I've been switching over to newsletters lately to get information in a manageable fashion and I have a few to recommend.

Morning Brew is a daily business newsletter that is fast, fact-filled and funny.

CB Insiders is also business, but tech-focused, and also has a sense of humor. They often link to robust studies that the company does. The free version is 2-3 days a week; there's also a paid version which I dearly wish I could afford.

Messy Nessy Chic is an interesting mix of Paris, travel and historical curiosities and manages to hit a lot of my interests at once in a really fun way.

I just made a decision of no great import. But it took me a long time to make it, it woke up a lot of memories, and I have no better way to process it than to write it out, especially considering how much my brain be broke lately.

so, about, oh, two, three weeks ago, a person who went to my high school when I was there sent a friend request on Ye Olde Booke of Ye Faces. What the hell , I went, and clicked okay. 

Thus beginneth the problem. 

 See, this was a person who had never made a secret of her disdain for me, back in the day. Sure, we’re all a lot older, and hopefully a bit better people, but, still, I have trouble acknowledging one of the few people who DID like me in high school on The Egyptian Book of the Face because I don’t know what to say to him after a good thirty years of radio silence. 

Why would someone who, given the choice between spending time with me and with a slime mole colony, would pick the colony nine times out of ten, want to reconnect? Hell, to connect at all?

If there are readers of this, then you may or may not have seen that comic that went viral this week about the person who found her high school abuser on-line, and was dismayed to see that that person was well-thought of and had a reasonable life. That’s kind of this situation, except that this person wasn’t an active bully, just someone who made the disgust at the thought of me very plain.

It doesn’t help, of course, that this person apparently has done very well indeed in the intervening years, and is now a quite respected scholar at a major university in the UK. I’ve got low-enough self-esteem as it is, and, as petty as I may be, but it kind of twisted the knife with my totally-unlikely-to-get-tenure-and-holding-on-to-sanity-with-the-most-feeble-of-grips situation to see someone who apparently was not only tenured but had been fought over by multiple institutions. 

The decision I spoke of above, by the way, was to unfriend the person. The memories awoken were not helpful, the shame and the perception of myself as a failure weren’t helpful either, and the fact that I’m sliding into a total breakdown was, really, on the unhelpful side, to boot.

I dunno. Maybe I should have used this as a face-ones-anxiety moment.  Maybe I’m worse than I think I am.

I can’t help but wonder, though... why send the request in the first place?

I've been warning my vet that her laptop is walking wounded for literally, years. So, it up and dies last month. They come to me in a panic. Nope. Nothing can be done. Unit isn't even powering on. Battery's good, power supply good. Buy a new laptop. I send them a recommendation.

And nothing happens for 3 weeks.

Then it comes in last Friday and it's assholes and elbows to get it ready for this Friday. Okay not a big deal. Install office, install AV, install AM. Except that her equally ancient portable printer doesn't want to operate on USB 2 or 3. And despite being advertised as Bluetooth, doesn't have the validation code on it anywhere.

Le sigh.

Digging around in HP's moldy basement I find a version of the installer that is marked "For IT use only". Well, I always was one that couldn't resist pushing the big red button labelled "Do not push".

After a couple of passes the IT use only installer finally installs a critical, missing SYS file and the printer groans to life. Huzzah!

So it's on to other problems. Notably that I use robocopy to create a running incremental backup of the practice management software's data that her veterinary business requires to an installed SD card. Ah, now it's Microsoft's turn to mess with things. It seems they've been busy monkeywrenching the schedule tasks interface. But really, it was just a matter of making sure the scheduled task runs at the highest level of authority. Nota bene, all is well.

But this time I installed remote access software so I can take a peek at problems from the comfort of my own home, the NEXT time it breaks.

The FIFA Men's World Cup snuck up on me.  It's harder to care when neither the USA nor Ecuador will be competing; add in the current host (Russia) and FIFA's corruption scandal, and the difficulty increases.  I do want to see the likes of Egypt, Panama, and Iceland do well.  I wouldn't even be upset if Messi and his team win it all.

I signed up for Hungry Root. The first box from this vegan meal delivery service showed up 2 days ago. I've been a vegetarian for 2 days now. 

I figured out that some time ago that I:

1.  Love veggies.
2. Am uninterested in planning meals
3. Dislike food shopping.
4. Annoyed when the cooking takes longer than the eating.
5. Not that good at cooking meats

I heard about Hungry Root when recently a campmate cooked up some tasty sweet potato Pad Thai. YUM. All the Hungry Root recipes are 10 minutes or less of effort. Lots of opening bags and sauteing. No chopping! So I bought a box (internet coupon for first one, 50% off activated!) I've had Kale Pesto Shaved Brussels and my own Sweet potato Pad Thai. And I have leftovers for both! I'm thinking Ginger Tahini Yuba Noodles or Kohlrabi Tofu Eggplant Pasta for lunch today. I'm certainly enjoying this box of yummy so far.

