Can you correctly answer the questions on the civics test that people who wish to be U.S. citizens must be able to correctly answer?
\n", "date_published": "2026-07-06T12:37:31-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/07/06/can-you-correctly-answer-the.html" }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/07/04/a-method-for-quoteblogs.html", "title": "A Method For Quoteblogs", "content_html": "Among the many RSS feeds that I subscribe to there are a few that contain posts that share other people’s writing. I find the posts valuable because they provide me links to articles to read that I may not otherwise find and tend to be thoughtfully curated.
\nI want to provide my own “quoteblog” posts and landed on a method for creating them using the knowledge management app I’ve been developing for myself with Claude.
\nMy reading flow starts by reviewing articles collected and presented by Feedland and River5 using RSS. I click articles with interesting titles and then send them to Readwise Reader using an extension, later I read them and highlight portions of the article that I like. Copies of the article highlights are downloaded to Obsidian and accessible to Readwise, which sends me random highlights of articles I read in daily emails.
\nThe dashboard of my PKM app has a widget that is a list of the recent articles with highlights. Claude wrote the code to use the Readwise API to access the recent articles and display them in the widget. The article titles in the widget are links to the article highlights in Readwise. The articles roll off the widget over time but I can pin them to access them later via a Pinned Highlights page.
\nMy quoteblog posts originate from the highlights I store in Readwise. Readwise provides the ability to tag articles, or what it calls documents, and tag individual highlights. I give the source article of the quotes a “blog-post” tag and the highlights to share a “quote” tag in Readwise. Claude then wrote the code that reviews the articles that I pinned looking for ones with a “blog-post” document tag and when it finds one, it puts thee article title, author, and source URL in a markdown file. Highlights that have a “quote” tag are then added to the markdown file.
\nFor now I am not automating the publishing of the quoteblog post to this site. For now I am going to manually create my blog post in Obsidian, copy and paste the source of the quoteblog created from my highlights, and then do some light editing before publishing. The first of my quoteblog posts is Independent Food For Thought.
\n", "date_published": "2026-07-04T13:00:06-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/07/04/a-method-for-quoteblogs.html", "tags": ["Essays","Tech","AI"] }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/07/04/independent-food-for-though.html", "title": "Independent Food For Thought", "content_html": "Two articles I think are worth reading on this, the 250th birthday of the United States because they describe how far we have come, yet still the same, while fighting against what we tell ourselves is the norm of civilization.
\nDerek Thompson\nhttps://www.derekthompson.org/p/america-1926-an-absurdly-deep-dive
\n“In other ways, the America of 1926 was another world—practically another planet. Roughly half of the U.S. still counted as rural, and tens of millions of Americans had no indoor plumbing or electricity. Thick smoke from oil lamps filled their homes, and they emptied their bladders and bowels in old-fashioned chamber pots. Women had only voted in two presidential elections. Millions of children still worked for pay. Of the nation’s 27 million households, only 11 million had a phonograph, to listen to music, or a car. The first movie with sound would not come out for another year.”
\nDavid Pinsof\nhttps://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/p/democracy-is-bullshit
\n“So what is democracy? It is a key that perfectly fits the lock of group mode. It is a system that brandishes a fearsome weapon before our eyes—the coercive power of jails and cops and militaries—and tells us we cannot control it, and cannot defend ourselves from it, unless we band together into huge, lumbering groups. It is a system that pries power away from the hands of individuals and tosses it to mobs, cliques, unions, religions, interest groups, ethnic groups, and grotesque agglomerations of all the above called ‘political parties.’ It is a system defined by the crushing hopelessness of individual toil and the awesome power of collective synchrony.”
\n\n\nPeople are wonderful. I love individuals. I hate groups of people. I hate a group of people with a ‘common purpose’. ‘Cause pretty soon they have little hats. And armbands. And fight songs. And a list of people they’re going to visit at 3am. -George Carlin
\n
“The purpose of a group is to increase the power, status, and resources of the humans inside it relative to the humans outside it. How do we know this is true? Because over evolutionary time, the groups that reliably fulfilled this purpose became our ancestors.”
