Regular readers know that I attempt to hold together two theological commitments that sit in tension. First, a hopeful eschatology where God, in the end, is “all in all.” Second, a fierce prophetic conviction that what we do here on earth matters and that God will judge the evils, injustices, and oppressions at work in the world. There are damnable things afoot, and much of it involves people who claim the name of Christ.
– Richard Beck
Mine In Mono
Written by Robert, an Orthodox Christian, aspiring minimalist, inveterate notetaker, budget audiophile, software dev manager, and paper airplane mechanic.
Recent Posts
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Damnable Things Afoot
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Making Lemons Into Lemonade
In the making lemons into lemonade department, I’ve got something to teach my son nearly every day about what happens when you elect immoral, incompetant people to run your government. My son is a sysadmin for a Minecraft server with an interest in technology. On Friday, I was able to use a very visually demonstrative example of how your cybersecurity is impacted when people who don’t know the slightest thing about what they are doing take over.
I’m not suprised that a government agency named after a memecoin and its juvenile employees can’t secure a basic website, but it’s definitely concerning when those people illegally gain access to the Treasure Department systems.
Today comes news that the memecoin infantilists fired critical nuclear weapons workers and are quickly trying to bring them back. I keep hearing what a genius this Elon Musk guy is and apparently people want him to do to the government what he did to Xitter. Xitter lost 80% of its market value in just two years after the guy took over. It does take quite a magician to make value disappear so quickly. Alakazam, baby!
I almost forgot about Musk spreading the false rumor that the Social Security Administration was giving benefits to 150-year-olds because his crew didn’t understand the COBOL systems.
There will be lots of teachable moments for my son. I just hope the country he lives in won’t have collapsed by the time he is old enough to put them into use.
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Mario Icons
A colleague recently named her AI Hackathon team “The Pipeline Plumbers,” due to their work with YAML-driven build pipelines. I told her it reminded me of Super Mario. Since she loves Mario, she decided to do a Mario-themed presentation (I wish I could embed it here).
I came across another Mario-themed artifact this weekend. The always talented Louie Mantia, who produced icons for the Icon Factory for years, just created a new set of drive icons with a Mario theme. These are gorgeous.
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A Custom Collection
A few years ago, my wife’s company had a get together at CAMRaleigh, the modern art museum. After some mingling, the boys and I camped out in the staff offices. The desk where I sat had numerous pictures of Karl Lagerfeld. I might have felt a little uncomfortable at the man’s ubiquitous gaze, but his surgically attached sunglasses prevented that.
I don’t have much to say about Lagerfeld’s life or work, but apparently he had excellent taste in iPods. Check out these custom Nanos.
Macstories covers the estate sale from Sotheby’s where Lagerfeld’s collection is being auctioned. Like John Voorhees, who wrote the piece, I’ll always be a big fan of the iPod. I harbor the same irrational hope that one day Apple will bring it back to please those of us who love single-use devices. In the meantime, I suppose I could put in my bid for one of Lagerfeld’s over 500 that are being sold.
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Studio – West Coast
The record label Ghostly International just reissued West Coast, the 2006 album by Studio, a collaboration between two musical auteurs from Gothenburg, Sweden. Ghostly spent months hyping the release, and it has garnered critical acclaim from the likes of Pitchfork, which labeled it a best new reissue. Bandcamp selected West Coast as their album of the day near the end of January.
Louis Pattison’s review for Bandcamp Daily focuses on the balearic influences that feature prominently on West Coast but what struck me most was the sense that this album fit right in with much of the disco (dance) punk revival that permeated the musical landscape in the aughts. Even the heavy reggae vibes coming from the slow staccato guitars on the expansive (almost 16-minutes long) “Out There” wouldn’t sound out of place in some of the first wave experiments in dance punk.
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Reject All Vibes
Reject all vibes. Whatever is supposedly emanating from TikTok according to six people you know from a group chat, you can let it waft by like a bad smell. Remember that these are synthetically produced moods created by online influencers and there is never any need for you to be demure or brat or trad. That’s their hustle, not yours. Feel free also to reject anyone who tries to theorize about vibes. Yes, that includes vibe shifts.
Pamela Paul advises us to reject all vibes in her piece on how to remain a reality-based human in 2025. I especially appreciated her words previously in the post about not needing to have an equal and opposite reaction to everything D. Trump does.
