Scary Pockets coming to The Paradise in Boston, in April…

Graupel in the yard this morning. ❄️ #mawx

While I was sick last week I finally watched the movie Moneyball, which I’m only 11 years late to. I noticed it was coming off of Netflix at the end of December, and I thought “now or never”. I enjoyed it as much as I thought, which is to say, a lot.

I presume it was the flu that had me so miserable for two days, and then recovering the next three plus. I’m taking the final two weeks of December off, but I actually worked Monday morning, as I only got one-and-a-half days of work in last week. I really wanted to close that final Jira ticket, even though I don’t know that anyone’s going to actually develop what I designed before January. Either way, I can now have a guilt-free break.

I spent a couple hours this afternoon starting my Eleventy journey. It’s been almost exactly since I did much web development. Last year, I had to decommission my parents’ business web site, as they were retiring, so I took the site off the server space I permanently borrowed from a friend’s Media Temple account (which I hear this week GoDaddy is finally decommissioning the Media Temple brand after acquiring them several years ago, pour one out). They now have a placeholder one-page site at their URL… which eventually I’ll repurpose for myself, since it is my last name.

When you don’t use a local build environment for a year, you mind as well start from scratch, since things change so frequently. Fortunately, several of my friends are full time web developers and can walk me through the layers of nonsense. If you’re reading this and thinking you should learn how to build a site from scratch, do yourself a favor and start at Glitch and don’t leave until you must. I almost switched over today, if I’m honest. But it’s worth the effort to do my new portfolio site locally, if I am able port much of my Jekyll content to Eleventy, since I found a starter kit that has copied the theme/templates of my Jekyll site. I don’t really need to redesign the site, so much as reconfigure where the content is, and update the content from 2018 to reflect what I am up to now.

This is my winter vacation project.

I am sorry for people who do not derive joy from competition like this. What a wonderful game.

Extra Time in the World Cup Final? I am the winner this year. ⚽️❤️

😶‍🌫️ Day 4 with what I think is a flu. Trying to work. This must be what they call “brain fog”.

Christmas cactus

I take my elderly dog out between 9–10pm nightly, so she can make it through the night without an accident. We live in the woods, and I constantly scan the edges of the yard with a blazingly bright light for coyote and bear. In the past I’ve spotted bright eyes watching us. Tonight, a coyote came trotting across our front yard maybe 20 yards from us. I scooped the old girl up and we retreated inside.

The other day, I opened up Safari and asked myself, what am I doing with these hundred bookmarks that I never use? Poking around, some date back 15 years or more. Now I have like 8. It felt like I imagine spring cleaning might feel like if I ever did that (or perhaps didn’t have a massive allergy to dust).

Inspired, I then went into my RSS news reader, and started removing things I mostly ignore. Was able to pare that down to the basics, maybe one-eighth what it used to be. Then, I looked at my micro.blog feed. I’ve been adding Mastodon accounts of people I’ve followed on Twitter forever. Some of those are relatively high-frequency and from people I don’t typically interact with. Since Mastodon automatically outputs a standard RSS feed, I decided to move those people to my RSS a news reader, and remove them from my micro.blog timeline. But, like most things, this is an experiment to monitor. Right now, several of these feeds are not updating in the news reader. I’m not sure how I’m going to troubleshoot this. 🤔

My lovely wife occasionally likes to fall asleep listening to a sleep story on the Calm app. Her interest in sleep stories, and my interest in weather crossed paths unexpectedly with Peter Jefferson and his Shipping Forecast for BBC Radio.

The Daily Mail had a nice summary of the BBC Radio Shipping Forecast, which has become such a fixture of British life that it was even referenced in the Opening Ceremonies of the London Olympics.

The Calm Shipping Forecast Sleep Story is very meta, in that they hired Peter himself to tell the story of the Shipping Forecast, and his decades of reading it into the night. And then, to finish the story, he reads a forecast. While I may understand a little more of jargon than the average joe, I will say, it is quite soothing and poetic to listen to.

