Saturday Morning Coffee

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

Cold EspressoIt looks like we’ll be getting heavy rain all day with chances of flash flooding. I think we’ll be fine where we are as far as flooding goes but I wouldn’t be surprised if we lose power.

Good thing my coffee is brewed and in hand. 😃

Sarah Vogelsong • virginiamercury.com

Youngkin declares state of emergency ahead of Tropical Storm Ophelia

So, yeah, this is why we have a state of emergency here in Virginia. Overnight we got a bit of rain, enough to have standing water in the yard, but we’ll be fine. I feel for folks in lower lying areas. The town of Staunton often has flooding issues. Here’s hoping everyone stays safe and dry today. 🤞🏼

Nathan Edwards • The Verge

Mastodon, the federated microblogging platform, has been updated to version 4.2, which comes with massive improvements to search and the web interface, particularly for logged-out and first-time users.

The tiny open source crew behind Mastodon continues to deliver excellent features and they do it right unlike Space Karen’s company.

While I wish some friends would leave the bird place I’m still extremely happy to have this space to share and have wonderful conversations with amazing people every day. ❤️

Paul Sutter • Space.com

The loss of dark skies is so painful, astronomers coined a new term for it

This is pretty sad, isn’t it? I read this great piece in The Bitter Southerner a few years back that talked about a small town in Georgia Astronomers love because it’s so dark out there. 🌚

Joe George • Den Of Geek

The Star Trek Next Generation Story That Connects the Borg to The Original Series Crew

My question for Star Trek fans, do you love this or hate this?

I like it! 👍🏼

Vjeran Pavic • The Verge

Apple recently extended its deal for Qualcomm modems despite years of effort to develop its own — now we know why. According to a detailed report from the Wall Street Journal, Apple’s attempt to develop its own in-house 5G modem has been stymied by issues resulting from the iPhone maker underestimating the complexity and technical challenges of the task, and a lack of global leadership to guide the separate development groups siloed in the US and abroad.

This is a surprise to me. I can’t see it being because of the technical challenges. I could understand them saying “It’s just not ready.” But a technical challenge? Perhaps? 🤔

Joel Chrono • joelchrono12.xyz

This post was inspired by Rob Fahrni’s post, Saturday Morning Coffee. It has absolutely nothing to do with the content itself, but I got up, served myself a coffe, and wrote all this…

Hey! I inspired someone to write on their blog! That’s never happened before! It’s really wonderful and I hope Joel continues to write and bring us interesting content. Thanks for the love, Joel! ❤️

Ageist

I believe we’ve got retirement wrong. Hear me out. In the early 1990s, I attended my first business trip as a fresh-faced 23-year-old eager to make my mark in the world. I found myself at a workshop, listening to a speaker discuss the concept of retirement. At that age, retirement was a distant, almost foreign concept. Still, one statement from the speaker stuck in my mind: “People know to prepare financially for retirement but don’t know to prepare mentally.” He revealed a startling fact: mortality rates increase dramatically within the first three years of retirement. This revelation has stayed with me ever since.

Right. Do not retire and live like Blue Zone folks live. I actually love this idea.

Not retiring can take on different forms so go read the piece. Folks that know me know I want to write my own software if I ever achieve the financial stability to do it. I’ve considered doing part time work for someone like Starbucks just to socialize a bit. When we lived in Exeter I would frequent Exeter Coffee Company and hang out with a ragtag gang of folks. That’s living in my book. 👍🏼

Robert Harrington • palmerreport.com

What does it mean should Trump’s bail be revoked? First it’s important to recall he’s out on bail on four different felony charges in the first place. In other words, “out on bail” means he’s free and at liberty at the pleasure of four separate jurisdictions. If that bail is revoked in any of those jurisdictions, US marshals will be sent to wherever Trump is at the moment and summarily drag him out — in handcuffs — and take him to jail.

I know some people don’t believe a former President should be indicted of a crime much less be prosecuted or spend time in jail if convicted. I’m certainly not one of those people. TFG is a criminal and as such deserves a bit of time in the clank. 🚓

And, yeah, even at the risk of violence. If we allow certain people to get away with anything we don’t have a democracy or the rule of law. 🧑‍⚖️

Catherine Thorbecke • CNN

Alyssa Henry, the CEO of Square – a unit of Jack Dorsey’s fintech company, Block – will leave her post at the company next month.

I wonder if Jack plans to sell Block off to Space Karen so he can realize his everything app? 🤣

Valerie Ettenhofer • /Film

While you won’t find a “Joker” alternate ending available to view online, rumors about one persist thanks to a tidbit shared by filmmaker Kevin Smith on his “Fatman Beyond” podcast (via CinemaBlend). In a discussion of the film, Smith explains that he was told about a proposed original ending for the movie in which Arthur himself is revealed to be the Wayne family’s killer, and Bruce Wayne ends up in his crosshairs.

This would’ve been an amazing ending for Joker! The only problem with that is we couldn’t have sequels where Joker and Batman tangle.

I want so badly to see a Batman movie or series of movies that feature Joker exclusively. That may be too much to pull off so at the very least give us A Death in The Family in movie form. In Superman vs. Batman we get a glimpse of Robin’s — Jason Todd — armor in a glass case with Jokers writing on it. Great Easter egg.

Dave Rogers

The second night I was there, two more of our classmates joined us. One was a retired Air Force E-9 who’d worked in meteorology his whole career. The other is a highly trained engineer. Climate came up again, this time from the engineer. He’s convinced we can solve the crisis. Our host told him not to ask me, because he wouldn’t like the answer. But our Air Force friend was in my camp. It was interesting to me to listen to his take. Our views differ somewhat, but our conclusions are the same. It’s too late to avert a general collapse of civilization, likely before this century is out.

I like Dave’s writing a lot. He’s very open in what her shares and is extremely concerned with the state of the state of Florida. It’s a complete nightmare to live in if you’re an empathetic, caring, person. The GOP lead government doesn’t care about anyone or anything.

Dave’s take may seem a bit dark but I think he’s hit the nail on the head. We have screwed ourselves in the name of capitalism and investor return. And we’ve screwed future generations. 🤬

Bradley Brownell • Jalopnik

The United Auto Workers strike has expanded from three facilities to 41, as contract negotiations continue to slog on. Ford and the UAW have come together to form a tentative agreement, and while there is still a lot of work to be done, the union has chosen not to expand its striking efforts against Ford facilities.

Here’s an industry where we need radical transformation, now. I know the piece is about workers and I hope they’re able to negotiate and get what they need to survive and thrive.

At one point Detroit was a model of the middle class because of the automobile.

James Robins • defector.com

Musk’s life and personality, it turns out, is not so hard to contain. It is flat and shallow and open for all to read. The difficulty comes when Isaacson tries to impose some fabricated complexity on a not-very-complex man, and uses that illusion of knottiness as an excuse to paper over a much truer and more interesting story.

Space Karen isn’t the genius everyone thinks he is. He’s a bully who needs someone to smash his nose a few times so he’ll understand that treating people like crap has consequences.

Garbage human who managed to con his way into crap tons of money.

Tiny Apple Core