Links
- Obsidian - an extensible note-taking app that is also well suited for writers. I've composed more than 500K words in it during the past year.
- Clean Shot X - the best screenshot utility
- Raycast - an app launcher that handles much more
- Keyboard Maestro - the ultimate Mac automation tool
- Vivaldi Browser- my choice for web browsing for reasons
- PopClip - a text selection utility
- TextExpander - a snippets app
- Drafts - a text automation app
- Day One - the preeminent journaling app for macOS
- Default Folder X - an enhancement for open and save dialog boxes
- Hazel - a Mac automation tool for file management
- DropZone 4- a file shelf utility
- Toyviewer - a Preview replacement for images with editing capabilities
- Qspace | AppAddict - a substitute for Finder
- Scratchpad - a menu bar utility for floating notes
- BarTender - I didn't buy into the hysteria, I just set up some Little Snitch rules
- Better Touch Tool - multi-purpose automation app
- Find Any File - a search utility
- Things 3- a task manager
- Kiwi for Gmail - Not a well-known email app, but one I've used off and on for years
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇 - The death penalty is not a deterrent.
- The death penalty costs many times what alternative punsihments cost.
- For every eight executions, someone is freed from death row after their innocence is established.
- Their is a long history of racial discrimination in applying the death peanlty.
- There is no way to rectify a wrongful execution.
- Asking medical staff and correctional officers to participate in executions is immoral.
- Jason Kottke - one of the Internet's OG bloggers who posts regularly and who alwways seems to be finding the best stuff. - RSS Feed
- I've been reading NextDraft for well over a decade. Dave Pell says "I pluck the most fascinating news items of the day and then create a modern-day column which I deliver with a fast, pithy wit that will make your computer device vibrate with delight." -RSS Feed
- Feedle is a search engine for the IndieWeb where any search you fo can be turned into an RSS feed. Try it for any subject that interests you. In the meantime, subscribe to their curated feed of some of the best blog posts they've found -RSS Feed
- BearBlog is the home of two of my own online endeavors. It's also the home of many fine bloggers. Reading the most popular posts on the platform each day is a good use of your time and a good way to discover new writers - RSS Feed
- Murmel is a service that tracks the most shared stories on social media. The main feed covers a giant cross-section of the Fediverse, but you can subscribe to a personalized feed to see what the people you follow are sharing. - RSS Feed
- The last feed on the list is in way over its head. If you have a hard time sorting out where all the stuff I write about is being posted, you can subscribe to a single RSS feed and get it all out of one fire hose, including my weekly bookmarks and my updated /now page in addition to AppAddict, Living Out Loud and Linkage. - RSS Feed
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇 - Accessibility
- Beginner HTML
- JavaScript
- Blogging Platforms
- Static site generators
- Code generators
- Code snippets
- Analytics
- Guestbooks
- Forms
- layouts
- Web Hosts
- Webrings
Good People, It Seems
I am indifferent to celebrity culture most of the time. While I admire talented people who can act or sing or hit home ruins and free throws, I don't find anything particularly heroic about it. I am all for athletes and entertainers extracting as much wealth as they can from billionaire sports team owners and the stock holders of movie studios. I'm a little less enthusiastic about concert ticket prices, but then, the cost of music is pretty cheap otherwise. I don't think for a minute that most celebrities are just regular people, only richer. Living with constant adulation is bound to end up making you weird after a while. None of my minor brushes with celebrity have been terrible. As a kid, I watched a minor league baseball game with Bob Feller, a baseball Hall of Fame member who talked to me for the whole game. I walked by Will Smith and his son in San Francisco and was delighted to see them beat boxing to one another, just goofing off.
Basketball legend Michael Jordan opening new doctor’s office in North Carolina - Today, there was a news article about one of North Carolina's biggest celebrities, Michael Jordan, who jas a bit of a reputation for being prickly. He just funded a medical clinic here, the fourth one he's done that for. The clinic is in Wilmington, where he grew up in the same neighborhood where some of my grandkids live. They attend the same high school that he did. I think opening medical clinics that serve uninsured people qualifies you for good person status. Sure, MJ still has plenty of money, but he's doing more than many rich athletes do.
Other celebrities who seem to have a good heart:
Lebron james - I Promise School - Lebron James Family Foundation and Akron Public Schools
Dolly Parton - Dolly Parton's Imagination Library
Robin Williams - A Tribute to Robin Williams - St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
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Genealogy Why?
