Handing Off Podcasts via Overcast

Sam Harrelson on May 25, 2015

I was listening to a podcast on my iPhone via Overcast on the way home (my pregnant wife needed a milkshake at 9pm after all). I plugged in my headphones when I got home and was going to continue listening to the podcast on my phone as I usually do when I try to squeeze in a few minutes of work at night before bed on my main computer.

I’ve recently purchased a new Macbook Pro in the last week or so, and I’m still discovering things that I had heard of but hadn’t realized yet. Instead of going to my desktop to work on some logos with Illustrator, I decided to try out the Macbook since it runs Adobe apps just fine.

When I flipped it open (with my headphones on and still plugged in to the iPhone playing a podcast via Overcast), I was surprised to see this small item in the Dock:

Overcast and Main Window

I was surprised to see Overcast using Apple’s much touted but overlooked new “Handoff” component to its ecosystem (as part of a wider initiative known as Continuity).

While I try to avoid lock in to one physical or software system (I still use and love my large Windows desktop for heavy graphics work and I keep my Moto X plugged in and try to use it at least once a day but that’s dwindling), I keep finding myself pleased by things that Apple is getting right on the hardware front. Their software and approach to the “cloud” is still behind but with things like Continuity, it looks like they are getting better and better at that in the post-Jobs era.

Kudos to Marco Arment on Overcast. It’s a battery hungry app, but that’s because I use it so often on my iPhone. It’s a beautiful piece of software, and little surprises like being able to handoff podcasts between my phone or iPad to my Mac without skipping a beat is pretty magical. It’s the little things.

Are we sure Chancellor Palpatine didn’t write this?

Sam Harrelson on May 25, 2015

“Though imperialism is now held in disrepute, empire has been the default means of governance for most of recorded history, and the collapse of empires has always been messy business…Back then it was states at war; now it is sub-states. Imperialism bestowed order, however retrograde it may have been. The challenge now is less to establish democracy than to reestablish order. For without order, there is no freedom for anyone.”

Source: It’s Time to Bring Imperialism Back to the Middle East – ForeignPolicy.com

Yes, western imperialism and colonialism helped cause this mess. Surely there’s a better way forward than re-establishing such hegemonic (and veneer thin) powers in the region.

Religious Slacktivism

Sam Harrelson on May 21, 2015

Podcast: Play in new window | Download () | Embed

https://samharrelson.com/thinking Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

Prof. Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson attempt to bring some thoughtfulness to the topic of religion again this week with discussions of whether Jesus was a terrorist, the beatification process, Muslim responses to climate change, how to fix Genesis, and why changing your Facebook profile picture makes you feel better.

Source: Thinking Religion Podcast: Religious Slacktivism

 

Our weekly podcast episode on Religion and culture is live. I think it turned out pretty well!

Stop Drinking Bottled Water

Sam Harrelson on May 19, 2015

Clean, safe drinking water that flows freely out of our faucets is a feat of engineering that humans have been been perfecting for two millennia. It is a cornerstone of civilization. It is what our cities are built upon. And over the years the scientists and hydrologists and technicians who help get water to our houses have also become our environmental stewards, our infrastructural watchdogs, our urban visionaries. Drinking the water these people supply to our homes is the best possible way to protect future access to water worldwide. Companies that package water in a single-use bottle are not concerned with the future. They are not invested in the long-term effects of climate change on an endangered watershed, nor are they working to prepare a megacity for an inevitable natural disaster. What they are interested in is their bottom line: Marketing a “healthy” product to compensate for the fact that people are buying less of their other products that are known to case obesity and diabetes—and selling it for at prices that are 240 to 10,000 times higher than what you pay for tap water.

Source: Stop Drinking Bottled Water

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I’ll add this under my “Theological Eating” umbrella.

Card Cataloging and What Comes After Google

Sam Harrelson on May 19, 2015

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I was always in the 900’s as a kid and teenager…

000 – General works, Computer science and Information
100 – Philosophy and psychology
200 – Religion
300 – Social sciences
400 – Language
500 – Pure Science
600 – Technology
700 – Arts & recreation
800 – Literature
900 – History & geography

Then I got to Yale and they used the Library of Congress system and I was all sorts of messed up for a few months.

And now we have Google. Better?

In some ways yes, in some ways no. Cataloging knowledge has been a human pursuit since the beginnings of writing in Sumeria. I wonder if we will keep turning that over to the algorithms or if whatever some kid in a basement is working on now that will eventually replace Google will return us to human curated cataloging of knowledge?

“What Lies Ahead I Have No Way of Knowing”

Sam Harrelson on May 18, 2015

wildflowers

Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s 1993 Greatest Hits album was the first CD I ever bought with my own money (big day). I was in full blown “Grunge Sam” mode at the time listening to mostly Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog, Alice In Chains etc, but this Tom Petty CD was always on the player.

In 1994 when Wildflowers came out, I had to go buy it. I’m glad I did… just relistened to the album for the first time in a while and I could still sing almost every word. It’s funny how certain albums stick to your mind.

It’s great that we live in the world of Spotify and Pandora streaming almost any song we can think of, but it’s sad that we don’t buy whole albums and commit them to memory.

Or maybe I’m just getting old.

Oh well…

“Excuse me if I have some place in my mind where I go time to time.”

Asheville is Strange

Sam Harrelson on May 18, 2015

More than anything else, the strangest thing to me about Asheville is seeing the rivers run the wrong way (towards the Mississippi).

Whither Professors?

Sam Harrelson on May 11, 2015

As I wait, I sympathize: So many things distract them — the gym, text messages, rush week — and often campus culture treats them as customers, not pupils. Student evaluations and ratemyprofessor.com paint us as service providers.

Source: What’s the Point of a Professor? – NYTimes.com

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There’s plenty wrong with higher ed, no one’s doubting that, but don’t miss the target. Don’t distract from the real work that needs to be done by pedantically lecturing at the people actually doing it. Don’t begin with an idealized example and then scorn any deviations from it. Life is messier outside the campus fence; teach the students you have instead of pining for the ones you want. Use your privileged position and voice for what we really need in order for professors to matter: condemn the adjunctification of higher education. Hell, treat your own adjunct faculty with fairness and dignity

Source: I Will Not Be Lectured To. I’m Too Busy Teaching – The Tattoed Professor

One of my favorite memories during my oh so short time at the “Kingdom of the Just” (copyright Prof. Ben Dunlap) otherwise known as Wofford College was the interactions I frequently had with amazing professors such as Prof. Mount, Prof. Cobb, Prof. Bullard, Prof. Bayard, Prof. Barrett, Prof. Revels both inside and especially outside of class.

Wofford made me the person I am. Those interactions shaped who I am. Professors matter. Much more than professors will ever know.