Links
- Apple technology
- 📷 Photography - I love street photography the most
- 🇮🇪 🇬🇧Northen Ireland, its history and politics
- 🏃♀️Ultrarunning (as a spectator and crew member)
- 📺 British police procedurals, like Endeavour or Broadchurch
- No, Mr. Paywall, I do not have to pay to read. I haz skillz.
- Pay TV with commercials is an oxymoron
- I don’t want to upsize, super-size or biggie size. Bruh, have you seen my waist?
- Person at my door, I don’t want to buy magazines, home security or anything else
- I want gas, not a carwash for my rusted out 2005 Camry
- Eat dinner in New Orleans
- See assault rifles banned again
- Palestine
- Go to my Mom’s 100th birthday party
- See a woman elected US president
- Starbucks for supposedly Satanic coffee cups
- Nike because they made a Colin Kaepernick commercial
- Carhartt because they required their workers to get COVID-19
- AT SOME POINT IN TIME, CLAIM THE OTHER PERSON IS A NAZI. Every, and I repeat EVERY Internet argument should involve at least one comparison to either Hitler or the Nazis. This is one of the most basic requirements of an average Internet debate, and although ignorant outsiders may find it silly to compare a person arguing on the Internet with an individual responsible for the execution of millions, this action represents one of the most traditional pillars of every online debate
- You don’t have to be right. You just have to make your opponent feel like they’ve lost.
- Never argue with an eloquent debater.
- Never argue in a room where the crowd is already dead set against you, and is allowed to be as loud as they want to be, and whenever they want to be.
- Never argue with someone who’s a certified expert on the topic you’re about to argue about.
- Never argue with someone who is knowledgeable but never gets flustered.
- When trying to appeal to a crowd. Don’t worry about the facts. Appeal to their basest emotions, and their deepest fears. Remember, it’s not a lie if it’s 20% true.
- Make the crowd chuckle at your opponent. Make sure the crowd doesn’t perceive your opponent as a human being with feelings, care, and emotions.
- If you get the slightest of feeling you are being attacked by your opponent for whatever reasons. Make sure you make personal attacks that sound like zingers even though they have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the current argument. But you have to use this as a tactical weapon to divert from the topic of discussion. And not overdo it, or seem desperate when you do it.
- Don’t ever allow your opponent to get inside your skin. You might be losing your shit inside. But you have to be absolutely calm on the exterior.
- If they catch you in a lie. Use false equivalence. Use it as often as you can.
- Liked YouTube videos
- Posts from all three of my blogs
- Articles I save to Pocket
- Mastodon posts
- Every TV show and movie I watch
- Daily weather reports
- Books I add to Goodreads
- Time of Day Trigger - an hour before I get up, Keyboard Maestro ejects my backup drive from my laptop so all I have to do is unplug it when I start the day - no more error messages because I was bleary-eyed and forgot to go through the procedure.
- Time of Day Trigger - at 2AM,Keyboard Maestro launches a file synchronization appthat backs up my Obsidian vault to Google Drive and then quits.
- Login Trigger - At work, whenever I log into my computer, all of my open apps are hidden so that if people are standing around my desk, they don't get to see what web pages I had opened when I left to go get a cup of coffee. It's none of their business.
- When I left Evernote, I missed being able to send emails to my my new notes app,Obsidian, so I created a workflow that gives me that non-native capability.
- Add images I download from the Internet to the Mac photos app - without even opening Photos
- With the help off a 99-cent app from the app store, Hazel automatically mounts downloaded DMG archives, extracts the program contained within, moves it to my Applications folder and dismounts the archive.
- Download the full text of all the articles I send to my read-it-later service, Pocket.
- Download the highlights I make on any of the 1300 bookmarks I have saved in Raindrop
- Keep a centralized recordof my daily schedule and tasks completed using the data from my calendar and task manager.
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇 - Original
- Mexican
- Peruvian
- Brazilian
- Decaf (but why?)
- Ground
- K-cups
- Original Nespresso pods
- Instant
- Pre-made cold brew
- Shortcuts Library - HeyDingus - a collection of 36 hand-crafted shortcuts for macOS an iOS, some of which I use every single day. Jarrod also does freelance shortcuts if you need help.
