walkitout (walkitout) wrote,
walkitout
walkitout

Lies and Technology

iPad v3 is out. Is it different from iPad v2? Yes. I read numerous posts by people whose opinions I respect saying, you have to look at them side by side to tell the difference. I used to believe stuff like this. You know, like, if you make a screwdriver with crap vodka, you won't notice the difference. Not true! I totally believed that, until someone had me do a double-blind A-B comparison and not only is it possible to tell you used crap vodka -- it's really obvious how good the OJ is, too. (If you're thinking, but that's side by side! Turns out, you can do the same thing cold with a single sample forever after, too.) If you can't tell the quality of the vodka and OJ in a screwdriver, it's because you're drunk enough already and should probably stop drinking. I wish there was a good segue back, paralleling drunk with whatever cognitive impairedness leads people to downplay the differences between v2 and v3.

Anyway. iPad v3 is _noticeably_ heavier and thicker than an iPad v2. All these people who claim they own a v2 and couldn't tell until they had them side by side? Something is wrong with them. Also, the people who say they couldn't tell the screen is better until they had them side by side? Totally trying to make you feel better about not having a v3. The good news, for people who don't want to buy the new one, is that it _really is_ noticeably thicker and heavier.

I will further note that my 6 year old autistic son doesn't have any trouble telling the difference between the two, and prefers the v3 if he's at a table or lying down with it on a flat surface, but prefers v2 if he's carrying the thing around.

In other lies-and-technology news, I heard part of the This American Life Retraction episode. Mike Daisey has apparently finally gotten in trouble for Making Shit Up in, well, in at least one monologue (I still want him to get busted for the Amazon monologue, because I think he made stuff up in that one, too). Secondary coverage at the newser (http://www.newser.com/article/d9tijfp00/performer-mike-daisey-scrubs-his-monologue-about-apple-and-sticks-to-the-facts-after-criticism.html -- but I don't recommend bothering) includes this paragraph:

"Daisey is just the latest artist to apparently get tripped up by the truth _ joining a list that includes James Frey, who admitted that he lied in his memoir "A Million Little Pieces," and Greg Mortenson, who is accused of fabricating key parts of his best-selling book "Three Cups of Tea.""

Conveniently making lying in memoir an exclusively male activity. Which it very much is not. Even with high profile lying in memoir.

I feel like I'd like to go off a bit on memoirs and Making Shit Up in the service of a good story. My ex-girlfriend has had at least two distinct experiences in writing classes in which some other student attempted to get her to change what happened in an event described in a memoir because it would make the story more appealing. R. (the ex-girlfriend, not my husband) and I are at a complete and utter loss to make any sense of this. But I'm betting Mike Daisey (and James Frey and Greg Mortenson and Margaret Jones and that woman who claimed she wandered Europe during WW2 and was raised by wolves) would echo the sentiment -- even if they were never able to explain why that would make sense, when writing a memoir.
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