Amerpie by Lou Plummer Profile Photo

Amerpie by Lou Plummer

Working in educational IT since the 90s. Dedicated Mac user trapped in a PC world. Obsidian fanboy. Blogger. Friendly 😊
Obsidian Posts | AppAddict | Living Out Loud | /Now Page | Find Me

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    Expert Guide on How To Win an Argument on the Internet

    2025-01-16 at 18

    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!"

    Unethical Pro Life Tip - if you want to win an Internet argument, counter with facts that are slightly off. That way the other person can't correct you without advancing your argument. : r/UnethicalLifeProTips

    I can tell the person who wrote this article is a truly experienced Internet debater because they correctly cited Rule Number Four

    2025-01-16 at 18

    1. 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

    How to Win Any Argument On the Internet

    The final puzzle piece discovered in my research, has an easy to follow 10 point plan

    1. You don’t have to be right. You just have to make your opponent feel like they’ve lost.
    2. Never argue with an eloquent debater.
    3. 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.
    4. Never argue with someone who’s a certified expert on the topic you’re about to argue about.
    5. Never argue with someone who is knowledgeable but never gets flustered.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. If they catch you in a lie. Use false equivalence. Use it as often as you can.

    How to win an argument online - Quora

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    What I'm Using on Reddit in 2025

    Reddit 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.

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    Personality Tests

    MMPI

    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)

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    What Happens When You Get Used to Evil Companies

    2025-01-13 at 15

    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.

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    Automations Make Macs Fun - Try These

    Magic Hat

    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:

    • 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

    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.

    • 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.

    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.

    • 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.

    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.

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    The Anonymous Husband's Club

    Dolly Parton's Husband

    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

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    This Week's Bookmarks - Cheapest Destinations, Make Life Easier, Avoiding Huge Medical Bills, Apple Music Features, Infiltrating Militias, Travel Destinations, CES 2025

    The World’s Cheapest Destinations

    The World's Cheapest Destinations: 21 Countries Where Your Money Is Worth a Fortune - You can travel internationally, and travel well, for less than you spend each month to put a roof over your head. You just need to pick the right places. Places where a fistful of dollars will pay for weeks of hotels, train rides, and meals.

    One-off actions that’ll make your life easier. Practical betterments - # A collection of one-off actions that improve your life continuously — however marginally.

    Is the doctor overcharging me? How to avoid huge medical bills and lower existing ones. | Vox - Your doctor orders blood work or requests you get a biopsy, or maybe your kid broke a bone and you need to rush to the emergency department. A few months later, a bill arrives in the mail with an astounding figure. Despite the federal No Surprises Act made into law in 2022 — which prevents providers from saddling patients with huge bills for out-of-network services — many Americans have felt the shock of a medical bill.

    11 Hidden Features in Apple Music Every User Should Know About | Lifehacker - Apple Music (previously iTunes) is a behemoth of a music manager app for macOS and Windows—and it has changed and developed so much since its launch in 2001 that you may well have not come across everything this piece of software has to offer. It has evolved almost as rapidly as the digital music industry.

    How a Mole Infiltrated the Highest Ranks of American Militias — ProPublica - - A Freelance Vigilante: A wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover, climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn't tell police or the FBI. He didn't tell his family or friends.

    2025 Travel Destinations: 52 Places to Go This Year - Where will the new year take you? Kick-start your travel plans by selecting favorites from the annual list.

    The weirdest tech at CES 2025 - The Verge -  From encapsulated anime girls to an air-purifying cat tower, there was something for everyone at this year's Consumer Electronics Show.

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    Isolated Dialects - The Lumbee Indians and the High Tiders

    Cape Hatteras

    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

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    The Winds on Mt. Washington

    Mt_Washington_Summit

    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

    Mount Washington - Wikipedia

    Wonder Woman Coming Up the Mountain



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    The Guinness Book of World Records

    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

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    The Difference Between Journaling and Blogging

    Hand_written_diary

    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.

