Well, the Zags fell to Purdue. Not shocking or surprising. They had a good run.
Gonzaga is still alive in my bracket. Getting past Purdue is gonna be extremely difficult.
Saturday Morning Coffee
Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️
We’ve been home for a week now and it’s been really nice to sleep in our own bed!
Now, if we could get Cocoa to sleep past 5:30AM I’d be thrilled. 😃
I hope you have a nice cup of coffee or tea ready and I hope you enjoy the links.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has refused to surrender, and called Vladimir Putin “deeply mistaken” following the Russian president’s address describing his actions as betrayal.
I heard about this as I was crawling in bed. I hope the Wagner Group is able to destabilize Putin and end the war in Ukraine.
Probably too much to hope for. 🙁
I wanted to address Reddit’s continued, provably false statements, as well as answer some questions from the community, and also just say thanks.
I love this openness from Christian Selig. If folks don’t know, Christian tapes his conversations with Reddit folks. It’s been very interesting to read bit the transcript he’s shared. It’s clear they have lied.
I just wish Christian had posted this all to a weblog so it would have a more permanent home. Who knows what’s going to happen with his subreddit.
After a bruising week of protests and locked-down forums, things started to get back to normal Tuesday on Reddit, as — oh wait, what’s this?
Subreddit moderators are doing all they can to screw things up on Reddit. I applaud their effort.
If you want to watch pop culture eat itself, go see The Flash, a movie that starts out as a sprightly superhero adventure, then dissolves into a self-referential requiem for the DC Universe.
I’m torn about seeing this movie given all the hubbub surrounding Ezra Miller but I really want to see Michael Keatons older Batman!
These days, distributed version control systems like Git have “won the war” of version control. One of the arguments I used to hear when DVCSs were gaining traction was around how easy it is to branch and merge with a VCS like Git. However, I’m a big fan of Trunk-Based Development (TBD), and I want to tell you why.
I’d imagine most folks I work with today have no clue how we used to work. I didn’t use git for version control full time until around 2014 I’d imagine? I found it terribly frustrating to work with at first but know I’m fine with it.
Anywho, up until 2014 I’d worked with so many different version control systems. I’d imagine I worked with CVS the longest and we had one main branch — trunk — and everyone committed directly to it. Yes, breaking the build was definitely frowned upon so you had to be very careful about your commits!
When North Carolina Gov. Patrick McCrory signed House Bill 2 into law, I wonder if he was thinking long-range about what the result might be. I can’t see him and his staff wondering out loud if their thick-skulled, cracker logic might result in Bruce Springsteen not only canceling his upcoming show in Greensboro, depriving the state of revenue and its residents of a Springsteen concert, but inspiring Mr. Boss to issue a press release that more people have read than will ever peruse House Bill 2.
Henry Rollins seems to be a really great dude. Part punk, part philosopher, always interesting to listen to or read.
Seven years after the Brexit referendum, the proportion of Britons who want to rejoin the EU has climbed to its highest levels since 2016, according to a new survey.
I mean, duh! The British version of MAGA didn’t work out so well. It’s been terrible for so many. I hope they rejoin the EU.
The NASCAR Next Gen Garage 56 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 was a hit from day one in Le Mans, among fans, media and even other competitors. And it was fast on track, consistently putting down lap times that bettered cars in the GT class. The car ran near the top of the GT field for more than 20 hours until a drive line issue sidelined the team for more than an hour. Overall, the car was running at the finish, completed 285 laps on the 8.4-mile circuit and finished 39th in the 62-car field.
This car is an absolute beast and looked out of place at Le Mans. It would also look out of place on a NASCAR track. It is a beautiful car with some really excellent engineering. Oh, yeah, and it is super fast! Good old American V8 horsepower under the hood.
I kind of wish I’d been more of a car guy when I was younger. My Dad certainly is and has built some beautiful cars in his time. His ‘37 Chevy Coup Street Rod is stunning and he used to drag race a 454 powered ‘51 Anglia.
I had the opportunity to learn a lot but didn’t. If I could do it today I’d love to be a mechanic or engineer for a NASCAR, IndyCar, or F1 team. I’d love to specialize in engines. I do find them fascinating and would love to rebuild one again. I rebuilt a Chevy small block in High School my senior year. Yeah, I took auto shop because I wanted to do something “easy.” 😃
After 21 years, Cadillac Racing marked our return to the iconic 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 10—11 with our highest finish ever in front of a record audience of 325,000 spectators. Our No. 2 V-Series.R led laps for the first time in Cadillac history and finished on the podium in 3rd, with the No. 3 just behind in 4th, and the No. 311 fighting back for 10th in class.
There’s an article on Jalopnik that includes a video of one of these cars doing a bump start and it sounds mean. It instantly made me think of the Batmobile for some reason.
Now, let’s get more American manufacturers back in NASCAR. Cadillac would be a super interesting entry! I think Dodge is an obvious entry for NASCAR Cup, Xfinity, and Truck series given their history of legendary cars like the Challenger and their RAM trucks.
