Writing
- I react calmly to stressful situations
- I am intelligent and resourceful. I find solutions to problems. I am not defeated by them.
- Accessibility
- Beginner HTML
- JavaScript
- Blogging Platforms
- Static site generators
- Code generators
- Code snippets
- Analytics
- Guestbooks
- Forms
- layouts
- Web Hosts
- Webrings
- Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth (motion study?)
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (thanks, Mom!)
- Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi (in 5th grade!)
- Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein (the first of many SciFi books)
- A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn (changed my life)
- Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (best…novel…ever)
- From Here to Eternity by James Jones (pre WW2 Hawaii)
- The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter (about turn of the 20th century baseball players)
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (planted a seed in my character)
- Fields of Fire by James Webb (Vietnam novel by the Virginia senator)
- Woodie Guthrie, A Life by Joe Klein (recommended by Bruce Springsteen)
- The Rider by Tim Krabbé (a novel about cycling)
- Alcoholics Anonymous by Bill W. and others (life saving)
- The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hahn
- The New Centurions by Joseph Wambaugh (the best police procedural writer ever)
- To record TV shows watched - Trakt
- Track App Purchases - AppRaven
- To track music - Last.fm
- To record books read - Goodreads
- Private Location Tracking - Geofency
- Location Bookmarking - Rego
- Step Counting - Pedometer++
- Heart Rate Data - HeartWatch
- Sleep Data - Autosleep
- Walking/Running - Runmeter
- To connect different apps - IFTTT
- Journal app - Day One
- Notes App - Obsidian
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This Week's Bookmarks - Buffy Returns, $1 Million Puzzle, Using Signal, Attending Protests, Night Experiences, Chatbot Limits, More Movies
Sarah Michelle [[Gellar]] Says Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Return Is for the Fans - The Slayer herself revealed that a Buffy revival has been in the works for a while ahead of this week's announcement.
Officials Are Offering $1 Million to Anyone Who Can Decode This Ancient Script | Smithsonian - The enigmatic Indus Valley civilization left behind a script that today's historians haven't yet deciphered. While amateur theories abound, scholars are increasingly relying on computer science to crack the code
How to: Use Signal - Signal is a free and open-source application for Android, iOS, and desktop that employs end-to-end encryption ![[zz-attachments/b6c7153398baebdb9a3e3f70bbea364d_MD5.jpg]] to keep communications safe.
Attending a Protest - Protecting your electronic devices and digital assets ![[zz-attachments/b6c7153398baebdb9a3e3f70bbea364d_MD5.jpg]] before, during, and after a protest is vital to keeping yourself and your information safe, as well as getting your message out.
Five extraordinary night-time experiences around the world - From fiery festivals to nature's most dazzling "sky-dance", interest in the night skies is booming, with "noctourism" poised to be a major travel trend in 2025.
Chatbot Software Begins to Face Fundamental Limitations | Quanta Magazine - Recent results show that large language models struggle with compositional tasks, suggesting a hard limit to their abilities.
AMC Theaters Stubs-A List Increases to Four Movies a Week - Film fanatics are getting a greater value for their money, too. They'll receive an additional weekly reservation, allowing them to see up to four movies instead of the current allotment of three per week.
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Telling Stories
My Dad can be aggravating every so often. He's conservative and opinionated and not a little arrogant. He got religion about thirty years ago and that made it worse. Despite all of that, he is as entertaining as anyone I have ever known for one reason. He is a supremely skilled and captivating storyteller. Granted, most of the stories are about him, but he's lived an interesting life, and he weaves all sorts of different elements into his tales. Unlike many combat veterans, he loves to talk about his time at war. It's rarely about the ugly parts. Usually, he has funny stories about different men in his unit during his first tour in Vietnam or men he flew with during his second tour.
One of my favorite stories is the one about one of his young soldiers who Dad said was the happiest American in Vietnam. Dad was a second lieutenant in charge of a platoon on armored cavalry soldiers. He knew this private stateside, before they deployed because the kid had gone through training at Ft. Know while Dad was also stationed there. He's found the private crying one day outside the barracks and with his best fatherly attitude (he was 21 at the time), asked the kid "What's the matter son?"
"Sir," the young man answered, "My girlfriend, she's going to have a baby." My Dad assured him that he could arrange leave for him to go home and "make things right." "But sir, you don't understand. Her Mom."
Dad asked,"What about her Mom, son"
"Sir, she's pregnant too."
Dad said it took a few seconds for the situation to become clear. Yes, the answer is yes. This young draftee from Nowheresville, Oklahoma had gotten both his girlfriend and her mother in the family way at the same time and then left for the Army. So, yeah, when he ended up in the jungles of Vietnam fighting a way, he was relieved that he wasn't back home being murdered by two irate women.
