Review Review: Trader Joes Advent Calendar 2022 I haven't had a chocolate advent calendar in a long time. But Kari gave me one this year. Frances and Calvin also got one. Frances gave up on hers after about a week and a half and gave it to me. So then I had two advent calendars
Social Media Social media is a horrible waste of time Social media may prevent users from reaping creative rewards of profound boredom - new researchPandemic study shows distraction of social media may suck up the time and energy that allow us to find new passionsnew research Everyone spends their idle time looking at mostly nonsense on social media. No more
Social Media Facebook is probably a horrible company Notifications: why less is more — how Facebook has been increasing both user satisfaction and app…We are members of the Facebook Notifications Data Science team at Meta. We ran surveys on how users felt about on-site notifications…MediumAnalytics at Meta Why not let users actually determine the notifications they want?
Christmas Christmas light traffic 2022 Christmas was on Sunday this year. We had a QR code in the front of the house that people could scan and then vote for the show they wanted to see. Christmas Eve Eve (December 23rd) was the most crowded day. Traffic was lower on Christmas Eve and on Christmas
Review Review: Brown Family Lights The Brown Family Lights is a synchronized Christmas light show in Rancho Santa Margarita. I met Colin Brown who puts the show together a few years ago. It is on my list each year of must-visit lights. It is unique because it isn't just one house with lights
Review Review: Pacific Symphony Organ Spectacular 2022 Maybe this concert should have been called a trumpet spectacular. Barry Perkins is the principal trumpet player for the symphony and he was the real star of the show. The first act featured "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen and "Hallelujah" by Handel. So that was fun to
Review Review: Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree This book is one of our favorites to read in December. The premise is that Mr. Willowby has bought a Christmas tree but it is too tall for his room. So to fix the problem he chops off the top of the tree. The tree then magically looks fine and
Christmas RGB Christmas Lights on Garage Matrix We use a low density matrix of lights in front of our garage for our lightshow. There are 16 strands of 10 lights each. So just 160 lights. But they create a really neat effect. 0:00/1× Video showing how they look.
Review Review: Arby's Caramel Cinnamon Shake After the disappointing Chic-fil-a special shake I'm back reviewing another seasonal shake. The Caramel Cinnamon Shake from Arby's. I'm happy to say this shake is much much better than the Chic-fil-a autumn shake. It didn't taste too much like caramel. More like
Social Media More on fixing "social media" How to rebuild social media on top of RSSWe should look for ways to make reading, publishing, and community services all play nicely together. I’m calling this model “the unbundled web,” and I think RSS should be the primary method of interop.
Christmas Review: Laguna Niguel Christmas Parade I have gone to the Laguna Niguel Christmas Parade for a few years. I go because the kids are in the marching band but it is actually a nice parade. Even though almost every parade entry has something to do with Christmas they officially call it a "Holiday"
Christmas People voting on the light show People can scan a QR code in the front yard and then vote on the next song they see on the light show on the house this year. They pick Danger Zone from Top Gun over and over and over. It is definitely not a favorite for anyone who lives
Review SoFi NFL Game Review I attended my first NFL game on Thursday December 8. Raiders at Rams at SoFi stadium. 1. Football fans like to smoke a lot of pot. The entire outside of the stadium and a lot inside the stadium reeked of pot. 2. SoFi stadium is very beautiful. The architecture looked
Online shopping This is a lot of newsletters to subscribe to after ordering one item Online retailers are going overboard with the newsletter subscriptions after you buy something. I have noticed the new trend is to subscribe you to many different newsletters after you buy something. So you are stuck unsubscribing from their messages over and over. At least some retailers show you all the
Christmas How to choose a Christmas tree Going to the tree lot and reaching a consensus is impossible for our family. So sometimes someone will get final say in the choice. But this year we tried a new method. Four of us were going to the lot. So three of us got to select our favorite tree.
Review Review: Poetry For Neanderthals Cal got this game as an early Christmas present. We have played it a half-dozen times and it is pretty fun. One person on a team looks at cards and tries to get their team to guess the words on the card. They can't say the word on
Christmas Another cool still frame from the Light the World videos I didn't notice the nurse as the shepherd with a crook made out of the IV holder until a year late.
Travel How should the Canadian flag be hung vertically? I was watching a Nathan for You episode where he returns to his home country of Canada and noticed some Canadian flags hanging vertically and wondered how they are supposed to be hung. The US flag is supposed to be hung vertically with the blue corner in the upper left.
Christmas Do you store your Christmas lights plugged-in? I love the Light the World videos that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints puts out each Christmas. But we always laugh at the intro of the video from 2016. The person is unpacking their Christmas lights and they are on!
Christmas Making a QR Code with RGB Christmas Light Pixels I wanted a way for viewers to see a website about the lights this year. So I tried making a QR code out of pixels. The website will have a way to vote for the show you want to see on the house with Remote Falcon, information about the lights,