Cadillac would be super cool to see in NASCAR Cup racing but it may be too lowbrow for them? 🤣
Renting an RV and embarking on a road trip across America can seem like more of a fantasy trip than a real thing you actually do. But you can truly make it a reality. And if you do, it can turn into a thrilling and liberating experience that will leave you with unforgettable memories. Here’s why you should take the plunge.
This is something I dream about all the time but I can’t quite get Kim convinced we need to sell everything and go all in on the RV lifestyle.
As a compromise we’d like to acquire a smaller RV and do some two week to one month excursions to see if we like it. It would also be great for week long camping trips with the entire family.
Maybe someday it’ll be a reality? 🤞🏼
When former NBC Universal executive Linda Yaccarino was named Twitter’s next CEO last month, advertisers breathed a sigh of relief.
I don’t expect Ms. Yaccarino to last very long at Twitter. I think my original quesstimate was six months but I could see it lasting as long as a year.
Musk is too much of a control freak. The kind of boss I’d hate working for.
The best piece of advice I ever got from my VP of Engineering and CTO at Pelco was “You have to convince people your vision is the right way to go so they follow. You won’t get their best work if you’re a tyrant.” It was something like that. Basically be a leader, not a bully.
This blog post is meant to be read in order. Later answers are shorter because they rely on the information presented in the earlier answers.
This is a really nice piece if you’re following along with the TFG Top Secret documents prosecution. Dude is such a knucklehead and honestly believes he has magical powers to declassify things with his mind. Dumbass.
The engineers reminded him of their commutes. The working parents reminded him of school pickup times. Mr. Medina replied with arguments he has delineated so often that they have come to feel like personal mantras: Being near each other makes the work better. Mr. Medina approached three years of mushy remote-plus-office work as an experiment. His takeaway was that ideas bubble up more organically in the clamor of the office.
I believe with all my heart CEO’s like this are real control freaks and must have the adoration of their people surrounding them at all times. I can have these ah-ha moments, Slack someone, and fire up a zoom call to have the same conversations. It’s just not face to face in a building I have to commute to.
If our company demanded everyone come to the office, of course I’d comply, but I really don’t believe it’s necessary.
Just my horrible opinion.
A federal court heard both sides during a trial where trans youth, their parents, and their doctors challenged a law banning gender affirming care in Arkansas. The court found that the law violated the right to due process and to equal treatment under the constitution, and ordered the law struck down because Arkansas failed to demonstrate a compelling state interest justifying the unequal treatment.
We really need the courts to continue overturning these idiotic and dangerous laws.
You cannot force people to be someone they are not and denying them healthcare because they’re different than you is barbaric.
Apparently Meta’s Project 92 is going to federate with a limited set of Mastodon instances, pay them, and allow them to display Meta ads in exchange for a cut.
Embrace and extend. Amirite?
Let’s see how this plays out.
Saturday Morning Coffee
As I’m getting started it’s a nice crisp 27F outside just before 8AM EST. The sun is out and will be all day. We’ve had a very mild winter this year, with the exception of that polar blast around Christmas, and I don’t expect us to get any snow.🌞
My coffee is in hand, time to get started. Hope you enjoy the links. ☕️
A gunman opened fire on Monday night on the main campus of Michigan State University, killing three people and injuring five, before an hours-long manhunt for the suspect ended with his death, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot, police said.
It’s the guns. I don’t know what else to say. Over and over and over again we see this and do nothing. A truly American thing and not one to be proud of. 😞
Kansas City Chiefs win the Super Bowl for the 2nd time in 4 years, beating the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 on a FG with 8 seconds left
I’m happy for the Chiefs and their fans. It was a great Super Bowl, a nail biter, not a blowout. Oh, and the Mahomes to Kelce connection is without a doubt the best in football and one of the best ever. If Patrick Mahomes can stay healthy and have a 20-year run he’ll break all kinds of records and win some more rings.
Just short of the 10th anniversary of that first Mac Pro misstep, Apple is now late in concluding its processor transition by shipping the first Apple silicon-based Mac Pro. What’s worse, reports from Bloomberg suggest that the company has ditched the next Mac Pro’s highest-end processor, calling the computer’s entire purpose into question.
Given Apple’s new chip architecture with memory and processor built into the chip I have a difficult time defining what a pro machine should or would be. Maybe you have to accept a new definition? Maybe it doesn’t mean a flexible and expandable architecture?
What I’d like to see is Apple give the Professional computing world a way to use their current investment in Mac Pro a way to replace the x86 based Xeon chips with Apple Silicon. Of course Apple would never do such a thing because money. 💸
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 15, 2022 – Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the world’s most trusted solution to power and protect digital experiences, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Linode, one of the easiest-to-use and most trusted infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform providers.
I follow a number of indie software developers and they tend to use Linode for their service backends. Two that come to mind are Micro.blog, the system I use for publishing my blog, and Overcast, the indie podcast app for iOS. I’m sure there are many more out there I don’t know about. I’ve never done any large scale backend work for my indie endeavors but if I did I’d most likely choose Linode because they’re inexpensive, reliable, and have great customer service.
