Rob Fahrni

I like notebooks. Especially notebooks with grids. Over the years I’ve drawn plenty of UI thoughts and little diagrams using the grid to get as close to a straight line as possible. I also record ideas, quick thoughts, and meeting notes in them. I have a few on my book shelf that are full. On occasion I’ll thumb back through one to see what was going on at that time in my life. It’s fun to see my scribbles mixed with notes to call the doctor or see a full blown UI design (as full blown as my chicken scratch can be.)

I’ve had an idea for a computer stand for a while. One that could hold multiple MacBook’s, or PC laptops, and take as little space as possible on my desktop.

To that end, here’s my chicken scratch drawing and measurements for the stand. It could be placed hordizontally or vertically on the desk and can hold up to three computers. If placed horizontally it should fit under my VESA mounted display, making the laptops easy to access.

Now, all I need to do is build the darned thing. It’ll be wood, but I’m not sure what kind I’ll use.

After watching The New York Times Presents: S2E1 Elon Musk’s Crash Course I’m more convinced than ever that autonomous driving is a near term pipe dream. It seems to me we’re tens of years away, at the least, and I still wholeheartedly believe the way to make it happens includes building roads to help the car navigate properly.

If I were to buy a Tesla I definitely wouldn’t buy Autopilot. It’s just nowhere near being ready.

Sometimes I feel like Dr. Dolittle.

What the picture doesn’t show is our old kitty, Khloe, laying on the other side of me.

Pictured are our puppers, Kolby, and our younger kitties, Flynn. He thinks I’m cat furniture.

VRScout: “It was back in 2014 that Apple first began the development of its own automotive vehicle. After years of radio silence, reports began circulating that the company had switched gears and was now working on a self-driving vehicle that requires no input on behalf of the passengers. As such this autonomous car would lack any and all driver controls, including a steering wheel and foot pedals.”

I don’t believe in self driving cars. At least not one that is supposed to do it without full buy in from local, state, and federal transportation.

If you want to make an autonomous vehicle you need new roads with technology built in to provide a “track” for vehicles to follow. The cars navigation system would talk to the track in the road to know when to switch lanes, signal, turn, etc. All one integrated system.

All this use built in LiDAR, cameras, ML and “AI” to do the job is a hack.

Also, I know that picture of the car is just some mock-up, but it’s flat out ugly in my opinion.

Taylor found this little feller in the garden this morning. 🐸

When she was a little girl we’d go looking for frogs together in an irrigation ditch near our home. I love that she still gets excited about finding one all these years later.

Great memories.

Robert Reich: “Decades ago, America’s wealthy backed a Republican establishment that believed in fiscal conservatism, anti-communism, and constitutional democracy. But today’s billionaire class is pushing a radically anti-democratic agenda for America — backing Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen, calling for restrictions on voting, and even questioning the value of democracy.”

Our slide toward the destruction of American Democracy is real and it sucks.

Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022

I’m shocked! Said no one ever. Musk is just another billionaire bro who gets off manipulating people and systems.

Real piece of work.

Lickability: “While there have always been many third-party iOS apps for Mastodon on the App Store, Eugen wanted us to create a native first-party application that showcased what’s unique about Mastodon while also focusing on bringing in entirely new users.”

This piece is a bit older but it’s worth mentioning if you’d like to move off Twitter to Mastodon. The Lickability built, native, iOS app is really nice.

Rolling Stone - Adam Rawnsley: “As of Tuesday, Truth Social hasn’t even submitted an Android app to Google to review for Play Store approval, an individual familiar with the matter and two Trumpworld sources with knowledge of the situation tell Rolling Stone.”

Trumps paranoia is real and his band of grifters and politicians aren’t serious people trying to do things the right way, like us regular people.

Bloomberg - Mark Gurman: “Apple Inc. delayed a plan to require workers to come back to the office three days a week, citing a resurgence in Covid-19 cases, marking the latest setback in its efforts to return to normal.”

Apple has lost some folks and others really don’t want to come back to the office.

It’s gonna be a challenge.

CNN - Marianne Garvey: “Ward, known for his work in “The Right Stuff,” “Short Cuts,” and numerous other films, died on May 8 at age 79.”