\n“Monarchy is rule by monarchs. Oligarchy is rule by oligarchs. Democracy might seem like it’s rule by the ‘demos’—by the people—but it’s not. Or at least, not by individual people. Democracy is, instead, rule by tribes. Yes, it’s time to switch from ‘groups’ to the more pejorative ‘tribes.’ The most cohesive, well-organized, well-funded tribes, bound into supertribes called ‘parties,’ are the ones who rule. It’s a tribeocracy. And given the well-documented ethical and intellectual downsides of tribalism, that is a very bad thing. It’s hard to think of a worse way to run a society than to systematically take power away from wonderful individuals and wise crowds so we can give it to mean, dumb, incoherent, sanctimonious tribes.”
\n“But there is a worse way to run a society, called autocracy, which leaves us with an important question: Why are democracies nicer places to live than autocracies? The main reason is that democracies are multitribal while autocracies are unitribal.”
\n", "date_published": "2026-07-04T12:20:12-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/07/04/independent-food-for-though.html", "tags": ["Essays","quoteblog"] }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/06/28/terry-cowan-predestinated-america-greed.html", "content_html": "Terry Cowan, Predestinated America:
\n\n\nGreed has ever been with us, in all places and all times; but this hunger for money had always been called for what it was: avarice. Calvinism, combined with Luther’s concept of a calling in life, ennobled this vice into a virtue
\n
Link added.
\n", "date_published": "2026-06-28T13:33:50-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/06/28/terry-cowan-predestinated-america-greed.html", "tags": ["Quotes"] }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/06/28/joan-westenberg-a-normal-life.html", "content_html": "\n\n\n", "date_published": "2026-06-28T12:49:40-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/06/28/joan-westenberg-a-normal-life.html", "tags": ["Quotes"] }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/06/26/learned-yesterday-that-om-malik.html", "content_html": "A normal life has room for contradiction.
\nYou can care about nutrition and eat cake at a birthday party. You can care about sleep and stay up late sometimes. You can care about politics and have friends who don’t share your every worldview. You can care about your work and still close your laptop when your kid wants you to play Uno. You can be spiritually curious and still be skeptical of people selling enlightenment subscriptions. You can be disciplined and still be fun. You can be principled and still be kind.
\nThis shouldn’t sound radical. None of it should sound radical. It only does because our culture has become so stupidly binary.
\n
Learned yesterday that Om Malik passed away. He was just 59 years old but had been living with a heart condition for several years. I did not know him personally but did follow his work and appreciated his writing. He will be missed by many.
\n", "date_published": "2026-06-26T12:05:55-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/06/26/learned-yesterday-that-om-malik.html" }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/06/22/finished-reading-the-permanent-problem.html", "content_html": "Finished reading: The Permanent Problem by Brink Lindsey 📚Food for thought though I am not entirely sure of the solutions proposed.
\n![](\"https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/2044/2026/the-permanent-problem.png\")
\n",
"date_published": "2026-06-22T17:06:56-04:00",
"url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/06/22/finished-reading-the-permanent-problem.html",
"tags": ["Books"]
},
{
"id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/06/22/the-acms-proposition-to-redefine.html",
"content_html": "The ACM’s proposition to redefine the software engineering profession sounds a bit like the Systems Engineer Development (SED) program of Electronic Data Systems (EDS) that I hired in to in 1989. Unfortunately I don’t think such a long term vision is compatible with the U.S. short term culture, so I doubt many companies nor the industry will take this approach.
\n", "date_published": "2026-06-22T12:31:14-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/06/22/the-acms-proposition-to-redefine.html", "tags": ["Thoughts","Tech","AI"] }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/06/22/110405.html", "content_html": "![\"\"](\"uploads/2026/the-experience-of-god.png\")
\n",
"date_published": "2026-06-22T11:04:05-04:00",
"url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/06/22/110405.html",
"tags": ["Quotes"]
},
{
"id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/06/18/a-look-to-the-future.html",
"title": "A Look To The Future With AI In It",
"content_html": "Read a really good essay titled After AI Takes Everything written by a software engineer based in Singapore who goes by Airing. The link I am providing is to a copy of the essay I have in Readwise that includes my highlights. If you work in IT or know someone who does that is worried about what AI is doing to their future I recommend that you read the essay.
