Month: April 2019

Capybaras and leather straps

So I was telling someone that in 2020, I’m voting for whatever <my preferred political party> nominates as long as it breaths air and has an internal skeleton. So no fish or insects, but a capybara yes.

It’s amazing how many people do not know what a capybara is.

So I was depressed and it reminded me of Emo Philips’ line, “Some mornings, it’s just not worth chewing through the leather straps.”

More Philips funnies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nX_EaFBTPE.

All right, capybaras: images and Wikipedia. And a photo article in The Atlantic (so cute!).

(Capybaras also interest me for another reason. Despite their being covered with fur, air-breathing, and bearing their young live, the Catholic Church apparently declared them to be a fish and thus edible during Lent, because they spend a lot of time in the water.)

Corporate ADHD

Or, why I keep everything on my own machine, plus two backups (one in a fireproof box):

It’s only April, and 2019 has already been an absolutely brutal year for Google’s product portfolio. The Chromecast Audio was discontinued January 11. YouTube annotations were removed and deleted January 15. Google Fiber packed up and left a Fiber city on February 8. Android Things dropped IoT support on February 13. Google’s laptop and tablet division was reportedly slashed on March 12. Google Allo shut down on March 13. The “Spotlight Stories” VR studio closed its doors on March 14. The goo.gl URL shortener was cut off from new users on March 30. Gmail’s IFTTT support stopped working March 31.

And today, April 2, we’re having a Google Funeral double-header: both Google+ (for consumers) and Google Inbox are being laid to rest. Later this year, Google Hangouts “Classic” will start to wind down, and somehow also scheduled for 2019 is Google Music’s “migration” to YouTube Music, with the Google service being put on death row sometime afterward.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/04/googles-constant-product-shutdowns-are-damaging-its-brand/