an interesting companion to Walter Isaacson's Jobs bio, at least to me, as it tells the story of both men coming up through the company and how they struggled and changed the company after Jobs' death. And Isaacson's book is necessary because it is a bit less starry-eyed over Jobs than this book is, which doesn't really deal with how awful a person he could be.
I'm always interested in corporate succession. Is, for example, Jassy going to be as good as Cook or as bad as Balmer? I get the feeling that Ive is, by nature, much closer to Jobs. Jobs had some tech chops, but was much more on the visual design side (e.g. how the chips *looked* inside the Mac; utilizing his calligraphy course to ensure that there were a lot of fonts available, etc.) while deferring at first to Steve Wozniak, then latter other tech folks.
I've read several of Isaacson's books, including his one on Jobs. Not a hit job, but definitely doesn't pull any punches whether it is how he wiped out the founders equity at Pixar or treating the Apple Lisa much better than his daughter Lisa. Isaacson's access to Elon Musk will lead to an amazing book.
I find Musk to be fascinating. Not likeable certainly, but a deeply fascinating character. Ridiculously high highs, abominable low lows. And always remarkable in every sense of the word. The Ashlee Vance bio is okay, but was too early in the SpaceX days to quench my thirst and was modestly superficial.
There are pictures of Isaacson in the background when Musk first met with the Twitter team after the deal was consummated a few days ago. He has been working on the book for over a year, well before TWTR was being discussed.
I haven't completed all of Isaacson's bios. I've read Franklin, Jobs, and The Innovators. But I haven't read Da Vinci, Kissinger, or Doudna. What I've read I've both liked and been informed by.
I was thinking a little more about why I find Musk to be fascinating and, of course, it circles back to baseball.
Completely different personality but what he brings to mind is Billy Martin. Martin was brilliant & insecure, brashful & unforthcoming, leads to massive overachievement and causes great failure. Mercurial is an understatement. But in the 1970s and 1980s, I just couldn't look away.
Musk, like Martin, is many things, but one thing he is not is easy to ignore.
What do you think are the best wireless earbuds. Because they’re great for running but breathe on them wrong and they break. I’m willing to pay for durability.
I'm afraid I went from AirPods to AirPods Pro, so I'm part of the problem here. WireCutter likes the Beats Fit Pro, which seem to me better designed for a more secure fit for workouts (I workout with the Pros but never outside, shy of a brisk walk on paved surfaces, where they're easily found if I drop them or they fall out).
And personally I don't trust any of these no-name brands to put a lithium battery next to my brain.
I swear by the power beats 3. But they have a wire that connects the 2 sides and they loop around your ear so strictly speaking they're not independent free-standing pod.
I loop the wire on the back of my neck instead of in front.
Yup. Plus the nature of the playoffs compresses talent differences. The Phillies had a worse regular season record in part because the back of their rotation and mop-up relievers were worse. Those doods get to ride the pine. So coin flip indeed.
So much this.
Regular season is all about who has the best 26 guys. Post-season is who has the best 16 or so guys, and the margin is much thinner when rosters are compressed.
At the risk of further (and unnecessarily) fetishizing front offices, what a fascinating roster construction problem: do you look to make sure your team is deep enough 1 thru 26 to win the division, or do you spend more money on fewer high-quality players with the idea that you'll be good enough to make the tournament come October - and your top 16 will be better than anyone else's? Obviously luck and health plays a role but right now it seems like Philly's core and Houston's core are neck-and-neck despite the regular season disparities.
I think this calculus already happens with ace starters and closers to a lesser degree. They can have an outsized effect on a small series in the way that an MVP hitter usually does not (because hitters can't control whether they come up with the game on the line).
While the movie's animation wasn't great, man that video game I was so excited about as a kid was pretty terrible too.
Man, nothing compares to the disappointment of the fully animated original Atari game box/cartridge vs. the actual graphics. That was where I realized nothing was real and life was a series of unending disappointments.
To your point, those old Metroid Gameboy games still haunt me with their repetitive creepy sounds, but really disappointing graphics.
Conversely, that Donkey Kong Country II for SNES was one of my favorite games ever. Music was great, upbeat, gameplay wasn't insanely hard, just pure fun.
Literally did not realize that until you mentioned it!!
I've been practicing appellate criminal defense for 25 years, and after doing it for a while, it really hit me that I was a writer. For some of those years, I wrote music reviews and essays on a couple of websites, and I found that while I sometimes couldn't find the more informal voice that I think is best for writing about pop/rock music, my command of structure and organization was a real asset. As I shifted into more of an editorial capacity, I found that the way I read, or rather, how I reacted to whatever I was reading had changed. Specifically, I found myself not just reacting to the writing, but to the editorial decisions, and how poor ones impact a book.
