Snippets Sept. 19, 2023 (a/k/a a browser tab purge)

J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, reading the paper

Filing under D, for “duh!”: In most industries, regulation prevents competition.

37Signals, whose architects have written a couple of books‡ I have in my perpetually growing “to read” folder, are pulling back from AWS and moving some cloud infrastructure in-house, for significant cost savings.

Flying taxis are coming: Hundreds of Flying Taxis To Be Made In Ohio (by Joby).

Preliminary injunction issued in NetChoice, LLC v. Bonta, 5:22-cv-08861-BLF (N.D. Cal.) (ECF No. 74), blocking enforcement of the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act.

Ask for advice (critical and actionable input), not feedback (vague, generally praising comments).

Stay awake without caffeine: (1) water and snacks (high protein with carbs and fats; an apple, a salad, toast with peanut butter); (2) exercise and activity (go outside for 15 minutes); (3) take a power nap (10-20 minutes) or, if you've planned ahead, a longer (up to 1 hour) nap earlier in the day.

To turn off automatic punctuation when dictating on an iPhone (so your text, doesn't, look, like, this 🤬), go to Settings > General > Keyboard, then turn off Auto-Punctuation.

Meh. I mean, yay, BMW Is Giving Up on Heated Seat Subscriptions Because People Hated Them (reddit discussion), but, boo: “BMW says it will continue to offer subscription-based services but only for software options...” I get it where there’s a recurring cost to provide a service, but anything that runs completely locally should have the option of a one-time purchase, good until the hardware platform it runs on fades into obsolescence. The nickle-and-dime stuff gets old. Fast. (I say as I try to figure out what options I have with a Blink doorbell with local storage, and how I can move my BroadLink RM4 Mini devices to something open source and locally hosted.)

Telemedicine: The Most Remote Emergency Room: Life and Death in Rural America. I feel like this could be a component of a good cyberpunk, or at least generic dystopian, tale.

More reasons why I love my 1995 Jeep Wrangler: Brake rotors are $72.

Before there was WiFi, there was Ricochet, a campus networking technology (with clunky wireless modems) lost to the sands of time. Anyone remember Proxim wireless gear? (Was trying to figure out a drunk-or-otherwise-altered intentionally destructive college student proof way of bridging the hundred or so feet between two dorms, back in the mid- to late-90s; never could come up with a solution. Was just about to bring a “high-ish” speed connection (moreso than the 33.6 Kbps modem we were relying on) to the dorms using Tut Systems gear when I graduated and a year or so later 10/100 was in every dorm room, heavily restricted of course, courtesy the school’s official IT department.)

Rethinking Loneliness: Singledom and the Stigma of Solitude (and, related: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/12/childless-old-social-care-population-familyIf you have no children, who will care for you when you’re old? ... Not the article I remember reading but close enough.) (Sigh.)

How to Stay Cool Without Air-Conditioning. (Disney Cooling Towels for the back of the neck: For teh win!)

‡ Including: Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application; Rework; and Remote: Office Not Required