Having been without my iPhone for three days, there were times when I felt like I was missing my right arm. What will the weather be like today? What’s the address of my doctor’s office? It was alternately liberating and annoying to be unplugged when I needed information. The idea of a simple cellphone does have its merits. The Punkt MP01 is a simple cellphone with just the basic functionality, and it looks great. Unfortunately it’s only available for 2G GSM, which means it’s unavailable for AT&T, my carrier.
Interesting...
- February 17
This is also good Wednesday news: the Baltimore Sun, which has been owned by Tribune Publishing for years, could be sold to a nonprofit organization set up and funded by an area Democratic philanthropist. This would be fantastic for the organization, as the rest of the Tribune holdings would be bought by Alden Capital, a hedge fund with a history of buying and gutting local news outlets.
February 17
My leafy town has long been eyed by developers looking to stuff infill houses wherever and whenever they can, ignoring zoning laws and school impact studies. So this is good news: a proposed 12-house subdivision slightly southwest of us, and tucked up against the Patapsco State Park, was denied by a County judge yesterday.
Some context: The local elementary school, the one Finn just graduated from, is 40 students over capacity and has been operating that way for over a decade.
February 15
I've enjoyed every book of John Scalzi's that I've read, and his general observations on culture are just as good:
When I hear or read “I have been cancelled” I mostly translate that to “I am facing consequences for something I got away with before and I don’t like it.” When I hear or read “I will not be cancelled,” I mostly translate that to “I refuse to change my behavior, it’s the rest of the world that’s the problem, not me.” Which, you know, okay. You do you.
The whole thing is worth a read.
February 10
Finley played a game called Terraria this summer, and for a few weeks she got Jen and I to play with her. She loved it but we found it impossible to play with 50-year-old eyes on an iPhone. Anyway, the indie developer behind Terraria got his Google account shut down over a YouTube ban; I was only dimly aware of this, but
...a Google account ban means you lose access to your entire email account; all the pictures you've ever taken; your cell phone service; your ability to communicate with friends and family; all your 2FA accounts; anything that uses Google OAuth; your app development business; your YouTube business and all your followers; your purchased apps, games, movies, music, and books; and all your contacts, documents, bookmarks, and notes.
After three weeks of trying to get Google to help him (exacerbated by the fact that he couldn't contact them because his Google accounts were all shut down) he announced that his company was withdrawing all support for Google platforms moving forward—no small peanuts when you consider his game has sold 30 million copies.
February 2
OK, file this under Things I Definitely Wasn't Expecting To Learn: the guy who sang this schmaltzy song in 1987 was Pinky Carruthers in one of the best movies of all time.
