Amerpie by Lou Plummer

Writing

Feb 26, 2025 ∞

The People Who Fear Email



To the best of my recollection, I got my first corporate email address in 1996. At the time, I worked for a subsidiary of the Westinghouse Electrical Corporation as a technical writer. I started there as a temp on second shift shortly after I left my job working for the state department of correction. After seven years of being a prison guard, I found myself in a noisy factory on my feet for a nightly eight-hour shift. Eventually, I was hired as a regular employee on days when my enthusiasm for all things technical drew the attention of a quality engineer, who got me what was supposed to be a two-week gig in the white-collar world to write some work instructions for the assembly line. I managed to leverage that into a full-time position and never went back to work on the factory floor.

The company gave me a powerful second generation Pentium computer, an expensive Kodak digital camera, a copy of Corel Draw and Corel Photo Paint and a color laser printer that cost more than the car I drove to work. They also gave me an email address. I developed a habit. When people asked me to do things via email, I'd respond to them and let them know whether I could accomplish what they wanted. It didn't matter to me if the email came from the manager of the facility or from a foreman in the machine shop. Email was no different to me than a phone call or a conversation. It was just a way to communicate about the job.

Little did I know that a particular type of person would evolve in the workplace. I found as years passed that it would become impossible to get some people to commit to doing anything in an email. You couldn't get them to answer questions, put forth ideas, or even acknowledge that you'd conveyed information to them. These people were all too often bosses. Someone put them in positions of authority to make choices and, by god, to be leaders. Unfortunately, they were so concerned with never being accountable for a damn thing, they'd rather have a conversation face to face in the middle of a hurricane than actually make a commitment in writing which you could later use to remind them of a promise they'd made.

And , you know what would happen if one of their verbally conveyed decisions or promises went sour? You know. You know that they would then lie and gaslight and deny ever having said such a thing. Furthermore, you obviously misunderstood them, or, maybe you are just making things up because you are a troublemaker. Yeah, that's it. You are not a team player. It's not like you have anything in writing, now do you?

I certainly hope that my scathing dislike for this kind of bullshit is coming across clearly. I wrote emails that conveyed, to the best of my ability to use the English language, exactly what i meant to say. I would make a commitment to you, in writing, to actually do my job, the one the taxpayers or the university paid me to do. My goal was to help my customers, fulfill my duties and earn my paycheck. I had no reason to make every decision based on covering my ass and self-preservation because people who feel like they have to live like that are a cancer in the workplace and I don't like them. At all. Not one bit.

Please be the kind of person who doesn't play silly games. Answer questions. If you are supposed to support someone, then support them. Don't be afraid to make commitments and, by all means, be honest. Everyone hates a liar.

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Feb 26, 2025 ∞

DeGoogling My Photos and Setting Up Local Management



My recent goal has been to get a copy of all my photos onto a local drive and use an app that respects the file system and doesn't hide the files in a mysterious, impenetrable database like Apple Photos does. I am also trying to get Google out of my business, a slow and difficult process.

For years, I've backed up my iPhone photos to three different platforms: iCloud because it's built into iOS and easy, Google Photos, because it's easy to do it automatically using the iOS app and to Amazon because photo storage is included in Prime and my wife and I can use our joint account so all the family photos end up here, including the ones we take with our "real" cameras.

Each platform has disadvantages. None of them mirror your file system. iCloud requires you to use the Apple Photos app. Google and Amazon both require you to use a web browser. I experimented with ways of downloading my photo archives from Apple and was not satisfied with the result. The only alternative is to set up the Photos app to download full-sized images and hope that actually happens.

Downloading content from Amazon involves using the Mac app and choosing folders and albums, a process that is cumbersome and has too much friction to be a practical solution. The simplest way for me to get all of my photos, as files, downloaded to my hard drive in a way that I could name them and organize them as I see fit was through Google Takeout An hour after placing a request to download my photos in 10GB ZIP files, I had an email with the links to 15 archives - the totality of my still photos and videos.

Here's my workflow to turn that massive collection of files into a usable archive.

1. Download the ZIP files using a browser on to an external had drive.
2. Copy one archive at the time to a folder in my Mac home directory. I called mine local,
3. Use Better Zip to unarchive the just the subfolder containing the images and video. Better Zip is great because you don't have to unzip the whole archive to get just the files you want, plus, when you install it, you gain the ability to use Quicklook to inspect the contents of archives without opening them.
4. Use A Better Finder Attributes to change the creation date of the photos to match the creation date contained in the EXIF information.
5. Use Hazel to sort the photos into folders based on the year and month they were taken. Hazel can also name the photos using the same type of convention. My DSLR photos are names my Lightoom, but my iPhone photos have the default names given to them by iOS.You may find it easier to create the Hazel rule if you use Finder's Smart Folders feature to consolidate all the images into a temporary folder before sorting them.
6. After the photos are sorted, you can trash the local copy of the ZIP file and empty your trash.
7. Use a photo management program that respects the files system to inspect, edit and view your photos. Some decent choices are XnViewMP (free), Adobe Bridge (free), FlowVision (free), Musebox ($15),[Picview](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/picview-image-viewer/id6452016140?mt=12)($12.99), Pixea ($9.99)
   
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Feb 25, 2025 ∞

Mortality



My fortieth high school reunion was a couple of years ago. The organizers set up a table covered with pictures of our classmates who've died since we graduated in June 1983. It started happening almost immediately. A friend of mine named Hope Pleasant was killed in a car crash within a year or two. The trainer for our football team, Stuart Arrowwood, died along 250 other soldiers in a plan crash at Gander, Newfoundland around the same time. More car crashes, cancer, and other mortal illnesses took their toll. A couple of our memorable athletes are already gone. We were the very first class of Generation X to graduate. This year we are turning 60.

