The U.S. has been shaken by the repeal of the judicial precedent set by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. If you spend any amount of time online, you can't escape opinions on the subject. It's remarkable how many people quickly become subject-matter experts about the topic of the latest topic du jour. The leaked draft of the ruling was partly the impetus for me to write this blog post a couple of months ago.
In a recent newsletter, Adam Wood proposed something called "Finest Hour." The project was to create an hour-long playlist from a favorite artist. He placed special emphasis on the process of track selection and sequencing. I was intrigued by the idea. This exercise might have been more fun in the days of cassette tapes, when you truly would be limited by the constraints of the physical medium itself. The project would take a lot longer, but the challenge itself would be more rewarding.
The heat is on. While we have successive heat waves sweeping across the U.S., I'm thinking about a conversation with a colleague who is from India. People there used to keep doors and windows open a lot of the time, but now they can't because it's just too hot. Remembering that conversation brings to mind a column Ezra Klein recently wrote about climate change.
Over the past few years, I’ve been asked one question more than any other.
I wrote about the sci-fi successor to the fantasy tabletop RPG Ironsworn in the Week on the Web newsletter a few months ago. Starforged has now been officially releases in digital form, with pre-orders for the hard copy being taken as well. The worldbuilding for this game looks fantastic, and its influences are an enticing mix of sci-fi fantasy universes.
Inspiration comes from the quest-driven stories of The Mandalorian, the lived-in aesthetic and fantasy-infused trappings of the original Star Wars trilogy, the workaday exploits of Firefly, the isolated horror of Alien, the mysticism and faction politics of Dune, the retro-tech and desperation of Battlestar Galactica's modern reboot, the cosmic mysteries and class struggles of The Expanse, and the gonzo adventures and fantastic locations of Guardians of the Galaxy.
I sent out a note last Sunday about switching my blogging to a self-hosted solution. It was a lot of work getting things setup, but once I did, I felt like I was good to go. Then, as soon as I sent out a newsletter about the change, I started having numerous issues with reliability, availability, and performance. Those were mitigated by increasing my hardware and putting a proxy in front of the blog.
I posted a video from Atlanta's Bailey Crone, AKA Bathe Alone, just a few months ago. I had to share the video from one of her more recent singles, though, because it's one of my favorite songs this year. The song, which was written after Crone practically kidnapped her best friend and took her to a Beach House show seven hours away, sounds wistful and mature. The video is just fun and sweet.
I wanted to let everyone know that there have been some changes to the blog. Frosted Echoes has gone back to being self-hosted in order to get the capability to expand the vision of the site a bit. I was bouncing back and forth between Ghost Pro and Micro.blog and both were a bit limiting in their own ways. Self-hosting a blog is more work, but it's worth it to someone as particular about blogging as I am.
Ever since she showed up in the band TOPS, I've thought Marta Cikojevic looked like a 70's icon. Had she been alive at the time, she could have played Kristen Shepard of "Who Shot J.R.?" fame on Dallas. If that didn't work out, she might have been one of Charley's Angels. So it was no surprise when Cikojevic unleashed a solo project under the name Marci and it sounded like a record that would have been in rotation at Studio 54.
I have been growing increasingly frustrated with Apple lately. Apple is a giant company now, as compared to the scrappy upstart they were when I started using their computers in 2005 upon my return to college. A lot has changed. Their workforce and market cap are massive. They are always plowing forward at breakneck speed now, sometimes at the expense of their users and their products.
Screen TimeThe first thoughts I had following the Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference Keynote this week centered around iPadOS 16.
A colleague was just telling me about how he hasn't watched the news in approximately three years. He found himself getting so agitated by both sides of the political spectrum and the way the news was presented, that he just quit cold turkey. He feels like he's much happier for the change, and his wife fills him in if something major happens.
It seems as if I'm hearing about more and more people who decide that giving up social media is not enough to keep their frustration in check.
