Archives for 2019

On Reading

“Reading great literature is like having an intimate conversation with someone who has thought a lot about what they are going to say.”

On Knowledge

“I try to be open to the idea that at any given moment, I am wrong about everything.”

On Understanding

“If you encounter a situation, someone, or something and can’t immediately make sense of it (or them), that is a good sign.”

On Finding Faults

“Whatever bothers you most about other people is what bothers you most about yourself. When nothing bothers you about other people, you are at peace with yourself, or subjacent a rock.”

On Whatever You Own

“Use it, or lose it. The less you keep idle, the better. Let little reside blind of the sun.”

All On blanks attributed to myself, unless otherwise noted.

I wrote in August 2010 (nine years ago!) about a product called the “money-band,” which was a cutting-edge elastic fastener (OK—household rubber band) marketed for the use of replacing the traditional bi or trifold wallet. I was enamored at the time by the idea of minimalism—and I guess I still am, though that word no longer crosses my mind¹—and it was enlightening for me to see an object that so demonstrably instantiated that “Hey—there are other ways to go about this 78.5-year trek. You’ve been doing it all wrong. Wake up.”

The money-band in particular was compelling for two reasons:

1. It was almost nothing—insubstantial, a relative filament—yet it served the same function as a standard wallet, which is to hold identification and money. Wallets can be elaborate. This was not. It blared the idea of doing the same (or more, or better) with less.
2. It was an evidential case of form governing function. Being so limited, it demanded a reassessment of what it meant to be a “wallet”—boundaries, working parameters, function—and from the there, it could only take shape as a more honed tool.

To elaborate some on that second point, my original money-band held three items: a debit card, my driver’s license, and around $20 in cash. That’s all. It could have held more, but not much more, and what else did I need? If I’d be able to navigate my way through 24 hours with nothing else on me, I was set. This was how I defined its core function. And I could do that with ID and cash. Common wallet-dwellers like receipts, rewards cards, photographs, and change—even at the time, in 2010—were superfluous and have since been obsolesced by digital movements of the past decade. The modern phone holds all of those items, and more. Which means: The bare-bones wallet is even more pertinent today. It was forward-thinking. It still probably is. Constraint can often force coherency, and paring down the wallet was invaluable exercise in critical thought that I still reach back to today.

Progression

I ditched the money-band in 2012 (after my stock of four overstretched) for a pair of standard, size #64 rubber bands chained together (how-to here). $7—the then going price—was exorbitant for a set of money-bands, and I had a full box of #64s idling in my filing cabinet. The chained RBs functioned almost as well. This wallet was finicky, though, with the two bands flopping every whichaway as I unfastened it. It was also more bulky and unsightly. Streamlined it was not. I used v2.0 for about five years too long, then one day became fed up with the two-strap system and sought out a single-band replacement, akin to the money-band. I landed on Alliance Pale Crepe Gold, size #82, and it’s a delight.

officedepot.com

These bands supersede the money-band in all ways I consider important. They retain their elasticity longer, the color is agreeably neutral, and the dimensions are about perfect, for me a least. If you carry a lot more in your wallet, you may need to size up in diameter.

The other functional change I made was in the way I carry cash. I previously wrapped my ~$20 in half around my cards. This was a flawed approach because it meant that I had to futz around with the cash each time I wanted to access my debit or credit card to pay for anything. And I used my cards to pay for virtually everything. So: The cash was in the way. It was a regular obstruction.

After realizing this, I folded my cash in half, twice (i.e., in fourth) (using this paper folder, which I adore) and stored it sandwiched between my cards. It was now out of the way, but still available, and the wallet became considerably smoother to operate. Despite being ostensibly simple, there is minutiae to this thing!

Contents-wise, 2010 vs. 2019:

2010

• debit card
• driver’s license
• less than $20 in cash

2019

• credit card
• driver’s license
• library card
• ~$20 in cash

The inclusion of a library card serves as a personal subliminal reminder to continually check out books, and read. I end up seeing it almost every day, and even though this doesn’t register mindfully (viz., “I am holding my wallet which contains my library card which has eclipsed my peripheral vision…”), I could probably substantiate with data² that I have been reading more since I started carrying my library card, and specifically since I positioned it on the outside of my wallet, in sight. (To clarify: I do not need my library card to check out materials, so I didn’t always carry it on me; in the past, I relied on my driver’s license instead.)

I switched from a debit to credit card for fraud protection. It’s a lot easier to get a fraudulent charge reversed on a credit card than a debit card, which gives me peace of mind when I’m at an unfamiliar gas station or otherwise traveling. Frankly, I assume there’s a possibility my card will be stolen each time I use it. So this decision is a precaution. Paying in cash would be another precaution, but carrying lots of cash is a liability as well.