Hopefully they don’t start hiking prices, laying off people, and becoming a terrible place to host. 🤞🏼
Spotify’s podcast push began in earnest in 2016, when Ek invited audio executives including higher ups at Gimlet to the company’s headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden to explain the emerging American podcast market.
Spotify calls their recorded audio podcasting. It’s not. Podcasting is the audio plus a delivery mechanism in the form of RSS. Yes, you can have a podcast as I’ve defined it behind a paywall. They just want to lock you into their app with their advertising and try to upsell you on other things. That’s fine. It’s their business but don’t call them podcasts. Ok, off the soap box. 📦
I was listening to the Pivot Podcast last night and Scott Galloway point out that very few podcasts make a profit. That’s true of what he defines as a podcast. Remember, this started as an open technology built by Dave Winer and Adam Curry. It was used and loved long before businessmen decided they could monetize it. Just like blogging. It’s was and still is a way for us mere mortals to communicate to the outside world, even if we’re not paid a dime to do it.
Oh, and I have a feeling some of the small podcasting shops are doing just fine, but they do things differently and have well loved shows. They’re just not exclusive to Spotify or Apple or whatever Big Co place you get your podcasts. They’re fully open and downloadable using your podcast player of choice because they’re built on top of RSS as the delivery mechanism.
The key phrase to listen for when you hear a podcast advertised is ”Download wherever you get your podcasts.” Then you know it’s a real podcast.
The hearing got incredibly creepy when Arkansas state Sen. Matt McKee asked a trans pharmacist if she had a penis. “Do you have a penis?” he asked the woman, who seemed stunned at the question.
Unbelievable. I wish we could get past this and so many other things. So many people want to control how others behave and how they live their life. Often times based on some form of religion they’ve twisted to support their hate, disdain, or jealously of others.
Let people live their lives. Show them respect and grace as fellow human beings. It’s not our job to tell folks how they should live. That goes for women, brown skinned people, and the LBGTQ+ community. ❤️
After half a decade of sedate, steady growth, Mastodon suddenly surged, from 600,000 daily users to 2.6 million in the space of months.
Some folks are already writing off Mastodon. Silly people. If you’re looking to get a huge following and interacting with movie stars, influencers, government officials, and the rich and famous, don’t expect that from Mastodon. It’s not built for that. It’s built like your everyday neighborhood for us commoners to engage in. It’s real people carrying on real discussions. Sure, there’s gonna be some hate but there are mechanisms in place to take care of that crap. I love it and I’m excited to see it grow. There’s no algorithm to encourage you to follow people or corporate master to satisfy and no need to grow to billions of users because of it.
It’s like blogging. It’s all open and up to us, everyday people, to keep it. ✌🏼
Lurking behind the concerns of Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, over the content of a proposed high school course in African American studies, is a long and complex series of debates about the role of slavery and race in American classrooms.
Talk about hateful, mean, and unsympathetic to fellow human beings. DeSantis is an authoritarian who wants to mold Florida into his own disgusting image. He doesn’t want you to think for yourself or question authority, no sir. He wants a bunch of dumb drones serving the rich and powerful.
Get out if you can. It’s a terrible state. If you can’t, or don’t want to, I wish you luck and hope you find a way to help change the state. 🍀
In the past couple of years, I’ve had the occasion to want to make an XCFramework – a bundle that’s used by Apple platforms to encapsulate binary frameworks or libraries – a couple of times.
I don’t know Joseph personally but I’ve interacted with him on the NetNewsWire Slack and Mastodon and he’s a really kind, thoughtful, selfless man. He’s given me feedback on Stream and Mac programming questions. All that to say he’s one of the good ones.
Anywho, this is a great piece on how he built an XCFramework with a Rust core. Rust has become the new, safe, language for creating highly performant software and being able to use it natively on iOS or Mac and integrate it right into Xcode is wonderful. 🧰
Mobile tech is a duopoly run by two companies – Google and Apple – with a combined market cap of $3.5 trillion. Each company uses a combination of tech, law, contract and market power to force sellers to do commerce via an app, and each one extracts a massive commission on all in-app sales – 15-30%!
Web tools continue to improve to the point that native apps may become a thing of the past for many companies. Of course folks like me will continue to do native iOS, and hopefully Mac, apps for as long as we can, but the writing has been on the wall for a long time. Native apps are becoming less and less important with each passing day. Learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Over the past year, we have seen a sweeping and ferocious attack on the rights and dignity of transgender people across the country.
A really great piece by Jamelle Bouie. Please, go read it if you can.
Yours truly who accidentally started a conversation about SwiftUI List performance. Smooth, fast, stable, code is important to me and most developers. we do strive to make our apps the best they can be. I’m still learning, still trying, to make all my apps better each time I work on one. This conversation may change how I do Stream for Mac.
Super Bowl pick.
Kansas City Chiefs over Philadelphia Eagles.
Patrick Mahomes Super Bowl MVP.
