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THE SIMPSONS ON IMIGRATION

June 22nd 2018



LAURA BUSH ON SEPARATING FAMILIES 

June 22nd 2018

Presidents have a long history of being silent after they leave office. I wonder
how much of this came from Laura alone, or if she is speaking for her husband as
well.

November 3rd 2017


GOTHAMIST SHUTS DOWN 

November 3rd 2017

This one hit me hard. Gothamist’s sister site published my favorite San
Francisco news site, SFist. It was one of my go-to websites every morning. We’ve
had so many fabulously productive poops together.

I’m bummed because, as far as I saw, SFist actually got it. Old media players
just posted recycled broadcast videos and lukewarm paragraphs as a synopsis with
the hope you’d watch the video. This never made sense to me. You can’t watch a
videos when you’re bored in a meeting. You can’t skim videos. You can’t link to
a quote in videos.

Maybe I’m showing my age, but I much prefer text (née print) journalism…

October 15th 2017


INMATES BUILT COMPUTERS FROM SPARE PARTS, THEN HACKED INTO THE PRISON'S
NETWORK. 

October 15th 2017

This is almost impossible to believe. Inmates in an Ohio prison built computers
using components gathered from their job as recyclers. They hid them in the
ceiling of an office and cracked the prison’s servers, issued passes, and
modified records. By all accounts they had spotless records. I wonder why?


MARCO ARMENT ON USB-C 

October 15th 2017

This is a fascinating article about USB-C. I knew there were some compatibility
issues with adapters but there’s a lot more to unpack. I’m surprised I had no
idea about this:

> …if you have a 13-inch model, and it has a Touch Bar, then the right-side
> ports don’t have full Thunderbolt bandwidth.


USS ARIZONA BROTHERS

November 11th 2016

Thank you to all who have served our country. On this Veterans day, I want to
share a deeply personal story about my family members and the sacrifices they
made in World War II.

I hope we never forget the incredible sacrifice of brave men and women at Pearl
Harbor. A lesser known fact is that 38 sets of brothers served together on the
USS Arizona. Two of those men were my Great Uncles. The story of how one
survived and the other died is almost unbelievable. Frankly, I’d have thought it
little more than Family lore until I visited the USS Arizona Memorial.

Back in 1941, Stanley and Tony Czarnecki were stationed aboard the USS Arizona.
Both Michigan boys were enjoying the first warm winter of their lives. Hawaii’s
weather was beautiful, but Tony missed his new bride Dorothy. Having never seen
grass in the Winter, Dorothy flew to Hawaii to visit her husband, quite an
expense in the 1940s.

Stanley had been assigned shore leave the night of December 8th, which happened
to be Dorothy’s last night in Hawaii. Stanley traded his leave to Tony so he
could have one more night with his sweetheart. The next morning Imperial Japan
dropped four 410-milimeter armor piercing bombs on USS Arizona. In all
likelihood, Stanley had been killed instantly. …but that should have been Tony.
Stanley was to have been on shore if not for a brotherly barter for a different
night off.

Tony rushed to the harbor to lend a hand. Through a thick cloud of smoke, he saw
his ship burning. Survivors on shore tell gut wrenching stories about how they
couldn’t help shipmates; their Navy brothers. For Tony that feeling was all too
real as he stood safely on shore. At some point, he realized traded his
brother’s fate for his own. I can’t imagine the feeling and know he lived with
the pain for the rest of his life. At the time, Tony sent a message home letting
his parents know he was safe. I’m not sure if he could bear to tell them Stanley
wasn’t.

The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the youngest son in the family lined
up to join the war effort. Clarence, two years too young to join the military,
lied about his age. Of course this was long before comprehensive background
checks, and honestly, I’m not sure recruiters would have even cared. Two weeks
later that boy was on his way to the Pacific where he experienced ship-to-ship
combat. Fortunately, the only thing he lost was half his hearing. I never
understood why I always had to yell at Grandpa until my Aunt explained he went
deaf manning cannons and guns on destroyers.

I am honored to come from a family of such strong men. I could never have their
courage, and it’s for that reason I owe them more than a simple debt of thanks.
Unfortunately, I have nothing more to offer.

