Hello! It's a new year, so it's a good time for me to evaluate my cool productivity junk. TickTick, a hybrid calendar and task manager, is out. Too much buggy. Some weird interaction with mobile device "next alarm" notifications, repeating old events (set as notes) with start times after they've been cleared, no development activity fo...

Hey! Long time, no type here. Stuff's been happening, especially work and family stuff, and I've been posting more small sharables on social media than thinking about thinkables to post here, so this just has been lingering. I've left Twitter with prejudice and joined Mastodon. It reminds me of Google+ but not quite. So check it out. I...

Hello! Seriously nerding out today, first post in way too long. There's been so much junk going on in the world I felt like I didn't want to add to that, and I couldn't think of much else to babble about. But now I have something. It's nerd-cliche. Ready anyway? My Recent Keyboard Journey. Oh yeah. A couple of decades back, maybe a lit...

It's Fathers Day in the United States. It's a day to celebrate the primary positive father figure archetype qualities: guardian, protector, and teacher. It's the warrior who bridges gaps in the community, rather than creating and widening rifts. Fathers should bring understanding and help chart courses for others, leading with open han...

Preach it, James: https://www.vox.com/22338417/james-carville-democratic-party-biden-100-days Had to get some political out. Back to our regularly-scheduled quiet mayhem...

Attention Dear, This is from the American Embassy Cotonou, Benin-Republic. We wish to inform you that we received a compensation fund worth $6.5M USD only from the Federal Government of Benin-Republic here as compensation to you for what you went through in the name of their country. Having been a scam victim here, the Government has m...

Second Moderna shot's booting me in the bum. Well, in the head and various muscles, mostly. I haven't got the fever/chill thing right now. I'll get over it. Thanks, everyone involved, for these vaccines. The appointment scheduling issues, and a couple days of feeling not 100% are nothing compared to possibly taking up extra time and re...

I've enjoyed roleplaying games for a long time. They're interesting in a lot of ways, but I'm going to focus on how they create shared imaginary interactive settings, and components of those settings. For example, a roleplaying game that's heavy on heroic modern action will have different levels of detail regarding technology than a fa...

I get a lot of calls for services at my work. Today had a fairly classic one, kind of went like this: "Hello, it's great to speak with you. I represent an IT services company..." "I'm a one-man shop, contracting out a little for some of our services, but we're good, thanks." "But we're not your average IT consultancy service. We contra...

I scheduled and got my first COVID-19 vaccine shot after weeks of checking the appointment scheduling site at least twice a day. I'm a Moderna kid, with my second shot scheduled for about three weeks away. I'm very happy to get this done, and very thankful to the many, many people involved in putting a controlled amount of very special...

Software and IT networks are a bunch of self-morphing tools. Most of the time they do what you need them to, but sometimes... ...updates change them into things that don't do what they used to. ...they require money to continue providing previously free or cheaper services. ...they need some other tool to continue to work right. ...the...

Video chatting and working from home were starting to get bigger before the COVID-19 situation exploded, but our current societal reality's practically based around both of these things now, making them nearly-must-read priority from my data feeds. If people need to work from home at my workplace, I'm the person who makes it happen. So...

I've been a PC gamer for eons, and typing is part of my livelihood. My hands, especially my left, tend to get shaky when I'm nervous about something. Trying to wipe out the last 2% of a boss's health while I'm nearly down in a game can cause serious tremor, for example, but it's been mostly manageable. Most of the time now my left pink...

I'm a long time nerd, so I've had a few different handles. I really haven't had that many, though, considering my <ahem> seasoning. Back when I was swapping Apple ][ 5-and-a-quarters, I was The Wizzerd. Original, I know, but there weren't that many people doing personal computers at the time, so whatever. Maybe I had a few other names ...

Google is screwing up yet another service. This shouldn't be a surprise, but this one's the very unbroken Google Pay. Google+ was social media, which is generally highly problematic, so I understood but lamented that cancellation. Google Reader should have just switched to a light pay subscription plan and left alone. You all can resea...

I really like Banksy's brilliant social satires, and his graphical style. This one's perhaps not quite so pointed as some of his pieces, but its size and location are pretty amazing. Banksy's deft spray can activity is physically and metaphorically framed by what's behind that tall but innocuous wall. It's really smart work. The reveal...

Me? I'm just zees guy, you know? But actually... I'm a life-long nerd, maybe considered a guru, but my expertise is pretty broad rather than focused. My main superpower is learning new technical things very quickly. I know everyone says they can do that, but I mean it. I speak fluent Techlish, and love to teach. I'm sad that every hous...

Hey! I was one of Those People who signed onto HEY! email near its genesis to try it out. HEY! looked like a decent way for me to get a handle on my email use cases and needs. After about a month, I'm pretty sure that it'd be a chore to go back to other email systems to train them and myself to use them. HEY!'s changed the way I intera...