📻 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:

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).