Twin Cities IndieWeb - BlogFlock

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-10-21T01:33:24.000Z

A knife, a fork, a bottle, and a cork. That’s the way you spell New York.

— DILLINGER – Cocaine In My Brain (1978) – YouTube

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-10-20T21:45:56.000Z

“I’ve Got a Kid in New York”

As usual, my wife does a far better job of telling people what we’re up to than I do.

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-10-20T17:26:11.000Z

A 24-minute video tour of the Krasner and Pollock: Past Cont…

A 24-minute video tour of the Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous exhibition at the Met. I hope I make it to NYC to see this before it closes in January.

I’ll be seeing it tomorrow.

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-10-19T14:49:42.000Z

My current publisher, which happens to share the same name and face as me, is a terrible marketer.

Therefore, I’m at this time forced to remind you that I have books and guides I think you’ll enjoy and, perhaps, may even make your life better.

Thank Your Software Developers - Patrick Rhone

2026-10-18T21:01:21.000Z

In 1999, I got hired to work doing Quality Assurance for PowerOn/Now Software. Among their software offerings was a pair of programs, sold together, called Now Up-to-Date and Contact. They were calendaring and contact applications for true power users. Folks that not only needed a ton of unique features above your average calendaring and contact software but, perhaps most importantly, needed to be able to share that information with others in a team/office/company or even family basis.

The best way to test software is to use it and so I did.

Ever since, Now Up-to-Date and it’s evolution BusyCal (which is still developed by the original developers Dave Riggle and John Chaffee) has been an essential part of my and my family’s life. We often say in our house “if it’s not on the calendar it doesn’t exist” and it’s true. The elegant design of the shared calendaring feature is the only way we can keep track of what everyone is doing and when.

In other words, the software Dave and John wrote decades ago has been a part of my life for almost half of it.

We don’t often think about how important software can be in our lives. How it can make it better. How it can become essential to it. How, by extension, the humans behind that software have in no small way made our lives better.

I thought about that today upon meeting Manton Reece, the lead developer of my favorite blogging tool, Micro.blog. Not only what an honor it was to meet someone who has created something that makes my life easier and better in no small way, but who also developed a little program called Clipstart years and years ago that I used and loved. I got a chance to thank him, in person, for making my life better.

I’m sure there is software and services you use daily that makes your life better. Remember that a human made that. If you ever get the opportunity, thank them.

Post on Jamie Thingelstad - Jamie Thingelstad

2026-10-17T19:24:30.000Z

Card shop stop for Pokémon at Spitty’s Cards.

Post on Jamie Thingelstad - Jamie Thingelstad

2026-10-17T14:08:13.000Z

Morning coffee with a nice fire.

Post on Jamie Thingelstad - Jamie Thingelstad

2026-10-17T00:24:31.000Z

I’m bartending tonight.

I finally got to see Sting live... - Barry Hess

2026-10-16T19:15:24.000Z

I finally got to see Sting live. Most artists of his vintage would tour with a bigger band and have other players cover much of their instrumental parts. Not Sting! Three-piece band, all the amazing bass playing was Sting’s, and I’m not sure how he has kept his voice so good. Much like Peter Gabriel on the latter point. Highly recommended if you have a chance to see the Sting 3.0 tour.

How to read a painting. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page and click Start reading.

Did you know there’s such a thing as a floating island? Wisconsin has them (check the video down the page). Related.

I’ve been enjoying Mattia Compagnucci’s missives. Maybe you might enjoy them, too?

Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?

– Annie Dillard

Surely I must have known in the past that the lead singer of Toto is the son of John Williams? Joseph Williams also was the singing voice of Simba in The Lion King.

Billy-Joel-esque is certainly true:

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Post on Jamie Thingelstad - Jamie Thingelstad

2026-10-16T18:10:22.000Z

Tammy had these amazing trophies made for the inaugural Grandpa Don games at this weekends Olson Family Vacation. 🧡

Post on Jamie Thingelstad - Jamie Thingelstad

2026-10-16T02:21:12.000Z

I added a new Upcoming feature to Release Notes:

Release Notes now has a new section for what’s coming next. In Upcoming you can save birthdays, anniversaries, trips, and one-time events. You can choose when you would like these events to show up in your Release Notes. Trips include a destination with a start and end date. All of these upcoming events are private to only you.

I’m having a lot of fun journaling each days version.

The nnxyz rooms - Jamie Thingelstad

2026-10-16T02:11:13.000Z

Years ago I discovered the work of nnxyz on nifty.ink. I acquired a few of his pieces and grew to like it more and more. I ended up collecting four complete collections of hundreds of pieces. I had always wished to create a gallery like experience for anyone to experience. With the help of AI I was able to make that vision a reality.

Check out the nnxyz rooms.

