Writing
- Restart your computer. Seriously. This solves many, many problems. Do this even if you don’t think it will help.
- Answer all the questions you are asked truthfully. Don’t say you restarted you computer if you actually didn’t.
- Remember that the person on the other end of the phone almost always wants to solve your problem too. They are not the cause of your problem. Technology is complicated and finnicky and sometimes things don’t work. That’s the price we pay to live in the 21st century.
- Obey the Golden Rule. Talk to the person on the other end of the phone like you would want to be spoken to.
- If you are calling because you got an error message, know what the error message said and be able to relay that information to tech support. Don’t just say “I got an error
- Be prepared to tell tech support what you were doing when the problem occurred. (e.g., What program were you using? What other programs were open? Did the computer make any sounds?)
- If this is a reoccurring problem, how long has it been happening and what was your reason for not reporting it sooner? (Did you have a solution to the problem that no longer works?)
- Can you reproduce the issue or is it intermittent? If you can reproduce the issue, know what exact steps you took before the problem surfaced. (Keep in mind that intermittent problems are among the most difficult to resolve because of the difficulty in determining if the issue is fixed)
- What have you tried on you own to solve the problem? (Not that you have to solve your own issue, but it doesn’t hurt to Google it. It might be something simple that can save you a call.)
- Be familiar enough with the tools you use to know what operating system your computer uses and (especially if you are on a corporate network) what the name of your computer is.
- Do your best within your abilities to describe the issue. It’s not cute to use language like ‘thingy” or “doohickey”. If you don’t have the IT vocabulary to explain an issue, there’s nothing you can do about that. Just use plain language and you’ll be moving towards a solution.
- If you are having a problem with something online, try to know if your computer is wireless (bonus points if you know the name of the Wi-Fi network) or if it is connected to a network through a cable.
- Only call for help if you have the time to work through the problem. Don't call five minutes before a meeting or quitting time.
- Not letting how I feel be reflected on my face
- Being asked to do something for someone they should be able to do for themselves
- Remembering where I left my phone, keys and glasses
- Figuring out my cell phone bill
- Getting web hooks to work on my websites, although I think I may have gotten there
- Small talk
- Anything requiring me to open the hood of my car
- Saying no to my grandkids
- Climbing anything (life-long struggle)
- Listening to most 21st century music
- Anything without coffee
- Activity Watch - a time tracking app that monitors apps used a websites visited
- Next DNS - one of my security tools
- Gmail - After nearly 20 years of using Gmail, I still feel most comfortable using the web interface over any email app
- Yahoo Mail - I use this account just for newsletters and mailing lists
- Google Drive - I use this for different personal documents like tracking the words written during Writing Month and the list of apps I've reviewed as well as automated documents from IFTTT that I keep an eye on
- Inoreader- I love the web interface of my RSS provider more than any app
- Pocket - since the death of Omnivore this is my read it later service
- Raindrop.io - my bookmarking service
- Social.lol - My home Mastodon instance
- 500.social - Another Mastodon instance I belong to
- Onephoto.club - a travel photography Mastodon instance
- Another private Mastodon instance with a few friends
- BlueSky - mostly for POSSE
- Threads - mostly for POSSE
- Facebook - primarily for family use
- LinkedIn - fascinated with how weird it is
- Fedica - a free service to post to multiple social media sites at once and.or schedule future posts
Transgender Day of Remembrance
Transgender Day of Remembrance is marked every Nov. 20and began in 1999 to honor Rita Hester, a trans woman who was killed in Massachusetts. The day marks the end of Transgender Awareness Week, which is used to raise public knowledge about the transgender community and the issues they face
The first trans guy I ever met was an anti-war activist from North Carolina. It wasn't a big deal to me. At the time, all I wanted were allies against the Bush administration'd policies and Aiden was just such a person. That was almost 20 years ago. We are still friends on Facebook to this day, although I have not see him for years. I didn't get into activism until I was nearly 40 and I had no idea how things work on the left. We get criticized often for going off topic. People talk about Palestine at the wrong time or they bring up Trans rights in the wrong places. I here to tell you, Trans rights are human rights and there isn't a wrong time to be an advocate for human rights, especially these days. The Republicans can't get us cheaper eggs so they are keeping their hate filled agenda going by tapping into the anti-trans sentiment they have ginned up.
Even if you've never knowingly met a trans man or woman, you still have room in your life to be an ally and an advocate. Don't let people denigrate them in your presence and let others know how you feel about respecting human rights - all human rights. Make a donation to the Trevor project. Post something on social media. Write a letter to the editor about what a terrible person some trans-hating politician is. Speak up. Be visible. Do the right thing.
Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) | GLAAD
Supporting the Transgender People in Your Life: A Guide to Being a Good Ally | A4TE
HRC | Be an Ally - Support Trans Equality
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Humor Me
Inspired by a post from Annie Mueller, I thought I'd write about humor today.
Making wisecracks is one of my primary forms of communication. Just about anything can be funny if you frame it the right way. It sometimes shocks people who don't know me that well, but anyone who has to suffer through working with me gets used to it rather quickly. I lean towards dry and acerbic humor because that's pretty much the way I perceive the world. There are an awful lot of absurd things about being alive, and pointing them out to people gives me purpose. I can't stand it when there is an obvious joke waiting to be made and yet no one will say anything because "inappropriate." No! Someone needs to get that laugh. It might as well be me.
I went through a stage when I downloaded routines of some of the most famous comics who have ever lived to listen to when I was spending a lot of time in my car for work. Being funny on demand didn't seem easy, but it didn't seem that hard either. I thought about writing some jokes and going to an open mic night at a comedy club, but I never followed through. For one thing, me and bars don't mix well, and I also might have been a little bit chicken. It was still fun listening to Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks and even Bill Cosby. This was before he went to prison for being a predator.
