D's Notebook

Tag: tech (Page 1 of 5)

The Social Media Landscape

July 19, 2023 /

A few notes about the state of social media.

About three weeks ago I was struck by how Twitter seemed to have settled down. While there were still plenty of minor issues, the major blowups that had been endemic since the Tech Toddler’s arrived had decreased.

That’s not to say I was a happy user. The elimination of third party applications meant I was still spending lots of time dodging promoted Tweets and ads I had no interest in. While that was annoying, the fact that Twitter’s algorithm doesn’t seem to be all that intelligent is especially maddening. You would think after blocking/muting entire swaths of promoted political Tweets, they would stop showing up in my timeline. Yet each day I’m confronted by a new batch of them.

At least the platform seemed stable-ish. I doubted it would last, but still, you accept any positives you can find.

Then TT decided to make his latest in a series of baffling decisions, announcing several moves designed to make it harder to use the app.

So he buys a company that is struggling to make money, cuts the staff to the bone endangering its ability to remain online; pisses off tons of advertisers and users, wiping out any budget gains earned by his mass layoffs; and then decides to make it even more difficult for the remaining advertisers to get their campaigns in front of people. All the while making “Chess vs. checkers”-like comments without realizing he is the one playing checkers.

Why do we think this guy is smart, again?

Coincidentally just when the latest round of headaches arrived, I got my invitation to Bluesky, one of the more promising new Twitter competitors. I signed up, logged in, and worked to find people I followed over on Twitter. There weren’t many. I liked the interface and the controls. There just isn’t the volume of users, yet, to make it a viable alternative. I’m not sure many folks know about Bluesky, let alone have requested an invite to a service that is greatly limiting how many new users can join.

A few days later Meta dropped Threads on the world. I immediately activated my account. A lot more people from Twitter were there, although I was still way short of my entire list of Twitter follows. There were several who flat-out said they would not join until Twitter took its last, sad breath.

A few things jumped out at me right away, though. First, it also looked nice and seemed to function well. Meta knows how to run a service on a massive scale, so I figured at a minimum we don’t have to worry about it crashing as millions of people joined each hour.

However, I did not like the lack of a chronological timeline based solely on people I follow. I don’t want an algorithmic feed that is out-of-order and features people I have not chosen to follow. Meta claims this will change over time, but after two days checking it regularly, it did nothing to make me want to open it before Twitter.

Next, I hated how smug so many of the early, promoted Threads were. Tons of “This is so much better than Twitter!” type entries. Maybe Threads is way better than Twitter. But there’s no way to know that for sure less than a week in. Especially since a lot of those posts were making broad assessments about the future of the app that are not consistent with Meta’s history. It smacked of marketing run amok, an effort to convince users this was where we belonged rather than letting us determine that on our own.

Finally, there’s the whole Meta/Zuck factor. Of all the evil tech companies in the world, none is more evil than Meta.[1] Facebook has, time and again, ignored any privacy protections that get in the way of them making a buck. They’ve lied about what they do with user data. They’ve been fined for breaking laws, then continued to violate them. The company is shameless in their desire to sell out their users. And, of course, they are largely responsible for turning our political/electoral culture into an even more toxic wasteland than it already was.

If anyone thinks that Threads won’t, eventually, head down the same path that Facebook took, they are mistaken. Instagram is kind of an island in the midst of Meta’s evilness, and apparently folks from Instagram leadership are currently stewarding Threads. They claim they’re going to take steps to keep the new platform from becoming toxic. I don’t have very high confidence that will be true over time. And, inevitably, Threads will be overrun with ads. And more ads. And even more ads.

I have no problem being required to navigate ads in exchange for access to a social networking platform. What I do object to is the flood of ads that have zero relevance to my interests, something I know that Meta/Twitter/etc have tons of information on based on my follows, likes, etc. Instagram, again, is the one service that seems to have figured it out a little. If I flag a few ads as not being of interest to me, I generally don’t see them or ones like them again for a few weeks. That said, these days Instagram often feels like you see an ad for every 2–3 actual posts. So best case, Threads follows a similar pattern. Worst case, it becomes like Facebook and because a friend of a friend of a friend likes the My Patriotic Pillow guy, I will constantly see that garbage as well.

So what are we to do? I haven’t checked Bluesky or Threads for two weeks and, for the time being, I’m going to let them sit idle and stick with Twitter. I’ve been a user for a long, long time. It is generally my initial source for information on everything from sports to the news to pop culture.

It takes a lot of work on my part, muting/blocking people constantly, but at least I generally still see the posts and people I want to see there. As long as it keeps running and those people stay on the app, that will be my first choice.

I have real concerns, though, that it will survive as we know it much longer. I hope we can put that off as long as possible, to the point where either Bluesky or Threads are usable alternatives. Or maybe the TT gets fed up and dumps it to someone else and they do their best to repair all the damage he’s done.

I’ve read several pieces about the state of the social media world over the past week. This was, by far, my favorite.

Mark F***king Zuckerberg Is Not Your Friend

I generally agree with her high-level point: the normalization of Mark Zuckerberg needs to end. Make him earn goodwill, don’t just give it to him because we’re all sick of TT. He’s a bad fucking dude. Just because he keeps his mouth shut compared to Elon doesn’t mean he’s some champion for all that is right and just.

More than her point, I greatly admire her ability to just GO OFF for so freaking long. I can rant for a paragraph or two. Homegirl does it for pages and pages. Respect.