- One a Month Club - If you are a blogger seeking support from your readers, don't reinvent the wheel. The One a Month Club is convenient and easy. I'm supporting six different bloggers with a monthly contribution, including Jarrod.
- 7 Things from HeyDingus - If you like link dumps as much as I do, be on the lookout for this weekly collection, many of which I have re-shared in my own links posts. Sometimes the collection is themed, sometimes it's not.
- Lists - HeyDingus - Some interesting writing on topics including an Apple Wish List, a Blogroll, a Podroll and Favorite Quotes. This page is a fun rabbit hole to fall down.
Some Role Models for Journalists
Journalists aren't getting much respect these days, some with good reason. Others are being constrained by cowardly and sycophantic media companies bowing down to MAGA.
When I was in the third grade, my Mom got married to a newspaper reporter. For the next few years we moved all over the state as the chain he worked for kept promoting him from reporter, to city editor to editor in chief. I learned how much work goes into reporting the news as I watched my step dad work long hours at marathon city council meetings for the Gastonia Gazette. I learned how to keep stats at high school sporting events for the New Bern Sun Journal and how to develop film in the darkroom of the Harnett County News. Our family made a trip to Washington, DC once so he could attend a press conference President Ford held just for the NC press. The biggest story he ever worked on was the return of Robert Garwood, an American Marine captured in Vietnam in 1965. Garwood didn't return to the US until 1979. He was sent to Camp Lejeune adjacent to the city of Jacksonville, NC where lived. My step father covered his court martial where he was found not guilty of desertion, the solicitation of U.S. troops in the field to refuse to fight and to defect and of maltreatment
When people criticize everyone involved in reporting the news of being untrustworthy, or sellouts or downright dishonest, I know better. Journalism can be a low paying, thankless job performed ny incredibly dedicated people. Here are a few examples.
Woodward, Bernstein reflect on Watergate reporting 50 years later - ABC News
How investigative master Seymour Hersh broke the story of the My Lai massacre - Nieman Storyboard
The Panama Papers: Exposing the Rogue Offshore Finance Industry - ICIJ
How the CIA Watched Over the Destruction of Gary Webb - The Intercept
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
Slash Page Highlights
Last year, when Robb Knight created the Slash Page website, I spent an afternoon creating a few of my own. Since then, I've periodically updated them as life has continued around me. Robb defines Slash pages as "common pages you can add to your website, usually with a standard, root-level slug like /now, /about, or /uses. They tend to describe the individual behind the site and are distinguishing characteristics of the IndieWeb."
Although some grumpy types rebel at the thought of having the same pages on their blog as others have, as is their God-given right, I happen to enjoy seeing how original different people can be as they riff on the same ideas, If you've created your own Slash pages, feel free to drop a link in the comments so others can check them out.
My Slash Page Home
Check out the links to the individual pages of you want to see the whole thing. These are a few highlights
/Interests
/Nope
/Someday
/Blogroll
/Save
/Feeds
/Subscriptions
| Blogs | |
|---|---|
| Joan Westerberg | $4.17 |
| Jason Kotke | $2.50 |
| Hey Dingus | $1.00 |
| Matt Langford | $1.00 |
| Flohgro | $1.00 |
| Keenan | $1.00 |
| Manuel Moreale | $1.00 |
| Numeric Citizen | $1.00 |
| | $12.67 |
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
Strategies for Preserving Digital Memories
I have copies of blog posts I wrote in the 1990s for my first blog posts on GeoCities. I've lost count of how many computers I've accessed them on. I have copies of digital photos I took using a Sony Mavica camera, which used a 3.5 inch floppy to save the images. All of those songs I downloaded using Napster during its brief moment in the sun, I have all of them too. In fact, I have multiple copies of all of those memories. It's not hard to do and if you don't have a system, you should create one.
Tips for Saving Documents
The two best formats for saving text based documents are as plain text/Markdown or as PDFs. Microsoft Word might be ubiquitous, but the format changes and you are never guaranteed to be able to open old Word documents in new versions of the application and across platforms. Luckily, the ability to convert a Word document into a PDF is bulit right into macOS and Windows.