“The version of it broadcast last thing at night”, says Jefferson, 71, “has been likened to a meditation, a mantra and a kind of lullaby since for many people it is not just rhythmic, familiar and soothing but also the last thing they listen to at night before falling asleep.”

You should consider using music beyond just listening to your favorite artists. Most people listen to the same few artists over and over, stick to one maybe two genres, and never listen to new music past their 40th birthday. I’m going to write about just one way I use music outside of this standard.

Years ago, in college, I discovered that listening to EDM while working helps me focus and keeps me energized. This is especially helpful since my work involves staring into a display, sedentary, for hours on end. For me, the music needs to have very little vocals. Deep house is a particularly good sub-genre of EDM for this purpose. These days, I’m a big fan of Above & Beyond for this. Their whole music label, Anjunabeats (especially sub-label Anjunadeep) are great for this.

I viewed my Apple Music Replay stats for 2022 today. I listened to nearly 55,000 minutes of music. That’s more than 916hrs. Roughly 38 days of music. Much of that goes through my Sonos Five pair in my office during the work day.

After EDM, I listen to classical and jazz while working, too. Sometimes, some ambient and new age-y piano music. Which brings me to the latest thing I’ve been listening to…

Nuit by Tony Anderson

…a great background music recommendation from Shawn Blanc, who previously suggested the Monument Valley Soundtrack with which I also love working to, and which set me on the path to Todd Baker and then to a band he’s in called Lydian Collective which became my favorite modern jazz quartet.

How does music help get you through your day?

Three drummers in the house now. This means we buy sticks in bulk.

This mini boulder in my front yard is showing signs of erosion.

I learned of the FCC Broadband Map today, which you can help build by downloading the FCC Speed Test iOS app, and running speed tests.

I live in a dark zone where it’s hard to get a signal outside, and impossible inside. Verizon claims on their map that I have perfect 5G, which I’ve never once seen here. And yet, when I stood on my back deck today, the wind must have been strong for me to get the highest numbers I’ve ever seen on my property.

In my shock, I ran a fast.com test immediately afterwards and got something far more regular. What explains the ten-fold gap in results?

Going through my recently-followed Mastodon accounts for people I followed on Twitter with whom I never interact with and adding them to an RSS reader instead. If I’m happy with that, I’ll unfollow them via micro.blog to keep my timeline more social.

One of the most annoying American things is “how to fix soccer” which is by far the world’s most popular sport… why don’t we “fix” gridiron football so it’s more popular outside of North America? 🙄 ⚽️

Trying this type of post again. I always find so many things, and forget to log them here.

Researchers: AI in connected cars eased rush hour congestion | AP News

Researchers find that just a few cars using adaptive cruise control and sharing speed data can alleviate traffic jams that aren’t crash-related.

Where are the Passkeys?

David raises questions I too have… Passkeys could be very good for non-nerd security.

What is Mastodon

Drawn to help you explain Mastodon to non-nerds (originally posted to… Mastodon).

Study companion videos on YouTube

There’s a whole genre on YouTube of long form videos with chill music, video ambience, and…people studying? The internet never ceases…

Congrats to our friends in Canada on your first ever World Cup goal! ⚽️ 🇨🇦

I’ve been on the internet—probably daily—since the mid-nineties. Today is the first time I bought something on eBay.

Spirited on AppleTV+ (and in theaters?) is a modern reimagining of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and also a musical with tap dancing. And Ryan Reynolds and Will Farrell. I don’t care musicals nor tap dancing. But seeing past that, this was a very original take on the story and I never knew what was going to happen next. Also, it’s too early for Christmas anything but this was actually super low key on the Christmas. Anyhow, pretty funny and probably worth your time.

