/reader

"Hmmm, probably an 8. On the other hand, why wouldn't I give it a 9? It's among the top 3 movies I've watched this year. I should write that in the review. Should I even write a review? If I use that other app, is 4.5 really the same as a 9? I wish it would've been possible to give an 8.5 rating, that would feel the most honest."

And all of a sudden the credits start rolling...

The restless rating syndrome has ruined yet another movie experience. A mental version of the worst possible non-stop-talking person.

I'm back to no apps. What a relief!

Maybe you too can recognize yourself in the restless rating syndrome?

After brief visits at family graves, I stopped first at Saint Joseph’s Holy Family near Bristow. It’s a wonderful folk shrine that I’ll definitely be visiting again when I can walk it more slowly.

Religious devotion is blended with natural beauty very effectively here.

The caretaker told me they had a Eucharistic revival at the site a couple of years ago, complete with a tent and a week’s worth of Masses. Who knew Catholics had tent revivals?

From there I drove south on 545 to Troy and then on 66 to Tell City for lunch. I made a quick visit to Cannelton just to drive over the Ohio River bridge into Kentucky, where I made an immediate U-turn. So I was in Kentucky for 30 seconds.

Back up to Troy and visited the Christ of the Ohio statue—one of my favorite things in southern Indiana (and therefore the world).

I drove north again on 545 and stopped at the Chapel of the Vierzehn Heiligen, or the Fourteen Holy Helpers, on a family farm near New Boston. It was inspired by German roadside chapels and modeled on the Basilika Vierzehnheiligen in Bavaria, according to a Jasper German Club newsletter found by ChatGPT.

From what I can tell, the Holy Helpers were fourteen already-known saints that began to be invoked together during the Black Death in Germany because their various patronages worked against plague symptoms. Forgive the analogy, but they feel like a medieval Avengers. Devotion to the group continued through the centuries and spread all the way to a farm in southern Indiana.

Further north I stopped at the Monte Cassino shrine in St. Meinrad. There are candles available there that are formed from the leftover wax of votive candles. I always pick up one or two when I’m in the area.

At that point I felt home tugging me back. I made one last stop at an antiques store in Loogootee with a good supply of old tools. I was looking for a splitting maul but nothing caught my interest. I already have a secondhand department store model that will certainly serve the purpose—but I’m keeping my eye out for a cheap, more interesting one.

In the evening, as I said yesterday, I took Rachel to a old time music jam in Paoli. I loved it and I plan to go to more, even if Rachel’s decides not to play! Steve and Nancy Dickey were there. Watch this excellent little video for an introduction to Steve and his locally famous father Lotus. Lesser known fact: the Lotus World Music and Arts Festival in Bloomington is actually named for him, not the flower.

Thing is, I did more and better work in all that chaos than I do today in my fancier, tidier, much more capable setup. This is because the desk has nothing to do with it. I loved what I was doing back then and everything else was tangential and irrelevant.

The "office" was the dining room in my first, tiny old house. I mean, look at the wallpaper and heavy curtains. I sat in that terrible chair for many hours every day and never even noticed how uncomfortable and unsupportive it was. The "desk" was an antique wooden table.

But, on that desk was a Power Mac 7200 (pretty sure) with Extended Keyboard II, which is still the best keyboard ever made. Couple that setup with a Wacom tablet and StyleWriter printer.

I guy could change the world from that room. This guy didn't, but I still felt like I was about to.

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Perfect Sunday morning.

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Why you can't create an account#

• A karass is "a group of people linked in a cosmically significant manner, even when superficial linkages are not evident." I think of rss.chat as a social network for my karass. A small group of people, not trying to get famous or rich from using a social network, rather wanted to work with or stay in touch with people who are linked cosmically. This is one of many rich ideas invented by Kurt Vonnegut, this one in Cat's Cradle, which you should read, because it's some of the best story-telling out there, and it's full of food for thought. I read all the books when I was a teen, and have since re-read them. Sirens of Titan was my fave.#
• Anyway...#
• In the past when I announced a product, people could use it right away, and usually they click a couple of things and then go away.#
• In the case of rss.chat -- what you will see is very much like what you see when you aren't logged in, or what you see on a social network like X, or Mastodon or whatever. The UI is nice, but it's not the thing. That will be revealed relatively slowly, over time -- as new instances pop up, and even more importantly, as developers figure out that this setup works well enough to clone. I'm not selling a product here -- I want to bootstrap an ecosystem, using all I learned from several successful bootstraps -- blogging, RSS, podcasting. #
• The idea is this -- the web itself is a social network. It's up to us, all of us, not just me -- to build that network. #
• When you see how we proceed from here that will become clearer.#
• In the meantime I'm going to change the message you get when you try to sign on, and start a wait list so that when more instances are available, some meant to be open to the public, we'll be sure to let you all know about that. #
• For now, I'm operating a network for people I work with, and it's all open for anyone to read. That's also one of the ideas I want to explore, something I call a "Fractional horsepower social network," stealing a very good idea from Steve Jobs. #
• I don't want to turn the world over to a startup, we've done that and have a pretty good idea of where it goes. I want lots of small ones that have a very strong basis to be connected together in as many ways as people can imagine.#

 09:15 Began the morning reading through some wonderful words from my RSS feed. Tells me the experiment of being extremely picky with my subscriptions is working.

17:03 It has been a busy Saturday, with a great home-cooked lunch in between. I ain’t complaining.

19:31 A cricket match delayed by traffic? Wonderful. And it’s not even in India.

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