Author: Patrick

  • Fixing a piano during an 8 hour layover

    Aspiring piano tuner, Josiah Jackson, fixed a public piano in O’Hare Airport during an 8 hour layover.

    On YouTube, his channel name is the Piano Doctor, and he posted a video of the endeavor.

  • My 2024 best of list

    Originally posted to Instagram

    Now that we are in the final days of the year, here are 🎵a few of my favorite things 🎶

    (TV, movies, music are all from this year. The book list are my favorites that I read this year, but may have come out earlier)

    TV

    • Shrinking
    • Penguin
    • Arcane
    • Shogun
    • Slow Horses
    • Abbott Elementary
    • Geek Girl
    • Las Azules
    • Interior Chinatown
    • Fallout

    Books

    • Adam Higginbotham – Midnight in Chernobyl
    • Kathryn Schultz – Lost & Found
    • Scott Carson – Lost Man’s Lane
    • Matt Dinniman – Dungeon Crawler Carl series
    • Tananarive Due – The Reformatory
    • Travis Baldtree – Legends & Lattes
    • Adrian Tchaikovsky – Children of Time
    • Rick Remender – The Sacrificers vol 1
    • Matthew Desmond – Evicted
    • Patrick Horvath – Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees

    Movies

    • Mads
    • The Last Stop in Yuma County
    • Wild Robot
    • My Old Ass
    • Caddo Lake
    • Rebel Ridge
    • Inside Out 2
    • Hundreds of Beavers
    • Late Night with the Devil
    • Self Reliance

    Music

    • Etran De L’Air – 100% Saharan Guitar
    • Haley Heynderickx – Seed of a Seed
    • Glass Animals – I Love You So F Much
    • Cassandra Jenkins, My Light, My Destroyer
    • Runnners – Starsdust
    • Rosali – Bite Down
    • Zach Bryan – The Great American Bar Scene
    • Kelly Lee Owens – Dreamstate
    • Ghost Funk Orchestra – A Trip to the Moon
    • Dehd – Poetry
    • Pearl Jam – Dark Matter
    • Phosphorescent – ‘Revelator’
    • Itasca – Imitation of War
  • Backing up government data sets

    Fascist bureaucrats don’t like facts that contradict their agenda. Backing up government data sets as an act of resistance.

  • 2024 in snacks

    Cabel Sasser does his annual year in review of snacks. Did you know there are:

    • Churro flavored Oreos
    • Smore flavored Ramen
    • Spiced Coca Cola

  • 10 technologies for 2025

    MIT Technology Review posted their prognostications for what 10 technologies will make an impact in 2025. Maybe this will be the year of the robotaxi. Interestingly, cow burps, a significant source of methane, might receive relief.

    Cow burps are one of the largest sources of agricultural emissions—and one of the trickiest ones to solve. A food supplement that significantly reduces the amount of methane that cattle belch is now available in dozens of countries. Other products, which might prove even more effective, are likely on the way.

  • Dyatlov Pass incident

    In 1959, nine experienced Russian skiers died under mysterious circumstances, referred to as the Dyatlov Pass incident. Bodies found in different locations with varying amounts of clothing and an array of injuries. The facts made for ripe speculation: stumbling on a secret government project, a sadistic murderer, American spies, and the supernatural.

    In 2021, Douglas Preston covered the history of the investigations, and modern science may have solved it. The likeliest culprit? An Avalanche.

  • Accessible seating should not be available to the general public

    A hill that I will die on: accessible seating tickets for events should not be available to the general public. These areas or sections are already scarce and by making them generally available increases the likelihood of scalpers buying them.

    Recently, I attempted to purchase Nine Inch Nails tickets for a show. And due to the hellish experience that is modern ticket purchasing made possible by Ticketmaster, the show sold out immediately, yet plenty of tickets showed up immediately on Stub Hub.

    I’ve been to concerts in the last couple years, mouse clicks lucking into tickets, where no accessible seating after the on sale. But when I got to the venue, these sections were nearly empty, with nobody sitting in them.

    I’m not entitled to tickets, but I should have the honest ability can purchase tickets intended for those with limited options.

  • The best DeepSeek explainer

    Stratechery with the best DeepSeek AI explainer. It’s broad in describing the general applications and industry impacts, as well as parsing the technical bits of what they did.

  • Texas blade shop owner refuses to add Nazi symbol to knife

    Texas blade shop owner refuses to add Nazi symbol to knife.

    What stands out about this incident:

    • how emphatic on what he would not do “I won’t re-Nazify shit.”
    • offered the woman an out to “add a modern German forestry seal… de-Nazify shit.”
    • how nonchalant the woman was with her request

    The shop, https://www.thebladebartx.com/, is located in Edom, TX, and one of the owners, Jonathan Sibley, competed on Forged in Fire.

  • The Wiki Game

    A fun way to explore Wikipedia: The Wiki Game. Click article links to navigate from one article to another. It’s timed and scored like golf.