I updated my /now page - What I’m reading and watching, plus links to this week’s blog posts, the week’s best purchase, and the links I added to my personal bookmarks.
This Week's Bookmarks - McDonaldland, Connecting Social Networks, Baseball Bat Bros, Otters, Polenta Recipe, TV Show Suggestions, When Sober Influencers Relapse
Shady Things About The McDonaldland Characters
Bridges & The Last Network Effect - Connecting Social Networks
Influencer Brothers Are Selling More Baseball Bats Than Pro Athletes - Bloomberg
Shetland manโs bond with otter becomes subject of award-winning film | Scotland | The Guardian
Italian sausage and peppers with creamy polenta | Sunbasket
Somebody Somewhere | Official Website for the HBO Series | HBO.com
AMA - What Is It You Long For
This question was asked by Curious Magpie. It has also been answered by Anniegreens. Do you experience Hiraeth (a deep longing for something)? What is it you long for - a time, a place, a feeling?
The greatest adventure of my life was my honeymoon, a blissful 156 day long-distance hiking journey that saw my new wife and I walk across 14 states along the Appalachian Trail. I think and talk about it often and probably always will. Even the best of regular life has its monotony. You sleep in the same place. You see the same things when you look out the window. The clerk you see at the supermarket rang you out last week and when you return next week, they will ring you out again. It's very possible to be extremely happy amidst all that sameness, bit it can hardly be described as an adventure. It's more like contentment.
During the time we spent walking through the mountains, every day brought things we'd never seen before. Every night we slept in a new place, whether it was a tent site, a shelter or a boisterous hostel in some trail town. Long distance hikers have only three things that are constants: the unending evaluation of their energy levels, the location of drinkable water and the decision on where to spend the night. Everything else is just the relentless magnetic pull down the trail, putting one foot in front of the other, moving toward the terminus of their journey, no matter how far distant.
The pure physicality of the journey makes for many, may opportunities for small victories. Every single time you make it to the top of a mountain, it means that you've won. Every time you wade across a river, your unbeaten streak continues. When you cross into another state, it is both a finish line and a starting line in a slow race to the next border. It doesn't take long during a through hike to achieve peak fitness. Any excess body weight melts off. There is real magic in knowing that you have earned the ability to do almost anything you desire with your physical skills. When you see day hikers along the trail, huffing and puffing as they labor towards a peak and you saunter pass them with your fully loaded backpack, knowing they are climbing but one mountain that day while you are climbing a half dozen, you can't help but appreciate the hiking machine you have become.
One of the true joys during that journey was the chance to appreciate things we take for granted during our normal lives. When you spend most nights in a sleeping bag that is growing increasingly dirty as you lay on the ground inside your tent or the hard wooden boards of a shelter floor, the chance to get a rare hotel room as you hike through a trail town is magical. Sliding between clean sheets on a soft mattress with air conditioning is to experience true luxury. Imagine living off cold poptarts, oatmeal made with creek water, unrefrigerated cheese and the other foods that make up a backpacking diet. Then, while you're making your way through the incredibly rough wilderness of southern Maine, you come to a town like Rangely and you sit down for a restaurant meal of fresh lobster. You know in your heart of hearts that nothing will ever taste that good again.
As adults without trust funds, we have worked without much of a pause since our teens. We were privileged to take a six month break from that grind because my wife sold her partnership in her business. Just the freedom to be able to live a life that isn't tied to an obligation to report to X location to do X task for eight hours a day, five days a week was a once in a lifetime opportunity. When you can live your life without having to be responsible to anyone but your partner, the days have a different flavor. People often remark that if the two of us survived teh stress of walking 2,000 miles together, then we must be destined to be together. They do not know how much truth there is to that observation. We became so in tune with each other, do defendant on each other for mental, physical and emotional support. It has lasted through the entirety of our marriage.
So there it is. That's what I long for. All of those feelings and experiences during that period of my life are precious memories. I will always have them.
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Connect Your Mac Apps with IFTTT
As a Mac automation fan, I make use of apps most people are
familiar with, like Keyboard
Maestro, Hazel
and Better
Touch Tool. Since 2010, however, I have also used a web service to
connect a wide variety of websites (including Reddit) and Mac apps in a
number of ways. That service is IFTTT (If
This Then That) and it offers over 2000 integrations with apps and
web services many of then Mac compatible.