Telling stories runs in the family, though. My grandfather never presented himself as a military man, although he had been on active duty before Pearl Harbor and didn't get discharged until 1946. His World War Two stories were mainly about geography and culture. The National Guard unit he joined during the depression had been activated and sent to Trinidad in the later 30s. He pronounced it Trinny-dad. There was, of course, no combat there, but he played a lot of baseball. He'd been all over the states and spent time in England before landing in mainland Europe where he proclaimed to he's gone all the way across France and Germany until he "hugged necks with the Russians at the Elbe River." Some of his stories were harrowing in their own way. His unit liberated a German POW camp holding Russian prisoners. Before running from the approaching US Army, the Nazis turned loose their Alsatian dogs on their prisoners in a final spurt of brutality. The Russians, rather than scrambling in fear, instead caught the dogs and promptly ate them. I heard that story many times and thinking about it today reinforces the "war is hell" ethos like no other I've ever heard personally.
Some of my stories also take an ironic turn like that. I was in the military during the Cold War, so I thankfully, I have no combat tales. My personal war stories are from working manhunts after prison escapes. The most surreal moment from that period was when I was sent to escort a bloodhound handler into a patch of woods, where minutes before three prisoners who'd managed to penetrate a fence fled under gunfire. Two of the prisoners were being held at the prison where I worked even though they hadn't been convicted yet. They'd escaped from jail and were being held at my unit because they were a security risk. Yeah, no shit. Since they were not yet convicted felons, the "shoot on sight" law that is supposed to keep criminals from climbing fences technically did not apply to them. Thus, my captain as he pushed me into the woods to look for then cautioned me to "Try not to shoot them." Read the whole story.
Those stories are memorable, but they aren't my favorites. I loved to listen to my grandmother's tales of cooking for her six brothers on a wood stove, trying in vain to quell their appetites after they'd spent the days plowing with mules. I also love to hear my mother recount her early hardscrabble life living in an old farmhouse without running water or adequate heat where sometimes the hot water bottle she took to bed with her would fall to the floor where she'd find it frozen in the morning when she crawled from under the quilts.
It's not just the older generation that can spin a story. My kids love to elaborate on the things they did to exasperate me when they were growing up. My oldest daughter, who I dearly love, has and has always had a slightly sharp tongue. She used it one too many times on a trip home from a friends' lake house one day back in the 90s and I turned around in the car to pop her on the leg as a warning, except I didn't. I tagged her brother, who, while not an angel, was an innocent bystander in this case. "Dad, you got me!" was his indignant response. I was doubly furious. When we finally got home, my daughter, sensing that she had pushed things too far, climbed over the other children in the back seat and took off running as fast as she could with me chasing her. Lucky for both of us, I didn't catch her. Not funny at the time but hilarious to hear then tell it now.
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I Hate PDFs, Here Are Some Tips
First off, just let me say I hate PDFs in the workplace because even in 2025, few people understand all the ins and outs of working with them. All they know is that the boss needs to buy them or IT needs to give them some expensive software, preferably top of the line Adobe software, so they can do what they want with a single damn document they got from some seminar.
If you occasionally work with documents saved as PDFs, you can probably avoid purchasing, or worse, subscribing to expensive services to create, join, split, annotate and convert files. The key word is occasionally. If your everyday workflow involves working with PDFs all day, you need to go ahead and invest in the tools you need.
Both Macs and PCs can create PDF files from just about any file you can print. Where folks run into trouble is when they get a PDF file created by someone else, and they want to edit it as if it were a Word document. It is not. When you look at a PDF, you are essentially looking at a picture of a document rather than an original. Still, depending on your pain point, there are free tools you can use to make some modifications to PDFs.
There are also free tools to do OCR (object character recognition) on PDF files so that you can search the text in them for keywords. Not every PDF has a searchable layer. It can be created if it doesn't exist, but it isn't always there by default.
One last bomb blast from your IT guy - do not come at me with some 1GB 800-page PDF full of tiny text and full color pictures and complain about anything because you are asking for trouble if you expect to work with files like that. You just are.
PDFgear - Free PDF Editor Software & Online tools
Annotate a PDF in Preview on Mac - Apple Support
How To Edit a PDF on Mac—Three Fast and Free Ways | Smallpdf
PDF online - FREE | Adobe Acrobat
PDF OCR - Recognize text - easily, online, free - PDF24
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Get Ready for More
If you aren't a regular reader of Linkage, the daily collection of interesting places to visit on the Internet, you really should be. Earlier tonight i shared the news that I've decided to stop working at the university where I've been full time since 2022. My new ambition is to be able to devote my time to writing in a way I never have been able to before. Writing is what brings me the most joy these days but I have had to cram it into a life with a full time job, family time that I treasure and trying to be a supportive husband to Wonder Woman. I've always enjoyed helping people with technology issues, so my job wasn't unenjoyable, but like any workplace, sometimes personalities and politics get in the way of the mission. Well, not any more, not for me. My last day in my 50s will be my last day as an employee. My first day of the final retirement is going to be my 60th birthday.
