Sometimes, the best tools we have are the simplest. This is my favorite… the trusty, yest stylish, pencil. It has never let me down. Look around your desk and appreciate your tools. Share some with us, if you feel they deserve it.
This particular pencil is the GraphGear 1000 Automatic Drafting Pencil with a 0.9mm lead. It has a metallic barrel with soft grip pads. Feels great in the hand and writes smoothly and bold. It is a joy to use every time I pick it up.
MLB will use robot umpires beginning next season
Major League Baseball will use so-called robot umpires at home plate beginning in 2026…
Major League Baseball has decided to adopt an Automatic Ball Strike (ABS) system. Human umpires will still be part of the game, but when a pitcher, catcher, or batter challenges a call, MLB will use the new ABS system to determine whether the pitch was a strike or ball. It’s designed to eliminate umpire mistakes and reduce drama after questionable calls, but I can’t help thinking it takes away some of baseball’s humanity.
They’re trying so hard to make the game more efficient because of complaints about lengthy games that they’re making it sterile and soulless, in my opinion. Part of baseball’s excitement comes from not knowing what will happen next. Even when an umpire makes a bad call, it adds character to what can be a slow-paced game. We’ll see how it plays out next season, but I think we need to stop obsessing over “efficiency” and just enjoy the game. Let us make mistakes and work through them.
If there’s a silver lining to this new system, it’s that each player will have their official height recorded, and their strike zone will be adjusted accordingly. Also, when a challenge is made, MLB says the system should take only 15 seconds to determine whether the pitch was inside or outside the strike zone. Each team gets two challenges per game, but if a challenge successfully overturns a call, that team doesn’t lose one of their challenges and can still use both for the remainder of the game.
Treatments developed at St. Jude have helped push the U.S. childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to more than 80%. St. Jude won’t stop until no child dies from cancer…
Happy iPhone Day, everyone! While getting new tech is always one of the highlights of my day, it doesn’t come close to doing something for your fellow human. This is especially true for the youngest of those humans. Our family makes a contribution to St. Jude’s each and every September and would love it if you would, too.
You can give what you can anywhere, but we choose Relay for St. Jude. Hope to see you on the leader boards.
Check out Relay’s Podcastathon below.
Most students are using AI to enhance learning, not outsource it, research shows
Contrary to alarming headlines suggesting that “ChatGPT Has Unraveled the Entire Academic Project” and “AI Cheating Is Getting Worse,” we discovered that students primarily use AI to enhance their learning rather than to avoid work.
Despite this article having a limited sample size, it does seem to add to other research showing that students are not just using AI to “cheat” in school, but to enhance their learning by filling in knowledge gaps they may have. As an educator and a parent of two wonderful high-schoolers, I can vouch for this type of behavior. In my experience, most students want to do well in school and learn everything they can, and if AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and others can help them do that, I am all for it. It is up to us—parents, educators, and other community members—to help them navigate this world of ours and teach them to develop critical thinking skills so that they may discern what is fact, fiction, and everything in between. Question everything and find the source(s) of truth. In other words, trust, but verify.
Thirty-three years ago today, I was a young teenager living with my family in South Florida. That August, right before the school year started, we decided to go on vacation for a week, completely disconnected from any news. Our sole focus was enjoying our time away. Then, on the way home, we turned on the radio, and between songs, a news broadcast announced that Hurricane Andrew was headed straight for South Florida, including our home.
My dad, who worked at a hardware store, immediately called his workplace to ask them to set aside some plywood, as we didn’t have any shutters. But wood were already sold out. He started calling around and finally found a supply of plywood in various pieces that we had to make do with. We bought everything we could and then began securing them to our windows. I remember drilling holes and putting them up with my dad, using tapcons, as the rain started. The outer bands of Hurricane Andrew were upon us, and we had to push through to secure the house.
With family visiting, we also had to stock up, preparing for potential losses of power, water, and other necessities. My mom, aunt, and sister went out to buy everything they could, but the supermarket shelves were virtually empty. They grabbed whatever they could find – Vienna sausages, Spam, and other foods we normally wouldn’t touch – knowing they would sustain us if we had to endure.
