Writing
- ctrl+Shift+t - Reopens the last browser tab that was closed. Really handy when you accidentally close the wrong tab. (on a Mac it's command+shift+t)
- Get a great music recommendation each day and don't rely on your streaming services algorithm loop: https://1001albumsgenerator.com
- Don't support Google -> Stop using Chrome. Try Firefox with the uBlock (ad-blocker) extension, it's awesome!
- Don't support Google -> Use https://duckduckgo.com/ or try another one, they're in general pretty good these days.
- Temp emails, great for throw away accounts on various services: https://10minutemail.com/
- Get past paywalls: https://archive.ph/
- I always complete my emails and look over them before I put the destination email addresses in. Prevents me from accidentally sending something I don’t want to send.
- I pay for an email and domain service with the catchall redirected to my own email address - when I sign up for a service I set my email for that service to be [servicename]@mydomain.com, this way when I see spam coming in I know which bastard service sold my details, I then never use them again.
- Use https://cooked.wiki/ to view just recipes -- skip the long, meandering essay that leads up to what you really want. It's like a super-power.
- If you put swear words in your search, you won't get the AI generated answer.
- Learn to paste stuff using ctrl+shift+v It strips away any bold, italics, or colors and some other formatting options. Besides being useful removing crap from the clipboard and making your life easier when pasting for example data to excel it might be helpful when pasting data that came from an a.i. that could be detected and get you in trouble.
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇 - The cult of tradition. This is the belief that the truth is already known once and for all. Fascists believe there is no need to advance in learning.
- The rejection of modernism. Fascists reject the Enlightenment and its evidence-based rationality.
- The cult of action for action’s sake. Fascist leaders act impulsively, without thinking or planning ahead.
- No analytical criticism. Fascists ignore nuance and see any disagreement as treasonous.
- Fear of difference. Fascists fear diversity. Thus they are racist by definition.
- Appeal to a frustrated middle class. An economically frustrated and/or politically marginalized middle class is easy to stir to anger.
- Obsession with a plot. Because the followers must be made to feel besieged, an internal “enemy” is provided: Immigrants, Muslims, Hispanics, Blacks. (Historically the Jews were often made to be “the enemy.”)
- Anti-elitism. The followers are made to feel humiliated by the wealth and strength of the educated “elite.” This is used to create resentment.
- Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. Fascists believe that life is permanent warfare. Therefore a desire for peace is treasonous.
- Contempt for the weak. A fascist leader despises his underlings, who in turn despise those under them. They all either mock or ignore the poor, the sick, and the disabled.
- The cult of heroism. The Fascist is eager to die a hero’s death. In his impatience, he frequently sends other people to their deaths.
- Machismo. Fascists show disdain for women, disregard for chastity, and condemnation of homosexuality.
- Selective populism. Under fascism, the “voice of the people” is not the democratic majority, but only the voices of those who support the leader.
- Ur-fascism speaks Newspeak. Just as in Orwell’s 1984, Fascists use an impoverished vocabulary and an elementary syntax to limit complex and critical reasoning.
- Google One - Saved $10 a month (technically, I still have access to Google Drive through my cell phone plan, I'm just not storing anything there any more. I do use Gemini, Google's AI to help me with scripts)
- Hulu - Saved $18.99 a month
- Overcast - Saved $14.99 a year. I just don't listen to podcasts any more.
- Setapp - Saved $12 a month. I still use Setapp, but I no longer have to pay for it since accepting their offer to be ab affiliate.
- Amazon Prime - Saved $139 a year - because screw Jeff Bezos, that's why. I also canceled the Washington Post and Audible.
- Fastmail - Cost $96 a year for Two users. Since I no longer give the world's largest data extraction company access to my email, I had to find a place to host it, I'm happy with Fastmail so far.
- kDrive - Coast $7.24 a month. Since I no longer have access to Google Photos or Amazon Photos, I need a cloud solution and this Swiss company's 3 TB plan is the best bargain I could find that had good reviews and satisfied customers.
- Medium -Cost $4.99 a month I have a friend who started a Medium blog, and I wanted him to be able to see that I subscribed, so no more paywall avoidance for me.
- Cheatsheet - I wanted this app forever. I love having short notes on my watch ($5.99/yr)
- Quick Reviews - How could I not support Matt Birchler? ($9.99/yr)
- Quotify - Ongoing search for a good quotes app ($.99a month)
- Quotz - see above ($2.99/yr)
- Reeder - I'm testing out all the timeline apps ($1/month)
- Skeetz for Bluesky- So much better than the standard app ($1.99/mo)
- Tapestry - another timeline app ($1.99/mo)
- Real time traffic conditions
- Tolls
- Alternate routes
- Gas prices
- Hotel booking
- Restaurant recommendations
- Construction
- Weather
- Shopping (outlet mallls)
What I've Learned on the IndieWeb
My White Collar Job
The one thing I haven't learned on the IndieWeb is how to spell it. I prefer the variation that uses "Indy" like the car race, the Indy 500, but it seems like the reluctant consensus, as evidenced by IndieWeb.org uses a different spelling, so for once in my life, I'll be compliant and go along with the crowd.
The first time I blogged, back in the 90s, the audience I interacted with the most were all older than me. I was in my late 30s , but my blog was about the Vietnam War, in particular its effect on families. Most of the people I corresponded with were veterans, which was fine, although I was trying to connect with people like myself who were in the next generation. I was glad to lend an ear to the men and women who wrote me. I'd been around those people all my life.
When I blogged my way down the Appalachian Trail, I really didn't have the time or energy (or the connectivity) to form relationships with people online. If someone left a nice comment on our guestbook or sent me an email, I'd respond, but mostly I just told the story of our unlikely honeymoon. A lot of what I wrote was to keep the memories of that time and place fresh for me whenever I wanted to time travel.