Going Up: On Credit Cards

I’ve thought about this some, and I will try not to act like I’ve figured anything out (because I haven’t; what follows is conjecture) but here’s my sense: Credit cards levy an invisible tax on consumers. You should probably avoid them. But it may be too late to do so. To expound: Credit cards bind consumers in the following way:

1. Many consumers justify making purchases with credit cards (rather than cash or debit cards) because credit cards yield rewards. (For example, the Amazon card gives 3% cash back on Amazon purchases, other cards benefit travelers, etc.) In essence, consumers believe they are getting better deals by using credit cards over the alternatives. Consumer feel good—shrewd, even—about shopping this way.
2. Merchants are met on the receiving end with interchange fees (let’s say 2% per credit card transaction).
3. Merchants, if they are smart, raise prices across the board, because of interchange fees, by at least 2%. (In other words, they place the fee [and then some] on the consumer.) Consumers loathe surcharges, and it’s confusing to convey separate prices for credit and cash. So, to keep things simple, merchants raise prices all around.
4. Consumers end up paying more (not less) by virtue of widespread credit card use. They get worse deals, even when factoring in rewards.
5. At end: Credit cards virulently inflate the costs of goods and services for all who use them—and for everyone who eschews credit cards, too.

And, it should go without saying: Credit card users also expose themselves to a basket of other fees (e.g., interest fees, penalty fees, annual fees, cash-advance fees, etc.), which again outweigh the benefits the cards provide.

Script Flipped

To play devil’s advocate and not paint credit cards in a totally cynical light: There is overhead to processing cash. A customer counting cash from their wallet and handing it to a cashier who has to make change takes time. I estimate (from standing in line with a stopwatch at supermarkets…) that such exchanges are 10–20 seconds slower than electronic ones, from start to finish. Assuming a cashier makes $15/hour, that implies an initial 4–8¢ processing fee. Later, that exchanged cash may be removed from the cash register, counted again, and transported to a bank. These actions imply further processing fees. But, still, once the money has settled, you’re probably looking at something closer to a flat processing fee than the percentage-based interchange fee. I have to wonder if it ever isn’t cheaper for a merchant to process cash.

For a high-volume merchant, though, every second matters. If electronic payments allow them to process more transactions per minute, then tolerating the interchange fees is a no-brainer. So they are fine with the levy. Convenience attracts customers. And maybe merchants don’t inflate their prices to offset interchange fees.

Answers, Out

I don’t see any obvious ways to empower yourself as a consumer besides either

1. paying with cash (even though there is rarely a discount for paying this way; it’s commendable to opt out of the system) or
2. treating credit cards strictly as cash (and not the plastic casinos they are).

My reluctant advice is to use one credit card with no annual fee that yields either no rewards (if you can find one; they’re rare) or unvaried, negligible cash back. Don’t waste your time juggling multiple cards to earn rewards under specific buying conditions. I did this for a while, and it turns out I was severely misguided: The rewards I earned over a two-plus year stretch would have been nearly the same (and as paltry) if I’d elected to use any one of my three credit cards exclusively (rather than wield them selectively, as I did). So it was a waste of time to deliberate between cards on purchases. And, because each card had annual fees or one-off spending bonuses to chase, I likely justified purchases I otherwise wouldn’t have made to reach those benchmarks. (Which means, rewards included, I spent more than I would have if paying by cash. N.B.: You do not have to overspend by much to cannibalize your rewards entirely.)

I played the game, and failed. Unsurprisingly. The banks know better. Lessons learned: It’s far more productive to improve your income and/or not spend money in the first place. And watch out for anything that appears to be free. It’s too good to be true.

¹ My current interests lie in efficiency and plasticity, rather than the more ascetic notion of getting by with almost nothing. (These interests do still beget neuroticism about the objects I consider worth assimilating into my routines.)

² I won’t because it’s not that important and I forget exactly when I made this change to the wallet. I do keep track of what books I’ve read and when, though.

I wrote fairly extensively regarding the 2019 AC.com redesign when it launched, and I knew then, as I took a loupe to my work, that the design had issues. Collating that assessment was constructive because it forced me to acknowledge shortcomings that I may otherwise have turned a blind eye. I kept ideas for improvements in the back of my mind, to work themselves out (stew, as I like to put it), while I submersed myself in other matters.

Yesterday ended up being a “I have nothing planned / oh god / I’m feeling existential uselessness slash woe” kind of day¹, so in an attempt to make something of quiescence, I opened my laptop and forged ahead with an assortment of creative adjustments.

Tweaks

Goodbye, Home Header

I called this element “experimental” initially, and upon reevaluation, it was overly ambitious; it had too much going on. Presented was a fat stack of links, boxes, and doodads for the end-user to manage—too much for a single pair of eyes to concisely assess. Though it lacked focus, it did contain redeeming elements. I still think overflow: scroll will be relevant as long as viewports are limited. The property allows you to include more (whatever) in less space. That’s useful! I moved the posts lists (titled “Blog,” “Dingus,” and “Reading”) to widgets, located the right or end of posts (depending on your viewport)—and swapped the latter two posts lists for more blog posts, which is the trademark content on here I’d be wise to promote.

With those elements salvaged, I retired the home header. It created inconsistency between the home page and every other page on the site. That’s an indication of poor planning; I should want the elements—especially the header, which is perpetually visible—to be coherent throughout. Users shouldn’t have to rack their brains to figure out what the design is going for.

