Essays
- Agree on what is the problem
- Agree that the problem needs to be fixed
- Understand that the solution to every problem (healthcare) is not a hammer called capitalism
- Agree on fundamental principles
Civics Lesson
First, one needs to learn what history says it means to be an American. Next, one needs to decide what they believe it means to be an American. How consistent are your beliefs with history?
Next, one needs to determine what each political party claims it stands for and challenge the assumptions for how those claims are consistent with being an American and for progress.
Of course, the questions of whether progress is needed, desired, and how it looks needs to be decided, ultimately by each individual.
Overtime Baseball
The Cubs and Brewers are playing game 163 starting at 1 PM EST to determine who wins the NL Central division and who will have the best record in the National League and with it home field advantage through the NL portion of the playoffs.
On paper the game appears to come down to momentum versus experience. The Brewers have won seven straight to finish the season and force this game, while the Cubs have been in the playoffs the last three years and won the world series in 2016.
For me the Cub’s chances to win the game weigh heavily on Quintana’s ability to keep Lorenzo Cain off the bases so that he can pitch around Yelich. Cub’s need to hit and score runs early as the Brewer’s bullpen is superior and this most likely will turn in to a bullpen game early. The Brewer’s bullpen enables them to follow the same formula as the Royals did when they had their playoff runs.
Anxious to see how this turns out. While the Cubs at worse will end up with the second-best record in the NL, they go in to playoffs as the weakest team due to injury and the grind of playing on 40 of 41 days to end the season. In some ways this is a must win just to get a few days off, but I don’t think Maddon will manage in such a manner.
They Liked His Anger
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s recommendation for a full vote on Kavanaugh demonstrates the value of diversity. All the Republicans on the committee are men who identified with Kavanaugh’s anger. Lindsey Graham seemed to channel it the most. In that moment it no longer mattered whether Kavanaugh is qualified for the job (I don’t think he is) or guilty of sexual assault because by god they like the man just because he got pissed off! And that too is how we end up with Trump as President because enough voters liked him and didn’t care about his ability to actually do the job.
Senators have a constitutional responsibility to determine whether a person is competent to be a Supreme Court justice and not just like the candidates. The Senators who supported Kavanaugh have failed their duty.
Keep An Eye On The Watch
I think the smart watch market is fascinating. On one hand you have Apple, with one design and software innovation and on the other hand you have a multitude of watch designers producing a variety of different looking watches at different price points using comparatively mediocre Wear OS. It also highlights the advantage of designing your own chips because Wear OS has been constrained by slow chip development by Qualcomm.
BTW, if one is in the market for a Wear OS watch, wait until when watches with the new chips release later this year, early next. I know a number of new watches are being released to coincide with the new version of Wear OS coming next month, but I expect the new chip to provide better battery life and processing for the future.
The Right To Not Be Forgotten
Dave Winer has been writing about owning and archiving what one writes and publishes on the web for a very long time. I think the heart of the matter is that if one is to think of the web as a library there has to be a mechanism for it to be long-lived.
In other words, permanence. The interesting thing is that many people dislike the web’s permanence, and the European Union even has a law in place intended to enable people to disrupt that permanence.
If you do see the value, however, there needs to be permanent access to what is written and a way to get to it. Permanently storing files is a whole lot easier than permanent access.
Dave currently thinks Github may be as good as anything given that it is owned by Microsoft, a company one expects will be around for a while Still, given that it is a corporate asset, Github exists at the pleasure of Microsoft and not the public.
To Dave’s point, one thing I like about micro.blog is its support for Github. Micro.blog writes a copy of both the source markdown and the rendered HTML of what I write here to Github, and that provides one degree of backup. However, it gets even better because I use git to maintain a clone of that repository on my local computers, which provides me an easy backup copy of what I write on a computer I own.
The markdown is source for jekyll, which itself is an open source blog platform, and that source boils down to plain text files. BTW, jekyll itself works in this manner with Github pages which is good enough for many people, but I happen to like social layer and community that micro.blog provides.