Musk let them run wild on Twitter. But Zuckerberg made them. He nurtured them. He gave them a place to safely yes, and each other into January 6th and whatever comes next. He’s resisted doing anything but helping them to greater heights of lunacy over and over again. What Musk wants to make of this world is our new best friend Zuck’s greatest hits album.

  1. Non-China/Russia division, obviously.  ↩

Happy Blog-iversary

June 27, 2023 /

It is June 27, 2023.

That means this site, or at least its earliest version, was Internet birthed 20 years ago today. That first post is here. I’ll be addressing it directly soon.

A lot sure has happened in that span, hasn’t it? If you want a full accounting you can dig through the over 3300 posts I’ve racked up since then.[1]

S and I had been married for nearly two weeks when I posted that first entry.[2] We had occupied our house in Carmel, IN for 10-ish days. I had officially begun the work from home part of my career with C corp.

In that first week as a home-based employee, sorry, associate, I discovered that I had a monumental amount of time for dicking around on the Internet. After blogging about Big 12 basketball the previous winter, I decided to put together a personal blog to stay connected with both my friends back in Kansas City and those who were scattered around the country. I was halfway smart. I had some writing skills. I enjoyed exploring the Internet. I sure had the time. Why not put all that to good use by offering some takes?

A lot of those early posts were pretty silly. When we found out S was pregnant with M, that really changed the focus of my writing. Eventually the kids came to dominate the content here. Going to grad school and becoming a sports writer for a few years both provided material and influenced my writing style.

There has been a ton of KU sports content and a couple years where there were a lot of Royals posts. Plenty of other discussions of all kinds and levels of sports.[3] Overly detailed accountings of our travels. Tons of music entries in various formats. The occasional political post. For only the briefest of times did I tag my posts, as I found it kind of a pain and also struggled with how to label certain entries. Today I wish I had tagged everything so it would be easier to look back and count up how often I’ve written about various topics.

When I started this site I had the secret goal of some random person coming across my writing, thinking it was great, and offering me a ton of money to write for the general public. Such ideas weren’t so crazy in 2003.

Sadly that opportunity never came along, not that I deserved it. Although I did become an official, professional sportswriter, that had nothing to do with what I wrote here. Also, sadly, I’ve witnessed firsthand how the writing industry has fallen apart over the past 20 years. Newspapers have been stripped to the bone. Websites designed the replace them are cutting staff and pay left and right. There are way more opportunities to write for the public than ever, yet fewer and fewer ways to make a living doing so.

Regardless of what my motivations were for starting the blog, it has become an integral part of my daily life. I may not write or post each day, but there’s always a tickle in the back of my brain that I need to bang out some thoughts to publish.

I stopped tracking how many views my posts receive years ago. Typical of me, what began as an effort to try to gain some measure of attention eventually turned into an outlet that is pretty private. It’s been ages since I shared with anyone new that I operate a blog.

There are a few friends and family who have continued to check in over the years. I know a select few will read just about anything I post shortly after it hits the web. Others check in more occasionally.

Regardless of how often you read my writing, or whether you read it closely or just skim it, I appreciate every one of you who has kept this site bookmarked and part of your Internet routines.

Keeping this site alive another 20 years seems both crazy and daunting. I don’t have plans to stop any time soon.

Thanks for reading.

  1. Obvious asterisk here: not all posts have been carried along the many times I’ve bounced the site through different platforms and hosts. Let’s say I’ve lost 100 posts in those transitions, so we’re pushing 3500 total entries.  ↩
  2. That was our Summer of Weddings, a season in which many of my readers and friends also got hitched.  ↩
  3. I’ve written about my teams in four Final Fours with two national championship teams, two Super Bowls and one Super Bowl champion, and two World Series and one World Series champion. Not bad. Pacers need to step it up.  ↩

Thursday Notes

January 26, 2023 /

Snow Day

We had the first snow day of the year yesterday. It was kind of a dud. The storm that was supposed to drop 5–8” of snow here could only muster about 2.5 inches. As the storm was expected to hit right at the morning rush, most area schools had either cancelled classes or jumped to e-learning well before bedtime Tuesday. M and C found out they would be home Wednesday while they were still in class Tuesday. St P’s didn’t call it until about 10:15 PM.

That was still probably the right move, as the roads were not great right when high schoolers would be driving and younger kids would be waiting for buses. But once the heavy snow ended, it was a letdown to still see grass poking through in our yard.

The real bummer was that the snow that fell was very wet and heavy, making it difficult to move. It was too thick for the snowblower and too heavy to pick up with a shovel. So L and I spent about 30 minutes struggling to shove it off the driveway. Even that was tough, since if you pushed snow for more than 10 feet it compacted into big lumps that didn’t want to roll any farther. But it was good for snowmen and snowballs! Once we were done L spent about two hours at a friend’s house playing in it.

She was upset she didn’t get to use the snowblower, though. Ours broke two years ago, then I gambled, and won, by not getting it fixed last year, a season we avoided any big snows. I got it fixed before Christmas and she was fired up to get a chance to use it.

After nearly a month of relatively mild weather, looks like it’s going to be more typical of winter here for the next few weeks. Not super cold, thankfully, but lots of chances for snow. So L may well get her chance to unleash mechanized fury on some snow.

She was done with her school assignments pretty early. Or maybe it’s because she’s been getting up at 5:30 AM lately that she was done so quickly. Her sisters slept much later but were still pretty much done with their work by mid-afternoon.

I spent most of the day and evening reading a very good book. I started it late morning and was done by 10:30. You’ll hear more about that soon.