Most people in my family make it into their 80s despite a predisposition towards high-blood pressure and other 21st century curses. Both of my parents are still alive, and my Mom is remarkably active, having walked across Scotland and Spain well into her 70s. I try not to think about my mortality too much. I could be healthier. Wonder Woman will probably outlive me for years. Her family's longevity is remarkable and she is extraordinarily fit. Doctor's always react with surprise at her low heart rate until she patiently explains her mutant status to them. She was tested in the sports lab at our local university. She had the fitness level of a college athlete, even though she was well past 50. She may have won the genetic lottery, but she works hard and eats right.

I'm not one who worries too much about leaving a legacy. I don't care what happens to my stuff. Mostly it's just books and computers. I have my digital memories, passwords and important accounts set up so that Wonder Woman can access them. She's tech savvy and can figure out how to save the photos and documents easily enough. Unless I happen to kick the bucket on the day all my domains expire, anyone else who wants to save anything should have an opportunity before I disappear from the Internet.

I intend to leave my body to science. The parts will be too worn out for anyone to be a second-hand Lou Plummer, but maybe some medial student can get some use out of whatever is left of me. I am not concerned with whatever kind of after party my kids and grandkids want to have. I'll be gone, and I'm not wasting any time picking out hymns or venues or silly stuff like that. They can play bluegrass music and eat my favorite foods for dinner, if that makes them miss me any less.

I am concerned with living out the rest of my life trying to be useful, trying to keep growing and sharing whatever I can to help out the people that will carry on the fight when I am gone. The challenge is to make the most of every day that I can. That's why I stay in contact with the people who matter to me and why I tell them that I love them frequently. If you ever take any advice from me, let it be that.

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Feb 25, 2025 ∞

The Coffee Shop as Office



I drove the same two-lane country road to my office for twenty years. Most of the time, I'd roll up to the front door totally unable to recall a single thing I'd seen on my drive. It wasn't an unpleasant commute unless I was running behind and trapped behind a school bus. It's very difficult to form new memories when you are continually in the same surroundings. That's why travel has such an appeal top so many people. We are able to recall and savor the new things we see and experience when we travel in a way we just can't do staring at the same four walls or the same commute.

Because of this, I've resolved to take the opportunity to work from local coffee shops a few days each month. The ones I have in mind have Wi-Fi, aren't too busy and are open to people like me nursing a cup of java while we GSD.

The benefits of working this way include:

• Breaking bad habits
• Increased productivity
• Meeting people

Benefits of Working from a Coffee Shop

Why People Love Working From Coffee Shops and 10 Tips to Do It Effectively

The Benefits of Working in a Café | Limepack

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Feb 24, 2025 ∞

Little Projects



My wife is exceptionally handy and seldom asks me to do much. We aren't big gardeners. Our yard is well established, and it's easy to maintain. We pay to have big home improvements done, and the smaller projects we either do together or she just knocks them out. I will never forget when we first got together. We lived in a house with a pool. One day the pump just died, She went online, found the right pump, ordered it overnight. The next day she came home from her CPA firm, took off her business suit, unboxed the pool pump and installed it herself. In an hour, it was done. I was amazed then and I am amazed now.

Since I am newly retired, I am working on making myself a routine and coming up with a few projects. Things I want to do daily include:

• Going for a walk
• A half-hour to an hour of housework
• Cooking dinner

Writing can now take up a sizable chunk of my day. I have a list of software to download and test before reviewing it for AppAddict. I plan to spend more time coming up with ideas to create link bundles about for Linkage. As far as this blog goes, my goal is just get better. I don't know what that looks like, exactly. I can take my time now, polish things a bit, quit using the word "awesome" so much, get better at commas - that kind of stuff.

I have several tech projects underway. I used the process Jason Snell wrote about to download my entire Kindle collection instead of just select books like I did previously. It took just a few minutes to get all 555 of them from Amazon's servers to my hard drive. Now I have to set up Calibre and import them to remove the DRM and get them ready for use wherever I want them.

Now that Amazon is keeping people from actually owning the things they've purchased, i found a way to get all my Audible books converted. Using the free and open-source tool, Libation, I am downloading another 500-plus books, but this process is much lengthier. Thankfully, the new Mac workstation I just set up can work on this job around the clock.

I also want to get a local copy of all my photos for various reasons, mostly to use local search tools and for quicker access to them. I requested a Google takeout today and within hours I had 15 zip files of 10 GB each ready to download. I recently exported all my iCloud photos to Google, so hopefully the files I'm downloading will have all of them complete with metadata. I will let you know.

I'm also going to pull my music collection out of the cloud so that I can set up a music server that not dependent on my Internet connection. I have about 30K songs from the olden days when we were still buying our own music, including some difficult to find bootlegs from Dylan, as well as many do it yourself albums from bars and coffee shops that aren't to be found on Apple Music or Spotify.