Here are some of the ways I use IFTTT with Mac Apps
Create Day One Journal Entries
- Social media posts from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
- Liked YouTube videos
- Saved Pocket articles
- RSS feeds from Mastodon and my blogs
- A geofence around my office to record what time I get to work (requires iPhone)
- TV shows watched via Trakt
- Daily weather report
Inoreader
- Starred articles saved to Pocket
- Create new task in Things 3 to read starred articles
- Saved posts copied to Dropbox as text files
Obsidian
Google Sheets
- Save URLs of Pockets articles
- Save TV shows watched via Trakt
- Save URLs of Raindrop.io bookmarks
- Record arrivals and departures from office (Requires iPhone)
Raindrop.io
- Save Raindrop.io bookmarks to Notion
Apple Photos
- Save a copy of iOS screenshots to Google Drive
IFTTT is a subscription service. Billed annually, it is $3.33 a month. Billed monthly, the rate is $3.99.
A Post Election Survival Kit, Tools to Use
I don't know about you, but I'm tired of reading mortems on why the Democrats did so poorly on November 5th. The very same people who told us the race was too close to call or that Harris/Walz were going to win nor purport to know why Trump did so well, and I'm just not putting much stake on that particular hot take. I just want to know what do and where to go now. I've assembled a small collection of links that I think are informative and motivating in the aftermath of the Republican win.
Share Me: The New Media List - Alternatives to WaPo and NYT - Oliver Willis put together a list of news sources that won't try to normalize Trump or make excuses for him. These news outlets won't tell you that everything is normal and they won't call white supremacy and fascism by more acceptable names.
Election Grief Is Real. Hereโs How to Cope | Scientific American - If you weren't effected on an emotional lever by the election then WTF is wrong with you? We lost a great deal with Trump's second ascendance. The next four years are going to be some of the most challenging in American history and I for one, wasn't looking forward to a challenge. I'm getting old, and I wanted the autumn of my life to be a hopeful period. Knowing that it isn't makes me sad and this article has practical advice to that end.
AI Resume Screening Tools Biased Against Black Male Names, Study Finds - This is only tangentially related to the election. It is a reminder that all those tech CEOs who emailed their congratulations to Trump don't give AF about POC any more than George Bush did after Katrina.
OpenHistoricalMap - In case you wanted to see how the world changes over time, this is for you. It's never been a static body politic, and it never will be. We can hope against hope Ukraine still exists after Trump pulls the plug on American aid and starts covertly supporting Vladimir Putin.
Non-profit newsrooms that speak truth to power In case you need a different type of media than what is listed in the first link above, here are even more sites to get a clear understanding of issues that will only grow more important as time passes. Some of these organizations specialize in core issues of the progressive movement, like climate change and criminal justice
Why Democrats won't build their own Joe Rogan - More Americans will watch the Super Bowl in January than voted this month. The oligarchs have manufactured a society that values entertainment over information. Joe Rogan, a steroid abusing man whose claim to fame was making reality TV contestants eat out of garbage dumpsters is now one of the most influential people in America. Unfortunately that model doesn't translate to the left where our most valuable orator is a man that was editor of the Harvard Law Review and President of the United States.
Trump Has Won, but Democracy Is Not Over - The Atlantic This is not the end, beautiful friend, this is not the end. Yes, there is a different vibe now than there was eight years ago when Trump beat Clinton. People are less outwardly hostile and may seem resigned, but there is a raging storm beneath the surface. We have been beaten, but we have not been defeated,
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AMA - What Historical Figure Would Your Bring Back?
Denis asked - Here is a wand. With it, you can bring back anyone from the dead from any era, at any point of their life and for only one day. Who do you resuscitate for 24h, at what point in their life and to do what?
This is the kind of question meant for me. I love history and I am prone to spending a great deal of time pondering things that will never happen. I have contemplated what I would do with my lottery winnings for hours despite the fact that I don't buy lottery tickets. I'm bad at math but I'm not that bad at math.
After last Tuesday, I'm tempted to say that I'd be willing to bring back Lee Harvey Oswald. I'd get him a good military grade rifle, not that Italian made mail order thing he used last time. Of course, Lee loved Russia, having lived there. His wife was also Russian so it might be hard to persuade him to do the job so he might not be the best candidate for this experiment.