How I do convert a Microsoft Word document to PDF format? - Ask A Librarian
Use Plain Text to Future-Proof Your Writing | Writing Pursuits
Tips for Saving Photos
I have copies of my photos on an external hard drive and on three different cloud services. It's easy to set up a modern computer or phone to automatically save photos to multiple cloud services. If your photos are valuable to you, and I consider mine to be priceless, make an investment in having multiple copies.
Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support
Google Photos: Edit, Organize, Search, and Backup Your Photos
Transfer Photos and Videos to Amazon Photos - Amazon Customer Service
Tips for Saving Music
If you have music your purchased from an artist at a coffee shop or after a bar concert, chances are, it's not going to be on Spotify or Apple Music. If you have bootlegs collected over the years, you want find that on commercial streaming services either. To make sure you keep a copy of those important tunes regardless of what happens to your computer, put a copy of them on an external drive and a cloud drive, like Dropbox, Google Drive or One Drive. If you use Apple Music, you can upload them using a special Apple service and listen to them in the cloud.
Subscribe to iTunes Match - Apple Support
Tips for Saving Memories
If you are a Mac user, I highly recommend the journaling app, Day One. When you pair Day One with the automation service IFTTT, you can use it as a record for your whole life. I save my location history, media consumption, social media entries, blog posts and my own hand written memories in Day One. You can use it to create paper version of your journal and PDF versions.
Day One Is Popular for a Reason | AppAddict
Connect Your Mac Apps with IFTTT | AppAddict
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
Accountability is the Grown Up Name for Cancel Culture
Well Snoop Dogg has sure gone and pissed of a bunch of people. Including me. I don't know when holding people accountable for their behavior became something that the self-proclaimed moral majority disagreed with. They made up a pejorative for it, because of course they did. Accountability is now known as cancel culture and it is a certified Bad Thing that the meanies on the left do to people who...what? Oh, they hold people accountable for sexual harassment, assault, racism, hypocrisy, lying and general douche-baggery. Why this upsets right-wingers is obvious. They don't like being held accountable. They truly believe there to be some special quality they hold that should let them blithely escape judgment when what they really need more than anything is a great big dose of it.
Oh, do let me remind you that these opponents of cancel culture have a huge list of people and corporations they's tried to cancel for the stupidest of reasons:
It’s Not “Cancel Culture;” It’s “Accountability Culture”
16 White Celebs Who Made The #Canceled List
List of things Conservatives have "canceled" - TheAlmightyGuru
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
The Assassination of Fred Hampton and The Truth in 2025
Because of the abdication of corporate media like the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC News and others, many people fear that the traditional role of the free press in the US to hold the power structure accountable is coming to an end. Additionally, the end of fact checking on the largest social media sites portends a future where the truth is undervalued.Elon Musk and the Heritage Foundation are attacking Wikipedia and even individual contributors. If you have the disk space, I encourage you to download the entire Wikipedia archive before the right wing destroys it.
One of the articles I'm afraid of losing to the fascists is about Fred Hampton, a 21-year old African-American organizer from Chicago who was assassinated in his bed by the Chicago Police Department, who fired more than 100 unanswered shots into the apartment where Hampton and other so called radicals were sleeping. The police were photographed grinning as they brought his bullet riddled body out to the street.
The raid was encouraged by J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director who feared that Hampton was so intelligent, so charismatic and such a natural leader that he was capable of organizing a multi-racial movement to overthrow the government of the United States. Remember, this was a 21-year old man. In a 1982 trial, Hampton's family sued the Chicago PD and the FBI. They won the equivalent of a multi-million dollar judgment. It was revealed during the trial from COINTELPRO documents and other sources that Hampton's death at the hands of the police department was a planned assassination at the urging of the FBI.
Fred Hampton considered fascism the greatest threat, saying "nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all." This is as true in 2025 as it was in 1969. It was revealed this week that the first mass roundup of undocumented immigrants is scheduled to happen the day after Trump in inaugurated. The location is Chicago.