Real Respect Not Displays
I don’t get the mindset of conservatives. They say things like they want small government and want government out of people’s lives and yet they want to dictate their beliefs to people with whom they disagree.
If America is about liberty, then one expressing that liberty by protesting is in fact a high form of patriotism.
Second, people need to understand that public displays of patriotism, which is what standing during a national anthem is, is done by non-democratic countries too. Such displays are not uniquely American. See above for what is uniquely American.
Finally, in my upbringing kneeling is a sign of reverence. One can make the argument that kneeling is even a higher display of respect than standing. If Colin and the other NFL players did something like turn their back, or lie down, or start break dancing THAT would be disrespectful.
Worse, what is most disrespectful to veterans is not voting. Actively working to prevent citizens from voting. Not challenging the President when he sends our military in to conflict. And not demanding that Congress uphold its constitutional responsibility to declare war. Wouldn’t making sure every vet gets the physical and mental health care they need be a true sign of respect? What is more respectful, actually caring about active military and veterans or puttinng on appearances of respect?
P.S. Go to any sporting event and you will find people walking, talking, and otherwise not paying attention during the national anthem.
My Micro.blog Wish
I think of micro.blog as a publishing platform, for two reasons. First, what I write is published to my blog. Second, what I write is published to other distribution channels, specifically for me Twitter and Facebook, but it could also include Medium and LinkedIn.
What would make micro.blog perfect for me is the ability to designate, at the time I am writing, to which distribution channels I want a particular item published to. All things that I write are appropriate for my blog, but some things I might only want to also be published to Twitter and yet other things I would prefer published to Facebook.
To me, the ability to control what gets published where, from the app in which I am writing, is particularly important if I were to publish to the LinkedIn and Medium channels that could be considered more “professional.”
Right now, cross-posting is all or nothing. Everything I write in micro.blog is cross posted to Twitter and Facebook and frankly some posts, like this one, don’t make sense for those audiences.
I recognize there are drawbacks to cross posting, specifically, it’s a write once experience meaning that edits don’t get re-published to Twitter and Facebook because there just isn’t a mechanism to do so.
Blogging Since 1999
I’ve ported a blog post I wrote in 2014 using Fargo to the site I am setting up using Jekyll and Netlify. The post is an historical account, current at that time, of the tools I used to write and host content on the web. I’ve been blogging since 1999, which means I am approaching 20 years of blogging.
Unfortunately, not all of my early content, almost 8 years worth, is accessible due to how that content was stored. However, there is access to the last decade worth of my writing, some of it good, most of it meh. I’ve pointed to the sites hosting those last 7 years.
Long Form Writing and Trying Out Netlify
Unlike most others here at micro.blog, I consider my micro.blog as my blog. The reason is that I distinguish blogs from long form writing and publishing on the Internet. For me, a blog post is 1 to 3 paragraphs and written in about 15 minutes or less.
I blog to share a thought or something of interest to me, I write to formulate and share ideas.
When I set up my micro.blog account and associated a personal blog domain to it, I decided that I would use my then current blog, Let’s Be Frank, for long form writing. The “broad” push to HTTPS is going to make that a problem because that blog is managed using an app written by Dave Winer called 1999.io, and it has a lot of Javascript libraries that I don’t think he is every going to convert to HTTPS.
So, stay there and maybe figure out how to convert to HTTPS or look somewhere else? I recently learned about Netlify from Jack Baty and after checking out its web site, I determined it has much of what I was looking for: low price, easy HTTPS implementation, and flexibility.
Netlify does not provide a Content Management System, but it integrates with Github to provide continuous deployment, so you can use static site generators like Jekyll for publishing content. Since I have a little experience with Jekyll, I decided to try out Netlify by following their Jekyll tutorial and it didn’t take me long to get a site up and available via HTTPS.
The upside with the approach I have so far is that I can write and publish content from any device, particularly my iPad. All you really need to do is add a file in the proper naming format to the posts folder of your Github repository. I’ve cloned the repository to Working Copy on my iPad and found a Drafts action that will save a new item to Working Copy and insert the proper header informatation that Jekyll requires.