Twitter

Twitter has been a huge part of my life for 12–13 years now. I can’t remember exactly when I signed up; my current account was not my first so its 2011 start date wasn’t my true introduction to the service. I just remember that was when I listened to a lot of tech podcasts, and they were all raving about the platform, so I logged on pretty early in its life.

My experience with Twitter was always through using some of the great Mac and iOS apps that were made for it. Tweetbot and Twitterific were the two I used most, although I know I dabbled with others over the years. These were great because they were much more user friendly than either the Twitter website or the official apps. As the company moved into areas like promoted tweets and advertising, these third party apps kept those out of my feed. Until two weeks ago, I had never seen an ad in my Twitter feed or Tweets the company thought I should see based on their algorithm. And I could completely avoid the For You feed.

When Tech Karen suddenly shut down access for third party apps two weeks ago,[1] I suddenly had to see how most Twitter users live. And it sucks. A hostile interface that is constantly pushing things on me I don’t want, and forgets changes I’ve made in my personal settings to reflect my interests. It’s pretty much the same way that Instagram has gone from one of the best and most enjoyable platforms to one that shows me more ads and Reels, which I never asked to see, than photos from people I choose to follow. Only Twitter has Nazis and people complaining about Furries and constant suggestions that I need to gamble on sports.

Because of all of this, I’ve been using Twitter less and less. I still check it a couple times a day. Where it was once my default time waster, I have reached the point where I often realize “Hey, I haven’t looked at Twitter in 12 hours.” Because my feed was so carefully curated, I got a lot of good info out of it without being weighed down by things I didn’t have time for. So that’s a loss. But I’m realizing it may not be as big of a loss as I feared it would be when Tech Karen took over and began tearing the company apart like the toddler he is.

I’m hoping that TK either bails and someone else saves Twitter, or some other service pops up to replace it as my favorite virtual water cooler. I’ve signed up for Mastodon, which a lot of techies are jumping to. But it seems very weird and not functionally ready to scale to the size of Twitter so I’m not spending any time there. I guess as long as the people I get the most value from on Twitter remain there, I’ll keep checking in occasionally and tolerating its many issues. And hope that if/when it is saved, rationality will return and third party apps will be allowed again.

  1. Based on lies about violations of their policies and with no communication for nearly two weeks after the fact.  ↩

Weekend Notes

October 4, 2022 /

A belated rundown of this past weekend.

FNL

Cathedral finally had their first home game of the year. Since they only have one after this, and it has already been tagged as homecoming, Friday became senior night. Which was a little weird.

I stayed home and listened to an easy 37–6 win over Cincinnati LaSalle. LaSalle has won four Ohio state titles in the past eight years, but this year’s team was kind of dog crap. Or so it sounded on the radio. Until the scrubs gave up a late TD the Irish had gone 11 straight quarters without allowing a score. Granted those were mostly against bad teams, but the defense does seem to be getting better as the season goes on.

KU

After a gritty, gutty, ugly-ass 14–11 win over Iowa State, THE JAYHAWKS ARE RANKED!!!!! AND GAMEDAY IS COMING TO LAWRENCE!!!!! WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!!

I missed 85% of the game between basketball, prepping for L’s birthday party, and picking up dinner for the kids. I was able to watch the closing minutes of the fourth quarter, which was not a great experience. KU couldn’t move the ball, the defense was in full bend-but-don’t-break mode, and it seemed inevitable that Iowa State would win, either in regulation or overtime.

Which should have been what happened. But the Football Gods smiled on KU one more time as Iowa State missed a relatively easy field goal that would have forced OT, and the Jayhawks went to 5–0.

I felt terrible after the game, more like KU had lost than won. I think some of that was just the stress of the afternoon and then diving into the game in the worst possible moment. Later in the night I realized KU fans shouldn’t feel bad about any football win. I should be enjoying the W, the record, and the change of tone in the program. Sweating “bad” or “ugly” wins is something the coaching staff and players should be doing, not us fans. The bubble is going to burst at some point and it will be dumb for me to have not enjoyed the success that I’ve been craving for years.

From what I heard on Sirius while driving and read/listened to afterward, it seems like the defense actually played really well. Some of that is surely thanks to an Iowa State offense that isn’t the most efficient in the world. But, even if you give the ‘Clones credit for the three field goals they missed, surrendering only 20 points to a conference opponent would normally be a pretty big deal for the KU defense. It still is a big deal, and it saved the team on a day the offense sputtered, it just got lost a bit in the overall ugliness of the contest.

In the few minutes I did watch I got super annoyed with the ESPN2 broadcast. On KU’s next-to-last drive, the Jayhawks seemed to convert a third down. The announcers talked about what a big play it was, the cameras showed the crowd celebrating, they showed a replay and broke it down, etc. And then right before the next play you saw KU was snapping the ball from five yards behind where the previous play had begun. Only then did the announcers realize that there had been a penalty on KU that wiped out the conversion. Seems like something they or their spotters should have picked up on, right?

ESPN2 didn’t seem to put crowd microphones anywhere in the stadium, either. They would show shots of the band and you couldn’t hear them. When ISU missed the field goal, I assume the crowd was going nuts. That’s what the cameras showed. But you heard the slightest of buzzes on TV. This seems to happen a lot in games that aren’t the marquee matchup of the time slot. For being the World Wide Leader, ESPN sure has a lot of issues getting the basics of showing a game right. For as much as they charge cable companies to carry them, you’d think they could buy enough crowd mics so you get some sense of the environment inside the stadium. Maybe pay some of the blowhards who scream at each other a little less and up the sound hardware budget.

