Writing
- Cooking - I'm not trying to get on Bake Off,
- Car repair - I actually have no car repair skills and don't want any. It's intimidating, looks like Zero Fun. I'd rather pay someone.
- Fashion - I've been successfully dressing myself since the 60s. I'm good.
- Computer Maintenance - I buy Macs so I'm not tempted to get all hardware crazy on custom PCs because that is a rabbit hole I'm not going down
- Refrakt - A more meaningful home for photography
- Glass — Photography Community - Glass is a paid, global community platform for photographers. With no ads or manipulative algorithms,Glass is your home for photography.
- Flashes for Bluesky on the App Store - A Bluesky client just for photography. The devs suggest opening a second, photos only account. I'm trying it out
- pxlmo - The Pixelfed server I use
- Flickr | The best place to be a photographer online.
- Best Photo Sharing Platform for Photographers | 500px
- SmugMug: Protect, Share, Store, and Sell Your Photos
- The World's Largest Free Photo Contest | Pixoto
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇 - White Men Can't Jump | Rotten Tomatoes
- The Thin Red Line Official Trailer - YouTube
- No Country for Old Men (2007) - IMDb
- Zombieland - Wikipedia
- True Detective - Wikipedia (All time favorite)
- The Highwaymen (film) - Wikipedia
- 123456
- password
- 12345678
- qwerty
- 123456789
- 12345
- 1234
- 111111
- 1234567
- dragon
- Make it long - longer is stronger, at least 16 characters
- Make it random. The best option is to create a memorable phrase of 4 – 7 unrelated words. This is called a “passphrase.” For example: purplecoffeebusboy
- Make it unique. You need a different password for every single site. If you reuse the same one, it will be used against you the first time there is a breach at one of the sites where you have an account.
- Adobe
- Tumblr
- MySpace
- Dropbox
- last.fm
- Bitly
- Edmodo
- Diet.com
- My Fitness Pal
- Cafe Press
- Advanced Auto Parts
Regional Cooking
I don't think I am sophisticated enough to qualify for foodie status. For one thing, I'm fairly cheap. While I enjoy cooking, I don't enjoy spending hours in the kitchen, reading cookbooks or hunting down ingredients. I just like to eat. When I travel, I'm always on the lookout for regional dishes fixed the way locals eat them. If I miss out, I'm sad.
Eastern North Caolina
First off, where I'm from, barbecue is not a verb. It's not something you do. There is no such thing as a barbecue, singular. You are thinking of a cookout or maybe a grill if your mind is on an appliance. No, here in Eastern North Carolina, barbecue refers to one thing, pork, cooked low and slow and seasoned with a vinegar-based sauce that also contains chili flakes, brown sugar, salt, and pepper. The preferred way to prepare barbecue is a whole hog at the time over hardwood coals, preferably hickory. Admittedly, a good portion of it is prepared on gas grills that those proficient at hog cooking pull behind their pickup trucks to the site of the next pig picking, the name that we give to meals where barbecue is served. The traditional side dishes are coleslaw, potato salad, baked beans and fried cornbread, known as hush puppies.
Texas
Texas is the one other place in the world where what they call barbecue is truly fit to eat. Whether it is my favorite, brisket, ribs, burnt ends or even turkey. chicken or kielbasa, they know how to make it taste exquisite. Tex-Mex is the other regional dish you don't want to miss, particularly breakfast. Their breakfast tacos and migas are my favorites
Chicago
I'd never heard of Chicago-style hot dogs until well into the 21st century. Served on a sesame seed bun and not contaminated with ketchup in any way, they use condiments, including celery salt, that I have not seen anywhere else. The other enjoyable meal I ate in the windy city was Chicago-style pizza, a deep dish specialty that makes it hard to eat more than a couple of slices.
Maine
The two great Maine dishes to me are whole belly clams and of course, a steamed fresh lobster. What makes them taste even better is if you are half starving when you get them. I had both dishes while hiking in Maine as part of my Georgia to Maine hike of the Appalachian Trail, the last 240 miles (ca. 386 km) of which go from the New Hampshire border to the peak of Mount Katahdin in Baxter State Park. They sell seafood everywhere in Maine, it seems. I had the best clams I've ever eaten in a gas station / grocery store in the historic little town of Andover. I was talked out of getting a lobster roll after it was described as lobster and mayo on a hot dog bun, compared to the fresh fried clams that were sweet and tasty and nothing like the battered rubber bands I'd eaten my whole life.
Belfast
Forget drinking Guinness or eating Irish stew. If you are looking for the most authentic meal in the six counties of Northern Ireland, you're going to get it for breakfast. You may not need to eat again for the rest of the day. The Ulster fry consists of bangers {sausages), streaky bacon, beans, eggs, white pudding, black pudding and tomatoes, with the addition of griddle-baked soda farls (quarters) and potato bread. A few mushrooms are also acceptable, but don't get crazy and order has browns. They have a condiment, called brown sauce, that we don't use in the states. You should try it too. Furthermore, order some tea to go with your fry, fixed sweet and milky.
New York City
Walking in to an authentic slice joint anywhere in the five boroughs of New York to get pizza for a quick and affordable meal is a treasured experience. You can see anyone in these places from corner boys to Wall Street executives, and tourists, many, many tourists. I'll also confess to eating one of those dirty water hotdogs from a cart on the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Santa Fe
I did quite a bit of research before traveling to Santa Fe. The dish that was suggested as being most representative of the area was green chili stew. Man oh man, was it good. New Mexico's signature dish is typically made from roasted local green chili, cubed pork, potatoes, onions, garlic, broth, and various spices. The flavor is a mix of savory, spicy, and slightly smoky, with a rich, broth.