So, then I took a 12-year break from blogging. I was on Facebook a lot. I never left Reddit. I dabbled with Twitter and Instagram, but never anything serious. I had photographs on Flickr and SmugMug and a few other sites, but mostly, I didn't spend much time or energy being creative or writing for an audience any larger than myself and the voices in my head. When I became less mobile because of health issues and desperately needed a productive pastime, I luckily landed in front of my laptop with some ideas.
Here's what I have discovered since January 2024 when I wrote my first post on Micro.blog.
There are still friendly people
Since I've been around for a while, I know enough about Internet culture to avoid being a reply guy I also tend to be someone who is quick to hand out deserved praise and to treat people like I want to be treated. Lo and behold, using those "few simple tricks" seems to be the key to mostly avoiding toxicity. I lucked up be quickly finding OMG.LOL, the Mastodon instance I call home, which has puts people first. It's costs $20 a year, and that keeps out the cheap-ass trolls who spoil things for other people. I participate in other communities and have blogs on four different platforms, but the one closest to my heart are the smart, lovable weirdos who habituate OMG.LOL
The US is just a part of the world
The person who inspired me to get involved in Indie Blogging is Robb Knight, who is from England. The IndieWeb scene is decidedly International, and I count that as a Very Good Thing because my own country is a bit of a mess right now. I regularly interact with people from Germany, Portugal, Sweden, Spain, Japan, Scotland, Canada and beyond. It's taught me to look at things differently, to explain things in a bit more detail sometimes and to read with much interest the little tidbits of other people's homelands. If I ever have to take an English driving test, I am quite prepared for multiple questions about trams, as I am told the licensing folks put a lot of those on the tests.
It's OK to be honest
I am absolutely uninterested in creating an online version of myself, who doesn't talk about certain subjects, who has few faults, hasn't made many mistakes and knows all the answers. Instead, I'm the real me, who says what's on my mind, not to be shocking or provocative, but just because life is easier that way. In real life, I am a recovering alcoholic (16 years sober) and I've lived with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder for nearly 40 years, so that's the man I'm going to be online. I readily admit having been married more times than most people, and to have struggled with being a the father I wanted to be. I lack formal education, and I'm not ashamed of it. The people who decide not to interact with me over any of that stuff are not missed.
There are no perfect bloggers
I happen to be a prolific writer, a virtual fire hose of prose, if you will, but that does not make me anything apart from a person who has many files to keep up with. The people who craft one or two gems per month are 100% some of my favorites. IndieWeb blogging is not a competitive sport. It's not about Follower counts, monetization, or page views. As much as I admire clever web design and aesthetics, it's not about that either. To me, IndieWeb blogging is about community, honesty, and creativity. It's being a good neighbor and a helpful and hopefully inspiring presence because, damn, don't we all need a friend and some inspiration?
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The Blog Questions Challenge - TV Edition
What TV Character from a Beloved Show Do You Wish You Could Be Best Friends with in Real Life?
I would really have enjoyed living in the world of Halt and Catch Fire, a show about a ten-year span of the early to mid-80s into the early 90s and the birth of the Internet. My brief interaction with corporate tech culture fell far outside the world of Halt and Catch Fire where the characters worked on cloning the original IBM PC, video games and an early search engine. My favorite character was Cameron Howe, a prodigy of a programmer, a genius and an anti-social, but fiercely loyal teammate. I've worked with some talented women in my career and enjoyed it. I would have loved to live in the era of this show, working at Cameron's video game startup, Mutiny. I love an inspiring, hardworking leader instead of someone who goes home early every day and reeks of their self-importance. Cameron was outspoken, driven, and unpredictable, all qualities I aspire to.
If You Could Binge-watch an Entire Series Again for the First Time, Which One Would You Choose and Why?
When Hill Street Blues had its run on NBC in the 80s, there was no such thing as binge watching. The best you could hope for was that your favorite show would get picked up for syndication. That would not have been a good fit for the show, as it had storylines that lasted throughout the season. Every time I missed an episode, the chances of me ever having a chance to see were slim. Then I got a job working during the show's airtime and totally missed the last seasons. By 2020, when I retired from the public school system, the entirety of the seven season run was available to stream. The only thing I liked about that period of my life was the 90 minutes a day I spent immersed in the fictional world of the unnamed American city where the show took place. It broke so much new ground for TV drama in general and police shows in particular. One of the lead characters was the recovering alcoholic police captain, played by Daniel J. Travanti. The other characters were all believably human. The writers were top-notch. Like many shows from the past, it couldn't be done today. The language was too raw and the topics too fresh. That's a shame.
Name a TV Show that Changed Your Perspective on the World or Taught You Something Valuable
Because I was the kind of kid who paid attention to the news, read the papers and listened to the radio, I grew up with a distinct, but distant familiarity with places like the Shankhill Road, the Falls Road, Derry, Omagh and greater Belfast. All of those places in Northern Ireland were the locations of bombings, demonstrations, attacks, and counter-attacks during The Troubles, the 30-year civil war that came to an end in 1998. Not until much later in my life did I come to know anyone from Northern Ireland, a place I later studied and toured. The show Derry Girls, about three Catholic Girls and their English cousin, was a coming of age comedy made ever so poignant by its setting during the last years of that era. It did a good job humanizing the struggle and the people affected by it. The first episode has British soldiers boarding a school bus to look for a bombing suspect. There were other episodes featuring attempts to bridge the gaps between Catholic and Protestant youth and even one that featured Irish Travelers.
Final Thoughts
I appreciate good TV. When I was too poor to afford cable, I told myself that avoiding television was good for my mental development, That may have been true, but I missed some good shows! I have fond memories of a great many TV moments, nevertheless, from the afternoon sitcoms of my youth (Andy Griffith) to the much anticipated shows of the 70s (Happy Days) and finally the golden era of the 21st century (The Wire).
Inspired by JoelChrono's Post answering the same questions
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Internet Life Hacks
Every once in a while, there is a post on Reddit that gets enough high quality responses to warrant being bookmarked and referred to time and again. Such is the case with this recent classic.