Byline, Revised

The words “published” and “updated” have been replaced with “↘︎” and “↗︎” (respectively) (see this code snippet for more), and the “read in” phrase has been eliminated entirely. These omissions improve the legibility of the date and read time (since there’s less redundancy in the way) and the arrows help draw the eye toward the start of each post, to begin reading.

The shortened byline also now fits flush—on a single line!—on my ant-sized iPhone SE screen, which is joy.

I’m tickled about this update. The diagonal arrows are intuitive, I think, yet I can’t recall encountering quite this same application of arrows in bylines before.² (Maybe there’s a reason for that. Reversion incoming…) If I’m scrupulous, I’ll end up replacing the HTML arrows with SVG ones (possibly these) so that the symbols will be consistent across browsers and operating systems. (Right now, they’re not. Alas.)

Photos of Moi

In the sidebar, instead of Shrek! and wooden spatulas (among other various read items and dinguses), there are now random photos of me. Your boi. I mentioned that my face has to be seen, and though previously it was unavoidable on the home page, it was absent all elsewhere.

Well, I’m back. Pervading your space. Eyes on ya. HEY. (Granted, on mobile, my physiognomy still can’t be seen without scrolling a mile, so there’s still a puzzle unsolved.)

Related: I will plunge into this later, in another post, about what I was going for with the books and dinguses that resided in that sidebar spot previously, but, for now, a teaser: Affiliate programs are for the lazy and suckers.

Join My Newsletter…

I’ve placed newsletter signup forms at the bottom of every post. Oh, look, here’s one now:

If I want to accelerate whatever I’m doing with this blog (or my life…), I need to be able to apprise those who may be interested in what I’m doing that “hey, I am up to something!” I’m all-out on social media, which means that email is essentially my only way to shout from a digital mountain. (And this’s not to discredit email—I think email is far more stable and a safer investment of time/energy/money than social media, but most people are blasé about it; email’s old technology. We are in the midst of a revival in newsletters, but that interest will intensify and reverse course again soon, and the internet will again be sick of them; think of a ship undulating.)

BTW, web dev nitpickers: I am aware that the Buttondown iframe is an external resource and slow to load and I should be hosting my own form and probably a pop-up too. I’m not getting lost down that rabbit hole of optimization yet. The iframe functions well (I prefer how it handles the signup process to the vanilla HTML form provided by Buttondown) and, importantly, it’s enough. Visitors can join easily—if they want to—now.

Nav Nudges

The next–previous posts navigation, floated to the right of the byline, is newly pronounced. I added the word “skip” to the right arrow (“⇢”), and the separator is now an erect pipe (“|”) instead of a limp forward slash (“/”). I knew this element needed a lift after I hadn’t looked at the site in a while and, upon return, immediately thought it finicky, vague, and inchoate.

Tag Spacing

Post tags have been spaced out, so maybe you and I will actually notice and point a cursor at them. Not that I’ve done a superlative job at tagging content over the years, in a way that would foster meaningful connections between content, facilitate discovery, and warrant the tags’ perusal, but…(trails off)…(inarticulate)…(choking sounds)…click them anyway!

Wish List

There are two features I have in mind to improve functionality:

1. Autoload more posts in widgets when the termini of the posts lists are reached (i.e., incorporate infinite scrolling)
2. Enable keyboard navigation to move between posts (on single post pages and archives) (using left and right arrows, or J and K)

Both features will require custom JavaScript, which is my weakest language (of the ones I at least feign to understand). (HELP.) Call me sold on the overflow: scroll posts widgets (“Overflow, 2020.”), so I consider it worth the time to figure that out. Keyboard nav is something I’ve done on PkmnCards, so I don’t think it’ll be too difficult to swing, but I’m already envisioning issues that beget complicated solutions and JS still viscerally perplexes me.

¹ Am I the only one who experiences this? It’s an anxious feeling of pending self-nihilism. If I’m not moving, or nothing around me is moving, I’m on edge.

² Smashing Magazine uses a loopy arrow (“↬”) in their article summary sections, which is where I got the idea from. I want to differentiate when a post has been published versus updated though, so the distinct downward (to signify “published,” in the sense that the content has landed) and upward (to signify “updated;” self-explanatory) arrows make contextual sense.

Along with writing thoughts in a personal, private, solitary manner, I speak likewise alone (i.e., yes—I talk to myself). I use a voice recorder to capture these sessions of self-conversation as a complementary practice to pen & paper journaling—the convention is not far out of left field. I rarely listen back to the recordings, but knowing that I’m being recorded wrenches higher levels of coherence out of me. I find self-talk helpful for working through whatever I’m stuck on. Most of life is an attempt to not become too fixated on any specific agenda and to place oneself in a continual state of adaptation, moving forward. Ideally we’d all have therapists, or be capable of telling anyone anything at any time without fear of annihilation, but self-guided voice recording is what’s doable for me, and I’m more honest speaking (and writing) alone than in the presence of another person.