The first time I heard of someone who'd done genealogical research, was in the 70's when Alex Hailey's book, Roots was made into the most talked about TV series ever produced up to that time. Despite all the obstacles faced by scant records for enslaved people, Hailey famously traced his ancestors all the way back to West Africa.
Today, genealogical research is an industry involving multi-billion dollar companies and often DNA technology. It's entirely possible to sit at a computer and trace your family back through generations without any of the hassle of visiting cemeteries, courthouses and your great-aunt Betsy. That's the "How" part of it. What is the why?
For me, it was a life long interest in history, coupled with an interest in the stories my grandparents told. I am the furthest thing you can get from being a candidate for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, even though my ancestry would support membership. My mother's side of the family is descended from Quakers who were abolitionists. My favorite relation from that war was drafted more than once. He served three shorts stints in the Army and always came back home as soon as he could. I could not find any record indicating that he deserted, but he wasn't eager to be there, that much is definite.
Another ancestor from the 19th century named Moses Parker got married and had 12 children. Then his wife died, so he got married again and had 12 more more children.
If you are interested in looking over old census records and finding out how many cousins you have, you can get started today.
NGS Recommends...17 Important Free Websites for Genealogy Research - The National Genealogical Society (frequently referred to as NGS) is here to help individuals learn about their family history. We are a non-profit organization headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia. For 120 years, we have been the leader in teaching genealogical research skills and providing a pathway to scholarly work
Find your family. Free Genealogy Archives - Everything on FamilySearch is Free. A completely free genealogy database website. You can use an Advanced Search tool by surname, record type, and/or place to access millions of records. The FamilySearch Wiki is a “go to” resource to find what exists for a wide range of family history topics, even beyond FamilySearch’s extensive databases.
Ancestry | Family Tree, Genealogy & Family History Records - Start your family tree for free. Connect with your family story on Ancestry® and discover the what, where, and who of how it all leads to you.
Genealogy related news/articles and discussion - A subreddit about all things genealogy
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Learning Linux
If you have an old computer lying around, so what i did, for less than $100, I bought an SSD and 32MB of RAM and had a machine perfectly capable of running the free operating system, Linux. Not only is the operating system free, there are also a great many apps available at no cost. If you enjoy tech and would like to expand your horizons a bit, try this experimint in your spare time.
Create a bootable USB stick with Rufus to install| Ubuntu
New Here? Let's Get Started! - YouTube
How to Build a Linux Media Server - A step by step guide -
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This Week's Bookmarks - 50 Movies, How Many Cigs, Outrage Fatigue, Cringe Matrix, Photo Creepiness, WikiTok, Font Generator
50 of the Most Rewatchable Movies Ever Made | Lifehacker - Because sometimes, you just want a known quantity, and some movies seem designed to be watched again and again. Others simply go down so agreeably that you can't help but find them comforting.
Catalog – HOW MANY CIGARETTES? - There were 124 cigarettes smoked on Casablanca, 54 in Fight Club. Look up your favorite movie and find how soon the starts will dies of lung cancer.
Outrage Fatigue Is Real. Here’s Why We Feel It and How to Cope | Scientific American - Repeated exposure to outrage-inducing news or events can lead to emotional exhaustion. An expert who studies online outrage says there are ways to cope
The Cringe Matrix - by Haley Nahman - Despite being treated in the popular imagination as something specific—earnestness, maybe—I think cringe is more layered and complex than that.
They See Your Photos - Your photos reveal a lot of private information. In this experiment, we use the Google Vision API to see how much can be inferred about you from a single photo. See what they see.
WikiTok - Instead of doom scrolling midlessly through some corporate owned social media mind number, spend your time on this endless feed of Wikipedia articles and learn a bit when you get bored.
Font Generator - 𝓒𝓸𝓹𝔂 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝓟𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓮 Fancy Cool Text - Make your text fun and stylish with our fancy text generator 🌟 featuring a wide variety of font styles ready for easy copy and paste.
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I Picked My Top 20 Apps
I'm not really bothered by having more than 500 apps installed on my Mac. According to Lingon X, I have 102 apps either as login items or running in the background as helper apps. I write app reviews on my other blog, AppAddict every day, always something I have downloaded, installed and used on my personal Mac. I love my Setapp subscription because it gives me an ever-growing library of high-quality apps to try out for the same monthly price. But if all this goodness evaporated suddenly and i was forced to run vanilla macOS plus twenty apps to get my work done, which out of all the ones that own would I choose? Answering this requires some tough choices. Many of these apps I have been using for more than a decade, although a few have been adopted in the past year.