Take that as you may. I got both of my picks wrong two weeks back. 😂
Saturday Morning Coffee
Good morning coffee lovers! Hope you’re ready for some randomness because you’re gonna get some. Cheers! ☕️
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Thousands of frustrated Texans shivered in homes without power for a second day Thursday, most of them around booming Austin, and fading hopes of a quick fix stirred grim memories of a deadly 2021 blackout after an icy winter storm across the southern U.S.
Poor Texans are, once again, struggling through big cold snap. It’s not surprising though, the GOP run state doesn’t care about people, only profits.
I read something yesterday that rings true: How can you tell when you’re going to have six more weeks of winter? Ted Cruz goes to Mexico.
Folks, stop voting for Republicans. They don’t care about you one little bit.
HBO’s The Last of Us tries a little tenderness in a surprising episode 3
This was a fantastic episode! We got to see a couple live their best lives under terrible circumstances. I didn’t play the game so I didn’t know Bill was gay but he was already an interesting character up to that point. A prepper with the talent of a gourmet chef and a musician. Being gay was just the cherry on top and his commitment to his partner was heart warming. This episode was a quiet reprieve to what I’d imagine will be non-stop violence to the bitter end.
Tom Brady says he is retiring “for good” from football, ending a storied 23-year NFL career during which the star quarterback won seven Super Bowls and set numerous records.
Tom, Tom, Tom. I have a horrible feeling Mr. Brady returned to football because his wife broke the news to him that she wanted a divorce not long after he retired. Football was the distraction he needed to get through it. Now the divorce is final, he’s suffered that initial pain, and it’s time to move on.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that Tom. Divorce is nothing but pain for all involved. I hope you have a beautiful life. You are football’s GOAT.
Because of Twitter’s announcement that free access to the Twitter API will end February 9, we will be removing Twitter integration from NetNewsWire in the next release (6.1.1) for Mac and iOS.
Space Karen strikes again! This time he’s hitting anyone whow uses the Twitter API. He’s tightening up while over on Mastodon things remain completely open for business! Following folks on Mastodon from your favorite feed read is so easy you don’t need a special plug-in to do it! It supports RSS right out of the box. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!
Also, who wants this domain? It would be great for a Space Karen watch site, like Twitter is going great.
Before the present owner, I was a Twitter Blue customer, because I always pay for software—to support its creators and help prevent it from disappearing, as so many great websites and platforms have done over the years.
Jeffrey Zeldman is an American treasure and web hero. I’ve enjoyed reading him for years and years now. This time Jeffrey shares his adventure of trying to give Twitter money. Their payment system failed. Doesn’t surprise me.
The authoritarian strongman types want us to believe in their power. They may even want us to think that their power is divinely influenced, a sign that they’re not like the rest of us, but better. Look no further than the surreal video released just weeks before the Florida gubernatorial election, complete with Voice of God-style narration and mad text about how Ron DeSantis is the fulfillment of God’s plan for a protector and a fighter.
I’m sure Florida has it’s share of wonderful people but why would you choose to live there? DeSantis is a true authoritarian scared of America’s future without bullies like him. Future America will happen. You may slow it down but it will happen. I hope to one day have a liberal society built on love and compassions for our fellow man, not some nasty place full of scared, old, white men grasping for every little bit of power they can. It’ll happen. May just be after I’m going. Here’s hoping it happens before then.
The real problem is that C++ is neither easy nor loved. Rust got an 87% approval rate in the “most loved” category of the Stack Overflow Survey. However, only 9.3% of respondents used Rust at all and only 8.8% did so professionally. C++, meanwhile, languished at 48%.
Look, I don’t want to work on some web3 thing either. Why would I use my talents as a C++ developer to work on a thing I don’t care for? Sure, you could offer me tons of cash and it would be tempting but ultimately I’d be bored to death.
I’ve worked on award winning Windows Applications and highly performant video encoding and decoding systems. I can’t see working on trading systems. Nope, nope, nope.
The U.S. military has been monitoring a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that has been hovering over the northern U.S. for the past few days, and military and defense leaders have discussed shooting it out of the sky, according to two U.S. officials and a senior defense official.
This is really strange to me. We should bring it down, but in a controlled way if at all possible. It would be fascinating to examine what the onboard package contains.
Who knows, maybe it’s full of radioactive material in hopes we will shoot it down. That would be our luck. 😂
WESTLAKE, Ohio, January 30, 2023–(BUSINESS WIRE)–TravelCenters of America Inc. (Nasdaq: TA), the nation’s largest publicly-traded full-service travel center network, announced today an agreement with Electrify America to offer electric vehicle charging at select TA/Petro locations with the first stations planned to be deployed in 2023. Electrify America is the largest open direct current fast-charging network in the U.S.
This is excellent! There are so many nice electric vehicles on the market today so setting up a massive charging network makes sense.
The old time car companies have caught up to Space Karen’s car company and in many ways surpassed it. Good. We need the competition.
Today’s NFL Division Championship game picks.
Bengals over Chiefs
49’ers over Eagles
Let’s hope I do better than last weekend. 🤞🏼
NFL Division Round Picks
I was terrible with my picks last weekend. I went two for five! Ack! 😵💫
It was a real letdown to see San Diego and Baltimore lose. I was happy to see the Giants win. Poor Minnesota, they can’t catch a break.
