In Living Color Halftime Show

By Jay Torres

From the NFL.com website, 100 greatest game changers.

In 1992, FOX decided to air a live episode of “In Living Color,” its hit comedy sketch show starring Jim Carrey and the Wayans Brothers (among others) to compete with halftime programming on CBS, which was airing the game. The “In Living Color” episode drew over 20 million viewers, and sparked changes to the Super Bowl halftime show moving forward. The following year, for Super Bowl XXVII, Michael Jackson gave an epic concert performance – and the halftime show has been a cultural phenomenon and mass media extravaganza ever since.

I had NO idea In Living Color forced the NFL to step up its Super Bowl halftime show.

★

OAK flyers are mistakenly going to SFO

By Jay Torres

Earlier this year, Oakland International Airport renamed itself to San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport. Now people are showing up to SFO thinking they are at OAK.

“I fail to see the confusion. …. It clarifies to the world that OAK is on the San Francisco Bay. It does not confuse and leads to more nonstop option choices at the airport,” he said during a Port of Oakland public meeting. “This is not about San Francisco. We’re not trying to confuse or copy them.”

I saw this coming from a mile away. I love the Bay Area and have flown out of all three major airports. Oakland did not need to do this.

★

Meet Marques Brownlee, internet tech reviewer and elite ultimate frisbee player

By Jay Torres

Brownlee, 30, who will compete for Team USA at this week’s World Ultimate Championships in Gold Coast, Australia, is arguably the biggest, most influential reviewer of technology products in the world. He has 19.4 million YouTube subscribers, 5 million Instagram followers and 2.1 million TikTok followers who depend on his thoughts before they buy the latest computers, headphones, phones, virtual reality headsets and more.

I mean how cool is it to be in the top 1% at both your day job and your hobby?

★

Your Gen-Z Employee Isn’t Fooled by Your Compliment Sandwich

By Jay Torres

David Yeager in the Wall Street Journal (Apple News link):

Alex was trapped by what’s known as the mentor’s dilemma: the fact that constructive criticism, which we hope will push young people to do better, can crush their confidence and sap their motivation. Leaders end up feeling like they are stuck between two bad choices: put up with poor performance (but be nice) or demand better (and be cruel). Both mentors and mentees often leave these interactions frustrated or offended.

I have never felt more seen.

★

Looking back: Night of the Panther

By Jay Torres

Michael Steeber on his Substack newsletter:

Back in the days when software could be weighed and measured, the release of a new operating system was as big of a deal as any other hardware release. But let’s not forget: updates weren’t free. Mac OS X Panther, released on October 24, 2003 at 8:00 p.m., cost $129.

This was shortly after I left Apple Retail, but looking at the pictures from this era brings me back to that time.

★

Overcast Podcast App Update Still Doesn’t Sync

By Jay Torres

Overcast just released an update to its podcast app. It looks great but it still does not fix a long standing annoying issue.

It still does not remember or sync playback position.

A common use case for me is that I will listen to a podcast on my phone and once I get home, I’ll continue listening on my laptop, or vice versa. On many occasions, I’ll hit play on the new device and notice whatever I was listening to sounds familiar. And it’s because I’d already listened to this portion 20 minutes ago in my car! And then I waste another minute or so trying to figure out where I left off. It is extremely frustrating.

The fix is to remember that when I am switching devices, I need to swipe down to “force refresh” the state of Overcast of my phone to the servers, then do the same on whatever device I plan to listen on, so that the state is now synced on my new device. Isn’t this the point of having servers? I know Apple’s podcast app does this seamlessly but I have used Overcast for so long, I actually like the app, even with this annoying quirk.

Am I using the app wrong? Does no one else come across this?

Given Marco’s popularity as an app developer and podcast host, he has many friends in the Apple sphere and I feel like many of them, even those in the Apple press, give him a free pass. Not one of these PR pieces mention the sync issue. I get these are PR pieces and not reviews.

I’ve long argued that Marco needs to sell the app to a company who can give it the attention that more than one person, who is mainly a podcaster, can give it (forgive the typos, I was so angry I ended up dictating to Siri when left this review).

Even he admits that:

Most of Overcast’s core code was 10 years old, which made it cumbersome or impossible to easily move with the times, adopt new iOS functionality, or add new features, especially as one person.

That’s why there haven’t been many new features or changes in years.

You saw it, and I saw it. I wasn’t able to serve my customers as well as I wanted.

I stopped paying for the in app purchase to unlock all features honestly because I didn’t want to give my money to someone who makes an app that doesn’t have a feature I need.

It looks like I’ll have to keep my money in my wallet until he addresses this or until Castro can get its act together.

Garage Insulation [Update]

By Jay Torres

I’m in the process of building a home office in my garage. The walls are finished but there is very little insulation. The winters are tolerable but the summers are uncomfortable.

I looked into garage insulation panels. I ordered a set and installed them today. I had leftover so I hastily patched some on the bare roof above my desk.

On the warmest days, it’ll get up to 90F in the garage. It looks like we have a hot week ahead and I’m looking forward to seeing if these work or not.

Update: After a couple days, it seems like the insulation is working. While it still gets warm, it seems like the rate that the garage heats up is slower and the max it’s gotten in here is 86-88F. Which makes sense.

The insulation slows the heat transfer from outside, through the garage door, to the inside of the garage. And since it slows the rate of transfer down, by the time the sun has moved across the sky, it never has a chance to heat up the garage.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the insulation. It doesn’t get uncomfortably hot and it makes the garage door look decent.