Since I am retired, I no longer need any networking, development or analysis apps. I use my Mac primarily for research and for writing. The graphics work I do is simple and straightforward. Even though I have Pixelmator and Acorn, I end up using simpler tools most of the time.
The Death Penalty
I've been to a place few people ever go. That place is death row. In my home state, death row is located in Central Prison in Raleigh. It has been more than 30 years since I was there. IN those days, guards like me who were at Central because we'd transported prisoners to the hospital there for treatment were sometimes pressed into service if they unit was short-staffed. The death row inmates were not under strict segregation from the rest of the population and when they had medical appointments or visits with their lawyers, they were escorted there, walking the halls right along with other inmates. You knew they were on death row because they wore bright red jumpsuits instead of the brown clothes other felons wore. While I was there, I saw two prisoners I recognized. They were a pair of brothers who killed two law enforcement officers during a traffic stop. The younger one later had his sentence commuted because he was a minor at the time of the crime.
Despite having a more intimate knowledge of the true nature of convicted murderers, I have never supported the death penalty. There are people who should never be let out of the prison, but the state should not be involved in killing people. I believe that for many reasons.
Executed But Possibly Innocent | Death Penalty Information Center - It is now broadly accepted that the judicial review provided to death-penalty cases in the United States has been inadequate to prevent the execution of at least some prisoners who were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death. Some cases with strong evidence of innocence are listed here.
Innocent Lives in the Balance - Equal Justice USAince 1973, at least 200 people have been freed after evidence revealed that they were sentenced to die for crimes they did not commit.1 That's more than one innocent person exonerated for every eight executions
On Jun 16, 1944: Fourteen-Year-Old George Stinney Executed in South Carolina - On June 16, 1944, George Stinney Jr., a 90-pound Black 14-year-old boy, was executed in the electric chair in Columbia, South Carolina.
Wrongful Execution – TCADP - A documentary film, The Phantom, tells the story of how Texas executed Carlos DeLuna, a likely innocent person, in 1989. It is available to watch on Netflix. In addition to the case of Carlos DeLuna, there is strong evidence the State of Texas has executed several innocent people, including Ruben Cantu, Cameron Todd Willingham, Gary Graham (Shaka Sankofa), Larry Swearingen, and, most recently, Ivan Cantu, who was put to death on February 28, 2024.
Capital Punishment or Life Imprisonment? Some Cost Considerations | Office of Justice Programs - Florida has estimated that the true cost of each execution is approximately $3.2 million, or approximately 6 times what it would cost to keep the person in prison for life
Prison officers traumatized by rate of executions in US death penalty states | Capital punishment | The Guardian - The relentless pursuit of “non-stop executions” by a rump of US death penalty states is exposing prison staff to extreme levels of psychological and physical stress, according to traumatized corrections officers who are appealing for help
DOES THE DEATH PENALTY DETER CRIME? - In 2004 in the USA, the average murder rate for states that used the death penalty was 5.71 per 100,000 of the population as against 4.02 per 100,000 in states that did not use it
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Researching Retirement
I have five working days left before I finish working out my notice at work. Hopefully, they will be uneventful. My boss, in a move I did not see coming, has given me the silent treatment since receiving my letter. I'm sorry he is being a weirdo, but it doesn't bother me too much. I've gotten some warm farewells from the people I've helped over the past couple of years, which is something I'll hold on to.
I've been putting a lot of thought into creating a workspace for myself where I can look out over my backyard, which abuts a wooded patch of wetlands. I can do some birdwatching from where I plan to set up and even go out on my deck with a cup of coffee when the weather permits. I have music, a good chair, a coffee pot and natural light.
As I have shared, I'll be doing a lot of writing. I have a PC that I'm going to set up as a home server so that I can experiment with some self-hosted services. I've been thinking of what kind of daily schedule I want to adhere to and even giving thought to a few meals I would like to cook for Wonder Woman.
How to Enjoy Retired Life: Creating a Retirement Routine
10 Tips to Create a Perfect Workspace at Home
Backyard Birding – World Sensorium / Conservancy
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5 Great RSS Feeds for Good Reading Every Day
This is a special edition containing links to five of the best sources on the Internet to keep abreast of the latest trending topics and discover new writers. And then there is a bonus feed.