I started recording with what I already had available—the Voice Memos app on my iPhone—rather than acquire anything new to begin. Voice Memos is a good app. Start there if you’re interested in voice recorder therapy. It’s free, and you already own it.¹ Initiating a recording with Voice Memos is quick, playback is first-rate, and the sound quality is beyond adequate for this purpose. Plus, talking through a phone is second nature for most people. There’s a sense of intimacy speaking this way, with a familiar voice box to held your head. Which is weird. But it is important to feel comfortable enough to divulge the thoughts you’re otherwise not articulating in regular conversation.

That said, I prefer to not interact with my phone when possible (stage right: goofy quasi-Luddite), so after using Voice Memos for two months and liking it (the app, the functionality it provides) but not liking grasping for my phone even more than usual, I bought a dedicated voice recorder.

It’s okay. It’s tiny (only slightly larger than a small pack of gum), so it’s easy to carry around, which is great. If I’m going for a walk or drive, I’m likely to stick it in my pocket or toss it in my bag. The form factor is significant (because if it’s bulky, it’s staying home, and I won’t use it) and the device’s most redeeming factor. Playback is painful without the touch screen which is afforded to Voice Memos, and the sound quality is weak, too. However, I’m willing to put up with those shortcomings. The big problem with this voice recorder is that it’s slow to power on after it’s been off for a while (an hour or more). It takes ~thirteen seconds to start up cold. That’s an eternity. The delay is enough to make me not want to use it. The irony: I want to want to use this thing. It should be more responsive for how narrow a device it is. It doesn’t do all that much, so what it does, it should do well. Developing positive habits is difficult—I’m trying here!—and the start time is fatally preclusive.

What I’ve done to enhance it: I tweaked the factory settings so that the voice recorder never turns off. This doesn’t mean that it’s always recording; instead, it’s put into a pseudo-standby mode—with screen off, software on—after a short period, rather than shut off entirely. None of these specifics matter much; the takeaway is that it should be fast, nearing on effortless, and automatic (like clockwork) to get yourself doing whatever it is you’d like to establish as habit. The voice recorder could be a pen and paper or library book; it’s all the same.

To make this specific voice recorder (the Sony UX560) useable:

• Settings > Common Settings > Sleep Timer > OFF
• Settings > Common Settings > Auto Power Off > OFF

There are other settings you may want to configure, but those are the critical ones. This config allows you at all times to begin recording in ~three seconds, which is a lot faster than intermittently waiting thirteen. The battery lasts for days, but I recommend habitually charging the recorder when not in use, like overnight. (A long charging cable can help.) I also recommend equipping it with a large memory card (I went for 128GB), so space is seldom an issue.

Professional dictation machines (which are what doctors and lawyers use, and are slightly different than generic voice recorders) are likely more appropriate for what I’m trying to achieve; quickly recording and listening to myself. They are also way more expensive. (I figured a $70 voice recorder was worth an initial trial over a $500+ professional device because I was unsure if this habit would last. I foresee diminishing returns beyond my entry-level recorder, which is objectively worse than Voice Memos in several ways, though I prefer having the dedicated device.)

¹ I’m presuming that all readers have iPhones. Whatever you have, use it.

My grandfather, Anthony J Capriola, Sr., is reverently and mystically referred to as “the Old Man” by those who continue to tell tales of his fiery heyday. He fought in “the War,” was captured the by Germans and held prisoner for a year/eternity, returned to civilian life (mostly but not entirely normal; some screws loose), raised four boys with his wife (my grandmother) Myrtle (who on rare occasion threatened to “stab him with no remorse” [but she never did; she was loath to swat a fly]), yelled only on Sundays (the one day of the week he didn’t work as a stone mason), built his own house (and all of his kids’ houses), was the smartest of eight Capriola/Caprioli/Capriolo/however-you-spell-it children (according to his sister Marie), survived a heart attack + open-heart surgery + 20 years of diabetes + 53 years of second-hand smoke, and defiantly, improbably lived to see six grandchildren (who called him not “the Old Man” reverently but “Pop-Pop” affectionately) before passing away in 2005 from mesothelioma caused by exposure to asbestos while working construction jobs before regulations forbid that kind of peril (and received no cash settlement, though his medical expenses were at least always paid for by the VA). He was a tough SOB. He worked through it all. He couldn’t sit still. He was known to help everybody and anybody and he never really retired, though he did inadvertently fall asleep midday more frequently while sitting on the couch watching afternoon baseball or lazing on the hammock as he got older. He did what he could and he deserves to be remembered. This is a monument for my dear grandfather.

Interview: About World War II

Interview conducted on May 2, 1999 by Adam Capriola (his grandson) for a fifth grade class project.

Video

Transcript

[In Anthony’s living room, Anthony (aka Pop-Pop) is seated to the left in a recliner. Adam (Anthony’s grandson) is seated to the right in a wooden rocking chair. James the Butler stands idly, impassively, stoically in the background.]

Adam: [indecipherable] My name is Adam Capriola, and I will be interviewing my Pop-Pop, Anthony Capriola, who was a veteran of World War II. Thank you Pop-Pop for agreeing to do this interview…
Pop-Pop: You’re welcome.