A few other places I'd like to shout out along with their foods are Miami and pork with black beans and rice, fixed Cuban Style. If you go to the South Carolina low country, get some shrimp and grits. A trip to Cincinnati is incomplete without a bowl of their signature chili. Paris is renowned for its fancy chefs, but just slip into a pâtisserie and sample some baked goods. If you're ever in Alaska, get the haddock. It's delicious.
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The Great Eastern Pine Forest
Although I live in town, the region where we are located is still largely rural. The military reservation for Ft. Bragg, covering 161,000 acres is close enough that artillery fire routinely rattles our windows. During World War 1, the government bought hundreds of farms and timber tracts to create the installation. Except for a few historical churches and cemeteries, all the civilian homes and buildings were removed. The land was allowed to return to its natural state as part of the great eastern pine forest. Carefully managed through the same type of controlled burning that the Native Americans once practiced, the landscape resembles what the Highland Scots who settled the area saw when they traveled up the Cape Fear River to settle here. Today, the land on Ft. Bragg is wild enough to support the endangered Red Cockaded Woodpecker, which lives and nests only in the cavities of mature long-leafed pine trees.
When I travel, I enjoy observing the signature characteristics of what region I am in. If you've ever flown into Ireland, you know why they call it The Emerald Isle. Seeing Pike's Peak towering over Colorado Springs is breathtaking. Send some time in New Hampshire and you will see why they call it The Granite State.
In North Carolina, especially In the coastal plain area where I am from, pine forests are our trademark. The nickname of our state's flagship university, The Tarheels comes from the industry we once had using pine resin to make the tar that sealed the hulls of wooden sailing ships.
1920s Fort Bragg, NC: A Visual Trip | by Matthew Peek | NC Stories of Service | Medium
Longleaf Pine Forests: Protecting and Restoring Habitat | TNC
Long Journey of the Highland Scots | NCpedia
Red-cockaded woodpecker - Wikipedia
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My Favorite iOS Time Killers
When you have a lot of time to kill and nothing but your phone,
what apps do you turn to as time killers?
My wife is running a 10-hour race this weekend. As usual, I'll be there as her crew, filling her water bottles, handing her food and bandaging blisters in short little bursts of time every hour. The rest of the time, I'll be left with just my phone as entertainment. Unfortunately for me, I don't game. Confessions of a Non-Gamer
I'm also not one to watch movies on a phone. After a few YouTube videos, I start to get restless. I'm a reader with attention span issues. I'm prepared to do without Internet, although hopefully I'll have connectivity. These will be my go to apps.
Pocket: Stay Informed - Pocket is where I save all the articles I want to read, but don't have time for. I also have a couple of RSS feeds that go straight to Pocket. I can add to it on my phone or my Mac. It's also integrated into Inoreader, my feed reader. You can download your saved articles for offline access.
Amazon Kindle - The cool thing about Kindle books is how little space they take up. I have hundreds of books saved on my phone.
NextDraft - I've been reading Dave Pell's daily links blog for over a decade. He suggests and comments on about a dozen stories a day and has a real knack for digging up fascinating content. He's as good at as anyone, even Kottke.
Medium: Read & Write Stories - Since its inception, I've read most Medium stories on Archive.ph. Then one of my cousins started a Medium blog and I got a subscription. It's been nice. Removing the friction and having the ability to subscribe to blogs has exposed me to a lot of good content.
Amerpie's Custom Tech Feed on Reddit - I will confess to being addicted to Reddit like no other place on the Internet. If you hang out in the wrong places there, it can be a real downer, but it also has some helpful and fun communities too. This is my collection of 37 tech related subreddits and where I hang out the most.
I don't think I'll die of boredom.
On Memory
Secretariat winning the Belmont Stakes
As a sports obsessed kid, I committed statistics to memory without even trying. I'm normally not much of a numbers guy, math and I are mortal enemies, but I could remember Ty Cobb's lifetime batting average, .367, the number of home runs Babe Ruth hit in his career, 714 and the name of the only pitcher to win 500 games, Cy Young. I knew the number of lengths by which Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes, 50 and the name of the only horse ever to beat Man O' War in. race, Upset. I learned all these facts in the 70s and they've never left me.
On the other hand, the plans Wonder Woman makes and shares for our present day lives are not usually something I can recall a day or two later. I know we are going somewhere to do something on a certain date, but I'm never really quite sure, without asking several times, where it is we're heading and what the activity is we are going to do. Future date do not stick in my mind.
I was on the Quiz Bowl team in high school, where groups of students from all over the state competed to answer the kind of questions that make you good at Jeopardy. Most of my teammates were Beta Club and National Honor Society members while I was a very determined C student trying to graduate from high school without ever doing any homework. I did not have a good work ethic when it came to school. If a subject required memorizing and regurgitating material, I was golden, but when you had to puzzle out answers like you do in Algebra and Chemistry, well, I did not shine there.
The years of hard drinking I subjected myself were bad for my memory in two ways. I killed a lot of brain cells. My IQ is measurably lower post recovery than it was when I was tested as a teenager. That's the price I paid for the lifestyle I lived. I'm just gald to be sober. eTh other thing that living in addiction does is give you a great many things over which to feel guilty. Drunks and addicts make poor decisions. They get in trouble. They let people down. Repeatedly. Acknowledging that and putting it behind me took years and honestly, some of those memories will never cease to be painful.