I think Richard Pryor is probably the funniest human who ever lived. His humor is timeless because it's about the human condition. A lot of comedians do topical comedy, which is funny at the moment, but it doesn't age well. My daughter thought me and her mother were so weird because we went on and on about how funny the show In Living Color was. She finally found it on DVD and watched a few episodes. It was full of jokes about Barbara Bush and Mike Tyson and other people who just weren't part of her world. She was very disappointed and hasn't asked me for entertainment options in a very long time.
I try not to be think-skinned when listening to stand-up. I'm more than willing to grant artistic license to a performer, but there are still some lines that don't need to be crossed. I don't like anti-trans humor. If you were to substitute some other marginalized group for tans folks into some of those jokes, people would look at you like you were wearing a Klan robe. I get that not everyone "gets" the struggle of that community, but making jokes at their expense is getting old. Even otherwise perceptive people like Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais fall into the not-funny category when it comes to that brand of humor.
I love using humor as a weapon when I don't have anything else to offer. Any time someone tries to defend the indefensible to me, I laugh at them. You want to defend Trump? You're funny because he's a clown, and you're one too if you're defending him. Not only that, but you want to tell me why the death penalty or cutting school lunch programs are good ideas? I'm going to laugh right in your face. How can you seriously feel that way and call yourself a human being? Maybe that's disrespectful. Ok, it is disrespectful, but I don't really care. Laughing at you is better than fighting with you, which I don't care to do.
Feel free to send me jokes.
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Some Advice on Not Drinking
I am not one of those priggish tee-totalers who thinks drinking is a sin and that no one should indulge in demon rum, not at all. In fact, coming from a 12-Step recovery tradition, I have no real opinion on drinking as an institution, but I've never looked down my nose at anyone who enjoys a cold beer, a glass of win or a mixed drink. I don't look down my nose at people who have a problem with booze either. Nobody volunteers to become an alcoholic. Alcohol just has a way of taking over the lives of a certain percentage of the population, usually ones who have family members with the same issue. There are certain genetic markers for addiction and whether it's an illness isn't really debatable anymore except by science denying morons - so about half of America.LOL.Sob.
I digress. My point is, if you have decided not to drink for a night or for the rest of your life, whatever, here are a few things I have learned. Number one - it's less of a big deal to other people than you think it is. When people who like to drink are kinda sorta thinking about stopping, they almost always cite the social pressure to drink as a reason why they can't. That's their inner little drunk devil talking to them. Nobody cares! They aren't thinking about you as much as you think they are.
When you are at a party or a family holiday celebration, get a non-alcoholic drink and hold on to that sucker for dear life. DO NOT PUT IT DOWN! If you're trying to camouflage your sobriety, put a twist and a swizzle stick in you club soda. Just don't let go of it. I've had a couple of occasions where I've failed to obey this rule and ended up with a horrifying mouth full my step-father's gin and my sister's wine. Not cool. I didn't relapse or anything, but it's not a good feeling. Once my sister-in-law spilled a glass of wine on me and I had two-hour drive home. I used Vick's Medicated Rub in my nostrils to kill the smell just like people at the morgue do to cover up the smell of decaying flesh.
You can also plan on arriving late and leaving early to any parties when you are trying to live that sober life. Drinking mocktails or alcohol free beer is an option for some but personally I never wanted the romance of booze without the booze. If you get a craving for alcohol, eating sweets is a well known way to make the craving subside. Trust me.
If you've decided you do have a problem and you want to quit for good, and brothers and sisters, I'm here to tell you that for real problem drinkers, cutting back is not the answer. Abstinence is. Sorry, them's the facts. Anyway, if you want to quit, you can. You've never met anyone in your life who loves to drink as much as me and I haven't had one in about 16 years because of reasons. Lots of reasons.
My inbox is always open.
How to Stop Alcohol Cravings - Handling the Urges to Drink - Rethinking Drinking | NIAAA
How to Stop Drinking Alcohol | Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation
How to Stop Drinking Alcohol, According to Experts - GoodRx
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The Stranger I Know
AMA - What's one of the hardest things you have ever done?
My Dad woke up this morning and didn't know what day it was. Panicked, he sent a text message to almost everyone in the family asking for help. At this point, that means my siblings and his. We are a close family and several of us sprang into action. His brother-in-law lives a couple of miles away and was the first to arrive. My aunt, a nurse with more than 40 years experience was there within the hour. They got him to the doctor and then the hospital where the doctors are running tests to rule out a stroke. His thinking seems to have cleared up since he sent the original text but he still couldn't figure out how to set an alarm on his phone. That kind of thing is starting to happen with more frequency.
Dad is the sole care-giver for my step-mother who has Alzheimers. She still know who he is, although most of the rest of us are becoming strangers to her. She still hugs me and tells me she loves me, but when she was recently asked by a doctor how many children my Dad has (four), she was unable to answer. Her and Dad were in a car accident last month and the next day she didn't understand why she felt so sore, unable to remember what happened. Even though he walks with a cane or a walker, Dad still cooks for her and takes her on the daily drive she insists on going on.
My Dad was the first person I knew to have a computer. It was one he purchased at Radio Shack in the 80s. His experience with them predates Windows. Like lots of old-timers, he likes to talk about how much he paid for a 10MB hard drive back in the day. He used spreadsheets in DOS and used to be a master at writing batch files. Recently, he asked me to come help him with some IT issues. He has having problems changing the ink in his printer and wanted to make sure some important documents were getting back up. He's also mentioned not being able to remember how to access his photos or music. I was glad to help but I could see that he is starting to get frustrated by having to remember the procedures for tasks he's done for so many years.
