Rolandt

At the end of the prologue to my book The Cooking Gene (HarperCollins Amistad imprint, 2017/2018) I reflected on whether or not the Southern table could give us some insight into America’s second original sin–the enslavement of Africans and the consequences that resulted:

“The lazy, laughing South / With blood on its mouth /And I, who am black, would love her,” wrote Langston Hughes, a refugee of Joplin, Missouri, the poet laureate of black America. The poems I was bid to remember frequently referenced a place that was caught up in a weird braid of nostalgia, lament, romance, horror, and fear. Forsyth County, Georgia, is no longer the same place it was nearly thirty years ago, and black people have long since moved in. And yet across the region, flashpoints continue, the shootings, the draggings, the overreach of police authority, the obstruction of the vote, inequalities and inequities and silent and sturdy boundaries between white and black. For some, “we” are the South, but “they” are Dixie, and yet we and they all know the old hanging trees and the strange fruit they once bore. I dare to believe all Southerners are a family. We are not merely Native, European, and African. We are Middle Eastern and South Asian and East Asian and Latin American, now. We are a dysfunctional family, but we are still a family. We are unwitting inheritors of a story with many sins that bears the fruit of the possibility of ten times the redemption. One way is through reconnection with the culinary culture of the enslaved, our common ancestors, and restoring their names on the roots of the Southern tree and the table those roots support. The Old South is where I cook. The Old South is a place where food tells me where I am. The Old South is a place where food tells me who I am. The Old South is where food tells me where we have been. The Old South is where the story of our food might just tell America where it’s going. The Old South / With soul food in its mouth / and I, who am African American, must know her.”

Now we are here, another flashpoint, a triple threat in a perfect cauldron of a pandemic, a massive economic downturn and an election year under a controversial and often divisive presidency.  I had hoped originally this would be a cap to the Obama presidency, then I hoped it would be a great way to open the Clinton presidency and then I resigned myself to the fact that his project was going to have to suit itself to the challenges of the Trump era.  Now we are closing in on 4 years and I am just waking up from a weeklong fog.  My immense grief over the continued murder of African Americans and the brutal means by which peaceful protestors and others have been repulsed by rogue law enforcement has been too much.  The ticker tape of word salad flowing through my consciousness is muddied but slowly approaching some clarity.

In 2012 Rabbi Michelle Goldsmith sat me down after a presentation that I gave at her then synagogue in Birmingham, Alabama.  She said, “You realize your life isn’t going to be the same.” She elaborated and she was right.  Then I was still on my Southern Discomfort Tour, a trip though the South to find my family roots and trace food routes from the colonial and antebellum South through to the childhood of my grandparents, themselves one generation removed from enslavement.  Almost four years removed from the publication of The Cooking Gene, and having traveled through 8 countries in West Africa, the journey seems easier but the world seems so much less full of hope than it did when I thought my book would get me into the good graces of Barack and Michelle for a photo opp.  
So what does a detective story in drag about food and genealogy and contemporary food politics have to teach about race and systemic racism? Or a better question, what did I learn after the fact, once the book was closed thinking and linking back to what I wrote?

1. White America and African America are inherently connected, Black folks know this, but many white people are still surprised or in denial and it is this more than blatant appropriation that pisses us off.  

Why do many white people seem terrified about addressing their genetic, familial, historical and cultural connections to Black people? What does working through the technical difficulties look like?  

2. Food has meant working in historical and cultural spaces that are really challenging to Black mental health and contemporary identity from the big house kitchen to the contemporary urban dining room.  The inherent vulnerability you have to have to do this work and the fear that it is marketing our traumas is more repulsive and problematic to Black folks now than ever before. This is happening simultaneously as Black folks in America get more interested in genealogy and finding their family’s place in the bigger global narrative.  
What is it about the times we are living in that makes people far more reticent to rehearse and relate stories of past oppression and resistance in the ways those of the past two generations?  How can we achieve a better place where we can critique our experience in a brave new way?  How do we tell our family stories now and in the future?  

3. Acknowledging multiple languages and multiple ideologies is not “both sideism,” its just breaking down why we have an ongoing disagreement about the past, the present and the future.
Is it possible to engage in these conversations acknowledging the words and thoughts of “alternative visions,” of the same exact history without amplifying myths or lending them validity?  Can you understand and discuss their language and ideas without becoming toxic or losing your own sense of revolution and evolution?  

4. Food was a window for me into the fact Southern white people and their descendants are the most African-rooted white people in mainland North America.
How do we make sense of the engrained African, Afri-Creole and African American impact on Southern whites and at the same time acknowledge Black erasure and the decentering of Black narratives in the service of white supremacy?  

5. Africa was an absolutely necessary part of my journey, but I feel valid and full as an extension of Africa in America.
In a space where the Diaspora wars wage on social media and a racist president describes modern Africa and Africans in demeaning terms, what did Africa mean to my food and identity journey and how did it change my perceptions about being African American for the better?  What does it feel like to recover my original family names?  

6. The politics of race and food and culture in the American South is far from just Black and white and we must repeat that racial inequality and systemic racism are not only baggage born by the South.
How do we have a more inclusive conversation that includes all Southerners, addresses parallel issues in the Black or African Atlantic world and moves the discussion from being Southern to all-American?

7. People of all backgrounds really don’t know the full story of African American food in the South, and that’s because a simplistic, one note narrative that can be quickly digested and spat out has become the prevailing narrative of African American food—and most African American culture in the marketplace of ideas.  Soundbite size, one note, simple narratives are often how we communicate our feelings about “race.”
What will it take to guarantee that this story of Black resistance, travail, hope, memory and creativity becomes an ongoing movement for cultural literacy and cultural awareness for all?

