My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on June 22, 2015

Taylor 2.0 … on his way to work (left).

Monday, June 22, 2015, is my son’s first day as Planner for Clermont County, Ohio. Hopefully the last two years of high paced work in Williston, North Dakota have set him up well? He should be the perfect fit … but every new position has its challenges. I’ll be anxious to hear how it goes.

I’m also going to include a photo recap of our busy Father’s Day. I spent some of the day with my son (Brenda and Mom Howard) down at his place in East Walnut Hills (Cincinnati) and part of it with my Dad in Sidney … and the balance of the day driving back and forth. Thankfully in today’s connected world, I was also able to also talk with Katelyn and Drew in Wayzata, MN – thanks for the Happy Father’s Day call (she work the day so it would not have mattered even if she were living close).

Category: Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: brenda, drew, east walnut hills, family, katelyn, momh, taylor

Posted By RichC on June 21, 2015

I’m looking forward to visiting with my dad today and am thankful to still be able to visit with him for another Father’s Day. It’s been a busy year for my brother and me between the concern over him living alone last year, to the hospital stay, rehab and month or so in the nursing home earlier this year. I’m thankful things have settle down and both ‘he’ and ‘we’ are pretty satisfied with the Park Lane assisted living facility and staff in Sidney, Ohio.

Unfortunately … with the staff being relatively new, and the assisted living facility only a year old, a few items are getting overlooked. This really shouldn’t be the case considering the fairly steep monthly cost. Hopefully this will steadily improve.

It take a little more vigilance on our part to be sure his care is what it should be … especially since dad’s mind is in and out of focus and sharpness is not what it use to be. Dementia, for millions of aging seniors, is a debilitating condition. For now I’m just content to know my dad understand he needs the help and  is mostly appreciative for the assistance.

BTW, Happy Father’s Day to all dads.

Category: Holiday, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: dadc, dementia, family, fathers day, lane park, sidney

Posted By RichC on June 20, 2015

Users had some fun with a few of the Twitter Periscope programmers this past week in participating in their Mad Libs update copy for the App Store. In keeping with geeky humor (see the “Peter” joke), the jovial staff decided to include 900 of their users in the live update of Periscope Version 1.1.1. Each of the words and names included were pick from “live” scope and used in the Apple App Store description.

I enjoyed seeing my “YeeHaw!” exclamation include as it was great fun, even for an old self-proclaimed techie … on the other hand, Mad Libs predates me!

Periscope

By Twitter, Inc.

Editors’ Choice

View More by This Developer

 

Description

Periscope lets you broadcast live video to the world. Going live will instantly notify your followers who can join, comment and send you hearts in real time. The more hearts you get, the higher they flutter on the screen.

Other features:
[+] REPLAY: When your broadcast is over, you can make it available for replay so viewers can watch later. Viewers can replay your broadcast with comments and hearts to relive the full experience. Replays currently last 24 hours. You can delete your replay at any time.
[+] PRIVATE: If you want to broadcast to specific people, press the lock icon before going live and choose who you want to invite to your broadcast.
[+] TWITTER: You can choose to share your Periscope broadcasts on Twitter by tapping the bird icon before you start broadcasting. When you go live, you’ll tweet a link so that your Twitter followers can watch on the web (or in the app)
[+] MANAGE NOTIFICATIONS: Periscope will suggest people for you to follow based on your Twitter network. You can always follow new people, or unfollow them if you don’t want to be notified when they go live. You can also adjust notification preferences in Periscope Settings (in Profile)
[+] HEARTS: Periscope keeps track of how many hearts you get from your viewers. The more hearts, the higher you get in the “Most Loved” list.

Twitter, Inc. Web SitePeriscope Support

What’s New in Version 1.1.1

Mad Libs for this version were •lovely• composed LIVE by Periscope’s •flower• community:
[+] The next time you think, “•Yeehaw!• If Mrs. •Andie• •Pennington• misses this, she’ll •jump•…”, fear not! You can now copy the share URL for any live broadcast/replay and •squat• it directly to her.
[+] Are you sometimes confused when tapping your •deltoids• to •frolic• hearts alongside countless others? It’s now easier to distinguish your own hearts from everyone else’s.
Other •adorable• changes:
– Improvements to how we sync comments for replays.
– Fixed a weird rotation bug that was happening for certain iPad users.
– Fixed a bug where you couldn’t double tap to flip the camera while broadcasting (if you were on the list of viewers)
– Fixed a bug where "blank" broadcasts would occasionally appear at (0,0) on the map.
– Fixed a bug where the in broadcast map would not be centered on the broadcaster’s location.
– Fixed some crashes that were happening to users on the map.
Have •foxes• or •nuclei•? We love hearing from you. Get help at help.periscope.tv.

Category: Apple, Humor, Social Media, Software, Technology | 1 Comment »
Tags: app store, fun, periscope, programmers, twitter, update

Posted By RichC on June 19, 2015

Plugins for CMS like WordPress are a dime a dozen and many improve the look and use of a WordPress.org blog, but usually at a sacrifice of speed. Recommending them is not usually something I would do … believing that a lean and fast site is better than bulky and slow sites. Unfortunately I’ve fallen prey to a few of them and find the slower speed is secondary to the convenience they add to the blog.

This week I added a plugin that improves “how” a site loads called A3 Lazy Load and it has been working well by prioritizing what is loaded on a page (ie. what you see visually and delaying images and video). It is particularly helpful when accessing MyDesultoryBlog with a mobile device (FYI, I removed the WordPress Mobile Edition after several years, finding most smart devices do a pretty good job with full sites nowadays).