Since this is Kansas football, the Football Gods can’t completely be in our favor. Daniel Hishaw Jr. suffered an awful injury late in the game, rumored to be dislocated his hip late in the game. That sounds insanely painful and is a brutal injury for a guy who missed all of last year.

And then Sunday night Wisconsin fired Paul Chryst. Most folks feel like interim coach Jim Leonhard will get the full-time gig when the season ends. But if the Badgers look like shit the rest of the year, that’s another big job that Lance Leipold has connections to that may target him in December.

I’m not going to sweat that or the Nebraska job. I’m just going to enjoy the seven (or eight?!?! NINE?!?!) games KU has left and hope they can find a couple more wins. I’ll save the angst for once the season is over.

And now we get a whole week to enjoy the lead-up to a very big game against TCU that will get a lot of national attention.

(There’s a TCU guy who goes to my gym. Monday he walked by me and said, “So I guess you’re a football school now?”)

Twitter

I find it damn near impossible to follow Twitter during a football game. EVERYONE thinks they are smarter than the coaches. Doesn’t matter what team/game you’re following. I’ve seen this during KU games, Colts games, and plenty of random games people in my stream are following. The negativity is overwhelming. Where in basketball games Twitter feels like a good way to add context to what is going on in the game, or discuss the action, in football it is an endless stream of people who have been playing Madden for 30 years and think they are smarter than guys who are paid to make decisions.

Granted, a lot of coaches make curious decisions. But not every borderline call deserves a meltdown.

I was reminded Saturday that I often mute a specific KU-related account during games. The dude that runs it shares interesting and useful stuff throughout the week. But during games, even basketball ones, he is SOOOOO negative, that I began muting him on game days last winter. He questions every coaching decision. He rips the refs at every opportunity. He is hateful about opposing fans. Late in the fourth quarter Saturday, Cobee Bryant appeared to have picked off an Iowa State pass that would have ended their final drive. However, replay showed that when he hit the ground, the ball came loose and he never recovered it while still inbounds. It was clearly not a catch and the officials correctly overturned the original call. This guy went off, though, saying how corrupt the Big 12 refs were.

It’s fine to be an irrational fan and always see calls through the prism of your team. But if you’re running an account that represents a website rather than just yourself, you need to calm down and view the games rationally. Don’t embarrass yourself over a play like this, where there is zero doubt the correct call was made.

Kid Hoops

Saturday L had a travel game. They played solid in the first half and had a three-point lead at halftime. Then they played like absolute garbage in the second half and lost by six. L was 1–10 from the field. I think the entire team only shot slightly better than her 10%. Giving them credit for 20% might be too high, though. If Dick Vitale had called the game he would have said it was Brick City with a capital B, baby.

One interesting thing about the game was a girl on the other team may be joining our squad for the next travel season in March. She would be our tallest player, is a terrific athlete, and is a really good defender, but she doesn’t have much of an offensive game. Since we can’t get a rebound to save our lives, that alone makes her a decent addition. Then again, maybe after playing against us she’ll decide she wants to play for a different program. I would argue our poor shooting will give her lots of chances to grab offensive boards!

Sunday L had a CYO game. It was against a team we figured we should beat easily as L’s class has never lost to them in any sport. We jumped out to a 9–0 lead but then ran into issues and only led 14–8 at halftime. L got three fouls in the first quarter and had to sit most of the half, which didn’t help. One was legit, one was marginal, and the third was a crap moving screen call.

We came out smoking in the second half, or at least it seemed like we did. We were much better on defense and ran good offense, just couldn’t get the shots to drop. We got the lead up to 10 and held steady around there before winning 26–13.

I sat on the bench and kept stats. We had 14 steals, which was great. However, six of them were in the first quarter and then we didn’t have another until after halftime. We really should have had 20+ but our girls are soft going after loose balls. They would knock the ball loose then just stand there and watch the other team go after it. Drove me nuts. We got out-rebounded by 2. I think L is destined to never play on a team that can rebound.

There was a call in the fourth quarter than nearly made me lose it. L was defending the ball and ran into a screen. From my vantage point the screen looked solid and legal. Neither L nor the girl setting the screen went flying. But the ref blew his whistle and looked to the scorer’s table. “Foul is on eleven…” and I let out a sarcastic “WHAT?!?!” And just about chucked my clipboard. Our head coach jumped off the bench to argue. L looked totally shocked. Then our mom who was keeping the book turned to us and said “Eleven white, not eleven purple.” The coaches and I looked at each other and laughed. I decided it was a makeup call since L had been called for the illegal screen in the first half, and they didn’t make that call again the entire game. Oh, and both times the screens were legal. Refs…

She had six points.

Wednesday we play a team we’ve never beaten. L has a bunch of friends on that squad, several of which she’s played with outside CYO. She’s pretty excited about it. If we grab those loose balls and can get some rebounds, I think we have a chance.

L Turns 14

Monday was L’s birthday. After her game Saturday she had four friends over. They swam, hung out, and spent the night. It seemed like a good time.

There’s a seventh grade boy who lives nearby who they invited over to play basketball and hang out with them. I couldn’t get a sense of whether one/some/all of the girls like him, as in like-like, or if he’s just a nice kid who lives close. We know his parents a little – his dad actually coached L in soccer way back in first or second grade – but we don’t hang out in the same circles. I give him props for coming over to a house he’s never been to before and hanging out with five older girls for a few hours.

