Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️
We’ve had a pretty great week here in our part of Virginia. It’s been sunny with temperatures in the 60’s! 😎
Other than that it’s been one of those regular weeks. Nothing overly exciting going on except for the disaster that is our country leadership at the moment. But let’s not get into that here.
Please enjoy the links! ❤️
Carmel Dagan, J. Kim Murphy • Variety
Gene Hackman and Wife Betsy Arakawa Found Dead in Santa Fe Home; Oscar-Winning Star of ‘French Connection’ and ‘Unforgiven’ Was 95
This one hit me. Gene Hackman is my favorite actor of all time. There was just something about him. It didn’t hurt that he reminded me of my grandfather who was an extremely kind man but tough as nails. That’s how Hackman always came across to me.
There are my favorite Gene Hackman films.
- The French Connection
- Target
- Mississippi Burning
- The Replacements
- Unforgiven
There are many more excellent Gene Hackman films to choose from.
In the end he lived a long life and managed to live out his final years peacefully with his wife in New Mexico. 🪦
Why Personal Websites Matter More Than Ever
I love reading Joan’s work. Whether it be on her personal blog or on The Index. She’s just a darned good writer.
Anywho, I agree with her 100%. A weblog is the best social media site you can have because it’s yours. If your host shuts down you can freely move it and your content to a new home.
Start free with a WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, or Micro.Blog account and see where it takes you. There are, of course, others to choose from.
The next step in your journey, perhaps it should be the first, is to acquire a custom domain name to host your blog. They’re also quite easy to get and all of the blog hosting providers I mention above will let you set your own domain name. Easy least!
Nico Grant • The New York Times
“I recommend being in the office at least every weekday,” he wrote in a memo posted internally on Wednesday evening that was viewed by The New York Times. He added that “60 hours a week is the sweet spot of productivity” in the message to employees who work on Gemini, Google’s lineup of A.I. models and apps.
I emphasized the 60 hours comment. That’s a bunch of BS. Trust me, I should know. I put in those kind of hours in the 90’s and early 2000’s. In the end they get a bunch of free work out of you and, if you have a family, your family suffers. It’s just not worth it. Ok, ok, so do a few years of it, say five, and get out.
If you’re single and don’t have any friends this may be the only way you socialize. I could see doing 60 hours a week, but at some point your mind and body pay the price for it.
I’m approaching 60 and I’d rather spend my time with my wife, children, and grand children.
Be wise. Don’t be me.
Skype, the pioneering and once ubiquitous free video calling service, will be history come May. It was so popular that people used it as a verb: “I’ll Skype you in the morning.”
I guess all good things must come to an end, right? Skype was equally loved and hated. I know folks who used it to do international calls and it’s been a huge part of the podcasting world for over a decade, probably two? Folks tried other services but Skype just worked better. It wouldn’t drop connections which is its primary job. The UI sucked but it did the job.
What are folks using today for recording podcasts? I’d love to know.
Jonathan M. Gitlan • Ars Technica
Yes, it turns out you can make a Tesla Cybertruck even uglier
I don’t know if this is uglier or just as ugly in a different way. Lipstick on a pig indeed! 🐷
It’s a garbage “truck” made by a garbage company “run” by a garbage human.
I put quotes around “run” because there is zero chance *Space Karen is performing his duties as CEO for Tesla, SpaceX, or X at the moment.
(* Yes, I pointed to Nazistack. I wish these damned good writers would get off that platform.)
Apple has offered a reason why the iPhone 16e doesn’t include MagSafe, one of the more notable omissions from its latest entry-level smartphone.
I’ve said it a few times now. This may be the perfect phone for me. Lower priced and is good enough. I’d still get iOS and an incredible piece of hardware with good battery life. Oh, and a small camera on the back. 😃
‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Draws Glowing First Reactions, With Some Praising the Opener as the ‘Best Pilot of Any MCU Series Thus Far’
I’m happy to see this back! I haven’t started watching yet, but I most certainly will at some point. Apparently we’re gonna see The Punisher show up at some point. I was a fan of that series as well. ❤️
Carson Hocevar earned a NASCAR Cup Series career-best finish Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway but was left having to explain himself afterward.
Last seasons Rookie of the Year really pisses people off. He’s been doing it since he was part of the Truck Series. Wrecking Corey Heim in the wall during the Championship Race in 2023 was a disgusting display of selfishness.
These Cup drivers won’t put up with his overly aggressive style. He’s stepped over the line from aggressive to reckless. The veteran drivers will straighten him out. It may take a few punches in the face, but they’ll fix it. 🤬
Tom Cruise who? Hulking action star Alan Ritchson has now played beloved antihero and skull-knocking machine Jack Reacher in more adaptations of Lee Child’s bestselling book series than the Reacher before him (who’s currently busy risking life and limb as a different beloved action hero), and judging by the reviews for “Reacher” season 3, it’s a role Ritchson was meant to play.
Here’s another series I need to get back to. We really enjoyed season one but haven’t watched since.
Alan Ritchson is a really great actor and he fits the physical description of Reacher much better than Tom Cruise.
The SystemV file-system that implements Xenix FS, SystemV/386 FS, and Coherent FS is set to be removed from the Linux kernel. The SystemV file-system was orphaned back in 2023 while now is set to be removed entirely after developers realized the code was fundamentally broken.
Ahhh, SystemV. Seeing the word Xenix in there takes me back. Do y’all remember Microsoft Xenix? Probably not many. How about SCO? Yeah, probably not. 🤣
I installed a lot of SCO Xenix at one point in my career. I want to say by then it was SCO UNIX? My memory isn’t that clear on the matter. 😃