There are people in all fields that are good writers and should consider themselves writers. It is a skill, not a profession
Prior to 20 years FDNY I spent 10 years bouncing around media and journalism, including bylines in the Daily News and a HUGE double-truck piece in the Village Voice, along with stories in various other local Brooklyn mags and newspapers. I've edited and written on Wall Street, for politicians, for trade publications and various other outlets. When friends' children apply to college I'm consulted on their essays, I've edited business proposals and done ad work and consulted on doctorate theses.
Here's the rub: I'm not paid for what I do now (favors?) and so I find myself thinking that I *was* a writer and editor. Perhaps a type of self-flagellation for not currently working, in retirement, on my great book (of hilarious and tear-inducing firehouse anecdotes).
(I'm here if you need me, but from now on -- I'm charging!!)
That is a very cool career trajectory. Why did you make the switch?
was always a low-key background curiosity. growing up in Brooklyn had several 1sthand experiences w fires (none tragic but all influential) and covered some fires. wasn't thrilled w where my career in journalism was trending and saw a chance for dramatic change (and yes wanted to "do more") and saw how pensions and med coverage changed lives in my parents circle of friends.
still, took the test almost on a lark and then, as w other things in life, the train left the station with me almost unaware I had boarded.
on my 1st day in the firehouse after hating proby school I knew I was "home"
Craig, can you tweet out on Tuesday night at 8 pm "Democratic control of Congress would be fun?"
Any World Series that goes at least six is always better than any that go four or five. It's been pretty interesting so far, with the no hitter and the five home runs and the comeback. Lots of fodder for Jayson Stark, if nothing else. But it also hasn't been a classic, since we haven't seen any really close back and forth kind of games. And given the pitching, I am not sure we will see one. But can always dream.
Game one sorta? A quick 5-0 lead then a comeback.
Game One clearly should have been Game Six. Huge mistake by the universe.
And Mike Scott should have been the next pitcher in the rotation. He's had plenty of time to scuff a few baseballs!
He’s busy managing the regional branch of a paper company. But he’s from Scranton, so probably a Phillies fan.
I like what you said about writers. The same is true for advocates... especially those who advocate for things worth advocating for. Can't tell you how many times I've written and spoken to people to assure them that they are advocates and their advocacy makes a difference, even if it's only to one person.
I can’t for the life of me remember where I was for Halladay’s no-no. I know that I was in the car on a long drive. But I don’t know where I was going. Definitely the second most memorable game I heard rather than watched. First was 1986 NLCS game six. The teams kept going back and forth into extras as the radio went in and out during a drive from college near Cooperstown to Boston for a fun weekend. We nearly went off the road when Hatcher homered in the 14th.
I can tell you where I was when I remembered that Hallady threw a playoff no hitter. I was on my couch last night when someone mentioned it on twitter. Probably will forget about it for another 10 years or so.
I know where I was - parked on a couch in a house in Northeast Minneapolis, the last house but one in which I lived that also had proper cable television. Good game!
Now I'd probably watch it in a bar, or just listen. Cable is good for sports in realtime, but that's not enough of a thing to keep me from cutting the cord.
Joe Posnanski made a good point earlier this year. The appeal of a no-hitter is not that a team gets no hits, it's that one pitcher held them without a hit for nine innings. That's a lot more difficult to do than have a guy throw five or six no-hit innings then have the bullpen piece together the rest.
The players know it, too -- the tenor of the pitcher-catcher embrace tells the story.
Go read Joe this morning. He talks about the last 3 innings being the beauty of a no-hitter.
The pitcher is going through the order once again and the hitters have seen most of his stuff. There's fatigue and history.
The last 3 here were all fresh arms going all out for 1 inning. We've seen this before.
I entirely understand why Dusty made the call. He wants his starter for another game and he's been criticized for leaving starters in too long already.
To me, 6 no-hit innings is where other networks start to pay attention and let you know there's a no-hitter going on somewhere else. I would turn the channel and watch in the 7th, maybe the game I was watching would cut to it in the 9th.
It's a win and a quality start, meh
I think I might be a writer, too. I should do more of it - not that I’m good, but I enjoy it. Is it weird that I also like editing? One of my very favorite things to do is to take a document and get it under a page/word limit – uses the same mental muscles as writing a haiku, or solving a tough crossword – creativity loves constraint and all that.
PS Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like every time a team has an offensive blow out in a game, they go almost completely dry in the next one – although maybe not to the extent the Phillies did last night. I put it in the same category of “guy who makes amazing defensive play is first one up next inning”.
PPS Craig: did your flyer arrive like that, or did you start to crumple it up and think “wait – I could use this for the newsletter”?
It was half-crumpled in the mailbox.
Sounds like your mail carrier likes Vance as much as you do.