My Dad and I don't see eye to eye on many things, especially politics. I've never liked to verbally spar with him because emotions take over and I can't think straight. He has always been one of the most intellectually capable people that I know. A lifelong voracious reader, he's a walking encyclopedia about a great many things. Unfortunately, some of the facts he's assimilated in the last 15 years came from Fox News, an outlet not known for presenting both sides of an issue. We do best when we talk about computers or when he tells stories about my grandparents. There are a great many things he doesn't like because they differ from what he considers traditional. You've heard about the type of person who wishes life today was like the 1950s? That's him.
Although he is financially able to afford assisted living for himself and my step-mother, he has so far resisted doing much more than just looking into it. He says that he is willing to pay for in home care, but so far he hasn't made any moves to get that underway. Maybe today's events will spur him into action.
Every time I see him these days, I have to determine whether he's having a good day or bad day. He has a sensitive nature, so I have to be circumspect. I have done my best in adulthood to let go of resentments toward him with varying levels of success. It has not been easy and that's on me. I feel like he does the best he can. I might wish he were different, but he isn't. He is who he is, and my job is to accept that the best I can.
As you may be able to tell, I am not a big fan of the aging process for me or anyone else, not that I have anything but wishful thinking to combat the process. I don't like the effects it has on me and I don't like seeing the way it changes the people I love. Writing this is the outlet for feeling that way. Thanks for reading.
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Need Tech Support? Some Tips
I started working in IT support right after Windows 95 was released. I’ve worked in manufacturing health care, banking and insurance, but primarily in K-12 and higher education. In some way or another, I’ve always been involved in end-user support. Currently I have a relatively low stress job at a well-run private university where the relationship between the IT department and the faculty, staff and students is pretty good.
Almost every adult in 2024 has experienced technical difficulties that required them to call tech support, whether it’s the help desk at your job, your Internet service provider or the manufacturer of your cell phone. I’m not immune to this. I switched ISPs last year and my new setup didn’t work when I followed the directions. It was frustrating, but I wanted to solve the problem, so I called.
I promise you that if you follow the steps below, your technology problems will get solved faster and with better results than if you don’t. And, trust me, I’m sure you’ve dealt with some incompetent or mean or unfriendly tech support folks in the past. I get it. That’s out of your control. What is in your control is how you react. Don’t act aggrieved or victimized. Be solution oriented and things will work out better.
Look, I understand technology is frustrating. Trust me. I do. My whole professional life has been spent fixing things that aren’t working as expected. But don’t be angry at the person who is there to help you. There’s no need to tell them how many years you’ve been using a computer or what high-speed tech job your kid has. Just work together, get the problem solved and then you can get back to work.
For Mac users who want to try solving their own problems, here are some resources.
Mac troubleshooting. Get tips on how to fix mac problems
Mac Basic Startup Troubleshooting Steps - Apple Community
macOS Basics: Troubleshooting Common Problems
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The Stories We Tell
Life is full of little moments we love to recount later. Here's a small collection of some of my favorites.
Encouraged To Leave
I have been “encouraged to leave” both a library and a used book store — and I was totally innocent both times. I impishly asked a reference librarian if she knew another word for “thesaurus”. Next thing I know there’s a deputy sheriff at my elbow. I thought I was off the hook because I used to work with him, but no. Out the door I went. At the used book store, I was looking at a book on wine. This is before I quit drinking, although I was sober for the purpose of this story. I think. Anyway, I’m looking through the book and I start finding big, gorgeous marijuana leaves, dried and pressed between the pages. There were a dozen or more. Laughing, I approached the front desk to show them. They didn’t think it was as funny as I did, and...you guessed it. Out the door I went. I still like to read though. I’ve never been kicked off Amazon.
Everything You Need to Get on the Internet
Back in the days when people were just starting to get online, Walmart ran a special on 14.4 modems, complete with an AOL disk and a phone cord. On the box it said "Everything You Need to Get on the Internet". Someone bought one and called me (I did side jobs back then) to help them get it set up. When I showed up, they handed me the box and looked at me expectantly. I asked them where their computer was and they looked confused. They pointed at the box - "Everything you need to get on the Internet." They didn't own a computer.
Two Boxes of Junior Mints
I have three kids, two girls and a boy. For the most part, they got along well when they were living at home. Group dynamics being what they are, there were times when they would go to war along gender lines with the girls using their two to one advantage. My son is a gentle soul who's never done a mean thing in his life, but he would get so exasperated at his sisters that he'd contemplate extreme measures at times. Once they'd done something that drove him to a dark place and he issued one of the most famous threats in family history. Shaking with anger, he told his step-mom and I, "If the girls don't leave me alone, I'm going to buy two boxes of Junior Mints and I'm not giving them any!" That was it. That was the meanest thing he could think of.
Getting Used to Farm Life
Prior to the age of 14, I'd been a city kid all my life. Then I loved to my uncle's farm, where I lived throughout high school. When I first moved there, he also managed a commercial hog farm, and I rode with him daily to work. As we moved around from barn to barn, I did my best to avoid stepping in anything unpleasant. Since there were thousands of hogs around, this was a difficult task, and it slowed me down considerably, much to his consternation. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. He grabbed me by the arm, bent over and scooped something off the ground and rubbed it on my hand. He said, "Now you've hot hog shit on you. Quit dancing around and keep up. Let's go to work." A few years later, I was out in the cow pasture at home with a wheelbarrow picking up dried cow chips by hand to use as garden fertilizer. He saw me and brought up the earlier incident, remarking on how far I'd come in my farming career.
