Hang in there. We need you.

It's a shitty time. Depression falls from the sky more easily than the rain lately.

Please remember that your family needs you, your friends need you, your pets need you. The world needs you (even if you don't realize it). Depression can and will grab at you. Try hard not to let it eat you up whole. Get up out of bed in the morning, walk your dog, shower, brush your teeth, no matter what. Survive and try to even thrive, so that you can help others through this time.

Please wear a mask

Please. Wear a mask when you are outdoors and around others.

Yes, wearing masks helps. Here's why. Maria Godoy, Minnesota Public Radio, June 21, 2020.

More.

Even more: 

• Face masks work. They need to be mandatory.
• Do cloth face masks really work? We tested them in the lab.
• Still Confused About Masks? Here’s the Science Behind How Face Masks Prevent Coronavirus. 
• Face masks don’t even have to work especially well to be effective. 

No, face masks don't lower oxygen intake or put you at risk of carbon dioxide poisoning.

Updated: July 20, 2020.

But what of antifa?

What IS antifa? I don't know much about them, and I suspect you don't either, so maybe start with Wikipeda. Jezebel's Harron Walker has a good and quick take for you as well. See "Area Fascist Still Doesn't Know What Antifa Is." (Jezebel, May 31, 2020.)

Beyond that, a greater understanding of "what is antifa" is too much for me to tackle. Instead, I'm just taking a few notes here based on my concern around the president labeling antifa a terrorist group. I decided to do a bit of googling and reading around the news to try to answer one question for myself: Is "antifa" actually behind all the rioting and looting going on in the US these past days? If so, maybe some level of outrage is warranted. If not, it's fair to question what's actually going on here.

Black Lives Matter

Other people can explain this better than I can, so I'm going to quote and link quite a bit here.

Black Lives Matter. Doesn't "All Lives Matter" mean the same thing / mean a good thing, too?

No. German Lopez from VOX explains  Why you should stop saying “all lives matter,” explained in 9 different ways . (July 11, 2016.)

It’s a common conversation these days: One person says, “Black lives matter.” Then another responds, “No, all lives matter.”

It’s also a complete misunderstanding of what the phrase “black lives matter” means. The person on the receiving end interprets the phrase as “black lives matter more than any other lives.”

But the point of Black Lives Matter isn't to suggest that black lives should be or are more important than all other lives. Instead, it’s simply pointing out that black people's lives are relatively undervalued in the US — and more likely to be ended by police — and the country needs to recognize that inequity to bring an end to it.

My Coronavirus Notes & FAQ

Here I'm pulling together a few different bits of information on dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic that I believe to be correct. I've linked to sources and included publication dates to help with identification and trust.

Starting with: Should you wear a mask when out and about?

Yes. See this post from Daring Fireball's John Gruber. "We’re waiting for peer-reviewed studies. In the meantime, early studies and anecdotal evidence from countries with established mask-wearing social norms suggest quite strongly that mask wearing is effective." (May 21, 2020.)
See also "HAMSTER RESEARCH SHOWS MASKS EFFECTIVE IN PREVENTING COVID-19 TRANSMISSION" linked to and summarized by John Gruber. (May 21, 2020.)

John's not some conspiracy theorist. He's a respected tech blogger linking to various respectable sources of information.

On the subject of voting

“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."

"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"

Greetings from NOLA!

Greetings from New Orleans! My wife and I are down here for a bit, dog and house sitting for a friend. So far we've seen some great music (Snug Harbor might be my new favorite jazz club), and had fantastic food and drink at too many places to mention, both in the French Quarter and around the Bywater neighborhood we're we are staying.

SONOS on a budget? IKEA Symfonisk!

Looking to expand your SONOS home audio system? Or want to get into the wifi zoned audio game on a budget? Check out IKEA's new Symfonisk speakers! Created in collaboration with SONOS, they are fully compatible with other SONOS speakers. I've got three SONOS speakers already (two Play:3 and one Connect:Amp), and it was a breeze to add this new Symfonisk speaker so that we could listen to music while preparing dinner in the kitchen.

Love it or leave it? No. Improve it.

This "love it or leave it" garbage is not new. Fifty years ago people were pointing out how stupid it is. Here's proof.

From the July 21, 1969 Chicago Tribune: On the op-ed page, Sydney J. Harris wrote a piece headlined, “The ‘love it or leave it’ nonsense.”

“One of the most ignorant and hateful statements that a person can make to another is, ‘If you don’t like it here, why don’t you leave?’” Harris wrote. “Most people who want to change conditions do like it here: they love it here. They love it so much they cannot stand to see it suffer from its imperfections, and want it to live up to its ideals. It is the people who placidly accept the corruptions and perversions and inequities in our society who do not love America.”

From the Chicago Tribune.

Our new apartment!

I never planned to become a home owner -- it just sort of happened. But it's good to live indoors, and rents are going to keep going up.

Here's two walkthrough videos of our wonderful new space in Chicago. First, right after closing, and next, about a month later after we've gotten some furniture in place.