A: …today on May 2, 1999. Let’s get started by asking: What branch of the military were you in?
P: I enlisted in the Army Air Force, and we were sent to basic training in Florida—St. Petersburg, Florida—and after about six weeks, I guess, of Basic Training, we were sent—put on railroad cars—and sent to Scofield, Illinois where I attended radio school for, I guess, about, oh, I don’t know how many weeks, it was quite a, about three months of schooling where I learned Morse code—dot dash, you know, they don’t use that anymore—and then after that I was assigned to a bomber crew in, up in Oregon. But before we did that, we had to go to gunnery school, to learn to school the .50 calibers. Then we were assigned to a crew, then we flew six hours every day, right around the clock—six off, six on—training, and we went to different gunnery ranges and fired so much ammunition. Then we had high-altitude training, too. And then by that time, I guess it was our turn to go overseas, so I was in B-17s, Flying Fortresses, and we started out to go to England. We flew up to Newfoundland, Iceland, and then finally arrived England, where we were assigned to a crew there. We were assigned to a Group, the 452nd Bomb Group, and I was 731st Squadron, which consisted, the Group consisted of 60 planes, and it has twelve planes in each squadron. We trained for a while up there and got ready. I guess you want to know where I went from there. What was your next question, Adam?

A: Why did you decide to join?
P: I decided to join because the country was at war and I guess I figured it was my duty to serve the country and protect our families at home because of Hitler and [indiscernible] taking all these countries in Europe, and Japan and all that started war too, so that’s the main reason we went to fight, to make sure they didn’t come over here.

A: How old were you?
P: I was nineteen when I joined up.

A: What year was it?
P: That was in 1942.

A: How did you feel about going to war?
P: I don’t think anybody feels too good about it, but it was something that we had to do, and I guess we figured we had to go to get it over with, and we had no idea how long it would last or what, we had no idea. We had no way of knowing how long it would take.

A: What squadron were you a member of and how many men were in it?
P: The 452nd…731st Squadron, 452nd Bomb Group. And we had 10 men were on each plane. We had a bombardier, navigator, pilot, co-pilot, engineer, I was the radio operator and gunner, and then we had waist gunner, two waist gunners, tail gunner, and one that flew in the ball turret was a gunner.

A: What type of plane did you fly?
P: That was the B-17, Flying Fortress.

A: Do you remember your first mission and how did you feel?
P: The first mission was, I didn’t think it would be that bad, because we seen the guys going out and a lot of them coming back. We figured, you know, it wouldn’t be too much. But then when we saw what happened, the fighter planes, you were attacked by fighter planes on every mission. And then you were also attacked with the flack, that’s the artillery that’s shot up and explodes in the air, and you would just go right through it. You wouldn’t change your direction, you just kept going straight through it because you couldn’t afford a full round. You only had so much gas to get there and get back.

A: How many missions did you fly?
P: I flew eleven missions.

A: What were they for?
P: They were bombing missions, mostly bombing on the cities, like we bombed Frankfurt, Germany, Augsburg. I was on the first mission to Berlin, which was really a bad time of it. And I flew to Poland, and that mission took eleven hours in the air, so quite a while.

A: Can you tell me about the last mission you were shot down?
P: We had bombed Augsburg, Germany, and we were on our way back—we got through everything good, dropped the bombs, turn around to come back—and we were about maybe, oh I guess about five, maybe ten miles from the Channel, we were going back to England to our base, and we thought we saw—the sun was shining up above—and we thought we were supposed to meet a P-51 escort, American escort. But there wasn’t; there was the German fighters. 109s swooped down on us and hit us right before we knew what happened. We had to drop out of formation, engine caught fire, and we had to bail out.

A: Did all your crew survive?
P: No, one of the waist gunners was shot and killed. He must have been killed before we knew he was. We bailed out; we didn’t know until afterward.

A: Where were you captured and where were you taken?
P: I was captured in, right near DF France—it was on the coast. France then, at that time, was still in Germany’s hands—this was before the invasion took place—and we were captured there, and we were sent to Frankfurt that night to get interrogated. And that night, the English come over, the first night we were there, and bombed the camp—blew it right off the map—but we were lucky, we got in the shelters—the air raid centers—and they destroyed the interrogation center there.

A: How were you treated?
P: Well, you know, they didn’t treat you like a relation you know. We were bombing their cities, you know, setting fires. The main problem, I guess, maybe, was we didn’t get much food. The food was very scarce. Then the first camp I went to we were sent to East Prussia, and we were on boxcars for, oh, I guess, two or three weeks, getting there because their transportation was slow. Most of their transportation was for the military, and we were in boxcars.

A: Can you describe the condition of the POW camp?
P: I was in four or five different camps, and every one was different. Some had tents, some had wooden barracks, and the last camp I went in had a big tent that held 500 people, the camp I was liberated in, at the end of the war.

A: What did you do there?
P: Well, there is not much you can do but wait, just sit and wait until the war got over. And we were liberated there by General Patton coming in. I saw General Patton coming in the main gate, he was on the tank, he had all his pistols around him. Boy, what a sight it was. It was something.

