“Microsoft Word is a tyrant of the imagination, a petty, unimaginative, inconsistent dictator that is ill-suited to any creative writer’s use. Worse: it is a near-monopolist, dominating the word processing field. Its pervasive near-monopoly status has brainwashed software developers to such an extent that few can imagine a word processing tool that exists as anything other than as a shallow imitation of the Redmond Behemoth. But what exactly is wrong with it?”
Blogging coming back in style?
David Heinemeier Hansson (creator of Ruby on Rails, Founder & CTO at Basecamp) is leaving Medium for… a WordPress blog.
“Writing for us is not a business, in any direct sense of the word. We write because we have something to say, not to make money off page views, advertisements, or subscriptions.”
“Beyond that, though, we’ve grown ever more aware of the problems with centralizing the internet. Traditional blogs might have swung out of favor, as we all discovered the benefits of social media and aggregating platforms, but we think they’re about to swing back in style, as we all discover the real costs and problems brought by such centralization.”
“With the new take, we’re also trying to bring more of a classic SvN style back to the site. Not just big, marque pieces, but lots of smaller observations, quotes, links, and other posts as well. In fact, the intention is to lessen our dependency on Twitter too, and simply turn Signal v Noise into the independent home for all our thoughts and ideas – big or small.”
I’ve been seeing articles (posts?) on Medium for six or seven years but never paid much attention. Here’s the Wikipedia page.
Cool&Vintage: 1983 Land Rover 110 V8
All my health data on iPhone app
I’ve never paid much attention (or used) the Health app on my iPhone. Apple says it “consolidates health data from iPhone, Apple Watch, and third-party apps” to do all kinds of stuff. It has a “Health Records” section that I never did anything with until a couple of days ago when I learned I could sync my records (University of Missouri Health Care) to the Apple Health app.
I have about ten years of records stored in the MU Health system and can get to them via browser or iPhone app. But it took a little digging and I rarely had the need.
Within minutes all of my data was pulled into the phone app and I mean everything. More than 600 records (I’ve been pretty healthy). Immunizations, lab results, medications… the works. And much easier to navigate than the website and app I’d been using. So now I have all of my health records right there on my phone. Additional info.
Land Rover 4WD: LOW RANGE!
I think I understood the concept behind the high range/low range gear lever on my Land Rover. But I had never had a real opportunity to use it this weekend’s snow (about a foot).
Went down the hill in 4WD (high). Came back up in 4WD (low) and it finally clicked for me. I need to remember to engage these gear combinations from time to time to make sure all the doodads are working.