# What’s a personal internet hack you use that makes life easier but isn’t widely known ?
Some of the suggestions:
This Week’s Bookmarks - Nachos, Seth Rogen, Satellite Pollution, Radical universities, Internet history, Photo Awards, Book bans
Subway's Doritos Footlong Nachos Are Here -- and Honestly, We're Into It - It all begins with a tray of Nacho Cheese Doritos, topped with shredded and liquid nacho cheese after a quick stint in the oven. When ordering at the counter, your local sandwich artist will chop red onions and tomatoes to incorporate into the mix before adding jalapeños and a drizzle of Baja Chipotle sauce. You can request steak or chicken for no extra charge
Seth Rogen's criticism of Trump's cuts to science edited out of science awards show coverage - A pointed criticism of President Trump's policies on science by Seth Rogenwas edited out of the filmed coverage of an annual science awards show, it has emerged.
"This is my radical proposal for universities: Act like universities, not like businesses. Spend your endowments. Accept more, not fewer students. Open up your campuses and [bring] education to communities. Create a base. Become a movement."
An Ars Technica history of the Internet, part 1 - Ars Technica - In a very real sense, the Internet, this marvelous worldwide digital communications network that you're using right now, was created because one man was annoyed at having too many computer terminals in his office.
2025 Winners and Shortlist Galleries | World Photography Organisation - The Sony World Photography Awards is World Photography Organisation's principal programme. Established in 2007, it is one of the world's biggest and most prestigious photography competitions; celebrating the work of leading and emerging practitioners and attracting tens of thousands of visitors annually to its exhibitions worldwide.
Library Study Shows It’s Just Politicians And Activist Groups Trying To Get Books Banned | Techdirt - What's been noted before has been confirmed yet again: there is no widespread concern about the books kids have access to in public libraries. Instead, there's just the concerted, but effective, efforts of a small group of people who feel everyone else's rights end where their morality begins.
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Kids and Cereal
One of my recent pleasures is perusing old blog posts from when I used to sit at my desk in the family dining room in the days before I had a laptop and write stories about my children, a constant source of inspiration and entertainment in those more innocent times. They all grew up to be pretty awesome, so they are still inspiring but starting a business, getting massive promotions or conquering the frozen north aren't as funny as the stuff they did as adolescents. We didn't have a ton of money in those days, so having little people to make me laugh was economically necessary. These days I can afford Netflix. Here's another tale from the 90's.
Cereal Boxes
Late last year the cereal companies slashed prices by over a dollar a box on most brands. Suddenly, the lie I had been telling my children since their birth became obvious. When I said, "We don't eat Captain Crunch. All that sugar is bad for you." I meant, "We don't buy Captain Crunch. It costs four dollars a box." Now that the generic box of corn flakes (white box, black letters, CORN FLAKES) and the multi-media hyped Puffed Toast Cinnamon Crunch Smacky Flake Treats cost roughly the same amount, a new cereal culture is evolving at my house.
Any boxes of "sticks and grass" cereal purchased mistakenly or with an eye towards incipient diabetes are ignored or converted to bird food. After 2.5 children ate 4 (yes 4) boxes of cereal in one weekend, I had to lay down the one bowl per child per day rule. How did this go over, you ask. I can tell you in two words, Jethro Bodine. Yes, I caught my oldest daughter, Anna, with the mixing bowl normally used to make brownies for the church youth group (11 high school kids). She hoped that a quart of milk and half a box of Frosted Mini Wheats could forestall starvation one more day.
Some of the trends from the good old days are still with us for nostalgia's sake. No one will eat the last half bowl of cereal left in the box. I usually discover this when I venture into the kitchen after midnight looking for a satisfyingly quick snack. In quick succession I grab one and then another box of sugar coated vapor in an abortive attempt to find an entire bowl of cereal all for myself. I'm usually left with a mongrelized mix of stale Fruit Loops and Grape Nuts. There is always plenty of milk though. I buy milk two gallons at the time to lessen the number of trips I have to make to the grocery store. You may not know it but children cannot tolerate a closed milk jug in the fridge. Both jugs must be opened and it normally makes the most sense to the juvenile mind to use the jug that expires last----first. It is also a kid's rule to always, always, always leave on the counter the little locking strips that come on the caps of milk jugs. If a countertop is unavailable, the strip may be left on the floor or under the counter beside (NOT IN!) the trashcan
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Infinite Mac Lets You Run Vintage Mac Operating Systems in Your Browser
It's hard to believe that Apple was once a scrappy little company, just fighting to stay alive and true to its roots, instead of the largest company in the history of capitalism. The fondness that many people have Apple products is tied into the myth and memory of the old Apple. People who long ago chose Macs, usually did so out of a genuine fondness for the company and the products they made. The alternative was Microsoft Windows at its most ruthless and domineering.
I's been a long time, probably more than 20 years since I last used Mac's classic operating system, meaning OS 9.2.2 and below. I spent many, many hours of my life on those machines, installing KidPix and Apple Works for public school kids and their teachers. I could image one of the original bondi blue iMacs in about 90 seconds using a FireWire 400 drive. I also imaged many older Macs by booting from a CD and imaging from a SCSI drive. Good times.
If you ever get sentimental for those days, or, if you aren't an old like me, and you just want to investigate what the experience was like, just hear on over to InfiniteMac where you can run one of many virtual Macs right in your web browser.
The site describes itself like this:
Infinite Mac is a collection of classic Macintosh and NeXT system releases and software, all easily accessible from the comfort of a web browser.
Pick any version of System Software, Mac OS, Mac OS X or NeXTStep from the 1980s, 1990s or early 2000s and run it within a virtual machine. An “Infinite HD” disk with representative software from that era is also available. You can also run a custom version with your choice of machine and disks. On some operating systems files and disk images can be imported and exported using drag and drop and virtual CD-ROMs can be mounted – refer to the welcome screen in each machine for more details.
