Well here it is 2023. After a turbulent end to 2022 that had our family moving from the heart of Los Angeles to the wilds of rural Wisconsin, our lives have begun to stabilize a little. Most of our existence over the past month has been snow mitigation which has proven to be equal parts fun and frustration.
I've got a few projects planned for this new year, and one of those is continuing with this newsletter on a sporadic basis — though I may be playing around with the format a little bit. But for this first issue of 2023, it's business as usual with the typical collection of ephemera, oddities, and perhaps even a useful nugget or two. Enjoy.
A Photo a Day Challenge
Back in 2010, in a effort to teach myself how to be a better photographer, I embarked on a journey where I took a photo each day and posted that image in a public forum. I don't know if this made me a better photographer, but by the end of the year I did have 365 photos.
You can see the results of that grand experiment at the 365 from 2010 album at my much-neglected Flickr page.
I only cheated a few times (posting a picture that was taken on a different day) and only duplicated one subject (but six months passed between postings).
I tried to replicate the project in 2016 using the now seemingly defunct Photoblog, but it didn't stick. I thought about doing it again in 2020 in the spirit of revisiting that initial project ten years on, but 2020 sucked pretty bad so nothing got done.
I hadn't given a single thought to starting the project again, but on New Year's Day, as I enjoyed the first cup of coffee in 2023 while gazing out across the forested lot that makes up my backyard, I saw a single deer picking her way through the trees. I picked up a camera and took a shot. Thus a challenge was born.
This iteration of the project comes with a few rules:
A photo from any camera counts. Even a phone. Or a drone.
All photos will be posted at 16:9.
Although all the photos will likely be resized or cropped to fit the aspect ratio defined in point 2, the photos will undergo only minimal editing (if any).
I can delay posting a day or two (accounting for workload or travel or lack of internet access), but the posted photo has to be taken on the day it represents. This forces me to get out and take at least one picture each day.
I reserve the right to bend Rule 4 on occasion should I deem it necessary.
Anyway, five days in, I can't say that any of the photos are all that great — mainly because the entire landscape around here is mostly black, white, and brown. And, after a decade of using the same old and busted DSLR I’m breaking in a new camera. So I’m dealing with a learning curve there.
But hopefully as the year progresses I’ll mange to produce at least a few interesting images. Time will tell.
You can see the progress unfold on the 2023 Album on Flickr (chosen for ease of access more than anything).
One Cent
Many years ago, in the nascent days of online banking, I worked in the marketing department of a sizable credit union. In that organization there was huge resistance to the idea of the "branchless bank" that comes with a move toward online banking. However, in stark opposition to those touting the critical need for an expansive network of physical branches, we marketers peered into the future. To us, the idea of a mostly online banking experience remained intriguing.
So, in the interest of a little grassroots market research, I opened an account at BankSimple, one of the first internet banking start-ups, formed by tech entrepreneur Joshua Reich and Twitter's Alex Payne.
But with a serious slap in the face to the dream of an internet-based bank, BankSimple wasn't a bank per se. It was more of a banking interface. As such, it needed a real bank to partner with to serve as a backbone, mainly to provide FDIC insurance. (Maybe those branch network stalwarts were right after all).
When the start-up launched in 2012, its parent bank was U.S. Bancorp. This relationship stood until 2014 when BankSimple, now renamed simply Simple (forever adding to the confusing landscape of businesses named Simple that included footwear, skin care, and disposable email), was acquired by Spanish financial institution BBVA.
An acquisition of this nature always means a change to routing numbers and account numbers. This can be quite a hassle if you use your account for automated payments, but I'd pretty much stopped using my Simple account for anything other than paying for the occasional parking meter.
Then, in mid-2021, BBVA shut Simple down entirely and my Simple account became a regular old BBVA account. By this time even my occasional use had trickled off. A small voice at the back of my head whispered, "You should probably close this account." But I ignored the warning and almost immediately forgot about the account. (There was a lot going on in 2021).
But I was reminded of the account's existence a few months later when BBVA announced it was selling its U.S. business interests to PNC Bank. This meant, of course, my account would be changed again. This time, instead of a simple conversion, all BBVA accounts would be converted to PNC accounts and everyone had to open a new online account, which seemed needlessly complicated for an account I barely used.
It was time to get off this train. By this point I only had a few hundred dollars in a low-interest savings account. So. instead of setting up a new account that I was never going to use, I transferred my meager cash stash out of there so I wouldn't have to deal with the changeover. Having done that, I wnt right back to not giving it another thought.
