Aug 14, 2003 - Toledo Talk - Eastern U.S. power outage

Here in west Toledo, we had a strange power drain and outage at about 4:15 pm. The local AM radio stations, 1230, 1370, 1470, went off the air, and at 4:50 they are still off. Some of the local TV stations had blackout messages on their screens.

Aug 14, 2013 - Columbus Dispatch - Toxic algae spur warning at Lake Erie beach near Toledo

Toxic blue-green algae have resurfaced in the western basin of Lake Erie, prompting Ohio officials to post warnings for swimmers.

Water tests at Maumee Bay State Park beach last week found a liver toxin produced by the algae at a concentration strong enough to trigger a warning that swimming and wading are not recommended for older people, young children and those with weak immune systems.

Before we northwest Ohio residents get into a lather over fracking in eastern Ohio, we may want to clean up our own backyard and pond first. Agricultural chemicals entering watershed, questionable farming practices, lack of riparian corridor habitat, continual suburban development despite the area's continual population decline. Yep. We have a few issues to tackle.

(My comments from old Toledo Talk threads.)

September 2009 comment

I assume it means thinning the herd. The growing deer population means deer move into human-populated areas where the deer are unwelcome. Or it's the other way around. The growing human sprawl development means humans move into areas where they are unwelcome by Nature, but Nature cannot defend itself as well. Probably some combination of the two scenarios.

http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/13/the-secret-to-policymics-surprising-viral-success-behavioral-analysis/

No surprise to me. The tablet is by far my favorite reading device for long reads. For long periods of information consumption, I prefer the tablet over printed paper, printed books, laptops, TV, and smartphones.

Aug 12, 2013 pandodaily article Why longform is the new necessity

Aug 1, 2013 Sports Illustrated article

My Aug 12, 2013 comment at Toledo Talk.

Several years ago (~2006), the Northwest Ohio Rib-off moved from downtown Toledo to the Lucas County Fairgrounds because of construction at the steam plant, planned renovations for Promenade Park, and because the event organizers wanted to grow the event.

Even though the Northwest Ohio Rib-off remained in northwest Ohio after moving to Maumee, the move irritated many Toledo political dimwits.

So the Toledo creative geniuses devised a new downtown Toledo event to replace the Northwest Ohio Rib-off. They called this new downtown event ... a rib-off.

With the creative juices still flowing, the Toledo dimwits scheduled this new original rib-off to occur a week before the Northwest Ohio Rib-off. A flaming example of petty, small-minded thinking.

I normally make a 100 percent whole grain bread that consists of my 100 percent white whole wheat flour starter and a flour ratio of 70 percent white whole wheat and 30 percent spelt.

The recipe below is for my "light" bread version, which still consists of my 100 percent white whole wheat flour starter, but a flour combo comprised of 50 percent white whole wheat and 50 percent all-purpose flours. This still produces a tasty bread with a bit softer crumb.

My Aug 7, 2013 Toledo Talk comment

Opal finishing in the top two is possible for someone with ninja organizing skills on the Intertubes.

The plan would be to crowdsource over the Web to persuade registered voters who normally never vote to appear at the primary in September and vote for Opal.

Think about the number of people who use Facebook and Twitter in August 2013 compared to August 2009.

July 31, 2013 The de-newspaperization of America

reporters who work for the Plain Dealer of Cleveland -- an iconic name in American journalism, a newspaper that's published as a daily since 1845 and won a lot of awards over the years -- were ordered to stay home and sit by their telephones this morning.

They knew, thanks to the rumor mill, that as many as 50 of them would be laid off before lunchtime. How sad and pathetic: Reporters who routinely work the streets of poor, crime-ridden neighborhoods getting fired by cowering managers who didn't have the cojones to tell face-to-face.

That firing practice is hardly unique to the newspaper industry. Welcome to the rest of the world.

My Aug 1, 2013 comment posted at Toledo Talk in response to Toledo mayoral candidates being interviewed by the Toledo Blade editorial board.

The candidate who refuses to kneel at the throne of the Blade editorial board is the best candidate because such a candidate would know that "secret" meetings and relationships with the media are wrong, and such meetings are a throwback to a dinosaur era of information.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/24/house-rejects-amendment-to-defund-nsa-program-that-collects-millions-of-americans-phone-records-but-the-vote-was-closer-than-you-might-think/

The House narrowly rejected a challenge to the National Security Agency’s secret collection of hundreds of millions of Americans’ phone records Wednesday night after a fierce debate pitting privacy rights against the government’s efforts to thwart terrorism.

The vote was 217-205 on an issue that created unusual political coalitions in Washington, with libertarian-leaning conservatives and liberal Democrats pressing for the change against the Obama administration, the Republican establishment and Congress’ national security experts.

"You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world [wide web]." - Morpheus, The Matrix

Whatever the reason, you're done with sharecropping your content, your identity, your self. Our content is becoming more important, and sometimes even critical to our lives. It is not secure in the hands of random startups, organizations and web companies. We should be the holders of our own data.

(I agree with this list.)

http://indiewebcamp.com/principles

Neopolitan Pizza

This recipe was adapted from information found at http://www.fornobravo.com

This is a basic recipe for making the "Margherita" style pizza. This makes four pizzas that are at least 10 to 12 inches in diameter. Since I use a baking stone instead of a pizza stone, I have to shape my pizzas in an oval or rectangle shape.