For the next 7 posts, I’m going to try to tackle each one of these in 1500 words or less.  This is a very, very serious time for thinking about “race,” and what it means and how systemic racism and the legacy of 1526/1619 lives on with us 4 and almost 5 centuries later.  Each post will come with discussion questions that you can go over with a group.  If you have a copy of The Cooking Gene, great.  If you don’t please consider purchasing a RSADR (Retail Purchases Support Authors During Rona) copy and have an even richer conversation inside yourself and with your friends, family and neighbors about the themes of the work and politics of race and culinary history and culture in American life.  

Homework:
1. Use this time apart to collect family recipes over the phone or by computer.
2. Design a menu that reflects the life of one Ancestor in your family tree.
3. If there is a person in your family or community who is a culture or culinary tradition bearer surprise her with a meal to honor her knowledge and skill.
4. Eat well.

Alberta has one of the best education systems in the world, however, it is not making enough money for the private sector, so the government is preparing to institute a system of charter schools in the province, which should bring it to U.S. standards of achievement in relatively short order.

I have long said educators should tap into existing communities of practice, rather than try to build their own. But people are going to keep trying, I guess. In that rergard, this article offers some suggestions. It's not a long article, but the advice seems very 'teacherly' - "engage students in norm-setting', 'use get-to-know activities', 'provide frequent opportunities for discussion, sharing, and collaboration'. It's not clear to me that this is in any sense a 'community'. But that probably disappeared when the teacher created one and took ownership of it.

TidBITS reader Walter Ian Kaye had a simple question: "Did you know Apple deletes iCloud backups over 180 days old? I didn't."

I'm always bemused when I discover myself adopting one of my son's expressions, and my immediate reaction was a teen-speak refrain from his high school years: "Wait, what?"

I had no idea that Apple deleted iCloud backups after 180 days, and a quick poll in the TidBITS Slack channel showed that it wasn't common knowledge among other TidBITS staffers and contributing editors.

Did you know that? I certainly did not.

More >

A university professor asks students in his class whether they liked online learning and finds they did not. What's more interesting are the responses in the comments and on Twitter: @karenraycosta: "this isn't really about the quality of #onlinelearning. It's not about evidence. It's about power and the status quo";  @readywriting: "It isn't news that students hate (bad) online learning. Stop conflating (bad)y online learning with good online learning; @LangOnCourse: "Don't judge online teaching based on your informal surveys of students who chose to attend a residential university."

When it comes to shaving, people tend to fall into two camps. There are folks who just want a close shave with a minimum of fuss, and for them, a quality drugstore razor works just fine. Then there are those who see shaving as a ritual: a warm brush, a carefully built lather, and precise bladework with an old-fashioned safety razor (the kind that uses flat, rectangular blades with two edges) or, if they’re really committed, an ultra-sharp single-edge (aka cutthroat) razor.

The latest mobile app from Adobe aims to bring high-end, easy to use filters and editing tools to the people that use apps like Snapchat more frequently than image editing software that requires a mouse and keyboard.

Adobe has been tepidly stepping into the world of mobile apps for the past few years with several mobile ports of its standard creativity suite. While these offer handy tools, they’re also still complex.

That all changes with the new Photoshop Camera app. The app is laid out similarly to Snapchat’s camera interface, but instead of a space to send pictures to friends, there’s a small editing zone.

If you want to try out the app, it’s free to download and doesn’t require an Adobe subscription.

The Photoshop Camera app utilizes Adobe’s Sensei AI to do most of the heavy lifting, and in my quick tests, it’s fantastic. There are face smoothing filters, colour filters and even wilder ones that replace the sky in a photo with a sci-fi backdrop. Adobe says there are 80 filters you can use in the app so far, plus a ‘Lens Library’ where creators can share their own custom sets.

One cool feature is that if you download an image to your photo library, the app saves both the edit and the original, so you can re-edit it later if you want.

Overall, this is a super fun camera app that should make it easy to post creative images on social media more easily. It’s worth mentioning that on Android, the app seems to crash frequently, but I have faith Adobe will iron issues out over the next few weeks and months. The app was also slow on my Pixel 3 XL, so newer phones should handle Photoshop Camera with more grace.

You can download Adobe’s new Photoshop camera app for free on iOS and Android, but it’s only compatible with select phones. According to Gizmodo, the app only works on the original four-year-old iPhone SE and newer iOS smartphones as long as they’re running at least iOS 12.

On the Android side of things, you can use it on several Samsung, OnePlus and Pixel phones, but not every device. The oldest Pixel to get support is the Pixel 3, while the Samsung Galaxy S9 series and newer works with the app. OnePlus phones will work with Adobe’s new camera app as far back at the OnePlus 6.

Source: Gizmodo

The post Adobe’s new Photoshop Camera combines editing and photography into one app appeared first on MobileSyrup.

(via John Maeda)

One of the biggest things lost in remote work is chance meetings. These are very important, but hard to quantify. If you measure productivity on individual projects, everything will seem fine. Yet when you read stories of how things happened, chance meetings were often crucial.

— Paul Graham (@paulg) June 10, 2020

I am feeling this Tweet (and the responses) on the loss of chance meetings by going remote. I personally thrive on the unstructured, serendipitous meetings. Trying to figure out how to create them in a remote context, some folks seem to believe it’s possible.

Every year around this time Joel Fitzpatrick at Receiver Coffee reveals a new incarnation of “The Joel,” my official iced coffee drink of summer.

Today was the day.

It’s outstanding.

It’s also my first time drinking a coffee at the counter at Receiver in 3 months. It’s good to be back.

The right baseline provides a way to compare everything else in a useful way. The wrong baseline makes the rest of the data useless. Read More

So I have an iPhone now–more on that later–and one of the first things I noticed as a side-effect of switching from Android is that portrait-orientation photos I take on the iPhone and upload to this blog appear rotated 90º.

