🏨💸💰 I read this tweet about overnight hospitals stays and for the love of Mr Peterson could everyone stop using the word free?

Nothing is free! The people of these countries paid taxes for these services. They pre-paid! There may be low-to-no-cost at the point of service, but they did pay.

Why folks in the U.S. aren’t up in arms about paying taxes AND paying outrageous medical fees is beyond me. If you add up U.S. taxes and medical costs, it’s far higher than the taxes in these other countries.

☠️🔫📇 When I came across this tweet of a New Zealander giving up his gun I immediately thought “I can’t imagine this ever ever ever happening in America.” But, after thinking about it some (and doing a little searching to confirm it), I knew I was wrong. Look at this guy destroying his gun. In fact, he did it before that New Zealander turned his in.

The second amendment is not needed today and so I’m all for the collection of everyone’s guns. You see, if you feel you need a gun, you should have to apply for a license. That license has to be renewed like any driver’s license. In order to get the license you’ll need prove that you know how to use and care for it and have a place to store it safely. And, of course, you’ll need to pass a background check and psychological screening. Oh, that will have to happen each and every time it comes up for renewal. Finally, all your neighbors within a certain radius would be informed that you have a gun and what kind it is. If you license expires and the gun isn’t turned in, the authorities come to claim it.

Or we can continue to let children be shot dead.

🍎🗽❓

Apple bows to China by censoring Taiwan flag emoji

Apple Removes App That Helps Hong Kong Protesters Track the Police

Russia Wants To Be Seen As The Owner Of Crimea. Apple Just Recognized Them.

It is a very dark road Apple is going down. One that might not have a path back. And, if Apple does find its way, will it be welcome home?

🧓🏨🤦‍♂️ Who could have expected this turn of events? Sigh. She didn’t even wait until she got the nod.

🍎📺➕ I suppose even if folks are complaining about Apple’s TV shows, it’s a win for Apple because people are talking about them.

📺👱🏼‍♂️🏛 It’s been years since I watched The West Wing. Has it been 20? Boy, have I forgotten what ideals felt like. I know, I know, it’s fiction. And no one speaks in the way Aaron Sorkin turns a phrase.

But in a time of “speeches” from a worm-eaten brain, inept cronies, and criminal activities by everyone else involved, I do appreciate getting moved by President Bartlett and, for the moment, feeling like there is hope.

🎥📺👍 It’s been a banner week in our world of entertainment for me and the boy. We went to see Joker, then I watched one episode of See and both watched two episodes of For All Mankind.

In order: Joker was excellent. Holy crap. Totally worth seeing (although I don’t think you need to see it in the cinema). I think it was the first movie my son has seen that depicted killing in such an explicit manner. Sure he’s seen lots of movies, but Joker felt different. I could see the expression in his face and it what should be expected when you see someone’s head bashed in. See’s first episode was good, although it does remain to be seen (ha!) if I’ll keep up with it. I don’t really need another gory show/movie in my life. For All Mankind has been pretty good as well, but that too remains to be seen. I will watch the third soon.

Apple TV+ is free so the value proposition is way in my favor. I’ve read/seen tweets scroll past about production values or where some shots were redone. Who gives a shit? I get it if you are in the industry, but I’m just a regular Joe watching TV so I don’t weep after reading the news. I care about the story, the characters, and if it has decent enough production values that I don’t wonder “Was that a coffee cup in the background?” I don’t yet care about the characters in See and I’m waiting for something bigger to happen in For All Mankind so that I care more about brand new people in this world.

Anyway, make sure to see Joker and give the Apple TV+ shows a chance .(there’s a good chance they’re free for you anyway). Oh, I like Apple’s start up chime before each show. Ah, the memories.

🍎😠👎 I expect more out of Apple in absolutely everything they do. I also expect restraint. Just because you can do something with a web page

Doesn’t

Mean

You

Should

🍎 💻🤮 It’s hard to overstate how badly Apple has failed with its current line of portable Macintosh computers. I’ve been using a 2017 MacBook Pro for about 2 1/2 years and it’s near the worst Mac portable I’ve ever used (only the PowerBook 5300cs was worse). It’s gotta be the worst Mac portable in the modern era (I’m defining the modern era starting in 1998). At the beginning of the current design (2016), I assumed all the problems were exaggerated by people looking for more pageviews, hearts, etc. Surely there can’t be that many issues with this line of machines, right?