So if you are running WordPress, give this plugin a try, but only AFTER you remove the plugins that are slowing your site down. Try running P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler) temporarily … (yes, another plugin), to analyze your site’s performance.

EDIT: After about a month of testing with this plug-in and switching to without, the consensus is that 90% of the time the sites seems faster or at least better without the delayed loading of content. Deactivated and removed A3 Lazy Load.

Category: Blogs, Technology | 2 Comments »
Tags: blog, cms, plugin, tech friday, techfriday, wordpress

Posted By RichC on June 18, 2015

For those who carry or admire those multi-folding tools like the Swiss Army knives and tools (like me), here’s something that pre-dates the popular red ones that many of us carry from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, UK. This multi-function spoon, fork, knife and picks “eating implement” was made from iron and silver and was used by the Romans between 201 – 300 AD. See the museum LINK.

Category: Art, History, Tools | No Comments »
Tags: army, england, knife, museum, roman, swiss, tool

Posted By RichC on June 18, 2015

Needed a filler post for Thursday

Category: Misc | No Comments »
Tags: eyes, eyesight, filler, teaser

Posted By RichC on June 17, 2015

Now I’ll be the first to admit, I spend too much time agonizing over purchasing things wondering if I’m buying the right model or brand … and am I paying too much. The Internet has only complicated matters since there is even more information to process. It’s the same thing when booking travel … although with travel/airfare the saving is not a couple dollar difference between models or brands … but $hundreds$ between flights and airlines.

Thankfully a few travel sites and blogs have helped by analyzing their collected data on price and time. The prevailing wisdom (at least for 2015) is to buy 47 days in advance and to shop on Tuesday afternoon.

Currently, I’m looking to book flights for a trip to see my daughter and son-in-law in Minneapolis later this summer; we’ve pretty much blocked out the travel weekend after coordinating our schedules (not the easiest of tasks in itself). A quick look at the flights for my favorite airline – Southwest – had me ready to book tickets, when my wife let me know that she didn’t want any connections (I’m sure she was thinking about Taylor’s recent fiasco returning from overseas).

So back to the higher priced non-stop Delta flights and deciding whether or not to burn our Skymiles on this trip rather than the overpriced“basic economy” tickets. By the way, those “basic economy” tickets are the no-change, non-refundable, no-seat selection, back of the plane cattle section seats … although for $40 they’ll give you the privilege (#sarcasm) of picking one of the few available, rear of the plane, “ tiny” seats. (how much more uncomfortable can it get? — don’t ask).

Back to the struggle to save a penny or two. I’m thinking that it might be worth spending 50,000 miles … but would really like to save those for a special longer domestic flight or maybe an upgrade when we go overseas again?

Decisions, decisions?

Category: Aviation, Personal, Shopping, Travel | 2 Comments »
Tags: airlines, booking, decisions, delta, flights, southwest, Travel

Posted By RichC on June 16, 2015

By default, Twitter now plays video as you scroll through posts. This can both be a bit annoying and will use data, especially on you mobile device with minimal data. To turn off the “autoplay” feature, go to the setting menu on the mobile Twitter app (currently Apple iOS devices only) and “check” either Use Wi-Fi only or Never play videos automatically – the feature is “on by default.”

Introducing a more seamless video experience with autoplay

It used to be that watching a video on Twitter required several taps. So when something was unfolding in real time, be it an NBA finals game, your favorite TV show or breaking news, that extra effort meant you could miss something that you care about. Over the past year we’ve made several changes to improve how you share, discover and watch videos, such as reducing the number of taps it takes to play a video, introducing a native mobile camera and bringing videos and Vines front and center in your timeline.

Today, it’s become even easier to enjoy video on Twitter. Now native videos, Vines and GIFs will begin to play back automatically.

More

Category: Apple, Social Media, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: apple, autoplay, ios, ipad, iphone, settings, twitter

Posted By RichC on June 16, 2015

The photo above is not mine (thankfully) but from a sailing aquaintance anchoring in SE Asia. He has been noticing fairly rapid chain corrosion in only 3 years and in particular on his anchor shackle. It spends a significant amount of time under the saltwater and we suspect that the shackle of inferior grade — either the galvanizing of the shackle or steel grade used to make it … or both.

So before purchasing inexpensive chain, anchors or shackles from sources unknown, realize that sometimes it comes back to bite you.

I mentioned that I have a similar situation with the chain on Encore. Both ends of my 80 feet of chain has a “questionable” link … one that is about 4 feet from the anchor shackle and those two links (and only two links) have rusted substantially more than the others. I had thought it may have been the link which came in contact with the windlass gypsy, but at 4' from the shackle this doesn't make sense. So I'd like to figure this out before starting the upgrade process. Any thoughts?

Category: Sailing | No Comments »
Tags: anchor, chain, corrosion, encore, rust, sailboat, shackle

Posted By RichC on June 15, 2015

With the stock market opening off 150 points or so this Monday morning, the short sellers are having their way with the social networking stock of Twitter. TWTR is down 3.8% to $34.50 as of 11AM. What is it going to take to see this commercially and widely used service change direction … or will it just need to be acquired by a company that can better manage and grow the user base?

Category: Financial, Social Media | No Comments »
Tags: $TWTR, investing, network, social, stocks, twitter