Harmful plastics in our food? Fantastic...

I don't know what to say about this other than "Not surprising." Here's a brief excerpt:

According to new research from Consumer Reports, phthalates and bisphenols -- two chemicals linked to various health risks such as diabetes and hormone disruption -- are "widespread" among supermarket staples and fast foods, regardless of their packaging and ingredients and whether or not they are certified organic.

Researchers found that 99% of the supermarket and fast foods they tested contained phthalates, also known as plasticizers, which are chemicals that are added to plastics to make them more flexible. In addition, 79% of the food samples contained bisphenol A (BPA), an industrial chemical used in plastic manufacturing, and other bisphenols. Both chemicals have been found in studies to be hazardous to health.

Isn't this wonderful? The promise of the future! If it doesn't come across in the text, I'm being sarcastic. Read the article in full at Consumer Reports.



Work arounds because Twitter sucks

Since Felon Musk has destroyed Twitter, I'm just going to blog a bit like it's Twitter. I blog on PostHaven, which is a wonderful blogging service you should definitely check out if you hate the Technogarchy, would like to adhere to a reasonable budget, and appreciate actual ethics. Here's a short list of the tools I'm using to achieve something of a social media presence:

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Apple's Notes cannot be exported, and that's wrong...

Ok, this is annoying. Apple Notes is a wonderfully capable notes app that allows you to bulk import all manner of rich text file formats, even entire Evernote exports, and organize them the way you like... with one exception. If you want to stop using Notes, you have to leave everything you created in Notes behind, or export them one by one.

I have over 300 notes.

This is not only annoying but terribly wrong of Apple. I shouldn't have to explain why. I didn't spend a few thousand dollars on Apple gear to lose control over the data I create. I have personal notes, drafts of articles, detailed project concepts, musings, recipes for loads of gluten-free foods, and a bunch more categories. And now that I'm not using Apple Notes anymore... er. No. That's not right. Now that I don't use Apple Notes anymore I am forced to keep it around in order to retain all that material I generated or saved from various web pages.

I am now using Drafts ($20/year on the App Store), also known as Drafts 5 for iOS and iPad, which has been around for a very long time, from what I understand. Using the app, I can see why. It's a powerfully fast and capable notes capturing tool that allows me to create a new note with a simple keystroke so I don't lose the bright spots of inspiration that, today, seem to fritter away all too quickly. In a 24-hour period I've already created thirteen notes with over 2,000 words combined.

There is, however, nothing I can do about all the notes I have in Apple Notes since the damnable thing won't let me grab them all wholesale. If I can offer any advice, it would be to not engage Apple's Notes app for any reason because if at any point you need to get them out, you will not be able to do so without spending a load of personal time exporting them to PDF... the only export option. 

Unacceptable, Apple. Unacceptable.


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How J.J. Abrams broke Star Trek

Star Trek: The Next Generation 30th Anniversary Print by Dusty Abell, Copyright © 2017, Roddenberry Entertainment Inc. Reprinted with permission. All Rights Reserved. Dusty Abell is a comic artist who has pencilled countless comic books, is an illustrator, and has been involved in the animation industry as a character designer since 2000. He has worked on productions such as Batman: Return of the Caped Crusader, Batman vs. Two-Face, Young Justice, Mike Tyson Mysteries, King of the Hill, The Official Handbook of the Invincible Universe for Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead, and many, many others.

The first Star Trek television show, known colloquially as The Original Series, ran from 1966 to 1969. The series, produced by Paramount Television and both commissioned by and broadcast on NBC, had its moments with episodes that broke critical new ground, like the first inter-racial kisses in Season 1’s introduction to Khan Noonien-Singh, “Space Seed,” and the more frequently cited kiss between Kirk and Uhura in Season 3 episode “Plato’s Stepchildren.”

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Life after the death of Twitter...

So. Elon Musk happened. Kinda fun, I suppose, in an existential threat kinda way. I, however, prefer to keep things a tad less... megalomaniacal? As such, I've decided to migrate out of the "mainstream" and into something more comfortable; Mastodon. Obviously.

Now, I'm testing to make sure posting through IFTTT will work correctly. I blog on PostHaven (https://tylerknowsnothing.com) and am terrible at engaging with social media, so this is a necessary element for the exposure of my writings. 

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If you enjoyed what you just read and would like to support be for $1 a month, click here for my Ko-Fi page.



Apple's Butterfly keyboard tragedy & potential e-waste disaster


Without official unit sales numbers from Apple, we have no idea how many hundreds of thousands of these machines are in the wild.

I am a life-long fan of Apple. Born in ‘68, I grew up in the thick of the consumer electronics and personal computer boom of the late 70's. Keeping to myself at times, loudly evangelistic at others, a shame-free Mac Ex-pat, reluctant Windows user for a decade, and always the staunch critic, my fandom runs deep. From my early experiences with Apple ][e machines, to all of the Macs I’ve had since, and arriving at now with the two Mac Minis on my desk, one an M1 and the other a last-gen Intel model, I have had my most satisfying and productive years on Macs.

Fortunate for me that I missed Apple’s Butterfly Keyboard era, then.

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