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    Cafe Bustelo - For the Coffee People

    Prodigy_logo

    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:

    • Original
    • Mexican
    • Peruvian
    • Brazilian
    • Decaf (but why?)

    Cafe Bustelo is available in all the usual form factors:

    • Ground
    • K-cups
    • Original Nespresso pods
    • Instant
    • Pre-made cold brew

    Cafe Bustelo- official website

    Café Bustelo - Wikipedia

    What's the deal with Cafe Bustelo?? : r/Coffee



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    What Happened on January 6th?

    Riot

    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

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    HeyDingus! - Blogging as a Public Service

    HeyDingus!

    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"

    • 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.

    Follow Jarrod

    💌 Email: jarrod@heydingus.net

    ⭐ Micro.blog: @jarrod (RSS)

    🦣 Mastodon: @jarrod@micro.blog

    📷 Instagram: @heyjb.me

    🧵 Threads: @heyjb.me

    🦋 Bluesky: @heyjb.me

    📺 Trakt: @heyjarrod

    🍿 Letterboxd: @jblundy

    🎵 Apple Music: @heyjarrod

    📚 Goodreads: @heyjarrod

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    "Ooh Boy, You Nasty!" - Five Facts About Bathing

    Death of Marat

    I've had some interesting bathing experiences in my life. In 1986, I spent a month in the Mojave Desert at Ft. Irwin while in the Army. I got one hot shower during the entire month and most of the cleaning I did was by pouring canteens of water over my head with its GI haircut. Some tankers that were there had a bucket shower they hung off the gun barrel of an M-1 Abrams. I though they were nuts standing under a slow drizzle of cold water buck naked for all the world to see.

    In 2013, my wife and I spent five and half months hiking one of the US National Scenic trails. Showers were infrequent , averaging about once a week. No long distance hikers carry deodorant (too heavy) and the phrase "hiker stank" is no exaggeration. When hitch-hiking from the trail into town to buy food, we had more than one person suddenly roll down the windows "to let in some fresh air." Most daily cleaning was done standing beside a creek with a bandana and a few drops of Dr. Bonner's Pure Castile Soap - which some brave souls even used to brush their teeth.

    Here are some facts about the history of bathing.

    1. The Romans were frequent bathers but they did it for social reasons rather than hygeine.
    2. The prevalence of the plague during the middle agescaused people to stop bathing for hundreds of yearsbecause they thought it opened up ones pores and let in disease.
    3. When bathing became popular in the US in the 1860s, baths were relegated to very quick dips in cold water
    4. In 2021 Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis made headlineswhen they admitted to being averse to soap and water and to only bathing their children when they were visibly dirty.
    5. The world's most expensive bathtubs are generally carved from a single piece of stone, with the record holder coming from a huge piece of petrified wood, valued at $1.9 million.

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    This Week's Bookmarks - Using AI in Text, Trusting Software, Predictions, Cleaning Glasses, Like Everything More, Personality Assessment, Resolutions

    2025

    Tips on Using LLMs (AI) Effectively for Text – The Brooks Review

    Why it’s hard to trust software, but you mostly have to anyway

    10 Big Predictions for 2025

    How to clean your glasses the right way

    How to like everything more - by Sasha Chapin

    Reddit Personality Assessment | Instant AI Analysis

    2025: Keep democracy alive. FrameLab New Year’s resolutions

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    On This Day - Music, Sports, News, History for Every Day of the Year

    2025-01-03 at 11

    If you are a history buff, or the kind of person who likes to send birthday greetings, or you are just fascinated with facts about your chosen area of interest, be it sports, music or the news, you can get what you need from this collection of websites. I habitually kick important information out of my brain so I can better remember trivia.

