The roots of a redwood tree only run six to twelve feet deep. Instead of growing downward, they grow out, extending hundreds of feet laterally and wrapping themselves around the roots of other trees. When rough weather comes, it’s the network of closely intertwined roots that allows the trees to stand strong. We are the same.
It’s well past time to get real about our health, physical, emotional, spiritual, and social.
A decade ago, my wife and I saw our entire lives change in a moment when our oldest son was diagnosed with brain cancer.
Always take time to appreciate what you have.
Tim Cook:
For our Mac business overall, we faced some processor constraints in the March quarter, leading to a 5 percent revenue decline compared to last year. But we believe that our Mac revenue would have been up compared to last year without those constraints, and don’t believe this challenge will have a significant impact on our Q3 results.
I have a feeling that it’s less of an issue with the processor and more of an issue with the keyboard. CPU speed bumps have become nearly unnoticeable in day-to-day use, but this keyboard thing is a PR nightmare.
At the top it said “my seizure plan”. I blinked at it then looked up at her. “Are you having a seizure now?” I asked. “No, but I’m about to.” She looked down at the monitor on her finger. “Can you sit with me until your stop?” She asked.
A heart-wrenching slice of life story about this girl living with a disability, doing the best she can, just trying to get through the day.
Despite this being the last section of the post, Instant Answers are by far the coolest feature of DuckDuckGo. You can find a complete list of all the cool tricks available at the dev site, but I’ll highlight a few of my current favorites.
I’ve been a fan of DuckDuckGo for years, and I highly encourage everyone to at least give it a shot.
I bought my first Mac in 2004, a white plastic iBook G4. It was slow, the screen resolution was terrible, but wow did I love Mac OS X. After several years of loading every Linux and BSD variant I could find on the PC I bought in ‘99, I finally found a stable Unix-based operating system with a logical and beautiful user interface. The Mac was exactly what I wanted in a computer. I desperately wanted to use it at work, but working in a secure military environment, that wasn’t going to happen.
After I got out of the Navy in ‘06 I got my first civilian job on a six-month contract in Iowa. I was issued another PC, but after poking around a bit I found an old Mac that wasn’t being used, so I adopted it made it work for me. One of the lead engineers saw it once and made the off-hand comment that I should “get that piece of crap off my desk”. I ignored him and carried on. My coworkers were having a LAN party one day after work, and invited me along to play some networked game. I brought my personal MacBook with me, and quickly realized that everyone else had custom built gaming PCs, and that my little laptop couldn’t keep up.
When I found stable employment in Des Moines, I was, again, issued a PC. A Dell laptop this time. Again I found an unused Mac in a closet somewhere, a PowerMac G4, booted it up and used it as my main workstation. After a few years, and knowing my boundaries, I found it possible to work under the radar and bring my personal Mac to work, by now a MacBook Pro, and typically just dropped the Dell in a drawer. From time to time there’d be something I’d need to do with the Dell, and it’d wind up back on my desk for a bit. I remember once a coworker, who would eventually be promoted to my manager, walking by my cubicle and mocking me loudly saying “typical Mac user, Mac in front of him, PC on the side to get real work done.” I didn’t like that guy.
Over the years Macs have become more mainstream and I’ve noticed that they’ve become more accepted at the different places I’ve worked. One thing seems to not change though, whoever is in charge of taking care of employee’s computers always wants Windows PCs. I imagine because they are easier to manage en masse. Even at my latest company meeting, the team was discussing some feature rollout to the PCs, and it came up that I used a Mac1. I quipped that I was pretty sure that by now my using a Mac is a condition of my continued employment. (It’s not.) I further quipped that they could have my Mac… when they pried it from my cold, dead hand.
For my entire working life outside the military, I’ve been the outlier who uses a Mac. By now I’ve been using it exclusively for so many years that I’d be completely lost in Windows. The Mac has a carefully chosen set of tools that mold perfectly to how my mind works. Things are where I expect them to be, they do what I expect them to do. As an information worker, I care deeply about the tools I use. I spend so much of my life using it, I want the experience to at least be somewhat enjoyable. I couldn’t imagine working anywhere that forced me to use a PC, if they did, I’d use it to start sending out my resume immediately.
My whole team uses Macs, but my team is three people, so 🤷🏻♂️. ↩︎
Via a post I saw today from Chris Bowler, via a newsletter by Sarah Bray, discussing an article written by James Somers, wherein he describes the writing process of John McPhee1, and how he uses a good dictionary to go from last draft to finished work. The emphasis here is on a good dictionary, namely the 1913 Webster’s Unabridged. I won’t attempt to describe how wonderful the dictionary is here, James did a fantastic job of that on his blog five years ago. I will however say that I think his installation instructions for getting the dictionary usable on your Mac are out of date. Here’s the easy way to do it.
First, download the compiled dictionary text. I downloaded it from a GitHub account, but who knows for how long that’ll be available, so I’m hosting the download here2. Webster.s.1913.dictionary.zip
Next, unzip the downloaded file and find the file named “Webster’s
1913.dictionary”. Click on the Finder’s “Go” menu and hold down the
⌥Option key to show the hidden “Library” folder. Click on Library, and
find the “Dictionaries” folder. Open it, and drag and drop the new
dictionary folder into it.
Now when you open the macOS Dictionary app, you can go into the settings (either by pressing ⌘, or by clicking on “Dictionary” then “Preferences…” in the menu bar), scroll down a bit till you find “Webster’s 1913”, click the check box next to it and drag it to the top of the list. Uncheck the “New Oxford American Dictionary”. Now when you click on a word in a good Mac app, then click just a tad bit harder3, you’ll get the definition from the new and improved Webster’s. It’ll also show up in Spotlight searches, and anywhere else the system-wide dictionary is used.
Now you have a far richer and more useful dictionary. A useful resource if you happen to currently be, or soon will be, a college student who needs to write often, and in volume.
Jump to Post – Outside Online
Pat Gallant-Charette is tougher than your average grandma. She’s probably tougher than you. The 68-year-old Maine native has completed the majority of the Oceans Seven, a marathon swimming challenge that has athletes tackling seven of the toughest open-water swims in the world. She has systematically subjected herself to near-freezing water temperatures, strong currents, shark attacks, and blooms of jellyfish during swims that have her in the water for up to 24 hours.
Role model.
Jump to Post – Outside Online
The lesson here is that you can’t count on seeing a grizzly in time to back away or take another action. At one point during the class, Adam got bored and wandered off about 30 yards. Predators have evolved to blend into their surroundings. Sitting down behind a small pine tree, the enormous bear was utterly invisible to us at that distance. Forrest explained that grizzlies can charge at speeds of up to 35 miles per hour, and unlike humans, who take several strides to accelerate, the bears can hit their top speed on their first bound. If Adam had charged us from that hiding place 30 yards away, he’d have been on us in just a couple seconds.
Put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.
