Today is the first day back to school for many kids, young (elementary/high school) and old (college). School years can be one of the best times of your life, although for most at the time it isn’t appreciated. While I hope to always be learning, school years, particularly college, provides the best access to people from whom one can learn. Of those who are in their first day of college classes, I am a bit envious.
As I write this, the 2019 Chicago Cubs have not scored a run in two and half games. In September. When you need to win games to win a division and/or make the playoffs.
The Cubs currently do not have a single player hitting .300 or better. What you have is a lineup of power hitters, and as appealing while the home run is a fan favorite, relying on it is not winning baseball. This lineup is too easy to pitch against.
Summer’s end
Healthline: The rhomboid muscle is located in the upper back. It helps connect the shoulder blades to the rib cage and spine. It also helps you maintain good posture.
Summers end
Things that make you go hmmm…
When I look at my keyboard I see the label on the C key completely worn off. The A key is half gone. E, D, V, N, and M are partially gone.
Rumor has it Android 10 will be released on September 3.
Congrats to Brent Simmons for shipping NetNewsWire 5.0, which is the latest incarnation of an old RSS reader for Mac. I understand the app has been entirely rewritten from the original release that Brent at one time sold.
“You don’t have to wait for something “meaningful” to come into your life so that you can finally enjoy what you do. There is more meaning in joy than you will ever need.” from “A New Earth (Oprah #61): Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose” by Eckhart Tolle a.co/dzBIRzn
Chromecast Overheating
I’ve been using Chromecast ever since Google first started selling them, and upgraded to the Ultras when they became available. One is attached to each of our two TVs, however I also have an Apple TV connected to the basement TV. I primarily use the Apple TV because I find the apps are better, for example the MLB app has a catch up feature only available on Apple TV.
I do occasionally stream ball games using the Chromecast on the Living Room TV but it has he annoying behavior of performance degrading after a couple hours of streaming. All of a sudden what I am watching starts stuttering and becomes unwatchable.
I don’t have solid evidence, but I suspect the Chromecast is overheating to the point after a few hours the performance suffers. The OS on the device might be throttling down performance to protect the CPU. The Chromecast is very hot when I touch it. I probably should get an HDMI extension to move it further away from the back of the TV.
Given my experience, if someone is in the market for a streaming video device I recommend the Apple TV unless you find the price prohibitive. I think the UI is good and it has had solid performance.
Adult Required Reading, contemporary books to read inspired by school required reading.
I now have 250 entries in the Site Index of my wiki.
Tomorrow I will be a guest in the MobileViews podcast and to prepare I have written down my mid year Orchids and Onions awards.
On one hand I don’t like to see the cooler weather because it is a sign that summer is drawing to a close, on the other hand, I am enjoying the refreshing cooler breeze.
“What the world doesn’t tell you—because it doesn’t know—is that you cannot become successful. You can only be successful. And what is that? There is a sense of quality in what you do, even the most simple action. Quality implies care and attention, which come with awareness. Quality requires your Presence.” from “A New Earth (Oprah #61): Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose” by Eckhart Tolle a.co/4iyJkLX
Today I discovered NixOS, and the web site provides a nice VirtualBox appliance to easily download and test it. What I find is that it runs very well in VirtualBox, better than the Debian installs that I have built in it.
It functions differently than Debian, particularly package management and installing apps, so there is a learning curve.
A year ago I signed up for Exist in search of an application that would help me analyze the data I Collect in Google Fit. Unfortunately, it only imports a few months of historical data from Fit so I needed to wait until now to see the year over year benefit.
Now I can easily tell that I am walking less this week but more than last year. I can easily see whether my monthly activity is above, at, or below my average. Exist also provides a way to track my moods and provide tags.
A few things that I wish Exist provided are a direct way to enter sleep information, similar to mood tracking. I don’t use devices to track my sleep but I would like to simply be able to enter the times I went to bed and got up and provide a rating for how I think I slept. Not scientific, but a start.
I would like it to integrate with food tracking apps, or provide a direct way. Right now I am using LoseIt mostly to track carbs.
Finally, I wish it provided me a way to create my own queries/reports of data.
Overall I am happy with the service and can recommend it. Web, Android and iOS applications are available.
My measurement of a great article written for the web is the number of links it contains, and by that measurement, this is a great article written for the web.
I just learned about Google Meet, is this really a free web conferencing app? It’s obviously a version of Hangouts.
The official release of Android 10 must be imminent, perhaps as early as tomorrow. I’ve been running beta 6 on my Pixel 2 for a little more than a week and like the upgrade. It’s not earth shattering and I am glad that it doesn’t require me to buy a new phone. This will be the third major release of Android that I have run on the Pixel 2, prior Nexus phones I owned only survived two releases.