Looking at the COVID-19 data for my county shows discouraging information. The upward trend right tnow is like last year, BUT the rate of increase in cases is double from 100 cases per day to 200.
Philips Hue and Spotify have an integration that I just tried out and found to be pretty good, even if it isn’t yet fully complete. Basically the music drives the color and intensity of the Hue lights. I am going to be using this more often. What would be really cool is if Hue and Netflix, or any other streaming video service, did the same thing. You can do this now with a Sync box, but this new solution just works via a smartphone.
Google has a digital handwriting Progressive Web App it calls Cursive that can now be installed on any Chromebook. However, since you cannot type in it, it’s only useful with a stylus. The news gave me an excuse to drag out to the Lenovo USI Stylus that I have to test the app on the Lenovo Duet. Bottom line is that this combo is only really useful for quick and dirty notes or sketches, the latency between the pen and the Chromebook is so bad that writing for any length of time will drive one crazy.
Fossil’s Gen 6 line of Wear OS watches is now available to order, they ship at the end of the month and cost around $300. I think this announcement rounds out the watches that will use Qualcomm’s 4100 processor.
Just took my morning walk and it’s so nice to have cooler air again.
Google has added a new Daylong Routine to Assistant.
Surprised it stayed still long enough for me to snap a few pictures. It was looking for lunch that it found.
Finished reading: In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World by Pádraig Ó Tuama 📚
I really enjoyed this book because it contains so much wisdom scavenged during life lived. Chapter 8, Hello To Change, is particularly good with the following standing out:
“For many, the possibility of being wrong is a threat to the foundations of thought, morality, or empire. And without a doubt, those who advocate scientific thought are as prone as other schools of thought to being superior. But written into the heart of science is the embrace of the gift of being wrong.” page 197 (I would add, due to my current political mindset, that in a similar way written into the heart of democracy is the embrace of the possibility of losing an election. I see a common denominator between the emergent anti-science and anti-democracy ideaologies.)
“The Greek word translated into English as “repentance” is metanoia. The prefix meta means “beyond,” hence metaphysics being the study of—or speculation about—what is beyond the natural. The word noia means “thought” or “mind.” Together, however, metanoia means to change your thoughts, to change your mind, to turn in a new direction, to reverse a direction and go a different way” page 198
“Technically, then, this should mean that the Christian faith is a faith that is adapted to change, a faith that is not undone by realizing that its precepts or propositions are incorrect.” page 198, empahsis mine.
Ford Reveals 2022 Bronco Eruption Green Metallic heritage paint color - SlashGear
I like this, part of me wants to get a Bronco because of the memories of an uncle who had one in the 70s. I wasn’t particularly close to this uncle, who lived down the street from our house, but I thought the Bronco was cool.
So this just happened. Embarrassed to admit the I just figured out what is causing that rattling sound that is constant and loud outside, that be cicadas, annual ones I presume. I am reading about these noisy creatures of summer while sitting on the patio with a cup of coffee. I reach for the cup and look inside to see mosquitos doing back strokes, so I toss the coffee out of the cup towards a nearby tree and startle a big bug that flies away, a cicadas I presume.
It’s not surprising that a citizenry obsessed with appearance chooses to ignore reality. Not surprising that we took the Village People’s lyrics literally and apparently adopted it as our anthem.
To the half of the U.S. population who actually cares about things like what our government does in our name, while we must do everything to rescue refugees that WE created, we must also works towards breaking the chain of violence that has existed since the end of World War II. What should we do? This…
“We should start by finally listening to Barbara Lee. First, we should pass her bill to repeal the two post-9/11 AUMFs that launched our 20-year fiasco in Afghanistan and other wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.
Then we should pass her bill to redirect $350 billionper year from the U.S. military budget (roughly a 50% cut) to ‘increase our diplomatic capacity and for domestic programs that will keep our Nation and our people safer.'” source
What if a black squirrel crosses your path?
After Using Android 12 For One Week
A little over a week ago I installed beta 4 of Android 12 on my Google Pixel 4a. I have not experienced any significant issues with running this version of Android, even though it is still a true beta and not a release candidate.
Like most men, I imagine, I carry my phone in my front pants pocket. In the past I occasionally discovered that the flashlight feature of the phone turned on while the phone is in my pocket, causing an odd, if not humorous, appearance. After installing Android 12 I found this occurring much too frequently.
Two lock screen settings appear to be the culprits: Tap to check phone and lift to check phone. Movement while walking is being interpreted by Android as either a tap or a lift, so I have disabled both features. I notice that Android seems to be smart enough to know the phone is in my pocket because it turns off the ambient display, so it should also disable the tap and lift to check functions, and I have provided feedback on this to Google.
App suggestions, which many people do not like and probably disable, are not working. Google added this feature in Android 11 that changes which app icons appear in the dock at the bottom of the home screen and at the top of the app drawer with the ones most commonly used at a particular time of day. Right now the icons displaying are the ones that were present in the dock at the time I installed the upgrade and have never been changed by Android. I might be the only person who likes this feature enough to report it not working.
I like the changes to the UI that Google has made, particularly increasing the font size in settings. The changes to the notifications are nice, although I am not sure whether I am a fan of the increased size of the Quick Settings icons, I think I wish they were the same as in Android 11.
Of course, the big change in Android 12 is the new design language called Material You with includes automatically changing the overall color appearance to the wallpaper on the phone. I have the Landscapes wallpaper changing daily to see changes with the appearance of the phone, and I am pretty pleased with what I am seeing.
I have not noticed any significant difference with over all performance or battery life, which is good. Ideally we would get better battery life in each release, but at the least we don’t want to lose battery life. Beta 4 marks Android 12 reaching the platform stability phase, which marks it as feature and API complete so that developers can test against a reliable version. One more release, release candidate one, will be made available before the final release of Android 12.
Android 11 was released on September 8, 2020, if Google is to meet that same early September release date we should see the release candidate late next week, which might coincide with the launch of the Pixel 5a.
This article in 9to5Google suggests that the Fossil Gen 6 may be available by the end of September and will have the Qualcomm 4100 chip.
The only way decisions made by the governors of Florida and Texas change in the future is if these guys lose their next elections bigly.
The Pixel 5a launch day is August 26, which is likely to be the date when Android 12 launches. Last year the 4a shipped with Android 10 but Android 11 was available about a week later.
My Google Pixel 4a is now last year’s phone and no longer sold by Google. In its place is the new Pixel 5a. The good news is that Google continues to produce the more affordable “A” line along with the premium “number” line. The bad news is that Google no longer makes a phone with a six inch screen.
“The window on the talent the Cubs do have is getting smaller and it will be a shame if they only make it to one World Series.” –Me, two years ago. Now that talent is all gone.