Summer mornings on the patio are for blueberry oatmeal bake and coffee.

Summer mornings on the patio are for blueberry oatmeal bake and coffee.

So many things we take for granted have interesting histories, take for example the Graham Cracker.

So many things we take for granted have interesting histories, take for example the Graham Cracker.

Kyle Schwarber was the first player of the Chicago Cubs 2016 “core” to leave, not even given an offer to stay, and he was had...

Kyle Schwarber was the first player of the Chicago Cubs 2016 “core” to leave, not even given an offer to stay, and he was had the most success since that World Series of all the players who were on that team, winning two more World Series and now the 2025 MLB All-Star MVP. How he came back from knee surgery that kept him out of the 2016 season to contribute in a big way in that playoff run was plain evidence of his unique abilities. Not trying to find a way to keep him was negligence.

Doc Searls On Education

Doc Searls has a blog post that both demonstrates an effective use of ChatGPT and has insights on education in the United States. I added this comment:

I think there is one important part missed here regarding thoughts on learning. Society in the United States establishes intelligence (IQ) as a constraint on learning, but is not and one might argue that intelligence isn’t a real thing. The constraint on learning in the United States, which I think is implicit in all of the above but not explicit is motivation. Children motivated to learn will learn and likely will see learning as fun. Highly motivated children will route around the problems of the current system. Unmotivated children will not learn and will not see the value in learning.

Motivation comes from parents, which makes good parenting so important to society. Problem is the United States society is basically in opposition to parents mostly because those who influence our society want a narrow definition of good parenting and support only that definition.

Why would anyone seriously think the billions of dollars earmarked for the Department of Homeland Security will actually go towards what is...

Why would anyone seriously think the billions of dollars earmarked for the Department of Homeland Security will actually go towards what is said it will be used for? My bet is a small fraction will go toward ICE agent salaries and the vast majority will go toward the existent and persistent “military industrial complex” that views the states of the Union as a new market. Follow. the. money.

There are two fundamentals of a blog, one is that it is a web page and the other is that the page includes links. A linkblog is a special...

There are two fundamentals of a blog, one is that it is a web page and the other is that the page includes links. A linkblog is a special form of blog the soul purpose of which is the sharing of links to other web pages and therefore contains only the titles of the source pages and a link to them and no real commentary related to the links. All blogs contain links but usually include commentary, hopefully in the voice of a human author. Because the purpose of linkblogs is sharing and the purpose of RSS is sharing, the alignment and perhaps even the dependency of one on the other is natural, but the RSS feed is only useful with a RSS feed reader whereas the linkblog is useful in every web browser. In some ways the focus on the RSS feed is anti web. Mastodon, Bluesky, and other timelines are conceptually RSS feed readers but I do not think they are the web.

Finished reading: Good Soil by Jeff Chu 📚

Finished reading: Good Soil by Jeff Chu 📚

Every time I see a new “productivity app” announced I think to myself why? Humans are not robots. I want more art and less...

Every time I see a new “productivity app” announced I think to myself why? Humans are not robots. I want more art and less productivity. In mean time I just need to be able to record stuff and retrieve stuff from anywhere.

Finished reading: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield 📚This book is full of useful nuggets. I particularly like the author’s point of...

Finished reading: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield 📚This book is full of useful nuggets. I particularly like the author’s point of view on fundamentalism and ego.

If we have an issue with birth right citizenship, which the founders did not have, then perhaps there should be requirements for citizenship...

If we have an issue with birth right citizenship, which the founders did not have, then perhaps there should be requirements for citizenship for all. Like you have to pass a test, make a pledge, maybe even serve the public for a period of time.

Freedom is fundamental to Christianity, its doctrines assume humans are free to choose whether or not to be “saved.” And yet a...

Freedom is fundamental to Christianity, its doctrines assume humans are free to choose whether or not to be “saved.” And yet a majority of Christians in the United States want to impose their beliefs upon others and therefore deny their freedom. Isn’t this is a sin against the Spirit that Jesus taught? Are you on the side of God or Pharaoh?

The latest release of Wordland now supports linkblogs. I created a new Wordpress site for my linkblog and there is a corresponding RSS feed....

The latest release of Wordland now supports linkblogs. I created a new Wordpress site for my linkblog and there is a corresponding RSS feed. You can add this feed to your micro.blog timeline or any RSS feed reader. The RSS feed works as expected but the posts to the WordPress site do not currently include the source links and I have filed a bug report. I also discovered in testing this that the Wordland RSS feeds is per Wordpress site so the linkblog feed is separate from the general posts that I have been publishing.

I should also mention, so far any bandwidth speed test that I conduct shows max that I am getting is 342 Mbps. Even with the prior 400 Mbps,...