To hold all this data, I've rounded up a pile of various hard drives I've accumulated through the years and looked at possible reusing the housing from some small external drives with upgrades. I found a supremely useful website for locating the lowest priced drives on Amazon, and I'll be keeping my eyes on that for bargains while I assemble this homemade NAS of mine.

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Feb 24, 2025 ∞

Books, Books, Books



Looking for book recommendations is a favorite pastime. My areas of interest are wide and varied, probably a little more guy-heavy than they should be, although I did unashamedly find myself a fan of a genre I only later learned was called "Paranormal Romance." I even read a couple of the Twilight books a few years ago. Just to give you a taste of what my main jams are, here are a few lists I've collected or put together through the years.

My Favorite Books About the Appalachian Trail | Linkage

Best Baseball Books | Goodreads

23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books - The Best Sci Fi Books

Readers Weighed in on the Best Books About the Vietnam War - The New York Times

7 Books Every Nordic Thriller Fan Should Read

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Feb 23, 2025 ∞

Observations on Booze


I don't think I could have made myself drink this even on my darkest days.

I had next to no drama involving alcohol while I was growing up. My Dad sometimes drank beer in the evenings while watching TV, but I only lived with him for a couple of years in elementary school, so there were limited opportunities for me to witness anything ugly. For a long time, he lived in Alabama, where he was an instructor pilot at the Army'd helicopter flight school at Ft. Rucker. My siblings and I all lived in North Carolina, along with most of the rest of our extended family. I'd never seen a single drop of anything alcoholic in my grandparent's house. My grandfather, who reportedly used to like a cold beer once in a while, forswore it when he turned his life over to the Lord, a decision he did not take lightly. I couldn't conceive of my grandmother taking a drink. As an adult, I found out that she would accept a glass of wine at dinner when visiting my Mother, I was absolutely scandalized.

Anyway, when Dad would come to visit, he would keep a cooler of beer in his car and make periodic trips to it during the evening to pour cold Budweiser into a red solo cup, which he would then take into the house. I lived with my Dad's brother at the time and I can assure you that he did not approve of this behavior. My uncle liked beer himself, but he didn't believe in taking it into the house. He was a farmer. He would drink beer out at the barn or sitting in his truck listening to country music, but that was as close to the house as it got. Not only that, but he is nearly 80 now and still has a refrigerator and a recycling barrel at the barn.

I went with my first wife to her family's Thanksgiving dinner the year we got married. When I saw them sitting bottles of wine on the counter, I didn't know what to think. I had no experience with people doing such a thing. My family drank iced tea with Thanksgiving dinner. Even today (different wife) when we go to Sunday dinner at my in-laws, and they break out the wine and liqueur to sweeten the coffee with, I am still faintly surprised that people, nice people too, do things like that.

As a recovering alcoholic in long-term sobriety, I try not to make any kind of value judgments on anyone else's drinking. I totally get the fact that my family followed a Souther Protestant tradition where drinking is frowned upon, and holy communion is always taken with Welches grape juice. My in-laws are Catholic, with a sprinkling of military life and strong Italian heritage thrown in. Their take on booze is that it isn't a sin and responsible adults can do whatever they hell they want to do - as long as they go to mass. (Just kidding - kind of)

My own inability to drink moderately didn't come from a constant exposure to booze as a kid or the ready availability of it in any house I grew up in, and there were many in my tumultuous early life. I was just born without that feeling that tells non-alcoholics to stop. Scientists have identified the gene that indicates a genetic predisposition to addiction. People don't develop alcoholism because it's fun (it is not.) I'm fully on the side of the illness being from nature, not from nurture in my case at least.

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Feb 23, 2025 ∞

Telling Stories to Children



When a child says, “Tell me a story,” she is not asking for a narrative. She is asking for your attention - How to Tell Stories to Children

When my kids were in late elementary school and middle school, I started making up different stories about certain houses in our neighborhood. One house had a well-maintained yard, but there were seldom any cars there, The curtains were always drawn and there were no decorations or personal effects ever in evidence. I decided to tell the kiddos that all of those facts were clear evidence that this was a CIA safe house. I never backed down from that assertion. To this day if one of them mentions it, I support my original premise with whatever I can make up on the spot. Its been a running gag for thirty years.

Another house got labeled as The Church of Satan just because I didn't like the look of it. It sits on a double lot, which I find pretentious. It also has a secluded backyard and an extra tall privacy fence. Wonder Woman has never heard me refer to is as anything else.

My son loved camping trip ghost stories until I made one up based on the character of Blue Duck, a psychopathic Indian from a Larry McMurtry book. I found out recently that my story telling skills had traumatized him for years. Oops. Sorry, Buddy!

We always read to our kids. I think it's an invaluable way to spend time with them. I was glad to see the tradition carry on to another generation when my grandkids came along. It is a sacred part of their nightly routine. Maybe I was a little unconventional with my stories, but the kids all turned out OK, so no harm done.

How to Tell Awesome Stories to Your Kids | The Art of Manliness

Dads, what are your go-to strategiess for making up bedtime stories on the fly? : r/daddit

How Telling Stories Helps Kids Learn |… | PBS KIDS for Parents



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Feb 22, 2025 ∞

Bike Life



During the years that cycling was at the center of my life, I enjoyed signing up for charity events all over the southeast. For somewhere around $50 I could register for an event that would provide a marked course of 100K or 100 miles with several rest stops along the way, stocked with Gatorade and carbohydrate rich snacks to fuel all the spandex clad riders coming through. Oh, and portable toilets were also provided, which was always helpful. Usually, the organizers would also provide a souvenir shirt to commemorate the event. I've got a closet full of them.

