Slow week for links as, for obvious reasons, I've been limiting my online time the best that I can. I deleted Instagram back in December, and I'm still deciding what to do with Facebook. Unfortunately, that is the online home of choice for most people my age (GenX). I don't think "abandon your relationships to teach Zuck a lesson" is a viable argument, primarily because my quitting has zero impact on Facebook. I'm not sure that FB even needs real users anymore. If the advertisers can't tell the difference, why not just have 800 million or whatever AI accounts posting stuff on each other's updates and photos while they clink on links? It'll probably take years before the advertisers catch on.

However, avoiding Facebook because they are using AI to ID potential opposition to the Nazi regime is a very viable argument. Currently, I'm considering deleting everything I've ever posted there and limiting my use to a couple of groups that I can't realistically move off FB. I am not sure if I can completely abandon it due to the groups.

I also joined Signal this week (chrisod.99). Say hi if you are there. I'm going to try to move my regular contacts there because keeping your communications away from the government is a very real concern now in the US. I also reacquainted myself with PGP and generated a private key for the first time in 20 years. I won't gum up this post with it, but please don't hesitate to ask if you'd like it.

True story, when the plane collided with the helicopter last week, I had a brief surge of anticipatory adrenaline when the breaking news thing interrupted Celebrity Jeopardy, on the hope that the breaking news was that Trump choked on a hamburger and nobody could be bothered to help him. Maybe the next breaking news update will be better news. If you are reading this from a country with an oppressive government, I'd love to hear your tips for surviving the next four years. It's only been two weeks, and it feels like two years.

And finally, on to the links. This won't take long.

Culture shock from a woman who left the US for The Netherlands last year, and came back for a visit.

Lessons in creating family photos people will want to keep. The author learned a few things while scanning thousands of old family photos. I have some thoughts on this that I'll try to get into a blog post this week.

Building a T1 diabetes smartwatch from scratch
This is really geeky and interesting on one level. On another level, my wife has been Type 1 since she was 13, and I've lived through about 35 years of technological advancement with her. The fabled self-regulating artificial pancreas is on the horizon, but it doesn't feel like we are gaining on it. Insulin pumps and CGMs certainly help, but also still require a diabetic that wants to maintain control to be aware of it every waking second of the day.

That is it for this week. Until next time, be good to each other.

This is an ongoing series in which I dig into the dustier corners of my MP3 folder.

Charlie Bliss - Young Enough

I bought this after stumbling into it in a Metafilter thread back in 2019. Indie-power-synth-pop is not normally my thing, but the song Chatroom was on repeat play in my Pandora account so I figured I owed it to the band to buy the album. The whole album is damn good. It is a little too well produced to be indie-pop, but the indie-pop bones are there in the songs. This was their second album. I lost track of the band and in checking on them now I learned that they released a third album last year. I'm streaming it, and I'm really liking it. The first record, IIRC, had a more of a straight power-pop feel to it.

Chatroom

Camera

After 25 days of bitter cold, the polar vortex is starting to ease up. We will hit 50F for the first time this week today, and I see 60F in the forecast for Wednesday, before the temps drop again to more normal 40s for this year. I'll take it.

On to the links.

This is a really great list of ways to find RSS feeds from sources including YouTube, Substack, and Reddit.

We watched Join or Die on Friday night, a documentary based on the book Bowling Alone. The author's thesis is that our democracy is failing because we aren't connected enough to the people around us. Participation in clubs and group activities has been dropping for 50 years, and it's almost perfectly correlated with us losing trust in government. In How to Build a Village, Rosie Sparks post covers some of the same ground. To get through the next 4 years, we'll need more people in our life. Go out and join something.

Protecting your mental health during a clown president's second term. I don't need to explain this one.

Jason compiled a list of Indieweb friendly blogging tools.

In Nazi Germany, activists had to be very creative about how they communicated with each other. Why am I posting this? No real reason...

A month-long series of blog posts and instructions on how to drastically reduce your digital footprint.

And this is another long blog post that basically reduces down to go and do stuff you like with people you like as an antidote to ...looks around...everything.

Are you sending a trend in the stuff I saved to share this week?

Orwell did predict all of this, but not in 1984 or Animal Farm. I wasn't even aware of his first book.

From Yale University, an excellent explanation about why your insurance rates are going up, even though you don't live in CA or FL.

John Lennon really did visit a Quaker Primary school in 1974. Can you imagine John Lennon at school? The closest I get is Meadowlark Lemon.

And finishing up on a lighter note, this website that reviews hard rock, metal, and punk records was launched in 1998-ish and has not been redesigned since. They are still adding reviews regularly, no CMS or RSS feeds needed. I love these old Web 1.0 sites that are still active.

That's it this week. For those of you in the US, stay away from the news this week. It's all going to be bad news. This closing line will not change anytime soon. If it does and Trump is still President, it's a coded cry for help.

This is an ongoing series in which I dig into the dustier corners of my MP3 folder.

Five Star Iris - Five Star Iris

I bought this CD in 1997 after we saw them live at the County Cork Pub in Atlanta. Two of the songs on this record are co-written by Ed Roland of Collective Soul, so that should give you an idea of what they sound like. This is classic late 90s alternative rock, and really, this record should have gone platinum. It's a fabulous record from start to finish.