Apparently this is a well-known thing, and subject to various religious interpretations as to whether Apple has chosen to do the right thing or the wrong thing.

What’s happening is that when an iPhone takes a photo, the only time the orientation of the pixels of the photo are “correct” is when the camera is situated such that the home button is on the right and the orientation is landscape. In all other situations–like a portrait photo, for example–the pixels don’t get moved, but the orientation gets burned into the EXIF data of the resulting image.

In other words, there’s a secret message inside the photo that says “despite all appearances to the contrary, I’m actually a portrait photo.” Like this:

As long as you remain within the universe of applications that read this secret message and rotate the photo accordingly, all is well. But as soon as you step outside, into the cold hinterlands that ignore this EXIF data and show the photo “as is,” then you run into trouble. Like when I upload a photo to this blog, in Drupal. When I do that with a portrait photo, it appears rotated 90º.

How to solve this?

The Imagecache Actions module for Drupal 7 to the rescue, specifically its Imagecache Autorotate sub-module. By installing these, and then adding an autorotate effect as the first operation in an ImageCache style, Drupal will magically auto-rotate the image based on what it finds burned into the EXIF.

If there’s not orientation data in the EXIF, Imagecache Autorotate does nothing, and no images are harmed in the process.

Twitter is working on a feature that would allow users to react to tweets with an emoji, as revealed by reverse-engineer Jane Manchun Wong.

Wong posted an image of the feature on Twitter, which shows that users can react to a tweet with a few emojis, including the prayer hands, surprised face and laughing-crying face emojis.

Twitter is working on Tweet Reactions…? pic.twitter.com/3Sb6c8cYe3

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) June 10, 2020

The screenshot shows that there’s also an option to ‘React with Fleet.’ This refers to another feature that Twitter is testing where people can post tweets that expire after 24 hours, similar to ‘Stories’ on Facebook and Instagram.

It’s important to note that this isn’t the first time that Twitter is testing emoji reactions for tweets, as the social media giant played around with the idea back in 2015.

Twitter launched emoji reactions for Direct Messages earlier this year, so it wouldn’t be surprising if it rolled out the option for tweets as well.

Source: @wongmjane Via: The Verge

The post Twitter reportedly testing emoji reactions for tweets appeared first on MobileSyrup.

With all the recent rumors flying around about the Mac transitioning to ARM processors, I've seen some assertions about what this means for software going forward. I thought I could chime in on this as someone who's been developing software for the Mac for a long time, including the last architecture transition from PowerPC to Intel.

Let it be stated that I have no knowledge of what Apple's internal plans are. These are educated guesses based on my years of experience of working with Apple and Apple's frameworks. And maybe this is all for nothing, since this transition might not even happen!

Assertion: The Cocoa frameworks are going away with this transition.

I find it very unlikely that Cocoa is going away anytime soon. Cocoa is largely written in Objective-C, and since Apple has been heavily investing in Swift the idea is that Cocoa must be going away.

Cocoa is the framework that drives pretty much every app on MacOS. Without NSWindow, without NSView, you've got no apps on the Mac. Apple could completely rewrite Cocoa in Swift, but that would be a monumental waste of resources and would take many years to accomplish. Apple famously keeps its teams small, so I don't see them spending the time to do this, only to say 5 years from now "Hey- it's all in Swift now! Isn't that great? Sorry we didn't get anything done in the meantime and here's a whole new set of bugs you'll be discovering as well".

"But wait! What about SwiftUI?" you might say. SwiftUI is barely one year old. Look at how long it's taken Swift to get to a point where it's not incredibly painfully to use. SwiftUI is most likely on a similar track, and regardless, many parts of SwiftUI also sit atop Cocoa.

Assertion: Objective-C is going away with the ARM transition, and it'll be Swift only from here on out.

Objective-C isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Too much of MacOS and too many important applications rely on it. Heck- the Cocoa frameworks are written in Objective-C! Objective-C is still incredibly important to Apple, even if the marketing department doesn't like to mention it.

And again, Swift code on MacOS completely relies on Objective-C.

Assertion: ARM Macs will exclusively run Catalyst apps.

The thinking goes, since major apps like Microsoft Word and Photoshop already have versions on the iPad, it would be a piece of cake for them to recompile and run on MacOS as Catalyst apps.

This would be a serious downgrade for users of these apps on MacOS, and would be a major departure from the way the apps currently behave on MacOS. And even with Catalyst, it's still a lot of work for an iPad app to look and feel like a Mac app. You're still going to need a team to make sure everything ports correctly, in addition to adding all the missing functionality that your users would expect to be there. I just don't see this happening either.

Assertion: ARM Macs will only allow sandboxed app.

This could happen. I give it a 50/50 shot at happening. Personally, I hope it doesn't happen as there are still many problems with the sandbox on MacOS that have yet to be resolved, even though developers have been complaining about it for years.

Assertion: OpenGL is going away on ARM for MacOS.

Yea, this is totally happening. OpenGL and OpenCL have been deprecated for a while now in favor of Metal. Apple will use this opportunity to drop them.

…

Will Apple release ARM based Macs this year? I hope so, I think the upside is huge. We'll lose things like VMware and other x86 based applications which will be sad, but if it brings better performance and longer battery life, I'm all for it.

As a freelancer, you know what it’s like to be your own accountant. Logging hours, tracking mileage, and staying in touch with clients are all your responsibilities.

But, technology has been a saving grace for the self-employed. There are a ton of mobile apps out there that can help you with these tasks.

Whether you own an Android or iOS device, there are plenty of apps that can make your life easier. Better yet, they’ll save you a little cash and time when tax season rolls around.

So, what are the best apps for independent contractors out there?

And what makes these apps so useful for your business?

Best Tax Apps for Independent Contractors

When you’re a self-employed professional, taxes can get a little complicated.