This death was a gut punch to me for some reason. I liked watching Fred Ward movies. My favorites are Tremors and Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. Of course those weren’t mentioned in the article.

The Sun Gazette - John Lindt: “On May 12, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its 2022 almond forecast estimating the California almond crop will be 4% lower than 2021, meaning there will be about 100 million fewer pounds produced in the Golden State.”

I don’t think folks realize how much of the worlds fruits and vegetables come out of California’s San Joaquin Valley. It’s not L.A. it’s not San Francisco or any other well know California destination. It’s the poor part of California nobody pays attention to. It’s hot and dusty and full of hardworking migrants to deliver us the food we need to survive. Crops like Almonds are very popular, they also use a ton of water. The only other nut crop I know of that uses more water than Almonds is Walnuts.

Growing up in California’s San Joaquin Valley water was always an issue. But now? Now is way more extreme than those days and is only going to get worse due to climate change.

Harvard Business Review - Thomas Stackpole: “White created the website Web3 Is Going Just Great, a time line that tracks scams, hacks, rug pulls, collapses, shady dealings, and other examples of problems with Web3. HBR.org spoke to White over email about what people aren’t hearing about Web3, how blockchain could make internet harassment much worse, and why the whole project might be ‘an enormous grift that’s pouring lighter fluid on our already-smoldering planet.’”

Crypto coin values fell off a cliff shortly after this article appeared.

Check out Web3 Is Going Just Great it’s full of interesting reads.

This is how you work on the front porch.

Busting out.

Here’s my retirement plan:

1. Sell Home
2. Buy RV
3. Retire
4. Travel
5. Develop my own software for fun and profit 😁

The reality is, I believe, I won’t be able to retire. I may be able to semi-retire at some point but the full dream I’ve outlined above probably won’t happen unless some kind of miracle happens over the next 10 to 15 years.

Dave Winer: “A Twitter-like webservice at AWS. With better docs and a JavaScript API that doesn’t require developer to run a server (big deal). Effortless install on Digital Ocean.”

The post goes into more depth than the above blurb. I picked this bit because some of these things already exist.

There is an open source software called Mastodon that federates with other Mastodon server instances and is easy to host without running a server.

It also supports ActivityPub. Which will let you publish via a news feed. Manton Reese, founder of Micro.blog, has written how he made it possible for Micro.blog to appear as a Mastodon server so you could follow a Micro.blog timeline as if it were a native Mastodon timeline. It’s quite nice.

As far as running a Mastodon instance goes, I have one. I run it on a host called Masto.host for €5 — just over $5US — per month. If you’re interested you can visit Curmudgeon Cafe, my instance. I’m @fahrni@curmudgeon.cafe if you’re interested in following.

Mastodon is also an open source project.

Check out fediverse.info to locate an instance that’s right for you, if you don’t want your own. 😃

Back to Dave

I believe Dave could federate Scripting News with Mastodon using Activity Pub. It would, in essence, turn Scripting News into a Twitter-like instance. I’d be able to follow Scripting News from my Mastodon timeline. I’d like that.

I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever the Twitter Bluesky initiative comes up with will be over engineered and favor Twitter above all other considerations. I hope they’re considering open protocols. Mastodon is built on them as are many blogging tools and blogs.

More

In a recent episode of Pivot, Scott Galloway says projects like Mastodon, Truth Social, Parler, Gab, and GETTR have all failed.

I somewhat agree, if your only barometer is shareholder value.

Mastodon has succeeded if only to provide an open alternative to Twitter that allows anyone to join and/or create their own instance that can participate with the larger network.

Another interesting point: Mastodon was used by Gab and Truth Social as the underpinning of their respective networks. The technology works. I’d imagine both networks have made significant changes to their code bases and they’ve failed to execute as a business. That is not the fault of Mastodon.

Took a half day off to do some additional storm cleanup in the backyard.

Now to move that stack of wood to another location and get the lawn started.

A Billionaire Hedge Fund Manager Predicts the Future — and What He Sees Is Concerning - Sway

Really great episode of Sway. Especially if you’d like to hear a compassionate, wealthy, man share his thoughts on the direction we’re headed.