With what America is facing right now, I also think that bringing back Dr. King for a 24-hour marathon strategy session would be a good idea. Aside from the power he conveyed with his amazing oratorical powers, he was also an organizing genius and man who could inspire others to do hard things. He successfully led the Montgomery bus boycott and the March into Selma. He advised the people of Birmingham how to deal with Bull Connor. I think he could quickly analyze the current political situation and help the resistance, such as it is, on a plan to mitigate the damage that's going to happen over the next four years. I'm thinking though, that it might be too heart breaking to only have him for a single day. I don't know if we could stand that loss again.
As long as Paul McCartney is still alive, I'd be tempted to bring back John Lennon for a day, give him a guitar, a pen and some paper and lock the two of them in the studio at Abbey Road with a supply of strong tea and some good weed. There have been many good song writers in the rock era but no one even comes close to those two guys. I don't know if they could put together an entire album in 24 hours. I'd settle for just a couple more songs to listen to for the rest of my life.
Since this exercise has been pretty male-centric, I think I'd better also think of a few women to consider. I'd definitely want to talk to someone smarter than me, someone creative with a unique way of explaining the world. Three candidates that quickly come to mind are Dorothy Parker, Virginia Wolfe and Sylvia Plath. It would be really cool if Denis would let me cheat and bring the three of them back simultaneously. Can you imagine being in the room to hear that conversation? I wouldn't say a word. They could all be pretty scathing and I don't think I'd want to risk becoming famous for being humiliated by a memorable one-liner.
Forced to choose someone outside of the 20th century, I think I'd got with Henry David Thoreau. I love smart and eloquent people. He qualifies. I think I'd come up with a series of questions for him to pontificate upon. We'd go for a walk in the park that now exists to preserve the site of his famous cabin. I would tape everything he says and have it transcribed. It would make a best selling book and I'd happily live off the profits for the rest of my life.
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A Day With Vivaldi Browser
I decided to be open-minded and spend some time with a new browser
for a few days after using
Microsoft Edge for the last two years for reasons related to my job.
The browser I decided to test is Vivaldi and after a day of using it
just like I use my normal daily driver here are a few of the things I
like.
Security
I've been concerned that the implementation of Manifest 3 browser extensions in Chromium browsers, preventing them from using the full version of uBlock Origin, would be an issue. After turning on Vivaldi's built in tracker, ad and third party cookie blocking, I added uBlock Origin Lite and tested security at Ad-Block Tester and Toolz Adblock, scoring a 99% effectiveness rate on both of them. Vivaldi has built-in tools to block cookie popups across the board.
Power Consumption
Vivaldi allows you to set custom hibernation times on individual tabs or on stacks, its name for tab groups. You can also set Vivaldi toย open up with lazy loading, where tabs stay in a hibernating state until you need them. I typically operate with two or three windows and 30โ45 tabs at all time, so this presents a good opportunity to really reduce battery strain.
Appearance
To avoid distraction, I wanted to use the identical colors I'd used in Edge. Modifying the default theme only took a couple of minutes using a color picker and hex codes.
Tab Management
When you open Vivaldi for the first time, you are asked to choose if you want vertical or horizontal tabs. You can move them later if you decide to. You can also take advantage of split screen tabs, allowing you to view two web pages side by side. My favorite feature out of all the tools is saved sessions. You can save all your open tabs and reopen them later from a button on the left side toolbar. This is a separate feature from the workspaces that Vivaldi lets you create and reopen as needed. You can even go a step further and use a separate profile with a different email address to keep your work and personal browsing from mixing. This lets you use different extensions, passwords and settings at every level.
Built in Mail, Calendar, Notes and Feed Reader
It was easy to set up my primary Gmail account and the Yahoo account I use just for newsletters. Adding a selection of Google Calendars and Apple Calendars was also a breeze. While I prefer to use my subscription to Inoreader for my full-blown RSS needs, it is convenient to stick a few of my favorite sites in the Vivaldi built-in feed reader for quick access.