Since the government isn’t taking taxes out of your paychecks, it’s up to you to figure out how much you owe at tax time. That means you need to keep track of your income throughout the year.

Luckily, you can get help from these apps:

Intuit Quickbooks Self-Employed

From one of the biggest names in taxes comes Quickbooks Self-Employed, every freelancer’s dream. This app is exactly what you’re looking for when it comes to keeping all of your business expenses in one place.

The most notable feature is the ability to photograph and upload your own business receipts.

Once uploaded, you can categorize your expenses. You can differentiate between personal and business spending as well as the type of spending (i.e., meals, travel, supplies, etc.).

Better yet, you can use the program to create invoices.

Personalize the appearance of your invoices to match your brand and keep track of how much money you’re sending out and bringing in.

Quickbooks keeps everything you need in one easy-to-use platform!

When it’s finally time to do your taxes, you can easily transfer your Quickbooks data to TurboTax and simplify the whole tax filing process.

Freshbooks

Though not as popular as Quickbooks, Freshbooks is a very similar platform. The entire purpose of Freshbooks is to make tracking your income and expenses a breeze.

Most notable are the app’s client contact features.

Instead of having to email, call, or text a client individually, you can contact them directly through the app. So, no more switching between tasks and losing your train of thought.

With Freshbooks, you can send out and approve invoices with ease. You can accept credit card payments and bank transfers as well.

To top it all off, it helps with expense tracking, too.

All you have to do is snap a quick photo of your receipt and it’s automatically logged in the system. You can also keep track of your billable hours through the app for more accurate invoices.

Related: How to Stay Organized as an Independent Business Owner

Best Payment Apps for Freelancers

Being a freelancer means giving up those oh-so-convenient direct deposits that you used to get in your traditional jobs.

Now, you have to send out invoices to make sure that you get paid. Yet, you want to do so in a way that’s highly secure and allows you to track your income during the year.

Fortunately, there are a few awesome apps that will help you simplify this process:

PayPal

PayPal is one of the most popular money transfer apps out there, and for good reason. It allows you to send and receive money in mere seconds, so you can conduct transactions in real time.

PayPal is great for keeping track of how much you’re bringing in and how much you’re spending. You can use it to purchase business supplies and materials, but also to invoice clients.

It’s incredibly convenient, as you can link it directly to your bank account, credit card, or debit card. Just draft up the invoice within the app and send it to your client. The money will appear in your account as soon as the client sends it!

But, what’s most important are the security features.

You can enable fingerprint ID to log into your account and exchange money — which comes in handy if your phone is ever lost or stolen.

The last thing you want is a stranger having access to your finances.

Stripe

Stripe is the tool every self-employed professional needs to keep track of their spending and income.

What makes Stripe unique is that you can easily visualize your business’s success via the dashboard. You can see how much cash you’ve brought in, how many payments you’ve made, and even how many customers you’ve had.

If you’re a data person, you’ll love the trend graphs.

Stripe is great because you have immediate access to your expenses and your income. The app will neatly organize what you’ve spent and who your income is coming from.

The app will even send you notifications to update you on your finances. Tracking your company’s growth is easy when you can see your daily revenue at all times!

Better yet, you can issue refunds to your clients if need be. This app was truly built for any situation.

Best Apps for Tracking Mileage

When tax season rolls around, you want to be able to take advantage of as many deductions as possible.

Did you know that each mile you traveled for work in 2019 was valued at about $0.58?

The more you travel and keep track of your mileage, the more money you can get back on your refund. But in order to deduct the standard mileage rate, you’ll have to track how far you drive.

If that sounds complicated, use one of these apps to help you:

MileIQ

MileIQ is undoubtedly the best mile-tracking app for self-employed folks and small business owners. You don’t have to do much other than swipe!

The app will use your phone’s GPS to record your movements during the day. It’ll detect when you’re driving and take note of how far you’ve traveled.

As the user, all you have to do is swipe left for personal travel and swipe right for business travel. No longer do you have to save all of your paper receipts to bring to your accountant at the end of the year.

What’s even better is that you can visualize your tax deductions with every trip you complete. The app considers the IRS’s standard mileage rate and calculates your deductions as you add more miles to your account.

The app develops monthly reports, too, which is helpful when budgeting for gas and insurance.

Everlance

Everlance does just about everything a self-employed person like yourself would need, but we want to hone in on the mileage-tracking feature.

Just like MileIQ, the app runs in the background of your phone and records how far you’ve driven throughout the day. Swipe left for personal trips and swipe right for business. Keep track of your deductions with each and every ride.

But, this app does have a few extra features.

Most important is the ability to create travel logs. This allows you to keep track of where you traveled to and when.

To make sure that all of your data is readily available when April arrives, all of your mileage data is saved on the cloud.

So, even if you get a new phone or your app crashes, you’ll have exactly what you need when you need it.

Best Time-Tracking Apps for Solopreneurs

Some freelancers charge by the project, which makes invoicing a whole lot easier.

If you charge by the hour, however, you’ll want to make sure to charge your clients for every minute that goes into a project. This can be a little tricky if you don’t work set hours every day.

But, there are time-tracking apps to help you.

Here are a few of the best time-tracking apps on the market:

HoursTracker

HoursTracker takes into consideration just about every situation you might find yourself in. Plus, it’s incredibly easy to use.

You can set an hourly rate and then easily clock in or out with a simple click of a button. This allows you to keep track of your hours worked during the week and how much money you brought in during the day.

You can also manually log your hours, too.

But, the key feature is the GPS technology.

If you have an office outside of your home, you can identify the location through the app. HoursTracker will notify you every time you arrive or leave the office to remind you to clock in and clock out.

Then, you can use your logged hours to create an invoice directly in the app. HoursTracker even lets you add extra expenses, so you can account for mileage, tips, and anything else you might need to include in your invoice.