\nA part of the essay I find most relatable is the following:
\n\n\nThe threat to the job, the cultivation of the ability, the survival of subjecthood — all of these anxieties collapse, when gathered, into the same thing: we are afraid of losing our sense of value. Afraid that one day we will wake up and find we are no longer useful to this world. Being laid off is just the outer shell of that fear. The core is older: a person’s deepest fear has never been having no job. It is the suspicion that one is no longer worthy.
\n
What will enable one to survive the AI revolution is their own sense of value as a human being. Consequently, I think what employees need to be sensitive to is the degree to which employers actually value them. If an employer treats their employees as a cog or as nothing more than a cost that employer will be eager to replace you no matter what. I would find another job. In fact, this is the primary reason why I decided to retire as what remains left of my life is too precious to be un-valued.
\nOh, and by the way, I think this sense of value as a human beings is the core of Pope Leo’s encyclical.
\n", "date_published": "2026-06-18T12:56:06-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/06/18/a-look-to-the-future.html", "tags": ["Essays","AI"] }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/06/17/i-shared-this-on-my.html", "content_html": "I shared this on my linkblog, but it’s too good to not share here. 40 Ways the Tech Industry Could Stop Being Such a Colossal Goddamn Pain in the Ass
\nBonus thought…now that Manton is working on integration between micro.blog and Wordpress, could he had an ability to cross post from a Wordpress blog to a micro.blog blog? Posting to my Timeline my own Wordpress linkblog items is useless, posting them to my blog would be useful.
\n", "date_published": "2026-06-17T11:55:24-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/06/17/i-shared-this-on-my.html" }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/06/16/android.html", "title": "Android 17", "content_html": "Google has released Android 17, and I just initiated the process to download and install it on my Pixel 10. 9to5Google has a video overview of all the changes, which are mostly cosmetic. For the last several years the Android version upgrades have not included significant functionality additions, rather they include UI and general performance improvements. Functional additions to Android come in the Quarterly Point Releases (QPR) and we expect QPR1 to Android 17 in the fall, timed with the release of the Pixel 11.
\nAlso included in the Android 17 download is the June 2026 Pixel Drop that adds features to Pixel phones. Most useful to me is App Bubbles, which provide users the ability to add applications to the floating “bubble” that appears on top of all screens and apps running on the phone. We previously had this ability for text messaging conversations and I think of it as a multitasking feature that enables me to quickly switch to a task that I have pinned to the display.
\nOne use that I have for app bubbles is for quick access to RadarScope while there are storms in my area to quickly see the current weather radar. To “pin” an app to the bubble tap and hold the app’s icon and tap Bubble at the bottom of the context menu. Note that this feature does not appear to work for all apps, particularly ones that have custom context menus. For example, tap and hold the Gmail icon and you do not see a Bubble option instead you see options to compose new email or open an Gmail account.
\nWear OS 7 is also coming for the Pixel Watch and as I am less enthused about that release I am not go to force it to be installed on my watch.
\n", "date_published": "2026-06-16T16:05:23-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/06/16/android.html", "tags": ["Essays","Tech","Wear OS"] }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/06/16/enough.html", "title": "Enough", "content_html": "I am of the opinion that one cannot begin to comprehend the risks of artificial intelligence without knowing oneself. We are embedded in a culture of “more” that teaches we should never be satisfied and we never see that “more” for what it is, an idol. The drive for the more, more wealth, more power and with that somehow a better life for oneself is the context in which decisions about artificial intelligence are being made.
\nMore is the zeitgeist of the norm of civilization, so much so that most of us are willing to accept it as desirable and our true calling.
\nChristians, particularly American Christians, are raised so deep within the norm of civilization that they do not know or do not comprehend that Jesus preached an alternative to the norm of civilization, which he called the Kingdom of God.
\nWhat is the zeitgeist of a civilization under the reign of God?
\nConsider the story of how God provided for Israel while they wandered in the desert told in Exodus 16, particularly verse 4:
\n\n\nThen the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not.”
\n
Consider how Jesus taught how to pray as told in Matthew 6:5-15, particularly verse 11:
\n\n\nGive us today our daily bread
\n
Consider this teaching attributed to Paul told in 1 Timothy 6:3-10, particularly verses 6-10:
\n\n\nOf course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it, but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.
\n
The zeitgeist of the Kingdom is contentment, or if you prefer, enough.
\nToday Fr. Stephen Freeman writes:
\n\n\nThe modern cult of excellence is largely defined by our consumer economy. Excellence sells.