I'm not planning on being 100% vegetarian. And certainly not planning on being vegan (because breakfast mostly. And ice cream) But I'm am curious if this diet will change my energy levels. And/or help me shake a these 15 lbs I've gained in the last 2 years. And/or address my increasing tummy issues -which I'm thinking is more likely drinking related not diet related, but I'm not quite at the give up drinking stage. Yet.

Oh, I apparently have a $30 coupon referal code. If anyone is interested 

When Gary took apart my grandmother’s piano, he found one of Ted’s LEGO figures inside. Ted used to open the top lid and send them spelunking through the hammers and strings. 

Gary rescued the puppy and returned him to us. Now the puppy can have more adventures. 

H/T to @MontyandMatisse via Twitter.

Pardon the interruption.

Today marks the 74th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of France, the great and critical battle that ultimately sealed the liberation of Europe from the Nazis. Not only was the invasion a brilliant strategic and tactical success, it was probably the greatest feat of engineering (certainly military engineering) in human history. I ask that we take just a moment to think of those who risked their lives (and many who paid with their lives) so not only that we may be free, to that a continent crushed under the boot of unimaginable tyranny could be liberated.

I have a personal connection to this day. My late father-in-law, John Hohler, was among those brave souls cramped into the hull of C-47 transport planes in the wee hours of June 6, 1944. As his plane was pounded with flak from German anti-aircraft guns, he stared into the faces of his buddies in the 82nd Airborne, knowing that many would not see the sunset that day. John was one of the lucky ones who survived (having previously made it through fighting in North Africa) and went on to see action in France and later during Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge and the invasion of Germany and liberation of the Wobbelin concentration camp. John never discussed much about his war service with his wife and two daughters. Only when he reached his 90’s would he talk tto me about it, and then not very much. While he spoke of North Africa, some of the later fighting in France and Belgium and Germany, he never spoke about D-Day other than to say that he was there. Although he returned to France many time (and loved Paris), he never went back to the beaches in Normandy. Shortly after John died at age 96, my wife, son and I took the trip to those beaches in his honor. I cannot tell you how emotion an experience it was.

So tonight, when you are safe in your  homes or enjoying a night out, raise a glass in honor of those who came before you and endured the unthinkable so that we may enjoy the fruits of freedom, safety and prosperity.

I will raise my glass to Sgt. John Hohler. A brave and quiet man who lived by the motto “Any day that Nazis aren’t shoot at you is a good day!”

Well said, sir. To absent companions.

My title might seem presumptuous, but it's not really my title.  It's a shortend form of the title of Alan Jacob's 2017 book, "How to Think:  A Survival Guide for a World at Odds".  The kind of thinking that Jacobs is talking about is the kind that includes the dangerous possibility of changing one's mind--you know, growing.

I read the book after hearing the admirable Fareed Zakaria recommend it.  "How to Think" is short, accessible, and (for me, at least) surprisingly useful.  I've read it twice.  In the concluding summary of the book, Jacobs points out that the kind of thinking he's talking about really can't be reduced to a checklist.  It's with a certain irony, then, that he follows this with a checklist.  He points out that a checklist can be very good for people who think they don't need checklists--because even really competent people forget things.  And frankly, a bit of intellectual humility is pretty much essential for gaining a new perspective.

So below is his checklist.  I've been trying to keep these in mind, and it can be maddeningly hard.  In particular, the first six are why I'm taking a break from Facebook and am happy to be here on OPW.  I present the list without additional comment, except for two footnotes that briefly explain possibly unfamiliar terms. 

                                THE THINKING PERSON'S CHECKLIST

1.  When faced with provocation to respond to what someone has said, give it five minutes.  Take a walk, or weed the garden, or chop some vegetables.  Get your body involved:  your body knows the rhythms to live by, and if your mind falls into your body's rhythm, you'll have a better chance of thinking.

2.  Value learning over debating.  Don't "talk for victory".

3.  As best you can, offline and off, avoid people who fan the flames.

4.  Remember you don't have to respond to what everybody else is responding to in order to signal your virtue and right-mindedness.

5.  If you *do* have have to respond to what everybody else is responding to in order to signal your virtue and right-mindedness, or else lose your status in your community, then you should realize that it's not a community but rather an Inner Ring.*

6.  Gravitate as best you can, in every way you can, toward people who seem to value genuine community and can handle disagreement with equanimity.

