Mitch W
About Archive Photos Replies Also on Micro.blog
  • Minnie and I saw this display at a house we walked past yesterday.

    → 7:23 AM, Mar 26
  • Police raided the home of rapper “Afroman,” found nothing illegal, and then sued him for using footage of the raid in music videos.

    Police had a warrant for drug trafficking and kidnapping. They destroyed his front door and driveway gate, “lost” $400 of cash they took, and ogled a lemon pound cake, according to a report by Ashley Belanger on Ars Technica.

    Afroman later released songs and music videos about the incident, entitled “Lemon Pound Cake” and “Will You Help Me Repair My Door.” The videos went viral. The officers allege they face embarrassment, ridicule, humiliation, and loss of reputation.

    Afroman was never charged with a crime. The officers should be charged with criminal ignorance of the Streisand Effect.

    → 1:15 PM, Mar 24
  • CNN: An appointee to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' new oversight board in control of Disney’s special tax district called homosexuality “evil” and said tap water could be making people gay..

    → 1:05 PM, Mar 24
  • A gentleman wishes to know whether he is an asshole for sharing his father-in-law’s porn browser history at a family gathering. On reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole

    → 12:18 PM, Mar 24
  • I tried Grammarly yesterday and I like it a lot

    I published two posts here yesterday and noticed copyediting errors after publication. This troubled me partly because I had a whitepaper due later that day, and I was concerned about sloppy mistakes in paying copy.

    So I decided, “I’ve heard good things about Grammarly. I’ll give that a try.”

    Holy cow! It’s fantastic!

    Also, humbling.

    Grammarly flagged 95 suggestions in a 2,200-word whitepaper. It suggested replacing the first three words of the whitepaper with a single word. Most of the changes it recommended were along those lines; tightening up the text by eliminating unnecessary words.

    However, some of Grammarly’s recommended changes would have introduced errors in my work, and I had to dismiss those. Grammarly doesn’t run on autopilot.

    Overall, I’m delighted with Grammarly, and I’m signing up for a one-year subscription now.

    And yes, Grammarly reviewed this post. It recommended seven changes. I accepted most of them.

    → 10:16 AM, Mar 24
  • Shower thought: What’s the deal with Velcro, anyway? How long has it been around?

    The hook-and-loop fastener Velcro was conceived in 1951 by Swiss engineer George de Mestral. Ten years later, he founded the Velcro company in 1951.

    Wikipedia: Hook-and-loop fastener:

    Columnist Sylvia Porter made the first mention of the product in her column Your Money’s Worth of August 25, 1958, writing, “It is with understandable enthusiasm that I give you today an exclusive report on this news: A ‘zipperless zipper’ has been invented – finally. The new fastening device is in many ways potentially more revolutionary than was the zipper a quarter-century ago.”

    …

    A number of Velcro Corporation products were displayed at a fashion show at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York in 1959, and the fabric got its first break when it was used in the aerospace industry to help astronauts maneuver in and out of bulky space suits. However, this reinforced the view among the populace that hook-and-loop was something with very limited utilitarian uses. The next major use hook-and-loop saw was with skiers, who saw the similarities between their outerwear and that of the astronauts, and thus saw the advantages of a suit that was easier to don and doff. Scuba and marine gear followed soon after. Having seen astronauts storing food pouches on walls, children’s clothing makers came on board. As hook-and-loop fasteners only became widely used after NASA’s adoption of it, NASA is popularly – and incorrectly – credited with its invention.

    The patent expired in 1978, which is why we have hook-and-loop fasteners from many companies today.

    Each Space Shuttle flew equipped with ten thousand inches of a special fastener made of Teflon loops, polyester hooks, and glass backing. Hook-and-loop fasteners are widely used, from the astronauts' suits, to anchoring equipment. In the near weightless conditions in orbit, hook-and-loop fasteners are used to temporarily hold objects and keep them from floating away. A patch is used inside astronauts' helmets where it serves as a nose scratcher. During mealtimes astronauts use trays that attach to their thighs using springs and fasteners. Hook-and-loop fasteners are also used aboard the International Space Station.

    Also:

    Velcro jumping is a game where people wearing hook-covered suits take a running jump and hurl themselves as high as possible at a loop-covered wall.

    David Letterman popularized the game in 1984, and it’s still widely played where alcohol is served.

    Pop culture references to Velcro are amusing.