\nOur lives are driven by false assumptions in which we become our own greatest disappointments, all the while wondering at the excellence of others. In truth, our lives lack true wonder. We do not attend to the things that are most directly at hand. That which is uniquely proper to each of us is not our marketable skill – it is our very existence! That we do not rightly see our own existence means that we fail to rightly see the existence of others. We become like a movie audience in which all of the real people sit in the dark, unaware of one another, with the digital images dancing on the screen as the center of our short-term world.
\nContentment allows us to remain attentive to where we are (and who we are). The drive of our culture always distracts us and focuses our attention to where we are not and to where we want to be. It creates an anxiety and makes our present life a distraction. The present is a marvelous place. It is also the place of the heart.
\n
The obsession with more is the unnoticed hot water raising the temperature of our culture to the point at which we will burn. A characteristic of humanity is our development and use tools or technology to make life better. Technology does tremendous good for the world, but we know that the dynamite that bores tunnels through mountains also propels projectiles that kill. Obsession with more leads to abuses of technology, the consequences of which become more dire with each iteration.
\nThe solution is not the elimination of technology, rather it is the changing of our minds about how we should live. What Jesus proclaimed more than two thousand years ago is more relevant today than ever!
", "date_published": "2026-06-16T15:01:45-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/06/16/enough.html", "tags": ["Essays","Theology"] }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/06/13/using-google-ai-plus.html", "title": "Using Google AI Plus", "content_html": "I replaced the standard, original, Google One subscription with Google AI Plus, which provides more AI features for $4.99 per month. I now have access to the Daily Brief produced by Gemini using Gmail, Calendar, and Text Messaging that I find useful but surprised I am not receiving notifications about them each day, instead I have to go in to the Gemini app to read them, which makes no sense. I found where I control whether I see notifications for Daily Brief and toggled that on/off.
\nAnother problem I have with Gemini on the phone is that it is too verbose. When I ask it for information it produces several paragraphs and seems to insist on reading all of it when I prefer to read what was produced in silence. Perhaps Google could enable user to set a preference such as enabling users to tell Gemini to summarize long responses verbally and provide the remainder on screen to be read.
\nOne more complaint… I like NotebookLM but I wish Google would do one of two things, either enable NotebookLM to access Google Keep or provide users the ability to create and edit notebook sources from a phone. Here is my use case. I religiously track the oil level in our 2013 GMC Terrain in a note in Google Keep. I found it useful to provide that odometer and oil level log to NotebookLM so that I can query it, but to get the log into a notebook I have to send a copy to Google Docs because NotebookLM only knows about Google Docs stored in Drive. Keep does not use Drive for storage, and I suspect Google stores notes in a backend database.
\nIf Google will allow users to create notebooks in NotebookLM and create sources for them on a phone then that notebook could be an alternate to Keep. So far Google has not added any Gemini features to Keep, which is a bit surprising, but in another way suggests that maybe someday NotebookLM could replace Keep. I personally think it would be smart of Keep stayed as it and provided NotebookLM as the “AI equivalent” of Keep.
\nIdeally, NotebookLM would automatically sync/update Google Drive sources, but right now I have to manually sync to get updates which is fine except that if I simply send a Keep note to a Google Doc it doesn’t overwrite previously shared documents instead it creates another doc with the exact same name and the new “version” of the doc needs to be added as a source. In short, I don’t have an easy way to get updates to my oil log in to NotebookLM.
\n", "date_published": "2026-06-13T13:01:29-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/06/13/using-google-ai-plus.html", "tags": ["Essays","Tech"] }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/06/11/i-use-readwise-reader-to.html", "content_html": "I use Readwise Reader to read web articles that I save while triaging my RSS subscriptions. Often what I blog about comes from what I read, and so I share the desire that Peter Rukavina wrote below:
\n\n\nMy holy grail, as I said, was wanting to be able to highlight a passage in something and have a blog post here automagically created: quoting the work of other writers and posting a short comment is something I do a lot, and I wanted to streamline the process (see also The Three Virtues of a Great Programmer).
\n
Peter goes on to describe how we built a process to post a highlighted quote and an associated note created in Readwise Reader to his blog, and I really want to do this for myself.