Yes, I could understand that maybe folks didn’t like the feel of the newly designed keyboard, but that’s subjective. But the keyboard not working correctly? That’s objective. At this point, I have a sometimes-not-working left shift key and now my keyboard is doing one and sometimes two spaces per press and the battery vacillates between healthy and needing service. It also gets hot (although I blame Chrome for that).

If I could use macOS on a ThinkPad I would. And if I could use macOS that way, I’d get the X1 Extreme.

One of my favorite things about using an iPad is when I can’t find it, it’s usually on the kitchen counter under a dish towel or some papers. It really is an appliance that doesn’t need it’s own room or desk. It’s just here all the time. Meanwhile, there’s no iPad emoji! 🤷‍♀️

🧓👩‍⚕️🚫 My guess is that if Elizabeth Warren gets the Dem nod, she’ll begin to back away from her Medicare-for-all plan. Regardless of what her as-dem-running-for-president plan ends up being called, it will not be the single-payer system we need: health, eye, and dental.

I like Elizabeth Warren and donate to her monthly (same for Bernie Sanders), but Bernie is the only one that I believe won’t back away should he get the Dem nod. Bernie’s latest health issue is not an issue for me. We’ve had presidents in worse shape run the country (and one of them was who we need again) so it doesn’t concern me (subject to change if new information comes to light).

🍊🏛⚖️ If Dubya wasn’t charged and prosecuted for crimes, then no U.S. president ever will be. Trump is not going to go to jail. Trump is going to resign under a deal where he won’t be prosecuted. Then we all get to see what horrible crimes the next evil president comes up with. Because, why not? You don’t get punished for crimes when you’re the president.

👶👧🏻🧒🏼 The climate change walkout on Friday got me thinking. First, it got me thinking kids today have their heads on much straighter than their many of their parents. Second, I wonder what would happen if all kids said, “Fuck it, no more going to school until you assholes start fixing the climate”? Hell, add in the kids of the United States who could stop going to until the grown ups get rids of the guns.

You can’t really punish them all. And certainly there’s no way for every parent to supervise their children during the let (forget educate them). Parents who did decide to stay home would end up disrupting their jobs so their bosses would either can them (all of them?) or … what?

Kids have a lot more power than they understand. They are just going along with the program because they think they are supposed to (good thing we started em off early with daycare, pre-k).

⏱📱💪 As time marches on, it feels (literally) like the iPhones are going in the direction of cars. Heavier, bigger, and more expensive. The iPhone 11 Pro weighs as much as the iPhone 7 Plus. The smallest iPhone for 2019 is bigger than the biggest iPhone from 2016. I know that’s good for some people, but it’s a worrisome trend. Hypocrite alert: I am getting the iPhone 11 Pro.

🤱🏫🖕There isn’t any bridge that’s too far to cross, is there?

No war crime too horrendous to prosecute: Bush.

No killing of children too great to enact real gun control: Sandy Hook.

No raping of children too heinous to accept money from the rapist: MIT and Harvard and Bard High School Early College Queens. That NYC school one hits close to home. And it’s way after his conviction in 2008.

🚀📚😐 I finished The Last Astronaut by David Wellington. While I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the book, I found the second half to be slow and, overall, none of the characters ever developed enough for me to care about any one of them.

I thought it was going to be a mix of The Martian (which I loved, loved, loved) and, once I understood the premise, maybe a little of Old Man’s War (the whole series is a blast). But The Last Astronaut never got as sciency as The Martian and never got as fun as Old Man’s War.

☠️☠️☠️ There’s not a single person running for president who is talking about repealing the second amendment. They’ll talk about compromise, but compromise is how we got here.

📺🤰🤯 Has anyone else watched the documentary [The Handmaid’s Tale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid's_Tale_(TV_series)? It’s good.