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A Case of the Mondays for Forty Plus Years
I have things pretty good at home. My favorite person is almost always there. My Internet is fast and my beloved MacBook Air is positioned right where I like to sit to surveil my little kingdom. Whatever I like to eat and drink is nearby and if I nod off, which I am prone to do, there is no one to hassle me. Yet five days a week, I have to voluntarily leave my little paradise and go to work in an office where people ask me to do things I don't want to do. I have to do them on someone else's schedule and I don't get much say so in the matter. As hard as it it is to believe, I have been living like this since the early 80s. Remarkable, isn't it?
The worst day of the week is Monday. After two days of relative freedom and being able to sleep at will, my entire system is shocked by the return to "work". Just when I am getting used to the kind of lifestyle to which I would like to become accustomed, I get the shock to the system that returning to the workforce brings.
If you too share in my detestation of Mondays, I have done some research for you to help alleviate some of the downsides of the whole experience. You're welcome.
Mondays Suck—Here are 10 Ways to Make Them Better
14 Ways to Have Better Mondays
Mondays Suck: 10 Monday Tips to Kickstart Your Week
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I'm Tired, Boss
In the 1999 movie adaption of Steven King's The Green Mile, the guards go into the condemned man's cell to ask about the arrangements for his execution. They want to know his last meal request and if he wants a preacher to be with him. Ultimately, they even ask if he wants a chance to escape. The prisoner, named John Coffey, tells them he's ready to go, starting his speech with a resigned "I'm tired boss." Brother, I can relate.
Most of my working life hasn't been spent in a physically demanding job. Occasionally in educational tech we have to install computer labs or do large scale moves, but most of the work is honestly spent sitting down, alternately reading and typing. Sure, it can be mentally draining to do something repetitive or to solve a stubborn problem, but it doesn't make your back hurt.
I have had hard jobs that took a physical toll on me. I've worked as a cook in a busy restaurant. I've framed houses, and I spent time in the infantry. I've spent eight-hour summer days walking backwards down the highway carrying a heavy shotgun guarding prisoners the state wanted people to see out on the roads working. My teenage years were spent on my uncle's farm and if that man believes in one thing, it's teaching young people discipline through manual labor. I'm not unfamiliar with fatigue.
Even my leisure pursuits for years were spent chasing the endorphin rush that endurance sports can bring on. I loved 100-mile bike rides and backpacking over mountains. Building up endurance is an adaptive behavior. If you train a lot, you can do some pretty miraculous things.
The tiredness I'm aware of today, isn't a physical feeling though. It might be me yelling "get off my lawn" at the world, I don't know. What I'm tired of is a world that seems in some ways to be evolving for the benefit of the investor class and not for the working stiff. The last thing I want to do at the end of the day is to go to the grocery store and ring up my own order. The store I go to just took out half the cash registers and replaced them with self check out kiosks. Who wants that? I go to McDonald's for a cup of their fine coffee, and the only human I get to deal with is the one who sits the cup in front of me. All the ordering and paying is done through a giant panel that tries to upsell me at every turn. I'm even old enough to remember the days when people didn't have to pump their own gas. Why was that eliminated? It seems to have disappeared at the same time that gas got expensive.
I'm also tired of having to exercise discernment when I used to be able to just believe stuff. I could turn on the evening news and Walter Cronkite would tell me the deal, or may John Chancellor or Harry Reid. These days, I have to make sure I'm not in someone's spin zone when I try to stay informed. Newspapers that were institutions, like The New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times, are now operated by people who wouldn't be good contestants on Fear Factor. Some of them wouldn't endorse a presidential candidate, and they all lean towards sane washing the half of the American political system that is now ruling us. To be blunt, they have no balls, and it makes me tired.
I'm tired of a political system that's caters to a powerful minority. In the US, most people support a woman's right to choose. They support raising the minimum wage. They support equal (not special) rights for LGBT people. Do you hear me? Most people, the majority, support those things, yet they are always in contention because a party that has only won a majority twice in 32 years uses every under-handed dirty trick they can think of to subvert the will of the people. It's obscene.
I'm tired of things that used to be free or nominally priced. My kids grew up going to the state run aquariums located in a couple of our coastal towns. Today I have to drop a C-note to take my grandkids. Camping spots at state parks used to be free or just cost a five spot and now they cost as much as some hotel rooms. It seems like libraries may be all we have left, and thank god someone already thought of them. Imagine someone proposing a free service like that today. They'd be labeled a crazy socialist and chased out of town.
Thankfully, there are some things left that give me energy. Being able to exercise free speech fires me up. Seeing my southern state elect a Democrat (who is Jewish) for governor gave me energy. His opponent had labeled himself a Nazi and said he's like to own slaves. We also elected a Democrat for attorney general and state school superintendent. The Republican who ran for the school job had said she wanted Obama and Biden executed on TV and homeschooled her kids over sending them to public school. I am not without hope, and hope gives me energy.
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Camping with Kids
I didn't camp much while growing up other than an occasional trip with the church youth group. In high school, some buddies and I would sometimes sleep under the stars on the hillside beside the pond on my family's farm. Later, my military occupational specialty was in combat arms, so I got to spend plenty of time doing the Army version of camping at Ft. Bragg, Ft. Hood and Ft. Irwin among others.
When my kids were old enough, we liked going to Cliffs of the Nuese state park where I told such terrifying ghost stories that my son late confessed he'd been traumatized for life. My girls could take it or leave it, depending on their mood. They are both adventurous adults now with kids of their own.
Wonder Woman's daughters grew up camping with her and her parents but they haven't gotten into it as adults. Theirs are the kids who live closest to us. We se them often.