My Dad married my step-mom when I was 17. She worked for years for Northrup Grumman where she was hired as an administrative assistant and left as an executive. She is the only person to ever master my fathers difficult personality. She has always handled his various quirks and oddities with great skill and all of us admire her for that. We can't do it like she does. She is 79 now and has advanced Alzheimer's disease. Dad is her caretaker and it isn't easy. Like a lot of people with her illness, she can become verbally abusive for no apparent reason. She requires a lot of patience and compassion. I cannot tell if she still knows who I am, but I tell her I love her and hug her when we meet. If she wants to talk to Dad while I'm visiting, I keep quiet. They have a home health assistant who comes over five days a week and when I asked my step-mom last weekend how she like her, she didn't know who I was talking about.
Seeing what Alzheimers does to her memory helps me not feel sorry for myself because I lost 5% or 10% off my edge. I get by just fine. I'm not as good at some things I as I'd like to be, but I'm not handicapped, just a bit humbled. Even though Wonder Woman wishes I was better at retaining information that really matters, she still professes to be amazed when pull random facts out of the air. Somebody has to remember all of Roosevelt's vice presidents. It might as well be me.
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Time Travel
I've enjoyed all types of science fiction since I was in junior high school, but the one type of sci-fi novel that has always been my favorite are time travel books. I think because I also enjoy historical fiction and have spent many an hour imagining myself back in the past, the notion of time travel is particularly appealing. For some reason, I have never had a desire to go to the future. Even before climate change started ruining that for everyone, I just wanted to see all the different historical eras about which I've read so much.
Here are a few of my favorite time travel books.
Blackout (All Clear, #1) by Connie Willis | Goodreads and All Clear: A Novel (Oxford Time Travel) by Connie Willis | Goodreads - two novels that take place in London during The Blitz, they give a convincing look at what life was like in the tube shelters as the residents of the city underwent Nazi bombardment. The evacuation of children to the countryside is also covered as is the Dunkirk evacuation. The time travelers are historians from Oxford University in 2060.
11/22/63 by Stephen King | Goodreads - I think Steven King is as entertaining as any writer who has ever lived. I'm not a literary critic, I just like a good page turner and this book certainly qualifies. It has the usual King touches of life in Maine and many, many unexpected twists. You can tell King did a lot of research for the book, so even if your more knowledgable than most about the Kennedy assassination, you won't be put off by incorrect details.
Outlander (Outlander, #1) by Diana Gabaldon | Goodreads - My daughter looked at me dubiously when I asked to borrow her copy of the first Outlander book. I didn't know that it was considered a romance novel. Even after finishing the book, I wasn't convinced that it wasn't for men too. There are plenty of details about the rebellious Scots and the dastardly British Army. I enjoyed it.
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North | Goodreads - Unlike most time travel books I enjoy, this one didn't take place in a historical era. It covers the same years of the 20th century, over and over and over again, as Harry August dies and is reborn with total recall of the lives he's led in the past. Calire North does a good job of keeping it interesting.
The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein | Goodreads- Some of the later works of Robert A Heinlein were problematic, a little too right wing and way too sexist for modern sensibilities, but his novels from the Golden Age of science fiction are delightfully imaginative. Heinlein has a fertile imagination and a deft touch with dialog. This is the story of a man who was tricked into going into suspended animation only to awaken to a world where time travel is possible. He goes back to deal with the people who tricked him.
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Things I Wish I Was Better At
I want to be better but...
I am not down with the belief that life is a steady process of self-improvement. I don't think it's healthy to live with a constant attitude of "I should be better." That leads to the feeling of "I'm not good enough" and that feeling is horrible. There are plenty of areas where I'm really quite satisfied with the skill set I have because it serves me well, and spending time on improving it would take away time I could spend on the things that bring me joy.
I am happy with my skills in the following areas:
There are areas where I wish I were better. It's not that I feel incompetent, necessarily. I'd just like the benefits that come from mastering certain skills. When I see people who are wonderful at things where I just have basic competence, I want to improve.
Emotional Intelligence
I'm not giving up. I know I'm getting old, but I still would like to be better at people. My worst trait is inadvertently hurting the feelings of others by being too blunt or not phrasing things sensitively enough. I sometimes make jokes at a time when it's not appropriate, either. When I'm not feeling at the top of my game in my own skin, I tend to get careless about how I treat other people. One of my goals is to be more considerate, even when I am in a funk.
Writing
I'm trying to shake off the time I spent writing and editing technical documents and get away from short, choppy sentences and a style-guide frame of mind. I want to be more creative and gain the ability to describe emotional states in a relatable way. The writers I like the best are ones I can identify with the most. They just have a gift of capturing their own, and everyone else's humanity so well. That's what I am going for.
Aging
I want to be a cool old person, the kind that's definitely lot, a "get off my lawn" type. My goal is to admire people younger than me, not to judge them because they aren't carbon copies of my generation. I'm not seeking out respect based on the number of trips around the sun that I've made. I want to elicit as few eye rolls as possible from my grandchildren. You only get one chance to grow old, I don't want to screw it up.
Appreciating
I am constantly grateful for the life I have. I'm grateful for Wonder Woman, the kids and grandkids, the extended family and for the stuff I've accumulated. I've had the opportunity to meet some real giants through the years too, real world changers. I want to experience gratitude more deeply as I age. To understand and appreciate the struggles people go through is to be a better human, because doing that requires empathy. I hope I become more empathetic. I want to fully internalize the words of Fannie Lou Hamer, "Nobody is free until everybody is free." Just let me have the strength and the energy to never stop being part of the struggle working toward that ideal.