This is the real culmination of a dream I've had for a while. There are so many things in my life that have taken a back seat. I'll have time to cook again. I won't have to go for walks in the coldest hour of the day. I can spend evenings doing things with Wonder Woman as opposed to doing things near her.
My vision for writing is to be able to spend more time developing ideas, spending some time mind mapping or outlining what I want to write about. I may even start proofreading before I publish! Usually my editing is of the oh, shit variety, after I spot a mistake or three on a live blog post. I get email from developers fairly regularly asking me to consider reviewing their apps and now I will have time to do more of that. It would really make me happy to be able to lend a hand to someone who comes up with a great idea to get more attention for their work. I don't have the stress or pressure faced by commercial journalists.
For this blog, where tech takes a back seat and I tend to write more autobiographical prose along with social commentary, nothing will change about the format or direction. I'll just be able to develop some ideas more fully. It is a precarious moment in time. Documenting how we get through these next four years is important. I want to be a part of a support network of progressive voices who advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in the face of an assault on vulnerable people. Activists absolutely need to be in the streets, but no one should discount building communities online. If the right wing's Internet presence is a problem for the left, the same can be true in reverse. Keeping people engaged and involved and ready to vote isn't a given. I'm not planning to become a pundit. I just want to be the same outspoken citizen I have tried to be since conservatism turned so poisonous.
I am excited and happy. Life is awesome.
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Quitting But Still a Winner
I did something today I've only done a couple of times in the 21st century. I quit my job. Technically, leaving my previous job wasn't quitting. It was retiring. I spent 27 years working for the state of NC before sailing off into the sunset. I ended up not liking my first shot at retirement, but I think this time will be different. For the past two years I've been an end user support specialist at a private university in the town where I live. The students and 99% of the faculty were great to work with. The atmosphere in tech has really changed though. A lot of time and energy is spent on what is essentially security theater. While there is information the law requires an IT department do everything in its power to protect, there are also lots of restrictions placed on folks that are there purely for show and don't do a damn thing to make data more secure. It makes me crazy. So I turned in my notice. My last day at work will also be my last day in my 50s. My 60th birthday will be the first day of my second retirement.
To celebrate my impending freedom, I found a few good stories about people leaving jobs to share with you.
Quitting Stories- Funny & True Stories | NotAlwaysRight.com
The CRAZIEST Job Quitting Stories You Will Ever Hear - Don’t Try These Yourself - YouTube
30 Hilarious Ways People Quit Their Jobs
4 of the wildest quitting stories we've ever heard
‘I’m outta here': Employees Share Stories About Quitting on the First Day - FAIL Blog - Funny Fails
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Let's Talk About Corporate Hypocrisy
When the Republican's in the NC legislature pushed through the nation's first bathroom bill in 2016, other states banned travel there, artists like Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam canceled concerts, major corporations canceled plans to open offices and the NCAA pulled the college basketball Final Four tournament. By the time the bill was rescinded, North Carolina lost billions of dollars in revenue as the nation punished it for enacting a spiteful and hate-filled law. Times have changed. Today the president of the NCAA issued a fawning statement with a positive spin on Trump's executive order banning trans athletes. In eight years time, the NCAA lost what little moral compass it ever had.
To give this exploitive and hypocritical organization, tonight I'll feature a few other less than respectable organizations.
2016
NCAA pulls 7 championship events out of North Carolina - ESPN
2025
Disney is once again giving money to anti-LGBTQ+ Republicans who passed the "Don't Say Gay" law | Salon.com - the recipients include Republicans who supported the law that banned discussions about LGBTQ+ issues in public schools through third grade, even though the company, under pressure from its employees, previously opposed the measure, officially called the Parental Rights in Education bill.
Facebook settles a federal lawsuit over allegations it favored foreign job applicants : NPR - This is the same company that just crawled into bed with MAGA and its America First Agenda.
Dove's 'Real Beauty' campaign: Hypocritical? | The Week - After earning praise for featuring women who were not professional models in an ad campaign, Dove decided to solicit candidates with this pitch - "Beautiful arms and legs and face... naturally fit, not too curvy or athletic!" the ad read. "Beautiful hair & skin is a must!!!"
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Affirmations - IndieWeb Carnival for February 2025
This month, the topic for those participating in the monthly IndieWeb Carnival is "affirmations." I've long enjoyed reading poetry and collecting quotes. I will stop whatever I am doing if I hear a recording of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Winston Churchill, two of the greatest speakers to ever be recorded. I am inordinately fond of the power of language. Several years ago, I decided to see if it was possible to achieve happiness through adopting positive behaviors. Among the many things I tried over the course of the year-long experiment was internalizing affirmations. I didn't use an app for it or search through my quotes collection. Instead, I looked at the parts of my life that caused me the most stress. Then, I flipped that by determining what my favorite things were about myself.
