2025-03-27 19:00:00
🏢 I have a new boss at work. The change, which will take effect at the end of the month, will have me reporting into the data organization rather than the architecture organization as I do now. The new guy is someone I’ve worked with a lot since I started there four years ago, and someone with whom I have good rapport. I don’t expect anything to change in terms of my duties so overall I think it’s a good change.
🌸 I finished the last of the 32 flowers for this year’s Battle of the Blooms. It’ll be fun to watch the remaining daily polls and see which one goes all the way.
☘️ We did absolutely nothing to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day this year.
🧆 Celebrated elder daughter’s birthday with some shopping and dinner at a local Mediterranean place.
🥳 Attended my mother-in-law’s 85th birthday party. It was well attended by several of her friends, as well as (as far as I could tell) all of us kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, and even great-great-grandkids. We had pasta and salads catered in, and of course a huge cake. I played photographer so everyone could get their picture with the guest of honor. I was, as you might imagine, chaotic and loud, but it was also nice to see everyone.
🔑 I went up to see my mother at the weekend. It’s about a 2 hour drive and I was almost to her driveway when I realized I had forgotten the house key. This would not normally be a problem except that she was not home. Fortunately, the next-door neighbor, who keeps a spare, was around to help me. Whew.
🚰 My mother has been complaining of a slow sink drain so I rolled up my sleeves, took some things apart, and problem solved. It was not too difficult, but it was very gross.
🍹 In the evening one of her friends invited us to dinner. Being “Mexican night” there were chips and salsa and margaritas and enchiladas aplenty. It was a lovely evening that I got to spend with folks I don’t often see. Note to self: Don’t try to keep up with mom and her drinking buddies.
I Added Colin’s toot to my One Thousand Likes page.
I experimented with moving the Battle of the Blooms polls from Mastodon to a neutral site, but engagement went down markedly. I posted to Mastodon asking folks why this might be. Besides the hassle of clicking out to another site, one user told me that not knowing the result (via automatic notification once the poll closes) took some of the fun out of it. So I moved the poll back to Mastodon. Live and learn.
Continuing season 3 of The White Lotus
Caught up with all available episodes (through season 3) of Hacks. I’ll admit I should have seen that ending coming because they just laid it out there but I was surprised. Can't wait for S4 to start in April!
(Mar 23) Finished reading The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
(Mar 22) Finished reading The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource by Chris Hayes
(Mar 21) “This is how Tesla will die” by Will Lockett (Planet Earth and Beyond) falls into the category I call “wishful reportage” but it is interesting nonetheless.
That’s all for now. Cheers!
2025-03-24 01:40:00
As I’ve mentioned before, Carl Sagan is one of my favorite authors. Unfortunately, this is not one my favorite of his books. It is an important and compelling work, but its most significant passages are buried deep within long tracts of meandering anecdotes and impenetrable prose. This book seems to have gained a renewed popularity among those who are undoubtedly well educated and who have already embraced science as a natural part of life, but it fails spectacularly to speak to the broad audience that most needs to hear its message. He’s preaching to the choir in Latin while the congregation shrugs in disinterest and goes on sinning. This is especially disappointing (and surprising) since, as the most famed popularizer of science who ever lived, he could have done far better.
2025-03-17 20:06:00
It was spring break for both daughters. The older, who lives at home, traveled to Colorado to do some hiking in the mountains. The younger, who is away at school came home.
We had some landscaping done, including thinning some foliage, moving some shrubs around, and leveling and overseeding the lawn. Now it’s muddy and I have to mess about with sprinklers.
My Battle of the Blooms origami flower showdown continues. Because I didn’t plan well for our weekend trip (see below) I had to jump ahead to the Round of 16 before all 32 blooms were introduced. I’m going to try to the last four out next week though and get back on track.
Thanks to @cygnoir, I learned about these fun ways to illustrate and share your Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). I especially like the Type Heads and Stress Heads. Here are mine:
My wife and I took our younger daughter for a long weekend to Atlanta. We’d never been to the city and thought it would be a fun place to visit and see what we could see. We were not disappointed.
We stayed at the Westin Peachtree, which is the fifth-tallest building in Atlanta. Our room was on the 62nd floor, which was both interesting and a little unnerving. I’m not sure I could live in a highrise after staying there—at least, not that high up.
On Thursday we visited the World of Coca-Cola, which comprises a museum of memorabilia and a tasting room where you can sample Coca-Cola flavors from around the world. There were something like 48 different soft drinks on offer so I didn’t even come close to trying them all. But of those I did sample, my favorites were Stoney Ginger Beer (Tanzania), Beverly (Italy), Cucumber Sprite (Romania), Bonbon Anglais (Madagascar), and Melon Frosty Fanta (Thailand). I cannot recommend the Sour Plum Fanta (China).
We ate at some pretty great restaurants while were in Atlanta, including
Bellina Alimentari, a wonderful Italian restaurant in Ponce City Market. I recommend the Pasta Pomodoro and the Negroni Viola.