Side Panel
Vivaldi has an option to any site you want in a panel on the side of the browser, helpful when doing research with Wikipedia or looking up bookmarks on Raindrop.io. You can also view your browser based bookmarks there along with notes, downloads, history, your reading list, a translation service, a list of tabs from across all current Vivaldi sessions on multiple computers, saved sessions, calendars and tasks
The scourge of Austin,TX the Great Tailed Grackle. Taken at Zilker Park.
Thanks to @jimmitchell@mastodon.social for doing the legwork @manton for giving him the go ahead, I am now representing MB in NC!
Why Don't You Try a New Browser Today?
The browsers people use to access the Internet have varied widely over the past 30 years. The scumbag billionaire. Marc Andreessen, was once a brilliant software engineer who led the way in introducing Netscape (previously known as Mosaic) to the world. The market share it garnered was north of 95%/ The next major shift was to Internet Explorer, the browser installed on all Windows machines from Windows 95 through Windows 8. It swallowed the Internet and eventually had as large a market share as Netscape ever did. Then, here came Google. It's Chrome browser is nearly ubiquitous today, despite it's many faults, primarily privacy concerns and battery drain on mobile. Many Mac users stay with the default browser on their computers, Safari, which is also native in the iPhone.
Chances are, you are probably a Chrome or Safari user unless you're a techie, in which case chances are you may be a Firefox user since it has better privacy than it's main competitions. If you have been using the same browser for a long time, I'm suggesting that you try an alternative for a few days, just in case you're missing something.
Every major browser has import options that let you bring in your bookmarks, passwords and history if you are currently using one of the major players.
Here are a few choices:
Microsoft Edge - this has been my workhorse on Windows, Mac and iOS over the past two years. It is a stable browser with a huge variety of features, most of which are easy to turn off are hid if you don't want to see them. It's based on Chrome, so the extensions available are plentiful. You can read more about why I like it here,
Firefox - this descendant of Netscape is the one of the most private of browsers and it still allows you to use the most powerful ad-blocking extensions (see uBlock Origin) which are being phased out in Chrome based browsers. For an open source alternative using the Firefox engine, try the Zen Browser
Brave - this is another browser for the security minded with built-in blocking of ads, trackers and third party cookies, which also makes it pretty fast. It has a built in version of Tor for browsing that is untraceable for all practical purposes. Based on Chrome, it has a wide variety of available extensions.
Orion - a browser developed by the private search engine, Kagi, is also privacy focused, promising zero telemetry and the ability to use either Chrome or Firefox extensions. It claims to block more ads by default than any other browser. It is 100% funded by Kagi users.
Vivaldi - this browser's claim to fame is extensive customization. You can place your browser tabs just about anywhere you want, turn on ad blocking with downloading an extension, and enjoy end-to-end encryption of your synced data. I am currently giving it a try.
I am not going to link to Arc, the favorite of many people over the past couple of years because its parent company recently announced they don't intend to update it any further and weren't all that clear on where they are headed going forward. IMHO, it's a gamble to use Arc with it's steep learning curve and radical differences to the browser paradigm right now.
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Time Machine Diaries
Ask Me Anything - Where (and when) would you go if time travel were real?
Should time travel ever be invented, I think those of us living in 2024 are going to be pretty safe from being visited from the future. No one is ever going to look at this era and think, "Man, I'll bet that was a fun time to be alive!" Nope, they're going to look at this version of America and want to stay as far away from it as possible. In fact, other than the night that Obama won the election in 2008, most of the truly memorable moments of this entire century to date have been horrible, starting with the botched election in 2000 and then 9/11 the following year. Follow that up with war and the financial crisis and year after year of Donald John Trump and you don't get a time traveler Disneyland.
If I could travel in time, I'd be content just to see of the 20th centuries greatest hits. I think I'd enjoy going to one of the monumental concerts from the decade of my birth, the 1960s. Of course, Woodstock is the first thing to pop into my mind, but it was pretty wet and muddy for a good portion of the time, so I'd probably choose the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967 so I could see acts like The Animals and Simon and Garfunkel and get to watch Jimi Hendrix literally light his guitar on fire. I'd definitely go to Liverpool, England in the early 60s to watch the Beatles play at the Cavern Club before they got famous.
