Category: rant

In September, I was invited to participate in “Birdwatch,” now known as “Twitter Community Notes.” The concept is a misleading tweet can be annotated with additional information or context by the community. For example, consider this headline: Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd holds press conference after agency says it seized enough fentanyl to kill 2.7 million people. WFLA, October 21, […]

EuroVision

rant

2022-05-262022-05-30 wt8p

(Header Image: Go_A – Ukraine – 2021 Eurovision Grand Final, Photo by EBU / Thomas Hanses) Last year, Meryl got us watching EuroVision, a music contest where finalists from each country in Europe + Australia compete. It is quite the spectacle with candidate videos dropping early in the year. Because of the large number of participants, semi-finals are held over […]

Somewhere Over the Drainbow

rant

2021-10-132021-11-08 wt8p

The City of Sammamish had been pushing the Adopt-A-Drain program, whereby one volunteers to keep storm drains clear of debris. In a stroke of genius, they allowed folks to name their adopted drains. I adopted more than necessary because… silly names. With an upcoming weather forecast of a lot of rain: Today was a good opportunity to inspect and clean […]

Bad Idea

rant

2021-09-062021-09-28 wt8p

While intrigued with the idea, these Chicken Tikka Masala potato chips were … terrible. Ingredients: Potatoes, oil, sugar, salt, “spice”, tomato powder, onion powder, garlic powder, cream powder, sour cream, paprika, and sea salt.

A day off from work

rant

2021-08-12 wt8p

Strange Lede

rant

2021-08-042021-08-12 wt8p

This article in Business Insider was making the rounds on my Twitter feed last week for its dystopian lede: The title and content have shifted around a bit, from being “– and it was worth it” (Narrator: No, it was not) or, more recently, taking a nuanced “If I could go back through time and avoid this traumatic event…” tenor. […]

Is (New Technology) is Killing (My Hobby)?

rant

2018-05-14 wt8p

<tl;dr> Betteridge’s law of headlines applies, “No.” </tl;dr> In the ham radio communities, a rash of posts are going around about how FT8 / the Internet / Millenials / Nobel-prize physicists are destroying amateur radio: K0NR’s Is the Internet destroying amateur radio? N0SSC’s Millennials are killing ham radio PE4BAS’ Is FT-8 damaging amateur radio? NZ0T’s Did Joe Taylor K1JT Destroy Amateur Radio? KB6NU Is the […]

The Mintern

rant

2016-06-21 wt8p

In retrospect, there were signs that The Intern might not work out: The child of a friend of the family of a Senior Executive … touted as an upperclassman from a well-known engineering school, but was just starting a search for an internship in mid-June … hasn’t been vetted or spoken with the hiring manager, but was slated to start Tuesday. The IT folks love […]