The size of the events varied. If the ride was new and didn't have any kind of history, there might be only 30 or 40 participants. On the other hand, established events, like the rides for multiple sclerosis would stretch over an entire weekend, providing camping, meals, showers and two rides of 100 miles (160.93 km) each. There would be well over 1000 participants, all of whom raised money and paid an entry fee to participate. In North Carolina, the rides start and end in the eastern city of New Bern, in an area that's blessed with smooth, flat roads that don't have a lot of traffic. Typically, if we had to cross any really busy highways, the sheriff's department would station a car there for safety.

One of my favorite was the annual Mountains to the Sea event, known as Cycle North Carolina. Sponsored by the state tourism board, it draws people from all over the US and abroad for seven consecutive days of cycling across the widest state east of the Mississippi River. A normal day's mileage is somewhere around 70 miles (ca. 113 km). Most people bring a tent that is ferried from one town to the next by the event organizers along with their luggage. All the riders have to do each day is eat like their lives depend on it and ride their bikes. Each host town along the way goes all out to make the riders welcome. There are always some unique folks making the journey. One year I rode with a man who rode in business clothes and had heavy racks made from lumber attached to his bike. Since I don't live close to the mountains, the days we spent there were always challenging as we pedaled along the Blue Ridge Parkway with much larger elevation gains and losses than I was used to.

North Carolina has 100 counties, and my goal was to ride my bike in every one of them. Before physical ailments curtailed my riding, I'd managed to pedal at least a few miles in 78 of them. Even today, I find myself miles and miles from home, recognizing spots I cycled by in the past. A few places are really memorable, either because of the difficulty or the scenery or both. There is a climb in western South Carolina up the Greenville water shed that is more than five miles uphill. It looks very imposing when you see it on the day's elevation profile, but it proved to be a pleasant experience, something to feel good about at the end of the day.

That was one of the real joys of riding to me. It wasn't just the endorphin rush from the physical exertion or the scenery or the camaraderie, although all of those things were wonderful, What I loved was the sense of accomplishment achieved by voluntarily doing something difficult. The discomfort from too many miles on a narrow little bike saddle, the hills that make it feel like someone is sticking daggers in your thighs, the miles, and miles in the rain, far from home have faded into the background and what remains are the memories of the joy I felt so many times when mile 100 came earlier than I ever thought it could. I never had the kind of hand/eye coordination needed to be good at sports involving any kind of ball, but when it came to endurance, that I could do.

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Feb 22, 2025 ∞

Everyday Apps




I never realized this blog would become as popular as it has. I picked up blogging as a hobby to accompany the other joy in my life, which is the never-ending process of refining my workflows to use the absolute best software for every task. Somehow, I ended up with three blogs, this one, Living Out Loud, Linkage and another that is a combined fire hose of everything put together. I'd be lying if I told you that I'm always able to remember what I've written on each platform. In 2024, I wrote 500K words. I'm too old to keep all that straight.

I don't think I've ever shared the actual list of apps that I used to get work done here on AppAddict. These aren't the coolest or the most powerful or the best bargains, not necessarily. They are the workhorses that allow me to do what I need to do. I'm not saying they are the best for everyone. If you do a lot over email, you need something more specialized. I don't do much with spreadsheets or presentations, so I'm not even listing those.

Most (not all) of the links here describe my use cases or what I like about the app and why I use it. All links contain download info.

• 📨 Mail Client: Kiwi for Gmail
• 📜 Writing: Obsidian
• 📝 Temporary Notes: Drafts and Scratchpad
• 📆 Calendar: Fantastical legacy features, not paid
• 📖 RSS: Inoreader
• 🌐 Browser: Vivaldi on macOS and iOS
• 🔖 Bookmarks: Raindrop.io
• 📑 Read It Later: ⭐ Pocket
• 🟦 Photo Management: Apple Photos
  • Optimization - Clop
  • Screenshots - CleanShotX
  • Automation - Dropover
  • More Optimization - ImageOptim
  • Editing - Toyviewer

• 📋 Clipboard Management - Raycast
• 🔐 Password Management: Apple Passwords and Access
• 🚀 Launcher: Raycast
• 🔐 Security
  • VPN: Nord
  • DNS: Next DNS
  • Firewall: Little Snitch
  • Tracker Blocking: Privacy Badger
  • Ad Blocking: Ublock Origin
• ☑︎ Task Management: Things 3
• 📱Updating Apps:
  • Homebrew: Cork
  • Almost Everything Else: MacUpdater
  • Etc: Topgrade
• ✍️ Journaling: Day One

✉️ Reply by email

Feb 22, 2025 ∞

My Favorite TV Shows By Decade



I've lived in seven decades. These are my favorite TV shows from each one.

1960s The Andy Griffith Show



I don't know if my affection for this show arose based on it happening in a fictional town in my vert real home state or because I really wanted to hang out with Opie, but I'v enjoyed watching Andy and Barney and Aunt Bea and the rest of the folks from Mayberry my entire life.

1970s MASH and All in the Family



I remember watching MASH when I was seven or eight and not getting many of the jokes but having the feeling that the characters were kind. It made me feel good. By the time the last episode aired, I was a senior in high school and only a few months away from the army myself.