I liked it. Feel free to disagree. 👍🏼

It never fails. When I get to the end of a project I get a little down and start thinking of my own little software projects. 🌾

Which makes me wish I could do those full time. 🕛

Every time.

My brain is weird. 🧠

I don’t get too excited about WWDC any longer. I think the pandemic really did it in for me, perhaps it’s just an age thing. In the end I have so many things I’d like to achieve with my apps, that have nothing to do with the latest OS support, I just can’t pay too much attention.

I may change my mind at some point in the future but for now that’s where I am. Not excited about WWDC or any new OS features.

I submitted a request for WWDC’s in-person day, but now I’m much less interested in attending than I was when we recorded the last Core Intuition. I don’t think WWDC will ever return to what it was. 8 years ago I blogged about the “eras” of WWDC… Just feels over now.

Late Friday afternoon I got my every three month injections of cortisone in both knees. My knees were actually feeling better than they had in a really long time, but I got them anyway, because it’s the final set I can have prior to surgery to replace my left one in August.

This afternoon Kim and I spent time in her garden planting some new azaleas and pulling her plants out of the greenhouse.

I feel amazing. I had about a level two, maybe three, on my pain levels and only had a couple moments of sharp pain.

We finished up and I still feel great. I wish I could feel like this every day for the remainder of my life. 😀

Like usual I have so many things in my read later queue it was difficult to sort out what to share. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy sharing it. 🧡

Jerry Fahrni: “While most of my jobs have been forgettable, three stand out as my favorites. Why? Hard to say. Each had something unique to offer that I have been unable to replicate elsewhere. In no particular order, here they are:”

I love my brother. He’s one of the smartest, driven, most athletic, tough, loyal, people you’ll ever meet. He likes to win, whatever that means to him. It’s engrained in him. When he was a kid he was a great student, why? Because he enjoyed being at the top of his class. It was winning. No, he didn’t rub it in people’s faces. He’s also a pretty quiet man.

I could tell you story after story about Jay, or Jerry as is his birth name, but I just don’t have the patience to write that story today. Needless to say, I consider him quite accomplished, and I’m a fan.

This piece doesn’t surprise me. He’s very self deprecating, to a fault, but he honestly believes what he says about himself. So, if you can get past the opening parapraph, this is a really good piece about his favorite jobs over the past 25-years.

I also really appreciate his writing style and wish I could write as well as he does. It’s a true gift. I think he’d be happiest writing for a living. He’s written a ton of blog post about all kinds of things, but mostly about tech in the pharmacy space. He’s written a self published book about Pharmacy Clean Rooms and he has some unplublished works about other things, including his thoughts on building strength in the gym.

I’d love to see him get a job at a well respected newspaper or start writing fiction. He’s always been a great story teller. It’s why we always made him be Dungeon Master when we’d play D&D as teens. 😀

The Guardian: “Perhaps a different way of approaching the question would be to ask: What kind of country do you want to live in? One in which every individual is free to make decisions concerning his or her health and body, or one in which half the population is free and the other half is enslaved?”

The entirety of this leak about the overturning of Roe vs. Wade has me in knots. I cannot believe it may actually happen, in 2022. Haven’t we had enough bad news since 2016? Guess not. The GOP has always been the party of cruelty. They want to control people at all costs.

If you don’t believe they’re coming for your rights, think again. They want an authoritarian government.

The Nazis banned abortion.
The Bible does not ban abortion.
The Jews of Jesus’ day never banned abortion.
Abortions are legal -and free - in Israel.
And there’s no apostrophe in the word “Nazis.” #RoeVWade https://t.co/ASk411qLuZ

— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) May 3, 2022

Steve Beschloss: “I don’t like liars. I don’t like them when they’re elected to political office. And I surely don’t like them when they lie to land a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court.”

There are two things in life I cannot abide; Liars and Bullies. Five Supreme Court justices lied to get on the court. Five.

"Radical Left": Healthcare, Student Loan forgiveness and equality for all.

"Radical Right": Women must carry their rapist's baby. All citizens must conform to Christian law. Election violence encouraged. Book burnings."

Ask yourself. Which side sounds "radical?"