🖕🖕🖕Hey person in charge of upholding the law but is actually a pretty terrible person who often says awful things on social media. Good news! We’ll delete it for you.

I posted recently about living in the novel 1984, and boy was I right. This scrubbing of social media literally is the Memory hole!

👳🏽‍♀️👨‍🦳🇺🇸The president of the United States regularly leads two minutes of hate. Well done right wing nut jobs.

🍿😂😢 Defying Hollywood’s long-standing precedent of sequels being the pits, Toy Story 4 knocked it out of the ballpark.

I didn’t think Pixar could come close to Toy Story 3 (which was so good I didn’t think the series needed another), but I am glad to be wrong. What a delight.

🤬 🤓 🛠 With Jony Ive gone, Lisa Jackson needs to throw some face around to impress upon engineering to make the next round of Macs easier to upgrade and therefore end up lasting longer.

🧑🧑🏽👱‍♀️ I think we’ll see a Warren/Harris ticket for Dems. Maybe be Warren/Castro ticket, but Warren/Harris is probably better.

I also think it doesn’t matter because Trump will win the electoral vote but not popular.

The more interesting idea I have is that Trump won’t pick Pence as running mate. He’s going to pick Ivanka. Can you imagine a Trump/Trump ticket? A literally daddy/daughter dance.

I also think, not long after they win the election, Trump’s health will be so far gone (dementia) that Ivanka will be named successor.

☠️☠️☠️ Where are the mass graves?

🤒🤷‍♂️🏛 Dementia makes for a better Manchurian candidate.

🏫👫❤️Many months ago I wrote about traditions. I guess it’s hypocritical of me to have poked fun at the idea of them when, holy hell, I make them too.

For almost their entire school lives, on the last day of school, I’ve taken my children to have lunch by the fountain in Grand Army Plaza. It’s not a food destination. There are no restaurants, no tables, no food trucks. It’s just a big fountain in the middle of a particularly busy traffic circle in Brooklyn.

Every year I take the day off from work and make sandwiches to bring to the fountain and we sit in the grass and eat our food. I make sure they understand how proud their mom and I are of them and how next year will be another great year in school. Sometimes we’d walk over the to the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Branch to pick out a few books. You know, to start off the summer right.

This year, however, was different. This year was the last last-day-of-school-lunch while my daughter is still a NYC student. Next June (that is, June 2020), she will have graduated from NYC’s public school system and be headed off to who knows where. So, while I expect us to still have that lunch next year, today was a marker.

I have savored every minute of those lunches. That includes every car honk, every spray from the fountain, every book from the library. Every single last-day-of-school-lunch they ate with me. I ate it all up. And I’ll always be grateful.

🗽☠️⛺️ How long before we’re invaded because of our concentration camps?

💩👎🤷‍♂️ Wait wait wait. Huawei thought if this didn’t go well it could “destroy its reputation”? are you telling me it got close enough to production and then someone wondered if this could ruin them?

How the frak is this company run?!

💸🏫🖕Boomers pay just $10 per college credit. Nice! Now how about the rest of us?

👋🇺🇸🤒 Thanks to John Stewart for convincing Congress to do the right thing. Now how about the rest of us?

🍓🤤❤️ My local grocery store (Park Slope Food Coop) has the good strawberries right now and I honestly can’t get enough of them. They’re only here for three to four weeks per year and ever since I discovered them, I long for the season while also dreading how short it is.

I never ate strawberries growing up (fussy kid), but I’m considering going into work late tomorrow to make sure I get a few more pints.

🤓🖥💪 It would be something if the folks who clamored for a pro Mac find the computer they actually want is the iMac Pro.

🤕 👩‍⚕️ 🖕 Holy forking shirtballs! This is NOT awesome. It’s the perfect example of how forked our healthcare system is. Need a walker? Go the Home Depot. Need a wheelchair? Go to AutoZone. Need new intestines? Go to the plumbing supply store.

🏛 🍪 🖕 Here’s the deal: There is no talking to right wingers. They are not arguing in good faith. They. Don’t. Give. A. Shit.