Affirmations for Stress
The year I undertook this project was one of changes. After 15 years of working in elementary and middle schools supporting teachers and students using Apple computers, I switched to working in high schools where everything was Windows-based. I transitioned from using computers and software with which I was intimately familiar, to systems I loathed and had done my best to avoid for a long time. Not only that, I was faced with learning the ins and outs of the faculty and staff at four giant campuses. I went from a life on cruise control to one where the stress level was ramped up by the demands of high-stakes online testing, students striving for college admissions and ramped up security concerns.
Since I was trying everything in my power to make that year the best I could, I used two affirmations, which I wrote out by hand in a notebook every morning.
I repeated those affirmations to myself before I got out of my car in the mornings as work and I had post-it notes taped to my laptop as constant reminders. I was doing a lot of other positive things that year, meditating, walking several miles a day, striving for eight hours of sleep a night, eating healthy. Combining all of those things did, in fact, keep the stress level down. Despite my misgivings, I finished out my career truly enjoying the time I spent working with older students and adapting to a whole new workflow.
Having a Purpose
The other word game i played with myself, not only that one year but right until this very day was taking the time to determine my purpose. What is it I'm on earth to do? It's a hallmark of my personality to like the things I like as much as I possibly can. I am not one to dip my toe into the pool. I do a cannonball. Because I am usually convinced that my latest passion is the best thing ever, I naturally try to convince other people to take part. When I started rescuing parrots, I had two aviaries built at my house within a year. I set up anyone who was interested with a bird of their own and helped them outfit a habitat and choose the right food. When I was into cycling, my greatest joy was helping people train for and complete their first 100-mile bike rides. When it comes to tech, I have spent the past thirty years showing people how to use various gadgets and programs to be more productive and creative. With blogging, I went from one blog to four in just a few months and I evangelize for the IndieWeb every chance I get.
My Purpose — To let my curiosity and enthusiasm create and nurture passions I can share with others.
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Cost vs. Benefit
When making a decision is easy, it is because there is little to no downside to taking action. I decide to get up early most mornings because I treasure being able to relax with coffee before heading to my office. I choose to be polite to most people I deal with because making people smile and being helpful makes me feel good. Those are easy choices to make for me today, although they are more difficult for some. Getting out of bed is a real challenge when you are depressed. Engaging with people in a friendly way can be intimidating for the painfully shy or introverted folks who do not want to invite uncomfortable small talk.
Often times, deciding to do something that's supposed to be good for me can be challenging. Currently, I am really struggling to be more physically active. I've used the fact that I had my knees replaced a few years back to serve as my excuse for not walking, an activity that I've enjoyed most of my life. I walked before work and at lunch for years, listening to podcasts and books or just enjoying the sounds from the local park or the neighborhood. Now, to my utter embarrassment, even short walks leave me breathing uncomfortably hard. My pace is glacial. To alleviate that, I'll have to put up with it until my body starts to adapt to the increased activity. I'll get to spend less time comfortably reading on my couch. That is the only downside. The upside is weight loss, better health, a longer life expectancy and no longer gasping for air anytime I have to walk uphill. Sounds like a no-brainer, but it hasn't been easy to decide to take the first walk.
Then there are other times when it's not obvious what the best course of action is. Life in America for people with the values I hold dear is full of outrage right now. Every day we find out about some horrible new thing the fascists are doing to vulnerable people. Today I learned that they've removed access to information on a host of topics including hate crime data, military suicides, teen dating violence and access to victim's compensation. It makes me crazy. Of course, I could easily filter out that news and read about new laptops and predictions for the next iPhone. I could just declare that my mental health is too important to risk being constantly angry about things I cannot control. I'm not going to do that, of course, due to having a conscience and not wanting to be a selfish older white guy who acts like nobody else matters as long as I've got mine. That's the attitude that let MAGA take over in the first place.
Every so often it is helpful to make lists of pros and cons or to seek counsel from friends, whether they be IRL or from online communities. Other times, going with my gut instinct is the only thing I can do. Every single day is full of choices. Because I am a world-class procrastinator, my choice is often to just wait on more information. That can sometimes be good, frequently it isn't, But, I give myself a break. Like almost everybody, I am doing the best I can with what I've got to work with. I just have to keep moving forward.
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Make Flying Less Miserable Using These Guides
I only fly two or three times a year. Most of my trips start at the regional airport a few miles from my home and involve changing planes at one or more major hubs, like Atlanta or Charlotte. If you've done much post-9/11 flying, you know the drill. Or, rather, you know that the drill is constantly changing. Shoes on or shoes off? Laptop in or out of the bag? How big can my deodorant be? That's just the stuff you have to know to get past the very first hurdle!