I hope this bit of history sticks in your memory and serves as a constant
reminder many people have done far more for our country than most of us ever
will. To to the active duty men and women who have done as much, if not more, I
thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I may not be happy with the results of our last election, but I am
overwhelmingly happy we have, and always will have free elections. Whether it’s
a win or loss for your candidate, it’s a win for democracy, and that’s a win for
everyone.

May peace be with all of us, here and abroad, and until it’s a reality. I hope
we can approach conflicts with dignity, compassion, and most of all, respect.


I'M WITH HER

November 8th 2016



STEVE JOBS HATED FUNCTION KEYS

November 2nd 2016

I can’t wait to get my hands on Apple’s new Touch Bar. Now a dynamic display
replaces the function keys on top of MacBook Pro’s keyboard. The last time Apple
shipped a keyboard without function keys was way back in 1984.

Steve Jobs didn’t like function keys and made sure they didn’t appear on
Macintosh’s keyboard. A couple of years later Apple was in panic mode trying to
stop the IBM PC from owning the entire computer market. Rather than making
strategic decisions with a focus on Macintosh’s stellar user experience,
strategists opted for half measures. Adding F-Keys to Apple’s keyboards would
make them as businessy IBM’s, so that was a given. Obviously, that’s all the
saving Apple would need. Somehow it didn’t work.

Steve didn’t sign many autographs, but Steve Jurvetson got lucky one day when he
asked him to sign an Apple Extended Keyboard. What happened next is documented
in Alan Deutschman’s The Second Coming of Steve Jobs:

> Steve Jobs said he’d do it, but only if first he could remove all the
> unnecessary keys that his successors had added in a foolish effort to make the
> Mac more like a Microsoft-Intel PC. He despised the long row of so-called
> function keys. […] So Steve Jobs pulled his car keys out of his pocket and
> began scooping into the computer keyboard, violently disgorging all the keys
> that offended him. “I’m changing the world one keyboard at a time”, he said
> with a straight face. Only then, when he had mutilated the apparatus, did he
> take a pen and scribble his autograph on it.

In time these keys pulled double duty with functions for the changing screen
brightness, volume, and controlling music. Honestly, how many of you ever used
them for their proper F-ing purpose?

November 1st 2016


POTUS HANDLES WILL GO TO FUTURE PRESIDENTS 

November 1st 2016

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, and YouTube will assign the @POTUS
username to any sitting President of the United States. The old accounts will
continue to exist under a new username: @POTUS44 for Twitter, ObamaWhiteHouse
for others. The same is true of @FLOTUS, @PressSec, and @VP.

October 28th 2016


APPLE AND ACCESSIBILITY 

October 28th 2016

I love that Apple used an accessibility video to start last week’s keynote; the
dedication to accessibility warms my heart. It isn’t just some legal requirement
or a layer of software that’s slapped on a product as it goes out the door,
Apple people realize this is a moral imperative.

It’s clear Apple has a dedicated team of people designing, developing, and
testing this stuff. I have no idea whether Apple gets any return on its
investment here. The percentage of people who absolutely require accessibility
features must be insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but that makes
them no less important than other features.

That said, you don’t have to be permanently disabled to benefit from
accessibility features. Maybe you’re in a library and need to watch a video with
captions. Perhaps you broke your arm and needed to dictate your messages for a
month. While accessibility is essential for some users, it’s handy for everyone.


APPLE PRODUCT NOUNS

October 27th 2016

I’m not especially peevish, small things just happen to annoy me. Having spent
my adult life immersed in Apple culture, I’m sensitive to product names.

Apple products are always referred to as proper nouns and never include an
article like “the”. This clever bit of anthropomorphism makes iPhone feel like a
friend, whereas the iPhone sounds like a soulless bundle of technology. I
encourage you to watch iPod’s introduction wherein Steve Jobs never once says
“The iPod”.

Ironically Phil Schiller, Apple’s head of product marketing, doesn’t adhere to
the proper grammar on stage. That’s fine, and he’s getting the point across with
or without the article, but pet peeves…

Let’s turn this into a drinking game! Down a shot every time Phil says “The
MacBook” today.

October 26th 2016


TREV.COM ON TWITTER 

October 26th 2016

Thanks for stopping by! You can follow trev.com on Twitter or subscribe to the
RSS Feed.


TAKE ONE GIL AND CALL ME IN THE MOURNING

October 25th 2016

Let’s talk about Dr. Gil Amelio. Who, you ask? Don’t worry; you aren’t alone. I
know people with Apple tattoos who can’t place the name.

