Nothing quite like a Cub Scout day camp - Wonderful to experience Scout Spirit alive and well! 😀
Report finds ‘staggering’ utility hikes in Maryland since 2010
Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.’s gas delivery rates have more than tripled since 2010, with statewide utility rates following suit.
“These increases reflect a concerted utility effort to boost profits by accelerating capital infrastructure spending — including massive spending on gas infrastructure …”
Reply from BGE:
“Customers are becoming more reliant on safe and reliable energy to power their lives and livelihoods while we are also facing increased threats to the resiliency of our infrastructure, including cyber intrusions and more frequent severe weather brought by climate change.
“The energy infrastructure investments we make now will ensure we can continue to meet our customers’ needs and lay the foundation for the State of Maryland to reach its goal of net zero emissions by 2045.”
(via Baltimore Sun)
Watched Bob Ross on PBS with the kids for the first time this past Saturday, and they seemed definitely intrigued.
This morning, I get out the watercolor paints for a quick kid activity as I’m cleaning the kitchen, and completely unprompted, #2 starts saying: “And I’m going to put a happy little bush here, and a happy little bush there.”
It’s contagious. 😄🎨👨🎨
Wow!! - Didn’t expect this for today’s ⚾️ game: Let’s Go O’s!!
This tweet thread on the “missing middle of housing” provides some interesting reflections. I suspect parts are a little caricatured, but the overall point remains that what we call “neighborhood” has shifted tremendously in the last 100 years, and not all for the better.
Willie Mays of Giants baseball fame has passed - An incomparable player who truly loved the game & brought joy to so many. May he rest in peace & keep up the fun in the eternal fields. ⚾️🏟️🧢
(via Baltimore Sun)
Cataloging here Micro.blog’s emoji tags for finding other microbloggers. (Plus testing the Scheduled Post feature.)
Personal Technology Renaissance
I feel like I’m having a personal technology renaissance.
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A long-time user of Evernote, they were acquired by Bending Spoons in recent years and the development team there I think are finally getting it right after about a 5-8 years of laggard progress on a category-defining platform. New & improved features that are breathing new life into my use of the product: (a) Consolidated task management across notes with due date & reminders; (b) Easier and better Note sharing/ syncing with others; (c) Easy note headers/ section collapse with automatic table of contents creation; (d) Single file list view; (e) And others. Thank you and kudos to the Evernote team!
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And Micro.blog itself, harkening back to the good ol' blog days of yore, updated for lessons learned (good & bad) from the age of social media, providing a platform for expression & good Internet citizenry.
While I know I’m just a ‘single use case’, I do feel like we are in a technology inflection point – To me, at least, 1999-2001 was one and 2010-2012 another. Holding onto hope for the current inflection point! :)
Very interesting read about how content creators are fighting back against LLMs sourcing their material to power their economic model.
How We’re Trying to Protect MacStories from AI Bots and Web Crawlers – And How You Can, Too
via @markstoneman
Been awhile since I was last able to get a physical copy of The Sun (harder to find in my neck of the woods, despite many attempts). Good (and strange) to hold in hand again, as it provides a particular satisfaction over its digital doppelgänger. :)
Happy Father’s Day out there!
Assateague Island
Hello world!
Although not a coder, somehow I still feel this an appropriate start to my Micro.blog. 🙂
Chanced across the platform when I discovered a friend/ colleague hosted his professional blog here, and immediately dove in as it hits so many things I’ve been looking for.
Even further affirmed when reading the references to Tumblr, where I’ve maintained a tumblelog since June 2007 (albeit with heavier and lighter seasons these last 17 years). It’s felt less like home towards the latter part of that time, and while I’m glad the likes of Automattic are giving it some love now, Micro.blog is definitely more of what I’m looking for. :)
As it stands now, I’m planning to put the Premium plan through its paces: multiple blogs for business & personal use, custom domains, cross-posting, WordPress import, Tumblr import, photos, and I even have an idea for podcasting and email newsletters (among others).
So here goes, and cheers to the adventure!
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5 Pencil and Paper Games to Do When You’re BoredThe first 3 are ol’ faithfuls (hangman, battleship, & squares), but the last 2 are new to me (obstruction & sprouts).Good to keep in mind for when down time with kids. :)
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Remember the early days of the Internet? There were all types of easy blogging platforms, most people had a blog of some sort, there were commentaries quoting other blogs, h/t, etc.?With the advent of platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, it sorta short-circuited what I’d say was a better way to communicate, collaborate, and exchange on the web. Plus the content was locked away behind logins, often no easy way to search, and it was branded under the platform (and not you, the content creator).Tumblr, especially in its early days, was a nice middle ground – Away from long-form blogging, simplifying the ability to add media, Reblogs were great, etc.Perhaps it’s nostalgia, but I’ve been thinking something a la the early days would be nice, but hadn’t run across anything like what existed before (or even a more modern re-imagination). Until now …Micro.blog is a simple, strong feature set, low-cost way to ‘do internet’ right – You can have your own real estate, there’s built in media sharing (even easy podcasting), a human-run community, and more.I think this exists in my future sometime soon. :)
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AI Transcription optionsBeen giving serious thoughts towards activating an AI Transcription tool for business use (predominant use cases of virtual meeting transcript/ summaries & YouTube/ other video summation).Three I’ve seen contacts reference well are:Fireflies.aiRev.comOtter.aiNoting here for additional research/ evaluation - Perhaps helpful to you too.
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“Books are a frozen conversation”This reality understanding at a deeper level as I continue (slowly) making my way through Merton’s “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”.
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Boy Scouts’ first-ever change of name will reflect inclusion - Baltimore Sun“ Boy Scouts of America” to become “Scouting America”.