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Country Music but not THAT Country Music
When my brother and sister watched TV on weekday afternoons in the 70s, usually syndicated episodes of the Andy Griffith Show and Gomer Pyle, one of the primary advertisers was a company that specialized in greatest hits albums of country music stars. I must have watched 1,000 commercials trying to get me to order 8-tracks of Conway Twitty's classics. The three of us were found the music, distasteful, shall we say. Our parents were more into The Beatles and James Taylor. Country music was for our grandparent's generation and the member's of the family who still farmed.
While, I never did become a Conway Twitty fan, my attitude towards the music softened over the years as I opened my mind up and explored some of the classic albums. The capstone was my discovery of Uncle Tupelo and the whole alt-country movement, none of which would have been possible without the talented stars I disdained as a kid.
I still don't like the majority of what comes out of Nashville today. I don't like the way the industry as a while treated Little Nas X and Beyoncé. I don't like the fake country nostalgia and I certainly don't like the right-wing, flag waving of people like Lee Greenwood and Toby Keith.
What I do like are some classic albums, by talented people.
Red Headed Stranger by Willie Nelson
Live at Folsom Prison by Johnny Cash
Nothing Ever Hurt Me Half as Bad (as Losing You) by George Jones
Mama Tried by Merle Haggard
Buck Owens by Buck Owens
Hank Williams 40 Greatest Hits by Hank Williams
Van Lear Rose by Loretta Lynn and Jack White
What Makes us Happy - A List
Aside from making a three bullet gratitude list every day as part of my journaling ritual, I occasionally find benefit in doing a deep dive and making a semi-exhaustive list. It's fun to rediscover it later be accident or even better, it's great to look at on purpose when I am feeling a bit low. I like looking at other people's lists too, just to see if I'm overlooking anything myself. Make this a regular habit. You'll be glad you did.
What makes me happy
• Meeting my own expectations
• Progress towards a goal
• Friends
• Walking
• Being outside
• Socks
• Looking good
• Time travel books
• Alt-country music
• Excited conversations
• Eating out
• Sweating on purpose
• Being creative
• Cooking
• Fancy grocery stores
• My kids as adults
• Finishing a long to-do list
• Looking forward to things
• Quiet
• Hot showers
• Meditation
• Book stores
• Damascus, Virgina
• The recovery community
• Grandkids
• Being pain free
• Naps
• Get away weekends
• Regular weekends
• 60s folk music
• A good journal entry
• Free software
• Soup
• Clean, good smelling sheets
• Unexpected email from friends
• Kieth Richards
• My local newspaper
• Antifa kids
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Photo Sharing Websites
I enjoy looking at my photos. I take some time every day to look back at this day in history on one of the websites where I am still storing my archive. I also have an Aura Frame and an Amazon Echo Show that display photos all day long. I never got into Instagram as a means of sharing photos socially, but I've experimented with a few other sites, some that put the emphasis on the social aspect and others that are more for "serious photographers" Whatever that means. These days, I am primarily posting a couple of photos a day on Micro.blog and Mastodon, I even have a gallery for my 100 Strangers Project.
Here are a few other places where I and others I know post photos.
I Always Wanted to Write a Manifesto
This month's theme for the IndieWeb Carnival is self-expression. Here is my contribution.
I believe that to keep the most valuable parts of yourself, you have to give them away. I am not encouraging anyone, necessarily, to give away all their worldly goods and follow Jesus, although I would support that, as rare as it is. No, I believe the most valuable part of each of us is our learned experience. Each of us has spent a lifetime learning the lessons we had to to arrive where we are today. Many of us have learned to survive heartbreak. We have learned how to learn, how to be taught. Few of us sought pain as a teacher, but it taught us anyway. So did joy.
Somehow, we've reached a place where it's considered an imposition to ask anyone anything. I suppose no one wants to give an air of entitlement, so they hold themselves back. We all walk around surrounded by experts, and we still think that the adult, responsible thing to do is reinvent the wheel over and over again. We fear being trapped in a conversation with an enthusiastic person because it might be "cringe." Enthusiasm is considered to be uncool. It's not low-key. Everything is supposed to low-key these days.
Buck this trend. Put yourself out there in some way. Let people know what you love. Become approachable about the things that matter to you the most, It doesn't matter what they are. If you love something, the chances are good that someone else does too.
Now, I believe that a powerful and accessible way to give away this expertise you've spent a lifetime gathering is through writing about it and sharing that writing on a website that you own and maintain. It is not hard. People who have a passion for helping others express themselves have created all the tools you need to start writing and sharing the treasure that is uniquely yours. They've made it easy for you to tell us what we can only get from you.
The list of things I love is not secret. I write about the things on my list all the time. I love my wife, Wonder Woman. It took me 45 years and three practice marriages to find her. I love being given a second chance at life after nearly drinking myself to death and if that sounds painfully familiar, ask me for help and I will gladly give it to you. Discovering a community of dedicated world-changers gave me a purpose in life, and that purpose is to promote equality and the inherent worth of all people regardless of the prejudices society has about them. The list goes on and on because I am a passionate, opinionated outspoken curious person who isn't low-key about much. If I like it, I'm going to tell you about it, even risking coming off like the over-enthusiastic and excitable computer guy that I am at my core.