ATTO Timesheets

The ATTO Timesheets app is as simple as it gets when it comes to tracking your hours worked.

Just like HoursTracker, you can set a designated workplace or manually add your own hours. Clock in and out with a simple tap of an on-screen button.

Yet, there are plenty of other features.

If you have other employees, this is a great way to keep track of the hours your workers are putting in and where they are when they’re on the clock. This is amazing for maintaining an accurate timesheet.

The app also allows you to generate job codes to see just how much time your employees (or even just you) are spending on each task. You can even pause your hours when you take breaks.

This is probably one of the best apps for recording your billable hours.

Best CRM Apps for Freelancers

A customer relationship management (CRM) app is a necessity for any business. These programs allow you to organize and manage all of your projects and client interactions.

These days, CRMs have a lot of added features, too.

The best CRMs out there also allow you to track your expenses and send invoices directly through the app. This limits the need to have ten different apps clogging up your phone.

Here are some recommendations:

Bloom

Bloom is one of the best CRMs for self-employed professionals. It was originally designed for freelance photographers, but it’s a great tool for solopreneurs in any field.

That’s because you can do just about anything with Bloom!

You can track your leads and even contact your customers or potential clients right through the program. Bloom even gives you the ability to schedule client meetings with nothing more than a simple click of a button.

Setting up an automated email campaign has never been easier. Bloom helps you nurture your leads and stay in touch with existing clients.

It also allows you to manage your workflows and keep track of all relevant data related to clients. One of the most important features is that you’re able to send and receive important documents that need to be signed.

When your project is finally complete, you can send out an invoice to be paid. No need for a separate invoicing app!

Try Bloom for FREE today!

Drift Meetings

If scheduling appointments or client meetings is your top priority, Drift Meetings is the tool you need.

With this program, you can easily send a link to your Drift page via email or social media. From there, your clients can schedule a meeting that fits into both of your schedules.

What’s even better is that the app prequalifies your clients. Before scheduling the meeting, your client will fill out a form about their business needs and budget. By the time the meeting comes, you know exactly what to expect.

You can engage with clients directly through the app’s chat feature. And when you’re not available, a chatbot will take your place!

Drift Meetings takes a lot of the back-and-forth out of the scheduling process and makes everyone’s experience much less stressful.

Looking for more CRM recommendations? Check out our articles about Calendly, HoneyBook, and Acuity Scheduling.

Conclusion

Why make your life harder when there are so many great tools out there? If you’re self-employed, these apps can optimize your business!

So, make it a point to download some of these smartphone apps. Whether you want help with bookkeeping, taxes, tracking mileage, or communicating with clients, these programs will help.

Both you and your customers will be better off for it!

Try Bloom now for 14 days — free!

The post The Best Apps for Independent Contractors appeared first on Bloom.

This post is about some of the main benefits of separated bike lanes for cyclists. Benefit #4 will surprise you!

The post 4 Benefits of Separated Bike Lanes appeared first on Average Joe Cyclist.

The CBC reported today that P.E.I. Catholic Family Services Bureau [is] shutting down after 89 years.

Catholic Family Services has been of great help to our family over the years, and I am sad that it will not be here to support future generations.

Oliver followed Executive Director Peter Mutch there when he migrated his music therapy practice under its umbrella; in later years, Oliver worked with the excellent Katherine Lowings in music therapy and, more recently, general therapy. Oliver also participated in the youth choir that Katherine and her colleagues organized.

Catherine and I benefited from Peter’s wise counsel over the years, as a family, and, as a Home & School volunteer, I appreciated Peter’s spearheading off the “Triple P” parenting program on the Island and his advocacy on myriad issues.

Catholic Family Services offered its services, for free or at very low cost, to anyone, regardless of religion (I’ve always appreciated the welcoming rainbow flag sticker on the front window).

To Peter and Katherine and all the staff, we say thank you for your service, both to our family, and to hundreds of families over the years. You will be missed.

mkalus shared this story from Ulysses Blog.

The interview is also available in German.

Please tell us something about yourself and what you’re working on.

I currently am the director of a mid-sized consulting firm, which advises the German public sector. As a student at the FU Berlin, I studied journalism and linguistics, both of which made a big impression on me and my life. Today, I would still describe myself as a neo-structuralist, for which the concepts of “paradigm”, “deconstruction”, and semiotics play a big role. In addition to my career, I am a father of two adult daughters, of whom I am very proud, and who are often sources of inspiration when I am writing stories.

When did you begin writing and what role does it play in your life today?

It was almost exactly six years ago. Since then, it has become something particularly important for me. I set aside at least one hour almost every day for working on a novel (currently my seventh). Writing, for me, is an expression and a mirror of my soul. It is a creative outlet for my imagination and something that fulfills me and from time to time puts me into a state of blissful isolation.

I set aside at least one hour every day for working on a novel.

In April, you published the first of your novels Reingewaschen (“Whitewashed”). Please tell us what it’s about.

Berlin 1984. While going through the estate of his late grandfather, Sebastian finds ten letters written by a former prisoner during the Second World War. He pulls out all the stops to unravel the mystery, attempting to reconstruct the events of the past letter by letter. Yet there is Sebastian’s father, who is trying to hinder his research. Who was his grandfather really? The search for answers leads Sebastian to a secret department of the German administration, whose traces have almost been completely wiped out.

What’s the most difficult part of writing a novel?

I find there are differing aspects. For me, the most difficult part is coming up with a compelling plot that as many readers as possible will find both interesting and plausible. I also have a compulsion to want to include personal reflection, thoughts and world views that can slow down the plot and test the reader’s patience. This is hard to avoid. Finally, it is necessary to match public taste and plug into the zeitgeist and not only follow one’s own desire to express something specific.

Please tell us about the development of the book and which role Ulysses played in this process.