    The zipper was patented in 1892.

    Wikipedia:

    The zipper gets its name from a brand of rubber boots (or galoshes) it was used on in 1923. The galoshes could be fastened with a single zip of the hand, and soon the hookless fasteners came to be called “Zippers”.

    → 8:23 AM, Mar 24
  • It would be funny if this was a 3,400-year-old rickroll. Hear the Oldest Song in the World: A Sumerian Hymn Written 3,400 Years Ago

    → 2:35 PM, Mar 23
  • Logseq vs. Obsidian: First impressions

    I played with Logseq a bit as an alternative to Obsidian, or complement for it.

    Logseq seems like a simplified version of Obsidian that does less. For many people that will be a plus. Fewer options equals fewer things to fiddle with and potentially break.

    Logseq is an extreme outliner. It wants everything you do to be an outline. Obsidian supports outlining, but Logseq is more opinionated and more powerful as an outliner. That’s a minus for me; I do use outlines but mainly I just write prose.

    Logseq wants you to limit yourself to store everything in just four folders, and organize all your data using links instead. My brain doesn’t work that way. I make heavy use of folders.

    Logseq is open source, which makes it—possibly—more futureproof and secure than Obsidian.

    I don’t think I’m going to stay with Logseq. It doesn’t seem to be different enough from Obsidian to be worth the hassle of switching.

    Still, Logseq seems to be a great app for people who are looking for an extremely powerful outliner. And I may come back to it.

    And playing with Logseq gave me some ideas for doing a better job of organizing and using my Obsidian vault. I need to use the Daily Note more, and move blocks of text between notes using the Text Transporter plugin

    → 8:23 AM, Mar 23
  • I just pledged $53 to the Kickstarter for Cory Doctorow’s upcoming novel, “Red Team Blues.” In pledging, I’m supporting the excellent work Cory (who is on Mastodon as @pluralistic@mamot.fr) does on his blog and podcast, which are free.

    The $53 pledge gets me a nice hardcover, which I might donate to the local library, because I’m an ebook guy. Backers at that level also get an audiobook, and an ebook too. The audiobook and ebook are DRM-free, which will surprise nobody who follows Cory.

    A pledge of $1,000 or more lets you name a character in the sequel, and $3,000 or more gets you—check this out!—a deluxe hardcover with a secret compartment.

    Kickstarter link.

    More info from Cory: Kickstarting the Red Team Blues audiobook, which Amazon won’t sell

    I’ve read an advance copy of the novel. It’s terrific. Very suspenseful!

    → 7:13 AM, Mar 23
  • What does a Mandalorian like to eat with curds? This is the whey.

    How do Jewish Mandalorians expresses dismay? They say “Oy vey.”

    How do Spanish Mandalorians express strong approval: “¡Olé! ¡olé!”

    How does a Mandalorian respond to being kicked off social media for telling too many bad jokes? “I could do this all day.”

    → 9:25 PM, Mar 22
  • Good negotiating advice from @lex Friedman: Negotiation is a conversation.

    → 2:39 PM, Mar 22
  • A Journalist Believes He Was Banned From Midjourney After His AI Images Of Donald Trump Getting Arrested Went Viral.

    Eliot Higgins, who founded Bellingcat, an investigative journalism organization, said he intended the sequence of 50 images as satire. The sequence included a chain of images that showed Trump breaking out of prison and going to McDonald’s, writes Chris Stokel-Walker for Buzzfeed News

    Seems to me to be a bad idea for a journalist to do anything to jeopardize their credibility. Journalists shouldn’t intentionally create deepfakes–not even as a joke, which this seems to have been–or do April Fool’s Day practical jokes, or appear in fictional movies as themselves.

    → 12:50 PM, Mar 22
  • Reading about logseq as a possible alternative to Obsidian. Or maybe complementary?

    → 11:10 AM, Mar 22
  • Laid-off tech workers find homes in the real economy while tech investors continue to transfer wealth from people who make things to people who own things. By Cory Doctorow @pluralistic@mamot.fr

    → 9:58 AM, Mar 22
  • RIP Bobbi Ercoline, who was photographed wrapped in a blanket, in the arms of her boyfriend, on the iconic Woodstock album cover. She married that boyfriend; they were together 54 years until her death Saturday.

    → 9:42 AM, Mar 22
  • People trust celebrities, politicians, and social media personalities, and discount scientists as corrupt.