Watching Archie Bunker on All in the Family, I think, taught me the ridiculousness of bigotry and misogyny. It also helped me understand those traits a little better. I loved watching Archie come to little realizations about his own nature.

1980s Hill Street Blues



Until the Golden Age of Television commenced at the end of the 20th century, I considered Hill Street Blues to be the best show ever to air. Every police procedural for the past 30 years owes it a debt of gratitude. The writing, acting and directing were all way ahead of its time and the show's gritty realism and willingness to confront the humanity and shortcomings of the officers assigned to Hill Street Station made it a classic. When I retired from the school system in 2020, I spent the first few months wtching a couple of episodes a day until I'd rewatched the entire run.

1990s NYPD Blue



This is the decade where I watched very little TV. My kids were coming of age and I didn't want them spending a lot of time in from of the tube, plus I was a cheap bastard and didn't want to pay for cable. We spent many weekends with rented VHS tapes from the local video store. Early in the decade though, I was a big fan of NYPD Blue, mostly because I admired Steven Bocho's work so much. It wasn't the same a Hill Street Blues, but the characters were so developed and real. Good show.

2000 The Wire



To me, this show is and will always be the GOAT. I've never thought about the lives of fictional characters as much as I have the ones from this show: Jimmy McNulty, Omar Little, Stringer Bell and all the other cops, gangsters, politicians, reporters, dock workers and teachers who gave every show of every season a special touch. I think I am up to four complete viewings. Whenever someone tells me they are watching the show for the first time, I get so damn jealous.

2010s Stranger Things


I don't know if it is 80s nostalgia or just the superior quality of the show, but I've loved Stranger Things since episode one. Watching the kids from from middle school into high school was handled well and Millie Bobbie Brown's character, 11 (Ellie) is one of the best viewing experiences Netflix has ever offered.

2020s Ted Lasso



Man, was I sad when I the last show of season three aired. And, man was I happy when I found out they were going to make at least one more season - just because we fans want one so badly. This show is unique. It's not really a sports show in the way Friday Night Lights was. Maybe because it is a marriage of English and American culture. I adore the characters. Fucking Roy Kent. Am I right?

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Feb 22, 2025 ∞

This Week's Bookmarks - Defending Democracy, 100 Greatest TV Performances, True Crime, Travel Tips, Southern Cooking, Pharaoh's Tomb, Lessons from Jim Crow 1.0



Choose Democracy What can I do to fight this coup? - Choose Democracy - If you look, there are people resisting at every level. Blockades of freeways. American Bar Association urging an end to illegal orders. Past inspector generals penning op-eds, as a current inspector general refuses to accept her illegal firing. The Pope slamming VP Vance's theology.

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The 100 Greatest TV Performances - When one thinks of the defining TV performances of the past 25 or so years, what comes to mind? Some of the answers included a teacher-turned-drug kingpin, spies working both for and against the U.S. government — and perhaps the defining comedy character of this long political moment, in part for how dark her will to power becomes.

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The True Story Behind the Grisly Murder of Cash App Founder Bob Lee - When Cash App creator Bob Lee was stabbed to death on a San Francisco street, it sparked outrage about random violence in the city. The true story of his death was deeply personal.

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The Technium: 50 Years of Travel Tips - I've been seriously traveling for more than 50 years, and I've learned a lot. I've traveled solo, and I've led a tour group of 40 friends. I've slept in dormitories and I've stayed in presidential suites with a butler. I've hitchhiked penniless for months, and I've flown by private jet. I've traveled months with siblings, and with total strangers. I've gone by slow boat and I've ridden my bicycle across America, twice.

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The Woman Who Introduced Southern Cooking to the World | Finding Edna Lewis | Full Documentary - YouTube - From Freetown, Virginia, to New York City, Edna Lewis carved a remarkable path. She introduced many Americans to seasonal cooking, Southern cooking — the cooking of the Black community in rural Virginia that raised her. Yet despite a life that included fame and acclaim, she is not a household name. In FINDING EDNA LEWIS, Deb Freeman travels to the places where Miss Lewis made her mark.

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Thutmose II: First pharaoh's tomb found in Egypt since Tutankhamun's - A British-Egyptian team has located it in the Western Valleys of the Theban Necropolis near the city of Luxor. Researchers had thought the burial chambers of the 18th dynasty pharaohs were more than 2km away, closer to the Valley of the Kings.

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Surviving Fascism: Lessons from Jim Crow – Scalawag - Accept that this is happening. Denial won't change the outcome.

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Feb 21, 2025 ∞

Serenity, Wisdom and Power



Coming up with the energy to do battle with the forces of evil means that I can't waste my energy, a finite resource, tilting at windmills. Although I am not a religious person, I respect the wisdom found in the basic prayer that alcoholics recite before AA meetings, known as The Serenity Prayer.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

This prayer, jointly attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr and Winnifred Wygal, became popular in the 1930s. Like many godless heathens in the recovering community, I substitute a belief in a higher power in my mind instead of a deity, but I think folks should do what works for them. My higher power is the collective wisdom of the people I respect. It works for me.

Learning what can and cannot be changed is life's challenge to us all. Some folks believe "you can't fight city hall." Then you have Rosa Parks. Finding out what is possible within our limitations is not easy, but I have learned a few things since I was introduced to this way of thinking. We are all powerless over the past. I wish I'd made all kinds of different choices through the years, but what's done is done. I've learned not waste time wishing my life away on regrettable mistakes.