Ulysses is the tool that allows me to focus solely and completely on the writing. For me, writing without complete attention to the task leads to bad results. I especially like that Ulysses is sheet-based, which allows me to think and organize in chapters and sections. At the beginning of a project, I make a lot of notes in order to list out the protagonists and develop them over time. Being able to set up the colors of the editor, and the type and size of the font is very important for me, because I need to have the feeling that I am undisturbed and that I don’t have to manage every aspect of the software.

I start every book with an initial idea, which I develop on a single sheet in Ulysses. Then I crack on and let myself be immersed in the fictive context and then the first characters start to take on their roles. I write almost every day. The sequence of events also depends on my mood; in general, I don’t know every exact detail about what will happen. In Reingewaschen, I set out to write a book about an aspect of Germanness, in which discipline can quickly become an end in itself.

The sequence of events also depends on my mood; in general, I don’t know every exact detail about what will happen.

How easy or difficult was it to find a publishing house for your book? What tips would you give to other authors who are confronted with this challenge?

It is monstrously difficult to find an agent or a publisher. I am also completely convinced that it does not have anything to do with the quality of the author or of his or her work. The publishing sector teeters between commerce and art, aspiration and mass appeal. For me, it went relatively quickly. A small agency liked the language and the plots of two of my books and sent these on to several different publishing houses. At the start, I was told that it would take a long time. Therefore, I was surprised when after only two years a publisher wanted to release one of my two books. Gmeiner is a great publisher, with whom I have enjoyed working from minute one. My advice to anyone who is looking for a publishing house is to spend a lot of time and effort on the synopsis. In addition, the first thirty pages need to be exciting enough and need to leave a good overall impression on the reader. It may be more promising to forcefully look for a publishing house than to convince an agency to take a look at a new author.

Your main profession is as a consultant, which is a very demanding job. How do you find the time to write?

The job is indeed very demanding and does absorb much of my time. We do consulting for the public sector in Germany, which my team and I find very rewarding. I think that I get a lot of ideas for my stories from the day to day life of my profession without ever crossing the line of indiscretion. I enjoy writing very much on the train, train stations, and airports, while I am commuting and traveling for work. I also like to write early in the morning after getting up and, of course, on weekends.

Do you dream about making writing your main profession?

Who wouldn’t? At the moment, making a living from writing seems unlikely. Thus it remains a project for the longer term to devote myself to my stories, that often enthrall me in a way that I really want to bring a plot forward.

How did you find out about Ulysses and what do you especially like about it?

I have known about Ulysses for ages and created my first texts using version 2 of the software. Naturally, I like the program much better today. Above all, it is the feeling of being equipped with a typewriter that I can carry anywhere and just start writing with at any time. I initially discovered Ulysses through an internet search. That must have been six or seven years ago.

I like the feeling of being equipped with a typewriter that I can carry anywhere and just start writing with at any time.

What other programs and tools do you use, and how do they help you with productivity?

I don’t use any other tools for writing. For my job, I work with the well-known programs, of which no one needs more than five percent, and they are still not very intuitive to use. Outside of work, I am an Apple enthusiast and have a long history of past use with said products. It all began with a McIntosh SE30 and Ragtime. The old guy now sits on display like a museum piece in my living room.

What else is essential to keep you productive? Do you work in a special environment or follow a set timetable?

Biorhythms are important. I can really only write when I am relaxed and rested. For me, that is mostly in the mornings. Then comes focus. Unlike many other things I do, I love to lose myself in writing, so much so that it is like I become a character in the story and then there is little space for anything else. The radio can be on, but I don’t really notice it anyway.

As I already mentioned, I like working away from home when I am traveling about. Here is where I really appreciate that Ulysses is available for the iPad, which I use exclusively when I’m not at home. I synchronize the texts over iCloud, which almost always works perfectly. Aside from all that, I write best when I am alone.

Claus’ novel Reingewaschen was published with Gmeiner Verlag and is also available on Amazon.

Adobe has released a filter-focused camera app called Photoshop Camera that relies heavily on the company’s Sensei AI technology to make it easy to take photos, apply filters, and share them. The app, which was announced last November and has been in beta ever since then, is free with an In-App Purchase available to unlock 20GB of Creative Cloud storage.

Sensei is Adobe’s AI technology that the company has been weaving into more and more of its desktop and mobile apps. Like other companies adding AI to image processing, Sensei touches a wide variety of features in different apps, assisting with everything from aspects of the photo editing process like object selection to settings like exposure. With Photoshop Camera, Sensei plays an even more pronounced role, automating the process of mobile photography and applying filters to create an experience that balances ease-of-use with image quality.

As Adobe explained last fall:

With Photoshop Camera you can capture, edit, and share stunning photos and moments – both natural and creative – using real-time Photoshop-grade magic right from the viewfinder, leaving you free to focus on storytelling with powerful tools and effects. Leveraging Adobe Sensei intelligence, the app can instantly recognize the subject in your photo and provide recommendations, and automatically apply sophisticated, unique features at the moment of capture (i.e. portraits, landscapes, selfies, food shots), while always preserving an original shot. It also understands the technical content (i.e. dynamic range, tonality, scene-type, face regions) of the photo and automatically applies complex adjustments.

Photoshop Camera comes with several pre-installed filters, which Adobe calls Lenses, with additional ones available for download from the app’s built-in Lens Library. Some Lenses have been designed by Adobe, while others have been created by third-party photographers, and even musician Billie Eilish. There are a wide variety of Lenses available at launch, and the company says new ones will be released weekly going forward. The Lens Library also lets users manage their collection of Lenses, adding new ones, deleting others, and reordering them to customize the app to your tastes.

Applying Lenses results in images that range from the artistic to the fantastical.