Here are this weeks picks. 🏈
#4 Jacksonville at #1 Kansas City
Jacksonville has the youth and a great coach but I believe time has run out for the up and comer. I’ll take Kansas City. Easy pick.
#3 Cincinnati at #2 Buffalo
This is a tough one. Cincinnati got some really great breaks as Baltimore did everything possible to lose. Great teams cause havoc.
On the flip side the Bill did their best to lose to Miami but managed to pull it out of the fire.
The Bills were my pick to win it all so of course they’re my pick.
#6 New York at #1 Philadelphia
This one is tough for me. New York has been playing really great football and seeing their NFC rival for the third time this season who knows what’ll happen. Philly should be well rested and ready to roll but I’m going to take the New York Giants as my upset special.
#5 Dallas at #2 San Francisco
While the Cowboys looked unstoppable against the Buccaneers they were playing a not so great team. Tom Brady looked 45 and frightened all night. Heck I’d be terrified of Micah Parsons hitting me. The man is a one man wrecking crew.
Having said all that. The team to most fear right now is the San Francisco 49’ers. Give me the 9’ers.
Weekend NFL Picks
It’s the first weekend of NFL Playoffs, exciting stuff! 🏈
Saturday
49ers over Seahawks
Chargers over Jaguars
Sunday
Bills over Dolphins
Vikings over Giants
Ravens over Bengals UPSET ALERT
Monday
And, my upset special for the first round of playoffs.
Buccaneers over Cowboys
Life and Sudden Cardiac Arrest
Hamlin lay on the field, motionless, for ten minutes as medical personnel administered CPR. Players from both teams kneeled, some with tears streaming down their faces, while Hamlin was placed on a stretcher and taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center in an ambulance. As of Tuesday, Hamlin remains hospitalized in critical condition.
This hit home. I’ve been through this. You can read about it after I add some commentary around Mr. Hamlin’s event.
Scary is a good way to describe what happened to Damar Hamlin. You don’t expect a healthy, young, fit athlete to drop dead on a football field.
The good news is two fold. First, medical staff began working on him right away. Second, doctors have to be 99% sure what caused it. Getting hit in the chest while your heart is at a very specific point in its rhythm can cause Sudden Cardiac Arrest. It seems likely this is what happened.
It’s going to take a while but I’d expect Mr. Hamlin is going to make a full recovery and live a normal, hopefully very long, life. I’d also imagine the psychological trauma will harder to overcome than the physical trauma. Keep that in mind.
The next question is, will he play football again? That’s tough to answer and it will ultimately be between him and his doctors to decide. If it doesn’t work out that he can play again I hope he has another skill he can fall back on. No athlete can play their sport forever, especially an NFL football player. The average NFL career is around 3.3 years, give it take, so let’s be generous and say it’s four years.
It stands to reason Mr. Hamlin would eventually resign from the NFL a young man and do something else. I often wonder how many athletes consider this on their way into professional sports?
It was reported Mr. Hamlin was due to make over $800,000US this year. That should also afford him some runway should he need to change careers.
This brings me around to a little rant but I could see folks disagreeing with what I’m about to say.
From the article I link above.
But, with a few exceptions, NFL players, unlike other major sports leagues, do not have guaranteed contracts. That means the players, not the team, carry the financial risk of serious injury.
Here’s where I’m going to be controversial.
Why should contracts be guaranteed? I understand that these young men take hard shots to their bodies in every game they play. I’d imagine it’s like us being in a car wreck and walking away battered and bruised. Heck, I’d say their experience is probably worse than that in every game.
They know what they’re doing. These men decided they wanted to do this for a living, just as I decided I wanted to be a computer programmer when I was in junior high school. They must understand the risk they take with each snap. They must. Why do you think they’re paid so well? That’s right. There are very few who are good enough to make an NFL roster, much less play.
As a teenager in high school I knew football was a collision sport. I loved the collisions, which, unfortunately, I was usually on the losing side of. I saw my teammates get hurt. A few tore ACLs. I’ve seen players get concussed. Hell, I was concussed so badly I couldn’t really see and started walking to the other teams sideline. Luckily one of my teammates grabbed my jersey and took me to our sideline. I received no medical attention. I just shook it off. I watched the QB of my JV team play through a rib injury. After the game he lay on the floor of the locker room sobbing in agony. No, we were not Pro players at the highest level of performance. Just a bunch of snot nosed kids who loved football. I knew then I could be seriously injured but I still loved playing.
Many of us choose to become Professionals in business or other occupation. I’m paid a certain amount to do my job eight hours a day, five days a week. I’m a Professional Software Engineer. I’m paid to write software. NFL players are paid to play football.