1 follow my favorite IndieWeb bloggers via RSS to stay abreast of what they are up to, for inspiration and education. I also have an RSS feed that's mostly for curated reposts of the best of the web each day. If you'd like to build a list like that, here are some great feeds to get started with. Keep these in a separate app or however you want to segregate them, but don't mix them up with all your other subscriptions or they will just get lost.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
I have been to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum just once. It was in the 1990s. I took my children to Washington for the express purpose of having them visit. We had to go to the museum in the morning to get tickets to be able to tour it in the afternoon. We spent a little over two hours inside. I've always been interested in history and although I wouldn't say that I studied the holocaust, I'd read many books about World War Two. I knew how Hitler has enacted the Nuremberg Race Laws (modeled on Jim Crow laws from the US). I knew about Kristallnacht , the Night of Broken Glass when the Nazis started a pogrom against Jewish businesses and synagogues in November of 1938. I knew about the death camps like Auschwitz.
The displays at the museum were haunting and memorable. The one that left the deepest impression was a pile of hundreds of leather shoes confiscated from Jews entering one of the camps. Many of the shoes were children's sizes. Most children were killed on the same day they arrived at the camps unless they happened to be twins, in which case their lives would be temporarily spared so Nazi doctors could experiment on them. You could smell the shoes in the exhibit, even from behind glass and even after 50 years of storage. They were a stark reminder of extinguished humanity.
With the rise of authoritarian government all over the world, including the far-right AfD in Germany itself, I think it would be good for any American to visit the Holocaust Memorial Museum. See a civilized modern society went mad listening to a popular but insane little man who tooks a country of farmers and industrial workers and turned it into an extermination machine. Think about that the next time you a politician telling you that immigrants are animals and talking about them spoiling the blood of the nation.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
A visit to the US Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. - YouTube
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Punching Nazis
Have you ever been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC? Better yet, have you traveled to Europe and visited the sites of former Nazi concentration camps like Dachau or Auschwitz? Did your grandfather or great-grandfather serve in Work War 2? Even if you can't answer any of those questions in the affirmative, do you simply have a gut level understanding that Nazis and their ideology are among the most despicable things to ever exist?
My Grandmother lost her younger brother to Nazi gunfire in Italy. I have proudly organized with survivors of the 1979 Greensboro Massacre in North Carolina where Nazis and Klansmen gunned down community activists marching through a public housing project.
I am glad to support and encourage anyone who is antifascist. If you list Nazi-punching as one of your hobbies on social media, I am sending you a friend request. If actually get to punch a Nazi and I can get your address, I am sending you a fan letter. Celebrate these heroes whenever you get the chance!
Armed Nazis Flee as Local Heroes Burn Their Flags
Antifa Tracked Down and Knocked Out a Neo-Nazi Using Social Media | New York Post - YouTube
Punching Nazis Totally Works | Defiant | Medium
The 'punch a Nazi' meme: what are the ethics of punching Nazis? | Science | The Guardian
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Remembering Bad Presidents
In my time on planet Earth, I have lived through of during the administration of 11 presidents. They all has faults, but, excluding the current White House resident, two of them were exceptionally bad people and presidents. I am referring, of course to Richard Nixon who not only ran a criminal conspiracy from the oval office to cover up the Watergate crimes, he also less famously prolonged the Vietnam war by sabotaging peace negotiations between the Johnson Administration and North Vietnam. The other spectacular failure was George W. Bush who lied the Ameican people into a two-trillion dollar failure of a war. If that weren't bad enough, he also was running the country when the world financial system almost collapsed due to his negligence, causing the worst economic conditions in the US since the Great Depression.
Isn't it odd then, that the current criminal fascist at the head of the US government does something almost every day as bad as the worst of Nixon and Bush? I mean, theguy already has 34 felony convictions. He owes $84 million to a woman he sexually assaulted and then defamed. He is openly racist and has been recorded on video bragging about grabbing women "by the pussy."
Just for the lolz, here is what we used to consider bad presidenting.