California Representative Katie Porter explained to HUD Secretary Jokester Carson what REO is and how it applies to HUD. Now, if I’m being generous, I am willing to give Jokester Carson a break because maybe he couldn’t know everything single thing HUD works on despite that, you know, being his job. And because he has no background in it and didn’t even want the job anyway.

But to have him joke about it?! Not only is this a serious matter, it was a shitty joke. And then to have a reporter from The Washington Post essentially give that tweet a thumbs up?!

And before anyone says, “Oh, lighten up. You poor libs can’t take a joke!” Here’s a joke: Go fuck yourself.

📱 Apps are, for the most part, dirt cheap. I do admit when I was first buying apps for iOS I was a little weird about it all. “I don’t know, is this worth $2?” Really Bob?

I bring this up because I read a post from Becky Hansmeyer saying app developers should raise app prices. She’s 100% right.

Most of us (OK, OK, me) have spent money on things that someone put 1/10 of the effort into than many app makers do. If you’ve made a good app, charge for it.

🇺🇸 Republicans aren’t afraid of socialism. They’re afraid of democracy.

☠️ When it comes to gun violence, we have let our children down to the point they are now sacrificing themselves in order to save others. Kendrick Castillo should not have had to do what he did to save others. We adults should have and we all let him down. We’ve let so many down. We’ll continue to let others down too.

Every single day children don’t turn on adults is a day adults should count themselves lucky.

📺 I gulped down the Netflix series Dead to Me. I enjoyed it very much.

The series starred two actors who, in my opinion, could never get enough screen time: Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini. They are both excellent and way under used.

🧒 We sure do love our children. I’ll say this until things change: Everyday I’m thankful the children don’t turn again us. However, I’m a little disappointed too.

🚗 Flying cars will not save us from climate change. Unless, I guess, they fall out of the sky in such great numbers they reduce the population of humans.

I worry a lot of people are banking on the idea that autonomous vehicles (think Tesla, etc) will save us. Not only is the tech not there (on ANY level), the capacity won’t be there. There is simply no way autonomous vehicles like cars and small planes will be able to move the amount of people. Improve the trains and busses for everyone and we’ll start getting somewhere. Literally.

☠️ This used to be a big deal. Now you (and I) can’t recall the one before the most recent one.

🛠 The right to repair is so obvious it’s hard to believe we have to even discuss it. Apple is absolutely on the wrong side of this fight.

Products will get used longer if they can be repaired. When a product gets used longer, it means less waste. And if Apple is going to push Lisa Jackson up on stage to have her claim Apple cares about the environment, then the right to repair should be part of this. Perhaps redesigning their products to be more easily repaired can help Apple’s reputation here, but I wouldn’t take a bet on that.

Until Apple’s policy on this changes, I say shame on Apple.

📰 I mentioned recently that I went to school for journalism but didn’t pursue it as a career. The reason wasn’t because newspaper people, on average, are paid poorly. Or receive intense scrutiny. Or work long hours. Or sometimes get killed doing their job. The reason was: I never felt I was remotely good enough to do that kind of work. It’s far more important than the skills I possessed or thought I could ever gain.

But, I guess I could have done it. “False Claim” Inaccurate refrain?! What horseshit that is. We have a word for this. It’s called a lie. Use that word. It’s unambiguous and everyone knows what the hell it means.

There’s a reason the right doesn’t subscribe to The New York Times: They don’t believe it. But there’s also a reason the left doesn’t subscribe: They’re incredibly disappointed.

📽 I watched movie Obit. While it’s maybe not your typical Saturday night movie, it was engaging and brought back a lot of memories.

I went to college for journalism, but never pursued it as a career. I don’t regret not going into that field, but I do miss the energy of a newsroom. While in college, my journalism teacher (there was only one, literally, and his name was Dr. Robert Cole) had us write obituaries. Now, I don’t remember the ones I wrote, but I do remember one that he read to us. It was the first time I understood how obits were more than something sad. That obit was written by Edna Buchanan. That lede!

I have to admit that, even before the movie was over, I started writing my obit in my head. Once you watch the movie, I bet you’ll write yours, too.