The storm hit overnight. We all gathered in our family room, as far away from the windows and French doors as possible, despite them being mostly secured with plywood. We truly didn’t know what to expect; it was our first hurricane ever. I remember hearing the gusts of wind and the rain, the barrel tiles flying off our roof, breaking onto the driveway, and hitting our cars. I don’t recall hearing any trees fall, but I vividly remember seeing them all leaning or lying flat on the ground, their root systems completely exposed.
Being inexperienced, I remember we went out during the eye of the storm. It was so calm, and we thought it was over, but then we heard it wasn’t, so we ran back inside. It was super eerie to hear such silence after hours of prolonged howling. We were among the lucky ones; our house sustained only minor damages, unlike others a little further south whose homes were utterly destroyed.
We saw trees twisted into corkscrews, and we were told it was due to tornadoes. People’s boats were found in other houses down the block. A friend of mine even had a boat on her property, and she had no idea who owned it. Nobody ever claimed that boat, and it was eventually taken away. I remember street signs lodged like Chinese stars into the sides of trees. I remember entire apartment buildings exposed, their windows, French doors, and sliding glass doors simply gone.
I remember houses with no roofs or windows, looking gutted from the outside in. I remember areas completely flooded, making driving through them impossible because you didn’t know what lay beneath the water. At best, it could have been debris; at worst, downed power lines or God knows what else. The streets were impassable due to fallen trees.
My dad and I, after ensuring our house was secure and clearing as much debris as possible, went down the main street next to our house. With machetes, we started cutting branches and moving them to the side so traffic could flow. Our thought was that an ambulance or fire truck would struggle to get through with all that debris on the road. I don’t know if it was the smartest thing to do, but it was the only way we felt we could help.
I can’t believe that 33 years later, I’m still remembering all this, and it’s all coming back to me. I think that’s the case for most Floridians who endured Hurricane Andrew. All you have to say are those two words… Hurricane Andrew… and they are immediately transported back 33 years, remembering even the smallest details that might seem insignificant to the overall event, but are just lodged in our memories forever.
I’ve been using Obsidian for a few years now, and it’s where I keep all my important notes. I’ve even adopted the popular term “2nd Brain” to describe it. While it’s my primary storage for all important notes, it hasn’t been my daily go-to app recently. Instead, I found myself using Bear, BBEdit, Runestone, or pretty much any app I have handy. I’d then move anything I want to keep into Obsidian.
Well, I decided to give Obsidian another serious look and put aside all my other apps for the time being. Now, I’m using Obsidian exclusively for everything daily. By “everything,” I primarily mean my daily notes and any reference material I want to save for future use.
As I explored it more, I really got back into it, and I’m genuinely enjoying using it on both my desktop and iOS devices. This is ironic, as I had recently advised others to switch to apps like Bear, citing their superior aesthetics. And don’t get me wrong, Bear is indeed more beautiful, but Obsidian, I’m rediscovering, is simply wonderful and is consistently getting better.
As I use it more and more, uncovering its intricacies and utilities, I think I’m going to stick with it as my daily driver, at least for the foreseeable future. Especially since I discovered Bases. This has truly leveled up my Obsidian usage! I’m now taking numerous notes and adding properties to them, which I can then filter using my new Bases setup.
That said, I’m still new to it, so I’m sure there’s much more to learn, and I guarantee I’m only scratching the surface. My plan is to learn everything I can about it, customize it to suit my needs, and work more efficiently. Let’s see how it goes.
If you want to learn more about Obsidian, there are many YouTubers who do a much better job explaining it. Here’s one video you might find helpful:
Starlink Users Will Now Have to Pay $5 to Pause Service
Starlink is ending a popular free feature that let customers pause service at any time for free. Now, you’ll have to pay $5 a month to enter what the company is calling “Standby Mode.”
A few years ago, I was excited when I heard that Starlink was coming to my area. I signed up and waited almost a year on their waiting list before they finally shipped the equipment. This was Starlink Generation 2 with the rectangular dish. The gear was pretty pricey, but I thought the technology was impressive, so I decided to take the risk.
When I first signed up, service was $99 a month, and I was getting a consistent 250 Mbps download speed, which was awesome. It was really competitive with my Comcast connection at the time, and I thought I’d replace my home internet entirely. But then I noticed some limitations—no dedicated IP address, and if I remember correctly, no way to bypass their included router at the time. I could be wrong about that, but I’m pretty sure that was the case.