Atlanta Breakfast Club, a great place to start the day with some Chicken and Waffles or Biscuits and Black Pepper Gravy. And don’t forget the Cinnamon Rolls.
Der Biergarten, authentic German fare, including käsespätzle and jägerschnitzel, that beats anything we have here in Columbus. (But don’t tell the folks in our German Village neighborhood!) And of course there was the obligatory stein of Paulaner Märtzen!
We hired a driver to take us on a tour of the city, and we got to see and learn a bit about some of the neighborhoods including Sweet Auburn, Old Fourth Ward, Cabbagetown, and Little Five Points.
On Friday we walked the Beltline from Ponce City Market to Piedmont Park, then explored the beautiful Atlanta Botanical Garden.
On Saturday we visited the Georgia Aquarium, where we saw some pretty spectacular enclosures. I would not want to run into a whale shark in the wild!
The trip was a big success. We enjoyed visiting a new city and we learned a lot.
Working our way through season 3 of Hacks.
Watched some college basketball over the weekend too.
That’s it from this end. How’s things in your neck of the woods?
2025-03-11 09:45:00
A lot of people on the right accuse people (like me) on the left of hating America. I certainly don’t hate America, but it’s embarrassing to be an American right now. President Trump’s and Vice-President Vance’s treatment of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office was shameful. We’ve long known that Mr Trump is sympathetic to Vladimir Putin, but things went from bad to worse when he actively switched sides in the Ukrainian conflict. America’s gotten into some situations it shouldn’t have over the last century, but we always tended to take (and keep) the side of freedom. This time, we’re on the side of the invaders, the oppressors, and (let’s be honest) a man who hopes to restore the former Soviet empire to glory.
History will have the final say about the fate of Ukraine, but until then Mr Zelenskyy is holding his country together with both hands. I know it’s not much, but I’m proud to have made a donation to United24 to help fund the war effort. Thank you, @adam, for the inspiration.
🌷 I announced my March Madness–inspired origami flower competition, which I call Battle of the Blooms. Every day in March, I’ll share two flowers in a Mastodon poll. 32 flowers will go head-to-head in a single-elimination tournament, with the champion decided on March 31. The only trick will be getting all 32 flowers made in time!
👉 After Adam enabled Finger protocol support on omg.lol, I created a .plan file. There's a fingering joke in there somewhere but Robb already made it.
💥 I made some minor style changes to this blog in an attempt to simplify. I was beginning to feel the visual style was a bit, er, comicbookish? Not sure, but there you go.
🌳 I redesigned my OMG.lol profile page as a landing page that I can point to from the enshittified platforms like Instagram and Facebook. I also created a new DNS name (links.mihobu.lol) that points to it.
✈️ I built a PiAware ground station using a Raspberry Pi and FlightAware ProStick Plus ADS-B receiver. Once I had all the parts in hand, setting it up was very easy. In return for registering my ground station and sending the data it collects to FlightAware, they give me an Enterprise subscription for free! Pretty good deal if you ask me.
😎 The Reign of Darkness is over! Now that Daylight Saving Time has returned, I don’t feel like I’m living 300 feet underground any more. Happy days are here again!
Here’s what we watched during the last two weeks.
English Teacher. Finished season 1. Not great TV, but it’s light and funny and easy to watch.
Jeopardy! and Celebrity Jeopardy!. Til I die.
Suits was a guilty pleasure, even as the later seasons became nearly unwatchable. The new Suits LA series looks to be running the same playbook so I don’t have high hopes. But I’ll give it a few episodes.
The Last of Us. Everyone everyone EVERYONE keeps telling me how great this show is. I’m three episodes in and while not terrible, I find it to be excruciatingly slow just not that compelling. It’s the Mandalorian but with fungus. I’ll give it a few more episodes to turn things around.
Hacks. So after two full seasons I’m really surprised at how good this show has turned out to be. The dynamic between the Gen-Z writer and the Boomer star is extremely well written and well acted. Looking forward to season 3.
Paradise was this season’s “must see TV,” although the season 1 finale was a little wonky. I have mixed feelings about where this show is headed in season 2 though.
Season 3 of The White Lotus is not living up to the high bar set by season 1 (at least not so far) but I’m sure more twists and turns are on the way.
“Iowa lawmaker rages against colleagues for passing anti-trans bill: ‘Shame on you, Christians!’” (Friendly Atheist)
“‘Tech bro Maoists’ are torching the country that made them rich” by Fareed Zakaria (The Washington Post)
“At Least Now We Know The Truth” by David Frum (The Atlantic)
See you next time.
2025-03-06 17:43:00
The days are getting longer. The idea of warmer, sunnier days is beginning to seem less like a distant memory and more like a certainty. March Madness is approaching.
Wait, what?
Maybe you’re like me and not a huge basketball fan. But we can still have some fun with it, right? After last year’s modest success, I’m reprising my version of creative bracketology. It’s like Highlander but for origami flowers. We start with 32, but in the end there can be only one.