Gil was the CEO of Apple from 1996 to 1997. Gil saved Apple almost by accident
when he bought Steve Jobs’ company NeXT. To be clear, he just bought some
software and got Steve Jobs as a “special advisor,” sort of like a free gift
with purchase kind of thing.

Steve was a pretty efficient advisor to the CEO. For example, he advised Gil he
was out of a job.

Even though he was painfully naive, Gil deserves some credit for writing the
check that brought Steve back to Apple. As the old saying goes, nothing in life
is guaranteed except death, taxes, and being upstaged by Steve Jobs.

The thing is, and I can’t stress this enough, literally everyone knew Gil was
going to be replaced by Steve Jobs with the exception of Gil himself. Hell, his
own wife saw it coming. How do we know this? Because he wrote a book about his
time at Apple, and it’s fascinating.

Originally published in 1998, and long out of print, Gil’s book “On the Firing
Line” it is a thorough account of all that was wrong with Apple in the 90s, not
the least of which was Gil himself at times. Much of the book comes across as
genuine, lots of it matches stories I’ve heard from old colleagues, and parts
are just painfully folksy. At one point he recalls telling his wife “smile,
sweetie, it’s the second best thing to do with your lips.” Out of respect for
his wife, I’ll assume the first was kissing.

To be clear, I’m not setting out to write a hit piece here. Gil did some
essential things. He hired Fred Anderson, the CFO who almost singlehandedly made
sure Apple had the cash it needed to operate. Gil presided over an unprecedented
renegotiation of Apple’s debt, supported by his personal relationship with
investors who bet on his previous company when it was in the dumps. Though you
may not know his name, every Apple product you touch exists in part because of
Gil Amelio. The software that powers your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and literally every
other Apple device is possible because Gil bought NeXT in 1997. History won’t
remember Gil for these things. At best he was just that guy who was fired by
Steve Jobs; at worst he was an ignorant bozo. Of course, the reality is anything
but black and white.


APPLE B.S. (BEFORE STEVE)

Believe it or not, Steve Jobs wasn’t the CEO of Apple from the very beginning.
Most people know Steve was fired, and many assume he was in charge of Apple at
some point. Not so. Steve always reported to someone else and was never truly in
charge of Apple before he came back in 1998. This, friends, is how you can get
fired from your own company.

John Scully was hired as Apple’s CEO after Steve made a now famous argument
about soft drinks. Six years later Scully was pushed out in favor of Michael
Spindler, the least discussed Apple CEO ever. If Spindler wanted to add some
stability he failed. If he wanted to out-crazy Scully, he earned an A for
effort. Were it not for Spindler’s weekly panic attacks and public meltdowns we
may have never gotten to Gil. The course of history would have been altered if
Spindler got his hands on a bottle of Xanax. No, seriously.

Ironically Gil was the only CEO with a technical background. He helped invent
the CCD, the most important part of digital cameras. Scully came from Pepsi and
was a marketing guy to the core. In all fairness, he conceived of the game
changing Pepsi Challenge, a commercial where ordinary people tried Pepsi and
Coke in a blind taste test. Amazingly every single person in the commercials
preferred Pepsi. Every damn time! This was marketing in the 80s and Scully was
the most ballyhooed marketer known to man. For some strange reason, this didn’t
directly translate to running a technology company. Then there was Michael
Spindler, and who the fuck knows what he did he wasn’t hyperventilating? He was
known to work manic hours, an admirable trait as long as you have something to
show for it. I can’t think of a single thing Spindler accomplished as CEO. When
it came time to fire Spindler Gil was ready to take the helm. As a board member
and successful turnaround artist the powers that be tapped him to be the new
CEO. He couldn’t have been worse than Spindler so why the hell not? To his
credit, Gil was well respected for fixing serious problems at National
Semiconductor, a chip company that was running out of time and cash before he
arrived. By all accounts, Gil had saved one company, and hopes were high that he
could do the same for Apple. After all, National Semiconductor specialized in
making components for manufacturers. Apple sold entire computers with
specialized software to end users. Close enough (give or take, you know,
everything).

Tune in next Thursday at 9:41 AM for the next chapter: What’s Open, Doc? You can
follow trev.com on Twitter, or subscribe RSS Feed, or send an angry e-mail
(Gil).