Then there are the rules about luggage size, the number of bags, worries about food and drink, your rights as a passenger when it comes to delays and canceled flights. Just how long can you be made to sit on the tarmac if your plane can't take off? Even if you are a seasoned traveler, there are extra steps to take for longer, overseas flights to have the best experience.
Even if you can afford a first class experience from beginning to end, sometimes the best you can hope for is to just suffer less than normal. The following guides don't answer every question, but they are a good start to having a better experience.
TSA's Top Travel Tips | Transportation Security Administration - Get TSA pre-check, Traveling with strollers, car seats and breast milk, Military travel guide, Up-to-date rules on liquids
10 Health Tips for Plane Travel | Northwestern Medicine - Many people experience some form of discomfort or sickness when they travel by plane. Dry mouth, aching limbs, swollen ankles — they’re par for the course on plane rides and they are, in fact, caused by the very environment you’re traveling in. That means there’s nothing you can do to eliminate these issues entirely, but you can take a few steps in the right direction
7 Must-Know Tips for First-Time Flyers - NerdWallet - You want to head for the gate with the swagger of a seasoned traveler, but that's hard to pull off when you don't know how much it costs to check a bag, or what to expect when you go through airport security.So how can you deal? Reviewing these tips before takeoff can boost your confidence, making your trip easier and more worry-free.
10 Airport Tips & Tricks for Stress-Free Travel - Airports and air travel can be stressful and confusing for new and seasoned travelers alike, though. With all the steps to navigate, rules, and the need to get the timing down just right, flying can quickly become overwhelming without a little help.
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Shaving Sucks. Why Do We Do It?
I joined the military when I was 18. Every enlisted soldier's introduction to that lifestyle is basic training, a nine week period where other soldiers a few years older than you yell at you a lot and make you do things that don't always make a lot of sense. One of the things they make you do is shave your face every day, whether you need to or not. God help you if your bear growth is faster or heavier than normal, because you will spend much time defending your genetic abnormality to green suited screaming men who do not believe that you adequately groomed yourself that particular morning.
I've worn facial hair almost all of my post-military life. I don't like to shave. It takes time I'd rather use to something more useful. I don't like the mess, the cleaning up of the mess, the potential for cutting myself, the cost of razors and blades or anything else associated with the ritual society inflicts on us.
The freaks who perpetuate the idea that shaving is necessary have existed throughout history. It didn't make any more sense in the olden days than it does now. Read on.
The History & Evolution of Shaving
History of Women's Shaving – The Razor Company
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Technology Edition of the Blog Questions Challenge
I'm apt to write about almost anything, but the subject that got me into blogging was tech. It's only fitting that I end up participating in this current iteration of the blogging question challenge.
I was challenged by Kyle - Blog Questions Challenge: Technology Edition - Kyle's Tech Korner
When Did You First Get Interested In Technology?
I started late. For years, I avoided anything related to computers because I thought they required something I didn't have — advanced math skills. I associated them with the brainy guys who read books on physics from high school. My brother was one of those guys, and he had a computer, so that reinforced my belief. It wasn't until my uncle, whose twin passions were coon hunting and tractor pulls, got a computer that I thought I might be able to learn something about using a PC. It was his DOS 386 where I first logged on to an online community, Prodigy and learned that what you can do with technology is practically limitless. It was December 1993. I was 28.
What's Your Favorite Piece Of Technology All-Time?
It's a toss up between the first computer I built myself and my first Mac, but I'm going with the Titanium Powerbook G4 my job provided me soon after it was released in January 2001. It's the computer I used to transition from the Classic Mac OS to Mac OS X. I used it to run old Mac admin tools like Mac Manager and Network Assistant and the late, great productivity suite, Apple Works. I even had a painfully slow copy of PC Anywhere on it for doing Windows chores required by my job. I was so enamored with Apple tech that I learned more in six months of using that Powerbook than I had in years of Windows usage.
What's Your Favorite Piece Of Technology Right Now?
I have almost every bit of Apple kit one can get apart from AirPods and that dumb ass strap on face computer, no disrespect to anyone who spent $4K on one. And, although I love my phone and never, ever worry about using it too much, my favorite piece of gear is my M2 MacBook Air — the fastest, most responsive laptop I have ever used. I have an M3 iMac at work, but I prefer the MBA. I associate it with fun and learning and all the emotions that come with having done so much writing with it over the past year of non-stop blogging.
Name One New Cool Piece Of Technology We'll Have In 25 Years!