Do the world a favor. Share what you know. Do it publicly. What's the hardest thing you ever did? Start with that. Someone who is trying to do the same thing right now might just succeed because you took the time to give them the key they needed. Don't be afraid to admit failure, either. There are plenty of valuable lessons in failure. Be honest. Be yourself. Do it openly. We are waiting.
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Having Fun with Wikipedia
Not long ago, an Internet friend and I discovered a way to find out what the apps were that we installed on our first iPhones. For both of us, it was an app to access Wikipedia. One of the world's most popular websites, it's come a long way since it's inception. While there was a time when teachers discouraged students from using it, today Wikipedia is seen as a valuable resource full of links to its sources. It's such an excellent source of unvarnished truth in a world increasinglu controlled by maniacal oligarchs, that it's under attack by them. They seek to destroy what they cannot control.
There are several tools and websites that make Wikipedia rabbit holes fun to go down.
Weeklypedia- join a list to receive a weekly email with the top twenty Wikipedia articles and top five Wikipedia discussions from this weekk, available in English and more languages.
WikiTok - This website combines Wikipedia and TikTok to fight doomscrolling. WikiTok users can swipe through an endless stream of Wikipedia article stubs, discovering random facts and interesting information along the way.
I Made a Graph of Wikipedia... This Is What I Found - YouTube - A deep dive into the network of Wikipedia and some of the the most interesting, bizarre, and unique articles on the website.
Obsidian Web Clipper Templates - For any obsidian fans, this collection of templates for the web clipper includes on that allows you to import complete articles with media straight into your vault.
Use KIWIX to Access Wikipedia and Other Resources Offline AppAddict - You can download Wikipedia, along with all of the pictures and videos!
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Using Kagi Search Engine on a Mac - Software and Tips
For those not familiar with it, Kagi is a subscription based,
no-ads, privacy-focused search engine that provides an extreme level of
customization. Unlike DuckDuckGo, which relies on Bing for most of its
results, Kagi has its own scraper and while it does make API calls to
other search engines, it is not totally reliant on them. Understandably,
not everyone needs or wants to pay for privacy, but for people in
vulnerable communities or who are politically active in ways that aren't
supporting their nation's current government, it is a valuable resource.
Privacy Pass
Kagi recently released Privacy Pass, " a privacy feature that allows you to use Kagi Search without revealing your identity. When enabled, it lets you perform searches anonymously while still verifying that you're a valid Kagi subscriber. Think of it as a digital token system - similar to getting tokens at an arcade, where once you have them, you can use the services without showing your ID each time." To use Privacy Pass, you need to install a browser extension that enables it.
Kagi Search Extension
Kagi also has a search extension that automates setting it as your default browser and also provides for continuing a search session is a private browsing window.
Using Kagi with Safari
Since Apple limits the selection of custom search engines in Safari, due no doubt to the $18 billion that Google pays them for the right to be Safari's default search engine. There is a good work around though, Xsearch for Safari lets you instantly switch between multiple custom search engines from the Safari address bat. It works in macOS, iOS and iPadOS.
Kagi Features
Kagi has zero ads and zero trackers. It's so secure that what you search for can be totally separated from your identity. You can customize your results easily. If, like any sane and rational person, you don't want to see any stories from the popular news channel that was fines $700 million for lying on the air last year in your search results, you can block the site from ever appearing. If you realize just how many answers to life's questions can be found on Reddit, you can tell Kagi to prioritize the site. In fact, you can customize up to 1,000 sites, either by blocking them or by promoting results from them.
I created a list of sites that are over-represented in search results because of search engine optimization,. It's not that their content is good. It's that the sites are engineered through content farming and keyword usage to appear high in search results. You can copy and paste the list right into Kagi's settings and never have the sites pollute your searches again. Because of problems with the mainstream media in the US, I also created a list of alternative news sources that I told Kagi to prioritize.
You can make your own custom search environment. Kagi calls that a Lens. Kagi Lenses allow you to customize your searches by specifying which websites (and other parameters) you see in your results. They provide a few Lenses to get you started, such as one to search only online discussions and forums.
Have more questions about Kagi? Get all the answers here.
The Process of Leaving Gmail
As I have been writing about lately, we are in the process of detangling ourselves from big tech. Both of us have used Gmail for many years, and now we want to stop. It's going to be a long process. I studied this a bit and knew what I was getting myself into. There are some things I can share that will make this process easier for anyone who undertakes it.
I have my own domain. Anyone can buy one. They are just a few dollars a year. Most email services that you have to pay for, even iCloud from Apple, allow you to use your own domain when you set them up. The benefit to doing this is that if you ever want to move to another email service, you can take your domain with you, and you'll never have to change your address again.
The service I chose was Fastmail. Because I am a member of OMG.LOL, I got a 10% discount off the price of a two-person account. Still, it's going to run us about $90 a year for full-service accounts that include email, contacts, calendars and document storage. Fastmail was able to import all the mail from my Gmail account, all 156,000 messages as well as my hundreds of contacts in less than two hours. It will also continue to import messages as long as the account is open, so I am not under the gun to get the transition done rushing. I will probably never close my Gmail account. I will just stop using it over time as I transition.
Most of us use our email addresses for two primary purposes. One is to get email, of course. The other use is as our username at the many, many websites that require one. I have 276 accounts where my Gmail address is also my account name, ranging from the American Automobile Association to Zoom. Many of these are critical, like my bank, my insurance company, my pension plan and others. Some are inconsequential — like Airbnb, where it doesn't really matter if I just start a new account. There isn't a shortcut to changing these accounts, according to the Internet. I know because I asked. I'm just going to have to slog through a few each day until I get it finished.