On the iPod

May 17, 2022 /

You may have missed the news because of more important things, but Apple officially retired the iPod line of music players last week. That’s not exactly true, as the iPod Touches that were discontinued were more iPhones without a cellular radio than anything resembling the classic iPods. But, still, Apple no longer sells a dedicated portable music player.

There have been plenty of odes to the iPod in the tech media. I liked this piece on The Verge, with their writers sharing some of their iPod experiences.

Our memories of the iPod

I had forgotten about the accessories we used to enhance our iPod experiences. Silicone cases. The do-dads that you fed into your car’s cassette player, or the snap-on transmitters so you could hear your music on a clear FM radio frequency we used before most cars came with AUX headphone jacks.

I fell in love with the iPod when it was released. However, as it was Mac-only at the time and I had yet to enter the world of the Mac, I could only lust from afar. When I began traveling for work, I got a Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox 2, which looked more like a Sony Discman than an iPod. Getting music onto it was a true nightmare, usually requiring an afternoon of work to prepare for a trip. But I was able to load it up with songs to listen to on those flights from Kansas City to the west coast.

When I bought my first Mac in the summer of 2004, I tried to jump on the iPod bandwagon immediately. The first click wheel iPods had just come out, and I found a discounted third generation model – that had the cool, light up buttons – and tried to split the cost between a gift card and my credit card. Something about the transaction failed, and by the time I called to try to get it worked out, all the old models were gone. So I went to my local Apple Store and bought a click wheel model. Which was really the smarter move.

Thus began a long run of iPods. I have no idea how many I owned. I moved up to a fourth generation model after my father-in-law found one in a parking lot somewhere. It was scratched up and the battery was drained, but once I charged it up, it worked just fine. I know I had a Mini, a Nano, and a few Shuffles along the way. They were my constant companions on my drives around Indiana covering high school sports. Nothing was sadder than realizing I hadn’t synced it to iTunes before I left the house and a new album or playlist had not gotten copied over.

I kept an old iPod around until about 18 months ago. I used it to listen to podcasts as I fell asleep. When it’s battery started to fail, I finally switched to using my iPhone with Bluetooth earphones for my falling-to-sleep pods. It may still be sitting in a drawer somewhere.

My girls know what an iPod is – they all had one at some point – but I’m not sure they really understand the impact on society those little things had. Or how amazing they seemed to us when we first encountered them. It was the product the turned Apple into a business juggernaut. Most importantly, it paved the way for the iPhone, which changed the world’s concept of what a cell phone should look like and function, and had an even greater impact on both the world and Apple. All because people wanted an easy way to listen to music privately without being restricted to a single tape or CD.

Holiday Weekend Notes

November 30, 2020 /

Well, today begins a new phase in our home’s daily rhythms. C and L are now eLearning through at least mid-January, joining M who has been home for two weeks. Hopefully the expensive Internet access we pay for holds up; our signal likes to drop in the middle of the day which should make for interesting moments when three girls are all in virtual classes.

When I picked C and L up from their final day of classes last Tuesday, L said it felt like the beginning of Christmas vacation. In a way I guess it is. Seems like things have gone fairly well with M’s eLearning. We are hoping that St P’s has used the past five or six months to have a good plan in place and the next five-ish weeks of class can be fairly normal.

It was a long holiday weekend. Let’s get caught up.

Smart devices

I’ve long been intrigued by smart hubs, plugs, lights, etc. But I always held off because I both didn’t see their utility beyond the fun factor, and with a wife who isn’t super tech-savvy, I feared the moments when the devices didn’t work properly and I wasn’t around to troubleshoot.

I knew the new Amazon Echo devices would get a price cut last week, and the moment they dropped, I ordered both an Echo with premium sound and an Echo Dot.

The Dot came first, on Tuesday, and I got it working in the office. I also ordered some smart plugs and got my reading lamp working via Alexa voice controls. The Echo came on Wednesday and…was a royal pain in the ass to get working. While the Dot connected to our home network easily, the Echo struggled. I spent a few hours Wednesday resetting things, moving them around, trying to tweak our network, etc to get it to work. Finally I was successful but it seems like it doesn’t love its network connection.

So I now have the Echo in the office for better sound and to control the lamp. I have our Christmas tree on a smart plug that we use Alexa to turn on and off. And I have the Dot in storage for future use.

Thanksgiving

Our Turkey Day was normal, but different.

The past several years we’ve participated in a huge Drumstick Dash, walking as a family with about 10,000 other people.[1] We had no interest in doing that this year, so instead joined some of S’s high school friends and their families as the walked through their neighborhood. It was a nice way to socially distantly see some friends and burn a few calories.

After that we hosted most of our in-town family, 15 in total. We lucked out with the weather. It was dreary and occasionally a little misty, but it was also about 50 with little-to-no wind. We had our outdoor fireplace and a fire pit lit, with seating areas for all. As our guests arrived we opened all the windows in the main floor of the house to keep the air moving. Between the ovens and stove and the people, our house stayed very toasty. And it was just warm enough outside so we could all eat al fresco without our food getting cold.

Now I guess we wait and see if anyone gets sick over the next two weeks to see if this was a success or a disaster.

I’ll tell you what was a success, though: my bird. I cooked the hell out of it this year. I was on the verge of overcooking but got it out at the perfect moment when it smelled and tasted awesome. Between that and the fires outside, it smelled like I had cooked it on the grill. Really, all credit goes to Whole Foods, where I got this year’s bird. It was the first time I got a brined turkey and I think that will become my routine.