Another learned skill is when I finally began to differentiate between what I wanted and what I needed. I say that like I'm batting 1.000 in that department, but it is still a work in progress. In 2025, I need to be involved in the struggle against fascism. As an older straight white man, I could easily sit on the sidelines and suffer minimal losses, but I'd have no self-respect and rightfully so. I know that in the current struggle, there will be many defeats, but there will be some victories too. I think it's OK to want to win certain rights back from the right-wing, as long as we can accept that we won't actually get to pick the wins we achieve. This is where courage enters the equation. It's what makes us different from the people we are going up against. They don't have courage. They live in fear; fear that they might get treated the way they've treated minorities, fear that they won't get preferential treatment from employers and the courts. They are not striving for equality. They shudder at the idea. They feel entitled to supremacy.

One of the primary lessons learned in my life was that people have power together. Organized groups of people are what emancipated the enslaved, gained women the right to vote, stopped Jim Crow 1.0, and gave workers in this country what power and rights they have in the workplace. Part of my own received wisdom is to be a part of as many collectives as I have energy for. Isolation and some naive belief in rugged individualism results in the death of a movement. We need each other. We need to give voice to our anger, our fear, our outrage, and our determination. I'm not one to corner an unwilling listener to harangue them on anything, but I am one who will speak in the public square, whenever I find myself in one. People who are too privileged or too lazy to be concerned with what is happening to large swaths of the people in this country might want to police conversations. Good luck with that. I have people I love who are being targeted, a son-in-law who depends on veterans benefits because he was severely injured in combat, a grandson with a debilitating disease, LGBT family members, trans friends and the list goes on.

So, yeah, I need serenity, wisdom, and power and so do you.

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Feb 21, 2025 ∞

Privacy Badger Extension from the Electronic Freedom Foundation




Protecting your online privacy is an ongoing game of whack-a-mole with big tech. Google is making a big deal out of eliminating tracking cookies at the same time is implementing tracking based on digital fingerprinting for which few protections exist. One organization working on privacy protection solutions for this invasive technology is the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF). It's free privacy tool is a browser extension, Privacy Badger, available for Chromium and Firefox browsers. A Safari version is under development. Since tracker blocking is an ongoing struggle, it's good to know that the developers at the EFF are actively working on meeting the challenges of emerging invasive practices by big tech.

Privacy Badger is not a traditional ad blocker, and it will not replace whatever you are currently using. The extension is focused on preventing companies big and small from tracking where you go on the Internet and what you do there. It doesn't work off a list of URLs. Instead, it uses an algorithm to determine if you are being tracked and takes action to block offending sites. For tracking sites that you want to have a relationship with, such as Meta or X, it provides clickable links to connect to them from external sites when you choose to. I like that it creates an opt-in situation for you.

Privacy badger is compatible with native tracking prevention found in more secure browsers like Librewolf, Firefox and Vivaldi. As the political situation evolves in the US, protecting your browsing habits will become more important than ever. Take the steps needed to keep yourself safe from big tech and the government.

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Feb 21, 2025 ∞

My Favorite Movies by Decade

I've lived in seven decades. These are my favorite movies from each one.

1960s



To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) - Although the book played a more meaningful role in my life, the movie played a part in imparting ideas that shaped my attitudes on justice and race.

1970s



The Godfather (1972) - I did't see this until I was an adult, thank goodness. It's a true masterpiece. Watching it now, more than 50 years after its release, it doesn't feel dated at all.

1980s



Platoon (1986) - My Dad spent two long years of my childhood in Vietnam. The war and its aftermath played an outsized role in my life. Oliver Stone was also a veteran of the war and his insight and skill as a filmmaker made this movie memorable. The performances of Charlie Sheen, Willem Defoe and Tom Berenger were stellar.

1990s



Pulp Fiction (1994) - My favorite movie of all time. I have the script on my iPhone and its one of the few films I have a physical copy of. I'm a go to source of trivia about this movie and I know multiple lines of dialog. One line of the film became an oft used phrase in our house. Whenever any said "Oh Man", someone else would always answer with "I shot Marvin in the face!"

2000s



Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) - Just to prove that I'm no status seeking high brow intellectual, I 100% love this Will Ferrell comedy centered around a North Carolina NASCAR driver. It's funny AF. The dialog is memorable and I'm happy just to watch a few scenes from time to time.

2010s



'71 (2014) - Probably the most obscure movie on this list, 1071 does a good job portraying the maddening tactics employed during The Troubles in Northern Ireland as well as the often unexplored side of what armies do with soldiers when they are done with them.

2020s



A Complete Unknown (2024) - This film was so spot on that I floated above my seat in the theater while watching it. Timothée Chalamet deserves a great many awards for his portrayal of Bob Dylan. Edward Norton's role as Pete Seeger was also stellar. The music was as wonderful as it's been since Dylan penned it. Good flick. See it.

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Feb 20, 2025 ∞

Using Reddit the Right Way - a Lesson Learned



Since I got my first account for an online service, Prodigy, in December 1993, I've done my best to use the incredible amount of freely available information. I've used the Internet to strengthen my professional skill set, to increase get more from my hobbies, and to discover possible new interests to investigate. That's been a constant, except for the two years after I retired the first time. A combination of being physically ill coupled with a deep bout of depression left me uninterested in almost everything. I slept like it was my job, didn't keep up with the news of the tech world or the world at large. The only thing I did on the Internet was scroll on my phone at night while waiting for my wife to get sleepy and turn off the light.

