Rob Fahrni

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Saturday Morning Coffee

I’d set aside so many articles to link to this morning, I can’t link to all of them.

This week has been full of great tech news, but it’s been eclipsed by tragedy, on so many fronts. I tried not to be too much of a downer, but I may have failed miserably.

Variety: “Ray Liotta, the acclaimed actor known for “Goodfellas,” “Field of Dreams” and many more roles, has died at 67, Variety has confirmed with his publicist. He died in his sleep while he was in the Dominican Republic shooting an upcoming film, ‘Dangerous Waters.’”

We’ve lost another film legend. My favorite Ray Liotta film is Field of Dreams. I liked him as a good guy, even though he’s probably best known as a hard nosed gangster.

When he drops the line “No, Ray, it was you” in Field of Dreams I turn into a blubbering mess.

I also really liked him in Cop Land, Hannibal, and Identity. The scene in Hannibal when Lecter is serving his own brain to him is horrible and funny all at the same time.

Fortune: “‘It was a joke,’ says Sam, 40, who asked to be identified by his first name only to protect his job and privacy. But the idea has stuck with him for months now. He’d love to open his own little coffee or cheese shop, he says, envisioning hosting wine tastings on Saturday nights.”

I’d still love to own a coffee shop. When the question of “What would you do” pops up my answer is always the same.

I’d love to own a coffee shop. ☕️

Puck.news: “In recent years, as media companies have taken greater interest in the rapidly-growing gaming industry, Wilson and Electronic Arts have held talks with a number of different potential suitors, including Disney, Apple and Amazon, sources with knowledge of those talks told me.”

Of course I’m linking to this because Apple is mentioned as a possible suitor. I can’t see it. Apple has never been into hard core gaming.

On the flip side I could see this if, and it’s a big if, they decide they’re going to make a bigger play for the home entertainment market and ship a super beefy Apple TV box with awesome gaming specs and create wonderful controllers.

I still can’t see it.

Grub Street: “Atla’s horchata latte is half a shot of espresso mingled with the rice-based, cinnamon-scented drink that’s familiar to anyone who has ever been to a taco truck.”

Horchata is an absolute favorite of folks I knew in the San Joaquin Valley. There is a large Mexican influence in the Valley. That, in turn, means we had wonderful Mexican foods all over the place.

Mexican folks know how to live and it starts with family and ends with food. Perfect combination.

GQ: “That’s because testosterone levels can be affected by many factors. Getting eight hours of sleep or correcting a nutritional deficiency, like a low level of vitamin D, will restore your testosterone to its natural baseline. Strength training, looking for ways to decrease stress, and cutting out smoking are also key.”

There was a point in my 30’s and into my early 40’s where I was a gym rat. I loved working out. For me it was all about heavy weights. I didn’t care to have pretty muscle, I wanted to be able to carry a small country on my back.

When I got into my 40’s I started having trouble recovering from my workouts. I now know I was overtraining, but I also discovered my testosterone levels were low. Ultimately I stopped working out. One of my many flaws is going all in on things. Once I feel I can no longer be all in, I’m done with it. That was a mistake, and it shows.

Moral of the story for me is: low T is part of aging. Keep moving and find something you love to stay in shape.

I still don’t have a good exercise routine.

Robert Reich: “Billionaires are mounting a class war. Republican lawmakers are mounting a culture war to deflect attention from it.”

I’ve never understood the absolute need for power some people have. Most of the new class of billionaires are all about power the way I see it. Musk and Thiel come across as very libertarian, but each fail the sniff test when it comes to power. They want to control what the government does and doesn’t do.

I don’t care for that.

Jalopnik: “Tesla CEO and adorable optimist Elon Musk gave the world what they wanted and confidently predicted that Tesla would achieve ‘full self-driving’—a term usually understood to refer to SAE Autonomy Levels 4 and 5, requiring no monitoring or input from whomever is in the car—less than a year from now. This makes the ninth year in a row he’s predicted full FSD coming in around a year! It’s the gift that keeps on giving.”

After watching Elon Musks Crash Course it really seems like Musk is just another grifter. He has the gift of charm and an army of followers that worship at his feet.

Ultimately, he may not be the genius every believes him to be.

For me, the court is still out, but I’m now leaning “not a genius.”

Daring Fireball: “An astonishing and infuriating tale of maternal love and heroism, and police cowardice and incompetence.”

I think everyone who knows anything about me knows I want stricter gun laws. The tragedy in Uvalde solidifies my stance even deeper in my brain.

Oh, and that GOP talking point of a “good guy with a gun” was bullshit all along, but now, now we have evidence it doesn’t work, at all.

The “good guys” with guns sat outside the school while children were dying. Where’s the bravery we hear about from empty suit politicians?

It didn’t exist on that day and children died because of it.

Michael Tsai: “SwiftUI in 2022”

Apple released SwiftUI in 2019. Here we are, three years on, and folks are struggling to build deep applications.

I know from experience SwiftUI is great for building simple UI. Even then you run across behaviors that are hard to wrap your brain around.

The state of it really makes me wish Apple had held off for a few years, but time marches on and I’d imagine they had to show people the future or risk never being able to ship SwiftUI as the new way.

Oh, one other observation. The name, SwiftUI, is bad. Giving it a better marketing name would’ve been better.

We have Cocoa, Combine, and Catalyst to name a few. Then you have SwiftUI. It just feels wrong.

Tiny Apple Core