Nixon
Worst Presidents: Richard Nixon (1969-1974)
Articles by Jonathan Rauch: Nixon: 20th Century's Worst President
W. Bush
The 7 worst moments of George W. Bush’s presidency - The Washington Post
George W. Bush was worse than you remember
George W. Bush Was a Disaster — Only Trump Looks Worse By Comparison - FPIF
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This Week's Bookmarks - Buffy Returns, $1 Million Puzzle, Using Signal, Attending Protests, Night Experiences, Chatbot Limits, More Movies
Sarah Michelle [[Gellar]] Says Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Return Is for the Fans - The Slayer herself revealed that a Buffy revival has been in the works for a while ahead of this week's announcement.
Officials Are Offering $1 Million to Anyone Who Can Decode This Ancient Script | Smithsonian - The enigmatic Indus Valley civilization left behind a script that today's historians haven't yet deciphered. While amateur theories abound, scholars are increasingly relying on computer science to crack the code
How to: Use Signal - Signal is a free and open-source application for Android, iOS, and desktop that employs end-to-end encryption ![[zz-attachments/b6c7153398baebdb9a3e3f70bbea364d_MD5.jpg]] to keep communications safe.
Attending a Protest - Protecting your electronic devices and digital assets ![[zz-attachments/b6c7153398baebdb9a3e3f70bbea364d_MD5.jpg]] before, during, and after a protest is vital to keeping yourself and your information safe, as well as getting your message out.
Five extraordinary night-time experiences around the world - From fiery festivals to nature's most dazzling "sky-dance", interest in the night skies is booming, with "noctourism" poised to be a major travel trend in 2025.
Chatbot Software Begins to Face Fundamental Limitations | Quanta Magazine - Recent results show that large language models struggle with compositional tasks, suggesting a hard limit to their abilities.
AMC Theaters Stubs-A List Increases to Four Movies a Week - Film fanatics are getting a greater value for their money, too. They'll receive an additional weekly reservation, allowing them to see up to four movies instead of the current allotment of three per week.
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I Hate PDFs, Here Are Some Tips
First off, just let me say I hate PDFs in the workplace because even in 2025, few people understand all the ins and outs of working with them. All they know is that the boss needs to buy them or IT needs to give them some expensive software, preferably top of the line Adobe software, so they can do what they want with a single damn document they got from some seminar.
If you occasionally work with documents saved as PDFs, you can probably avoid purchasing, or worse, subscribing to expensive services to create, join, split, annotate and convert files. The key word is occasionally. If your everyday workflow involves working with PDFs all day, you need to go ahead and invest in the tools you need.
Both Macs and PCs can create PDF files from just about any file you can print. Where folks run into trouble is when they get a PDF file created by someone else, and they want to edit it as if it were a Word document. It is not. When you look at a PDF, you are essentially looking at a picture of a document rather than an original. Still, depending on your pain point, there are free tools you can use to make some modifications to PDFs.
There are also free tools to do OCR (object character recognition) on PDF files so that you can search the text in them for keywords. Not every PDF has a searchable layer. It can be created if it doesn't exist, but it isn't always there by default.
One last bomb blast from your IT guy - do not come at me with some 1GB 800-page PDF full of tiny text and full color pictures and complain about anything because you are asking for trouble if you expect to work with files like that. You just are.
PDFgear - Free PDF Editor Software & Online tools
Annotate a PDF in Preview on Mac - Apple Support
How To Edit a PDF on Mac—Three Fast and Free Ways | Smallpdf
PDF online - FREE | Adobe Acrobat
PDF OCR - Recognize text - easily, online, free - PDF24
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Get Ready for More
If you aren't a regular reader of Linkage, the daily collection of interesting places to visit on the Internet, you really should be. Earlier tonight i shared the news that I've decided to stop working at the university where I've been full time since 2022. My new ambition is to be able to devote my time to writing in a way I never have been able to before. Writing is what brings me the most joy these days but I have had to cram it into a life with a full time job, family time that I treasure and trying to be a supportive husband to Wonder Woman. I've always enjoyed helping people with technology issues, so my job wasn't unenjoyable, but like any workplace, sometimes personalities and politics get in the way of the mission. Well, not any more, not for me. My last day in my 50s will be my last day as an employee. My first day of the final retirement is going to be my 60th birthday.
This is the real culmination of a dream I've had for a while. There are so many things in my life that have taken a back seat. I'll have time to cook again. I won't have to go for walks in the coldest hour of the day. I can spend evenings doing things with Wonder Woman as opposed to doing things near her.