Sad to hear of the passing Philip Keyes, the first director of the New England Mountain Bike Association, a trailblazing advocacy group and conservation partner started in Massachusetts, but now operating in all five states with 8,000 members. He held that position for 26 years. If you’ve been on a trail in New England, there’s a significant chance you’re benefitting from NEMBA’s work, frequently partnering with state and local governments, as well as other advocacy groups, from policy to trail and bridge construction.

Philip died after a motorcycle crash with another vehicle, he was nearly 64. Just last month, Bicycling Magazine had a nice interview with him looking back on his impact. I had a few chances to interact with Philip as a NEMBA member, he was a good guy and will be missed.

I’ve been thinking about why I took a few months to publish my Tesla review, and I think I figured it out. I had wanted to share it in the Reddit Tesla community. I had spent a few weeks browsing there to prepare myself before my time in the car, and enjoyed it. But since some of the review was critical, I think I was scared I’d get flamed. I think some of that is due to the fandom of Elon. And this was August I was thinking of publishing… it might be even more likely to get flames now, given how defensive some people are being about that man. Oh well, if it gets put on Reddit now, it’ll be because someone else submitted it.

I think another contributor to delay was that draft one was over 2,600 words, and I knew it needed a lot of editing to be readable. You could argue it could use a few more edits. I actually cut a whole section on how horrible the Hertz rental experience was. I’m pretty sure they overcharged me, there was a fiasco with my credit card, and the Union Station DC physical location is an absolute dump (although the person who helped me was actually a really nice guy).

Anyhow, I had an hour and an iPad, Magic Keyboard case, and iA Writer while I waited for my son at his drum lesson, so I plowed through edits, and took another 10 or so minutes later that night and just shipped it. Thanks for listening to my Director’s Commentary for a blog post.

This summer, I spent a week in Washington, D.C. with a Tesla Model Y rental from Hertz. I wanted to share what that experience was like. I had never driven any electric car before pulling out of the lot with our rental. (Why did it take me several months to finish editing and publish this post? Anyone’s guess.)

I had my wife and 3 middle-school aged children—in the Model Y’s 5-seat configuration—with me for the trip. The kids all already wanted Mom and Dad to buy a Tesla even before living with one. For background, I consider myself a “car guy”, and I design software for a living, so I have opinions on interfaces.

Our time in the car was a combination of driving from our accommodations in Georgetown into downtown for 3 days, parking in a garage, and walking the sites, and spending two days in the Williamsburg, VA area, about 160 miles south of DC.

Taking an electric car on a road trip is the most difficult test. Personal use from home would be much easier, since we would have a charging point in our garage, whereas here, we could only use public charging stations. Before investing in an electric car ourselves, we wanted to see what is was like to live with one.

TL;DR

• I liked driving the Tesla a lot. It’s clear that electric cars are better than ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) cars.
• If you have the means to buy an electric car, unless you have specific reasons not to buy one, you should buy one. If you can find one.
• Tesla’s biggest advantage is the Supercharger network. I’d like to see a lot more car charging infrastructure—it is challenging to plan out where and how long charging will happen on a long trip.
• The model we drove sells in the neighborhood of $70k. While I like the car a lot, the build quality and ride does not feel like a $70k car, and I will not personally be buying one.
• We are leaning towards Ford Mustang Mach-E, with VW ID.4 as a second possibility.

As a side note, it’s awesome you can rent a premium electric car from Hertz. Also, renting from Hertz is a nightmare. I will leave it there.

Car controls come to life as soon as the car is unlocked, AC starts to cool, audio system reconnects. We easily loaded all 5 suitcases in the trunk, without needing the frunk.

One of the elements I was expecting to dislike the most was the single screen to control everything. I’m generally a fan of the minimalist aesthetic and think the design of Teslas inside and out are tasteful and attractive. But I am also aware of the usability advantages of physical (haptic) feedback of physical controls. After a week of living with the car, I disliked the ‘one screen to rule them all’ less than I expected. While the UI design is excellent, it is still a pain to use menus and receive no tactile feedback while focusing on driving.