7.  Seek out the best and fairest-minded people whose views you disagree with.  Listen to them for a time without responding.  Whatever they say, *think it over*.

8.  Patiently, and as honestly as you can, assess your repugnances.

9.  Sometimes the "ick" factor is telling; sometimes it's a distraction from what matters.

10.  Beware of metaphors and myths that do too much heavy cognitive lifting; notice what your "terministic screens"** are directing your attention to--and what they're directing your attention *away from*; look closely for hidden metaphors and beware the power of myth.

11.  Try to describe others' positions in the words that *they* use, without indulging in in-other-wordsing.

12.  Be brave.

*  Inner Ring:  CS Lewis argued that the "we" in a "we and they" situation is layered like an onion, with a more exalted in-group inside the initial "we" group, and so on for many layers.  Lewis believes that many bad acts are committed by not-bad people in the desire to enter such a group.  See https://www.calvin.edu/~pribeiro/DCM-Lewis-2009/Lewis/the-inner-ring.doc if interested.

**  Terministic screens:  The (perhaps unavoidable) blindspot created by the very words that we use to frame a situation.  To me, the most obvious example is the difference between "unborn child" and "fetus".

In fulfillment of Shelle's longstanding feature request!

You can now export your One Post Wonder posts. Just:

1. Click "Me" (top bar, third from right).

2. Look at the little buttons above your tags: Account, Edit portrait, Edit bio... Export!

3. Click "Export." Big shocker there.

4. Wait a few seconds and KAFLOOP: big HTML page downloads to your computer.

5. Save that puppy!

6. Open it up, just by double-clicking it, for most of you anyway. Admire your fine words.

7. Want to print just one tag? Click on that tag first, then click "Export." KAZOOM: an export of just that one tag.

OK, now some catches:

1. It's not phantasmagorically beautiful. I haven't had time to fuss with the print styles much. You do get page breaks between articles. You don't get a table of contents because that requires a Considerably Different Approach.

2. The images you see in your export are being loaded from the website. So if you were to delete your account, they would be gone. The easiest workaround is to hit "Print" and then "Save as PDF"; this will take a while, but you wind up with a PDF file that permanently includes copies of your images. Heck, you could even print it. Hope you've got plenty of paper and ink.

My near-term intention is to change this feature so you get a zipfile that includes your images without the need to make a PDF or use any mirroring tools.

Hope you enjoy! I'm pleased to have finally delivered this feature. In addition to how nice it is to be able to export your stuff as a "book" sometimes, it also fulfills a more fundamental promise: the freedom to leave without strings attached. Speaking of which, the markup is semantic and fairly easily parsed if you want to Do Things With Code; article elements are exactly what you'd expect them to be.

In deployments today and yesterday I also updated some security matters and made sure OPW is running on reasonably up-to-date and maintained Node.js modules. That took a lot of moaning and groaning, and introduced a few minor bugs (like momentarily invisible comments) that have since been fixed. Mutter, mutter.

But it's worth it; I care about this little blog on the prairie. It's where I keep my stuff.

So, SCOTUS upheld the bakery's side of the argument that they were not required to bake a cake for a gay couple's wedding. And the internet broke. A thousand fucks were given. People said horrible things about other people.

Let's look at what SCOTUS actually said. And it wasn't close. 7-2 for the bakers. SCOTUS said that the Colorado Civil Rights Commision was hostile to religion. Yes, Colorado has an anti-discrimination law with regard to gays. But the United States has a law requiring governments at all levels to not infringe on people's right to freely practice their religion. It's a pretty big one, First Amendment, ever hear of it? SCOTUS said that Colorado had infringed on the baker's rights to practice their religion without government interference.

Now in the depositions, the bakers said that they wouldn't have objected to making a cake for the gay couple for another reason. Birthday cake? No problem! And that right there is the point that decision turns on. You have members of a protected class, the gay couple. You have a protected activity, freedom of religion. The baker's objection wasn't making the cake. It was being FORCED by the government to participate in something that they felt violated the tenets and beliefs of their religion. And that's another strike against the First Amendment, freedom of association. When the government is telling you that you must do something, you're not free.

Both parties obviously felt strongly about this as it has been arguing its way through the court system for 6 years. SCOTUS made a narrow decision in that, while the decision was 7-2, had the smallest legal footprint possible. They didn't say that it's okay to not do business with gay people. They said the state government was unfair.

Is this case over? I sure hope for the sake of the bakers it is. I can't imagine their business has survived this sort of legal battle. The legal costs must be staggering.