My vision for writing is to be able to spend more time developing ideas, spending some time mind mapping or outlining what I want to write about. I may even start proofreading before I publish! Usually my editing is of the oh, shit variety, after I spot a mistake or three on a live blog post. I get email from developers fairly regularly asking me to consider reviewing their apps and now I will have time to do more of that. It would really make me happy to be able to lend a hand to someone who comes up with a great idea to get more attention for their work. I don't have the stress or pressure faced by commercial journalists.
For this blog, where tech takes a back seat and I tend to write more autobiographical prose along with social commentary, nothing will change about the format or direction. I'll just be able to develop some ideas more fully. It is a precarious moment in time. Documenting how we get through these next four years is important. I want to be a part of a support network of progressive voices who advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in the face of an assault on vulnerable people. Activists absolutely need to be in the streets, but no one should discount building communities online. If the right wing's Internet presence is a problem for the left, the same can be true in reverse. Keeping people engaged and involved and ready to vote isn't a given. I'm not planning to become a pundit. I just want to be the same outspoken citizen I have tried to be since conservatism turned so poisonous.
I am excited and happy. Life is awesome.
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Quitting But Still a Winner
I did something today I've only done a couple of times in the 21st century. I quit my job. Technically, leaving my previous job wasn't quitting. It was retiring. I spent 27 years working for the state of NC before sailing off into the sunset. I ended up not liking my first shot at retirement, but I think this time will be different. For the past two years I've been an end user support specialist at a private university in the town where I live. The students and 99% of the faculty were great to work with. The atmosphere in tech has really changed though. A lot of time and energy is spent on what is essentially security theater. While there is information the law requires an IT department do everything in its power to protect, there are also lots of restrictions placed on folks that are there purely for show and don't do a damn thing to make data more secure. It makes me crazy. So I turned in my notice. My last day at work will also be my last day in my 50s. My 60th birthday will be the first day of my second retirement.
To celebrate my impending freedom, I found a few good stories about people leaving jobs to share with you.
Quitting Stories- Funny & True Stories | NotAlwaysRight.com
The CRAZIEST Job Quitting Stories You Will Ever Hear - Don’t Try These Yourself - YouTube
30 Hilarious Ways People Quit Their Jobs
4 of the wildest quitting stories we've ever heard
‘I’m outta here': Employees Share Stories About Quitting on the First Day - FAIL Blog - Funny Fails
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Let's Talk About Corporate Hypocrisy
When the Republican's in the NC legislature pushed through the nation's first bathroom bill in 2016, other states banned travel there, artists like Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam canceled concerts, major corporations canceled plans to open offices and the NCAA pulled the college basketball Final Four tournament. By the time the bill was rescinded, North Carolina lost billions of dollars in revenue as the nation punished it for enacting a spiteful and hate-filled law. Times have changed. Today the president of the NCAA issued a fawning statement with a positive spin on Trump's executive order banning trans athletes. In eight years time, the NCAA lost what little moral compass it ever had.
To give this exploitive and hypocritical organization, tonight I'll feature a few other less than respectable organizations.
2016
NCAA pulls 7 championship events out of North Carolina - ESPN
2025
Disney is once again giving money to anti-LGBTQ+ Republicans who passed the "Don't Say Gay" law | Salon.com - the recipients include Republicans who supported the law that banned discussions about LGBTQ+ issues in public schools through third grade, even though the company, under pressure from its employees, previously opposed the measure, officially called the Parental Rights in Education bill.
Facebook settles a federal lawsuit over allegations it favored foreign job applicants : NPR - This is the same company that just crawled into bed with MAGA and its America First Agenda.
Dove's 'Real Beauty' campaign: Hypocritical? | The Week - After earning praise for featuring women who were not professional models in an ad campaign, Dove decided to solicit candidates with this pitch - "Beautiful arms and legs and face... naturally fit, not too curvy or athletic!" the ad read. "Beautiful hair & skin is a must!!!"
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Make Flying Less Miserable Using These Guides
I only fly two or three times a year. Most of my trips start at the regional airport a few miles from my home and involve changing planes at one or more major hubs, like Atlanta or Charlotte. If you've done much post-9/11 flying, you know the drill. Or, rather, you know that the drill is constantly changing. Shoes on or shoes off? Laptop in or out of the bag? How big can my deodorant be? That's just the stuff you have to know to get past the very first hurdle!
Then there are the rules about luggage size, the number of bags, worries about food and drink, your rights as a passenger when it comes to delays and canceled flights. Just how long can you be made to sit on the tarmac if your plane can't take off? Even if you are a seasoned traveler, there are extra steps to take for longer, overseas flights to have the best experience.