It's my sincere hope that whatever we have in 25 years is a tool developed outside of Silicon Valley and the disturbing privacy invading, autocrat coddling, wealth extracting tendencies of today's big 5 predators: Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Amazon and Google. I love what Apple tech has provided me over the years, but the recent trend by the company and its leadership has been to flout as many laws as it can to extract as much wealth as it can from people like me. There is no longer even any lip service to making the world a better place. In 25 years, I want to be able to use affordable tech that provides value in a 100% ethical way — whatever it looks like.
Final Thoughts
To me, the primary value in tech is and has always been to connect me with other humans. I am still impressed by tools many take for granted — instant messaging, email, web publishing viewable by anyone in the world within seconds. Computers can and do bring people closer. They can and do spread good ideas and empower people. Of course, they also do the opposite some times, but I have hope that the arc will swing into the light.
I'd like to see what @jarunmb@techhub.social, @dhry@mastodon.socialmastodon.social and @mbjones@social.lol have to say.
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32-Bit Cafe, A Comprehensive Resource for Bloggers and Personal Websites
A web site for baby bloggers or even experienced ones needing some fresh ideas, 32-Bit Cafe has plenty to explore. It has guides and tutorials, page ideas, website topics, art and graphic design, technical info and a massive resource list.
You've just made a website, but now you're unsure where to go from here. Here are some ideas for things to add and techniques to learn. If you need more inspiration, browse other folks' websites and surf the 'net! You'll surely find something that you want to add to your own personal website.
Learn about:
What Books Had the Greatest Influence on You?
It's the last night of this trip and my last repost. This list of the most influential books in my life inspired several other bloggers to create their own lists. My original offer still stands, if you make one, let me know and I'll link to it.
I think you can figure out a lot about a person if you know what books have had the most impact on them. At one point or another, each of these books was my current favorite. They all had a lasting impact on me. I'd love to see your list. It doesn't have to be 15 books and you don't need to be impressive (although if you really loved War and Peace, by all means list it). If you make a list, let me know and I will add a link to it.
This Weeks Bookmarks - Wikenigma, Winter Camping, Militia Danger, $30K Tip, Protecting Democracy, Billionaire BS, Legal Weed
Wikenigma - an Encyclopedia of Unknowns - Wikenigma is a unique wiki-based resource specifically dedicated to documenting fundamental gaps in human knowledge.
Outdoorsy Minnesotans: I winter camped and so can you. Probably. - Two winter camping novices spend a night out with an Arctic explorer to learn how to stay warm -- and even enjoy -- camping in freezing weather.
Who Will Stop the Militias Now? - By granting blanket clemency to the January 6 insurrectionists, the president has unleashed violent, and loyal, paramilitaries.
Pizza driver gets 30K More - A pizza delivery driver in the throes of a brutal snowstorm found himself at the center of a heartwarming viral story after a meager $2 tip sparked an outcry that turned into an avalanche of generosity.
10 Things We Can All Do to Protect Democracy - Democracy Docket - The most common question I receive is how everyday citizens can help in the fight for democracy. My advice, take the first step, start with something small and see what works for you. Here are ten things all of us can do.
Billionaires Should Not Exist — Here’s Why | Teen Vogue - In a fair society, there would be no billionaires. Bernie Sanders says they shouldn't exist and Elizabeth Warren sells mugs of their tears. I'm talking about billionaires and making the case that an economic system that allows them is immoral.
Legal Weed Didn't Deliver on Its Promises - Not to be a buzzkill, but advocates touted a host of benefits and no real costs. That's proved to be a fantasy.
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How to Degoogle Your Life
I'm traveling this weekend, visiting family and supporting my wife, who is running the Miami Marathon. This is a repost from the spring of 2024.
There is a lot of talk out on the Internet about people trying to increase their online privacy. Folks are growing increasingly uncomfortable with the amount of information harvested by big tech companies, and increasing uncertain about what those companies are doing with all that they know. Who are they selling it to, and what are they doing with it in turn? Google is at the heart of many people's lives, especially if they use an Android phone or a Chromebook. Many of the rest of us are still using Google as our default search engine. We are using Gmail and Google Drive and Google Docs and any of a dozen other tools and services owned by the company. If you've had enough and would like to try to reduce or eliminate Google from your life, you are going to need help. This article by crackerjack tech journalist, Justin Pot, is a good starting place.
How to Quit Google, According to a Privacy Expert
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The Phones of Normal People
Note: I'm still traveling and short on time, so I'm sharing a post from back in May that touched a nerve with many people in the geekspace.
Now, I realize that there are some folks in the geek space who still make use of default apps. Robb Knight's project from the winter of 2023 taught us that. By and large, though, the things that people in tech related fields do with our phones, laptops, and tablets fall far, far outside what normies do with theirs. Even further from the norm is what the professional nerds do. Those folks who make their living from monetized blogs, podcast ads, subscriptions and other forms of content are so far removed from what your Mom does with her phone that they could be living on another planet. I saw many bloggers today venting a little over the vapors the content production machine types are having about the new iPads and the fact that those darn folks at Apple just won't listen to them.