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
Old Fashioned #FollowFriday - ShoutOuts today for a few Micro.bloggers and some others #FollowFriday to @tracydurnell @dansmock @hiro@social.lol @jarunmb@techhub.social @dennyhenke@social.coop
Old Fashioned #FollowFriday Post
One of my favorite activities is reading blog posts every night on my iPad before I go to sleep. I've got a feed built that contains nothing but different writers I've discovered on the IndieWeb. Here are a few to check out. Subscribe to their feeds and follow them on social media.
Beardy Guy Musings: Posts - by Denny Henke aka Beardy Star Stuff - Denny is a deeply principled guy who I appreciate for the times when he's gotten me to look at my own attitudes over privilege and consumption.
The Hiro Report - by Hiro - Hiro is active on the same Mastodon server as I am, social.lol. He also writes a weekly newsletter that comes out every Sunday night exactly at 8:00 PM. I'm usually reading it one minute later. It contains tips on tech, gadgets and more - always thoughtfully described .
jarunmb.com - by mb - This blogger and I have much in common, Gen X tech guys trapped in a Windows world at work, but loving Apple hardware on out own time. He's smart and engaging, a good writer who injects some personality into everything he puts online.
Dan Smock - I first encountered Dan when he commented on a blog post I wrote about the cushy job Army job I had at Ft. Hood back in the 80s. A fellow vet who shares most of my own feelings about the state of the US in 2025, Dan has well thought out insights on a great many things, including tech. I enjoy every encounter with him.
Tracy Durnell's Mind Garden – Thinking and Learning In Public - Tracy Durnell is a writer/blogger/cool person who lives in Seattle. When I was investigating starting a blog, she is one of the people who inspired me through some of her observations on the experience. Every time she's commented on something I've written, I've felt like rookie on a big league ball team.
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
Expert Guide on How To Win an Argument on the Internet
Just for the hell of it today, I searched for "how to win an argument on the Internet." Let me be clear. This is not something I do. Hardly ever. Unless someone really needs correcting. Or I'm grouchy. But only then. For one thing, I simply do not have the emotional energy to argue with anyone over anything, on or off the Internet on most days. I don't know if you've noticed, but being alive in 2025 is exhausting. Come January 20th, it will be even more so.
I conducted this search today strictly for the lolz. I wanted to see if anyone could seriously write an article to answer this question in a studied, calm and professional manner. If I was a reporter who caught an assignment to write a serious article about how to fight with a computer, I would quit on the spot because I have worked for crazy people before, and I did not like it.
Of course, I did find such an article, and I am including it here for you to marvel at.
How to Win an Argument Online: 7 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow
I found a much better Reddit thread on the always helpful sub, r/UnethicalProLifeTips containing the kind of help I was envisioning. It advises you to misstate facts when arguing so that your opponent feels obligated to correct you. Let's say you are disputing what level of hell Donald Trump will be assigned to when the syphilis finally kills him. You should mention something about his 36 felony convictions so that the MAGAt you're fighting with has to say, "That's a lie. HE only had 34 felony convictions!"
I can tell the person who wrote this article is a truly experienced Internet debater because they correctly cited Rule Number Four
How to Win Any Argument On the Internet
The final puzzle piece discovered in my research, has an easy to follow 10 point plan
How to win an argument online - Quora
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
What I'm Using on Reddit in 2025
This repost from my Obsidian blog got a lot of play on Reddit
You can absolutely waste some of your wild and precious life if you start doomscrolling in the wrong places on Reddit. Used wisely, however, Reddit can provide you with information on just about anything you are interested in. If you use it wisely and in accordance with the peculiar culture of the site, you can also make people curious enough about what you are up to in your other web endeavors, if you write about topics that Redditors are interested in.
