Tired of AI Spam Calls Offering Loans
🚨 AI voice cloning + robocall scams are rising—don’t fall for fake loan calls!
Planet Money's Toilet Talk
From pay toilets to high-tech pods—two eras of public convenience.
📺 This TV Week’s Watchlist
🎬 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Season 3, Episodes 5-10 (Season Finale) ⭐⭐⭐ May contain spoilers!
This season was a mixed bag. I believe this series has great potential, but I question the structure and plot of some episodes this season. For instance, the season finale should have been a two-parter, episodes 8 and 9, with episode 10 serving as a proper season close-out. Alternatively, if they wanted to maintain its current position, they could have extended the season to 12 episodes, making this story arc a two-parter, episodes 10 and 11, then having a proper close-out as episode 12 as a look back over the season and what to look forward to. I struggle to understand this new streaming series format of producing only 8 or 10 episodes for the entire year, a point I have raised and complained about in past posts. TV series, when they were broadcast over the air or on cable, typically produced 20 to 24 episodes that aired from September through May, followed by summer reruns. The new streaming era, however, is characterized by shorter seasons with a year or more between new seasons. Returning to the season finale, it felt rushed and anticlimactic. So a mixed bag this year. Hoping Season 4 will be better and more true to the series as it hopefully concludes handing off to Star Trek The Original Series. 🎬
Is This the Wake-Up Call We Need?
The assassination of Charlie Kirk today is a tragic reminder that political violence is never the solution. It only creates deeper divides and encourages an “us versus them” mentality that is actively harming our society. The proper place to resolve political differences is at the ballot box and through civil debate.
This destructive rhetoric and division is not new. It has been encouraged for years and has been festering over time. The current environment reinforces a dangerous dynamic that threatens our democratic institutions. I have said this before, and I will say it again: politics is just one aspect of life, but its current state is consuming our nation. Politicians on both sides have not helped by trying to one-up the other party in order to stay in power, and it is a disservice to the public they serve.
Working on something wonderful
I am working on something wonderful in Python 🐍. It’s a slow process, but I’m making progress 🚀. At this rate, it won’t be ready until the end of the year 📅. I don’t want to reveal it until it’s finished and working 🔒.
10 Years of World of Warships
Joined World of Warships on July 2, 2015 I’ve been playing World of Warships, a free-to-play naval combat game focused mainly on ships from World War II with some from earlier and later eras. It’s my most-played game, and I’ve been with it since the very beginning. I first started on July 2, 2015, the first day of the open beta, just before the official launch that September. For me, the game is a way to relax.
To Feature Image or Not
Choosing a feature image — a quiet desk, a laptop, and blank cards waiting to be filled. I have been debating lately whether feature images are a good idea. I think they are, because I am a very visual person. Even though I often read materials without pictures, an image grabs my attention and interest first. I first discovered feature images when I started learning WordPress. The feature image option was one of the only parts of WordPress I liked, even though I struggled with the block editor.
A Week of Exhaustion, Frustration, and Hope
Quiet golden-hour read with tea and tech in tow. My week has been hectic with work and being off Camzyos for over a week now.“Why are you off your Camzyos? I thought it was helping.”Yes, it has helped. I have felt better. I am not energized and still fatigued, but I have been able to do things without feeling like I was going to pass out from exertion. The specialty pharmacy would not fill the prescription without every box checked.
When Police Lights Stay On: Law Enforcement Cruise Mode
I live in Hillsborough County, Florida. Within the last few months, our Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office (HCSO) and at least one other local agency have been using what they call cruise mode with their emergency lights. This is creating a lot of confusion for motorists, myself included.
In this mode, the emergency lights are steady and static while the deputy drives normally. The problem is you cannot tell if they want you to move over, pull over, or simply let them pass with priority. Traditionally, emergency lights flash, sometimes with sirens, which signals drivers how to respond. The issue is especially acute when a patrol car is directly behind you or approaching an intersection in front of you. I’ve been in both of these situations, and each time I was unsure how to react.
Free Streaming TV and Pesky Ads
If you’ve been following or reading my blog over the years (and
many people probably haven’t), you know I like watching TV. I love Star
Trek (all the iterations except TNG) and older shows like Green
Acres, All in the Family, MASH, Bunker’s
Place, Barney Miller, and British series like Doc
Martin, Grantchester, and Foyle’s War, along with
many others. I really enjoy how new streaming services like Amazon
(MGM), Pluto TV, Tubi TV, and Plex make so much of this content
available for free. One of my favorite features is when they turn a show
into its own channel.