I live at the intersection of normies and tech because I do IT support for a living. I have to talk to your Mom at work in the language she speaks about her computer and her phone. I know, trust me, I really know how much she hates changing her password and how much she really doesn't want to have to download and configure a two-factor authentication app. I know how frustrating it is to search for Microsoft Authenticator in Apple's App Store only to have the number one hit to be a $40 paid app and not the free product from the folks in Redmond. You know what's important to your Mom? That her icons don't move, that's what. Last year, Microsoft had an errant patch Tuesday that ended up removing the Office icons off the desktop of corporate computers.I spent a couple of days explaining to people that, no, we didn't "delete Word off your computer," and talking them through recreating the shortcut. That's a crisis. Not being able to use the Finder on an iPad is not a crisis.
Pete Brown said it well, "the vast majority of iPad owners are using the device to read Kindle books, play Candy Crush, and take bad photos." There are millions of us nerds out there using the best calendar and note-taking apps, but there are tens of millions of people perfectly happy with what Apple or Google gave them. Maybe they have downloaded a few apps (and probably never deleted them) to try out. They might even be pretty good at Instagram, but they are not us. They do not know what version of the operating system they are running on anything. They do not care. They hate updates because they interrupt stuff they'd rather be doing. They don't care about the new features being announced at WWDC because they do not want to learn how to do new things with their already too complicated tech. They are the baseline. We are the outliers.
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The List
I appreciate the people who read this blog. I'm grateful for your attention, your comments and for the great blogs so many of you maintain. I'm currently traveling and spending time with family I haven't seen in 10 years. Tonight's post is from April when I was just getting started. Straight from the heart.
Part of my daily routine is to record three things in my daily journal entry for which I'm grateful. I've been doing it for a long time. I try not to be too repetitive, so I'm always on the lookout for things to identify and add to my list. It helps to ask myself that question multiple times a day. I found a good parking spot? Boom! Grateful. My clothes fit particularly comfortably today? Boom! Grateful. A text from one of my grown kids, a tasty lunch at a familiar restaurant, a good report at the dentist - I'm always on the lookout.
I'm lucky in that I have everything I need even if I don't have everything I want. I learned how to tell the difference between those two things a while back and that skill serves me well. Life is by no means perfect, I weigh too much, some of the people I love the most live too far away to see them as much as I would like. I sometimes regret not getting further along the career path I chose than I did before I retired. All of those things are mitigated by other factors. I've lost weight before. With technology, I can stay in touch with my kids and grandkids fairly easily. I may not have retired as the CIO of a tech company, but I had a solid 8-5, Mon-Fri job that left me plenty of time to do the stuff that really brings me joy.
I battled alcohol for years, sometimes going long stretches without it, years even, only to fall back into bad habits and addiction. I'm forever going to be grateful that things finally clicked one day. I had a moment of clarity that allowed me to see what kind of future I was headed towards and to also see that I could avoid going there. I took my last drink on December 28th, 2008 and have been continuously sober ever since. Being sober isn't my identity. I'm prouder of things I've done than of the simple act of abstaining, but I'm definitely happy not to have that struggle any more.
I've been married since I was 18 - to four different people. Luckily my wife and I have been together a dozen years now and it keeps getting better. I don't suffer from the curse of loneliness or the stress of constant fighting. I didn't go to college. I was a two-time teenage parent, and the workforce was always the place for me. I found the IT field around the age of 30 after having been in the military, working construction and in manufacturing and a stint as a prison guard. Once I got into computers I moved through a couple of different industries before landing in educational technology, the area I made a career. Even post-retirement, I missed it enough to take a low stress job at a local university solving problems for end users.
My wife and I have enough dough that we don't have to worry about the things that used to be terrifying when I was younger: an unexpected car repair bill, medical expenses, the death of a major appliance. We don't have helicopter money but don't have to pinch pennies either. We can afford to help out the kids when they need it. It feels good. I'm not going to lie. At the end of most days, I go to bed pretty happy. I have enough in my life to keep me busy. I still love technology as much as I did when I bought my first computer (on a Sears card in 1993). I have repaired the damage my bad habits caused in my life. I'm fortunate and I'm grateful and I'm glad to make that list every single day.
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Looking for Inspiration? Look to the People!
The Stonewall Uprising
Almost all the rights and privileges we enjoy in our daily lives happened because common people fought for them. I'm a veteran, and I am not being disrespectful when I say that the real fight for freedom happened at home between the people and the reluctant ruling class. The fight for freedom isn't something that only happens on the battlefield. Take some time and read about a few struggles. Get inspired. The time is coming when more of us will be called on to stand up against the fascists and corporations seeking to remake America into some throwback model of ugliness.