I tend to frequent subreddits that mostly pertain to technology and the federated social media these days. Here are my current favorites.
r/MacApps
This is where I spend the most time. The mods of this sub were cool enough to add a link to AppAddict in the sidebar after I made an effort to cross post my reviews in their entirety every day for a few months. I only link back to my blog in posts I make if I am answering questions about an app or making recommendations.
r/ObsidianMD
Aside from all the meaningless pictures of people's graphs, this sub is an excellent place to find out about new plugins, new workflows and new use cases for what I think is the best app since the invention of the browser
r/macOS
This sub is huge with over 400K members. I am a mod here, but don't post much. It's not the friendliest community. There is a lot of one-upping going on and you can see the neck-beards doing their neck-beard things, but if you overlook all that, you can learn a lot.
r/BlueskySocial
One of the coolest things about Bluesky, is the public APIs it has lend themselves to a lot of neat websites and small software tools being developed. This is the place where you can find out about them. It's also a place where you can get your fill of Twitter hatred whenever you need to re-up, because the folks who post here never tire of putting down the bird site.
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
Personality Tests
I had a boss once who went to some leadership seminar where he learned about the Meyers Briggs personality. He thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread and wanted all the technical people in the IT department to take it immediately. I was on vacation because my grandson was visiting from out of state. The boss practically begged me to come in to work anyway for an afternoon to take the test. I acquiesced, against my better judgement, and humored him. After we all took the test, and they were evaluated, all hell broke loose. My departmental nemesis and I got the same assessment, and she was not having it. She was furious. I thought it was funny. I've tried unsuccessfully to find the results from that day. I wish I could tell you. If you're interested, you can take it yourself for free.
I'd love to hear anyone's experience with life after this assessment. Did you find it helpful? Did you agree with it? Did my boss violate my privacy?
One other bit of personal experience - when I was a correctional officer, I worked for a time in an in-processing center where we admitted inmates from jail. There they had to take a battery of tests, medical and psychological tests, including the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, a 600 question torture session that they all tried to pencil whip, forcing the staff psychologist to tell them that their answers indicated all sorts of horrible traits, whereupon the inmates would grudgingly try to answer the questions for fear of being labeled as a "bug", prison slang for the mentally ill.
Myers Briggs Type Preferences Perception Judgment
Personality Tests | Psychology Today - 45 different tests, including "Are you a psychopath," "Assertiveness Test" and "Emotional Intelligence" test.
Personality Tests Are Useless (Most Of Them Anyway)
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
What Happens When You Get Used to Evil Companies
It's only human to become used to even the worst of news. When you hear the same types of events reported for the hundredth time though, it's hard to attach any emotion to it. Most people who use social media are at least peripherally aware that the big companies that own Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and others have been caught doing everything from violating users' privacy and lying about it to undermining a US election by platforming a Russian intelligence agency. Maybe you even know about the resistance these companies have put up to cracking down on child sexual abuse material and bullying that's resulted in teen suicides. I case some of this sounds a little unfamiliar, let me just remind you of a few of the things that users of these platforms are implicitly condoning.
FTC Imposes $5 Billion Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook | Federal Trade Commission - I case you're wondering, this happened during the first Trump administration, not under the Democrats. Facebook blatantly lied for years to users to lull them into thinking their personal information was protected while selling it to the highest bidder, including personal telephone numbers. It subjected users photographs to illegal facial recognition software.
Anti-Semitic social posts 'not taken down' in 80% of cases - Even when notified of Neo-Nazis posting hateful and derogatory content, the big platforms only take action in one case out of four. On the other hand, I've had posts removed that extolled the French resistance against the Nazis in World War Two removed. I recently posted a cover of Time Magazine's Man of the Year for 1936 (Hitler) to compare it to 2024's MOY (Trump). That post was also removed.
Facebook and Instagram are steering child predators to kids, New Mexico AG alleges - CBS News - An undercover investigation set up phony accounts of fictional teens and preteens, using photographs generated by artificial intelligence. Meta's algorithms recommended sexual content to those accounts, which were also subject to a stream of explicit messages and propositions from adults on the platforms.
Has Social Media Fuelled a Teen-Suicide Crisis? | The New Yorker - A product manager at Facebook named Frances Haugen. Haugen, ...released thousands of the company’s internal documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission and to the Wall Street Journal, claiming that the company knew about the harmful effects of social media on mental health but consistently chose “profit over safety.”
Snapchat brushed aside warnings of child harm, documents show : NPR - An internal email shows the company received around 10,000 reports of sextortion per month. Employees pointed to one account that had 75 complaints against it, and it wasn't taken down. Internally, Snapchat said that addressing child grooming would create privacy issues and be too expensive.