\n", "date_published": "2026-06-11T11:52:16-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/06/11/i-use-readwise-reader-to.html", "tags": ["Tech"] }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/06/11/right-now-i-feel-there.html", "content_html": "Right now I feel there is no point in ranting about the Chicago Cubs because with the same person at the top of the organization thinking there would be a different outcome is insane. Jed’s big off-season signing was an exchange for one under-performing player in the last third of his career for another, so the lineup is the same as last year and thus we had no real reason to expect something better than last season.
\n", "date_published": "2026-06-11T11:08:49-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/06/11/right-now-i-feel-there.html", "tags": ["Thoughts","Sports"] }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/06/11/finished-reading-braving-the-truth.html", "content_html": "![](\"https://cdn.micro.blog/books/9780062894526/cover.jpg\")
\nFinished reading: Braving the Truth by Rachel Held Evans 📚
\n", "date_published": "2026-06-11T10:45:26-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/06/11/finished-reading-braving-the-truth.html" }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/06/09/my-understanding-is-that-during.html", "content_html": "My understanding is that during the WWDC keynote yesterday Apple informed us that devices with 8 GB of RAM will not run their on-device AI features. You still get the features via Apple’s cloud but will slow down responses. In my first post about the MacBook Neo I made the point that 8 GB is not enough RAM and speculated the Neo is prelude to Apple selling a subscription to their AI cloud services. All that is left, I think, is for Apple to provide information about the subscription AI cloud services.
\n", "date_published": "2026-06-09T11:06:04-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/06/09/my-understanding-is-that-during.html", "tags": ["Thoughts","Tech","AI"] }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/05/28/idol-of-intelligence.html", "title": "Idol Of Intelligence", "content_html": "I am fascinated by the number of reactions to Pope Leo’s encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, in my technology feeds. It’s the first time that I can recall of seeing so many technologists spend any time with what a figure of religion has to say.
\nI am in the process of reading the encyclical, but I also have been reading many of the reactions and I particularly like this one by Yuval Levin. The following jumps out to me:
\n\n\nThe appeal of idols has always been that they offer shortcuts. The God of the Bible demands that you live in a way that forms your mind and heart and soul toward your fullest human potential. This requires hard work but it yields a kind of person both capable and worthy of a flourishing life. The idol offers the material benefits of such a life without that formative work. And if all you care about are the benefits, not the form of your mind, heart, and soul, then the offer is awfully hard to resist.
\n
Technologists tend to chase the shortcuts in life, apparently lacking the wisdom to see that we do so at the risk of not fully forming humanly. Another story from the Bible that comes to mind is the story of the fall in Genesis 3, which I think our ego causes us to conclude the “problem” or the “sin” of Adam and Eve is not obeying God. I think ego draws that conclusion because it controls over whether or not to obey. In other words, our ego is the solution to the problem.
\nI keep coming back to the following that Eve says in Genesis 3:2-3:
\n\n\nThe woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’ "
\n
The tree in the middle of the garden is the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and I ask myself, why does God say having knowledge of good and evil leads to death? Isn’t this nothing more than knowing right from wrong and isn’t that what every good parent is expected to teach their children?
\nI dare say how much different the world might be if the teaching of this scripture contemplated more on this paradox and avoided the egotistic shortcut of control and obedience. It is possible that the grand lesson of life is hidden in this seeming paradox of how something so fundamental to our very survival, good versus evil, friend or foe, leads to death. I think the problem it points to is the seeing of the world dualistically, as black and white, that makes it easy for us to see others apart from ourselves. From this we lose our humanity.
\n", "date_published": "2026-05-28T15:04:40-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/05/28/idol-of-intelligence.html", "tags": ["Essays","AI","Theology"] }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/05/25/is-there-anything-more-disconcerting.html", "content_html": "Is there anything more disconcerting than a computer keyboard and mouse amok? For some reason just now my Bluetooth mouse and keyboard connected to the MacBook wouldn’t do what I want. Click an icon on the dock and instead of launching the app a Finder window opens with the Application I clicked highlighted. Click icons on the menu bar and nothing happens. Restarted several times, including without the externals and shutoff some items that start at login. It’s gone for now, but I don’t know which item I shut off was the culprit and I don’t know that I care.