Child Labor
What Ended Child Labor in the US - Labor Rights History
Child labor in the United States - Wikipedia
Womens' Right to Vote
40-Hour Work Week, Workers' Compensation, Right to Organize
The history & evolution of the 40-hour work week | Culture Amp
A Brief History of Workers' Compensation - PMC
Labor Movement ‑ America, Reform & Timeline | HISTORY
Anti-Worker Violence
Bogalusa Labor Massacre, Attack on Interracial Solidarity
Civil Rights
Leaders in the Struggle for Civil Rights | JFK Library
The Black Panther Party: Challenging Police and Promoting Social Change
Stonewall and Beyond
How the Stonewall uprising ignited the pride movement
The First Pride Was a Riot: The Origins of Pride Month
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Mountains I Have Loved
Silent Valley Reservoir, County Down, Northern Ireland
I was sitting in a hostel in Maine with multiple other hikers. I asked this good old boy from Tennessee if he'd taken the side trail the day before to see the spectacular overlook from Spaulding Mountain. He looked at me confused and said, "I wouldn't take a side trail to watch a dragon fight a unicorn." He had one thing on his mind, obviously. He was ready to reach Mt. Katahdin and finish the Appalachian Trail.
Although there are a seeming countless number of beautiful views along what is, after all, called a national scenic trail, most of the journey is spent in what hikers call the green tunnel. You see nothing but trees, rocks and a never-ending footpath. In many places, towering rhododendrons form a literal tunnel, blocking out the sky and any view up or down the mountain you're hiking on.
I'm from the south and I love the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains, but we can't hold a candle to the beauty one experiences in northern New England. Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine are breathtaking over and over. Going above the tree line in the White Mountains is unforgettable. The hundreds of lakes scattered through the dense woods of southern Maine allow you to snap photos every couple of miles worthy of being made into post cards.
I'm partial to mountains when it comes to looking for landscapes to appreciate. One of the most beautiful days of my life was spent driving the high road to Taos, New Mexico from Santa Fe. There is little to no humidity, unlike what we have in the eastern mountains. So there is no haze. The sky is crystal clear and a clear blue that abruptly changes to many shades of green as your eye moves down to the peaks of the mountains. The mountains are taller than what I'm used to. After all, it is ski country. You can return to Santa Fe along the low road which skirts the Rio Grande in high walled canyons.
Fans of America's mountains should visit Colorado Springs. From anywhere in town, you can see Pikes Peak. A train ride to the top is only a few doors and is something to put on your bucket list. Also in there are, the Garden of the Gods provides ample opportunities to capture photographs of the landscape and of the big horned sheep who live there.
For a different kind of beauty, the Mourne Mountains, located in County Down in Northern Ireland are a mostly treeless expanse of grasslands divided by stone fences and few man-made structures. There are a couple high mountain reservoirs that catch the water they need down in Belfast. The few people who do live there are friendly. If you're lucky, you can find a tea shop where you can get a cuppa with a couple of biscuits to sip while you sit beside a peat fire and just take in the wonderful Irishness of it all.
My bucket list includes seeing the Alps in France, Italy, and Switzerland. Recently, as Internet friend told me that there is a trans-alpine railroad journey from east to west on the South Island of New Zealand that provides some of the best views to be seen on planet Earth, and now I want to go there too. I have no great desire to see Kilimanjaro or the Himalayas, even though the beauty of those places in undeniable. I think the altitudes would do me in.
What about you? What mountains have you loved?
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Thoughts on the Quantified Self
I enjoy collecting information about the things I do and looking back over it, just as a form of journaling. Since tech is my jam, I try to automate collecting as much information as I can. There isn't a real point to it. I'm not trying to discover anything or achieve some kind of life hack. Currently, I'm not tracking any sort of health data, even though I've got an Apple Watch. It can collect information on heart rate and sleep quality/quantity, both of which I've been interested in before. I even have a digital scale and a blood pressure monitor, both with Wi-Fi to feed information into Apple's health app.
The type of information I'm interested in these days has more to do with culture and creativity. I use web services that track my television and music consumption automatically. I record the books I read into Goodreads because that information can be exported into other formats. I use a location tracking app that doesn't send the information anywhere other than to my encrypted iCloud account. I also use an app to bookmark notable places I've been, like restaurants, parks, coffee shops and hotels. That app stored its data in a cloud account that only I have access to.
When I was training for long-distance cycling, data collection had a different flavor because I had numerical goals: trying to hit 10,000 miles and get 30 or more rides of 100 miles completed in a calendar year. My Garmin bike computer recorded all of that, along with speed data plus my heart rate and pedaling cadence. Some people even have power meters on their bikes to determine the wattage they generate on rides. I didn't use Strava, but I did use the Garmin website to store my information.