Despite our backpacking background, most of the camping we've done in our marriage has been car camping in state parks. There are several within a couple of hours of our house. We decided to take the five youngest to Jones Lake State Park for an overnighter this weekend. We have two campsites, three tents, miniature camp chairs and lots of snacks. The kids all brought electronics, of course, but they are more interested in fishing, playing cards and exploring the woods. I did a little research before we came for some activities to do with them and that's what I'm sharing today.
17 Fun Activities for Your Family's Next Camping Trip
Outdoor Activities and Crafts for Kids While Camping
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AMA - What things do you find difficult?
AMA - What things do you find difficult?
The book, The Road Less Traveled, opens with the memorable sentence, "Life is difficult." Truer words have never been written. Even for people who make everything seem effortless, life still has difficulties. In my more tender moments, as rare as they may be, I try and remember that everyone has rough stuff they are dealing with in one way or another and the rest of us may have no clue what that is.
One of the most difficult things for me these days is dealing with the people who just elected Donald Trump. When I am wronged personally, I usually can get to forgiveness pretty easily. After all, we forgive people not for their sake but for our own because holding on to resentment is toxic and it just wears you down. Personal wrongs are usually about single actions, though. When a person's entire value set allows them to turn the country over to someone like Trump, it's an indication of who they are at the core of their being. Yeah, it's hard for me to deal with.
I've reached the age where the people in my life from previous generations are all in their 70s and 80s. Watching them walk unsteadily across the room using a cane or someone's arm is unsettling. My uncle, who has always been the best example of strength and fortitude to me is still one of the manliest men I know but the days him being the first person I think of when it's time to lift something heavy are gone.
Having been very physically active for a number of years, I have found it hard to bounce back after having knee surgery. The purpose of the surgery was to give me back my mobility, the post recovery. I just haven't gotten my groove back. At this point, it is more psychological than anything else. I want to go to the Alps with Wonder Woman in the new year. I don't want to have to skip anything because I lack the stamina to do it.
Other difficult parts of life in no particular order:
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Slimy Politician Update
To get ready for the morass of corruption and ineptitude we are going to witness over the next four years, I thought it would be a good idea to brush up on a little history of political criminals associated with the guy the Republicans just elected. The last time Trump was president, his national Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, only lasted 22 days before he had to resign for lying to the FBI about, what was it? Oh, Russia, that's right. Trump later pardoned him.
Matt Gaetz - Attorney General Nominee
Tulsi Gabbard - Director of Natiional Intelligence Nominee
Trump's pick for top intel job has been accused of 'traitorous' parroting of Russian propaganda
Kash Patel - Potential Head of FBI
This Unqualified MAGA Addict Might Become Trump’s FBI Director The New Republic
Kash Patel The Magical Rise of a Self-Described ‘Wizard’ in Trump World - The New York Times
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AMA - What is Your Favorite Quality in a Person?
A certain type of person cares very much about their constitutional right to own a gun so that they can defend themselves and their family from any perceived threat. They obviously believe in the need for a violent solution to a potential problem and are willing to take on all the added danger that owning a gun brings to their lives. Hey, after all, who wouldn't do whatever it takes for their family, right? Usually, that very same person is also adamantly against providing any type of accommodation to immigrants from countries where street violence is endemic, making the U.S. the only feasible sanctuary. It might cost them an extra fifty cents a day on their federal income taxes after all. Not only that, the more brown people there are in the country, the greater the chance that they might have kids, earn the right to vote, or speak Spanish in the presence of "real" Americans.
The same person who feels good because they adopt a kid from the Angel Tree at work every Christmas or because their church has a soup kitchen once a week has no problem supporting a political philosophy that would curtail food programs for the poor and eliminate Meals on Wheels for the elderly. They have a tremendous sense of entitlement for everything they feel they have earned and no sympathy for people who aren't in the same circumstances. Lots of people in the military lean conservative (not all though!). If you make a tour of barracks day rooms, you're likely to find lots of TVs turned to Fox News. Despite that, you will not find a more duplicitous, malingering, dishonest, getting free stuff from the government group of people than a service member at their discharge physical. There are people who specialize in helping them come up with every conceivable reason to get VA money for the rest of their lives for dubious medical reasons.
On the flip side, there are those who put themselves on the line for people whose circumstances they'll never share. Every straight high school kid who joins their school's Gay/Straight Alliance voluntarily risks bullying by homophobes. If you look at the roles of civil rights martyrs, you'll see the names of people like Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman who lost their lives helping people register to vote. Plenty of white people who enjoy all the privileges that their skin color gives them are adamantly opposed to white supremacy in all its insidious guises. Fannie Lou Hamer famously said, "Nobody is free until everybody is free," and lots of people take that to heart and make it their creed.
I'm not sure what makes a person lack compassion and empathy. Whatever it is, it's unattractive and malignant. When you don't care that poverty, hunger, and untreated diseases exist as long as you've got yours, well, you have lots of company. It seems that the price of gas and eggs is more important to a whole lot of people than anything that might help the less fortunate. And, that's just it. It's more often fortune that dictates one's circumstances than it is blood, sweat, and tears. It's fortune that picks your birthplace and your skin color. It's fortune that lets your job continue to provide for you when others lose theirs. It's fortune that your neighbor's house burned down and not yours. It's fortune that you don't have a crippling illness.
I don't like associating with people who lack compassion. I don't understand their selfishness. I don't want to see them gloat and blame poverty on the poor, blame illnesses on the sick, and claim that any attempt to address the patriarchy, racism, or homophobia is "identity politics." My people are the people who care. My people are the people who make a difference. My people are the ones who make whatever claim America has to greatness a reality.
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What Tabs Do You Keep Open All the Time?