I should also mention, so far any bandwidth speed test that I conduct shows max that I am getting is 342 Mbps. Even with the prior 400 Mbps, which Xfinity upgrade us “for free,” our service maxed at 300 Mbps. My cable modem is DOCSIS 3.0 and should be capable of up to 800 Mbps, the ethernet ports of modem the modem and the other end of my Internet router are 1 GigE. Iperf3 tests between 2 hosts of of my router with wired connections can sustain 940 Mbps, so all my equipment should handle 500 Mbps. Now that I am paying more I will also complain about the fact that I am not getting the expected speed. I am also expecting Xfinity to say I need their cable modem versus the one that I own and am using.

I don’t trust Comcast. On Tuesday I changed my Internet service to what I think is one of their new plans with unlimited data, yet to...

I don’t trust Comcast. On Tuesday I changed my Internet service to what I think is one of their new plans with unlimited data, yet to date I have not seen any verification that I have unlimited data. Today when I log on to the Xfinity portal I see that my speed is now 500 Mbps where the previous one was 400 Mbps but there is still a Data Usage item under the plan and the same graph show a 1.2 TB max. I do think Xfinity suffers greatly from bad IT, it seems their web sites are no where in sync with their actual services. I will probably have to wait for the bill next month before I will know for sure whether my plans have actually changed.

Being A Comcast Customer

Last week I learned that Comcast/Xfinity had announced new Internet plans that eliminates the data caps that I have complained about frequently over the years. The data caps have always been a way for Comcast to make more money through fees and never anything to do with a technological limitation. In other words, the caps have always been arbitrary. Comcast executives claimed they are concerned about recent losses of customers and were addressing this with price certainty (the data plan prices are supposedly guaranteed for up to five years) and making it easier for their customers to do business with them. In my experience today Comcast is still failing on both points.

When I first learned about the plans, which the articles claim ranged from 300 Mbps to 2 Gbps, I logged in to the Xfinity web site and could not find any information about the plans. Today, for the first time I saw the new options. Problem is, it was not clear to me how to change my current plan because all the options were to “add a plan.” If Xfinity wants to be easier to do business with, they should plan for existing customers and their software should know that I have a plan and offer to change it.

So, I started an online chat and was happy to find that I was sent to a person (allegedly) rather than a bot. In the process of asking to change my plan I was told that my TV package was old and needed to be changed. I immediately felt this was a bait and switch tactic but was willing to play along. I told the person I wasn’t interested in more channels, in fact all we use cable TV for is to watch sports and they have a News & Sports package that looked like a good fit except that it doesn’t have NFL Red Zone. Still, I proceeded to the point of reviewing the changes but not finding a clear statement that the Internet was unlimited data. Instead under the Internet service was a bullet saying “Data usage plan applies,” which sounds to me like a data cap!

At this point I asked if I could talk with a person and was given a toll free number. I was surprised that I got through to a human right away and began again the process. I told the person on the phone that my goal was to change to an Internet plan that had unlimited data and I wanted to keep my Xfinity bill the same or lower. I also told him about my prior chat and that I was told I had to change the TV package which he said was not the case, although in the end I see that while it appears my TV package is the same in terms of channels the package name is different, from “Digital Starter” to “Popular.” So it’s possible the person on the chat was right at least as far as the name is concerned and the issue here might be with the format of an online chat.

I proceeded through the process but again saw in the Internet section of the plan the statement “Data usage plan applies” and I asked the person on the phone what that meant. He didn’t really know but assured me the plan does not have a data cap. At this point I took his word, and I won’t know for sure until at least tomorrow as I am told it will take 24 hours for the switch over. I won’t be surprised if the cap is still there.

Even if I do in fact get the unlimited Internet data that started all this my message to the Comcast executives is that you are failing to meet your intended outcome. As for the price certainty, no where in the new plan do I see any mention that the price is guaranteed for any amount of time, you would think that would be upfront in bold if that is what you are trying to assure customers. Next, I spent probably an hour trying to make this change that really I should have been able to do by myself using the portal. You need to be sure all your public facing employees, those physical stores, online chat, and answer phones are on the same page about what it is you are selling. When you start publicity for new plans you should make sure that the new plans are available on your web site at the same time. Comcast has a long way to go to be easy to do business with, you only have my business because I really have no other comparable provider choice.

We The People

Read this really good article about Bill Moyers upon the occurrence if his passing. Those of us unwilling to close our eyes to what is happening in the United States know why it is happening, it’s because the hierarchical/supremacy basis of the norm of civilization demands exclusivity over inclusion. In other words from the founding citizens of the United States have been in a struggle over the definition of “We The People.”

