Becoming a retirement foodie

After starting my retirement, I recently noticed an article in one of my New York Times newsletters about Tina Fey, stating she only knows how to cook three things, and one of them was a soup recipe (Lemony White Bean Soup with Turkey and Greens) from the New York Times. I was intrigued, so I tried to get the recipe, but found that I had to subscribe to the NYT Cooking app – ugh. I went ahead and did a 7-day free trial, then downloaded the recipe as well as another one I had seen in another NYT newsletter (Three-Cup Chicken). Both of them were smash hits!

At the same time I subscribed, I also signed up for all 4 NYT Cooking newsletters. One of the first to arrive was “28 No-Cook Recipes for a Heat Wave“. From this list, I made Chickpea Salad Sandwich this week, and it was another amazing success (3 for 3!)! Man, I’m on a roll!

Two more takes on “America The Beautiful”

I could not stop – I had to look for videos of the University of Texas Longhorn Band performing “America The Beautiful”. I found these two examples, both brought tears to my eyes.

December 1990, Texas vs. A&M football game at Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas, Wally Pryor announcing, Glenn Richter conducting the Longhorn Band

2011 UT Summer Band, Robert Carnochan conducting, Bates Recital Hall on the UT campus

Happy Birthday America!

I wish to share two musical selections that speak to this anniversary of the United States of America. The first is an arrangement of “America The Beautiful” for wind ensemble, by Carmen Dragon, performed here by the US Army Band:

I first performed this work in college in the University of Texas Longhorn Band. It always ended with a standing ovation by the fans in the stadium. Another special performance was at Quantico Marine Base in Washington DC in 1981 on the morning of Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural parade, as we were informed that the American hostages had been released by Iran. Since then, I have performed it multiple times in community bands. It is one of my all-time favorite concert band pieces.

Also, I would be remiss if I did not mention “The Stars and Stripes Forever” by John Philip Sousa. This is a performance by the US Marine Band:

This song is the official march of the United States of America, and it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law!

Should the software engineering profession pursue collective bargaining?

Greg Wilson, who has built a significant career in the field of software engineering, recently wrote a set of essays called “Sex and Drugs and Guns and Code” with the sub-title “a few things programmers should know about society to understand big tech, social media, and AI”. The essays cover a wide set of subjects, with this intent from the introduction: “The essays that follow will explore a few things I wish I had known earlier: where power comes from, how it is used, how its use is hidden, and how people have held the powerful accountable and made the world a fairer place.”. Greg also provides multiple references to other sources supporting the topics in the essays, which I greatly appreciate.

For today, I am going to point to one of the topics – collective bargaining. My experience in software engineering within the aerospace industry is that almost none of the engineers I worked with were part of a union. The only example I have heard of is an engineers union at Boeing, which is an affiliate of International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), AFL-CIO. In one of my previous companies, a co-worker made a comment about “we ought to start a union”. I said; “You say the word and I will call the AFL-CIO!”. When I checked into it though, we would have to get people to sign cards to indicate interest, then fight with management, etc. I told this to my friend, and he said “Sounds like too much work”, and that was the end of that.

Recently, I had lunch with a former colleague who is still working at one of my previous employers. His tales of office politics and lack of promotion opportunities made me glad that I was retired. I related the story I listed above, saying that it was an alternative to “stay or leave”. I am not sure if anything will come to it, but I felt the need to share.

I also told my friend about this series of essays – again, he did not express immediate interest, but I think I will send him a link. I think this paragraph from the essay “When The Algorithm Comes for You” is appropriate, given that AI is transforming the software engineering industry (bold text is my addition):

In 2023, the Writers Guild of America struck for five months over issues that included AI. When the strike ended, the WGA had won explicit contract language: AI cannot write or rewrite scripts, and scripts cannot be used to train AI systems. The Screen Actors Guild reached a parallel agreement that included restrictions on the digital replication of performers’ likenesses without ongoing consent [Kelly2022]. These victories established enforceable contractual limits on what employers could do with AI—limits that individual workers negotiating alone could never have secured. The lesson is not specific to Hollywood: wherever workers have collective bargaining rights, they can negotiate from a position of strength. Professional associations, open-source communities, and standards bodies can create analogous leverage in sectors where formal unions are absent or weak.

Since my retirement, I have had time to reflect about my career, the difficulties and successes, and how I could have approached things differently. I think I will add that topic to my “Future Essays” list….

What are the attributes of a “social platform”?

On June 28, 2026, Dave Winer put out a call for social web app developers to work with him if they are including inbound and outbound RSS in their apps. Manton Reece from Micro.blog referenced this in a post on Micro.blog, and had this statement: “I’m actually not aware of any social platforms that support inbound RSS except Micro.blog. It would be great to have more.”. Dave Winer then responded on Micro.blog as follows (partial quote):

I want a world of social platforms that support inbound RSS

Those two posts caught my eye, specifically the word “platform”. Why did they choose the word “platform”? That made me wonder – is this really a call for “centralized” services like Bluesky/Mastodon to add inbound RSS (to allow users to post within these services as “first class citizens” (as if they were posting within official apps for Bluesky/Mastodon))? In earlier comments on this topic, I wrote:

I have addressed this second objection before, stating “What is in it for the “other people’s software developers to add inbound and outbound RSS support”? My answer is – nothing – no users are demanding this – no users are clamoring for a RSS-based “social network” that can communicate as a peer with other social network software.

I had developed a web app in 2023 called MyStatusTool, and this app allows users to follow RSS feeds that support rssCloud (inbound RSS) and allows the user to create their own posts with a feed (outbound RSS). However, I had not thought about the following/display of other RSS feeds as “inbound RSS” until now.

I created this app because back in 2022, Dave Winer kept talking about creating an app that could do this, but he did not actually do anything about it, so I decided to do it! The one feature this app does not have is support for replies/following threads, which “platforms” like Bluesky, Mastodon, and Micro.blog support. Perhaps that is a key “attribute” of a “social platform”….

From recent posts, I am aware that Dave Winer is “working on something” with RSS and rssCloud to create some chat application. Hope he releases it soon! Hope it has inbound and outbound RSS!

How podcasting got its name

On June 24, 2026, Dave Winer pointed to a podcasting article in – wait for it – Glamour Magazine – and the South African version at that! Anyway, it gives a brief history of podcasting (mentioning Dave Winer and Adam Curry), but then says that Ben Hammersley coined the word “podcast”, and I felt that was incorrect. I reviewed the Podcast article on Wikipedia, and it mentions the Ben Hammersley article. I reviewed the archived article, from February 2004, and the word “Podcasting” appears within a list of possible names for what the act of podcasting is, but does not recommend/promote the use of the word “podcasting”.

Dave Winer has a page discussing how the people involved in podcasting started using the term in September 2004, and that it had been called “audioblogging” before that point. Wikipedia does mention some of the September 2004 events. From my review, I think that the September 2004 point is a better reference point for actual use of the terms “podcast” and “podcasting.