Starting March 1st, I’ll showcase two new origami flowers carefully hastily crafted by yours truly, to compete in an online poll to see which is the superior. Starting on the 17th, we’ll continue to knock out flowers every day by pairing the winners against each other until we have a champion at the end of the month.
The winners will be decided by daily online polls so I hope you’ll follow along and vote every day! I’m going to try to post each day’s poll by 00:00 UTC, and will stay open until midnight Eastern time (UTC–4/5). In the event of a tie, I will choose the winner.
May the best flower win!
Winners are marked with a star (★) and will advance to the Round of 16.
| Day | Bloom | Votes | Bloom | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pink Kusudama | ★ | 16–3 | Purple Dahlia | |
| 2 | Shamrock | ★ | 8–6 | Poinsettia | |
| 3 | Rose | ★ | 15–12 | Sunflower | |
| 4 | Tulip | ★ | 19–10 | Calla Lily | |
| 5 | Purple Aster | 5–12 | ★ | Lavender | |
| 6 | Daffodil | ★ | 24–6 | Daisy | |
| 7 | Dogwood | ★ | 17–5 | Star Flower | |
| 8 | Orange Dahlia | ★ | 10–4 | White Camellia | |
| 9 | Lotus Blossom Trio | 4–10 | ★ | Cherry Blossom | |
| 10 | Cornflower | 1–16 | ★ | Lily | |
| 11 | Pink Clematis | ★ | 9–6 | Pink Watsonia | |
| 12 | Balloon Flower | 5–7 | ★ | Six-petal Frangipani | |
| 13 | Pink Gardenia | 4–16 | ★ | Multicolor Chrysanthemum | |
| 14 | Flannel Flower | ★ | 14–7 | Urn Plant | |
| 18 [^sked] | Poppy | 14–15 | ★ | Blue Sakura | |
| 19 | Orchid | ★ | 22–11 | Western Wallflower |
| Day | Bloom | Votes | Bloom | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | Daffodil | ★ | 19–2 | Six-petal Frangipani | |
| 16 | Shamrock | 4–14 | ★ | Lily | |
| 17 | Dogwood | 12–19 | ★ | Pink Clematis | |
| 20 | Multicolor Chrysanthemum | ★ | 29–4 | Blue Sakura | |
| 21 | Rose | 4–14 | ★ | Orchid | |
| 22 | Pink Kusudama | ★ | 6–4 | Tulip | |
| 23 | Orange Dahlia | ★ | 4–3 | Flannel Flower | |
| 24 | Lavender | ★ | 18–9 | Cherry Blossom |
| Day | Bloom | Votes | Bloom | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | Pink Kusudama | ★ | 10–4 | Lily | |
| 26 | Multicolor Chrysanthemum | 8–14 | ★ | Orchid | |
| 27 | Daffodil | ★ | 11–4 | Pink Clematis | |
| 28 | Lavender | ★ | 12–5 | Orange Dahlia |
| Day | Bloom | Votes | Bloom | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 | Pink Kusudama | VOTE NOW | Daffodil | ||
| 30 | Lavender | vs. | Orchid |
| Day | Bloom | Votes | Bloom | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 | TBD | vs. | TBD |
[^sked]: Due to a scheduling issue, the last two first-round matchups were delayed by a few days and I jumped to the Round of 16 matchups early. This is why the numbers are bit out of order.
2025-02-25 20:01:00
Monday was a bank holiday (Presidents’ Day) here in the States, which was very handy because we spent most of the weekend catching up on work and other chores.
We made it an even shorter week by starting the weekend a day and a half early and catching a flight to Orlando to spend a couple days with our good friends down there. It wasn’t real warm, but it was warmer than home so that’s nice. And we spent Saturday kicking around the theme parks at Universal.
✈️ While we were waiting for our flight out of CMH we spotted one of Southwest’s special liveries, Imua One. I’ve seen a few of them in person before, but this was the first time I’d managed to snap a pic.
🍳 I normally don’t post food pictures but for some reason this week I was inspired to share snaps of and egg sandwich I made, including the work in progress, and people seemed to like it. Maybe more food pics? Nah.
Here’s a recap of things that appeared on my /now page this week.
I haven’t backed up the photos on my NAS in several years, so I started working on that this week. I’m not doing anything fancy here, though perhaps I should. I’m using the AWS CLI to copy my photos to S3 Glacier Deep Archive, which is highly durable and super cheap—about $1 per terrabyte per month.
We are continuing to enjoy weekly episodes of Paradise and eagerly tucked into the long-awaited season 3 premiere of The White Lotus.
We’re also filling some time catching up on Hacks Season 1. I started watching this a while back and quit after an episode or two, but it’s better than I remember.
The flights gave me some time to catch up on the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, one of my favorite magazines.
“So, You’ve Been Invaded: A French Resistance Survival Guide for the U.S.”, from The American Pamphleteer, is essential night table reading.
“The Death of Government Expertise” is a recent piece by Tom Nichols in The Atlantic, in which he reminds us that expertise is something to value, not to vilify. It can’t be overemphasized. I feel so strongly about this that I gave copies of his book to my kids when they went to college.
Aloha!