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The Walter Miller Homepage - The Funniest Website That Ever Existed
Warning: This Goes Way Back
Back in the days of accessing the Internet over a 56,6K modem, someone, probably on AOL told me about "The Walter Miller" homepage, the terribly mis-spelled and grammatically incorrect plain text website of the finniest stuff I have ever read. I'm serious. Con't click the link at the bottom of this post and start reading if you ae trying to drinnk something. You might choke to death or spray expensive red wine across the display of your MacBook.
A snippet from the landing page
ABOUT ME
Im orignally from California but now I live in rural Texas-a lonly area 2 hours from the nearest big city. Ive been here since last December. I moved here because Iam only 20 years old and divvorced and I owe the whole world money. So my family takes over my bills and debits in exhange for me to look after and take care of my granfather. Lets just say I have to haul him up on the crapper whenever he has to go-which isnt often and contributs to him bein cranky most of the time.
Our home consists of a trailor, some outbuildings, a toolshed, asorted shacks, and 2 halfs of a moduler home that were never put together and sit 50 yards apart with plastic sheets drapped over the open parts. We live in the trailor-the other buildings house the varied colections of My granfather. He has 170,000 hupcaps which maybe the bigest colection in Texas. He also colects apliances, spark plugs, books, plumming fixures, beercans, Indian blankets, cooky tins, furnoture, glasware, old typwriters, bottles and car parts, plastic bags, coffe cans, antiques, trashcan lids of pre-World War 2 era, manhole covers, rusty tools, stufed animals, basebal cards, 55 galon drums and steyrofoam. These are just a small sample of his colectibles
Theyre stroon across the whole area like a junkyard. The county has come after him many times. He also has 14 dogs and dog crap is eveywhere. Also the stuffed animals and indian blankets are outside-when it rains they get rancid.
The page is long dead, but it is preserved by the people doing the Lord's Work at The Wayback machine. When you click on this and other links within the site, you might think nothing has loaded. It has. Just scroll down a few dozen lines and pure vintahe Internet comedy genius will overwhelm you.
A vicious rumor - THE WEB'S ANONYMOUS | TIME
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Unlimited Internet, Ad-Free TV, Boneless Wings - Three Signs of the Apocalypse
Sign 1 - Unlimited Internet Is Not, In Fact, Unlimited
My Internet service provider sent me a nastygram today, or rather they sent a snitch letter to Wonder Woman because technically the account is in her name. They wished to inform us that we (meaning me) had FAR exceeded the normal amount of bandwidth during our current billing cycle. As a result, according to the nastygram, they will be throttling our connection speed during "congested hours" until the cycle renews. Did I mention that we pay an extra fee each month for an upgrade to our connection speed? Or, that our plan is called "The Unlimited Ultimate Plan"?
I went and looked at the data usage for the month. It's a lot, slightly over 3TB. I haven't been downloading torrents. You think I'm 12? What I've been doing is retrieving my data from Amazon and Google, primarily a lifetime of photographs, but also over 1,000 book purchases, split almost evenly between Kindle and Audible formats. After removing the limits that Amazon tries to impose on usage through digital rights management, I uploaded all the information to European servers.
Well, I guess a billion (trillion?) dollar bloodsucking corporations stick together because Verizon is now discouraging me from making full use of the service I pay them for.
Sign 2 - Ad Free Television Actually Contains Ads
I quit watching ad supported television a long, long time ago. Only once, in 2015, did I watch regular TV and that was only to follow the (almost) undefeated season of the Carolina Panthers. The amount of adverting in a football game, along with the collusion against Colin Kaepernick and the epidemic of brain damage put me off the game shortly thereafter. I pay less for the premium streaming channels than I paid for cable television, even with all the price increases. I opt for the ad-free experience because life is short, and I just don't want to waste it enduring marketing. Now that the fascists are in power and corporations can do anything they like without repercussions, one of the things they are doing is inserting advertising into the feeds of people who pay to opt out of it. What are we going to do? I know what I'll do. I'll go right back to the Lou of the early 21st century and start sailing the high seas again. I gave up the pirate life in 2006, but war is war, and I'll not be trifled with by Peacock, Hulu, Netflix, or anyone else.
Note to "Steve", the anonymous coward who left a comment and thinks that my mockery of torrents and my planned re-embrace of them are worthy of a confused face emoji. You might have a point. I haven't needed torrents in almost twenty years because I am willing and able to pay for the entertainment I consume - as long as I get what I pay for. If the mega-corporations who take my money don't deliver what they promise, then all bets are off.
Sign 3 - You Can Choke to Death on the Bones in Boneless Chicken
Dissenting justice: “The question must be asked: Does anyone really believe that the parents in this country who feed their young children boneless wings or chicken tenders or chicken nuggets or chicken fingers expect bones to be in the chicken? Of course they don’t.
“When they read the word ‘boneless,’ they think that it means ‘without bones,’ as do all sensible people.”
Yeah, a man in Ohio had a bone from a plate of "boneless wings" served to him in a restaurant get lodged in his throat, causing a serious infection. A jury, using what we normal people call common sense, found in his favor when he sued the joint for false advertising. Not to be deterred from protecting pretend people (corporations) from actual real people with, you know, families and jobs, the Republican majority on the state appeals court decided that "boneless wings" describes a cooking style and is not offered as a description of the food you are paying for. They took away the damages that a jury of his peers awarded him in a decision decided by a one-vote majority, One of the dissenting justices was pretty scathing in his critique of how much the court Republicans suck.
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The Most Important Tech Skill for Every Single One of Us
What's the most important computer information you've ever lost? Was it pictures, something you'd written, your contacts or your entire phone or hard drive? It's a rare (or dishonest) person who can claim to have never suffered some kind of data loss. I have been asked to help recover wedding videos, a master’s thesis, decades of lesson plans and the accumulated files from an entire ministerial career.
Wherever you have information that is important to you, on your iPhone, Android, Mac or PC or even in a cloud service like Google Drive or Dropbox, do you know if you have taken the right steps to back up your data? A backup means at least two copies, three is better, with one of those stored offsite. Saving your files to a thumb drive or an external drive is not a backup if that is the only copy of them. Even keeping your files in iCloud or Google Drive is not a backup, if losing access to that account would cut you off from your data. People lose access to their online accounts seven days a week for all kinds of reasons. Do all those Google Docs that only live on Google Drive mean anything to you? If they do, then learn how to back them up today.
