! Sunday link blog
13:20 Sunday, 12 February 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 59.02°F Pressure: 1006hPa Humidity: 63% Wind: 21.85mph
Words: 5
Nice Sunday read for creatives.
✍️ Reply by emailSunday
13:22 Sunday, 12 February 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 59.02°F Pressure: 1006hPa Humidity: 63% Wind: 21.85mphWords: 51
It was cloudy and breezy on the walk this morning. Brought along the E-P7 because I didn't think I'd see many birds and I wanted to get familiar with the camera. This is with the Dramatic Tone II filter, which makes the otherwise mundane scenery a bit more visually interesting.
✍️ Reply by emailMovies: American Fiction
12:04 Monday, 12 February 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 76.42°F Pressure: 1009hPa Humidity: 70% Wind: 12.66mph
Words: 107
Watched American Fiction last night, in lieu of the Superb Owl event. Had to buy it as it wasn't available to rent yet. Mitzi's sister wanted to see it and we split the price.
Wonderful movie. I enjoy seeing Jeffrey Wright in pretty much everything. The rest of the cast was great as well. It's a very clever movie in a lot of ways, and a sharp stick in the eye to various groups, although it's delivered with more humor than hostility. And it's more thought-provoking than overtly provocative. I guess I should say that there's a lot of love in this movie, though few illusions.
✍️ Reply by emailProgress
12:13 Monday, 12 February 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 76.42°F Pressure: 1009hPa Humidity: 70% Wind: 12.66mph
Words: 52
The recliner is back in my office! (There was much rejoicing.)
Mitzi's sister is steadily improving, and she's able to comfortably get up from the couch on her own. My napping, book reading, game playing, device noodling perch of choice is back where it belongs.
I'm happy Judy is getting better too.
✍️ Reply by emailNFL
12:15 Monday, 12 February 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 76.33°F Pressure: 1009hPa Humidity: 70% Wind: 12.66mph
Words: 277
Was anyone else troubled by the little infomercial about the NFL camp in Ghana, Africa? I kind of get that the brand wants to expand its global audience, but I have to wonder if it's looking for players?
From time to time I hear that moms are keeping their kids out of Pop Warner and middle and high school football programs. As problematic as the dream of professional sports is as a pathway for upward mobility and financial success is, awareness of the health risks has only grown. Transferring that "dream" of a career in professional sports to a part of the world where it may appear even more attractive, and where awareness of the health risks may not be the same, seems cynical and greedy to me. But maybe I'm not looking at it the right way?
The movie ended just in time for the half-time show, which we watched. I was pleased to see SF leading at halftime, but I knew it was the Chiefs so that didn't mean a lot. I watched the first few possessions of the second half and then switched to episode 2 of Mr. & Mrs. Smith on Prime. (Can't say I'm thrilled with the show, and I have to believe the premiere episode telegraphed the end of the series.) I didn't particularly care for episode 2, so I didn't move on to 3, and decided to check in on the game. Watched until the end of regulation play and went to bed. Figured Mahomes would pull it out again. I was hoping for the 'Niners to humble the Chiefs, but c'est la vie. I'm not a fan of KC.
✍️ Reply by emailLitte Frustrations
06:06 Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 63.54°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 5.75mph
Words: 229
Before I went to bed last night, I started the MacOS 15.3.1 update and quit all the applications that normally hang updates because they have "unsaved" files. I got up this morning and the update hadn't run because SpamSieve had an alert about a new version in the background and that apparently stopped the restart.
So now the iMac is inaccessible while it does its thing, and I'm writing this on the MBP.
The light in the house said the moon was full. I spotted it through the front door. I grabbed the E-M1X and stepped outside and just as I did, a cloud passed over it.
I put the camera down and went to make some Pepsi Zero with the Soda Stream. Came back to my office and there was the moon. Grabbed the camera and stepped outside and again a cloud passed over it.
Really?
My wife is a member of the Women's Club here, and she's on the Military Outreach committee. They had a program planned for Women's History Month with speakers and guests from the Coast Guard and the Marine Corps. It's been planned for months. Yesterday, both speakers emailed their regrets that they would be unable to attend.
Thank the Orange One.
Looks like Monday fell on a Wednesday this week.
(I'm listening to the iMac's fans sounding like a white noise generator.)
✍️ Reply by emailRound and Round We Go
06:47 Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 64.27°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 69
I haven't figured out a way, yet, to automate the export and inclusion of "On This Groundhog Day." Some days I remember to check it and update it, others I don't.
But I did today.
Man, I used to write a lot back then. "Ranting into the void to no discernible effect."
Sadly, many of the links are dead, so the context is often absent. This stuff is ephemeral.
✍️ Reply by emailCaptain's Log News Entry
06:53 Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 64.27°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 92
I save News stories in Apple's News application. Sometimes to refer back to them, sometimes as a "read later," thing.