I got a free app from the Apple Store for iOS called Unroll.me that allowed me to unsubscribe from a lot of the newsletters I receive without having to find an email from every one of them, find the link, click on it and go through the process manually. Instead of resubscribing to them using my new email address, I am going to use a feature of my RSS service, Inoreader that generates special email addresses that result in the newsletter being sent to them on my behalf. I can then read the newsletters using their app instead of receiving them in my email inbox. I can cut down on the email I get, while still keeping up with the newsletters I like.
I will also have to notify all of my contacts of my new email address. I'm already suffering a bit because I recently stopped using Facebook. I used Messenger quite a bit and there was no way to migrate or export those conversations. Now I am putting another potential stumbling block into staying in touch with some people. That's one of the unfortunate side effects of the process of getting away from the big tech companies. It is by design.
I am sure as this process moves along, I will learn more about how to better handle it. When I do, I will pass those tips along.
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Big Woody Harrelson Fan
I've enjoyed watching Woody Harrelson since I first saw him in Cheers in the 80s. His ability to play a wide variety of roles is evident from the nominations he's received for the Oscars, the Emmy's and the Golden Globes. I went to see his latest release, Last Breath today just because he was in it. I didn't know a thing about it. It's the true story about a crew of saturation divers working on the floor of the North Sea off the coast of Scotland and the fight to rescue one of them when he gets trapped in an accident during a repair operation.
Some of my other favorites from his career include:
My favorite, but unfortunate fact about Woody Harrelson is that he is the son of a hit man. His father was convicted in the contract killing of a judge. Really.
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Getting Untangled
The five big tech companies have gotten so deep into our lives that at times it seems almost impossible to cut them out. If you overlook the bad stuff, they make life much easier. Facebook is is easy enough for the oldest seniors to figure out. Amazon will not only sell you the stuff you want, it will provide you with all kinds of entertainment — TV, music and books, both to read and listen to. Microsoft products are installed on most of the world's computer, even on Macs, many of which have a copy of office. Two companies, Apple and Google, managed to corner the cell phone market. They also handle your email, your files, your music, your viewing needs and more of your health information than you are probably aware of.
Meta
We started detangling after the election when I saw the billionaire owners of the tech companies beginning to bow and scrape to the new fascist regime. I closed all my Meta accounts (Facebook, Instagram, and Threads). I went so far as to block all connections to facebook.com on my computer. Wonder Woman still uses Facebook for her mother's sake, but that is about it.
Amazon
I also canceled our subscription to the Washington Post. Wonder Woman found new vendors for some of her recurring needs, running shoes and sports nutrition products. I rescued by Kindle and Audible purchases from Amazon and started researching alternative marketplaces. We are not going to renew our Amazon Prime subscription.
Microsoft
We do not own a computer that uses Windows. Most of my ties to the company were through the job I recently left. I installed a copy of Libre Office on my computer to deal with any documents that come from Microsoft Office. I have a personal free Microsoft account that I do not use and that I am going to close.
At the risk of stressing out my wife, who is in the middle of a huge software implementation at work, I told her today that I wanted us to leave Gmail and Google Drive behind. I opened a Fastmail account using the discount from OMG.LOL, and I am starting the process of migrating twenty years worth of Gmail. I have to convert my Google Docs to another format and download all the photos and music I have stored on Google Drive too. I opened an account with Kagi and have already changed my search settings on all my devices. The process of de-Googling will take a while.
Apple
This is the company with which I will end up being most intertwined. They make the phone and the computer I use. I get too much joy from those devices to become a full-time Linux user or to adopt some off brand phone. I don't use them for email or bulk data storage and what I do use is under advanced data protection. I am working on moving to as many self-hosted services as I can manage for home use, including photographs and music.
I've adopted other privacy protecting tech practices as well, like using a VPN much of the time and using encrypted DNS 100% 0f the time to keep my Internet history private. We are already using several non-US companies for some of our needs and looking for end-to-end encryption on as many services as we can. I hope you see that the trend is moving towards people leaving thesse companies and their terrible practices. You can leave them too.
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Survival Skills
Dr. Maya Angelou, the poet, professor, and activist said, "When people show you who they are, believe them the first time." I don't think she was advocating for harsh, unforgiving judgment as much as she was advocating for the opposite of blind faith. The opposite of blind faith is the observant form. Making judgments is a vital survival skill. It is not a character flaw to evaluate the character of others. We are unable to surround ourselves with good and kind people unless we first determine whether they meet that criteria.
In the world of 2025, adults have had almost a decade to show what their beliefs are in the most treacherous political atmosphere in the US since the Civil War. The people who continue to support a man whose actions and words repeatedly demonstrate his contempt for important values, have shown us that they too have contempt for those values. The time for dialog and trying to understand them has long been over.
While it is indeed a gray world because not everything is black and white, there are some key performance indicators to demonstrate where people stand on racism, sexism and class differences. The biggest of those is the obvious one. I was pleased beyond measure to spend time with two of the most significant people from my formative years yesterday, Both of them are Republicans but neither of them voted for Trump. That kind of country over party regard for right and wrong is what we need and what we have so little of.