I’m aging. I’ve come to realize all that punishment I put myself through as a kid is coming home to roost. Couple that with poor genetics and I feel physically broken at age 55. I have knee and back issues to contend with daily. Recently I injured my back putting on my shoe. It happened while I was off for a week to be with family after the death of my grandmother. When I got back I struggled with work and had to take some time off, some complete days, some half days. Work became concerned and it went all the way to our HR department who called to see if I wanted to take extended time off. It’s nice I have that option but at 60% of my income I cannot afford to take time off. Can you? So I’m “playing” injured, I know it’s not like the NFL but bare with me. Thankfully it’s not my brain and some time off between Christmas and New Year healed me up enough to get back to work without issue.
I do not have guaranteed income as a Professional Software Developer. Sure I have the option to go on disability for 12 weeks at 60% pay, but eventually that ends. What if I am injured so badly I need medical care my entire life? Like many other Americans I’m screwed and so is my family.
I disagree NFL players should get guaranteed contracts. I do believe the NFL Players Union could probably do a better job negotiating some guaranteed money and guaranteed healthcare, for life. Healthcare is going to, most likely, be the largest lifetime expense for many players.
I understand the punditry, players, and all us normals are talking about Mr. Hamlins injury now. It’s only natural and, after all, the young man almost died for a sport. But, let’s not forget things like this happen in the real world every day. It’s just not talked about every day on talk shows, so we are naive to it, and go about our daily lives as if everything is peachy.
My Sudden Cardiac Arrest
When I was in my Senior year of high school – at age 17 – I had Sudden Cardiac Arrest while in the on deck circle of a baseball field. We were taking batting practice.
As it’s told to me I just collapsed. I wasn’t hit in the chest with a baseball, which can cause a Sudden Cardiac Arrest, my heart just decided it wanted to stop. You don’t expect to see a young, healthy, fit 17 year old drop dead on a baseball diamond.
I was resuscitated by my best friend, Pedro. Pete, as we called him, was a hemophiliac and wasn’t allowed to participate in sports so our high school sent him to Sports Medicine training and he became a student trainer for various sports. Luckily he was on the baseball field that day. Pete was joined by Mr. Conley, a teacher, and they performed CPR on me until the ambulance arrived.
I apparently arrested again so the EMT’s worked on me for a bit then loaded me into the ambulance. Being in a small town word gets around really quickly. My family doctor heard what was going on and asked the ambulance to pick him up. He continued working on me as we drove to neighboring Visalia. I was resuscitated before arriving at Kaweah Delta Hospital.
When we arrived at the ER I arrested again and was subsequently resuscitated once more. This time my heart continued to beat on its own.
Once stabilized I was put into a medically enduced coma. When I was allowed to wake up I had no idea what had happened and I was loopy for quite a while.
Doctors tried to recreate my arrest by performing a heart catheterization, inserting some type of wire, and shocking my heart. They were trying to create an electrical malfunction. They were unable to recreate it.
No true cause was ever detected but I do have mitral valve prolapse and the best theory doctors had was my mitral valve stuck open and caused my heart to stop. Mitral valve issues can cause Sudden Cardiac Arrest.
Eventually I was released from the hospital, put on beta blockers, and went back to my life. No driving for the next six months and no sports until the doctor released me.
The most difficult part of this entire episode was dealing with the thought it could happen again, at any time. I went through bouts of depression and had to be treated for it. Eventually things returned to normal. I worked in the packing house over the summer, played hoops with my friends, and went to pool parties. Like a normal 17 year old.
A couple years later I married the love of my life, had two amazing kids, and now we have two wonderful grand kids. Overall I’ve had a wonderful life.
All that to say your life can still be quite full after a major, life threatening, event. Even if you don’t have a true cause.
TCU stuns Michigan
GLENDALE, Ariz. – In the biggest upset since the advent of the College Football Playoff, third-seeded TCU rode its underdog status to a 51-45 win over undefeated and No. 2 Michigan in the Fiesta Bowl on Saturday. The win continued TCU’s storybook season and made the Frogs the first Big 12 team to reach the title game in the CFP era.
I figured, for sure, Michigan was going to take this game, easily.
Many folks, myself included, thought TCU should have been out of the picture after they lost the Big 12 Championship to Kansas State!
Wouldn’t it be something if Ohio State beats Georgia then beats TCU in the National Championship game? 🤯
NFL Europe? Yes, please.
“The fact that Goodell was willing to publicly acknowledge the idea of putting four teams in Europe means it’s likely something that the NFL will give serious consideration to over the next decade. One of the biggest problems with putting a team in London is that it would be a traveling nightmare, but putting an entire division in Europe would help alleviate that issue.”
I am all for this idea. In fact I’d love to see a new AFC and NFC division. Think of the old NFL Europe teams, there were nine of them. It would be easy to make two new divisions, if the cities would support them of course.
NFC Europe Division
AFC Europe Division
And there you go. That gives you five AFC and five NFC divisions.
Since there are 17 games in an NFL season there could be a great mix of local division, local cross conference games, and a mix of travel for US based teams, and Europe based teams. They could do this.
The next question is how to you expand into Canada and Mexico?
I’m gonna give the worst alternate uniform award to the Green Bay Packers
At least make the all yellow helmet into a giant piece of cheese or something.