High School Football

We made it through a full season of high school football in Indiana. The state title games were on Friday and Saturday. Saturday were the more important ones to us. BCHS played for the 3A title game in the afternoon, with several St P’s kids playing important roles. M laughed when she saw several of her classmates on the sidelines and getting their championship medals after the game.

The last game of the year was the one we cared about most: Cathedral vs 7–5 ZHS, a school that got hot at the right time and ripped through the top half of the north bracket. CHS had been beating the snot out of people all year. They only had one loss, by four points, to the undefeated team that won the 6A title Friday. Their only close win was a three-point victory over the team that won the Ohio large class title game 44–3. We figured the championship game would be another blowout.

It was, then it wasn’t, then it was.

CHS got up 22–0 without looking very good, but then ZHS worked their way back into it. They cut it to seven and had the ball a couple times but could never get the tying score. In the third quarter the Irish got a 75 yard touchdown pass, a stop, then another quick score and put the game away, winning their 13th state title 46–28.

M chose not to go; none of her friends were going and fans were limited to sitting in small groups of reserved seats, so there wouldn’t have been a proper student section. Instead she sat on the couch and watched with us, telling us which players were nice and which ones were quiet and which ones were dating which girls. That was almost an entertaining as the game.

C did go with a friend. The highlight for her was seeing two freshman girls get in a fight over a boy. She and her friend got bored and left early. She walked in our door just as the game was ending, which was kind of funny.

M was excited that she gets to buy some state champions shirts now, so she understands the true meaning of being a sports fan. She was also bummed that it happened in a year when she was only able to to go two games. Most of the fall she sat in her room while I listened to the games and texted her scoring updates. Another thing Covid has ruined.

Still, good ending to a great year. Last fall I went to almost every game, driving M and her friends around the metro area. This fall my routine was to listen to the games on the radio as I hit golf balls in the yard or dicked around on the Internet. I guess I need to find a new Friday pastime now.

Decorating

As is our tradition, all the holiday decorations went up Thursday. The girls did most of the tree decorating, which was a nice change of pace.

S and I had put the lights on our outdoor trees three weeks ago, on a Sunday when it was nearly 80. With the little nephews around on Thanksgiving, we decided to turn those on Thursday. The four-year-olds did a countdown and I flipped the switch, much to their delight.

KU Hoops

The KU-Gonzaga game was right during our meal prep and eating time, so I recorded it to watch later. When I saw the final score and read a summary I decided not to just delete it. But I was encouraged by what I read later in the evening. Everyone said that while KU struggled on defense, their offense showed some signs of real potential. Lots of parts that would likely fit together better after several weeks of games. Oh, and Gonzaga is really freaking good. Their game with Baylor Saturday is going to be a must-watch.

I did watch the St. Joe’s game Friday. And I was super-frustrated through the first 30 minutes. As you would expect from a team that has so many newcomers and no true point guard, KU just could not get into a flow on offense. And defensively the looked totally lost.

Until Bill Self put in redshirt freshman Dajuan Harris for the first time midway through the second half. He’s skinny, not super tall, and hardly a burner bringing the ball up. But the moment he stepped on the court, the game changed. He made a couple great defensive plays. He made a couple terrific passes. He got Marcus Garrett off the ball. Everything was smoother with him in the game. It went from a frustrating, one-possession game to a blowout in about five minutes.

KU plays Kentucky here in Indy tomorrow night. Well, they are scheduled to play. Both Gonzaga and St. Joe’s have reported positive Covid tests since they played KU. So we’ll see. More KU hoops thoughts later in the week.

That’s about it for our holiday weekend. It is spitting snow this morning and the windchill is supposed to be in the 20s all day. The girls are all in front of their devices getting educated. It’s not the worst day to stay inside.

Hope all of you were able to celebrate the holiday in a safe and healthy manner.

  1. This year’s race was first broken up into smaller waves that left at hour-intervals and eventually cancelled.  ↩

Post Holiday Notes

September 9, 2020 /

A late return after the long holiday weekend. My in-laws have been in town since last Wednesday, which has adjusted my daily routine a little.

Our Labor Day weekend was pretty low-key. Friday night was so cool that we kicked on the outdoor fireplace for the first time this season. A couple of the girls hung out with friends on Saturday. On Sunday we hosted a light family gathering at the pool.

Last week we had absolutely perfect, early fall-like weather. Windows open at night, the air on for maybe a couple hours in the afternoon. Summer came roaring back yesterday, though. I played golf in the morning and my shirt was completely soaked before I hit the fourth tee. I think it’s the hottest round of golf I played this season. Sadly the word “hottest” only applies to the weather and not to my game. More on that whenever I get around to another golf post.

We are in our final week of kickball. Last night C’s team had a 10-run lead at one point and then had a couple bad innings on offense, but still went into the final inning with a three-run lead. They got two of the first four kickers out and seemed on the verge of their second win of the year. Then their opponents suddenly kicked the ball better than they had all game, our defense let us down, and we gave up 15 runs. We could only muster one run in our half of the 7th and gave our opponents their first win of the season. I should be used to how C and her teammates fold under any kind of negativity but last night really stuck with me. The team they played were not very good but our girls just kind of meandered through the game. They could have easily doubled their lead, perhaps even run-ruled the other team. And then that last defensive inning really sucked.

They have the final game of their careers on Thursday.

L’s last game is tonight. She’s been threatening to not play kickball anymore for over a year now, but this could for sure be her final game, depending what she does in the spring and if she is still interested in club soccer a year from now.