I would go to the March On Washington in 1963 and watch Dr. King give that speech on the very spot where the 2013 version of me later got married, right on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. I'd like to go down to Mississippi after the Civil Rights Acts was passed and watch Fannie Lou Hamer vote for the first time. I'd definitely spend some time on college campuses, probably at places like Berkley and Columbia, to see the student movement in action. I'd go to the airport in San Francisco and buy beers for the GIs coming home from Vietnam. I'd verify that the right wing myth of spitting protesters is indeed a lie.
Then I'd probably get back in the time machine and go back to the 50s, just so I could go to Yankee Stadium on October 8, 1956, to see Don Larsen pitch a perfect game in the World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers. I'd get good seats behind home plates, and I'd be ready to watch Yogi Berra jump into Larsen's arms after the final out. There's not much else I'd want to see of the 50s, except maybe the look on Rosa Park's face when she got out of jail for not giving up that bus seat. She is one of my heroes.
Going back to the 40s, I'd attend the funeral of FDR. If ever there was a right man at the right time for a job, it was him. He guided the US through the great depression and then straight into World War Two where he assembled a staff and alliances that resulted in a victory over fascism. I know he had faults. We all do, but he was a giant and there is a lot to admire there. I'd probably listen to a couple of Churchill's speeches in the House of Commons too. I'd love to be there to hear him say "We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing-grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender!โ He's another flawed guy, but he did the job when Great Britain needed him.
The 30s were pretty rough, but there were still some things worth seeing. I'd go right to the heart of Nazi Germany and the 1936 Olympic Games just to see Jesse Owens destroy the myth of Aryan superiority as he defeated the master race and won four gold medals in sprinting and the long jump. I'd laugh as Hitler rushed out of the stadium to avoid shaking his hand, and I'd smile as Owens mounted the podium to the sounds of the Star Spangled Banner playing for all the Nazis to enjoy. I'd also do whatever I had to do to find Woodie Guthrie and listen to him sing his songs, even if I had to make my way into a hobo jungle in the rail yards.
I don't know a lot about the first two decades of the last century. I think I'd like to see that total badass named Teddy Roosevelt, the day he gave a campaign speech after being shot in the chest and before going to the hospital. Furthermore, I'd like to see big Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion, defend his title. If I wouldn't stand out too much, I'd go to New York City in 1919 to watch the World War One victory parade to see the Harlem Hellcats return from France. I'd also hang out at the polls to watch women come to vote after the passage of the 19th amendment.
Finally, I'd zip forward to other moments. I want to be on the White House lawn in 1974 to watch Richard Nixon get on the helicopter after resigning the presidency after members of his own party told him they would no longer support him because of his crimes, showing that people like Barry Goldwater had more morals than today's Republicans. Finally, I'd go to the Dakota apartment building on December 8, 1980, to try and stop Mark David Chapman from killing John Lennon. That would change the future, certainly, but only for the better.
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Raycast New Notes Feature Available Now
One of the most popular features in Raycast, the extensible keyboard
launcher, has been its floating notes feature. Using a quick keyboard
shortcut, users have been able to summon a window into which they could
type or paste information. Hiding the note and bringing it back was
easy, but there wasn't a lot more to it than that. With the recent
release of Raycast notes in version 1.8.5, floating notes have been
replaced with a new feature.
Raycast notes now support markdown. If you know the syntax, great. If not, the notes window has a toolbar where you can select bold, italic, bullets and so on. It also has "inline code and code blocks, lists that you can indent and reorder, checklists, links and more."
Raycast users without the pro plan can have up to five notes, while pro members get an unlimited number. There are built-in commands for New Notes and Search Notes. If you use the commands frequently, then, like any other command in Raycast, you can assign a hot key to them.
The action pane (โ+K)l for the Raycast notes command has several choices:
- New note
- Browser notes
- Copy note deep link
- Create Quick link
- Format
- Disable window auto-resizing
- Export (HTML, Markdown, Plain text)
- Recently deleted notes
- Delete
Quick links allow you to open a note with a single keystroke. The notes window may be moved anywhere on the screen. It will stay on top until dismissed.
Don't Read Articles on How to Be Good at Social Media
A quick search for advice on how to post on social media will turn up plenty of listicles. Each one has a few good tips on being yourself and keeping your profile updated, but they also tend to veer into subjects like "building your personal brand," using AI to "help" you and using scheduling software to help you "maximize your engagement." I get some of that if you're marketing your lawn care service or jewelry shop on Etsy, but not if you are seeking community with fellow travelers in the 21st century.