🚀 I worry about getting older. Not scary health things (though I’ve had at least one I remember and I guess they do worry me), but I’m more worried about the everyday. You know, walking, hearing, etc. I’ve been fortunate that I can still walk wherever I want in any condition I’ve ever been able to walk in, but one thing that is bothering me is hearing.

I swear I can hear things drips and weird mechanical issues and that gives me the impression my hearing isn’t gone gone. But, boy, watching new TV shows… I can’t hear. I crank the volume, I rewind and, still, nothing. Thank goodness for closed captions (aka, subtitles).

I’m watching the original Star Trek series and I can hear everything just fine. What’s changed?

Postscript. My son and I visited the National Air and Space Museum and got to see the Enterprise. THE model used on the TV show. It was great.

🏫 The GOP is not working towards a better America. The GOP is working towards a dumber, more ignorant, more at-risk America. An America where they can continue to take advantage of the less educated (and, really, all of us).

📻 The splintering of podcasting is here and it’s disheartening.

👳🏽‍♀️ The president’s attack against Ilhan Omar is awful, yet predictable. Still, it’s gross, reprehensible, and only aimed at riling up people to harm her. If I was from Minnesota I would be proud she’s my representative. Since I’m not, I’m proud she is an honest member of Congress who is fighting to fix the wrongs she sees. She’s smart and strong and we need that in our government more than ever.

🛠 Now that Lisa Jackson has gone on the record saying Apple wants its products to last longer (iOS 12 kicked serious ass on that front), it’s time to address the areas that often need repairing: screens, batteries, ports, and cameras. Don’t get me started on the whole notebook keyboard mess Apple’s gotten itself into.

Apple needs to get ahead of this so that replacing the battery in an iPhone or iPad doesn’t involve heating pads and suction cups.

It’s only a matter of time before the Right to Repair movement takes hold and lots of consumers find their products very difficult to repair. To the point where folks begin to consider what to buy with the idea of repair in mind.

🤭 I finally decided, after years, that Instagram doesn’t make me happy. At least when I follow people I know. So I unfollowed people and now follow accounts of non people (mostly).

What’s weird is I still like these people. I guess I don’t like the world they present? I feel bad about it, but it it’s how I feel.

My mom and I didn’t get much time together as adults. Well, as two adults. So I never got a lot of wisdom that I was able to take with me into my adulthood. I do remember two things she said to me in regards to politics (and it wasn’t a ‘sit-down’ kinda talk, just matter-of-factly as she went about her life… these were not said at the same time): The Kennedys were no good (since they didn’t follow the laws the rest of us followed) and Jimmy Carter was a good man and good president.

Fast forward to today. Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter live a simple life decades after being in the White House. This shouldn’t be astonishing.

But then I read this…

The Democratic former president decided not to join corporate boards or give speeches for big money because, he says, he didn’t want to “capitalize financially on being in the White House.”

… And I’m astonished. Jimmy Carter stands for everything this country, currently, is not. But it used to and still can again.

🗽 If voting is to be meaningful, here’s what America would do in regards to voting:

• Have same day registration
• Abolish electoral college
• Voting age lowered to 16

These things scare the hell out of politicians and I can’t imagine any of these happening in the next 20 years (let alone all of these things happening). I guess we can check back for 2040.

📰 I sure do like all the new doodads Apple has been releasing lately, but I think this is likely to have a bigger and better long-term impact.

🤮 I remain completely confident that Facebook will go down as a net negative on the world. Twitter too. It’s not that social media is bad, it’s that these companies are bad.

🖥 When there’s a big acquisition like Amazon buying Eero (sigh), there’s always talk about FAANG buying up small companies and ruining them.

But when I look through Apple’s acquisitions, I can’t find one that remotely caused outrage or concern like the Eero purchase. Did I miss it?

Why does Apple get lumped into this group when they don’t behave in the same way?

📱 I know Apple is a big corporation that I clearly have too much invested in (mentally and otherwise), but I do appreciate the fact that of all the big tech giants, Apple is the easiest to walk away from.

Critics of the big tech companies are often told, “If you don’t like the company, don’t use its products.” I did this experiment to find out if that is possible, and I found out that it’s not—with the exception of Apple.