The navigation system is excellent, although a few times it read directions too late for me to react with turns in close succession. The major reason (I suspect) Tesla doesn’t allow Apple CarPlay or Android Auto is because the Supercharger network roadtrip planning is well integrated into the navigation system. However, the map UI is at times hard to read, and the text is surprisingly small for important information such as exit numbers while traveling on the highway. Apple Maps’ UI in CarPlay is far easier to read while driving. On the Tesla display, you can run in light or dark modes (or have it switch automatically at night). I preferred the light map during the day, but the rest of the UI is easier to use in dark mode. I wish that was an option. And why is there no traffic displayed on the map? This is baffling… I looked for a setting to enable it several times. A web search now led me to a forum post where someone states, “To activate you need to tap on the trafic lights icon on your GPS map.” Why hide something that should be on by default?

While we are talking “infotainment”, let’s talk media playback. The best thing about CarPlay and media is the Apple Music integration. But in a Tesla, Apple Music users are stuck using your phone as a Bluetooth device. It’s frustrating not to be able to select a playlist without picking up your phone, let alone the inability to use any other CarPlay enabled apps such as a podcast player. Spotify and Tidal users can log into their accounts for a native experience and there appear to be other streaming options. This aside, the audio system of the Tesla is rich and enveloping. It is an audio system befitting a $70k car.

Let’s talk about driving. The Tesla handles great, with sports car-like tight steering and low center of gravity. The acceleration with instant torque and AWD is fantastic, even squishing the pedal a third of the way is like launching a rocket ship. This said, the Model Y is supposed to be “an SUV” (the best comparison is “crossover”), and no one passed the memo to the suspension. Feels like a Model 3 sports sedan. You feel every impact on your gut. Many of the streets we took in DC were under construction and we were beaten up on surfaces that would have been smoothed out with little fuss by our Subaru Ascent. Part of this was the beautiful 20” “Induction” (optional) wheels with narrow sidewall tires our vehicle was equipped with, part of it was the suspension tuning. I cannot imagine driving this on rough country roads, let alone rutted gravel roads a CUV should be at home on.

Around town, the instant torque helped merging in traffic and getting around obstacles with less stress. The first thing I had to get used to without practice was “one pedal driving”. For the unaccustomed, an electric motor without current acts as a brake. This braking action regenerates electricity which is added back to the battery, a process fittingly called “Regenerative braking”. This is fantastic, but there is a learning curve. When you stop accelerating, you’re already moderately braking. There is no coasting. In stop and go traffic this takes practice… but once you acclimate, you don’t want to go back. I estimate I touched the brake pedal about 90% less than I do in an ICE vehicle. After a day of use I was a near-expert and a convert. There are settings that simulate coasting, but that costs battery. My advice is to learn, adapt, and save power.

When you say “Tesla” one of the very first things people think about is “Full Self Driving”. The Hertz rental does not come with Tesla’s “Autopilot” driving assistant enabled. You do however get their “Autosteer” and their “Traffic-aware cruise-control”. These are mostly good. Neither, however, are as good as I expected, and my takeaway is that we are not anywhere as near to full-self driving as Elon would claim. Honestly, I prefer my Subaru’s Eyesight cruise and lane keeping systems to Tesla’s. Here are two reasons… if you enable Autosteer in traffic, you must continue to hold the wheel. Despite holding the wheel, you don’t get to have an opinion on where in the highway lane you are driving. In wide-open driving, this doesn’t make too much difference. But on a busier road, you frequently approach vehicles that are very close to your lane. At any speed, an aware driver would move farther in their lane away from an 18-wheeler that’s close to them.