It's hard to believe there was once a time when browsers didn't have tabs. Prior to 2002, opening more than one website at the times required opening multiple instances of a browser. Memory management wasn't as robust as it is now and computers had much less power. These days you often hear of people running hundreds of tabs at the time since browsers can hibernate unused ones easily. I am nowhere near that level, mostly because I don't have the headspace to make use of them all. I normally have two or three windows open at a time depending on whether I'm at home or work. Having 30-45 open tabs is the norm for me.
If you are one of those 500 tabs open at the time people, please, please leave me a comment and try to explain why you roll like that. I';d be fascinated.
These are the ones I almost always have open:
Window 1
Window 2
Social Tab Group
Blogging Tab Group
The rest of the tabs I have open normally will include a news site or two, a few blogs and a few open Google docs. I use an app called HistoryHound that consolidates my history from several browsers into one searchable database when I need to reopen something.
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Blogging as an Art Form
Ask me anything - Do you consider blogging to be an art form?
One thing I absolutely despise is elitism is any form, followed closely by gatekeeping. Sure, people have varying degrees of talent, but I prefer an open society that encourages folks to try their hand at things. It is much better than one that acts like the plebes should stay on the sidelines while the real pros do their thing. That's why I don't find it the least bit pretentious when anyone describes themselves as an artist, regardless of the form they choose. I smile when I see anyone present a drawing or a poem or a landscape photo to the world. It's an attempt to bring something conjured in one's creative spirit to life, shared with the hope that it will spark a feeling in others.
When I look at the effort it takes to write regularly, I know that it takes a muse of some sort. It takes real effort to come up with an idea, flesh it out, polish it and present it. I give bonus points when someone's post contains a hint of vulnerability, a confession that not everything in life is easy. "Hey world! I have a wart! Want to see it?" Laugh if you want to, that's a thing an artist would say. Let's face it, it's hard to come up with something original in a world filled with people who can say whatever they want, whenever they want. Just the act of trying conveys a certain sense of bravery.
Emily Dickinson never saw one of her poems published, yet she continued to write breathtaking poetry for the entirety of her life. Stieg Larsson wrote the entirety of the Millennium Trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and died before it was published and became an international bestseller. There are many other examples like them. Artists write because they have something to say, something they have to get out. It's not about being recognized or lauded as much as it is about creating because doing so is a representation of our own humanity. When Og, the cave man, was drawing on the walls of his home all those years ago, he had no concept of received admiration. HE just had something inside himself that he wanted to get out.
Most of us have bloggers we admire. I told Keenan last week that I wasn't jealous. I just wished I could write the way they write. They responded kindly, saying, "I like the way that you write like you." What an affirmation. To me it means I've practiced my own art form enough to have developed my own style, something recognizable. That's the thing about almost any skill. When you practice, you get better. Malcolm Gladwell famously wrote about the 10,000-hour rule, where he proposed that The Beatles, Bill Gates and other successful people reached the heights they did because of how much they practiced, how much experience they had. That's why I write every day without fail. This is my art form and I want to get better at it.
That's why I don't give any credence to the criticism of blogging challenges. Writing every day isn't a gimmick. It isn't forced, necessarily. It is learned behavior and discipline. Writing is just taking what your thinking and putting the words down on record. If you think every day, and you do, then you can write every day. No one said making art was supposed to be easy. Picasso probably had days when he asked himself, "What the hell am I going to draw today?"
To all my fellow artists, do your thing! Do it often. Do it for yourself, and to hell with the rest of the world. Internal validation is the best validation.
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Twitter - What Was Taken from Us
When Elon Musk purchased Twitter and his toxic nature became clearly evident, lot's of people left the platform, with the socially aware tech crowd leading the way. After last week's election and Musk's role in it, there is another mass migration under way. Part of me thinks "better late than never" and part of me thinks"you should have been gone already." To e fair, I wasn't a big Twitter user. I didn't delete my account immediately because I rarely used it. It was never all that important to me and in my first six months on Mastodon, I posted more than I did in 15 years on Twitter. Still, I was very much aware of it and made use of it during times of fast breaking news. I preferred to monitor things like presidential debates through Tweets rather than subject myself to watching them on TV. When January 6th in all it's ugliness was happening, I followed it on Twitter.
Anyone with an interest in the Internet or the social history of the 21st century might get a whiff of nostalgia looking over the history of the platform. The idea for it was sketched out in a single day at its predecessor company, Odeo. A picture exists of Jack Dorsey's legal pad with a rudimentary sketch of the information flow that was imagined. We know who the first person to coin the term "tweet" was and we know who and when introduced hashtags, a carry over from IRC to Twitter.
To those who spent much time on the platform, nothing has really replaced it. I love Mastodon and plan to use it for the foreseeable future but it isn't the same. Neither in Bluesky or Threads or anything else. I don't know if the fractured outlooks people have on the world will ever again allow something like it to flourish.
Take a trip down memory lane. Look at what we had. Look at what happened to it.
History of Twitter - Wikipedia
A brief history of Twitter From its founding in 2006 to Musk takeover
What We Lost When Twitter Became X The New Yorker
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AMA - Morning Person or Evening Person?
Today's Ask me anything is - Are you a morning person or an evening person?
I love to sleep as much as anyone I know. My ability to lapse into unconsciousness is my superpower and one for which I enjoy a certain bit of notoriety among my friends and family. But, when I am done with a nap or a night's sleep, I'm not one to lie there and try to drift back off. When I am done, I am done. I'm ready to get up and do something else. I love to get up most mornings. The thought of that first cup of coffee and the chance to catch up on eight hours of missed news is too tempting to pass up.