With the exception of Apple.

I’ve said this for years and I’ve gotten nothing but scorn from friends and colleagues. I don’t imagine this linked article will help because it seems like minds can’t be changed nowadays. Anyway, to me, this all still keeps me in the decision-maker’s chair and shows that Apple still has to win my business each time something new comes along.

📺 I’m now following all the cast members of Travelers on Instagram in some weird way, I guess, to hang on to the show a little longer. But rather than being sad the show is over, I’m just going with the idea they’re all just following Protocol 5.

👩 Casey Smitherman did the right thing and if she gets any punishment for this, well… It’s horseshit. This is the kind of action I would want a person who is watching over my children to take.

Ms Smitherman, you did the right thing.

👏 Now this is how to write about these bullshit Apple stories. It’s like arguing with much of the right now: It’s not in good faith.

We know why: these articles aren’t trying to establish a pattern of accurate, reliable reporting; they’re merely fluff content blown out to induce outrage in order to drive the social media engagement that supports their surveillance advertising clickbait revenue model.

Well done, Mr. Dilger.

👩🏻‍🎤 I bumped into my son’s kindergarten teacher the other night. At the time my son was in kindergarten, I had a very flexible schedule and was able to spend quite a bit of time in the room helping the teachers at lunch time, etc. Seeing the teacher brought back memories that mixed with my time in my son’s classroom as well as my time as a student. Seeing her really mixed with my memories as if she had been my teacher. Some of my fondest memories in my entire life come from that time in my son’s kindergarten’s classroom.

Teachers are under appreciated, underpaid, and under valued. I love teachers at every level, but elementary school teachers are my most favorite.

👩‍⚕️ A lot of people are talking about Apple’s next big thing. Many people are claiming there’ll be nothing as big as the iPhone. It’s a good argument. A portable computer that came around at just the right time with just the right capabilities at a somewhat affordable price is hard to beat.

I do think there’s a next big thing. But it’s already here.

It’s clear that Apple is really putting a lot of effort into the Apple Watch. Like the iPhone, it’s named purely for acceptance reasons. And, again, like the iPhone, it could easily be named iPod because of all the things it can do. Sure, one could argue the Apple Watch is used more to tell the time than the iPhone is used for phone calls, but I’m comfortable saying the Apple Watch is a sleeper device. Named as such only to make it easier for us neophytes to accept.

The Apple Watch can show you the weather, let you read and send messages, play your music and podcasts, and, yeah, make phone calls. It can also tell summon help if you’ve fallen. It can even tell you if it thinks your heart is acting oddly. Today. That’s all available today. The next version will have another sensor. And the following year as well (along with improved sensors we’re using today).

I see a future where more and more people have an Apple Watch because, while there may be credible competition, who in the world are you going to trust with your health information? Huawei? Samsung? Google? Please.

🎥 I just saw the latest Spider-Man movie with my son. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is such a fun, incredibly well-made movie that I’m labeling it a must see. I’m not the biggest fan of the whole super hero thing, but if I’m picking one super hero, I’d pick Spider-Man.

Really, go see it.

💔 I gotta wonder how well this article from The Verge is going to age.

Because I can’t imagine this story about the Apple Watch will be the only one we end up reading. See?

📲 Apple so needs to up its game when it comes to the App Store. This kind of crap is exactly what shouldn’t be in the App Store and, if it’s going to be, then let me take my chances side loading apps (which I know Apple won’t allow). So up your game, Apple.

👩🏽‍🦰 We’re going to impeach the motherfucker?! Oh no, get me to the fainting couch, stat!

How awesome 1) there is video of it and 2) She is not backing down or apologizing for it!

I still stand by my idea, however, that I’d trade a Trump impeachment for Paul Ryan being in jail forever. Now that I think about it more, the MSM is culpable when it comes to Ryan. They took everything that liar said and ran with it. Never, ever questioned the hows.

📷 I know it’s incredibly old school and kinda weird, but I’ve been so happy messing around with my photo blog (an import of Instagram) that I want to pick up my camera again (yeah, the camera I knew would get all dusty from disuse).