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
Automations Make Macs Fun - Try These
I use all kinds of apps and services on my Mac and iPhone to make things happen in the background to make my life easier. I like to reserve my headspace for things I enjoy contemplating, like where I'm going to get my next order of tacos. I don't like having to remember to do things, mostly because I'm not that good at it. Here are a few of my favorite "set it and forget it" workflows.
Journaling with Day One
My first Day One entry was in January 2014. Since then, I have over 20,000 separate posts that are backed up online and synced to my iPhone, iPad and Mac. Here are the entry types that get automatically created:
All of these automations are done with IFTTT, may of them with RSS feeds. - Day One Integrations - Connect Your Apps with IFTTT
Time of Day and other Triggers with Keyboard Maestro
Keyboard Maestrohas a long list of triggering events that cause automations to run in the background. Here are a few of my favorites.
File Magic With Hazel
Hazel is a Mac app that watches specified folders on your computer for certain conditions. When those conditions are met, it performs any of a long list of actions on the files.
Obsidian Tricks
At it's core, Obsidian is just a plain text markdown editor. The power comes from it's massive 2000-plus and counting available plug-ins. Here are a few automations they allow me to set up.
The Anonymous Husband's Club
My wife and I work for the same private university. She's been there several years longer than I have, and she's the associate VP for finance and controller in charge of the finance department and some other stuff like the book store and the post office. She goes to meetings, has a corporate credit card, and people have to ask her for permission to do stuff. Me, I am the old guy in the IT department who you ask for a mouse when yours dies. If someone is giving me a hard time, i just casually mention who I am married to and they leave me alone. I have a system.
Of course, in her private life, she's a talented ultramarathon runner, winner of races from distances of 50K to 100 miles. She routinely outruns paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division and college athletes. We've been married since 2013. I'm her biggest cheerleader. Standing in her shadow is my favorite place to be.
I, as they say, used to be kinda famous in our circles too. I met her at one of many century (100 mile) bike rides I organized. I traveled all over this country and Europe as an organizer and speaker. Before I retired from my career job, I'd been the senior person in my role for years. These days though, my athletic career is over and I'd quit my job before I let them promote me to a position with more authority or responsibility. There's not even a war for me to protest. I'm fine thanks.
Here are some stories about other guys in the anonymous husbands club.
24 Times Celebrities Married—or Dated—Normal People | Vogue
What the Husbands of Stars Do for a Living
34 Celebrity Spouses You Didn't Know Existed
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
Isolated Dialects - The Lumbee Indians and the High Tiders
The US is a large country with well-known accents and dialects recognized all over the world. Just about anyone with a knowledge of the English language can distinguish a Southern drawl from a thick Brooklyn accent. What I find fascinating are the tiny, isolated dialects confined to small geographical locations. My home state of North Carolina has 100 counties. Two of them have dialects immediately recognizable.
Robeson County is the home of the Lumbee Native American tribe. You may not be familiar with this tribe, but it is one of the largest in the Eastern US. There are 55,000 tribal members in the county. Most Lumbees have classic English last names like Locklear, Oxendine, Dial and Lowery. Their distinctive dialect is instantly recognizable both for its unique pronunciations and vocabulary.
Do You Speak American . Sea to Shining Sea . American Varieties . Lumbee . Papers
INDIAN BY BIRTH - THE LUMBEE DIALECT
Dare County is the location of North Carolina's Outer Banks, a thin strip of barrier islands. Natives of the region speak with is called the Hoi Toider (High Tider) or Tidewater accent. On Ocracoke Island or at Cape Hatteras, you will hear words like dingbatter, meehonkey and quamished.
What is the High Tider accent?