A: What did you eat there?
P: What did we eat? Not too much, Adam. It was just water, potato peels, and once in a while they sent us in some bread they used in the African camp band, and they brought it in but it had all kinds of mold on it, and we couldn’t eat it because it was bad. Once in a while the Red Cross parcels come in, but by the time they divided it up, you didn’t get very much. All hard stuff to eat. Nothing too fresh.

A: Where did you sleep?
P: We slept in the different camps. We slept in beds, bunks, top and lower bunks, crowded barracks. And then when we were on the march, the forced march, and the Russians starting to come in and Americans from the other end, they made us march. We marched through the snow. And, oh, it was cold, and no food. Only what we could find in the fields, like beets, sugar beets, and things like that. And we kept marching around in circles. I guess we marched maybe 150 miles. With no food—that was the hard part—because they didn’t have any.

A: Did you or anyone try to escape?
P: There’s guys that tried to escape, but they were shot, going over the wall or going past the warning wire. They were shot, so they kind of discouraged that. Well, they were all digging tunnels all over trying to, you know, it was something to do. Not very many escaped.

A: How long were you a prisoner?
P: Eleven months or twelve. It might have been twelve. I think twelve months, yeah, a year.

A: Were you able to communicate with your family?
P: The only communication we had after we got up to our camps, we got letters once in a while from home. But our messages, they didn’t get through too often. It took a long time because they were busy with the war; it didn’t seem like they had too much time for that sort of thing.

A: Tell me about the day you were freed from prison.
P: That was in, what the heck was it, I can’t think of the name of the town. But that was the day that Patton come in and freed us. The Germans took off. The guards, they all took off and ran across the field and Americans were firing at them and chasing them. So we stayed right there until they got out of the way. They built a bridge to come in, they built a pontoon bridge over this river, and then we started to hear shots being fired, it was American troops coming in then, we were very happy then that we were going to get out.

A: How did you get back home?
P: I guess probably by the time we got organized and we went to France, a camp in France, and then I saw Eisenhower there, walked right past him, it was a good feeling too to see somebody with a lot of authority, a real important man. He said he’d get us home quick, and he did. I guess in maybe about a couple of weeks we were home.

A: Did you get a medal?
P: I got some; I got the Air Medal and [oak] leaf cluster—things like that—but I don’t particularly worry about the medals too much. I just wanted to get back to civilian life. [It was] pretty tough going. It’s not easy [fighting in a war].

A: Do you have any favorite memories?
P: I might have told you before, the day that we got liberated—when we were free, when we got out of the camps. And also when I got home. They were my two, the best things that could happen to you. You miss your home a lot.

A: Thank you for your interview.
P: Okay, Adam. Thank you.

[Interview ends. Adam is now alone, outdoors. Birds chirp.]

A: This is my Pop-Pop’s license plate. It says that he was a prisoner of war.

[Camera zooms in on Pennsylvania license plate, POW-P45, on brown Jeep pickup.]

Artwork

Again, picking up in the vicinity of where I left off: I own a GoRuck GR1 (21L, black). I bought it in 2014, just as it was beginning to garner the internet’s ubiquitous cult of approval as Greatest Backpack of All Time (GBOAT). I can’t tell you if it’s the best backpack ever. It’s the only notable backpack I’ve owned aside from an L.L.Bean monogrammed Deluxe Book Pack which lasted me from middle school through college. I haven’t touched a TOM BIHN or any others in the $200+ price range. I bought the GR1 and moved on from the domain. But, I will say: The GR1 seems fine to me. It doesn’t get in my way; it holds what I want, the pockets are convenient, the zippers are smooth, and it’s comfortable to wear. (I should note that I removed the supportive plastic frame sheet; I prefer it without, though I tend to carry rather little around.)

I use the bag mostly for transporting my laptop and whatever else (notepads, a water bottle, candy, snacks) when I walk a half mile to and from my local library. To get there, I must venture on roads without crosswalks or sidewalks. Which is perilous, because I am certain I will be run over one day. (I had a very near miss in 2014 when cycling down a hill [Google Street View if you want to recreate the scene, head north] and a driver rolled through at a stop sign to make a left turn at an upcoming T-junction [I was on the major roadway; I had no stop and absolute right of way]. I’m having a slo-mo PTSD-type moment thinking about it. The car was a dark silver slash gunmetal Land Rover, and the driver was a well-to-do, immaculately-coiffed professional on his cell phone wearing mirrored sunglasses. It may as well have been Death himself. I yelled a yell for the ages¹ while clamping my caliper brakes with bone-white knuckles. My back wheel began to fishtail in variable road gravel. I was within feet of colliding head-on with Death, who nonchalantly puttered off, oblivious of one incoming cyclist, (business as usual),² and also within inches of skidding out into an indeterminable trail of biomatter. I steadied the rear wheel, but it—was—close. Ever since then, I’ve been understandably OCD about making sure I’m obnoxiously visible when I’m on the road, by foot or by bike.)

