Playing around again with the Hugo static site generator

Jack Baty converted his eponymous site to Hugo, and I liked the look, and decided to think of a reason to try out his theme. I decided to create two linkblogs, one for personal links and one for liveblogging the Trump administration. In the spirit of “imperfect progress is still progress”, I am declaring the sites live, they need work, but I got something out there, at least one post each – yay!

A short review of the Huffduffer podcast feed service

Recently, I posted some ideas about podcast subscription lists/listening lists, and one of my readers (John Johnston) suggested I look at the Huffduffer podcast feed service. I found out that I already had an account – amazing! Must have forgotten!

I tried it this evening. After I logged in, I clicked on the “Huffduff it!” button at the top of the page. This took me to another page which had text boxes for the audio URL, title, description, and tags. I filled in the fields and saw a file added to the previous file that I had “huffduffed”. I then took the feed URL, and was able to subscribe to it to PocketCasts, and to listen to one of the files. Bing!

This service provides the basic functionality of creating a feed from audio files, and also hosts the feed, so the user does not have to provide any hosting. Nice! In the next few days, I will review some other services that I discovered after Huffduffer. Many thanks to John Johnston for mentioning the Huffduffer service.

The perfect response to Trump’s territorial trolling

Via Brian Beutler, the response from the Mexican President on convicted felon Donald Trump’s idea of changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America:

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum suggested Wednesday that the United States revert to a historic name for the territory, America Mexicana, in a clapback at President-elect Donald Trump’s proposal to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico.

And on the subject of making Canada the 51st state of the United States, MP Elizabeth May puts forth a proposal for Washington, Oregon, and California to become the 11th province of Canada:

Take that, Mr. Convicted Felon!

Music is a robust language

I sing in a church choir, one which typically sings four-part harmony. For many hymns, we start in unison for verse 1, then add parts in later verses. Sometimes, my fellow tenor and I will try to sing our part, but decide to shift to unison. Sometimes, when I sing, I sing the wrong pitch, or the wrong words. However, the music goes on – in general, the choir continues singing. Even in cases where the director may make a change (going to another verse due to the entrance of the priest not being complete), the choir follows, using their musicality to keep the music going.

In all these instances, the printed music provides the framework for the musical performance. As a counter-point, source code for computer software is a fragile language – one semi-colon out of place and everything stops…

The sentencing of Donald Trump

Today, Donald Trump was sentenced for his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records to interfere with the 2016 US presidential election.

Coverage: (CNN – Takeaways) (CNN – live blog) (CNN – audio of hearing) (MSNBC – audio of hearing) (USA Today – article and downloadble audio) (CBS – audio excerpts from hearing).

I listened to the USA Today audio (download), it was a little clearer than the audio file provided by the NY State Unified Court System (download). I am providing the USA Today audio download in a player at the end of this post.

Here are my notes of the hearing:

  • Counsel introductions (People and Defense)
  • Both sides are reviewing the probation report, neither side had anything to add to the record
  • Clerk informed People and Defense that they could make statements before sentencing
  • People/Josh Steinglass
    • People recommend unconditional discharge
    • Reviewed how Trump showed no remorse and threatened to retaliate against prosecutors in this case
    • Jury reached a unanimous verdict
    • Probation report says defendant sees himself as “above the law”
    • Must be mindful of the office of the presidency
  • Todd Blanche
    • Disagrees with what the government just said
    • Case should not have been brought
    • We will seek an appeal
  • Donald Trump
    • Very terrible experience
    • Political witch hunt
    • Lots of complaints
    • DOJ is very involved
    • I won the election
    • This is a weaponization of government
    • I was treated very unfairly
  • Juan Merchan
    • Wishes to explain reasoning for sentencing decision
    • A judge must decide what is correct sentence
    • Court must consider the facts of the case and any other mitigating circumstances
    • Extraordinary circumstances involved in this case
    • One power that the presidency does not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict
    • Pronounced sentence of unconditional discharge

Court Documents