Her basketball team has had five practices. We tried to put some offense in yesterday. It’s a pretty simple five-out, motion offense, but it does take some time to understand where the cuts are, where you move to when the girl next to you moves, where the open spot the cutter should end up in is, etc. I’m hoping they can grasp it in time for games so we aren’t running the same plays we’ve been running for five years.

We’ve had very good luck with phones, both S and I, and M and C since they got theirs. We’ve never cracked a screen, permanently lost one, dropped one into a lake, etc. C’s phone is suddenly acting super wonky, though. Taps on the screen are not registering while phantom taps can take over and launch apps or attempt to make calls she wasn’t trying to initiate. It was almost like the phone had been hacked and someone else was controlling it.

Last night I did all the troubleshooting I could – hard resets, restoring the software, etc. – and nothing seemed to work. This morning I took the case off and it seemed to be working more normally. At least there aren’t the phantom taps. But a section of the screen still appears not to work. She drops it roughly 175 times a day so I would not be surprised if something inside has become disconnected even if the screen has not shattered.

L is pretty excited that she finally gets a phone of her own when her birthday rolls around in four weeks.

C’s grade had their first student test Covid positive since classes began this week. Fortunately the student was not in her room so we just got the generic email from the principal rather than a call.

Those calls are what all us parents fear right now. The call to come get your kid because they’ve been exposed, their siblings also need to go home, and your entire household probably needs to be tested. Thus I puckered up a little bit this morning when I got a call from school. Thank goodness it was just L asking me to bring her the homework binder she had left at home.

(Mostly) Sports Notes

February 18, 2020 /

Time for some of my famous half-assed sports thoughts!

NBA ASG

Man, I am mad at myself for not paying more attention to Sunday’s All Star Game. I blame L. I told her the game was on and she wasn’t interested, so we watched other things. I turned it on for the last 30 seconds of the first half then switched away, got distracted by a book and emptying the dishwasher, and forgot about it until it was over.

Sounds like the new format was a success, though. This Elam Ending thing is certainly intriguing. I really hope that the NBA uses it in the G-League and summer league games, or even that some college holiday tournaments give it a shot. I like the concept but I really want to see it in a true game setting to understand how it works in practice. I’m suspicious about changing the context of a game within the game. But I would also love to find a way for the end of close games to not take 20 minutes of real time to play.

Astros

The Houston sign stealing scandal has gotten really good over the past few days. You have players calling out the Astros and the MLB commissioner. You have fans just destroying the team and the league. In an era when so many dramas are manufactured, this one is 100% legit and I’m waaaay in on it turning into a season-long beef.

I saw this morning that an oddsmaker set the Astros hit by pitcher total for the upcoming season at 83.5. My initial thought is that seems low, although I’m sure MLB is going to step in and do its best to chill things out if the beanings get out of hand in April, which could make that number about right.

KU

You see what they’re doing, don’t you? Marcus Garrett having the best shooting game of his life Saturday? And Devon Dotson repeating the act Monday night? They’re getting all those shots out of the way so they combine to go a very March-like 0–21 on Saturday against Baylor. At least it’s February…

Seriously, game of the year Saturday in Waco (assuming Baylor beats Oklahoma tonight). I hope KU has a better plan to attack Baylor’s defense than they did a month ago.

Marcus Morris

Plenty of chatter among KU fans about whether Marcus Morris was deserving of having his jersey retired. Since the standards were relaxed late in Roy Williams’ run, I think Marcus absolutely fits the standard: he was the Big 12 POY which, even at KU, should be enough. As a couple writers keep pointing out, he had the most efficient and impressive offensive year of any player in Bill Self’s tenure.

Still, I understand some of the reluctance. And I think it’s totally based on how Marcus’ teams never made it to the Final Four. Most of all, it goes back to the 2011 VCU game, the worst loss of Self’s career and perhaps in school history.

CJ Moore had an interesting conversation with Elijah Johnson on The Athletic about that game. Elijah is always a super interesting quote, but I can’t believe I hadn’t heard him share this story before. He said in the team’s film session before the VCU game, the coaches ended it with a highlight reel of the 2010–11 season. The design, it seemed, was to remind the players of all the good things they had done and how great they could be.

However, Johnson said, the players took it a totally different way. He said the film room was dead quiet afterward. Some players were emotional. He said instead of inspiring them, the highlights reminded them of how close to the end they were, a big deal for a team that was exceptionally tight. He also said it made him feel like no matter how they played in the VCU game, they couldn’t match what had been contained in those highlights.

Fascinating. It may explain why KU came out so dead in the opening five minutes of that game, digging a hole they could never get out of.

It also makes me madder about the game I’ll always be maddest about. A freaking highlight video kept a team with the easiest path to a national championship any KU team has ever had from beating a team that shouldn’t have even made the tournament? Going to find a stray dog to kick for awhile…

Colts

Speaking of kicking dogs, there is a lot of smoke around the rumors that Phillip Rivers could end up as a Colt. I totally get it. You go get Rivers or Tom Brady or Drew Brees or some other competent, experienced quarterback, draft someone else in the first round, and use the veteran to get through the next two years before that rookie is ready to play.

But Phillip Fucking Rivers?

For starters he’s a douche. His skills are clearly on the decline. Most of all, he and his teams were Kryptonite to the Manning-era Colts. They knocked them out of the playoffs twice, once with Rivers on the sideline injured. They ended the Colts’ perfect season in 2005.

At least Brady won Super Bowls. And even lost Super Bowls. Rivers’ teams have never gotten close. His game is clearly on the decline. He’s never been mobile. Seems like a horrible move to me. Just another reason for me not to watch the NFL, I guess.