So I was a little surprised when I received a statement from PNC in late 2021. Unbeknownst to me, I had earned one wole cent of interest for the month before I transferred my balance. So, having gailed at passively closing the account, I completed the steps to officially shut the thing once and for all.
A few weeks later I received a check from PNC for that one cent.
I've decided to not cash it. Instead, I'm keeping it partly as an artifact of my experiment with the online banking movement and partly to give PNC’s escheat department something to do.
Witcher Map
Poland's greatest cultural export is Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher. First released in 1986 as a retelling of a Polish fairy tale, the creation now spans nine books and collections of short stories, three video games, numerous comic books, and a number of films and television shows — the most successful of which is the latest series on Netflix.
If you've seen the series and ever wondered just where the islands of Skellige are in relation to Cintra or how far Vengerberg is from Rivia, then the Swiat Wiedzmina (The World of the Witcher), a detailed map created by students at the University of Warsaw (and displayed in both Polish and English) has you covered.
As long as we’re talkinga bout The Witcher, if the recently released The Witcher: Blood Origin let you down and you just can't wait for the upcoming third season of the core show to air this summer, not to worry. You can still get some winter Witcher warming vibes with the Witcher Fireplace, courtesy of Netflix.
File Under: Cocktails No One Asked For
It's winter, and that means it's time to make yourself some hand-crafted eggnog. But what it's never time for is the Velveteeni.
In fact, the less said about The Velveteeni, the better.
Pantone's Color of the Year
Every year during the waning days of December, the color wonks at Pantone anounce their pick for color of the year for the forthcoming year. This time around they've decided that Viva Magenta (Pantone 18-1750) is emblematic of 2023. Based on the splash it made on social media, it seems to be a popular choice.
I do feel it is a bit optimistic to announce a color for a year that hasn't happened yet. For instance, I'm not convinced that 2022 as a year was exemplified by Very Peri (Pantone 17-3938) as declared by Pantone late in 2021. And they sort of cheated for 2021 by announcing two colors Ultimate Gray (17-5104) and Illuminating (13-0647).
That said, by the time January rolls around and we’re all getting back to work, no one really seems to care about the color of the year. For my part, I use the announced color of the year (or a close approximation thereof) to mark my annual Gmail labels.
But if you’re keen on incorporating the Magentaverse (as Pantone calls it) into your own life and don't want to buy into the Pantone system, the most common option seems to be with the hexidecimal code of #be3455 (corresponding to the RGB decimal code of 190,52,85). However, there is some disagreement about this in the design world and some iconoclasts insist on using #bb2649.
Project Farm
I’ve always been something of a tinkerer. But this past year, with a move to our rural manor, my hobby tinkering has turned into an occupation of necessity. This has led me to become an avid watcher of Todd Osgood's Project Farm on YouTube.
Over the past five years Osgood has tested hundreds of products, covering everything from furnace filters to vacuum cleaners to motor oil to zip ties to wrenches to battery-powered chainsaws — all often to the point of failure.
Osgood's tests are well-thought-out and comprehensive. His methodology is impressive, and his abilty to build a jig that tests each product to its limits is amazing. His stud finder comparison is particularly noteworthy in its creativity, as is his breakdown of drywall anchors, the first episode I watched (it remains a favorite).
It’s important to point out that Osgood doesn't accept any sponsorships and buys every product he tests to ensure unbiased testing.
As an owner and maintainer engines both small and large, I've found Osgood's tests to be indispensable for researching which tools, solvents, and equipment is worth buying. More than once, his reviews have informed my purchases.
When you're ever in the market for a new tool or anything you'd use around the house or workshop, there's a good chance Osgood has already tested it; I encourage you to check out Project Farm before you go shopping. Thanks to a gent named Jim, all of these tests are archived on a publicly available (and sortable/searchable) Google Sheet.
Komelon Inch/Metric Tape Measure
It's pretty much a guarantee that in the comments of any woodworking video on YouTube, one of the threads will devolve into an argument about what's better: imperial fractions or millimeters.
The truth is it doesn't really matter what you use as long as you're consistent. It's just as challenging to measure 1/16 or 1/32 of an inch as it is to measure 1.5 or 0.8 millimeters.
But if you're unit agnostic, then the Komelon Inch/Metric Scale Power Tape is a good tool to have in your arsenal.
That'll do it for this issue. I had more planned, but this was already getting pretty long. And it's time to go clear some more snow. Thanks, as always, for reading. Don't forget to hug someone you love. Until next time.
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