SOMEONE BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF DONALD TRUMP'S STAR ON THE HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME. 

October 25th 2016

Don’t forget to ignore the comments.


THE NEXT BIG THING IS ALREADY FEAR

October 23rd 2016

Trevor Noah reported on a mid-air Gallaxy 7 battery meltdown by drawing a
conclusion that should embarrass every one of us:

> This story right here is the definition of white privilege. You get on a plane
> and you have smoke coming out of your pocket, and then you whip out a device
> that looks like it’s going to blow up. You throw it on the ground and people
> look at you like ‘sir, are you OK? Are you OK? Oh my God you poor man, are you
> OK?’”
> 
> You know if that dude was middle eastern they would have tackled the shit out
> of him.
> 
> Muslims get kicked off planes for texting - they get kicked off for having
> working phones.

At first glance it’s a clever observation by a late night comedian but he’s
spot-on. It’s not hard to imagine how people would have responded if the
passenger – whose only offense was buying a Samsung phone – was Muslim.

August 30th 2016


GENE WILDER 1933 - 2016 

August 30th 2016

The Young Frankensteen taught me to love subtle sarcasm.

Rest in peace, Gene. Please tell Gilda how much we still love Roseanne
Roseannadanna.


THANK YOU FOR BEING A FRIEND 

August 30th 2016

Bea Arthur’s heart was true. What a pal.

> The home, named for the “Golden Girls” star whose generous donation made the
> project possible, is expected to open shortly after construction is completed
> in February of next year…


FLUSH HEADPHONE JACK

August 24th 2016

iPhone always had a headphone jack, not that it was easy to use at first. The
jack was recessed in the aluminum back with just enough space to fit Apple’s
standard earbuds. Many of us bought (and lost) dinky little extension cables
just so we could use our favorite headphones. It sucked.

The curiously recessed jack went away with iPhone 3G to thunderous applause.
Nobody clapped at the hardware beauty shots until Steve Jobs said “flush
headphone jack”:

Sometimes you have to flush twice.

August 20th 2016


SLOW NEWS DAY… 

August 20th 2016

Apple dropped the word “store” from webpages for retail stores.
apple.com/retail/paloalto/, for example, says “Apple Palo Alto” instead of
“Apple Store Palo Alto.”

What a story! Or, I mean, big fucking whoop.

Back in 2001 I remember answering the phone at my store with “Thank you for
calling Apple Fashion Valley”, never “Thank you for calling The Apple Store
Fashion Valley”. I’m sure there was some policy on how to answer the phone but I
doubt it included the word “store”. If it did everybody fucked up whenever the
phone rang. At the time we were somewhat pre-occupied with people who thought
they were calling the MAC makeup store.

August 19th 2016


PRISONS FOR PROFIT 

August 19th 2016

The US Department of Justice will stop paying corporations to run federal
prisons:

> “They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs,
> and resources; they do not save substantially on costs, and…they do not
> maintain the same level of safety and security,’’ Ms. Yates said

Corporate prisons are listed on the stock market and are legally required to
maximize shareholder value. That’s all well and good for companies who make
paper products or consumer goods, but it’s a tragedy when companies have no
choice but to compromise fundamental human rights in favor business
fundamentals.

$2 billion of the industry’s stock value – about 40% – vanished yesterday.
Karma’s a (prison) bitch.

August 18th 2016


IGNORING PHONE CALLS WITH APPLE WATCH 

August 18th 2016

I’m surprised I didn’t know this:

> When your Apple Watch rings [for a phone call], simply place your hand over
> the watch. This mutes the ringing but doesn’t send the call directly to
> voicemail. Your voicemail will only pick up after the appropriate number of
> rings, indicating that you missed the call rather than forcefully rejecting
> it.

This makes perfect sense, covering the watch with your hand is more powerful
than any of the hardware buttons. It’s the equivalent of iPhone’s sleep button,
the silent switch, and do not disturb in a simple, natural gesture.

It’s worth noting the volume down button on iPhone does the same thing: the
ringer stops on your end but the phone keeps ringing on the other end. Sending
someone straight to voicemail is the modern equivalent of “fuck you” and
literally everyone knows it.

August 17th 2016


THE DECIDERS 

August 17th 2016

Fast Company has an interesting interview with Bob Messerschmidt, formerly of
the Apple Watch team.