I scrolled Reddit and not the good parts, usually. Reddit is full of niche communities, and I fell into some strange ones. Although I have never been a gig worker and the only food delivery app I use is for Dominoes Pizza, I became obsessed withe travails of Grubhub drivers. I became an expert on what sucked about their lives. I also read stories on "Am I The Asshole", which are convoluted, often obviously fake tales where people tell stories about their part in some drama, letting the Internet decide who was at fault. Spending time reading that kind of garbage did not spark joy. It did not teach me anything. It was just a weird stage I went through. I eventually came out of the depression, went back to work, got my mojo working and became the me that you know today. I left weird Reddit behind.

I still use Reddit frequently. If you go to the wrong communities, things can be a little toxic. So, don't do that. You can also find kind, knowledgeable people who will share expert level advice and information just because there is an audience for what they have to offer. An example of that is AskHistorians, a fantastic resource for anyone who enjoys the subject.

Rather than just suggest a bunch of individual communities, I made a few custom feeds which consolidate some of the best and most interesting places, along with a couple of feeds that are suited for nothing more than mindless scrolling when you need a break from the real world. Sometimes cat videos and the like are the best antidote to endless stories about the fascists taking over or long detailed articles on networking topologies if tech is your jam.

Custom Feeds by Amerpie on Reddit

You can add these to your Reddit sidebar as a custom feed or you can subscribe to individual communities

tech 36 Sub Reddits

This collection is heavily focused an Apple related software and devices. It contains posts on Mac and iOS apps and on different flavors of Mac computers, iPhones, iPads and watches. There are communities on a few productivity related Mac apps from independent developers. There is some tech humor and info for people who have worked in tech, but you don't need to CS degree o get value from this feed. Some of the communities in these collections are.

• macOS (I am a moderator here)
• Obsidian
• r/MacApps (My favorite)
• Tales From Tech Support

politics 28 Sub Reddits

My politics are decidedly left of center. I have a strong anti-MAGA attitude and I support communities under attack by the forces of darkness in Washington. This collection of Reddit communities about Resistance and Fighting back. It isn't focused on wonky white papers and middle of the road "let's just get along" niceties. Some of the communities in these collections are.

• Trump Criticizes Trump: 35,000+ Tweets, No Self Awareness
• Late Stage Capitalism
• r/PoliticalHumor 2024: The Sequel Nobody Asked For
• MarchAgainstNazis

edification 56 Sub Reddits

When I want something on the more intellectual and stimulating side, this is the collection I browse. It's heavy on some of my favorite subjects: history, science, photography (just photos, not tech and gear) and a few feel good type communities. Some of the communities in these collections are.

• Accidental Renaissance
• HistoricalWhatIf
• The Gritty Past.
• Life Pro Tips

Scrollfest 1 and Scrollfest 2 132 Sub Reddits

This is where I go when I don't really want to think too hard. Just let me look at some funny pictures and enjoy some Internet culture so I can keep up with what the kids are talking about. Some of the communities in these collections are.

• What Is This Thing?
• ThatsInsane
• What's Wrong With Your Dog? | I mean, really...
• Tip of My Tongue: When you can't remember that…thing…



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Feb 20, 2025 ∞

Discombobulated



After working hard to create a cozy home office in which to begin my retired life, I've barely gotten to use it. The joys of homeownership provided me with an opportunity to practice patience and acceptance this week when my previously bulletproof natural gas furnace quit working on a 17-degree night. We weren't able to get an HVAC tech out to the house until late in the day when (of course) the parts stores were already closed. It didn't matter though because the parts we needed, $1500 worth, are only available through special order. To top it all off, a winter storm, rare in our region, rolled into town.

Our house is the classic two-story split-level. It's wide open and the only spaces with doors are bedrooms and bathrooms. The living and working areas are impossible to warm with just space heaters, no matter how good they are. After sitting around under blankets in a house with Interior temps hovering around 50 degrees, we opted to get a hotel room close to Wonder Woman's job — also my former employer.

She had a three-hour meeting this morning over Microsoft Teams. Everyone is working remotely because of the storm. Since we're in a hotel, I got to sit in on the meeting too, listening to my old co-workers discuss subjects I very much want to leave behind. I even had to jump in and provide tech support to my bride when her company owned laptop experienced power issues. I'm just trying to roll with the punches and accept the things I can't change. It does no good to get worked up about stuff out of my control. Fate isn't concerned about my carefully cultivated plans for the first week of retirement.

Tomorrow we are traveling out of town for the weekend getaway I requested for my birthday. Wonder Woman and my daughter both got me the tech stuff I wanted as gifts, namely extra RAM to give me new home lab plenty of oomph. I joke that I want my system to be so powerful that it makes all the lights in the neighborhood go dim when I reboot things. I even maxed out the Internet speed at our house, something I am sadly missing on crappy hotel Wi-Fi.