If you try to shy aware from a big rig with Autosteer on, it will fight you, not allowing you to pull away… and then disabling itself with no tension ramp-down, meaning the pressure you’re exerting against the wheel is then freed, which makes you swerve and then you hopeful correct your heading. Furthermore, when you engage Autosteer again, if you’re not perfectly centered in the lane—and you never are—the car will jerk you into line the moment the feature is turned on. Autosteer has no nuance or subtlety. Subaru EyeSight only cares about crossing the line. Otherwise it’s fine with you being a bit to the left or a bit to the right of center. That said, EyeSight does not actively steer. It only encourages you to do the right thing by adjusting how much power steering assist is applied to the wheel. As I browsed the Mustang Mach-e web site the other day, I saw that Ford was advertising that Blue Cruise is aware that other vehicles may get too close. I can’t wait to see how their system works.

I have yet to mention the worst part about Autosteer. If it’s enabled in a lane that has on-ramps besides it, when the dotted line disappears between the on-ramp and your lane, Autosteer will swerve your car towards the ramp, as you are now on the far side of a much wider lane, if only temporarily. Since Autosteer has no subtlety and cannot apparently look ahead 20 yards to see that you will again be centered ahead, it must autocorrect your course immediately. This is unfathomable at this point in Tesla’s existence. How is this that bad?

The cruise control is also subtly flawed. For the most part it is smooth. It can know and automatically adjust your speed based on the speed limit without your intervention. Want to always drive the speed limit on the highway? Easy with one tap on the screen. Always want to drive 5MPH above the speed limit? You can set an “offset” and do this automatically. Very smart. But turning on cruise and autosteer is too awkward. I am used to either only using buttons in Hondas and Subarus, or using very intuitive stalk movements with VWs and Saabs. In the Tesla, you can only turn on and off with the stalk, and then you adjust with a scroll wheel on the steering wheel. It feels like too much movement for too little control.

The first few times, moving the stalk that is also used for selecting forward and reverse is very disconcerting. Imaging using your gear selector in an automatic transmission car to disable cruise control by shifting into reverse! Well, that’s how you do it in a Tesla. In fact, if you hold the stalk upwards to disable cruise and you hold there one second, the car will be placed in Neutral. Disconcerting.

But my biggest complaint about cruise control is also part of its biggest strength. The best cruise control systems make stop-and-go traffic suck less. Tesla takes this to another level. If you have cruise enabled, and you’re stopped for less than 5 minutes, the car will start forward movement again without your input. On my Subaru, I have to tap the accelerator to reenable cruise after the vehicle has come to a complete stop. I prefer the Tesla option. So what’s the downside? Tesla knows only one way to move itself from standstill: rocketship. This is problematic if the car in front of you only gently moves forward a few yards, then stops, because you launch and then immediately decelerate. It’s so bad that I was constantly questioning whether I should tough it out, or manually take over. But it gets worse. Tesla has settings for acceleration! You can choose “Chill” to greatly reduce the sensitivity of the accelerator. But the car does not apply this chill choice when it controls starts itself. Rocketship or nothing.

Moving on to the car body, the roof is tinted glass. This is cool. The back window is a separate pane of glass, but it is all-but unusably small. If given the choice, I’d prefer more usable glass in my rear window than my roof. The car has a myriad of external cameras, and they’re mostly great. But rearward vision is compromised, and best I could tell, there’s no blind spot warning. If a car is in your blind spot, it’s drawn on the center screen, but the part of the screen it’s shown on is partially blocked by your hand on the steering wheel. When you put on your blinker, you are shown a camera shot of your blind spot in the same spot of your center display, but of course, if you’re looking to change lanes, you’re not looking down there, you’re looking at where you’re driving. Not a huge deal, but it feels like they have all the tools while not using them to their fullest potential. Positively, there’s a button on the screen that, at any time will display all the exterior cameras on the display.

In close confines, the car will measure the distance between your car and other objects. This is especially useful during parking. I wish they’d use that same data when using autosteer, to adjust your position in the lanes during traffic. They do use their radar during driving, somehow… 3 or 4 times the car screamed at me to correct what I was doing but I don’t know what I was doing wrong? These alarms are intense.