I am nearly robotic upon waking, which is normally around 4:30 AM. We have one of those wonderful Nespresso one-cup coffee makers that brew great coffee quickly. I stand by it, bleary-eyed but patient as I wait for it to dispense its life-giving elixir. I make my way to my laptop, disconnect my backup drive, and begin the morning IT routine. First, I start my daily journal in Obsidian, one I will transfer to Day One at the end of the day. Then I add my daily app review, written the day before, to Reddit at r/MacApps. I don't even link back to my blog anymore. The moderators there added AppAddict to the sidebar, and that drives plenty of traffic my way. Then I check Mastodon and Micro.blog to see if I got any messages overnight. My friends in Europe are typically active already, so I see what they're up to.
Wonder Woman gets up at the same time I do. We spend the first 30 minutes or so together before she leaves for her morning run. Sometimes she's only gone for 30 minutes or so, but it is not unheard of for her to run a half-marathon before work, particularly if she's working from home and has a bit more time. Prior to having my knees replaced, I used to go for a walk in the mornings, a habit I need to rekindle. I loved being out on the dark streets listening to music or a podcast.
One of the other things I enjoy looking at in the morning is retrospectives from the day's history. I can do this in the Photos app, in Day One, and on Facebook, where my account is now 16 years old. It's fun to be reminded of past getaways, and to see pictures of my grandkids when they were younger. What's not so fun is to see what outrage Donald Trump has committed on this date in history. As an example, today I see posts relating to his quid pro quo attempt with Ukraine when he withheld military aid in an attempt to get them to investigate the Bidens. That got him impeached the first time.
By the time Wonder Woman has returned from her run, I am usually into the part of my morning that many people find funny. It's my pre-work nap. Despite just having slept for eight hours and having consumed coffee, I normally try to doze off for another few minutes before showering and getting dressed for work. For most of my working life, I had to leave a great deal earlier than I do now. I used to have to be on the job at 7:30 AM. My office was 30 miles away. These days, I don't have to be at work until 8:00 AM to an office that is less than 10 miles from home.
As much as I enjoy my job, a low-pressure tech support role at the same university where Wonder Woman is a big wheel, I don't always relish the start of the day. I routinely remark with something grouchy and profane when she summons me to get in the car for my chauffeured ride across town to our lovely campus. By the time we get moving though, I cheer up. My wife is my favorite person. I enjoy the brief interlude to chat about the day ahead, to crack jokes, and make plans for the evening. Everyone should be so lucky
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Five of My Favorite TV Series
Broadchurch
This British crime drama, filmed in scenic Dorset, tells the tale of a child murder and its aftermath. Starring Olivia Coleman, David Tenant and Jody Whitaker. Any of the three of them makes any show worth watching but the fireworks and raw emotion of Broadchurch are something special. Make sure you watch the British version of the show. For some weird reason, an America version was filmed and it is a poor comparison.
The Wire
Regarded by many as the best television show ever made, the five season's of The Wire loosely follow the Baltimore Police Department and drug gang while also spending time with longshoremen, politicians, newspaper reporters and school teachers. All of these intermix in an unflinching look at the intertwined cultures of a modern American city. The acting, the screen writing and the directing are all excellent. Some of the characters from the show live in my imagination years after watching the show for the last time.
The Sopranos
A classic by any measure, The Sopranos removed the glamor and mysticism from the mob created by The Godfather and revealed the extremely flawed human beings who make it up. Like The Wire, the screenwriting and acting is top notch and the characters unforgettable. It's almost impossible to watch one episode at the time if you have more available.
The Fall
Starring two of the world's beautiful people, Jamie Dornan and Gillian Anderson, this story of a Northern Irish serial killer and the cop, imported from the Metropolitan Police to track him down is as suspenseful as anything I have ever watched. A scene that takes place in Belfast hospital emergency room after a shooting is a revealing testament to the combat medical skills doctos in that part of the world learned during The Troubles.
Lonesome Dove
I regard Lonesome Dove as the best American novel ever written and this television adaption starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall among many others may be the best network show since Roots. It tells the story of an epic cattle drive out of Texas and has everything you'd ever want in a western. It's a must watch
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A Man With a Cold
I don't actually have a cold, but if I'd titled this post "A Sick Man" then everyone would have thought it was about Trump and avoided it because we are all so tired of him and the attention he gets. To further obfuscate things, I don't believe I am actually sick either, just feeling the after affects of a couple of vaccinations. This has happened to me as punishment for telling Wonder Woman that I've never felt bad after getting a shot, possibly insinuating that people who do are experiencing a psychosomatic reaction. She said her arm was a little stiff at the injection site, prompting me to wave mine around, windmill fashion to show that I was just fine.
I generally escape the variety of communicable diseases that seem to plague some folks. Thirt years of working in the close confines of first a prison and then public schools seems to have given me the immune system of a plague doctor. While others complain of reoccurring sinus infections, bronchitis or other upper respiratory illnesses, I just get the sniffles once in a while or a mildly stopped up nose, both of which are adequately handled by OTC medications.
When I do come down with something, I usually have company. Wonder Woman and I have lived through two bouts with Covid, a horrible flu and joint food poisoning from a sketchy Mexican restaurant. We lie in bed together so that our kids won't have to wonder around the house to find our bodies if we end up dying. The bad case of flu happened when one of our daughters was visiting at Christmas. Her family drove all the way hear from central Florida and barely got to see us since we rarely ventured out of our bed room as we did not want to infect them.
I am not one of those men the Internet likes to mock when I don't feel well. I am not prone to moaning or any sort of drama. What I want more than anything is to be left alone. Headaches and bodily aches and pains tend to make me a little cross and ill natured. I usually don't feel up to any sort of prolonged conversation. I want nothing more than to be left alone so I can sleep. Sleep is the great cure all. The more I am unconscious, the less awareness I have of my plight and the better I like it.