Saturday Morning Coffee
My first cup of coffee is poured and cooling a bit, our old kitty — Khloe — is in my lap, and I’m sat in my writing spot at the end of the couch nearest the front window. It’s cloudy and raining and the wind is blowing. I’m not sure if it’s remnants of Ian yet or just a regular storm. Guess we’ll find out. 🌧️
CNN: “Ian slammed into southwest Florida as a severe Category 4 hurricane Wednesday, packing sustained winds of 150 mph. Officials believe the death toll of at least 45 people is likely to climb in the coming days as searchers access areas that had been blocked by debris and floodwaters.”
What a tragic week for Floridians. So many folks displaced and damage beyond belief. Homes and businesses wiped completely off the map, land reclaimed by sand. And the there is the human toll. 😢
Take care my Florida friends. ❤️
Travel Radar: “There have been multiple reports of strange noises coming from American Airlines in recent weeks that neither the passengers nor crew members could explain. Some passengers have been airing their confusion across social media.”
It’s the perfect time of the year to have mysterious moaning sounds coming out of the speaker system on a flight.
It doesn’t sound like an equipment failure to me. I’m going with ghosts. 👻
Abhorrent.
— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) September 29, 2022
And yet, I’m not surprised at all. When ads become more algorithmic, people find fraudulent ways to cheat and make more money.
The endgame: algorithmic podcast ads, which already degrade the listener experience, get further devalued and the entire industry loses. https://t.co/iCFv7fbP14
When the big players figure out they can automate a money making machine they have to get involved and screw everything up.
Luckily we still have great Indie Podcasts to listen to.
TechCrunch: “Now, a Spanish startup called Penpot — which is taking a new approach to design collaboration through an open source platform that brings designers and developers into the mix simultaneously — says that it’s been seeing a huge amount of adoption since the Figma deal.”
I happened across Penpot a month or so before the Adobe purchase of Figma. It’s really nice and if you’re looking for a Figma alternative you might want to give it a look.
Bleacher Report: “Odell Beckham Jr. questioned why all NFL stadiums don’t feature grass fields after former New York Giants teammate Sterling Shepard suffered a non-contact knee injury on the MetLife Stadium turf on Monday night.”
This is not the first time turf has become controversial. I remember back in the 70’s or 80’s this being a topic of conversation. That was before this new wave of turf became a thing.
I’ve always been a fan of grass fields. Bring them back to every stadium you possibly can. I want to see some filthy uniforms.
Apple Newsroom: “Amid the tools used by archaeologists for centuries — trowels, buckets, brushes, and pickaxes — there’s a new piece of equipment: iPad Pro.”
I am so here for this. Seeing tools used in ways you never expected is always such a joy for the developer.
Congratulations to Top Hatch, the makers of Concepts, and my friend Marc Palmer who is a developer on the engineering team! 👍🏼
Politico: “A federal judge delivered a blistering rebuke of Republican Party leaders Tuesday for what she said was a cynical attempt to stoke false claims of election fraud of the kind that fueled the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.”
I really wish Republican leaders weren’t so power hungry and had the guts to all come out against TFG.
Here’s hoping one of the many troubles TFG has leads to conviction and elimination from running for public office. 🤞🏼
9to5Mac: “This week, a new Instagram client called “OG App” caught the attention of the internet as it promised a better Instagram experience without advertisements or content suggestions from people you don’t know. The app seemed too good to be true, but it has now been taken down – not by Meta, but by Apple.”
If you’re surprised by this, don’t be. Instagram cut off developers long ago. At one time there were plenty of great Instagram clients, even for iPad!
It’s a closed platform. The best we can hope for is alternate services — like Glass — to catch on and take a big share of Instagrams user base.
The digital protest art being created in Iran--much of it anonymously--has been absolutely brilliant. pic.twitter.com/Q1MCJAhYxg
— Dr. Shiva Balaghi (@SBalaghi) September 30, 2022
Of course the United States, Britain, and Ukraine aren’t the only countries in complete disarray. Iran is having another revolution. Women are coming out in force to demand equal rights and an end to its totalitarian regime.
Yahoo Sports: “Again, if you don’t like the “White Bengal” look with the black stripes — which included the debut of the white helmet with black stripes on Thursday night — then it’ll be a while before you find an NFL uniform you like.”
I loved the white out uniforms worn by the Bengals Thursday night. Being a Bears fan I’m really looking forward to seeing the new orange helmets the Bears will be wearing on special occasions this year.
I kind of wish they’d go orange helmets with their navy blue color rush uniform but they’re not going that direction
Hayseed Blog: “I’m happy to announce a new Stream release. Version 1.3 is a minor release with one new feature and two bug fixes.”
I wish I could turn this little project into my full time gig. Heck, I’d be super happy with a few hundred bucks a month! 🤣
That aside I am proud of my little labor of love and hope you’ll give it a look.
Getting this version out the door has allowed me to get back to the Mac version. It’s slow going since this is my first real Mac app but I do hope to ship it at some point. 😄
Time for my third cup. ☕️
Saturday Morning Coffee
I got a nice little treat with my coffee this morning. Kim made some pumpkin spice cinnamon rolls. 🤤
Pastries and coffee are perfect together.