Photoshop Camera’s Lenses are previewed in the app’s viewfinder in real-time. When you open the app’s viewfinder, there are two ways to access Lenses.¹ The viewfinder opens by default to selfie mode, and when it detects a face, a button appears above the shutter button that will open a strip of Lenses along the bottom of the screen with portrait-appropriate options highlighted. If you’re using the rear-facing camera, simply tap the three-star icon to the left of the shutter button to show your filters along with suggestions highlighted by the app. Once you’re using a Lens, swiping left and right on the image preview switches among previews of different versions of the Lens. The real-time application of filters is a nice touch, but it makes my iPhone 11 Pro Max noticeably warm and is hard on battery life.

From the app’s main view, you can also access the Lens Library, the shots you’ve taken with the app, pick which physical camera lens you’re using, switch between the front and back cameras, and access other settings. For an iOS camera app, Photoshop Camera’s interface is refreshingly clean and simple. There’s still a lot of power packed into the app, but it’s largely handled by Sensei or tucked away in PsC Studio, the gallery and editing mode of the app.

Editing in PsC Studio.

PsC Studio is part gallery, where you can view your creations and share them, and part editor, allowing you to switch Lenses, adjust their application, and access other more traditional photo editing tools. PsC Studio also provides access to images in Lightroom if you use it and your Photos library, allowing you to import images to use with your favorite Lenses. Upon import, Photoshop Camera automatically enhances an image, which is a nice touch, and in my testing works well as a quick way to edit an image even if you don’t apply a Lens. There’s also integration with Photoshop Express for making additional edits before sharing your completed image.

Sharing images.

Once you’re ready to share your creation with the world, tap the share icon in PsC Studio, which reveals aspect ratio options. Pick one, and you’re taken to the next step, which includes dedicated buttons for sharing via Instagram, as well as access to Messages, Lightroom, and the share sheet.

What I like most about Photoshop Camera is how easy it makes it to take pictures that look better than they would straight from the camera with little effort on my part. With virtually no friction, you can share a handsome portrait, beautiful landscape, or go wild and post a heavy-handed edit of a planet spinning over your home. It’s a wide range that offers something for everyone. Not every Lens is to my personal taste, but it doesn’t have to be. I’ve found plenty I like even in the beta, and as new Lenses are released, the app’s range should extend further.

There is no shortage of photo filter apps on the App Store that promise to make your Instagram feed and Stories look fantastic. There are other good options, but Photoshop Camera is definitely worth a try, especially for anyone who already uses Adobe’s apps like Lightroom and Photoshop Express and Adobe’s Creative Cloud online storage plan. Having found a handful of filters that I like for portraits and landscape shots, I plan to play with Photoshop Camera a lot on my walks around my neighborhood this summer.

Adobe Photoshop Camera is available as a free download on the App Store and works with the iPhone.

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You read that right. Every year the Province provides 1.3 billion dollars towards long term care, both to non-profit and for profit operators.

If you measure society and culture by how well the seniors are treated we’ve just received a huge “fail” on the report card. Please don’t think this will not impact you~the way seniors care works it takes decades to change, has become increasingly privatized, and what you see is likely what you or the older folks in your house will be considering in years to come.

The Covid-19 virus has made very clear the crisis that comes in warehousing seniors in large care homes~over 82 percent of Covid deaths in Canada are in long term care homes, and this is the highest proportion of pandemic deaths in a study undertaken by the International Long Term Care Policy Network.

The long term care model itself is a pre-baby boom phenomena, one that appealed to the Greatest Generation cohort (born between 1910 and 1924) and the Silent Generation Cohort (born between 1925 and 1945).

These two generations considered having food prepared and served restaurant style  in dining rooms, structured and organized activities, and personal service in room cleaning and management a decadent luxury. Today with the Baby Boom Generation (from 1946 to 1964) restaurant meals are part of everyday life, and personal services easily  attainable if needed.

Long term care is no longer a non-profit investment. In British Columbia a third of care homes are managed by the health authorities, a third by non-profits, and a third by for-profit companies.

Companies like Trenchant Capital Corporation listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange own scores of care homes. They outright state that since the industry is regulated by the Province, and in provinces like Ontario no new licences have been granted in over 20 years, that they can offer “predictable cash flows”.  Seventy percent of funding is received directly from the Province and funding increases annually.

But something happened in the rush to privatization~British Columbia Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie’s Report on Long Term Care, “A Billion Reasons to Care” outlines that not-for-profit care homes spend 24 percent more annually for each resident (about $10,000) and exceed direct care hour targets by over 80,000 hours of what they are publicly funded to deliver. For-profit care homes “failed to deliver 207,000 funded direct care hours”. There’s no government oversight for that funding to return to the Province, so that is left to the privately owned companies as profit.

For-profit care homes also pay their employees less.

As Daphne Bramham writes in the Vancouver Sun  “For-profit operators’ wage costs for each hour of direct care is lower across all classifications than the costs at not-for-profits and the homes run directly by health authorities.Some for-profits are paying care aides, who provide two-thirds of the care, nearly a third less than the industry standard, which works out to $6.63 an hour. Part of the difference is that for-profit operators are more likely to hire part-time rather than full-time workers, which eliminates the need to pay benefits.”

How did this happen? Twenty years ago the Province started to contract out long-term care to private operators who opted out of the Health Employers Association .

While the Seniors Advocate’s  report on Long Term Care was released in February in advance of the Covid-19 Pandemic,  it outlines some of the structural weaknesses that exacerbated the spread of the disease.

Care workers are not hired full-time to work in one facility.  Care workers are also not receiving a living wage.  While there is overall a shortage of care workers, they are understaffed and underpaid, and many facilities rely on families to assist with the feeding and care of residents. The tasks performed by families  ceased at the closing of all  facilities to outsiders during the pandemic.