When People Show You Who They Are Maya Angelou - Poetry & Poets
When Someone Shows You Who They Are Believe Them
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This Week's Bookmarks - Self-Segregation, HP Sux, Amber Alerts, Recipes, IMDB, Avoiding Fees, Better Searches
Are We Self-Segregating on Social Media? - Dame Magazine - Many of the journalists criticizing social media platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon for being Liberal echo chambers are actually just upset because they worked hard to build a following on Twitter and now that it's a toxic hellstew, they are loathe to admit that their effort has gone to waste
Pluralistic: We bullied HP into a minor act of disenshittification - The Internet erupted in anger when it was revealed that HP was forcing consumers to be remain on telephone hold for a minimum of 15 minutes listening to recordings urging them to use web self service even if operators were available to speak to them
How to Turn Off AMBER Alerts on Apple Watch & iPhone - It's not that missing kids don't deserve help, it's just that your phone noisily going off in the middle of a funeral or a business meeting shouldn't be unavoidable
Off The Menu : Recipes and Cooking Food Network | Food Network - Use these recipes to make restaurant-style favorites at home.
He created one of the world’s first websites. It was IMDb. - Still, no one really knows who Needham is in these parts. The only sign that he founded one of the 50 most visited websites in the world — and one of the first 100 to 200 websites ever created — is the black car that takes him and his wife Karen, a former schoolteacher, around to movie theaters.
10 of the Most Ridiculous Fees (and How to Avoid Paying Them) | Lifehacker - Why am I being charged in the first place? What can I do to circumvent these fees and save my hard-earned money? Here are some of the most common fees that have been infuriating me lately, and what you can do to avoid paying them.
How 16 Companies are Dominating the World's Google Search Results (2024 Edition) - Detailed.com - They aren't dominating because they have the best content, they are dominating because they are designed to do well in Google Searches. They clog up your attempts to find good content. Learn how you can block them.
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Better Than Gold
I moved around as a kid, attending 13 schools, even though I went to the same high school for three years. As a result of all those moves, I was never able to keep up with any childhood friends from my younger years. There is one guy though, that's been a constant going all the way back to the 70's when we attended the same junior high. He and I went to the same Presbyterian church, so when I ran into him in the cafeteria in my first week at the new school, he was the only person I had any connection with.
He came from one of those families where everyone is above average. The youngest of five, his older brothers were a division one college football player at Duke, an ROTC scholar at Wake Forest and a West Pointer. His sister and Mom were teachers and his Dad was a retired Army officer and a successful businessman.
My buddy's name is James. We really bonded when he came to work at my family's farm. We spent long, long hours picking vegetables by the bushel, pulling acres of weeds once August came around, we mixed football practice in with the farm work. We also caught a break over that summer when we got to take driver's ed together. James was a natural athlete. I was more of a church softball guy but be never made me feel any less for it.
We went through high school together, sharing some classes. We also drank some beer, listened to many records and hung out. I was making alcohol influenced bad decisions even in those days, and he helped me recover from a couple of those. By the end of our senior year, I was estranged from my family and became a long-term house guest of his. His mother treated me with great tenderness. That she really and truly cared was very evident. She just had a gift for nurturing and a soft spot for me personally. She recently celebrated her 90th birthday. Wonder Woman and I went to the party, and she greeted me as warmly as ever, although I hadn't seen her in years.
After high school, James went to one of our state's flagship schools on a ROTC scholarship. He met and married a beautiful flight attendant at the chapel at Ft. Bragg. When the Gulf War happened, he was one of the guys sitting in the desert for months wondering if Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons. Not too long after the war was over, he got out of the Army and used his business degree to land a few management jobs, eventually making his way back to North Carolina. Although he was raised in the church, it was more of a cultural thing than a serious conviction until he was introduced to the doctrines of the Seventh Day Adventists, a church he joined and became dedicated to.
He felt the call that some feel to become a minister, enrolling in the Adventist Seminary in Michigan. He also decided that the Army was where he was going to do his ministry as a chaplain. He's still in the Army today at the age of 60, a full bird colonel with a couple more years to go before he retires. James has lived all over the states and in Europe. He also spent several years deployed to combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, ministering to soldiers who were fighting and dying in some of the worst parts of those wars.
He and his wife had a daughter and two sons. I knew his oldest two kids briefly before he went to seminary, but I've watched all three of them grow up through pictures. James and I always stayed in touch. I've always had his phone number and his email address. His mom's recent birthday party was the first time I'd laid eyes on him in quite a while. It was the first time he's met Wonder Woman. His job will bring him back to Ft. Bragg, near where I live, regularly for a while and we have plans to meet for breakfast at my beloved local diner when it does.
For over four decades, he's been there for me whenever I needed him. He talked me through the lowest spots in my recovery from addiction. He hasn't judged me for some of my questionable life choices. He's been a gentleman to everyone I've been married to, a number a little higher than the average guy. Hopefully, you have a friend like him. You're fortunate if you do. I know I am.
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Password Paradise
The security measures we have to take in the modern era are generally a gigantic pain in the ass. At some point we had to stop using the same password everywhere. Then we had to add in uppercase letters, then numbers, then special symbols. Our passwords had to be longer than before. Every smart person who thought that 12E456 was a good password got schooled. After all the password drama, we had to start using two forms of authentication: getting a text, getting an email or using a special app like Microsoft Authenticator. It gets even more confusing wjhen computers start to want your fingerprint or to scan your face like the iPhone does.
We have a good idea of what the most common passwords are because of files recovered from giant security leaks, and there have been many, many of those.Common passwords are so well know that they have their own Wikipedia page. Every black hat hacker in the world has the database of common passwords ready to use to crack accounts whenever they have a chance.
