After about a month I am still playing several games of Good Sudoku by Zack Gage every day. I highly recommend it!

At this point in the pandemic, I am still limiting grocery store trips to once per week, but I started to forgo wearing gloves and to use (touch) my Apple Watch and iPhone for my shopping list (on AnyList). I wash everything with soap and hot water after I get home. I hope I am doing enough to keep safe.

I am pretty sure that I need scissors to open my new scissors. 🤦‍♂️

As Apple pundits debate whether or not a new product announcement looms in the near future, I am trying to psych myself up for another year with my super old devices. I’m trying to appreciate the value I am extracting from them, which isn’t as fun to think about as ooh, new, shiny.

Amazon’s Alexa has been a pretty lackluster addition to my household. It gets our music-related requests wrong most of the time: usually playing the wrong radio station or, for albums with a title track, it plays the song and not the album. Mostly, the kids try to get it to say stupid things.

Tonight I assembled a desk that my wife bought, so she could work from home more easily.

Now that it is September, it is finally time for me to upgrade my iPhone to the developer beta. I have been running the developer betas of iPadOS 14 for some time now without incident.

It amuses me that Gruber and Moltz are recommending “Ted Lasso” on “The Talk Show” this week. My wife and I love that show, too.

Prepping pancakes to surprise the kids in the morning.

I have been enjoying Apple Music’s new iOS 14 beta feature for infinite playback of similar music after an album ends. I can see it being annoying sometimes, because you might not know that your album has ended, but it is nice when my main goal is to fill my head with pleasant sound and not worry about being my own personal DJ.

If I am lucky, this week will be a return to normal working hours and stress levels. If I am not lucky, well…

🎵 Today’s listen: “The Third Gleam” by The Avett Brothers. I had no idea this album existed and am thrilled it does. It is more lovely music from one of my favorite bands.

This article, about the uselessness of blockchain for just about anything, really tickled me. I have given training on blockchain and have described it as a vector for criminal activity (such as ransomware) that wasn’t possible before.

Come on, New York Times. This type of article is sexist and demeaning. What is Joe Biden wearing? What does it mean?

🎵 Today’s listen: “Gimme Fiction” by Spoon. I remember not liking this record as much as Spoon’s earlier work, but whatever criticisms I have had of it are long forgotten. It is great.

Brian Resnick’s article on Vox summarizes some of the issues we are all facing in the back-to-school period. Coronavirus is in the air, and being indoors with an infected person for a prolonged time increases the viral load that one is exposed to. This is critical to understand.

As Derek Thompson observes in the Atlantic, a lot of places have put on a big show about cleaning surfaces — what he calls “hygiene theater” — though surface contamination is not thought to be a large source of Covid-19 transmission.

Making places safer, instead, should mean improving air quality. But “have you ever heard a restaurant reopening announce they’ve improved ventilation or increased ventilation?” Lidia Morawska, an engineer and the director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health at Queensland University of Technology, recently told me. “No.”

The “hygiene theater” of surface cleaning is already entrenched in mask wearing. Mask wearing is critical to reducing disease transmission from a public health perspective, but masks aren’t magical COVID-19 blockers, especially when people are wearing them around their chins or taking them off before they sneeze (seriously, I have seen this in the grocery store). I think that a lot of people believe lots of activities, like sitting in a classroom all day, are OK as long as everyone wears masks, at least most of the time. I don’t believe that—at least not at a time in which Covid cases are climbing, and outbreaks have been traced to gatherings of people indoors or families sharing a home.

I am concerned that in schools, restaurants, and other public places, “ventilation theater” will soon run rampant. We will be promised that “ventilation system improvements” will protect us, our children, and our grandparents, even when most buildings can’t be redesigned to circulate or scrub the air with any real effectiveness. The article points this out, too:

Remember: Hygiene theater is possible when it comes to air quality as well. If a school or any indoor space says it has improved ventilation, ask how. Marr suggests asking building operators what the air exchange rate is (if they don’t know it, maybe be wary about the space). Ask about what filters have been put in place. Ask if their HVAC systems have been routinely maintained.

I do wonder when things will go back to pre-Covid normal. I am advocating opening windows and using window fans to exchange inside- and outside air, to the extent that is possible, in public buildings. Most places I can think of aren’t really designed for that, unfortunately.

Stormy weather. I am glad I’m inside.

We’re having a morning thunderstorm right now. The sky is black. The barometric pressure is low. It is making me so sleepy!

I spent some time tonight editing vacation photos, mainly because I was too tired to do any programming or work any overtime. It feels good to start the process of sorting, editing, and sharing them with the family. Last year I took way too long to get to it, and I felt bad.

I basically figure that I am old and anxiety-ridden now, because my big, exciting delivery from Amazon contained a Withings Thermo and a pulse oximeter. I need to have things on hand in case I or anyone in my family needs them.

🎵 There’s a new EP by Norah Jones.

“Apple Music 1” is not nearly as fun to say as Beats 1.

I very much enjoyed listening to Antony Johnson’s interview of Dan Moren on the Writing and Breathing podcast. I am reading through Dan Moren’s Galactic Cold War series now, which is a fun “spies in space” space opera.

📺 I finally watched “Picard” this week. Overall, I enjoyed it, but I thought the ending was a mess and a cop-out. I was king of hoping for the “Logan” version of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (something dark and elegiac and serious from start to finish) but “Picard” started that way and retreated into magical Star Trek silliness. I’m not sure I’ll be on board for season 2.

I am reading on the porch, during a steady, soothing rain, after a large meal with my family. It is nice to relax sometimes.