This past weekend it rained the entire time. I watched one movie, but before and after that I mostly had either the Pluto TV Star Trek: Voyager channel or the Amazon MGM Green Acres channel on, unless I was watching regular TV.
Deep Cover, 2025 - ★★½
Amazon Video seems to be throwing a lot at the wall hoping something sticks. Heads of State was good and genuinely funny 😂. Deep Cover has its moments too, funny in parts and boosted by a star-studded cast ⭐. But overall it fell short. It wasn’t consistently believable or entertaining, even if a few scenes worked.
After Friday’s good news from my cardiologist, I’m celebrating by cooking dinner for my parents and me: Chef Jean-Pierre’s pot roast recipe👨🍳🥩🥕🧅🥔. The house already smells amazing 😌🍽️ It’s in the oven and cooking 🔥⏲️. Photos may come later 📸.
Two wins this weekend 🎉: set up Webmentions and Bridgy Fed on my old Blogger site (now www.michaelponders.com) after a week of troubleshooting 🛠️, and updated my Micro.blog theme to Jim Mitchell’s excellent mnml ✨.
Saw my cardiologist today 🩺 (visit 2 of 3, monthly echocardiograms). EF is up: 51% in May → 74% in July → 77% today 📈. Gradient keeps improving. I feel better and mostly symptom-free 😊. Looks like Camzyos is working for me 💊❤️
#HCM #Camzyos #HeartHealth #Cardiology
Summer Gratitude: A/C
Lately, especially in the heart of summer, I’ve been thinking about air conditioning and the inventions I’m most grateful for that have matured over my lifetime. I don’t think I could have lived in Florida back in the day without air conditioning. You really notice it when it’s gone. Last year, after Hurricane Milton, we lost power for four days. I couldn’t sleep, not only because the A/C was off but also because my CPAP had no power.
Is the World Marching to the Same Tune Again?
We may be about to repeat history in ways that will not be obvious tomorrow, next week, or even next year. This post discusses politics and history; if you prefer to avoid that, stop reading here.
📺 This TV Week’s Watchlist
From Paramount+: 🎬 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Season 3, Episodes 3–5 ⭐⭐⭐½ No spoilers! Continues to be a solid contender and, for me, the best of the Star Trek series on Paramount+ in this “new era.” 🎬 From Prime Video: 🎬 On Call – Season 1, Episodes 1–8 ⭐⭐⭐ Spoilers This one was okay. I didn’t expect it to be renewed. I watched the whole season; it had moments where it could have been brilliant, but overall it was just okay.
The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis, 2021 - ★★½
This review is not about C.S. Lewis himself or his books, but about the movie. The actor was fine for the part, but his dialect threw me off. It kept shifting, and at times it sounded like he was aiming for an English accent, but to my ears it often came across more American. The way the film told C.S. Lewis’s story in the first person, mostly by having him walk around town and narrate, didn’t quite land with me either.
What Jack Baty’s Blogging Anniversary Post Reminded Me Of
I was reading Jack Baty’s blog the other day via RSS and saw his post, “25 years of blogging”. That was three years before I started on Blogger, in the pre-Google days. I had a website before blogging: an about page, photo galleries, a guestbook, and a reading page, hosted by my ISP (GTE) around 1998. I really loved Microsoft FrontPage. I would change the theme and galleries and update the book page at least once a month, but it wasn’t a blog.
My Battle with Subscription Fatigue: Mid-Year Update
I figured I’d give an update on my ongoing battle with
subscription fatigue. This is a mid-year check-in, and I might start
doing these quarterly just to keep myself accountable. Over the past few
months, I’ve whittled down my subscription list by several more
services. Most were dropped by choice because of price or lack of use,
while one disappeared on its own when my cell phone plan changed.
Gone by choice are Netflix, SiriusXM, Yahoo! Mail Plus, Mail.com, Pocket, Peacock, and Protopage. The only one I lost due to my Verizon Wireless legacy plan was Google Play Pass. Why these services? Mostly, they became too expensive or the promotional deals ended. For example, I had the Netflix/Peacock bundle through Verizon Play+. I not only let it lapse, but Verizon also shut down the entire service. It was a good idea to have everything in one place, and it could have been even better if Verizon had used their influence to get better deals from the streaming services. It would have made things more convenient for people, letting them manage everything in one place and maybe even get a discount. But it seems Verizon didn’t want to treat it as a concierge perk for loyal customers, and they were probably losing more money than it was worth, even if it worked well as a small loss leader.