Back up iPhone - Apple Support
How to Back Up Your Android Phone WIRED
How to back up your Mac - Apple Support
Those 1 AM Thoughts That Keep You Awake
Some people are so selfless that they seem almost saint-like. They aren't common, but they aren't rare either. There are usually one or two in most work situations. They are the people who seem to have endless patience for answering questions and never seem too busy to lend a hand to people who need it. There isn't a time in anyone's memory when they hurt someone's feelings or made them feel bad. I have never been one of those people. I'd like to think that I'm just an average guy, one who gets a little impatient sometimes, a little stressed at others and who slips up from time to time and says things he wishes he could take back. I have a mental playlist of those occasions that just decides to start running through my brain from time to time.
Once a co-worker made a mistake setting up a school's computer image for a new year and didn't find it until she had erased and reinstalled the software on hundreds of devices. It happens. She was far from incompetent. She just made an unfortunate error and as a result had to do a lot of extra work. It could have happened to me a hundred times over. I was laughing about it with a couple of people on my team, nothing mean spirited, just being glad it didn't happen to me. Yeah, the problem was the person I was talking to was on the phone with her, and she heard every word I said. Ouch. I spent the next five years trying to make it up to her. I felt horrible. Still do when it pops into my mind.
Like many tech people, I joke about being my family's go to for computer issues. I write about it on this very blog. Because I've done this work for so long, it's a rare, rare day when a issue causes me any stress. It might be aggravating, but I'm up to most challenges given enough time. I forget that normal people don't have that mindset. All they know is that this expensive piece of equipment they rely isn't working, and they have no idea why or how to solve it. It is no joke. One Thanksgiving, I was at my poor sweet Mother's house when she came and told a group of us guys that she needed some help with some tech issue after lunch. I started joking with my brother and broth-in-law that they would have to help her because I just didn't have the patience for it, which was jerk of a move and made my mother cry, since what she wanted was in no way a big deal. Man, I wanted to crawl into a hole. I don't know what possessed me to be so callous. Thankfully, I have tried to be the most patient person who ever lived with every tech problem she's asked me to look at since that day. Lesson learned.
Let me be clear. I don't think I am some kind of monster. We all have our ups and downs. I have just as many good memories of having been helpful at work and supporting loved ones in tough times. I think we evolve to have these memories of our mistakes as a way to help us grow. Having a conscience is a survival skill, unless you are some kind of sociopath.
The difficulty in 2025 is that half the country have stopped evolving. They've stopped having a conscience. They no longer feel any empathy for those whose suffering they've contributed to. In fact, they seem to take some perverse pride in it.
Even during times when the economy has been in the dumps and I didn't have much extra money, I was still fine as far as having my basic needs met. I never wanted the state (my employer) to take money away from child nutrition or health care programs just so I could have more disposable income. I think it's a good idea to use tax money to do research on breast cancer and sickle cell anemia, even the chance of me getting those illnesses is minuscule. In no way would I ever think that winning the cosmic lottery and being born a middle-class white American makes me deserving of anything, rather than a poor immigrant whose struggles I cannot even comprehend. Only a sociopath would be uncaring in the face of suffering. Yet, here we are.
In the movies, generally, the bad guys know they are bad people. These days, we are surrounded by horrible people who seemingly have no comprehension of their own rotten souls. The head of the Southern Baptist Convention recently gave an interview explaining why empathy isn't Christlike. How do these people even sleep at night? I feel bad about hurting someone's feelings 15 years ago and my fellow Americans are celebrating their president taking away aid from a country under attack from an invading marauder. I just don't get it.
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The Ingredients of a Good Day
What are the qualities of a good day for you? I'm talking about an ordinary good day, not the birth of a child or getting promoted kind of good. What has to happen for you to go to bed with a smile on your face?
For me, good days almost always come after a good night's sleep. Although I can almost always fall asleep easily, I'm turning into one of those old people who can't seem to string together eight hours to save my life. Today, I managed to sleep until almost 4:30 AM, which is the latest I've been in bed all week.
Although the presence of coffee does not guarantee a good day, the absence of it almost assuredly means getting anything done will be extra challenging. Today, we had coffee, so there was no crisis. I also just ordered one more shipment of Barry's Tea before our Amazon Prime subscription expires in a couple of weeks. Somehow, I ended up with four boxes of this delectable nectar from the Emerald Isle. I switch over to drinking it mid-morning and continue to make a brew every couple of hours throughout the day.
I like being productive. These days, in retirement, I can pick out my projects. The primary one I'm working on now is organizing nearly 100,000 photos, a lifetime's worth from several generations. It gives me a unique opportunity to come up with new technical solutions while being submerged in the great memories old photos bring back. That's digital photos going back to the 90s, the quantity of which drastically increased when we got smartphones. It's also massive amounts of DSLR shots from a time when I spent many hours a week pointing and clicking at anything remotely interesting, including trips all over the country to take photos. Finally, there are scanned family snapshots going back decades for both my wife and me.
I like my solitude very much, but I also relish family time. One of our daughters and her husband are going to a concert tonight (Disturbed) and we agreed to watch their kids overnight. They live a couple of hours a way, but made the drive all the way here to drop off their offspring. I was prepared with plentiful snacks and drinks. As soon as their folks left, I proposed a trip to the old school arcade in town, to which they instantly agreed. We spent a couple of hours playing pinball, skee-ball and trying in vain to extract loot from claw machines. Nobody whined or complained. My granddaughter, age five, got a little teary when she failed to win a stuffed animal, but her heroic high school aged brother deftly cheered her up immediately by giving her all his tickets for her to redeem at the prize counter.