I’m also fearful the Colts will draft Tua Tagovailoa. No doubting the kid’s heart, but he’s undersized and always hurt. Not a recipe for a franchise QB.

The Algorithm

Sometimes the various algorithms that run our lives are spooky. M is creeped out by the ads that pop up on her Instagram feed. They seem to mirror closely conversations she’s had. The other day she was saying “DOG FOOD!” near her phone, over-and-over, to see if that sparked a bunch of dog food ads. It did not, which I think proves the algorithm knows when you are trying to game/mock/test it.

I do enjoy how the algorithm works most of the time. Especially on YouTube, when it will randomly pick up some old song I haven’t listened to in years and spits its video or a performance of it out at me.

I say that because it’s been months since I’ve watched any 2014 or 2015 Royals highlight videos. Yet, last night when I was doing some research I’ll discuss in my next Reader’s Notebook entry, there were a bunch of ALCS and World Series highlight videos that kept bubbling up.

I approve, algorithm, I approve.

Changing Neighborhoods

August 20, 2019 /

A busy start to the week, but hopefully things will begin to slow down during the day and I can transition some of the thoughts in my head to the screen.

Speaking of this site, I’m about to undertake some fairly major, behind-the-scenes changes.

I’ve been having issues for months with my hosting service. There were lots of little issues, some you may have noticed, others you may have not. Those were bugging me a little but I figured they weren’t really worth fixing.

Then I ran some normal updates in early July and totally wrecked something in the process. If you were checking in on the afternoon of July 3, you may have gotten an error message saying the site was not available. That’s because I was making small problems worse and frantically skimming through about 20 different Safari tabs trying to find the fix. As tends to happen in tech, the repair ended up being making a change in a file that flipped an option from “Yes” to “No.” It took me roughly three hours to find this fix and then the appropriate file. That got the site back up and running but the underlying issues remained. It seemed like a good time to move to a different host, save some money in the process, and start over.

My contract with my current host is up in a couple weeks so I just opened one with a new service. Now comes the delightful task of trying to take everything that is at the old host to the new host without blowing the entire site up in the process. I used to be good at this, when I did it like every six months. But it’s been something like four years since I’ve made any changes, and now I barely know how to do the most basic web hosting tasks. I spent much of this morning reading various tutorials as some painters wrapped up some warranty work around the house.

I have a few more hoops to jump through, and a few more tutorials to read, before I go all-in with the move. So this post, if you’ve made it this far, is just a warning that I’m liable to do something wrong and the site may disappear for awhile. Never fear, I’ll get it back eventually, even if I have to rebuild it post-by-post. Our shared history here is important!

Oh, and you don’t have to worry about any new site address. It will still be dsnotebook.me. I just have to make everything works when you get there.

As always, thanks for reading.

Some Notes

February 14, 2019 /

A couple smaller things smashed into one post today.

First, there’s just too much information out there. I know this is, like, a devastatingly deep and original opinion, but that’s why I have a blog, people.

Wait, I’m not talking about the general flood of information we swim through each day. I’m talking about the maddening process of trying to buy pretty much anything.

Example: our printer is dying. So I go on the webzzz to do some research on what garbage printer we should buy for the next 18–24 months.[1] I find a couple articles, on reputable sites, that lay out various options. I hone in on a couple and head over to Amazon to check the user reviews. And here’s where we run into issues.

Try to buy anything, especially an electronic device, and you have to wade through a sea of terrible reviews. You think you’ve found a winning printer, camera, whatever, and then you see five people give it one-star reviews based on some terrible flaw. “Printer literally ate my child. WOULD NOT BUY AGAIN!!!111!!!” Are these five people out of a million, or five out of 200? What is worth the gamble?

This problem really came to a head this week as the first new printer we ordered did not work. I unpacked it, plugged it in, followed the instructions, and it got stuck in an error code loop I could not get out of. I tried everything I could find online, but nothing fixed the issue. And this error kept me from doing anything. I couldn’t connect to a computer to try to override it. I couldn’t just cancel out and try to make it work around it. Nuthin’.

Luckily since it was an Amazon purchase, I flagged it as defective, sent it back, and began the process again. We have a new printer coming tomorrow. It was highly recommended by several websites. It also got slammed in the Amazon reviews. So we’ll see…

Next, a follow-up note to yesterday’s Reaching for the Stars post. My Top 40 listening habits have changed a little and, thus, I’m adjusting my writing related to those shows.

You may recall on New Years Eve day I rediscovered the iHeart Radio station that plays old AT40’s continuously. I really enjoyed hearing their replays of the Top 100s of each year in the 80s that week. And I’ve continued to listen to that station. It’s kind of become my default background music. In the morning I have our Sonos speaker in the kitchen tune to that station and keep it on until the girls get home. When I pass through the kitchen throughout the day, it’s fun to hear a few minutes of whatever countdown is on. I swear the station is trolling me though, as they are constantly playing shows from 1984. I’m almost disappointed when I hear an ‘84 show I’ve heard so many lately.

As you would expect, my brain is always spinning and highlighting little Casey tidbits in these countdowns. Since these countdowns are random, they don’t always match up with the calendar week the way the ones on my local FM station or SiriusXM do. But, since I’m listening to them, it seems like I should go ahead and write about them.

So, going forward, there will likely be some Reaching for the Stars posts that are from the iHeart Radio station and from different parts of the year. The bonus is I might get more sweet, 1970s action going on in those posts!

  1. Seriously, all home printers are trash.  ↩
« Older posts

Archives

© 2024 D's Notebook

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