This made me LOL out loud:

> If you talk to an engineer at Apple they would say “we make all the decisions
> and marketing has no power.” And “there’s really no marketing at Apple,” they
> would say. Then there was this whole building, one of the Infinite Loop
> buildings, that was full of marketing people. And I thought “that’s
> interesting; I wonder what those guys do.” Then I would have meetings with
> some of the marketing people and they would say “You know it’s interesting; we
> make all the decisions at Apple—the engineers make none of the decisions at
> Apple.”

Devcisive.

August 15th 2016


ALWAYS BELEAGUERED, NEVER THE BRIDE… 

August 15th 2016

Tim Cook reflectes on his first five years as Apple’s CEO in The Washington
Post:

> I would not want anybody to think this, oh, this “better days are behind us”
> thing.
> 
> Interviewer: “Some analysts have said that.”
> 
> And it doesn’t bother me. Because honestly, they were saying that about Apple
> in 2001. They were saying it in 2005. They were saying it in 2007 — this
> stupid iPhone, whoever dreamed up this thing? Then they were saying that we
> peaked in 2010, then it was 2011. We got to $60 billion [in revenue], and they
> said you can’t grow any more from this. Well, last year we were $230 billion.
> And, yes, we’re coming down some this year. Every year isn’t an up, you know.
> I’ve heard all of it before.

I think it’s funny Cook goes back only as far as 2001. Apple wasn’t expected to
live much past the mid-90s.


AD IT UP?

January 26th 2015

Tim Cook posted an open letter about privacy last fall with a few choice words
for ad supported companies. Though it seemed to focus on Google (with a barely
veiled shot at Gmail), Mark Zuckerberg decided to return fire in Time:

> A frustration I have is that a lot of people increasingly seem to equate an
> advertising business model with somehow being out of alignment with your
> customers.
> 
> It’s the most ridiculous concept. What, you think because you’re paying Apple
> that you’re somehow in alignment with them? If you were in alignment with
> them, then they’d make their products a lot cheaper!

I understood the general argument right up until the last word. I don’t remember
the last time Apple did anything “cheap”. Inexpensive, sure, but cheap? Of all
the words…

It doesn’t take a genius to see Apple’s interest is against junking up the very
thing that pulls in buckets of cash exactly as-is. The company has a history of
mocking bloatware (and even stickers) in favor of discerning customers.

Amazingly, Apple almost cheapened things with ads in the late 90s. Ken Segall
recounts a scuttled marketing idea for Mac OS 9 in his book Insanely Simple.
Steve Jobs and the software team were toying with the idea of releasing the OS
for free with a sixty-second commercial at boot. Customers would have the option
to disable the video by paying the normal retail price. It’s not the world’s
worst idea considering Mac OS 9’s importance to the future of Mac OS X, but
still…

Obviously Apple never introduced advertisements at startup (to the surprise of
no one). Segall thought was “way out of character” even for then-beleaguered
Apple.

This seems like a ridiculous way to make money today. How often do you reboot
your Mac? Never? A sixty-second video would inconvenience the average user a few
minutes each month.

All uptime aside, the whole idea struck me as equal parts sacrilege and surreal.
I’m reminded of this clever motivation from Steve Jobs in 1983:

> Well, let’s say you can shave 10 seconds off of the boot time. Multiply that
> by five million users and thats 50 million seconds, every single day. Over a
> year, that’s probably dozens of lifetimes. So if you make it boot ten seconds
> faster, you’ve saved a dozen lives. That’s really worth it, don’t you think?

Every major version of OS X has consistently improved boot time. Funny enough
Apple doesn’t even charge for OS upgrades these days. As a matter of fact it’s a
pretty good example of making things less expensive without making them “cheap.”
Apparently free doesn’t have to ad up…


THE JOURNEY IS THE REWARD

December 5th 2013

Few have the opportunity to live their childhood dream, and being part of
“beleaguered” Apple Computer was a fool’s wish. Today Apple is anything but a
beleaguered computer company. I am honored to have been part of our tremendous
success and couldn’t be more proud of everything we’ve accomplished over the
past twelve years.

Today is my last day at Apple. I’m looking forward to retirement, my last
vacation was in a previous life.

Thank you for making my dream a reality. The journey has been the reward of a
lifetime.

- Trev

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