Everybody's playing Pokemon Go, except not

Saw this interesting article today. Sometimes it seems like everyone is a gadget obsessed 20-something who's online 24/7. Except half the world isn't online at all.

I'd like to see some more stats about usage in various countries.

More than half the world is still offline While it may seem like half the world is chasing Pokemon right now, the other half is not even on the Internet. About 3.9 billion people, or 53 percent of the ...

I feel, uh, not so fresh

I just watched a supposed demo created by a young, pretty songwriter, using Sway, which is Microsoft's new, I dunno -- millennial diary platform.(?)

I feel dirty.

It's one of the more phony, manipulative, grossly slick marketoid demos I've seen in a while. I guess it's targeted at kids who think they're all gonna be singer-songwriters and make tons of money while keeping it real. Or maybe it's smarter than that, targeting very savvy marketers who need tools to make fake demos to appeal to today's 20-somethings.

The girl in the demo? She's soooo cooooool. Her name's Daria. She's writing down bits of lyrics at three in the morning. Now she's in the studio laying down some tracks. She's using her Surface Pro (I assume) and Office 365 to show her fanbase the doodles in her Moleskin. Ha! So, apparently, she's just spent like $25k on an evening to indulge her creativity. That's what all the kids are doing, right?

I love this kind of marketing. The special effects are better, but it feels as sickly pandering as when GM or Dow Chemical tried using groovy marketing to sway flower children in the late 60s. Lay it on me, man.

Hello, It's Mr. Writer Guy

(With apologies to Dave Barry, whose "Mr. Language Person" always made me laugh a lot and sometimes cry a little inside.)

It's time to discuss some current writing issues — er, problems. Annoyances. All right, things that drive me a little crazy. They are all somewhat related to technology, because they come up in tech writing, and also because everything is about technology now, right?

Trying to do two things at once

You hear it all the time now:

"I'm going to try and (do something or other)."

"Try AND"?! How the heck did that get started? Doesn't anybody realize how dumb it sounds, and how can we stop it?

In case you're confused, I'll be specific. What I'm talking about is a new, very widespread bad-grammar trend that has to do with infinitives after the verb "try."

As you probably know, in English, an infinitive is two words: The word "to" and the root form of a verb: To go. To be. To get. To whine like a little girl.

Now, a lot of sentences include phrases that combine "try" with an infinitive. You know, in this form: I'm going to try...to do, to go, to get, to be. I'm going to try to inherit a large fortune. I'm going to try to cure this fungus between my toes. I'm going to try to get that job. Why don't you try to get your ass off the couch for a while? 

These are things we say and write about every day.

But now I hear everyone, everywhere replacing the "to" in the infinitive with the word "and."

I guarantee you have heard and seen this abominable construction. I notice it every day, in casual speech and in newscasts and advertising and in many places where people should be a little more careful with the language.

"I'm going to try and find a better job."

"The Teamsters are going to try and get a better contract with the school board."

"The president is going to try and prevent World War III from breaking out after he barfed on the prime minister's shoes."

Try AND? It's horrible, it's nonsensical, and it's also becoming ubiquitous, so that grammarians are probably going to have to start allowing it. 

Just try and stop it. I mean that. Try, and also, STOP IT.

Surprise! Online retailers show bogus price information

Amazon isn't the only e-retailer showing completely fake "list prices" and "discount" amounts, according to a New York Times article. But it is the biggest e-retailer, and when the actual manufacturer sells something for much less than Amazon's "list price," something is wrong. Not just in a user-friendly way, but in an unethical business practice way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/technology/its-discounted-but-is-it-a-deal-how-list-prices-lost-their-meaning.html?_r=1

Quote:

"But with many products online, you could not pay the list price even if you wanted to. That is because hardly anyone is actually charging it. It is a sales tactic that is drawing legal scrutiny, as well as prompting questions about the integrity of e-commerce. If everyone is getting a deal, is anyone really getting a deal?"

Images from NYT article below.
The manufacturer of the skillet sells it online for $200. (top image)
So does Amazon, but only Amazon claims it's giving you an amazing $60 off the List Price. BTW, the yellow boxes appear to be added to the screen shots by NYT to highlight the prices listed.

What do I do with a pencil?

Anachronicons

This is a new word that I'm coining. It's pronounced, anna-kron-ickons

These are all the button symbols that confuse even old people like me, who are old enough to know that a letter goes in an envelope, a column (blog post) is written with a pencil, or on a typewriter, an ellipses (...) means "more" (actually, it means less, but whatever.) I don't know if they're cute or ironic or unimaginative or brilliant. But I do not associate "Pencil" with "new blog post." I get confused when I see a file cabinet with envelopes flying out of it (this is a button in Outlook). What do kids think when they see an icon labeled with a dial-phone, or a phone book, or a newspaper? Or a phonograph, for Pete's sake? They've never seen those things. Or a checkbook, a stamp, a letter opener, a calendar, or a post-it note. All that paper, pre-internet stuff.

(These are actually really cool retro icons, that I haven't seen in a current app. I found them here:
http://rypearts.com/portfolio/icons/index.html)

Sorry, high-tech designers. You're trying to supplant every actual thing that we formerly had contact with as part of work and home life. You're putting everyone out of business -- bookstores, banks, stationary shops, hardware stores, newspapers, bars. Yet you continue to plaster buttons in your apps with the simple little symbols that signify what everyday items mean, or used to mean. 

Write. File. Call. Drink a martini. Take a taxi. Play a song. 

You think a magnifying glass means "search." I think it means "make this larger so I can see it, or burn ants in the sunlight."

When everyone's got VR goggles strapped to their heads 24/7, it'll be so quaint to reach for the virtual phone and virtual typewriter to communicate with the other humans that we can't see standing two feet away.

Quick hit

You no longer support what?

So, trying to use the Sony box the other night on the bedroom TV. Click the Youtube app, and a somewhat startling message comes up, to the effect that "Google no longer supports the YouTube app on this device."

What.The.Brick?

This is a SONY streaming box. I was not aware that Google could decide to stop "supporting" an app for YouTube (which it owns) and therefore cause my Sony streaming box to became a brick as far as use for watching YouTube. 

Thanks a lot Google.

Is this some strategic competition move? I know there's already a lot of shenanigans when it comes to Google and Amazon and streaming and apps on different devices (can't use the Amazon app on my iPhone to stream to Chromecast on the living room TV, for example).

I'll post more if I find out anything, other than, "too bad Mr. Consumer, thanks for playing."

A sitemap generator

A quick shout-out to a free online website site map generator:

https://xmlsitemapgenerator.org

I did a quick Google search, found this site and tried it. In no time I had a nice HTML-based sitemap page of a company website, which was just what I needed. No signup required. I'm going to dig into the code while I prune the sitemap a bit. I'll post any additional findings.