Because I often carry my bag on the library walk, I figured the most sensible approach to improving my visibility in this situation would be to affix a beacon semi-permanently onto my bag. Idea #1 was to attach a strobe to the outer webbing, because I already had a bike taillight that was compatible, but a light requires charging, and turning on, and turning off, etc. It would be fussy. I need a passive system. I want to be visible without thinking about it. Then (Idea #2) I learned that GoRuck sells reflective velcro bands (which, ProTip:, can be bought elsewhere for less). These bands are probably adequate for most people, but they only provide so-so visibility. Multiple pairs might do better; I only bought a single pair and wasn’t impressed. Remember: I’m neurotic about this, being seen; I believe the road will be my end. Idea #3 was to tie neon, reflective paracord to the webbing, since this in theory should be similar to but allow for more flexibility and better coverage than the bands. I could apply as much as I’d want, where I’d want. In practice, the cord was bulky, only mildly reflective, and couldn’t be secured firmly onto the webbing.

Finally, I discovered two glorious materials:

1. Pro-Gaff tape, which is great for daytime visibility, and
2. SOLAS tape, which is great for nighttime visibility.

Both tapes are thin, durable, lightweight, and flexible, and can be cut to shape. They’re (near) perfect for this application.

Anyway, as alluded to, sorry to bore you, (drumroll, please), this is my hi-vis GR1:

The SOLAS tape is applied directly onto the webbing. It is incredibly sticky. You could attach the SOLAS to the fabric instead of the webbing, in a different pattern, if you wanted. The Pro-Gaff tape is wrapped around the webbing. It doesn’t stick directly to the webbing or fabric, but it does stick tightly to its own adhesive.

I think the bag looks hideous, but I have received compliments from middle-aged women about it and I haven’t been run over yet.

¹“FUCKKKKKK”
²To be fair, I did not use a headlight then, which may have been able to catch this driver’s eye. (I only used a taillight.) I bought a headlight immediately afterward.

I left off touching on digital bookmarks. I read books. Actual, physical books. Not the digital ones—the old technology. I am tempted by e-readers, though, starry-eyed with notion that they’ll get me reading more—because they are novel, and somehow, someway. This is misguided bunkum, I’m aware, so I’m reluctant to adopt, but: Book-reading is a habit I’m still trying to further ingrain. (Aren’t we all?) And I do need strategies for this century. I would so rather grab my phone, for example, given the vacuumed choice, than a book¹. It’s an unfair contest. This proclivity results partially because I can use my phone with one hand, whereas a book necessitates two.² I’m all-in reading a book. Phones, because of their form factor (small!), feign as if they lend to the art of multitasking, though I don’t manage to do anything besides be completely absorbed by my phone, while I’m on my phone, all that well. I also tend to think, in terms of commitment, of books as being fussy about time and focus, like I can’t casually flip open a book for two minutes and get anything out of it. The obverse of this is that phones are immediately gratifying, and they take no effort to operate. I can glance at my phone and feel strong emotion.

Anyway: Consequently, I have to skew the odds to get myself to read. The phone is one distraction. There are others, and there’s not all that much I’ve found can be done to sway the situation besides impose temporal and spatial constraints. My strats:

1. Borrow from a library (rather than own books). Due dates are strong motivators. (N.B., This is a temporal constraint.) (Also note my deliberate use “a book” and “my phone”—possessive indicators—above.)
2. Place books in sight, in the way, within reach. (N.B., This is a spatial [and visual] constraint.)

That’s basically it.³ And it’s chiefly the due date that gets me reading when I slack. However, when I do open a book, what took me a couple of years to realize is: I often forget where I left off, especially if it was in the middle of a chapter, and this causes your writer momentary panic and Extreme Visceral Consternation to have to regain his bearings. Shortness of breath, heart palpitations, sweaty palms—the works.⁴ The thought of rereading passages—and conjuring déjà vu—is enough to dissuade me (subconsciously) from opening a book and, less obviously, from reading short of a chapter at once (i.e., casually reading in spurts). So, this had (past tense now) been a constant obstacle that precluded me from reading: fear of losing my place. And this phenomenon occurred despite using a bookmark to denote where I’d left off.

I suppose now is the time to divulge my bookmarking history and habits:

My bookmarks are scraps of paper. I enjoyed doing origami as a kid, and a relic of that is that I still find myself folding bits of paper, more often than the average person, probably, so anyway: I was wont to fold paper into rectangles, which I stuck out from the tops of books. All store-bought and school-provided bookmarks I had when I was younger functioned this way—they jutted out and sometimes had a ribbon or tassel on the end. The reason for the bookmark protruding is so that the reader can readily gauge (or flaunt) their progress, I guess. I don’t know—I never thought about why I placed my bookmarks that way (I only mimicked what I saw others doing), and after giving it a moment’s thought, I realized this mannerism is rather nonsensical. So I reassessed the notion of bookmarking, and came up with a more precise, protrusionless method of doing it.

I want to tell, immediately, by looking at the position of my bookmark

1. which page (left or right), and
2. which line

I left off on. This is able to relay that:

Placing the tape in a corner affords four horizontal orientations for the bookmark. This is my key for the tape’s positioning, in relationship to the spine:

1. Inside: right page
2. Outside: left page
3. Facing up: above line
4. Facing down: below line

I now open books knowing exactly where I left off, and I am more apt to read for a minute or two (in short sessions, in spurts).