My reasoning for engaging is social media is two-fold. I like keeping up with my family and IRL friends, which is why I am still on Facebook despite its evil influence. I also like meeting interesting and like-minded people who are into the things I enjoy, blogging, tech and furthering progressive ideas. I normally follow people back who follow me. I look at people with skewed ratios of followers as being maybe a little full of themselves sometimes, but it's not really any of my business. I like conversations and learning about folks more than meaningless Internet points.
Read stuff like this
- 10 Effective Tactics to Defeat Internet Trolls
- How to Handle Toxic People on Social Media: 13 Steps
- How to Stop Getting Into Pointless Arguments Online | WIRED
Don't read stuff like this
- 10 Steps to Building Your Personal Brand on Social Media | Digital Marketing Institute
- 12 Easy Steps To Build Your Personal Brand On Social Media
- 5 tricks for building your personal brand via social media | Bryant News
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News Sources That Donโt Suck
As coporate media continues to abdicate its responsibility to call the sky blue, it would serve us well to seek out and support news sources with a track record of speaking truth to power. Here are some suggestions
Daily Kos
Media Matters for America
OptOut News
The Nation
Raw Story
Crooks & Liars
Crooked Media
Truthout
SiriusXM Progress
Talking Points Memo
Zeteo
The Majority Report
Popular Information
Public Notice
Mother Jones
The Barbed Wire
Heartland Signal
Defector
ProPublica
Has Someone Had a Profound Impact on You from AMA
Today's question comes from the November Indy Web Carnival - "Has someone had a profound impact on you?"
My transition from a person who viewed the world as something that just happens around us to a person who sees the world as a place that is ours to change came about under the tutelage of a unique man whose life story is unlike anyone I've ever met. I became interested in a local group formed to oppose the death penalty. Even when I was an uninformed, apolitical prison guard, I knew at a deep level that state-sanctioned killing was wrong. Even though I'm not religious and the name of the group was People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, I decided to attend. That's where I met the most revolutionary man with whom I've ever been associated, a man with the unlikely name of Chip Smith.
Chip was from Philadelphia's main line. His father had been a research scientist for a pharmaceutical company and ended up a wealthy man. Chip was nearly 70 when I met him, and he still had a trust fund left to him by his father, but he was hardly typical of that breed. In the '60s, while the war in Vietnam was raging, Chip had gone to work for the Agency for International Development in Laos, living among the American community there, rife with CIA agents and other clandestine operatives. When he returned to the United States, he fell into the radical left movement and stayed there for the rest of his life.
American communist and socialist organizations have Byzantine family trees. Groups continually split over differences in political philosophy and tactics. I can't describe every group Chip was a member of, but in 1979 he was a part of the People's Viewpoint organization, composed mostly of educated professionals who went to work alongside the working class to organize them into what would hopefully become a revolutionary movement. Despite having a doctorate in economics and that trust fund I mentioned, Chip went to work in a steel mill and became a shop steward in the union. His wife, an actual neurosurgeon by trade, went to work in a garment factory. The organizing of the People's Viewpoint organization came to a bloody end in November 1979 when a rally they organized in a Greensboro, NC housing project was attacked by the KKK in an ambush the police knew was going to happen and did nothing to stop. Five people were killed.
Chip's wife went back to work in the hospital, but Chip kept on working towards revolutionary changes in the U.S. By the late '90s, the organization he was a member of in Philly had a plan for members to move to the U.S. South to organize. Despite the bloody history that had touched their lives, Chip and his wife moved to NC. His plan was to join local progressive groups, assist them in their mission, and help them grow. He successfully mentored us into actually getting the city council of our city to endorse a death penalty moratorium in a campaign that succeeded. NC hasn't had an execution in 17 years.
When 9/11 happened and the U.S. government went to war, Chip used his extensive contacts to help the little peace group we organized do things like help military resisters, hold giant demonstrations, and direct military families towards others like them against the war.