Being sick on a weekend is the worst. You don't even get an unexpected break from work since you are already off. Thankfully, my white collar job offers PTO so if there is a need to stay home, my pay won't get docked. I remember the jobs I had early in my life when no work meant no pay and often those types of jobs also wanted a doctor's note, forcing you to actually pay to take a sick day. Isn't American great?
If I were one of those science denying Republicans, or RFK, Jr., I would be fine since that type no longer believes in the proven efficacy of vaccinations for some reason. That's fine. The fewer of those people in the world, the better off we all are. I know that wasn't a nice thing to sy, but you'll have to excuse me. I don't feel well.
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This is Where I Find All That Great Software
Rarely does a day go by without me downloading, installing and testing a new app or two. I'm currently dealing with an installed app count of 559. Part of the reason I have so many is because I'm always on the lookout for new apps to review over at AppAddict, my software blog with over 225 reviews already published an a new one being added every day. I have several sources for finding software and today I'm sharing them.
r/MacApps
This is one of the friendlier communities on Reddit. It's a place where software fans and devs both post. It's well moderated and spam free.
Tool Finder
Get over 450+ reviews, insights, videos, tutorials, and ratings for productivity apps for work & life.
Open Source Software
This website currently lists 642 free and open-source titles from a variety of categories. It's updated daily and makes it easy for devs to submit their titles for inclusion in the collection.
MacUpdate
This huge repository lets you narrow your search by several criteria. The link above is just for free software and it returned 5650 titles! The titles are in order by date last upated/released.
thriftmac
Thriftmac is a collection currently numbering 413 totally free Mac apps.Each app is assigned a category and accompanied by a short description.
MacMenuBar
I linked to the recently added page but it's easy to get to the entire collection and to filter for just free apps or just open-source.
Mr. Free Tools
Mr. Free Tools is a directory site with an advanced search engine that helps you find the best free software, apps, and tools from around the web. Those free solutions can help you with work, projects, studies, or hobbies.
Awesome Mac
Awesome Mac is a GitHub page with links to a huge variety of Mac software. The free and open-source titles are clearly marked.
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AMA - “What’s the best music-related experience of your life so far?”
Today's question comes from hiro It has been answered by gabz, Tyler and Helen.
What is the best musical experience of your life?
Rather than describe a concert to you—and I have seen some wonderful acts—I'd rather talk about a quest I went on. This is a story about a particular time on the Internet when ethics were a little more cloudy than they are today, or at least that's my story and I'll be sticking to it. Somewhere around the turn of the century, two things collided in my world. I became one of the first people in my city to get broadband internet by virtue of having signed up on the waiting list years ahead of time when it was first opened up. The other circumstance was the heyday of Napster, a program that let you share your music collection for the rights to access the collections of other people, which you could then download at will.
Napster debuted in June of 1999, and by July of 2001, it was shut down by court order. This was a time before purchasing and downloading music online was widely available. The iPod and the iTunes store were still several years away. The way most people obtained music was by driving their car to the store and purchasing CDs. If you wanted to listen to music on your computer, you either slipped the CD into the drive or you went through a process known as ripping, where each song was converted into a format known as MP3. Hard drives were much smaller at the time, so you really had to keep an eye on disk space. I used a Windows computer I'd built myself in a giant tower that was almost three feet tall. It had room for three hard drives and a CD drive, all of which I used.
Rolling Stone Magazine, then and now, was fond of creating lists of songs and albums for music fans to argue about. I found an article online with their version of the top 500 albums of all time. I copied the entire list into an Excel spreadsheet and added two columns: HAVE and NEED. I went through the list and checked off the albums I already owned. As a classic rock fan, most of the highly regarded albums by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and the like were ones I already owned. I didn't have any hip-hop, and my soul and blues albums were pretty sparse. It was definitely a white boy's music collection.
Each night after supper, I would sit down at my computer and search first for entire albums and, in some cases, for individual songs to piece other albums together. I relied on a website that still exists to this day, Allmusic.com, to find the track lists for the albums since the Rolling Stone article I used didn't have that information. I would listen to the tracks to make sure I wasn't getting a live version if I was trying to build a studio album and vice versa. Some songs were shared at a low quality, forcing me to download second and third copies to find ones that matched what I already had.
I was in my mid-30s while I was doing this, probably at the north end of the Napster-using demographic. The typical user was a college student with a computer connected to their school's broadband connection. Most people at home were just starting to give up their screeching dial-up for cable modems and DSL lines at the time. Because Napster skewed towards younger people, finding older albums—particularly ones that were out of print—was difficult. Two I remember searching for over a months-long period were Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music by Ray Charles, released in 1962, and Phil Spector, Back to Mono (1958 - 1969). The latter album, in fact, was the last one I needed to complete the entire 500 album collection. I remember the night I finally completed it.
As a result of searching for and curating the editions of so many songs, I was exposed for the first time to classic 90s hip-hop in the form of Dr. Dre's The Chronic and N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton. I got my first Frank Sinatra album, In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning. Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash all had albums on the list, and so I found out that I enjoyed their brand of country music. I found blues artists like Little Walter and Bobby Bland.
For a moment in time, I had a veritable music museum available to me. I could discuss and play just about anything a critic could name as being influential to the modern music scene. Over twenty years have passed now. When Apple released their top 100 albums of all time last year, I was deeply, deeply offended when I realized I didn't have them all. In fact, I didn't have anything by Frank Ocean or Kendrick Lamar, two of the artists with top 10 albums. Not only that, I couldn't even name any of their songs. That's on me. After Napster was shut down, I once again started purchasing music, both CDs and through downloads. My musical taste shifted from classic rock to alt-country, which is what I like to listen to today. For a period of time, though, I was on top of the musical world.
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