The Carolina Brogue: Outer Banks Vocabulary
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
The Winds on Mt. Washington
I'm no alpinest, but I've climbed the highest mountains in several states via hiking trails. In July 2013, after spending the night sleeping on the floor of the Lake in the Clouds Hut operated by the Appalachian Mountain Club in New Hampshire's White Mountain National park, Wonder Woman and I climbed the highest mountain in the northeast United States, to the 6,288 ft. peak of Mt. Washington. As we started the long climb, a sign placed by the US Forest Service stood beside the trail with a stark warning proclaiming "THE AREA AHEAD HAS THE WORST WEATHER IN AMERICA. MANY HAVE DIED THERE FROM EXPOSURE, EVEN IN THE SUMMER. TURN BACK NOW IF THE WEATHER IS BAD. WHITE MOUNTAIN NATIONAL FOREST"
Fortunately.the weather on this mid-summer day was cloudy and a little windy, although we could see sunshine down in the valley below. It took a couple of hours to reach the peak. The winds grew increasingly stronger and we were soaked by the moisture in the clouds passing around (not over) us. At the summit, there is a weather station that's been there for decades and is manned 24/7/365. There was a place where you could see the weather conditions, including the wind speed. On our summit day, the steady winds were blowing at 50 MPH with gusts up to 60 MPH. We were both wearing every layer of clothing we carried in our backpacks.
One of the most intimidating things I've ever seen was the plaque for all the people who have lost their lives on the mountain. It was crowded with names, but they'd left room to add more, as if it were some perverse employee of the moth club.
Just to give you an idea why that spot has the worst weather in the US, read below about the April day in 1934 when the wind speed was recorded at 231 MPH on two separate occasions, a record that stood until a higher speed was recorded during a Pacific cyclone during the 1990s.
Remembering the Big Wind - Mount Washington Observatory
Happy ‘Big Wind Day': 90 years since incredible 231 mph gust at Mount Washington | Fox Weather
Wonder Woman Coming Up the Mountain
[Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇](#upvote-form)
The Guinness Book of World Records
During elementary school trips to the library, if all the books on Bigfoot and the Bermuda Triangle were already checked out by some other kid boning up on life's dangers, my go to source of reading material was the ever fascinating Guinness Book of World Records. I remember pictures of the world's heaviest twins riding motorcycles and the name of the tallest man who ever lived (Robert Wadlow). As it turns out, I am not alone in my appreciation for this unusual record book. Over 150 million copies have been sold in yearly editions. 2025 will mark the 70th time the book is issued.
In 1954, the managing director of the Guinness Brewing Company had the idea to create a book to settle arguments between pub patrons. He planned to give the books away to the owners of public house in the United Kingdon. He hired a pair of brothers to compile the book, sports journalists Norris and Ross McWhirter. The first edition contained about 4,000 records and was so popular that within months more copies were printed and this time for sale. It has been continuously in print ever since.
The Guinness World Records | Description, History, & Facts | Britannica
Our story | Guinness World Records
2025: Guinness World Records $13.98
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
The Difference Between Journaling and Blogging
When I look back at my blog, it reveals more about my feelings than any journal I've ever kept. I can tell when I was feeling light-hearted or when politics have had me riled up. When I write about my (grown) kids it is usually a reflection of when I'm missing them. My dear sweet Mom reads every post and I put little messages to her in here and try not to cuss. I'm honest about my mental health. Sometimes I vent my frustrations from work, or you know, people.
Every time I have ever tried to keep a journal, it's quickly devolved into nothing more than just a daily narrative - when I got up, what I did at work, what I did in the evening. I always start off thinking I'll inject some emotion into it, something that future me will read with admiration. It just never happens. I've used the great journaling app, Day One, since 2014, but it is more of a digital scrapbook into which I funnel photographs, social media posts, books, movies and TV shows watched and news stories. It's fun to maintain and look through, but I don't get much of a clue about how past me felt on all those days unless one of the photos conjures up a memory.
Before I started this blog, I'd had two stints of writing for other people behind me. One was back in the 90s before we had social media. I used to write essays and include them in our family email chain. I've republished a couple of them here and here. The email chain petered out and most of the writing I did for the next decade was technical in nature.
In 2013, my wife and I hiked the Appalachian Trail on a five-month honeymoon. I used an iPhone 5 to write a blog entry every night in our tent or whatever hostel we happened to be in with pictures and details from the day's journey. I thought about continuing it when we got home, but going back to work and a lack of spectacular views and adventure extinguished that flame.