On a personal level, he taught me so much. I learned about the history of the Palestinian people from Chip. I had no experience with organized labor or unions, being from the least unionized state in the country. Chip taught me what they've done for workers and why they are needed. Chip patiently taught me about the societal cost of white privilege. In fact, he wrote a book about it. Chip taught me about the importance of inclusion, about how as two white guys, we should work towards building organizations that valued women and people of color. I spent many, many hours riding around the state in Chip's old van, going to meetings at labor councils and organizations like Black Workers for Justice. He never talked all that much, but everyone knew him and respected him.
He wasn't just a political mentor either. When I was struggling to get sober, Chip and his wife were there for me, kind of like loving but very disapproving village elders urging me to do better. Eventually, his wife took a position in a hospital a couple of hours away, and they moved. Of course, he immediately identified the issues most pressing to the workers in that area, joined a local organization to help them out, and worked with them until he died a few years later, dedicated until the very end to making a better world with other people.
When making decisions, I often ask myself what Chip would do in my situation. He never got too bent out of shape about the news of the day, viewing the struggle for revolutionary change to be a long and slow, but constant, process. In these trying times, I do my best to emulate that thought process. I believe in my heart of hearts that people, organized together towards a common goal, have immense power. I learned that from Chip Smith.
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Scheduler for Mac - Free Automation Utility
If you are into Mac automation, you have probably invested in
tools like Keyboard
Maestro or Shortery
which let you launch apps, run scripts, display messages and open
documents using certain triggers. If you are new to the platform or
don't want to make the investment in a paid program right now, there is
a simple and easy to use app for you. Scheduler for Mac can do all the
tasks outlined above. It can run AppleScript, shell scripts and python
scripts. Scripts can be run as root. Here are a few real world examples
of how I use scheduling:
- Open my web browser to my job's time clock web page four times a day to clock in and out for the day and for lunch
- Run an AppleScript right before I get up in the morning to eject my backup drive so that all I have to do is unplug it
- Run an AppleScript every night to move items in Things 3 to a new date and time
- Launch a file synchronization app every night to sync my Obsidian vault to Google Drive
- Open and close an app on my work and home machines at alternating times because I don't want it running on them simultaneously
- Launch a set of documents I use all day every day at work five minutes after I log in.
The interface for Scheduler is straightforward and easy to use. You'll have no problem configuring any of the events. You can even group events together to run at the same time. Any event can be run on a schedule or set to the same time on specified days. You can toggle events on and off, for example, if you don't want them to run when you are on vacation. One of the conditions for setting up a script allows it to be run after a specific period of inactivity. You could use this to quit your open apps and log you off in case you forget to. The option to display messages can be used as an alarm clock.
Another powerful feature of Scheduler is the ability to assign hotkeys to events. Using this you can launch apps, open websites and documents and run scripts right from the keyboard. You can even launch them from the Mac menu bar, which is a convenient way to do things like refresh Finder or restart your dock after making changes. You could even update your Homebrew apps that way.
The preferences and option for Scheduler allow you to sync or back up your settings to iCloud. You can also sync events to any iCloud calendar you grant Scheduler access to. Scheduler was released in 1998. The most recent release was last year. It is currently on version 7. It's freeware but requires you to register it after 30 days of use.
Coping Strategies for When You Are Feeling Down
Lots of us are feeling down and sad today for pretty good reasons. There's something to be said for feeling your feelings and processing grief, but prolonged feelings of sadness produce cortisol and are physically, not to mention mentally, bad for you. Plenty of folks can have a couple of drinks or burn one and relieve a little pressure but that isn't an alternative for the recovering community or other abstainers. I thought I'd do some public service and research a few techniques on lifting your mood. Here you go.
- Treat yourself with kindness
- Prioritize physical activity
- Spend time in nature
- Get plenty of sleep
- Take a break
- Enjoy nutrient-rich foods
- Engage in mindfulness practice
- Express your feelings
- Learn What you need
- Seek out new experiences
How to Cheer Yourself Up On a Hard Day, According to Science
What to Do When Youโre Sad: 11 Tips to Feel Better
How to Cope with Losing | Psychology Today
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Dockside - A New Shelf Utility
There is a new player in the category of apps that includes Yoink, Dropover
and Dropshelf.
Dockside, from Hachipoo
Apps is a shelf utility that uses the space on either side of your dock
(if you position it on the bottom of your monitor). For those of use who
position our docks on the left or right sides of the screen, Dockside
places a couple of landing places at the bottom of the display, hidden
until you need them.