So I downgraded Starlink from my primary internet to backup internet, then eventually just to camping internet. At that point, it was perfect for our needs. We took it camping to remote areas with no cell signal or other internet options, and Starlink delivered exactly what we needed. I kept the residential subscription, which billed me $100 every month whether I used it or not, but the price seemed reasonable.
Then the pricing started creeping up slowly. If I remember correctly, it went from $99 to around $110 or $120, then kept increasing. I think it’s now up to $150 or $160. The only reason I stuck with it was the ability to pause service at no cost and reactivate it whenever needed—for camping trips, internet outages at home, or hurricane preparation.
But now they’re putting another nail in their coffin because you can no longer pause service for free. They’re now charging $5 a month just for standby mode. In other words, they’re charging me for not using their service. That doesn’t sit right with me. They claim standby mode includes limited data for calls and software updates, capped at around 500 Kbps.
Don’t get me wrong—$5 isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But it’s the principle of nickel-and-diming customers every way they can. I understand their company exists to make money, but don’t do it at the expense of loyal customers who’ve been with you for years. Honestly, I think they should have grandfathered early users like me into the original $99 plan instead of nearly doubling the price just a few years later.
Right now, I still have Starlink as part of my camping and emergency preparedness gear. But if pricing keeps climbing and wireless carriers continue expanding coverage, I’ll definitely reconsider. As soon as I see a viable alternative, I might jump ship. We’ll see if Starlink can earn the right to keep me as a customer.
Apple’s new Siri may allow users to operate apps just using voice | TechCrunch
Bloomberg reported that if this new version of Siri and App Intents works well, a user would be able to ask Siri to search for a photo, edit it, and send it to someone; post comments on a social app; or log in to a service.
If so, it could be a significant boost for people with disabilities—especially those with visual impairments or mobility limitations. Apple has often been at the forefront of accessibility, which is great to see.
Note: This post was originally published on August 10, 2025. Due to technical issues, it was deleted and I am publishing it again today.
We all like free stuff, but maybe we shouldn’t. Like many people, I loved gmail and google search when it first came out and used it for years. Then, a few years ago, I stopped to think about why these great products were free. What’s the catch? Well, I was. I agreed to use their products for free and in exchange, they took my usage history, search queries, and don’t forget cross site tracking, I’m sure. Then, sold it to whomever they chose to after building a nice Doug profile package.
First, I dropped gmail and went to a paid email service and it felt good. Great customer service and lots of features, like rules, folders, easy import from other services, DNS management, etc. Anyway, I switched over to them and couldn’t be happier. I still stuck with GOogle search.
A couple of years after that, I started considering the privacy of my searches. Not that I search for anything nefarious. Mainly things like user manuals, device drivers, reference to making ethernet cables, and other boring stuff. Things that many of us may search for on a regular basis. Either way, it is no one’s business but my own. So, I played around with SearxNG and self-hosted it as well as put it up in the cloud. I tried it both ways, but ended up just preferring it locally. Overall, it was pretty good, but Google and other search engines still seemed to provide more relevant results.
Recently, Google search results have been abysmal for most things I search. They try to make it convenient and give you everything right up front, but I just want links to go to and pick and choose the information I am looking for. It is supposed to be a “search” engine, after all. Not an answer engine, right? If I want quick answers, then I use one of the many AI companies out there or one of the open source local models I have downloaded in LM Studio. This nudged me to go hunting for something better. Something that would give me good results for what I was looking for and had privacy at its core. That turned out to be Kagi for me. Kagi gives me the great search results, control over the results it provides, a beautiful clean interface, and so much more. Not to mention their AI Assistant that lets you choose from a lot of the major models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Mistral, among others. I am new to it, so I am not an expert, but I do know that it is not just hype. They seem to deliver what they promise, so far.
It doesn’t seem like I am the only one that feels like this, either. Check out some others below.
There’s an (oversimplified) axiom that if a good or service (like Google search, for example, or good ol’ Facebook) is free for you to use, it’s because you’re the product, not the customer. With Google, you pay with your attention, your behavioral metrics, and the intimate personal details of your wants and hopes and dreams (and the contents of your emails and other electronic communications–Google’s got most of that, too).
If you are lucky enough to own all of your audio books in a DRM-Free format, you should really try out audiobookshelf. You will not be disappointed.
If you have already tried it and are using it, chime in and tell us what you think of it, what you like and dislike about it and any tips and best practices for new users.