    Scientists are often wrong, their work should be scrutinized and debated vigorously. But over the past three years, people with journalistic status and little training and influence on infectious disease are shaping public debate.

    And “scientists and public health experts are often cast as not to be trusted, captured by vested interests, lacking common sense, and out of touch with what most Americans think and believe.”

    Recent headlines are wrong: Masks work to protect against Covid, and strong evidence points to a Wuhan market origin, not a lab leak.

    The Self-Appointed Covid Experts Are At It Again. By Gregg Gonsalves at The Nation

    → 9:32 AM, Mar 22
  • Poop, whiskey, and trademark law. The Supreme Court hears a surprisingly difficult case about poop jokes, in Jack Daniel’s v. VIP. By Ian Millhiser at Vox.

    → 8:58 AM, Mar 22
  • Daniel Lavery has a third dog, named Mr. Wilson, “a brief loan from a friend on vacation, and not a permanent addition.” Neighborhood adults are dubious.

    Small children have been more enthusiastic, as the addition of Mr. Wilson has united some of the most beloved of childhood pastimes: counting to three, noticing a new thing, more dog, informing their parents that something about the daily environment is now different than it was yesterday, and pointing.

    This essay is delightful.

    → 8:55 AM, Mar 22
  • Antisemites have a long and paradoxical history of supporting Zionism.

    White Christian nationalists in the US and Europe see Israel as a model ethnic state, and see Jews at home as pollutants.

    Peter Beinart at Jewish Currents: Antisemitic Zionists Aren’t a Contradiction in Terms

    → 10:39 PM, Mar 20
  • “You do it once when you’re drunk, then it becomes part of your life." Meet the Secret Society of People Who Piss in the Sink. By Miles Klee at Rolling Stone.

    They have a thriving subreddit because of course they do.

    → 12:24 PM, Mar 20
  • A message for folks who follow me from Mastodon

    Micro.blog, the outstanding service I use to post here, just implemented a feature that lets users migrate their Mastodon followers to follow a Mastodon account. I plan to do that with all my ActivityPub followers here—move y’all to @mitchw@mastodon.social—unless I hear a great outcry of “no no please no!”

    If you’re following me from Mastodon, you’ll see longer and better formatted post excerpts, and you’ll see my boosts, which you currently do not see here. And I will see when you boost or favorite one of my posts.

    Why am I doing this? When I launched this blog late last year, I saw the Mastodon integration, I thought, “Great! I’ll just use mitchw.blog as my primary Mastodon account.” But almost as soon as I did that, I decided it was a bad idea. Mastodon is Mastodon and blogging is blogging and the two should be mixed carefully.

    And now I have a chance to reverse that error, and I plan to do so ASAP.

    Unless, like I said, I hear a groundswell of protest.

    To be honest, I don’t think y’all will notice a difference. Unless you’ve added me to a Mastodon list, in which case you should add @mitchw@mastodon.social to that list instead.

    And let me put in a plug here for micro.blog, which is an excellent, inexpensive service for lightweight blogging.

    → 10:34 AM, Mar 20
  • Minnie at bedtime. She wants details about our planetary defenses.

    → 2:10 AM, Mar 20
  • I enjoyed the first episode of “Lucky Hank,” a dark comedy starring Bob Odenkirk as the chair of the English Department of a mediocre and minuscule northeastern college. He is going through a midlife crisis. It’s based on a novel I thoroughly enjoyed by one of my favorite writers, “Straight Man,” by Richard Russo.

    Julie hated the episode. We are negotiating whether she is required by our marriage bylaws to give the show one episode more or two before she nopes out.

    → 9:18 PM, Mar 19
  • We saw a bobcat on the paved trail while I was out walking the dog at Lake Murray this afternoon.

    It was about 50 feet away and moving perpendicular across the trail at a fast trot, so I only saw it for a second or two. It wanted very little to do with us. The feeling was mutual.

    It was at the end of our walk. Minnie was very alert until we got to the car a few minutes later. So was I.

    → 7:37 PM, Mar 19
  • “Toilet meal” is the Japanese practice of eating meals in “toilet rooms”—public bathrooms—to get a little valuable alone time, or because they don’t have anybody to eat with and they don’t want to be seen eating alone. wikipedia.org

    → 1:55 PM, Mar 19
  • RSS
  • JSON Feed
  • Surprise me!