Right now the new site is very much a work in progress and there may be changes. Oh, and I am aware of the irony of me writing this post here but this is is where you know me and I am not a stickler to such self determined rules.
The Overthrow Will Not Be By Force.
Too many people in the United States think our government will be overthrown by force when the reality is it is happening in just the opposite manner. The strong arguments against gun control in the U.S. is evidence of this, as the argument centers around needing to keep guns as protection against government oppression. The powers that be don’t need to take guns away, they just need us to keep arguing about them, which fossilizes idealogy and keeps attention away from what is really happening.
The constitution enables authoritarianism when Congress and the Supreme Court do not function in their jobs as overseers of the Presidency. When Congress and the Supreme Court simply align with a president due to party affliation, you have a dictator in practice.
Today the process nearly complete, and gerrymandering will seal the deal. Gerrymandering removes the one power citizens have, which is to vote. You don’t need to burn down the flag nor rip up the Constitution, all that is needed is idealogical compliance to what the Presidency wants.
Tolerance Is Fundamental To Freedom
Tolerance is fundamental to freedom. If we stop tolerating actions or opinions that we disagree with, you stop freedom, democracy disappears and is replaced by dictatorship. The irony is for the idea that kneeling during the national anthem is disrespectful and should not be tolerated, we are giving up the very freedom that too many gave their lives for.
You can not dictate respect. Dictating respect is counter to tolerance and is counterproductive because respect is earned, not given.
Do you really want freedom? If you do, it starts by tolerating those with whom you disagree and not treating them with contempt.
Drafts or Ulysses?
One thing I find frustrating about iOS are the number of apps that all seem to do the exact same thing. How do you decide on one over the other? An example is Drafts and Ulysses, both are good markdown editors but Drafts supports more automation. Last summer I was looking for a new editor and Ulysses came highly recommended, so I bought it, but then the company switched to a subscription model and that turned me off, I decided to not buy in to the subscription.
Then I learned about Drafts, and so I went and downloaded it and have used it to write some blog posts. To date I have mostly used it to write long posts for one site that only has a “basic” web-based editor. Of course, Drafts has now been recently upgraded and it too has a subscription model.
To me, it doesn’t make sense to have Ulysses and Drafts on my iPad, Drafts seems to able to do the job good enough. However, so far I have not seen an Action for sending text to Wordpress, which I find a bit surprising. Does anyone know of such an Action? The one in the Drafts directory appears to require components not part of Wordpress.com.
Micro Blogging versus Social Networks
You might think it too fine a point, but I think any blogging product requires the ability to edit what one has written. To me, editing is a fundamental difference between blogging and social networks because blogging is about permanence where as the social network timeline/newsfeed is a black hole.
To me, what makes micro blogging different from social networks like Twitter is the permance I describe above, and therefore editing should be a fundamental requirement for all micro blogging apps.
Gmail versus Inbox
Google has released the new version of Gmail, which I am checking out. I have been using, and like, Inbox mostly because how quickly I can use it to triage email. By triage I mean browse for messages I want to read and then quickly archiving all the remaining messages. No other app, including Gmail provides as easy a way to archive a group of messages.
The downside of Inbox is that it is very JavaScript heavy and therefore the web app performance can suffer. Another downside is that the app versions don’t look as good on larger screens such as on my 10.5 iPad Pro in landscape.
So, I am considering using Gmail on large screens and Inbox on small screens. However to decide that, I need to use the new Gmail for a while.
Boycotts and Free Speech
What, if any, relationship is there between free speech and cable TV, and in particular news or opinion shows on cable TV? Cable TV is not the public square nor is it public airwaves, it is corporate owned and exists for the purposes of making money. The primary method for making money is advertising.
If people opt to make note of the advertisers and decide to not purchase products from those advertisers, which is known as boycotting their products, I don’t see how in any way that infringes on a person’s free speech rights. At most it infringes on that person’s ability to make money on cable TV.