Top 10 Most Used Passwords
Making a Good Password
You have no idea how many times over the years that I have seen people panic when I've asked them to change their password when working with them on support issues. Some people, when put on the spot, simply can not come up with one, and if they do, the chances of them immediately forgetting it are a sure bet. Here are some tips on creating strong passwords.
Have You Been Pwned?
Go to this website right now to see how many times your email address has been found in a security breach. My Gmail account is 20 years old. It's been compromised many, many times.
Password Manager
Lastly, you need to get a program known as a password manager and I';m not talking about the one in your browser. If you aren;t tech savvy, get someone who is to help you set this up. You've heard this before, but it is now time to act. Here are a few suggestions of programs you can use on your computer and your phone.
#1 Password Manager & Vault App with Single-Sign On & MFA Solutions - LastPass
Password Manager & Extended Access Management | 1Password | 1Password
Best Password Manager for Business, Enterprise & Personal | Bitwarden
Use the Passwords app to create, manage, and share passwords and passkeys across Apple devices - Apple Support
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What Were Your First Seven Jobs?
As a kid growing up in a house where there wasn't much disposable cash, I learned early on that I had to figure out a way to hustle up some dough if I wanted spending money. In the 70s you could collect glass bottles and turn them in at the grocery store for cash. The going rate was a nickel apiece. My step-father was the editor of the local paper, The Harnett County News, and he let me sell newspapers on the street on the day the weekly edition was published. A couple of years later, aluminum cans replaced steel ones and a new opportunity for scavenging was born. I did that for a while, and then I finally had a job where I had pay taxes. I was 12.
Job # 1 - Newspaper Delivery
By the time I was in sixth grade, I was deemed old enough to have my own paper route. We'd moved to a new town, one where the newspaper, The New Bern Sun Journal, was printed six days a week. I split the six-mile route with my younger brother, who took the densely packed first mile. I pedaled the remaining miles on my bike, equipped with a front basket and two rear baskets, plus a bag slung around my shoulders. We hadn't had the route too long when my brother was struck by a careless driver and injured pretty severely. I took over his portion. On Saturdays, I had to go knock on doors to collect payment from my customers. Nothing was automated. I'm still mad at the people who tried to stiff a sixth grader for free newspaper delivery.
Job # 2 Farm Hand
By far the most difficult job I ever had was working on my uncle's farm from the time I was 14 until I was 18. I went to live with him after being asked not to come back to the junior high I attended in Jacksonville, NC just because I happened to have a little tiny bit of weed in my pocket one day. I may have tried to smoke it on the playground too. Anyway, my uncle had a small farm of just 60 acres. We cultivated the entire property with vegetables, known as truck farming in our area. The two of us, along with a tenant who lived on the farm and several high school students we hired, were responsible for all the labor. We sold all the produce directly to the public on the farm; none of it was taken to any market. Some were row crops we allowed our customers to pick at a discounted price, but the majority of the harvest was gathered by a farm employee. Picture 1,000 tomato plants raised waist-high, acres of butter beans, snap beans, field peas, English peas, Irish potatoes, pumpkins, squash, okra, cucumbers, peppers, watermelons, collard greens, turnip greens, mustard greens, and my least favorite crop of all: sweet corn, also known as roasting ears in the rural community. More farm tales
Job # 3 Landscaping
During holiday breaks from school , like Christmas and Easter, I would take advantage of the opportunity to earn extra money by working for a landscape company at commercial sites like banks, liquor stores and a large Monsanto factory on the outside of town. In the days before there was a large Latino presence, high school kids actually did work like this.
Job # 4 Bus Boy
My senior year in high school was tumultuous. By Thanksgiving, my girlfriend was pregnant. By the end of January, I left the farm after a big fight with my uncle. I lived briefly with my Dad who had just moved back to the state before finishing out high school, basically couch-surfing. My high school football coach called in a favor with a college buddy and helped me land a job working at Shoney's busing tables for minimum wage, money I was glad to have. I went there straight from school and usually worked until around 11PM. It was not a fun year.
Job # 5 Soldier
I started my time in the military by joining the National Guard when I was still in high school. For the last few months of my senior year, I spent one weekend out of four at the armory or in the field with the unit I would join after completing my training. They let me come in my civilian clothes and observe because they knew I needed the money, a little less than a hundred dollars was what I received each month. Eleven days after I graduated, I left my girlfriend, then seven months pregnant, for basic training. Our son was born about two weeks before I graduated.
Job # 6 Carpet Cleaner
After returning from training and immediately getting married, I moved a couple of counties away from where I'd gone to high school to take a job at a business owned by my aunt and uncle. It was one of the major mistakes of my life. The promise of a living wage they'd made me turned out to be 75 cents above minimum wage. I had no car, knew no one in town, had a wife and a baby and was doing a job that I had no experience in, cleaning carpets in the mansions of millionaires in the wealthy golf community of Pinehurst. It didn't last long. Thankfully, the head enlisted man of my National Guard unit offered me a way out of it one weekend as a bribe to keep me from murdering the sergeant in charge of my mortar crew. That's another story.
Job # 7 Carpenter
The last job I held before entering active duty was doing commercial construction for the civilian company my first sergeant ran as his civilian occupation. He helped me get the tools I needed and assigned me to work with experienced carpenters to learn how to do everything from preparing foundations, framing the floors walls and roof to hanging doors and installing baseboards and molding. I learned how to read blueprints and building plans and though briefly about making a permanent living doing that work, but the pay and benefits could not compete with what I could earn in the regular Army. I thanked the boss and enlisted in the regular Army. I was 19.
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