Dockside creates a shelf for your Downloads folder and the default location you have designated for screenshots. In addition, you specify a file location of your choosing for files you drag into Dockside. Once files are placed on a Dockside shelf, there are a variety of Finder actions you can take:
- Open
- Open with
- Share
- Get info
- Show in Finder
- Copy Path name
- Rename
- Copy
- Copy to...
- Move to...
- Move to trash
Additionally, depending on the type of object on the shelf, you can:
- Compress
- Remove image metadata
- Extract text from images
- Optimize image size (if you have Clop installed
Other features include the ability to create a quick note with your default text editor on the shelf and the ability to paste content onto a shelf. Any item placed on a shelf that has Quicklook capability is viewable via that mechanism. Dockside also maintains a recent files history in its interface.
Dockside is an Apple notarized app that can operate offline since it has no external server connection and collects no data on users. There is a two-week free trial and the app can be purchased for $5.99 on the developer's website.
Stream of Lou-ishness
I tried to keep my mind occupied all day with something other than hope versus awful possibilities. Spent a great deal of time trying to turn a 30 second task into a 15 second task by automating what happens when I download pictures on my computer. I looked for a new program to test so that I could write a review. I did not have the energy or desire to get far from my desk. I did absolutely zero doomscrolling of the news. I didn't read a single article about the cloud hanging over America.
After lunch, I decided what I really wanted to do was just quit my job. I've already retired once, didn't like it so I returned to the workforce. I was looking for something to blame for my malaise today and instead of assigning that blame to existential dread, I figured it just had to be the low pressure, easy job I lucked into. Yep, that's it. I started emailing Wonder Woman all the reasons I wanted to quit. To her everlasting credit, she let me rant and didn't freak out. In the end, I didn't put in my notice, but I didn't feel better either.
I don't want to go to sleep because I'm scared of what will be on my phone when I wake up. I mean what if the worst happens? I have no idea what I will do. For a long time I thought I would just withdraw into my hobbies, delete all the news apps from my devices and become apolitical, finding some way to not feel guilty for the fifty million tons of privilege that would allow me to do that. I know better. I've been reading the news without pause since the days of Watergate. I would not know how to stop.
My entire early adulthood was taken up by 12 straight years of Reagan/Bush. The thought of my dotage being taken up by something worse is horrifying. If old, straight, white guys are feeling this way tonight, what must the politically aware POC, women and LGBT citizens of America be feeling?
Is this incoherent? I don't feel like I have the words to express my anxiety, my anger and my confusion. It's not supposed to be like this. I'm so angry at the people who encouraged this, who allowed it to happen and who stand to benefit from it. I want someone to pay.\
I'm not a control freak. Most of the time I hold my chin up and deal. Like everyone else in the world, I've survived everything that has ever happened to me. I'll survive the next week and the next four years, no matter what. Right? Right?
Someone asked me to write a blog post on whether I have faith in the future of humanity and I have been putting THAT off until after tonight because whatever happens today is really going to color my answer. That's overblown and over dramatic but it is also true. All we need is more air and water pollution and drill, baby, drill and "I'm not a scientist" types. I just want to scream profanity.
America is a mental ward tonight and there aren't any doctors available.
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Dealing With a Toxic Boss
Have you ever had to work for someone you just couldn't respect? Have you watched your colleagues leaving one by one as you trudged through hell on earth at work? Ever worked for a hypocrite? An ass-kisser? If you can answer any of these questions in the affirmative, and I can, then you know what it brings up all kinds of emotions. When you are forced into coping with what should be unacceptable behavior, it kills your self-esteem and ends up affecting all areas of your life. In hindsight, you wonder why you put up with it.
I had a boss one time who drove by my house on his way to work but wouldn't give me a ride to when I got hit by a reckless driver and totaled my car.
I had a boss who never, ever, not once worked a 40-hour work week.
I had a boss who bought 7000 laptops that were so unsuited for their purpose that they went into a dumpster a year later.
If you are in the bad boss club, take a look at some of the survival tips in these links.
8 Toxic Boss Signs and How to Deal With Them | The Muse
How to Handle a Toxic Boss | Careers | U.S. News
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