I'm surprised the Elias people didn't come up with a graphic saying "this is only the nth time a team has hit 5 HR in one game and was no-hit the next"
You’re also a writer when you mistakenly include a tweet by a My Chemical Romance parody account
The sentiment holds despite the identity of the messenger.
True enough!
In your defense, these parody tweets are very on-brand for MCR. When I first saw this yesterday, I just thought that Gerard Way intentionally/ironically misspelled “official” in the Twitter handle
I'll never forget in the mid-2000s seeing the local head of a Chamber of Commerce talking about a raffle with a My Chemical Romance guitar as a prize, and his eyes looking a little bit more hollow and confused than usual as he had no idea who they are or why anyone should be excited.
To me, a combined no-hitter is just an interesting curio. It bears no relation to a single starter who has pitched through a lineup at least 3 times without so much as a bloop single. What happened last night was a statistical anomaly, not an all-time post-season performance. (Four pitchers?!).
I revel in all no hitters, but I think the big takeaway is more that the Phils went from dominating at home to being silenced. In the regular season, a combined no-no is a blip. In the World Series, it can be a defining moment.
Or not, since there is no momentum in baseball.
Every narrative in sports is made up after things happen and can be adjusted as needed. Like Craig was saying McCullers was tipping his pitches, and maybe he was. An article at The Athletic yesterday had every Astro denying it, so the story is McCullers was known to throw off speed stuff and missed his spots. That's the story now.
Until it changes and he WAS tipping.
This series is a seesaw. I still think Phillies win it all.
Well, I hope you're right about the idea that there's no momentum in baseball because last night was about the most depressing thing I've experienced as a fan. I'm more or less convincing that the Series is over. Sure, Verlander could get rocked but it feels like the odds of that happening again are extremely low.
The Phillies are going to do it Angels-style. Lose the first game, go up 2-1, go down 3-2, and HERE COME THE THUNDER STICKS.
super agree. is that a thing, like "strenuously object"?
#AFewGoodMen
I can't imagine going to my doctor to get checked for a sinus infection and seeing that picture on the wall. I'd get immediately nauseous.
And the nausea would make you forget about the sinus infection. Problem solved!
I am pretty sure that flyer stole their bit from Mothers Against Greg Abbott (the only maga I'll support).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faTNMTVsgAA
Which given Oz's idea of abortion being between a woman, her doctor, and local politicians and a failson running for Congress in NC thinking there should be a "community level review process" before an abortion can be obtained, it should be effective messaging. But who knows what can break through.
At this moment, I think people are only going to think about abortion if you prove to them keeping them legal will lower the cost of gas.
It's maddening. The voting populace has the attention span of the proverbial goldfish, especially if the goldfish found the cost of gas in one country to be indicative of an entire party's platform success or failure.
So many people think that either they will NEVER be in that situation (which, hahaha, they have no idea how much can go incredibly wrong with a wanted and planned pregnancy that makes an abortion necessary) or that of course whatever situation they might be in will be an exception to the rule, because no one could possibly imagine that the rules that are clearly for irresponsible sluts who have abortions on a whim and for fun also apply to clearly responsible women who need one for important and serious reasons. 🙄🙄🙄
This calls to mind a recent Post Reports podcast that discussed the historically Republican vote of the Ukrainian communities in Ohio and how this year it's different, and how it once again shows us how often voting comes down to whether a person has been personally impacted or not.
I think you just explained why hotel breakfast rooms often have FOX News on.
The no-hitter got me looking up other WS stats. We all know that the list of all-time WS home runs is quite different from the all-time post-season home runs, due to the expanded playoffs. But two names caught my eye in the all-time WS HR list. Chase Utley and George Springer are tied for 10th in all-time WS HRs each. But Utley got his in just 15 games, and Springer in 14. The other people tied with 7 played in at least 32 WS games. The 3 players with 8 played in at least 26 games. The leader, Mantle, hit his leading 18 in 65 games. I usually poo-poo contemporary post-season stats but the Utley/Springer totals really jump out, especially when you look at the names and games played around them.
Utley got five of those HRs in 2009, where the Series was three games in Citizens Bank and three in the Bronx. Those are places you can hit some dingers. And Minute Maid can also be good for homers.
65 W.S. games!
and 75 for Yogi!
talk about coincidence -- they were both Yankees.
I saw a multi-pitcher no-hitter in person, this one.
https://tomahawktake.com/2020/12/29/atlanta-braves-no-hitters-1991-johnny-wholestaff/
Got my 5th COVID shot last night and still haven't got any 5G service. Where the hell is the 5G service that chip in me is supposed to be providing?
Moderna or Pfizer? That can make a difference, depending on your service provider.
That must be my problem. I got a mix of both so didn't get 5 of either, plus didn't check with my service provider to see if they are Moderna or Pfizer compatible. Oops.