Even if you can afford a first class experience from beginning to end, sometimes the best you can hope for is to just suffer less than normal. The following guides don't answer every question, but they are a good start to having a better experience.
TSA's Top Travel Tips | Transportation Security Administration - Get TSA pre-check, Traveling with strollers, car seats and breast milk, Military travel guide, Up-to-date rules on liquids
10 Health Tips for Plane Travel | Northwestern Medicine - Many people experience some form of discomfort or sickness when they travel by plane. Dry mouth, aching limbs, swollen ankles — they’re par for the course on plane rides and they are, in fact, caused by the very environment you’re traveling in. That means there’s nothing you can do to eliminate these issues entirely, but you can take a few steps in the right direction
7 Must-Know Tips for First-Time Flyers - NerdWallet - You want to head for the gate with the swagger of a seasoned traveler, but that's hard to pull off when you don't know how much it costs to check a bag, or what to expect when you go through airport security.So how can you deal? Reviewing these tips before takeoff can boost your confidence, making your trip easier and more worry-free.
10 Airport Tips & Tricks for Stress-Free Travel - Airports and air travel can be stressful and confusing for new and seasoned travelers alike, though. With all the steps to navigate, rules, and the need to get the timing down just right, flying can quickly become overwhelming without a little help.
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Shaving Sucks. Why Do We Do It?
I joined the military when I was 18. Every enlisted soldier's introduction to that lifestyle is basic training, a nine week period where other soldiers a few years older than you yell at you a lot and make you do things that don't always make a lot of sense. One of the things they make you do is shave your face every day, whether you need to or not. God help you if your bear growth is faster or heavier than normal, because you will spend much time defending your genetic abnormality to green suited screaming men who do not believe that you adequately groomed yourself that particular morning.
I've worn facial hair almost all of my post-military life. I don't like to shave. It takes time I'd rather use to something more useful. I don't like the mess, the cleaning up of the mess, the potential for cutting myself, the cost of razors and blades or anything else associated with the ritual society inflicts on us.
The freaks who perpetuate the idea that shaving is necessary have existed throughout history. It didn't make any more sense in the olden days than it does now. Read on.
The History & Evolution of Shaving
History of Women's Shaving – The Razor Company
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32-Bit Cafe, A Comprehensive Resource for Bloggers and Personal Websites
A web site for baby bloggers or even experienced ones needing some fresh ideas, 32-Bit Cafe has plenty to explore. It has guides and tutorials, page ideas, website topics, art and graphic design, technical info and a massive resource list.
You've just made a website, but now you're unsure where to go from here. Here are some ideas for things to add and techniques to learn. If you need more inspiration, browse other folks' websites and surf the 'net! You'll surely find something that you want to add to your own personal website.
Learn about:
This Weeks Bookmarks - Wikenigma, Winter Camping, Militia Danger, $30K Tip, Protecting Democracy, Billionaire BS, Legal Weed
Wikenigma - an Encyclopedia of Unknowns - Wikenigma is a unique wiki-based resource specifically dedicated to documenting fundamental gaps in human knowledge.
Outdoorsy Minnesotans: I winter camped and so can you. Probably. - Two winter camping novices spend a night out with an Arctic explorer to learn how to stay warm -- and even enjoy -- camping in freezing weather.
Who Will Stop the Militias Now? - By granting blanket clemency to the January 6 insurrectionists, the president has unleashed violent, and loyal, paramilitaries.
Pizza driver gets 30K More - A pizza delivery driver in the throes of a brutal snowstorm found himself at the center of a heartwarming viral story after a meager $2 tip sparked an outcry that turned into an avalanche of generosity.
10 Things We Can All Do to Protect Democracy - Democracy Docket - The most common question I receive is how everyday citizens can help in the fight for democracy. My advice, take the first step, start with something small and see what works for you. Here are ten things all of us can do.
Billionaires Should Not Exist — Here’s Why | Teen Vogue - In a fair society, there would be no billionaires. Bernie Sanders says they shouldn't exist and Elizabeth Warren sells mugs of their tears. I'm talking about billionaires and making the case that an economic system that allows them is immoral.
Legal Weed Didn't Deliver on Its Promises - Not to be a buzzkill, but advocates touted a host of benefits and no real costs. That's proved to be a fantasy.
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