Make Your Own

Step 1: Fold and Tear/Cut Paper to Size

ProTip: I use a Teflon paper folder to get crisp creases.

Step 2: Tape

I like Pro-Gaff tape. It’s durable, and the neon orange is grossly lurid, which makes the bookmark’s orientation easy to distinguish (plus the bookmark itself difficult to misplace).

¹Or engage in anything else remotely productive, for that matter. The phone trumps all in a bubble.
²I will concede that it’s sometimes possible to hold a book with one hand, but often I need two. Page turns always require a second hand.
³Good lightning, a comfortable chair, and quiet help, of course, but none of those drive causality. I am as likely to sit in a cozy position and doze off.
⁴EVC is a verified medical condition. Look it up.

I want to forget—selectively. That’s why I stick with Google Chrome, even though Safari outclasses it in almost every way. Safari is zippy and mindful of system resources; it doesn’t slurp battery, or ever kick on a laptop’s fan. It’s prompt and polite. I think I’d call it courteous. Even Safari’s dev tools are probably objectively better than Chrome’s at this point.

However, I prefer to surf the web like an amnesiac—like someone who continually forgets, stumbling out of cyberspace, crumpled cig still lightly smoldering, figure mussed, and past erased. And for this reason, my go-to is Chrome. (It can be customized more in this regard than Safari.)

I’m terrified of tracking and predictive services. They ingrain what should be arbitrary, evanescent behaviors. A spontaneous search shouldn’t become an online identity, but, in a self-fulfilling way, it can. To combat this, I only want my web browser to know so much about me at once. When it’s able to build a profile—really, a magnified Polaroid—and it knows where to navigate before I do, I’m done. Volition is shot. I develop browsing patterns that become impossible to break. This was me after predictive features became commonplace in the late 00s. I almost never cleared my history (does anybody?), thus every letter I typed in my location bar corresponded with a website I visited too often. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t change. Web browsing like this is a Groundhog Day-like ad nauseam repeat experience, except nobody ever figures out that they’re a disgruntled news reporter, they don’t fall in love or even bonk a former classmate, and they become generally worse human beings the longer they’ve trod around.

So: I now start each session with a clean slate: No history. No bookmarks. No hocus-pocus predictive services. Drop me into faraway white-sanded Sahara, queue up my magic carpet, and allow me to fly.

Browser Config #1: Cryogenic Chrome

What This Does

This setup preserves your identity, but wipes your history after each browsing session. The author’s most common use case: I’ve visited a bunch of webpages I regret having visited, and these pages recur as suggestions whenever I type in the location bar; Command-Q Chrome and—zap—I start over.

To Enable

1. Install, Configure: Auto History Wipe

Install from the Chrome Web Store then configure options to taste. My configuration:

• Each time Chrome starts:
  • Check: Clear Browsing History
  • Check: Clear Download History
  • Uncheck: Clear Cookies
  • Check: Clear Website Data
  • Check: Clear Cache
  • Uncheck: Clear Saved Passwords
  • Check: Clear Form Autofill Data
• When you exit Chrome:
  • Uncheck: Clear Local Data

Again, I’m trying to keep myself recognized across websites, so that when I choose to navigate anywhere, I’m able to access whatever it is I want with minimal friction. (N.B., cookies are what preserve logins.)

2. Install: Empty New Tab Page

Install from the Chrome Web Store (no configuring necessary).

Without this add-on, the New Tab page will display Google services and your most visited websites (and thus ingrain tendencies). I prefer a blank screen.

3. Configure: Chrome Settings

Open Chrome’s preferences (from the menu bar or Command-,) and configure the following:

• On startup
  • Select: Open the New Tab page
• Advanced: Privacy and security
  • Deactivate: Use a prediction service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar

“Open the New Tab page” is selected by default; you may not need to change this setting. Prediction services will be activated by default. Deactivate this setting.

4. Delete: Bookmarks

Open Chrome’s bookmarks manager (from the menu bar or Option-Command-B), export (if you’d like), and delete everything.

If you keep bookmarks, Chrome will populate them in the location bar (Command-L) as you type (despite decerebrating prediction services). I instead throw URLs I may later reference into text files; Simplenote, nvALT, and Notes.app are all adequate proxies for managing bookmarks.

Browser Config #2: Always Private Safari

What This Does

This setup turns Safari into a burner browser. It saves almost nothing; back and forward navigation work, but no accessible history is maintained, and cookies don’t even persist from tab to tab, let alone from session to session. This configuration is conducive for not lingering online too long.

To Enable

1. Configure: Safari Settings

Open Safari’s preferences (from the menu bar or Command-,) and configure the following tabs/settings:

• General
  • Safari opens with: A new private window
  • New windows open with: Empty Page
  • New tabs open with: Empty Page
• Search
  • Uncheck: Include search engine suggestions

2. Delete: Bookmarks

And, again, keep no bookmarks, otherwise they’ll appear as suggestions in the location bar too. (Access Safari’s bookmark manager from the menu bar or by Option-Command-B.)

I should note: Safari does have an analog to Chrome’s Auto History Wipe—Safari Cleaner—but it hasn’t been updated in years. Steer clear.