Not a single song on this album has reached 1000 streams on YouTube Music.

Starry Eyed

Follow You Down

The forecast is full of single digit lows and sub-freezing highs this week. Did I mention in live in the South? Tomorrow is a holiday to celebrate MLK's birthday. It seems like a sick joke to inaugurate a racist, rapist, felon as President on his birthday, but that is the world the voters delivered. The USA had a good run, but I guess I'll get to see first hand what it's like to live in the decline of an empire.

On to the links.

Can machines create art? That's a question we will have to deal with very soon. I'm still on the negative side of that question, but this argument that humans synthesizing all their inputs into art is no different from computers doing the same does make you think.

One thing I think about often is how poorly most of do in keeping up with far-flung friends, even with all the supposed advantages of social media. Going back to my blog post of a couple of weeks ago, what most of us want is a social network, not social media. This is an example of doing that with a spreadsheet.

How did REM manage to just walk away 14 years ago? They actually retired as a band, something very few bands manage to do. It's a Washington Post article, turn off JavaScript or use Firefox Reader mode to bypass the paywall.

Your LinkedIn network is worthless.

I had to find a new job over the holidays, and people I'm connected with on LinkedIn helped. But every single person on LI that helped is somebody I could have emailed and gotten the same result. It's the people where I had a real connection that mattered. All I got from the network at large was the job hunting equivalent of thoughts and prayers.

If you don't live in LA, you gained nothing by following the fires in real time on social media. You could have watched the first 15 minutes of ABC Nightly News each night and been just as informed, more productive, and less stressed by it all.

My friend Bill Blevins went back to 1945 to find some US Army advice on how to recognize fascism. It's sadly very relevant in 2025. BTW, Bill and his partner take off next month to hike the Appalachian Trail. That's the best strategy I've heard of for dealing with the next 4–5 months.

How surveillance capitalism and DRM turned home tech from friend to foe.

If you need some inspiration to get offline and watch a movie, this list of the top 1000 movies of all time should help.

Rangelife is a weekly-ish newsletter by startup executive Eric Meyerson that is always informative and entertaining. I always read it when it pops into my inbox.

My imaginary internet friend Andreas wrote a really great post on how the promise of being connected to the entire world online was a lie, and also a terrible idea.

That's it this week. For those of you in the US, stay away from the news this week. It's all going to be bad news.

This is an ongoing series in which I dig into the dark corners of my MP3 folder and revisit some long neglected music.

Cross Canadian Ragweed - Soul Gravy

CCR (see what I did there?) is apparently a much bigger band than I realized. I own this one record released in 2004, and I have no idea when I bought it or why. It's rock / alt. country. This album produced a top 10 hit. I wonder why I never dug into more of their catalog? They broke up in 2010 when one of the band members wanted to stay closer to home due to a son with developmental challenges. They just announced a comeback last year, and the show (with some other bands) have sold out 180,000 tickets over 4 nights at Boone Pickens Stadium at Oklahoma State University, so they are very much still a big deal. I definitely need to dive into their catalog as there are 4 or 5 more albums to explore. I also remember having a very good live DVD that came with the CD. I have no idea what happened to it though.

Sick and Tired - The big hit off the album

Alabama

Verdict: Keep it, and maybe find it some friends for the band folder.

This is an ongoing series in which I dig into the dustier corners of my MP3 folder.

Gossip Grows On Trees - EP

From what I can tell, this band existed for about a year. The 4 songs on this EP appear to be it for their musical output. I think I may have found this on Aime Street, which was a very cool music website that existed until about 2012ish, when they got bought out by Amazon and were immediately shut down. Aime Street was kind of a Bandcamp thing mixed with Web 2.0 social elements around sharing music. It was a very cool website, so of course it had to die.

Anyway, speaking of the dead, it's a damn shame that this band didn't stick together longer, because every one of these 4 indie-pop songs is damn good.

LOL. This band is so obscure, these tunes aren't even on YouTube. But their Bandcamp site is still live, and you can download the EP for free.

Worst Intentions

Perfect Words

Two weeks in a row, we are on a roll. It was a weird week. I started my new job on Monday, then we had no running water in the house Monday night thru Thursday. I will never again take the flush toilet for granted.

The Tao of Cal - Cal has written several books on how to live in our always on world. This page on his website is the Cliff Notes version of what he has to say. Cliff Notes... who remembers those? Who will admit to writing a book report using Cliff Notes without ever reading the book?

There is badass, and there is stopped running a marathon to perform CPR for 10 minutes and save a life, then went on to finish the marathon.

I have never wanted to go on a cruise, and this article about passengers left behind on a remote African island did nothing to change that stance.

Some guy has over 10,000 tapes he made of rock and punk shows in Chicago over the last couple of decades. The are all getting added to the Internet Archive.

I don't think this author actually understands what makes a salesperson great, but the article is entertaining to read.

Eat real food. Mostly plants. I'm terrible at following this advice, even as the evidence mounts.

Building an open web that can protect us from harm. Who are your allies on the open web?

If you are looking for additional reading material this long list of newsletters writer's favorite newsletters is certain to provide at least several interesting options.