    Here are a few facts about January 3rd I'll probably never forget:

    • Aretha Franklin became the first woman elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987
    • The Boston Red Sox got $125,000 for Babe Ruth in 1920, creating the 84-year Curse of the Bambino
    • Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church for failing to recant his 95 Theses in 1496
    • Apple Computer was incorporated on this day in 1977 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak

    ∞

    Apple Shortcuts for Rookies and Vets

    Shortcuts icon

    If you are an iPhone or Mac user, you are probably aware of the Apple shortcuts whether use them or not. Using shortcuts requires two things, surmounting the learning curve to figure out how to use them and then remembering to do so. It's always one of those tech tasks people seem to have on their to do list but they never get around to actually accomplishing it. I use them every day on both my iPhone and my Mac. Here are some of my favorites:

    • Generate alt text for images I post on social media
    • Launch all five of the communication apps I use at work with a single click
    • Restart my flaky VPN whenever it craps out
    • Query ChatGPT (no app needed!)
    • Save web pages to Obsidian
    • Text my wife when I leave work

    I use shortcuts for the App Store, Blogging, Messaging, Calendar, Social Media and many more areas. If you'd like to get started or improve your own use, here are some resources for you.

    Home – Matthew Cassinelli - Matthew is a former Apple employee and an expert on what shortcuts cane do. He blogs about new developments and uses. I subscribe to his blog to get access to a huge catalog of premade shortcuts for both iOS and Mac.

    RoutineHub • Your Community for Discovering, Sharing, and Version Controlling Apple Shortcuts - This is the largest collection of shortcuts on the Internet. They are all free and for anyone who is still nursing an old phone, they have a good back catalog of shortcuts for previous iOS versions.

    Shortcuts Library - HeyDingus - My Internet pal, Jarrod Blundy is a shortcut wiz and offers a great collection of free ones for you to try. He also creates custom shortcuts for hire and offers them to people who joining his "One a Month Club" and last year to people who helped jim reach his fund raising goal for St. Jude's Children's Hospital.

    Actions for Obsidian - Another Internet pal of mine, Carlo Zottman, is the developer behind Actions for Obsidian, which brings shortcuts to the great PKM app loved by many. I use Actions for Obsidian multiple times a day.

    Stephen Robles - YouTube - If you want to learn how to fish, I mean make shortcuts, watch a few of Stephen's videos where he shows you to make them yourself.

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    Internet Coffee Table Books - Photography for Everyone

    2025-01-01 at 19

    Growing up, I loved looking through my Dad's collections of different Time-Life book sets. Dad's a big fan of military history so he had a set on World War Two, plus his own war, Vietnam. He also had the wonderful set on the old west, bound in genuine fake leather. My mother had a book with all of Norman Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post covers and I practically memorized them. As an adult, I got to go to a Rockwell exhibit at our state's art museum in Raleigh, fittingly with my Mom. My own collection of photography based books is limited to gifts I've received, most of them centered around my love of classic rock music.

    I look through my own photographs almost daily, both my run of the mill iPhone snapshots and the photos I've taken with my full-frame DSLR. I enjoy finding good collections online of all types of photography: street, wildlife, art etc. Here are a few I have to share.

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    AI For Better or Worse

    2024-12-31 at 18

    The jury is definitely still out on artificial intelligence. Is it a helpful tool or something the billionaire tech bros are going to use to extract more wealth from the working class? It's no secret that the hardware behind the technology consumes electricity and water for cooling like nothing that's ever come before it. One of the most popular AI companies, Perplexity, is not only ignoring long established Internet protocols to mine personal websites for data, its CEO offered to scab the jobs of striking tech workers from the New York Times.

    On the other hand, regular people can now perform tasks they once would have had to outsource. That is what happens when technology arrives. Ask the carriage makes and buggy whip folks what happened when cars got here.

    If I had a third hand, I'd point out that when an AI scapes my web page to answer a person's question without giving that person a link to wrote I wrote giving me any kind of credit, then the AI company is using me as unpaid labor and that won't stand.

    Here is some information about the state of AI at the end of 2024.

    Open Source Models are Improving When Compared to Proprietary Models

    AI Generated Audio and Video is Here

    Chatbot Arena: Free AI Chat to Compare & Test Best AI Chatbots

     

    Products to Check Out

    Lindy.ai — Meet Your AI Assistant

    Cursor - The AI Code Editor

    Suno - Make a Song About Anything

    Google NotebookLM | Note Taking & Research Assistant Powered by AI

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