Our weekend plans are not that complicated. We are going to visit a couple of restaurants that even my international hometown doesn't feature, including my favorite Lebanese place. Wonder Woman will get to run in a park she hasn't visited since April when she did a 50-miler there. Her next big adventure is in South Carolina next month, a charity event where the participants are charged with running a 5K every hour for five hours. I'll be there crewing, of course, trying to keep her spirits up as the inevitable fatigue sets in. She's never run a race in this format, so it will be new for both of us.

I'll pick up my postponed activities next week. None of my plans and goals will suffer one bit because of the delay. Until then, I'm just rolling with the punches.

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Feb 19, 2025 ∞

Why is it always DNS?



Why is DNS, the translation service between numbers and dots and the words we label our websites with, always the problem. When all the lights are green and blinking appropriately, you know it's DNS. In the glory days of Mac OS X Server, you had to get DNS working before you could do anything else. It brought life to a standstill. These days when you're supporting end users and they can't get their BYOD laptop or phone to connect, you better believe that free VPN they got from FreeVPNdotcom has hosed their DNS settings beyond belief. It is always DNS.

• It's Always DNS - Reddit
• It's Always DNS!" Why DNS is the Biggest Single Point of Failure in the new norm
• It's Always DNS - Chaos Lever
• It's Always DNS | Clayton Errington
  
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Feb 18, 2025 ∞

Did You Ever Get in Trouble for Reading?

Reading to my grandson

I can't claim to having been an early reader. I learned in school, not as some precocious toddler. My mother read to me all the time but rather than learning how to do it myself, I just memorized my favorite books. I didn't go to kindergarten because it wasn't mandatory when I was of age. I didn't get put into the smart kids reading group to start off with because I switched schools early into first grade. Once I got the fundamentals down, though, I wanted to read more than I wanted to eat. I was way into adulthood before I stopped carrying a book around with me everywhere.

I rushed through every assignment for years so that I could read whatever book I was interested in at the time. There are comments on my elementary school report cards about me neglecting other responsibilities to pursue what my teacher called "pleasure reading" an activity she complained that I put before everything else. My excessive reading bothered her so much that she would assign me dictionary pages to copy by hand just so she wouldn't have to look at me with my nose in a book. There were always books in our house. Both of my parents have been voracious readers my whole life. My siblings are also book people. So are my kids.

When I was growing up, my favorite of all the many towns we lived in was the one where we lived closest to the library. We spent so much time there and the staff got so fond of us that years after we moved, they called just to see how we were doing. We spent two summers in that little town and both years I won prizes for reading the most books for older elementary kids and my little sister won the prize for the younger grades. The money I made selling newspapers and recycling glass soda bottles went for books, including comic books. When we would make trips to the used books store in a larger town an hour away, I would agonize over which of my new books I would read first. I went to that same used book store for 40 years. My kids grew up going there and I even got a chance to take my grandchildren. It finally closed about five years ago, sadly.

I have pretty sizable bookshelves in my home. I've yet to read quite a few of the books I own, but that in no way will keep me from buying more. Amazon's recent decided to make it impossible for its customers to download the books they've bought after this month. I just had to go through the nearly 500 Kindle editions that Wonder Woman and I have accumulated since we started a joint account in 2012. We have about the same number of audiobooks, which totally count as reading in my estimation.

Since I can be a bit obsessive about things I like, I've read the complete works of several prolific authors, including Robert A Heinlein (32 books, 59 short stories) and Ed McBain (55 books in his 82nd Precinct series). The worst thing that ever happened to my reading habit was the Internet. It competes for my attention more than anything else ever has. It's just another form of reading, however. It's horrible for my attention span, but i resist the urge to go on frequent YouTube binges, preferring a steady mix of blogs, news and social media.

I carried books in my Army rucksack when I was in the service. I used to carry a book up in the guard tower of the prison I worked at when I was on third shift. When I hiked the Appalachian Trail, I gladly packed the extra weight of a Kindle Paperwhite and so did my wife. We agreed early in our marriage to never say anything to each other about buying books. That was a sacred promise and one we've kept. I believe that my love of reading and my constant desire to learn about all the many things that have interested me is what allowed me to be successful in life without a formal education. I could have made more dough with a degree of some sort, but not a lot more. Truth be told, a life reading whatever I wanted sounds more to my liking than having to read what some stuffy professor assigned me any way.

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Feb 18, 2025 ∞

The Southern Poverty Law Center, Needed Now More than Ever



Since my political wakening in my 30s, I've done my best to financially support charities and organizations who I consider to be not just beneficial for society, but downright heroic. These include:

American Civil Liberties Union Brady United - Campaign Against Gun Violence Southern Poverty Law Center During the 1980s, my home state, North Carolina was plagued by white supremacist groups. The worst of these was led by a former Green Beret master sergeant named Frazer Glenn Miller. The White Patriot Party, Miller's organization was eventually sued out of existence by the Southern Poverty Law Center, led by Morris Dees, an attorney that Miller plotted to kill.

The SPLC, founded in 1971 in Alabama has successfully shut down numerous Klan and Nazi groups, winning large judgments against them in court and distributing 100% of the proceeds to the victims of racism and their survivors.

The SPLC also maintains Hatewatch which actively monitors the far right movement in the United States. President Trump pardoned two national leaders of active hate organizations, The Oath Keepers and The Proud Boys who had received long prison sentences for anti-government activities around the 2020 election. Monitoring these types of groups is vital in the current political climate.

You can also refer to the Extremists and Ideologies section of the SPLC website to track what hate groups are active your area.

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