The evening was spent eating food I didn't have to cook in a house remarkably calm despite the presence of young people. The only loud noise was the kids laughing at each other. Wonder Woman went to bed early since she has to work tomorrow. In the morning I'm taking the kids out for pancakes at my favorite diner, which is right down the street. I'm eagerly awaiting another good day.
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Fascism is Here, Evidence Included
The Italian philosopher and novelist, who came of age in Mussolini's Italy, penned a list of the 14 characteristics of fascism, all of which are currently present in the United States.
Smart People Say We're There
The rise of end times fascism Far right (US) The Guardian - The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them
American Fascism Then (1939) and Now (2025) Columnists insightnews.com - Historian Heather Cox Richardson reminds in a recent article that there was a time in American history when the Nazi Party, while still somewhat on the fringe, enjoyed a level of "normalization" in the run up to the start of World War II in 1939 that bears eery resemblance to the modern push for fascist extremism in the United States.
How the US Went Fascist Mass Media Make Excuses for Trump Voters – BillMoyers.com - Trump's racism and xenophobia violates America's core beliefs — yet the media and many Americans are okay with it.
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This Week's Bookmarks - Anti-Fascist Films, Ancient Graffiti, White House Rumors, 1995 and The Web, Best Browsers, Middle-Class Income Needs, Apple and Developers
The 40 Best Anti-Fascist Films of All Time - In light of recent events, it might be a good time to remember a very simple truth: Nazis are ALWAYS the bad guys.
A Tour of Ancient Rome's Best Graffiti: "We Have Urinated in Our Beds ... There Was No Chamber Pot & More| Open Culture - Apart from the likes of bravo and pizza, graffiti must be one of the first Italian words that English-speakers learn in everyday life. As for why the English word comes directly from the Italian, perhaps it has something to do with the history of writing on the walls — a history that, in Western civilization, stretches at least as far back as the time of the Roman Empire.
10 rumors involving Trump's press secretary, Karoline Leavitt So, the question is, does she spread more rumors from the White House podium than are spread about her because of her wackadoodle behavior and inexperience.
1995 Was the Most Important Year for the Web - The History of the Web - 1995 is a fascinating year. It's one of the most turbulent in modern history. 1995 was the web's single most important inflection point. A fact that becomes most apparent by simply looking at the numbers. At the end of 1994, there were around 2,500 web servers. 12 months later, there were almost 75,000. By the end of 1995, over 700 new servers were being added to the web every single day.
These Are the 7 Best Browsers That Aren't Google Chrome - STOP USING CHROME!! Chrome was once a great browser, but it's known to be slower, battery-draining, a memory hog, and collects massive amounts of user data. If you want something better than Chrome, you don't have to pick one. Each option excels in certain situations; you should try them to find what best suits your needs without much compromise.
The Income Needed to be Middle Class in Every U.S. State (2025) - Middle class is defined as earning between two-thirds and twice the median household income.
The Dark Side of Apple Development: Why Developers Are Struggling On Apple’s Increasingly Hostile Platforms – Magic Lasso Adblock = "They would rather have a ChatGPT or TikTok than an OmniFocus or Magic Lasso. Apple is too big to fail, which means it's too big to care." - Ian Betterridge
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Horses
One of the joys about being a prolific reader is the opportunity to become fascinated and informed about all kinds of things that are totally outside your lived experience. In the 70s, as a fifth grader, I read the book The Black Stallion by Walter Farley. This led to an immediate and long-lasting fascination with horses, even though I've never seen thoroughbreds race and have only ridden about a dozen times. Actually, as a pre-school child in a time before I have clear memories, my mother bought me a book about horse breeds which I promptly memorized. I think my parents used me as a party trick to show off that particular skill.
The 70s were a good time to be interested in horses and racing. Secretariat had won the Triple Crown in 1973 in a fashion so dominating that it may never be matched. He won the final race, the Belmont Stakes, by an unimaginable 50 lengths. He was the first to win all three races in 25 years. Many sportswriters went so far as to name Secretariat as one of the 20th century top athletes. Then in 1977 and 1978 there were Triple Crown Winners in back to back years for the only time ever. The person who rode Affirmed to victory in 1978 was a teenager, Steve Cauthen, who became the only jockey ever named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the year.
I asked for and received figurines of famous horses for Christmas. I read every book the library had about them. I was especially interested in thoroughbreds, but anything horse related was worth investigating. I studied my grandfather's collection of World Almanacs for the lists of names of the horses who had one the famous US races. I knew as much about Man O' War, the legendary horse from the early 20th century, as I did about Babe Ruth, the ultimate star of my other favorite sport, baseball.
Although I did not get to see them until I was an adult, I read all the books I could find about the feral horses of the islands on the eastern seaboard, including, most famously, Misty of Chincoteague. I am always happy to see the horses on Ocracoke Island and other coastal areas of North Carolina where I visit. I was pleasantly surprised when the book, Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand became a bestseller and read it eagerly. by One of the highlights of my Appalachian Trail thru-hike was the day we hiked Grayson Highlands state park in Virginia where a delightful band of feral horses greets lucky hikers. I've been back there several times to see them.
These days, I'm lucky to have a granddaughter who has several years of experience riding and competing in horse shows, including dressage and jumping as well as cross-country. She's worked hard to develop her skills and recently got promoted from the junior level to the senior level of competition. She rides an American Quarter Horse named Say Pepsi Please, who she is naturally very fond of.
Unfortunately, the so-called sport of kings that sparked my interest in the whole scene has been ruined (like baseball and professional cycling) by rampant use of performing enhancing drugs, resulting in an epidemic of death among the equine athletes. Attendance at famous tracks has declined sharply, and the allure and mystique of the entire scene no longer interests me. Like most Americans, I only pay attention to the Triple Crown races, and then only superficially.
Still, I love an opportunity to watch or spend time with horses, even if it's just an old mare eating grass in a pasture. It is good to have things you enjoy, don't you think?
