Frank McPherson

The more articles I read about COVID19 the more frustrated I get with the lack of availability of affordable rapid testing in the United States. Throughout the pandemic we have suffered from the desire for certainty and perfection. Perfection is the enemy of the better. Rapid tests won’t detect all cases, so they don’t guarantee one is not infected, BUT if a rapid test is positive you then clearly know you are a threat to spreading the infection to others and should definitely stay home, which is more information than the average person has before they walk out the door.

I am connecting the Macbook Air to the BenQ Monitor, which I have configured as the primary display with the display extending to the internal display of the Macbook. I expect the macOS dock should appear on the BenQ but I haven’t figured out how to make it consistently appear. It seems if I move the mouse cursor to just the right spot at the bottom of the display then the dock appears and stays, but not until then. If I move the mouse to the bottom of the internal display the dock then appears there and goes away from the BenQ. Given Apple’s reputation, I am surprised by this inconsistent behavior.. or perhaps this is just user error?

MLB Free Agent signings are picking up and so far the Cubs are sitting on the sidelines. I am starting to be pessimistic about the ownership’s commitment to being competitive, there is the appearance of just collecting money from Wrigley Field tickets, betting, and all the non-baseball operations. In other words, a repeat of prior ownership that lead to 100 years of playoff futility. I really wish Mark Cuban had bought the team when he had the chance, I would not doubt his commitment to winning.

The snow started falling at noon but is letting up now. As you can see, not a lot of accumulation but enough to make it look winter-like. Would have liked to have the snow on Thanksgiving.

Settled in to watch the Michigan vs Ohio State football game, today’s iteration of this game is the first in a long time that has been so meaningful. The game also reminds me how I miss Keith Jackson, who’s voice is part of the soundtrack of my life. Sadly today I have to listen to the hype machine who constantly makes the broadcast about him.

I hope the official micro.blog app for Android that I think is in development will support the Android share sheet. It is frustrating to not be able to share selected text to Gluon. And I can’t edit posts in Gluon.

Local weather forecasts predict we will be getting the first big snow fall of the season later today. Just looked outside and I see that it is already snowing.

I just received the leather sleeve I ordered for my Macbook Air from Mission Leather Company and it fits perfectly. I love the smell of leather.

I like that I can publish blog posts that I write in Drummer to my micro.blog site but one missing piece I wish was available is integration with the glossary file. These two posts were written in Drummer, but notice only the one published by Old School has an anchor link, which is because Macbook Air is in my glossary. The glossary file is unique to Dave’s web publishing tools but something I wish other tools supported. Managing glossaries is a classic outliner task.

An observation. The 2020 edition Macbook Air is one substantial piece of metal. Not only does it handle compute processing like butter, but it can probably stop a bullet and do serious damage if I used it to hit someone at the right spot. I don’t think any computing device I’ve ever owned has felt this metallic.

I’ve been monitoring the COVID data pretty much since it has been published, but I am embarrassed to admit that I just now found the COVID ActNow site, which does the best job of presenting and explaining the data of all the other sites I’ve seen. Unfortunately, the data for Michigan looks awful. The only good news for myself is that the county in which I live has a lower vulnerability rating because of having a higher vaccination rate.

Today I am reminded of the awesomeness of the Internet. Two, sites worth bookmarking: screaming in Iceland and WindowSwap. You are welcome!

Wondering what is the best browser to use on my new Macbook Air? My normal primary browser is Chrome and that serves me well except for one small issue with selecting text in Drummer and Little Outliner. In Chrome I can’t select text with the mouse in these apps after a period of time. Does the same problem exist with Firefox? So far, it doesn’t, which already makes it better!

The Michigan Panthers are back? The only Michigan professional football team to win a championship.

Finished reading: Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God: The Scandalous Truth of the Very Good News by Brian Zahnd 📚

The title is intended to be a direct counter to Jonathan Edward’s sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. For me the best chapters of this book are the ones that put Revelation in proper context as revealing a loving God.

Still think that replay should stop play and make calls on hits to the head in the NFL. In the last 10 minutes of the game tonight there have been two calls the refs have missed. Hits to the head is a player safety issue that the NFL should make maximum effort to get out of the game. Fines after the fact doesn’t do the job. The NFL needs to follow the NCAA’s lead in this, and frankly should be open to law suits from former players.

The pitfall of playing in two fantasy football leagues: having your point leader (Jonathan Taylor) in one league leading your opposition in the other. Time to rest Taylor. :)

I am still feeling my way around macOS and the applications I can use. I’ve been using Drafts on the iPad, so I installed the macOS version. One way I use Drafts is to write posts to my blog, the version on the iPad is all set with the authentication tokens it needs to make the post. So, I wondered what would happen when I tried to run the Post To Micro.blog action on the Mac? It just worked! I was expecting to have to set up a new authentication token before it would post, but I was wrong. So nice!

Zeynep Tufekci, What Happens After the Worst of the Pandemic Is Behind Us?

In her book “March of Folly,” the historian Barbara Tuchman describes civilizations that collapsed not because of insurmountable challenges but because “wooden-headedness” took over: Those in charge were unable to muster the will and vision to make the necessary course corrections in the face of difficulties.

COVID-19 defenses in my body were boosted yesterday. Feeling nearly the same immune response I felt after shot #2, which is an odd comfort.

Comparing the battery life of my Pixel 4a to the Pixel 2 back when I made note of it four years ago. Screen on is still at 5 hours, but screen off increased from 36 hours to 45 hours and combined increased from 26 hours to 36 hours. Obvious the combined hours is influenced by the increase in screen off and the screen off reflects the operating system optimizations. Screen on time tells me little has changed in screen power consumption.

“Too many people do not know the Constitution nor appreciate the fundamental reasons for why the U.S. form of republican democracy was designed and adopted. These people pledge allegiance to a flag as if the flag is the thing rather than a symbol of the real thing, our way of life enabled by the Constitution.” American Idol

The first snow of the season is falling on us.