Some highlights of what the website has.

Every drawing can be watched being made. The 574 Nifty Ink works are rebuilt from their archived brush strokes as native vector images, and each one replays stroke by stroke, with the recorded order, widths, colors and transparency.
Hung like a museum, not a feed. Six wings, 28 rooms, 626 works. Every work hangs in exactly one room, rooms hold 20 to 30 works, and each room is hung in the order the works were drawn, so a walk through a room is a walk through a few weeks of drawing.
Wall text in a museum voice. Each room has an introduction, chapters, labels, one-line notes, explained comparisons and a closing.
An audio tour in every room. Press play and a voice reads the room while each work comes on screen, about seven minutes a room, with pause, skip and a progress line.
A screen saver that draws. One work at a time, drawn stroke by stroke on black, held with its caption, then the next. Fullscreen, with your choice of drawing speed and hold time, and it can be limited to one room.
A map of the building. The collection as a three-floor museum map, rooms sized by how many works they hold, colored by collection, with doors between consecutive rooms and stairs between floors.
Readable by machines too. /llms.txt indexes the site for language models and /llms-full.txt carries the complete gallery text in one file.
Light or dark. A white gallery by default, black by choice, remembered across visits. The artwork itself is never altered.
Everything downloadable. Each artwork page offers the native SVG, the original PNG and the archived metadata and provenance records, with a link to the collected NFT.

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-10-15T14:03:26.000Z

Not gonna lie: I’m jealous of Kurt’s new stereo system.

The one they forgot. - Patrick Rhone

2026-10-15T13:25:27.000Z

My step-father was a USCF-rated chess master. One day, we were talking about what makes the elite of the game so good at the game – grand masters like Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov – than everyone else.

Him: “Well, those guys can see every possible move and every possible counter move for the whole game. So, from the very first move and every move after they can game out all the ways it can go until mate in their heads.”

Me: “Wait, if they can both see the whole game and every possible move how does anyone ever win? Why doesn’t every game end in a draw?”

Him: “Ah, that’s easy. It’s the move they forgot to consider. They are so busy seeing everything they missed something. They can’t escape the fact they’re human”

I think about this conversation often these days.

Almost HomeView - Barry Hess

2026-10-14T16:41:32.000Z

Apple finally announced a thing: HomeView. Immediately I was surprised at the pricing, given that Apple is now charging the same for a streaming box. I have an old iPad in the kitchen, as well as a HomePod, so slamming them into each other makes sense. More space-efficient and better looking.

But then I thought about it. For us, the two primary uses for the old iPad in the kitchen are cooking and FaceTime.

Cooking primarily means a third-party app (Paprika in our case). HomeView certainly will not support Paprika anytime soon.

Two of our kids no longer live at home full time. When that FaceTime call comes, it’s awfully convenient to take the old iPad in the kitchen next to the stove over to the kitchen table. HomeView is tethered to its spot. Who is going to stand next to their stove for a thirty-minute FaceTime call?

On the surface HomeView feels like a perfect match. For now, though, it really doesn’t beat an old iPad in the kitchen.

Oh, and I’ve been delaying years to replace our Apple TVs. We’re still on the first-generation 4K. Yes, the one from 2017 with that remote. I just missed replacing them with 2022 third-generation versions under the old pricing. Now with a new, ‘spensive version out, you’d think I’d plug my nose and order one. But, no, since I could never imagine asking my Apple TV to “play that TV show Stephanie texted me,” and it’s quite unlikely that I’ll be gaming on an Apple TV, I instead plugged my nose and ordered the 2022 version.

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Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-10-14T16:30:57.000Z

Why Productivity Is Broken (Interviewed by My Daughter) – YouTube

I really enjoyed this video of my friend Mike Vardy being interviewed by his daughter about his new book and productivity and the creative process in general.

Also, a reminder: I’m a regular guest on his podcast.

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-10-14T16:17:53.000Z

I’m “every time your favorite music acts from your teen and college years come to town you buy the ticket because they’re all 10-20 years older than you and it very well could be your last chance” years old.

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-10-14T15:17:34.000Z

https://sting.com/ery excited to see Sting tonight. I’ve seen every time The Police toured the US and almost every time Sting has toured solo. Excited to add one more to the list. We’re all getting older and I don’t know how many more chances I’ll get.

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-10-14T14:23:35.000Z

Red Wings used for what Red Wings are for.

Post on Jamie Thingelstad - Jamie Thingelstad

2026-10-14T02:07:22.000Z

Years ago I purchased three collections of art by nnxyz on nifty.ink. I’ve now archived them in better detail than they were ever before available on my nnxyz collection site. Nifty.ink captured all art in dots and strokes so I used that to render SVG versions of all the art. Lovely. 🎨