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The Roth Memory Course
Have you ever seen or read about the people who can memorize the exact order of multiple decks of cards? Those people are freaks and they scare me, so I'm not advocating those kinds of skills, but who wouldn't like to be able to retain information more easily? Several years ago I came upon a free PDF version of The Roth Memory Course by David M. Roth, first published in 1918. Written in the stilted and formal British English of the era, Roth presents seven lessons and techniques to memorize more information than you ever though possible, using methods you could teach to a child. I read the book and learned the techniques and, while I kept my skill sharp, could easily recite lists of 100 random words in order. That's a neat party trick, but not very useful otherwise. The practical use was learning dozens of technical acronyms and terms while studying for IT exams.
It's an easy read and a fun self study exercise. If you look around, you can find the PDF version, although hardcover and kindle versions also exist.
Roth Memory Course A Simple And Scientific Method Of Improving The Memory And Increasing Mental Power by David M. Roth
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I'll Take Lots of Little Pleasures over A Few Big Ones
For as long as I have been married to Wonder Woman, our specialty has been the weekend getaway. From our base of operations in southeastern North Carolina, we are just a few hours away from the coast and the mountains. We can easily drive to one of several metro areas, national forests, state parks or festivals. Some of our favorite places where we've stayed many times are one-room rental cabins in the Uwharrie National Forest, camp sites at Jones Lake State Park, cottages in Damascus, VA, and a hotel with suites near Umstead State Park in the Triangle area of NC. Over the years we've taken various airplane trips too, to NYC, Santa Fe, Colorado Springs, the Bay Area of CA and Northern Ireland among others. Those big trips are fun but exhausting. I like the little ones, where I can just relax and be comfortable in surroundings that have grown to be comfortable.
When it comes to food and fine dining, I'll admit that a nice meal in a fancy restaurant can be enjoyable, but more often I would prefer to get some street tacos from a trailer on the roadside. There is a lot to be said for a good frozen pizza when I don't feel like cooking. As summer approaches, the time for a simple tomato sandwich with mayo draws near. The older I get, the less willing I am to spend an hour chopping ingredients into smaller bits and dirtying up multiple sets of measuring spoons and cups, If a meal takes longer than 15 minutes to prep, cooking stops being fun and becomes more like a chore.
In my drinking days, I tried 20-year-old single malts and expensive French red wine, but honestly, I was just chasing a feeling, not a taste. All that money was wasted. Few things in life taste as good as an ice-cold Coke when I am really thirsty. I played high school football in the bad old days, when the coaches thought that depriving you of water for three hours in hot August sunshine built character. The intense thirst we'd build up during those practices was one of the most miserable feelings I ever had. I've run out of water while hiking too when an expected source for refilling my bottles turned out to be dry. The relief at finally finding a small trickle of a spring just before sunset is something I still remember years later.
Occasionally, the best part of a day is simply taking my shoes off when I get home and sitting down on the couch for a minute, with no one asking me questions or expecting me to do anything. Although I have an outgoing personality and can make conversation with anyone, I also have the introvert's desire for quiet time at home to recharge my batteries. I like people, I do, but I also like my own company and the chance to start or finish a personal project that is important to no one but me is something I treasure more than an invitation to the coolest party.
One of the best feelings in the world is the privilege of going to sleep when I want to. My love for a nap is second only to my love for my family. Being able to sleep anywhere, anytime is my superpower and the only lifelong skill I learned in the military. I worked a third shift job for two long years in the 80s. It was horrible, staying up all night and trying to sleep during the daytime in a house where other people were living normal lives. I wasn't smart enough then to put up blackout curtains or to use an eye mask or earplugs or a white noise fan. Nope, I just crawled into bed in a brightly lit room and counted on nothing more than fatigue to make me rest. Never again.
I don't get any more of a buzz buying something expensive than I do when I get a ninety-nine cent app for my phone that does something unique. Yes, the one every four years or so purchase of a new computer is cool, but I've had just as much fun over the past few moths tinkering with two machines I built from spare parts out of the trash at work.
Day to day comfort is what I crave and what I have. I don't get bored easily, and I appreciate the little things because in the end, they are what truly matter.
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Subscriptions Update With Some Savings
For some reason, those of us who live on the Internet have a fascination with the subscriptions other people are paying for. I'm happy to share mine with the world. Maybe you can find some interesting services or apps in my collection. My total costs are down about $40 a month since I last updated in October.
To see the entire list, go here.
What I eliminated
What I added
New App Subscriptions
Admiration Society
Joe Hill, Labor Organizer, Murdered by the state at the behest of mine owners
I've always enjoyed reading a good biography. Taking a deep dive into the life of an interesting person is a fun way to learn, not only about them, but also about the times they lived in. Aside from books, just picking up facts about various people is a natural inclination for me. I'm blessed with the ability to remember facts, which makes me good at Trivial Pursuit and impressing myself while watching Jeopardy, if nothing else. Occasionally, when I discover a particularly admirable person, I feel cheated for having lived so long without having had the opportunity to know about them previously.
I can be picky about the people I let into my admiration society. Take Steve Jobs, for example. His decisions and leadership at Apple went a long way in providing me with a career I enjoyed immensely, and also a continuing fascination with technology. The problem is that he was a stingy man who was cruel to his daughter and a real asshole to many other people. He doesn't make my list. I'm not 100% consistent, though. John Lennon wasn't the greatest dad to his firstborn son, Julian. He was also a jerk to Julian's mother. Still, his devotion to his family later in life, his absolute genius and his honesty override all that.
One of the people it took me too long to discover was Fannie Lou Hamer, one of the giants of the civil rights movement. A tiny woman from Mississippi, she uttered a phrase that captures my life's philosophy perfectly, "Nobody is free until everybody is free." She was famously courageous, organizing voting drives during the days when the KKK routinely killed activists. She was outspoken and effective, so much so that Lyndon Johnson was held an emergency press conference to try to upstage her during the 1964 Democratic Convention.
