Random Learnings #43
Lebensraum is often attributed to Hitler and the Nazis as a component of Germany's imperial and racist visions towards the east, and contributed to the Holocaust as killing the Jews…
Luddite Technologist
Saw this sticker on someone's computer at my local coffee shop and laughed. My life as a confirmed technology nerd is countered by my love of physical books. Unlike my…
Windows IRL #3
from Craig Hettich/The New York Times video Today, the largest IT outage in history hit the Windows operating system when a Crowdstrike patch caused reboots to fail. Catastrophic. While this…
Duct Tape
Today I was called out as my team's duct tape. Intended as a compliment, it's anything but. Culturally, duct tape is vernacular for a fix-anything solution, which is completely justified.…
Duquesne Incline
The Duquesne Incline is one of two remaining funiculars that ascend Mount Washington in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Opening in 1877, it originally carried cargo up the hill but quickly expanded to…
Allegheny County Courthouse
My wife and I made our first trip to Pittsburgh, and our hotel was just outside the Liberty area near Steel Plaza. After one of our outings, our bus didn't…
Random Learnings #42
In an article on The Guardian, a women describes her mother's abusive boyfriend and the impact on her and her mother's life. Ultimately, her mother dies - it's unclear whether…
Meandering Thoughts #34
Did Star Trek - intentionally or not - create the Borg phrase Resistance is futile from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Vogons? Compare and contrast: "Resistance is useless!" shouted…
Old-School Advertising
The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum displays era-appropriate advertising in their restored trolleys. Besides providing a real feel to what the passengers saw at the time, it also shows how society has…
Six Degrees of Separation II
A followup to my previous post My Six Degrees of Separation. Martin Luther King, Jr. AFP via Getty Images George Raveling was the University of Iowa's men's basketball coach during…