\n", "date_published": "2026-05-25T11:50:09-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/05/25/is-there-anything-more-disconcerting.html", "tags": ["Thoughts","Tech"] }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/05/24/the-current-cubs-failure-starts.html", "title": "The Current Cubs Failure Starts At The Very Top", "content_html": "What Craig Counsell and David Ross have in common is that both are former players and I think that is the context in which one has to conclude that so far Counsell has not been better than the person he replaced. Former player managers appear to be more likely to continue to expect older players who once did very well to find their former selves any day now, when the probability of that happening is not likely.
\nThe problem with the current Cubs is not Counsell just as Ross was not the problem when we was fired. The continued success of the Milwaukee Brewers after Counsell left them for the Cubs is for me strong evidence that it’s a system that leads to success not one person. What is important is the people at the top of a baseball team, the owner and next in command, to make good hires for people to put in place a good system.
\nThe Chicago Cubs will continue fail to meet expectations and long as Jed Hoyer is running the Cubs. Hoyer wrongly over valued Counsell’s contributions at the Brewers and under valued the Brewer organization that clearly is superior to the Cubs. Counsell leaves and his bench coach is promoted to manager and the Brewers keep winning, what does that tell you?
\nI expect Counsell will be fired because that is the simplest action for Hoyer to take, and Jed isn’t going to fire himself. Rickett’s extended Hoyer last season before the trade deadline even after demonstrating poor decision making by trading the organization’s top prospect for a poor performing rental in Kyle Tucker.
\nDoing the same thing over and over is insanity. The Hoyer lead organization is convinced low cost, low budget aquisitions will get the Cubs back to the World Series but the current roster is just the latest evidence that will not work. We have the same team now as we had in every year since 2019.
\n", "date_published": "2026-05-24T12:08:56-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/05/24/the-current-cubs-failure-starts.html", "tags": ["Sports","Essays"] }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/05/24/i-wonder-now-that-we.html", "content_html": "I wonder, now that we have decided on a company to replace our windows, when will I stop seeing ads for window replacement companies in my Instagram feed?
\n", "date_published": "2026-05-24T11:17:10-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/05/24/i-wonder-now-that-we.html" }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/05/20/i-am-reading-through-articles.html", "content_html": "I am reading through articles about announcements from Google I/O 2026, and I think this change Google is planning to make to Tiles in Wear OS 7 has to be one of the most idiotic design decisions I have seen. When you have a UI on a small screen like a watch, why would you not use the entire screen? What are they thinking?
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2026-05-20T12:15:14-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/05/20/i-am-reading-through-articles.html", "tags": ["Thoughts","Tech","Wear OS"] }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/05/20/i-put-my-pixel-on.html", "content_html": "Tiles are also getting a redesign. Google will roll out widgets with Wear OS 7 to replace full-screen tiles. A 2×1 or 2×2 block will display app information in a style that more closely resembles Android 16’s widgets. It doesn’t appear that the new design will allow users to stack widgets on top of each other in the same screen, like Samsung’s version of Wear OS allows Galaxy Watch users to do.
\n
I put my Pixel 10 on a Belkin MagSafe wireless charger. Today it dawned on me that it would be cool if when the phone is on the charger that if a phone call comes in the phone would automatically operate in speaker phone mode so I could just tap a button to receive the call and talk.
\n", "date_published": "2026-05-20T11:06:45-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/05/20/i-put-my-pixel-on.html", "tags": ["Thoughts","Tech"] }, { "id": "http://frankm.micro.blog/2026/05/16/gadgeteer-has-an-embed-of.html", "content_html": "Gadgeteer has an embed of a leaked walk thru of the forthcoming Android Desktop that Google officially announced as Googlebook this week. The demo is running in a VM on a Mac not on any native hardware. I don’t see anything in the demo that is really new or exciting. We have been using the “desktop” personal computer metaphor for so long and I wish that a company would have the guts to try something really new.
\nI think the only reason to consider Googlebook if it were built from the ground up as a AI-based user interface, but instead I think it will simply have AI stuff bolted on and that is not appealing. It’s early days, but hard to say what will be the reason to buy a Googlebook rather than a MacBook.
\n", "date_published": "2026-05-16T11:39:05-04:00", "url": "https://frankmcpherson.blog/2026/05/16/gadgeteer-has-an-embed-of.html", "tags": ["Thoughts","Tech"] } ] }