When Bruce Springsteen released his live album in 1986, he included the song by Woodie Guthrie that everyone knows, This Land is My Land. While introducing the song, The Boss mentions a book, Woodie Guthrie, A Life by Joe Klein. I bought that book and read it. In my estimation, Woodie Guthrie was one of the most important artists of the 20th century. Not only did he influence Bob Dylan and the whole mob of folk singers who came after him, he also did a lot to inspire other artists to take the kind of political stands I admire. Born and raised in Oklahoma, he grew up with the racial attitudes of the day, but later in life, outgrew that and developed a more nuanced and thoughtful outlook on race, becoming friend with and an advocate for Leadbelly, among others.
Hugh Thompson was an Army helicopter pilot in Vietnam, like my father. On the day when a company of infantrymen from the Americal Division were systematically murdering hundreds of elderly men, women, and children in the hamlet of My Lai, Thompson landed his aircraft outside the village and ordered his door gunner to open fire on the next American he saw murdering civilians. He got out of the helicopter and tried to reason with the rampaging soldiers, eventually saving several lives by evacuating villagers before they could be killed. He later testified against the accused killers at their courts-martial.
My grandmother's brother, Gratton McFadyen, died a hero fighting the Nazis in Italy during World War Two. Although his military specialty was technical and not in combat arms, on the day he died he joined the fighting against the Germans anyway. He was awarded the Silver Star posthumously for his actions.
Harper Lee lived and wrote in Alabama during the years when the Klan was killing schoolchildren in church. She had the courage and the skill to write a novel that the MAGA movement shamefully is banning from schools, To Kill a Mockingbird, the story of a white lawyer who defends a black man accused of raping a white woman. The book shaped my own racial attitudes at a young age. I'm forever grateful that my mother insisted that I read it.
There are a great many more people on my list, Joe Hill, Howard Zinn, Mother Jones, Emma Goldman, the Freedom Riders, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, St. Augustine, Oskar Schindler, Pete Seeger, Alan Turing, Jackie Robinson, Barak Obama, the Suffragettes, FDR, Abraham Lincoln, Grandma Gatewood and so many more.
Who is on your list?
Belief Makes it Real, or Does It?
During my working life, my boss in the school IT system, bless his heart, had to counsel me numerous times because I just didn't grasp the concept that different people have different realities. I was a pretty rigid thinker about most things. I'm a big guy with a deep voice, and in those days, I tended to appear pretty serious about most things. First year kindergarten teachers, who, let's face it, have a lot more important things to worry about than how to connect a vintage white iBook to a first generation Smart Board, found me intimidating. They wanted someone to show them, again, how to hook up their laptops, but they were afraid to ask me.
I was pretty offended by this. I took pride in being professional and thorough. I didn't mind going the extra mile to help out my customers. When I told the boss, he assured me that he knew my heart was in the right place, but that (here it comes), "People's perception is their reality." He probably told me that once or twice a week for a decade. It doesn't matter if you're Mother Teresa. If people think you're Margaret Thatcher, they aren't going to want you in their space.
Eventually, I adopted an attitude where my primary concern was making people feel comfortable first, and then solving their tech issues. Any technically competent person can figure out why your machine won't connect to the Internet. Evidently, it takes experiences to turn off airplane mode for you without making you feel stupid. I've probably closed 100 tickets in my life where a person's issue was caused by their computer being unplugged. I never put that in the ticket, though. I always just put "electrical problems." That way they don't feel dumb and no one but me and them know they had to get help for the most basic of issues.
I had to adopt that attitude at work to be successful. I don't have to adopt it in the real world, nor should I. Nor should you. Racists live in a world where their reality is founded in the belief that other racial groups are inferior. That most certainly doesn't make it real. Right-wing Christians think that Jesus loves them although they don't help the poor and immigrants, don't turn the other cheek and most importantly don't treat other people like they want to be treated. I don't have to respect their faith or give them credit for tithing to their all white church that lobbies to take away a woman's right to choose. Finally, I don't have to respect a person's belief that their sexuality gives them more rights than my LGBT friends. I have the right to my own reality, in which people with that attitude are hateful bigots.
I know I am not the arbiter of anyone's reality but my own. I have some odd beliefs, mostly about inconsequential stuff. Although I've consumed copious amounts of coffee, tea, liquor and beer, I don't believe that any of it tastes good without being sweetened. Me and every other person who is a fan of those beverages enjoys them for the drugs they contain, caffeine and ethyl alcohol. If you drink decaf coffee without cream and sugar, you have a mental illness verging on masochism. Hey, like I said, that's my reality. It doesn't have to be yours.
Even our own memories challenge what is real and what is not. When my siblings and I sit down with our Mom to tell stories from the good old days, we frequently have completely unique recollections of when and how things went down in the early 70s. Occasionally the differences are pretty big. We remember things happening in entirely different towns or with different people. Obviously, we aren't living in parallel universes. There is one "real" version of events. It's just that none of us is sure after five decades what the real version is.
Overall, it doesn't matter, I suppose. We have to be true to our ideals. The willingness to be a better person should never leave us, but failing to hold people accountable for bullshit is not an attribute. Remember what St. Augustine said. "Love and do as you will."
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Interstate 95
If you do much traveling along the East Coast of the United States, it is hard to escape doing some driving on Interstate 95. It runs from the Canadian border with Maine to Miami, a distance of 1924 miles, passing through 15 states and the District of Columbia, more than any other Interstate. The final leg of I-95 wasn't connected until 2018 in New Jersey. 110 million people live in proximity to the highway and it facilitates 40% of the US gross domestic product.
I live about five miles from the closest exit. I'm most familiar with the stretch between central Florida and Washington, DC, although I have traveled as far north as New Jersey on it on a single trip in the 80s. I've also been on short stretches in Maine and the Miami metro area.
If you plan to make your way down it at any point, I suggest getting the excellent iOS app, iExit, which tracks your location and gives you information on all the amenities you need while traveling.
For planning purposes, there is an entire website dedicated to traveling the highway.
I-95 Exit Guide | #1 Road Trip & Planning Guide - This comprehensive website offers information on:
As always, you can take a deep dive on Wikipedia.