Lastly, for a car that has such a delivery wait time when you buy, you’d think the build quality would be better. There was one piece in the interior of the driver’s door near the rear view mirror that looked randomly wrapped in cloth and placed. The frunk does not shut well. I understand the car makes use of lightweight materials and the frunk door is likely aluminum, but it’s not too much to ask of a $70k car for the doors to shut well.

If this was a $40k car, I wouldn’t complain, because I know the batteries and the tech are not cheap. But my Subaru was $40k and its build quality is excellent and feels substantial.

Lastly, let’s cover the charging network. It was brilliant for Tesla to build their own network. This could well be 50% of why I see Teslas everywhere. Non-Tesla charging is simply not as seamless. If you want to charge your Tesla at a public charger, you tap a few buttons on the screen, and the map tells you suggested chargers to use, based on availability, how much charge you have, and their distance from you. Prices are displayed, as well as how long you need to charge to get the level of battery you need (which you can further adjust yourself). Once you select a charger, the battery will prep itself so that when you arrive, it will be in an optimal state for a charge. When you arrive, you just plug in. Payments are automatic. There are many chargers in populated areas. I have no complaints beyond I wish every charger could charge at the maximum speed the car can handle.

There is a price I would buy a Model Y for, but $70k is about $20k too high. As Elon Musk gets more and more “eccentric” (let’s just leave the characterization at that), it becomes harder to want to send him money.

If you haven’t seriously looked into electric cars, now is the time. The Federal and many state governments are providing generous rebates, and the cars cost much much less than ICE cars to operate, using one-third the energy to drive, electricity costs less than gas, and you almost never need to service the vehicle. If you can install a charger where you live, every morning you have a full tank, and the car will greet you at a comfortable temperature. For our family, we are sold. The only trouble now is finding one we can buy.

I’ve had a lot of blogs over the years. One I created with my college roommate from the CMS up in the early ‘00s. A WordPress.com, a Tumblr, a self-hosted WP blog about instructional design while I was in grad school, a small one as part of my Jekyll-powered portfolio site (last update 2018, as of this writing), and this Micro.blog which also “doubles” as my Mastodon account. That’s a barrel full of blogs, clearly I never tire of them… even if I haven’t always kept them all current. Now that I have caught the bug again, I’m thinking it’s time for a grand reshuffle.

My primary domain name, briandigital.com is the one I’ve had since… 2000? Sounds a bit like it, too. I’ve always had my portfolio site at that URL, as well as my professional email. When creating various personal and professional accounts on the web, I’d try to sign up with briandigital to “build my brand”. Later I acquired brianchristiansen.net and finally, after its previous owner let it go (he only redirected it to a photo site like SmugMug, if memory serves), I picked up brianchristiansen.com. These latter two point at the portfolio site. I never pointed a custom domain at any of my other personal blogs, excluding the very first, which was self-hosted on a sub-domain of my friend’s personal-brand domain.

My current thinking is that I should associate my briandigital domain to my micro.blog, as I have come to make this my personal home on the web, and publish out from here to Twitter, Mastodon, and I am considering a Medium account to push the occasional design-topic article out to… if I can figure out how to syndicate a single-topic out (could I also syndicate this to LinkedIN?). This would have the side effect of allowing my Mastodon account name to match my email account, I think. I could then could use my other two to point to my low use professional portfolio. This would probably have a beneficial SEO effect with my full name in the URL, as well as updating my LinkedIn to point at a site with my name as the URL.

From there, I need to touch up my micro.blog with a better about page, and perhaps a Now, and Uses page. I hope to get back to some linkblogging. I’d like to make a fresh layout, but I am not sure yet how to do that without a dev site to break over and over, as that is how I write CSS badly.

Next, I need a complete remake of my portfolio to move to a supported platform, and away from the otherwise lovely and simple Jekyll. I have picked out Eleventy (11ty) for this purpose because I have a couple of developer friends who can support me when I break my site over and over trying to build it, and upload to Netlify. Will it have a blog? Will I move my professional writing to a category within my micro.blog? Stay tuned.