No 5G for me either, probably due to mixing and matching, but we’re all supposed to be dead like 19 times over by this point from the government/big pharma pushing a kill button or whatever, so should probably just count our blessings.
Also it depends on your plan. Those baseline $40/month aren't nearly enough.
I’m all Moderna but I’ve only gotten four total shots. That must be it.
I listened to a book called “After Steve”, about Tim Cook and Jony Ive as they each stepped into a brighter spotlight after Jobs’ passing, and AirPods being designed as basically disposable really tracks with Cook’s entire vision of people just shrugging and taking on the cost to pay for more convenience. Because my god are truly wireless headphones convenient as hell. It’s just too bad that instead of simply charging people an Apple premium to change batteries, customers are funneled into an every other year replacement cycle.
I can't wear airpods or any of the little buds from other vendors that are supposed to just stay in your ear without any support. They fall out if I move at all. Just typing this would cause them to shift with the massive movements of my fingers on the keyboard.
I haven't read that book, but I from afar as a consumer and teeny tiny shareholder, it feels that Cook pushed Ive out pretty quickly after Jobs' death. Certainly the changes to the iPhone haven't been visual or tactile design focused and I think that Jobs is spinning in his grave over the three camera look. Adding a pen to the iPad was definitely anti-Ive.
The way the book describes it, Cook was and remains a logistics and cost-saving/profit-gaining wizard who isn't super creative except in how to get more money (see: Apple Card), and Jony Ive is a visionary designer who obsesses over all the little things but doesn't always consider usability, and Jobs was able to temper that (as they, in turn, tempered him as much as anyone could with their own tendencies and demeanor). I mean, Ive designed the new campus as this perfect glass saucer that kept people walking into doors and walls and needing medical care because it was an achievement in vision but not FOR PEOPLE TO USE.
It serves as an interesting companion to Walter Isaacson's Jobs bio, at least to me, as it tells the story of both men coming up through the company and how they struggled and changed the company after Jobs' death. And Isaacson's book is necessary because it is a bit less starry-eyed over Jobs than this book is, which doesn't really deal with how awful a person he could be.
I'm always interested in corporate succession. Is, for example, Jassy going to be as good as Cook or as bad as Balmer? I get the feeling that Ive is, by nature, much closer to Jobs. Jobs had some tech chops, but was much more on the visual design side (e.g. how the chips *looked* inside the Mac; utilizing his calligraphy course to ensure that there were a lot of fonts available, etc.) while deferring at first to Steve Wozniak, then latter other tech folks.
I've read several of Isaacson's books, including his one on Jobs. Not a hit job, but definitely doesn't pull any punches whether it is how he wiped out the founders equity at Pixar or treating the Apple Lisa much better than his daughter Lisa. Isaacson's access to Elon Musk will lead to an amazing book.
Wow, I had no idea he was doing one on Musk. Interesting. And I really, really dislike Musk.
I find Musk to be fascinating. Not likeable certainly, but a deeply fascinating character. Ridiculously high highs, abominable low lows. And always remarkable in every sense of the word. The Ashlee Vance bio is okay, but was too early in the SpaceX days to quench my thirst and was modestly superficial.
There are pictures of Isaacson in the background when Musk first met with the Twitter team after the deal was consummated a few days ago. He has been working on the book for over a year, well before TWTR was being discussed.
I haven't completed all of Isaacson's bios. I've read Franklin, Jobs, and The Innovators. But I haven't read Da Vinci, Kissinger, or Doudna. What I've read I've both liked and been informed by.
I was thinking a little more about why I find Musk to be fascinating and, of course, it circles back to baseball.
Completely different personality but what he brings to mind is Billy Martin. Martin was brilliant & insecure, brashful & unforthcoming, leads to massive overachievement and causes great failure. Mercurial is an understatement. But in the 1970s and 1980s, I just couldn't look away.
Musk, like Martin, is many things, but one thing he is not is easy to ignore.
What do you think are the best wireless earbuds. Because they’re great for running but breathe on them wrong and they break. I’m willing to pay for durability.
I'm afraid I went from AirPods to AirPods Pro, so I'm part of the problem here. WireCutter likes the Beats Fit Pro, which seem to me better designed for a more secure fit for workouts (I workout with the Pros but never outside, shy of a brisk walk on paved surfaces, where they're easily found if I drop them or they fall out).
And personally I don't trust any of these no-name brands to put a lithium battery next to my brain.
I swear by the power beats 3. But they have a wire that connects the 2 sides and they loop around your ear so strictly speaking they're not independent free-standing pod.
I loop the wire on the back of my neck instead of in front.
The wired ones fall out when I run.
got it, but to be clear, non-invasive plastic around ear and not wired to device, but to each other.
good luck. the headphone and earbud search can be an arduous 1st-world problem.
Really thought that was building up to Mr. Writer by Stereophonics as song of the day. Great song nonetheless.