The article tells the story of Moyers' first act of journalism, a series of stories about a group of women in Texas who argued that Social Security was unconstitutional. The key point is this made by Moyers upon reflection about the women in his reporting.

“It came to me one day many years later,” he continued. “Fiercely loyal to their families, to their clubs, charities and congregations — fiercely loyal, in other words, to their own kind — they narrowly defined democracy to include only people like themselves.” Many of their own neighbors, he realized, were, to these Social Security skeptics, not as much a part of the democracy as they were. “We the people,” narrowly defined.

All aspects of society, including Christianity, is driven by exclusivity and its sibling, scarcity. Christianity in particular has failed us because its associated institutions were best positioned to prevent what is happening had they actually taught the theology of Jesus rather than of empire, to practice inclusion and thus be the light for the nations that the Jewish prophets said was Israel’s calling. Christianity failed when it was tempted, providing evidence of its disconnect from the body of Christ.

If you spend any time reading the Gospels and paying attention to Jesus you know that he spoke and taught about an alternative to how...

If you spend any time reading the Gospels and paying attention to Jesus you know that he spoke and taught about an alternative to how society functioned at that time. Jesus called that alternative the kingdom of God and his is a way to live as God dreams for us to live and not as we are lead to believe is the norm of civilization. The fact that Christianity is no different than what we see of civilization today ought to be scandalous. Jesus is not the founder of the Christianity you know, that was founded by a Roman Emperor.

Dave is only scrutinizing half of the problem of the Biden reelection campaign. Before journalists had the chance to, from Dave’s...

Dave is only scrutinizing half of the problem of the Biden reelection campaign. Before journalists had the chance to, from Dave’s point of view, push Biden out, remember that the Democrat party prevented voters from having their say on who was their candidate as there was no primary. Dave suffers from tunnel vision, he only sees the problems with journalism but they are just a part and more a tool than a source.

Following up on the new Xfinity plans announced a few days ago, this Ars article says that customers won’t automatically get unlimited...

Following up on the new Xfinity plans announced a few days ago, this Ars article says that customers won’t automatically get unlimited data but can “repackage” in to one in which then can. So far I do not see an option to move to a plan that is not higher bandwidth, and thus cost, than my current plan. I do not want to pay more per month, I just want to get rid of the data cap. The most ironic thing is later in the article there is a quote from Comcast executives regarding why they are losing customers and they state as reasons “One is price transparency and predictability and the other is the level of ease of doing business with us.” The later is most definitely an issue when they do not provide an easy way to talk with a human being, instead every online interaction is directed to a chatbot that does not provide answers. If Comcast really wants to make it easy to do business with them they ought to prioritize enabling their customers to simply make changes via their portal. Better yet, why not just drop caps from all users automatically rather than make your customers jump through hoops?

For some reason today is the first time this year I have been outside on the patio. My excuse is that we had a colder than usual early...

For some reason today is the first time this year I have been outside on the patio. My excuse is that we had a colder than usual early spring and a hotter than usual late spring with some travel.

I really don’t understand how so called conservative, originalist SCOTUS judges are so intent on turning the Presidency into a...

I really don’t understand how so called conservative, originalist SCOTUS judges are so intent on turning the Presidency into a monarchy or dictatorship. At this rate they must overturn Marbury v. Madison and put themselves in a ceremonial role as they will serve no purpose in preserving or defending the Constitution.

Between the second and third innings we were herded out to the center field fence, which enabled me to take this picture from on the field...

Between the second and third innings we were herded out to the center field fence, which enabled me to take this picture from on the field during the game.

Last night we saw a USPBL game, the Woolly Mammoths crushed the Unicorns 10-1.

Last night we saw a USPBL game, the Woolly Mammoths crushed the Unicorns 10-1.

Google has released a Linux terminal (CLI) agent for Gemini, Gemini CLI, that I have installed on my remote desktop container. One of the...

Google has released a Linux terminal (CLI) agent for Gemini, Gemini CLI, that I have installed on my remote desktop container. One of the things I can with it is create thumbnail versions of image files like the one to the right. Gemini used imagemagick to create the file using convert. First I listed the contents of the folder containing the original JPG then told it to create a thumbnail version of the Phoenix Palm Trees image, which is the same picture as the banner picture above. Another thing I tried is I asked Gemini to summarize the PDFs that are in my Downloads folder. Here is a link to the Gemini CLI documentation.

The wheels have fallen off the Chicago Cubs pitching. Since last Thursday, June 19 Cubs pitchers have given up seven or more runs per game,...

The wheels have fallen off the Chicago Cubs pitching. Since last Thursday, June 19 Cubs pitchers have given up seven or more runs per game, six of which (not surprisingly) were losses. At this rate the Cubs will be out of first place in the NL Central by the end of next week. The big problem is too many walks and too many home runs.