I have already written about the fact that 93 percent of seniors intend to stay in their current homes and forgo long term care facilities. For those that must use these facilities due to necessity, the  care model must be  more effective and must serve the residents and not the corporate bottom line.

As Daphne Bramham observes “It all needs to change and change quickly before even more public money is funnelled into corporate profits at the expense of vulnerable seniors who aren’t getting the care they need and deserve.”

I covered the article being critiqued here, simply running an outline and suggesting it needed a longer treatment. Happily, Alex Usher has stepped in and provided the necessary treatment. He writes, "the kicker here, to my mind is the author’s rhetorical question 'what would COVID-19 era teaching look like if educational institutions made decisions about teaching on the basis of pedagogy instead of neoliberal fiscal policy?', which is almost certainly the most asinine suggestion I’ve seen in 25 years of working in Canadian higher education." After all, says Usher, COVID-era teaching looks the way it does because there's a "virus out there that has killed 7,800 Canadians, not because of neoliberalism." My response might lack some of the colourful language that Usher's has, but believe me, my sentiment here is the same.

If you already know about network analysis you won't learn a whole lot that's new in this article, but it serves as a useful introduction for the uninitiated. The focus is on journalism, but the examples could apply anywhere, and of course we can imagione how similar techniques could be applied in education. "Research in 2017 of news articles using network analysis identified five different ways it was being used by journalists: To explore associations around individual actors (such as networks of personal power); to detect ‘key players’ (those who hold power less visibly); to map alliances and oppositions; to explore the evolution of associations over time (for example how political parties became less cooperative); and to reveal hidden ties."

Back in the day, when it seemed like Nickelback was playing at the Charlottetown waterfront every second weekend, I developed the reputation of being something of a curmudgeon. Truth be told my protests were always rooted in a feeling that public land should remain public, not given over to concert prompters, but the subtlety was often lost on the readership.

As such, I celebrate the sweet sounds coming out of the third floor apartment next door unreservedly: if I can’t revel in the vigorous music-making of the young, what’s the point of being alive?

The Rogers Hardware sledgehammer, which I bought more than 20 years ago at their going-out-of-business sale, is useful about once every five years.

But when it’s useful, it’s really useful.

Like today, when I repurposed the 2x2 that the snowplowing company left at the end of our driveway to be an over-engineered tomato stake for Jackson.

That tomato is not going to droop, no matter what.

Ein Tablet, das Android-Apps ausführt, acht Jahre Updates erhalten soll und mit Tastatur weniger als 330 Euro kostet? Hört sich utopisch an, gibt es aber: als Chromebook mit Google-Software.

Wenn man mit Android und Google unterwegs ist, dann ist das eine prima Ergänzung. Ähnlich einem Surface Pro taugt es als Tablet und Laptop. FullHD IPS-Display, Multiuser-fähig, und wirklich nicht teuer. Kann man kaufen.

Weiterlesen bei Spiegel Online.

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Reading Maeda’s Laws of Simplicity in my twenties had a profound impact on me. Law 1 (Reduce) has been beneficial over the years as I think about UIs and experiences. Learning how to reduce complexity is probably the biggest skill you can learn in your career in UX, accessibility, performance, and even development as a whole. If you don’t need it, remove it.

Conversely, in recent years I’ve begun to understand Tesler’s Law of Conservation of Complexity which admits some of the shortcomings of reducing. While making consistent user interfaces at Xerox PARC in the early eighties, Larry Tesler observed:

Every application must have an inherent amount of irreducible complexity. The only question is who will have to deal with it.
— Larry Tesler, Designing for Interaction (2006)

After you hit the wall of unremovable complexity, any “advances” are a shell game, making tradeoffs that get passed down to the user. If you have too many links in your main navigation, you hide those links in a dropdown, and pass the cost of an extra click down to the user. In Tesler’s days there was tension between the server and the user and because servers were slow and hard to program, a lot of the interface complexity ended up passed to the user.

If that sounds a lot like modern day Front-end Development, you already see where I’m going with this. Not much has changed since Tesler’s day, code runs on either the client or the server. Thankfully today we have a few more levers to pull like “The Edge”, but the principle still applies; you get “advances” by shifting where the complexity lives. There’s good technical nuance, but most of the web’s fresh #hotdrama gets reduced to this for me.

What’s your CSS style scoping method? Past experiences probably informed that decision but I see it as passing the complexity between technologies.

See the Pen How are you managing scoped styles? by Dave Rupert (@davatron5000) on CodePen.

You like using <Spacer/> components? I get it, I’m fond of them too. Are you diametrically opposed? I get that perspective too, the burden of empty divs littered everywhere can add up. There’s drawbacks to everything.

See the Pen How are you managing spacing? by Dave Rupert (@davatron5000) on CodePen.

Tradeoffs. Passing complexity. I can’t unsee it. In fact, it’s all I see sometimes. And I’m sure my Jim-from-The-Office face comes out in a meeting when someone claims there are “no drawbacks” to a given approach. O, to possess that ignorance again.

Further complicating the issue, I don’t believe people (myself included) are rational decision makers. We don’t really make software architecture decisions based on some rigorous cost/benefit analysis. Decisions are often more informed on existing biases, past experiences, and the tradeoffs people find most comfortable. Decisions also get slipped in under the cover of self-imposed sprint deadlines or get made using a “Loudest Person Wins” system. Sometimes, it seems, the act of making a decision or the need to “unblock” something gets elevated over the impact of the decision.

I think this is where the second implication of Tesler’s Law comes into play: “Who will inherit the complexity?” Is it a value or a cost that gets passed on to the user? It’s a simple question, but the answer dictates so much. I also think when answering “Who will inherit the complexity?” it’s important to also ask “Are we considering users that aren’t wealthy, western, affluent, and able-bodied?” Answering that second question, shines a light on our answer to the first.