Robin Rendle, hat tip Om 🎩: ”There are no rules to blogging except this one: always self-host your website because your URL, your own private domain, is the most valuable thing you can own. Your career will thank you for it later and no-one can take it away. But don’t wait up for success to come, it’s going to be a slog—there will be years before you see any benefit.”
If you’re reading this you have to know by now I love blogging. I don’t see giving it up. Sure, I’ve gone through extremely dry spells over the years but I still enjoy it.
In the early 2000’s I’d do little one line posts and it was fine. When Twitter became a thing I felt like my blog posts needed a title for some strange reason. When I switched back to this domain for my blog I started posting stand-alone short posts without a title and pictures.
I like the way it’s going. I post more frequently.
The Daily Beast: ”Dearie, a semi-retired federal judge in Brooklyn who’s playing the role of temporary referee, wants to speed up the process and get federal agents back on track. And while Trump has been alleging on social media that he already declassified the records he swiped from the White House, Dearie is demanding that Trump put up or shut up.”
The judge that setup this whole mess by allowing for a Special Master was just passing the buck. It’s nice to see Judge Dearie call B.S.
It’s amazing how big a grifter, gangster, bully, TFG is. He really does deserve some jail time, of course he won’t get any, but he deserves some.
The Iconfactory : ”Introducing Wallaroo - the quickest and easiest way to browse and set wallpapers on your iOS devices. The Iconfactory has been crafting custom wallpapers for the Mac and iOS community for over 25 years, and now we’ve packaged them up in a fun, handy app that’s available today on the iOS App Store.”
I’m a huge fan of The Iconfactory. I’ve been a Twitterrific user for years and years and years and I’m composing this post using Tot, their simple note taking app.
When I saw the post for Wallaroo I installed it straight away and subscribed. I love seeing a subscription that is going to provide me with high quality iPhone wallpapers for the length of my subscription, one year.
I’m currently rocking the Jack-O-Lantern from the Spectral Selfies collection. It’s a beautiful piece of work.
Highly recommended.
I’ve been surprised Apple is approving implementations like in Apollo (Reddit app) and that ping pong game that uses the Island. Completely different strategy to past rejections for misusing standard iPhone elements. Not a bad thing though as of now. https://t.co/fy3dyrYDtL
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) September 22, 2022
I was also surprised to see Apple relax the rules around the Dynamic Island (Do you say Dynamic Island in a big booming voice in your head or is it just me?)
Regardless. It’s nice to see Apple allow for this whimsical treatment of the island.
Who know, next week they may reject it? 🤷🏻♂️
The Washington Post: ”The issue Wednesday went far beyond a single statue. Residents — neighbors, families — plunged into an emotional discussion about identity and who gets to define it, provoking a heated defense of local heritage. Much of it was couched in an unreconstructed view of history in which the Lost Cause is noble, the Confederacy was a bastion of states’ rights and Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman was an unprincipled butcher.”
This is something I really hate about the South. There is a reality distortion field around this so called heritage. Yeah, it’s a heritage of slavery. The imprisonment and mistreatment of human beings to serve your needs. It’s pathetic.
Every one of these Jim Crowe era statues and monuments need to be destroyed. Melt them down and make them something beautiful or put them in a museum to shame them. It would be a museum similar to the Holocaust Museum. We can’t forget the Civil War and we need to tell it for what it was. It was all about slavery.
The Confederacy was a disgusting attempt to overthrow the government. It’s a stain on our history.
Liberals: “The real fear on the right is that white people will become the minority, and the democratic process will remove them from power, so they want to end democracy to preserve white supremacy”
— Chris Espinosa (@cdespinosa) September 23, 2022
Conservatives: “That’s paranoid crazy talk, you haters”
Also conservatives: https://t.co/OQsp8bNFbv
Gotta give this asshole props for being honest enough to say what these right wing extremists believe. Most of the MAGA’s dance around the subject. Not this dude. He comes right out and says “I’m a racist bastard.”
Disgusting.
ESPN: ”CLEVELAND – Nobody, at least still living, knows for sure how Brownie the Elf came to be the first official mascot of the Cleveland Browns some 76 years ago.”
Let’s end on a happy note, shall we?
I know Brownie the Elf is controversial in Cleveland and around the country but gosh darnit I’m here for it! Not every NFL team needs some macho mascot.
I hope the dress him up for the holidays. A Christmas elf would be nice.
Oh, I also really love that he covers a gigantor part of the field. Nicely done Cleveland.
Now, let’s get him on the helmets. 😁
The NFL should allow QBs to wear any number jersey they’d like. Could you imagine a quarterback wearing number 99? 😂
Buster Posey
Bleacher Report: “He will forever be a Giants icon with an incredible resume that includes three World Series titles, a National League MVP, a NL Rookie of the Year, four Silver Sluggers, a Gold Glove, a batting title and seven All-Star selections."
I’m a Los Angeles Dodgers fan but I can’t help but love Buster Posey. So much talent all rolled up into one person.
Enjoy your retirement, I know the Dodgers will.