These days. I average about 1,000 words a day. I write about anything I feel like for most of that, although I dedicate some time to my hobby of writing app reviews. I went through my first hundred days and created a list of blogging prompts, which several people have amazingly taken and completed 50 or more of their own posts from.
Last week, I celebrated the one-year anniversary of my first blog post in my re-entry into the world of personal bloggers. I didn't start the crazy post something every day thing until March. I've written for my blog during a hurricane. I kept it going through a camping trip with five of my grandchildren. More than a few posts have been pecked out on my phone during road trips and airplane flights. I am much more dedicated to talking to y'all than I ever was writing for myself. Thankfully, I have an open-book personality. I'm not guarded about much. My life has been messy and imperfect, but I've done some fun stuffand some hard stuff and ended up pretty happy for the most part. For me it would be harder not to write about my life than it would be to conceal every wart.
Thanks for reading.
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
Cafe Bustelo - For the Coffee People
Woah. There is definitely caffeine in here. I think I went overboard with that heaping tablespoon I dumped in my mug. It has flavor… AND THERE’S CAFFEINE. Goes down pretty smooth. Would be great if you needed to stay awake for a week straight and couldn’t afford cocaine.”
I'm not the kind of coffee person who knows the difference between beans or the correct time and temperature for roasting them. I'm the kind of coffee person who counts the first cup of the day as one of life's greatest pleasures. I know what I like. My favorite method for making a cup is the amazing Aeropress. If I have to, though, I'll even drink instant, and I'll enjoy it. Twenty years ago, I used to hang out with a schizophrenic poet who introduced me to the Latino style coffee, Cafe Bustelo. I've been drinking it ever since. It's a very dark, very strong brew that I think tastes exactly like coffee should. My Italian in-laws use it in a moka pot to make what they call "Black Coffee." You can get it in several varieties:
Cafe Bustelo is available in all the usual form factors:
Cafe Bustelo- official website
What's the deal with Cafe Bustelo?? : r/Coffee
[Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇](#upvote-form)
What Happened on January 6th?
Many conservative Americans sport a decal on their vehicles of a black and white decal of the US flag with a single blue stripe running through it to symbolize that they "back the blue." That's the police. Despite that, on January 6th, 2021 a mob of Trump supporters attacked the officers guarding the US Capitol, spraying them with bear spray, ramming them with flag poles, hitting them with baseball bats and purposefully crushing them against the building. Approximately 150 officers were injured. One died the nest day. Two more committed suicide within a week. More than 1500 people have been convicted in court with sentences ranging up to 22 years. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Donald Trump has declared his belief that 1/6.2021 was a day of great love. He's said that he intends to pardon those convicted with minutes of being inaugurated.
January 6 U.S. Capitol Attack | Background, Events, Criminal Charges, & Facts | Britannica
Fact checking Donald Trump's statements about Jan. 6 : NPR
The GOP's collective amnesia on January 6th, four years later - YouTube
Office of Public Affairs | Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Statement on the Fourth Anniversary of the January 6 Attack on the Capitol | United States Department of Justice
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
HeyDingus! - Blogging as a Public Service
Before I ever bought a domain or opened an account on the modern social web, I discovered HeyDingus! while trying to find some information to solve a problem I was having. I spent the rest of the afternoon just browsing through the archives. When I was done I shot an email to the owner of the blog, Jarrod Blundy to let him know how much I appreciated his writing. Much to my surprise, I got a response. It turned out to be one of many exchanges I've had with Jarrod over the past year. He is a real role model for the ethos of what the IndieWeb should be IMHO - a mix of public service, autobiography and community building.
Here are a few Jarrod's helpful projects"
Follow Jarrod
💌 Email: jarrod@heydingus.net
🦣 Mastodon: @jarrod@micro.blog
📷 Instagram: @heyjb.me
🧵 Threads: @heyjb.me
🦋 Bluesky: @heyjb.me
📺 Trakt: @heyjarrod
🍿 Letterboxd: @jblundy
🎵 Apple Music: @heyjarrod
📚 Goodreads: @heyjarrod
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