From what I have heard of Sleater-Kinney’s new album, “The Center Won’t Hold”, it certainly sounds different than their older stuff. This arcticle, by Melena Rezwik, in the New York Times, provides some context why:

Since its self-titled 1995 debut, Sleater-Kinney has been revered as one of indie rock’s most musically fierce and lyrically sharp bands, cutting a path for passionate musicians who refuse to check their politics or their emotions at the club door. The band’s signature sound — Brownstein and Tucker’s guitars and vocals winding around each other in stinging counterpoint, anchored by Weiss’s deft, thundering drumming — always relied on its precise chemistry. On the eve of its ninth studio album, Sleater-Kinney is now skimmed down to its founding duo, Tucker, 46, and Brownstein, 44.

Sleater-Kinney was a big part of the soundtrack to my 20s and early 30s. They were magnificent, and I am happy they are still making music, even if they are now down a member. I can’t wait for their entire new album to drop on August 16.

I wish TidBITS posted more content, because their site loads so damn fast.

G&T

I am wondering right now whether a gin-and-tonic is in my near future or my far future.

Mimi Swartz, for the New York Times, ponders something I have been wondering about, too.

The once obscure congressman from El Paso who brought in an astounding nearly $80 million in his Senate race reported a measly $3.6 million, way down from his $9.4 million in the first quarter. Jay Inslee is gaining on him. How did this happen? Many answers lie in the difference between running for office in Texas and running nationally. The first showed all of Mr. O’Rourke’s strengths, and the second each and every weakness.

In my opinion, Beto is running the wrong race. I think he would have a legitimate shot at winning Cornyn’s senate seat in Texas, and that he has wasted valuable time pursuing the presidency.

Oh, another big data breach. Just wondering, does anybody pay for their own credit monitoring? I have had “free” credit monitoring for years, all paid for by companies that should have been keeping my data more secure.

My wife and I worked on packing clothes for our vacation—starting Saturday. We are really ahead of schedule this year! Or, at least I am. My wife needs a whole week to pack for herself and our two kids.

Monmouth County Fair

The Monmouth County (New Jersey) Fair

Via The Verge:

Sony may have only released the RX100 VI last year, but the company is already back with an updated model called the RX100 VII.

I am excited to see that Sony is still revving its RX100 camera. I have an RX100 Mark I, which I don’t use too much any more, since I got a micro 4/3 camera, but I still love it. It takes great pictures, is incredibly versatile, and fits in a relatively tiny belt-loop holster case, so I can take it anywhere. It may be slower than a smartphone camera, and have fewer features than a more recent model, but it still takes great pictures, and is pretty easy to use as well.

The RX100 VII will be available later in August 2019 for $1,200 for the camera alone. Later in 2019, the aforementioned Shooting Grip Kit bundle will be available for $1,300. It will be available for preorder at B&H Photo and Adorama later today.

It’s an over-$1,000 pocket camera, though, which is a market segment that sounds like it shouldn’t even exist. I bought my Mark I used for $300, right after the RX-100 Mark II was released. Since then, owners have been more keen on selling their old ones for much higher prices, which has kept me from upgrading. Maybe someday I will pick up one from a few generations back.

I upgraded my hosted micro.blog’s Photos page to the new, built-in one that @manton released last week. It loads very quickly and I’m happy with how it looks and works. I love that the hosted blogs keep getting better.

I am thankful for Panic’s Transmit app today, as it tears through terabytes of file moving on my home network. Now, if only I knew why my SeagateNAS, which I am emptying in case of failure, has had blinking LED lights, since our power failure last week.

I use git almost every day, and I still have to look up commands and workarounds to error messages sometimes. Merging is still a little hard for me, though git-flow helps with my normal workflow.

My family and I enjoyed the local county fair this weekend. We went right after it opened for the day, before it got very crowded and before the temperature got too high.

The “Bat out of Hell” Broadway musical is oddly fascinating to me. I actually love how bombastic and over the top Jim Steinman’s songs are. Seeing them in a show, though, could be either great or just too much.

I got my first iTunes “Uploaded with warnings” message for my Mac app tonight. It was easy to solve (I didn’t need to check StackOverflow), but I am puzzled why it didn’t pop up over the prior 6 versions I uploaded this year.

🎵 It’s a bright and cheery “Country Caffeine” afternoon for me, as I close out my work week.

I started the most important part of packing for my vacation: syncing some TV shows to my iPad via Plex.

I wish I had purchased my first pair of (good) open-back headphones about 8 years ago, when I started on this headphone hobby of mine. I think they sound better, though their sound leakage means I can only use them while I’m alone. I work alone, so that’s not a problem for me.

I enjoyed reading this article from the New York Times:

Estrada was playing a Pocket Operator, a device released four years ago by a Swedish company called Teenage Engineering. To date, the company has made nine different models of the same basic design, and it has sold more than 350,000 of them worldwide, making the Pocket Operator one of the most popular synthesizers in history. The Korg M1 — famous for producing the sound of Seinfeld’s slap bass and Madonna’s “Vogue,” and one of the best-selling and most influential synths of all time — is estimated to have sold 100,000 fewer units over nearly twice as much time. The “portable” version of one of the Pocket Operator’s earliest forebears — the telharmonium, constructed more than a hundred years ago — cost more than $5 million to build in today’s dollars, weighed 200 tons and required a team of specialists to achieve peak performance. A Pocket Operator costs about $60 and fits in the palm of your hand.

The pocket synth by Teenage Engineering, the company that designed Panic’s upcoming PlayDate handheld gaming console, looks really cool. I kind of want to pick one up, even though I no longer consider myself a musician of any kind.

I just had to re-send a fax to my health insurer because the prior fax, sent last week by a third party, did not fully print out. No one notified me until now. I am 99% certain that my insurer’s fax machine ran out of ink, which is the cause of the problem. Companies should not be using fax machines anymore.

Panic’s Nova code editor, which is entering private beta soon, looks incredible. I wish I were in the market for a code editor on the Mac. I only code in Swift on the Mac, and Xcode is fine for that. I only code in other languages on the PC, for work.

I was thrilled to re-learn today that WinSCP can connect to SharePoint sites via WebDAV. I know SharePoint sites can be opened in Windows Explorer, but, for some reason, my user account does not have that ability. WinSCP gives me a more reliable method than a WebDAV share anyway.

I updated my iPad Air 2 to iPadOS 13 Developer Beta 4, which is the only device I have that I can live with beta-related bugs for a month or two. So far, the app that I develop, SwiftoDo, works, though it did not work prior to this beta, so I am happy.

I don’t think the person who put a hard-coded limit on Excel file path names, one that is way lower than the longest path name allowed on the file system, ever imagined how much grief it would cost me at work.