Today I learned that if you hover over the total number of emails in your Gmail inbox, you can select to go to the oldest entry in the inbox. Neat!

Starting off the year 2020 – My Three Words

As I came to work this morning, I began to think about how to start the New Year. Over the Christmas break, I did some listening/reading at Sean McCabe’s website on writing (It All Starts With Writing, podcast episodes 39, 139, 303). I would like to do more writing in 2020. I also listened to an Akimbo episode on “showing your work“. Harold Jarche (Seek-Sense-Share) and Dave Winer (Narrate Your Work) are other views on this topic.

Other thoughts that I had:

  • If you keep doing the same things, you will get the same results
  • Failing to plan means planning to fail

After this reflection, I think the three words I would like to guide my year (following Ron Chester’s example) is – Read Write Help.

 

Testing upgrade to WordPress 5.3.2

I was trying to use some IndieWeb plugins (Post Kinds in particular), but had not updated my site in a while (I think I was at 4.7.13). I took a look at Chris Aldrich’s site and saw that he was using WP version 5.3.2, so I decided to make the jump. Overall, the upgrade went smoothly. I downloaded the Classic Editor plugin so that the Post Kinds plugin would work. I was also prompted to update all of my existing IndieWeb plugins. After all of that, I still had some problems with the Post Kinds plugin for the Read post kind (I was not seeing the Post Properties window within the Admin interface. I started to write a Github issue, but then went back to a Chris Aldrich post on the Post Kinds plugin, and saw that I wrote a comment on that post about this problem. Chris replied with a suggestion to  click on the Screen Options tab in the top right hand corner of the admin UI and then check the Response Properties box. That worked!

So far, so good….

Boeing still having troubles with 737-MAX

In recent news:

  • The FAA reinforces that there is no date for the return to service of the 737-MAX aircraft (USA Today)
  • Boeing announces a temporary pause in 737-MAX production starting January 1, 2019 (USA Today)
  • Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenberg is fired by the Boeing Board of Directors and current board member David Calhoun is named as CEO effective January 13, 2020 (Chicago Tribune, CNN)

It will be interesting to see the effect of the 737-MAX pause on Boeing’s suppliers. In November 2019, Kelly Ortberg said that Collins Aerospace is seeing improvement in aftermarket sales for other Boeing 737 variants due to the 737-MAX service delays. However, the New York Times also had a followup report in November 2019 on the extent to which Collins Aerospace is involved in MCAS software development and UTC involvement in the angle of attack sensor from Rosemount Aerospace, a UTC company (as well as Collins Aerospace being owned by UTC).

Sounds of the 2019 Christmas season

On Christmas Eve, I read a post by Brad Enslen referring to a post from his archive. It was an excerpt from Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. I then found the home page of the Kings College Lessons and Carols site. This year’s performance was broadcast by BBC Radio 4, and can be heard here. A local copy is also here.

Brad also had a  link to several Christmas albums created by users of the Garritan Personal Orchestra software, Here are links to the 10th and 11th editions:

Finally, the Christmas Eve service at our church had prelude music in a jazz style by members of the Resurrection Catholic Parish Music Ministry. The group included Marcus Reynolds on piano, Steve Cook on trumpet, Jeff Akin on drums, and Matt Holmes on bass.  The set included “The Christmas Song” by Mel Torme, O Christmas Tree, Silent Night, and What Child is This.

Their performance appears above (live and uncut). Enjoy these sounds of this year’s Christmas season – and Brad, thanks for getting this post started!

 

 

Editing Issue in WordPress – Right to Left Text Display

A few weeks ago, I was editing a post in the WordPress Classic Editor (WordPress v4.7.1). After about 2 paragraphs, I accidentally touched the trackpad on my laptop, or did something with the mouse, and then noticed that the editor was behaving strangely. As I was typing, the new text was appearing in a right-to-left direction instead of left-to-right direction.

My first response was to check the INS/DEL keyboard keys, but that did not correct the problem. I then copied the text into a new post, but the problem remained. I then switched from Visual mode to Text mode in the WordPress post editor, and saw some extra elements in the paragraph tag (like the ones in this W3Schools page). When I deleted all the extra text in the paragraph tag, the editor started working as expected again.

Has this ever happened to any other WordPress user? I would like to know….

 

In The Car Podcast Episode 4 – Home Impeachment Edition

In this episode of the In The Car Podcast, I sing a song about the impeachment of Donald Trump. The episode was recorded on December 19th, but I had to do a little editing and was not able to complete that until today.

The tune is “The Christmas Song” by Robert Wells and Mel Torme, new lyrics are as shown below:

The Impeachment Song

Donald Trump wanted to inflict some pain

On Joe Biden, yes, his biggest foe

A perfect phone call with the head of Ukraine

And a chance to make a quid pro quo

 

Everybody knew they had to start the coverup

Hide the transcript as quickly as they could

But then a whistleblower stood and spoke up

That Trump did not act like he should

 

The House began to join the fray

By calling witnesses who had a lot to say

And after several weeks, they found the truth

That everyone was in the loop

 

And so our country had a choice to make

To figure out what we had to do

For Donald Trump, after solemn debate

It’s impeachment for you