— Tea Pain (@TeaPainUSA) May 6, 2022

Ged Maheux: “Legal scholars are already predicting if the right to privacy goes, which Row is based on, then same sex intimacy, interracial marriage, contraception and more will also be made illegal in Republican controlled states.”

Yep. Ged understands what’s at stake. Take a bully that loves to lie and sprinkle in hate and being a control freak and what do you get? The GOP.

Jim Ray: “I’m probably just not as plugged as I perhaps once was, but it seems like we don’t get good writerly blogs any more. Maybe that’s more an extenstion of we just don’t get any good blogs anymore.”

I love reading Jim. He is a great writer and I wish he’d do more of it. Maybe with Social Networks becoming a bit of a shit show these days more folks will dust off their editors and write more on their personal blogs.

I love reading blogs so much I made my own feed reader. Shameless self promotion time: Get Stream. I think it’s pretty decent for a 1.0 release.

Barn Finds: “The Karmann Ghia was a sports car marketed by VW as a 2+2 coupe from 1955-74. Internally known as the Type 14, some of the mechanical bits of the Karmann Ghia was borrowed from the VW Beetle with styling by Carrozzeria Ghia (Italy) and hand-built bodywork by coachbuilder Karmann (Germany).“

I’m not really a car guy, but I could become one if I had the time, money, and room to work on old finds like this Karmann Ghia. I’ve always wanted to restore a car from the ground up. I’d also love to do a full electric conversion of an old rig.

puck.news: “No, these studios aren’t suddenly flipping the streaming switch to off, nor should they. Streaming remains the potential growth engine, and the future of the industry. But for certain titles, the streaming-vs-theatrical debate has taken a turn. Like maybe Pixar’s Turning Red should have generated a few hundred million bucks for Disney, and then become a huge hit on Disney+, just like Encanto did.”

Streaming has finally hit a bit of a snag. Netflix of all places has lost a lot of its value recently and it sounds like they’re going to pull back some of their production as a result. I personally don’t like the idea of it. I’d love to see higher quality content. Big movies. Better documentaries.

My favorite streaming platform as of this writing is HBO Max. They’ve given us great original content and have been running blockbuster movies before anyone else. The Batman being a prime example. Which, by the way, is better the second time. Loved it.

Tech Community - Microsoft: “Microsoft’s upgrade to Windows 11 is largely considered the smoothest we’ve ever had. The Microsoft Digital Employee Experience team was able to upgrade 190,000 employee devices in just five weeks. We learned a lot so, in this post, I’m sharing our learnings with you to help with your deployment journey.”

I don’t use Windows at all these days. It’s not that I hate it or anything, I actually think it’s a wonderful operating system with leadership that actually loves developers. Windows has carried around so much backward compatible baggage for so long I feel like Windows 11 could be the right choice for me going forward if I ever get around to installing it. I’d still love to write some cross platform C++ to underpin Stream so I can have iOS, Mac, and Windows versions. 😀

I’m being silenced by big tech pic.twitter.com/KbC0IZhiSF

— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) April 23, 2022

Y’all ready to see the bump Stream got when Musk announced he was buying Twitter!

Drumroll please. 🥁

Yep, I got that nice day of three downloads!

I am greateful folks do take the time to consider Stream. 🙏🏼

Feed Wrangler: ”I will be shutting down Feed Wrangler next year, on March 1, 2023. This date is one year since the last member was billed for their subscription. No further membership fees will be charged to any existing members.”

One of the requests I’ve received for Stream is support for Feed Wrangler.

At some point I applied for API access and never heard back. I supposed I have my answer now.

Sorry to any Stream users interested in Feed Wrangler support.

I will say this, this is how you shut down a service. One year to move and a fully tested and ready to go way to send your data to the new service.

“Underscore” David Smith is a class act.

Holding hands with Kolby

I’m composing this at 5:30AM, flying down the highway, Mötley Crüe’s Dr. Feel Good on the radio. We’re headed to Durham this morning to watch our granddaughter play soccer. I’m really excited to see her run around the field in a clump with all the other kids.

Where the heck is a Starbucks. I need coffee. ☕️

Richmond Times-Dispatch: “From sassy deviled eggs to a Duke’s heart with an arrow through it, guests can choose from a variety of pre-drawn Duke’s designs. These small and medium sized tattoos – intended for arms and legs only – would typically run $150.”