But you can copy a link to the story too, and I pasted one into the URL attribute of a Captain's Log entry. Clicking on the little globe icon opens the story in Apple News. I did this last night for a story on a Benq monitor I may want to use with the M3 MBP when I get rid of this iMac.
Now to figure out a way to automate that.
✍️ Reply by emailKevin Drum Isn't Feeling Well
06:57 Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 64.29°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 50
I enjoy his blog and his refreshingly reasonable take on things, usually with the charts and graphs to prove it. He's been dealing with a long-term illness, and its treatment has compromised his immune system.
Please keep him in your thoughts if you have a moment to do so.
✍️ Reply by emailResolving the Issue (Not)
07:39 Thursday, 12 February 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 21.61°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 80% Wind: 12.33mph
Words: 82
No luck so far on closing my account at PayPal. They're insisting that they must "resolve the issue" and "release the limitations" on my account before they can close it. I've insisted that I wished to do so by closing my account, and that I no longer wished to do business with PayPal, and that I had no intention of uploading a copy of a photo ID to them.
We shall see what happens next.
Maybe Resist and Unsubscribe should include PayPal.
✍️ Reply by emailI've Got More Mail
07:46 Thursday, 12 February 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 21.61°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 80% Wind: 12.33mph
Words: 190
Helmut Schierer of www.rundumadum.at sent me a nice note about drone coverage of skiing. He sent along some links to a video web site in Europe that included drone coverage. Unfortunately, I couldn't view them here. So I searched on YouTube and got a montage of drone videos from NBC, and fortunately much of the sound is muted. Clearly, they can get some compelling views using the drone, but the noise is like fingernails on a blackboard on a blackboard to me.
Must be tough for the producers, they want the environmental sounds and crowd noise, but they haven't figure out a way to suppress the drone sound and they have to know how awful it is.
It's always nice (and a surprise) to hear from a reader. I can use the translate function to read Helmut's blog, which is great because his English is far better than my German!
That is one of the remarkable things about blogging. It's almost like leaving a message in a bottle and tossing it into the sea. You never know if, or where, it'll turn up.
And the beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailA random list of silly (or not) things I hate
07:57 Thursday, 12 February 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 21.49°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 80% Wind: 12.33mph
Words: 121
A lazy prompt for content, but I can't pass it up.
1. Markdown
2. "Plain text" (If you're not using ASCII, don't even talk to me.)
3. Capitalism
4. Corporations
5. Moral cowardice
6. Willful ignorance
7. Curly quotes (See #2 above.)
8. PKM (I think we'd be better off if people tried to "manage" their ignorance first.)
9. "Social" media
10. The AppleTV remote
11. Liquid Glass
12. Greed
13. Lickspittle, sycophantic obsequiousness. (Looking at you, Tim Cook.) (See #5 above.)
14. Amazon
15. Palantir
16. Google
17. Trump's cabinet
18. Trump
19. Elon Musk
20. Billionaires in general
21. DHS/ICE/CBP
22. Trump's family
23. Typography aesthetes (See #2 above...)
The list goes on, but life is short.
✍️ Reply by emailFree as in beer
12:12 Thursday, 12 February 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 23.83°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 73% Wind: 13.58mph
Words: 346
I had an OpenAI api account with $19 on it, and an order to keep the account between $10 and $20. I've removed the credit card, so that's over. I thought I was paying for ChatGPT, but I'm using the "free" tier. (Nothing is free, I'm sure they're harvesting something of value from our chats.)
Mitzi and I intend to build a new home on her property here, and so we need to come up with some plans. We had originally intended to go with a timber frame design, but it looks like it may be somewhat out of our budget, even with the smaller designs.
So we're looking now at building with insulated concrete forms. ICF construction is also somewhat of a premium over stick-frame construction, but there are savings over the long term, so we're leaning in that direction now. (Whether we'll live long enough to be considered "long term," is another question.)
We have a consultation this afternoon with a design firm that specializes in ICF construction. We're relatively uninformed on these matters, so I've been chatting with ChatGPT, and it's been pretty helpful. I installed Claude and used the free version to ask the same questions of it, and ChatGPT's answers seem more complete, though some of it may be excess verbiage.
I asked both of them to come up with a "cheat sheet" of questions to ask during the consultation. Both complied, but Claude insisted on learning how to use Word, which I don't have, and created a .docx file to download. ChatGPT just created the text in the chat window, and it was much faster and seemingly more thorough.
I feel more prepared using the information from ChatGPT, though both conversations would have been more helpful than just going in blind.
For full transparency, the guy she bought this place from builds using ICF, and we've seen one of his homes under construction, so we're not totally clueless; and he's given us some good tips. But ChatGPT is "always" available and entertains seemingly endless questions, so that's another plus.
✍️ Reply by emailIf Pam Bondi Was a Waitress
14:10 Thursday, 12 February 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 24.03°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 72% Wind: 12.71mph
Words: 22
Yesterday's embarrassing performance by the corrupt and incompetent Pam Bondi at least offered ripe material for mocking satirization.
✍️ Reply by email