Furthermore, free speech is a protection for citizens from government. If cable TV is not part of the government, then frankly I am not clear on what free speech rights apply to anything on cable TV. Claims about being “fair and balanced” is marketing and not statements of facts nor rights.
There Is No Such Thing As Health Insurance
Twenty states have filed suit against the federal government basically because there is no business model in healthcare insurance. Before we can fix problems we have to:
Fundamentally, the business model for insurance is based on the premise that a company pays out less money than it takes in through people buying insurance. Property insurance works because it is possible that people who pay for it never need to file a claim through their life time. Likewise auto insurance works because there are people who never have to file a claim over a lifetime of driving.
In context, there really is no such thing as health insurance because every health care transaction is paid by the “health insurance” companies and just about everyone has one or more healthcare transactions per year. In other words, how does a “health insurance” company make money? If auto insurance was like healthcare, ever time one took their car in for an oil change or a tire rotation they would file an auto insurance claim.
Basically, we have to stop thinking that there is a capitalistic solution to the cost of health care. Just about all other countries around the world came to this realization and did something about it. We in the United States have drunk the capitalistic koolaid so much that we have forgotten our own history and just run around trying to hammer away every single problem.
Carnival In Da Moonlight
Michigan Tech’s annual Winter Carnival is in progress, with the snow statue competition completing this morning. I attended Tech from 1984-89 and have good Carny memories. The number of hours students put in to building these statues is incredible and the results are fantastic. Check out the photos!
Feedback On The OmniFocus Roadmap
A couple of thoughts about OmniFocus after reading Omni’s roadmap for 2018. As an iOS user but not a Mac OS user, I have long heard about OmniFocus and how great it is but never tried it out. A few weeks ago I discovered I could install the iOS version and try it out for free for two weeks, which I did and frankly, it didn’t seem much better than Todoist or 2Do.
My main requirement is multi-platform support because while use an iPad as my primary personal computer, I also use Android smartphones and Windows notebook computers. The inability to get to info in OmniFocus from Windows has been a show stopper, and web access, which is on the roadmap, will help, however I am concerned about the “minimalist” plan.
A simple way that Omni could solve this problem is by syncing with Toodledo. While there is a Toodledo iOS app, it is not very efficient so I use 2Do on my iPad that syncs my data with Toodledo. The benefit is that there are Toodledo apps for other platforms, and the Toodledo web app is one of the most advanced web apps that I use.
I am also surprised that OmniFocus doesn’t use an outliner for editing projects and tasks, given the existence of OmniOutliner, which I do use.
I’ll keep a watch out for the next release of OmniFocus and probably check it out.
Capitalism <> Democracy
The American Dream is Over. This is the Age of the European Dream.
One might not agree with the entire premise of the above article, but I think there is something to the point being made that we wrongly think markets/capitalism is the solution to every problem in our country. In fact, one can make the argument that capitalism is the root of much that is wrong in our country.
For example, the reality is capitalism (read revenue and profits) is the true reason why the NRA agressively opposes any gun control; the NRA’s corporate supporters make a lot of money off the sale of guns and ammunition and logically do not want any of that money to be at risk. Just like capitalism drove the tobacco industry to ignore studies showing smoking causes cancer.
For a long time I have been saying that we tend to confuse capitalism with democracy. I think this is reflected most prominently by the Citizens United SCOTUS ruling that says corporate spending on politics is a form of free speech, and thus corporations have a right to free speech.
Corporations are a construct of capitalism, they are not in themselves men or women of any race. In otherwords, corporations are not citizens.
Citizens United may be the worst SCOTUS ruling of my lifetime. Worse, it is reflects a flawed understanding that frankly skews society in favor of corporations and the oligarchs that profit from them.
Hanselminutes: Raspberry Pi clusters and Serverless
This entry is coming from Feedbin, does this get posted to my blog or just added to the Timeline? Update: So, this did end up on the blog, interesting. I wonder if the same thing happens with Evergreen?