Not gonna lie. I was ready to do this. 🤣 Lucky for me they were already booked up. No Dukes Mayo tattoo for Rob.

Apple: “Genuine Apple parts and tools can now be purchased by US customers”

If you visit the website Apple setup for this you’re gonna think you’ve landed at some sort of scam site. Don’t worry, it’s not a scam. You’d think they’d have hosted it somewhere at apple.com, right?

The Daily Beast: “Although one senior U.S. official admitted to me (somewhat uneasily) that “Austin said the quiet part out loud,” it soon became clear that the U.S. was publicly willing to own the new goal of turning Russia’s unprovoked, brutal escalation of its ongoing eight-year war in Ukraine into a lasting and meaningful defeat for the Kremlin.”

I have this weird feeling Putin has some kind of terminal illness. Perhaps he just realizes he’s getting older. It seems like he wants to go out in a blaze of glory.

Hopefully that doesn’t include a nuclear cloud.

Daring Fireball: “I know that as a pundit, spending Apple’s money is easy, but UI Browser seems like a tool Apple should have purchased long ago”

I’ve heard the name Bill Cheeseman but never knew what he did. The man is calling it quits at age 79. Wow!

NPR: “He also took issue with the many Biblical references to rape, bestiality, cannibalism and infanticide. “In the end, if Jimmy and Susie are curious about any of the above, they can do what everyone else does – get a room at the Motel Six and grab the Gideons,” he wrote.”

I know some mighty fine people in Florida, but it’s also home of some really crazy people.

Yet another example of authoritarians losing their collective mind because the United States continues its march to become more liberal and they can’t cope with it.

Before you know it they’ll be burning books and recruiting young folks to be an army of tattle tales, complete with little arm bands signifying their importance.

The Ringer: “Saul Goodman had a toupee. He wore colorful suits and a pinky ring. And he drove a boat-sized Cadillac. On the surface, he was a cartoon attorney—the kind that may have even popped up in the ’90s on Mr. Show, the beloved sketch comedy series Odenkirk created with David Cross. Yet there was much more to Saul than that.”

Bob Odenkirk is an amazing actor. I really loved him in Nobody.

Dead State: “MyPillow CEO and pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell wants you to know that he finally has the goods to prove the 2020 election was stolen which will lead to the election being overturned as soon as — this Thursday.”

Oh, it’s that nutter again. Dude, give up. There was no fraud.

The baby birdies behind the wreath on our front door are getting big. 😃

Also, look at all that poop on the door! 😂

Already missing my Exeter Coffee Co family, but happy to be home. 🧡

The Verge: “On Apple’s App Store Improvements page, the company says: “We are implementing an ongoing process of evaluating apps, removing apps that no longer function as intended, don’t follow current review guidelines, or are outdated.” There isn’t a time stamp on the page, so it’s not immediately clear when Apple published or last updated the post.”

Nick, while I’m not upset about the removal of one of my apps, it doesn’t contain any ad frameworks or analytics of any kind.

It’s actually really simple, isn’t used by many, but is liked by those who do use it.

An update is in the works. I hope it’s allowed back in.

— Rob Fahrni (@Fahrni) April 24, 2022

Earlier today on Twitter I replied to another iOS developer that I wasn’t upset about my app being removed from sale. I made it for myself and it works perfectly fine, thank you very much, but it doesn’t have a bunch of users. Folks that use it, seem to like it.

However, when I saw the paragraph from The Verge I pasted above, it kind of pissed me off.

Look, my app, Arrgly, isn’t pretty and doesn’t do much, but it works exactly as intended. Key here is “it works.”

When Apple says ”removing apps that no longer function as intended, don’t follow current review guidelines, or are outdated.” I wonder which of those Arrgly falls under? My guess is, it’s been deemed outdated? Outdated compared to what exactly?

Anywho, if you’re an Arrgly user I’m working on an update that makes it less goofy looking, but it will work the same as it ever did.

Home Sweet Home.

Kim and I laid our heads on our pillows at 4AM EST. Pooped out but really happy to be home.

SFO to IAD 🛫

Here we go.