On Feedback

As I’ve been playing with settings and CSS tweaks and learning my way around Bear, and visiting pages in the Discover feed , I’ve seen a few different ways of incorporating feedback. I don’t expect the kind of traffic to necessitate integrating a comments section, but a recent rathole trip through the Discover feed led me to an article on Matthew Graybosch’s blog, and I liked the way he describes email feedback in his footer: “we each have a copy, and we need not depend on platforms”.

With that in mind (and after some implementation guidance from Maíra on Whispered Ink), article and share posts, as well as the Now page, have email feedback links on them. You can write me feedback about what I’ve posted, and I can write back. Be nice.

If you’ve got something particularly interesting to say, I might ask your permission to share your comment back here, either on the original page or a follow-up post. I won’t share without your say-so, and it’s your call for that share to be anonymous or not.

JAYS FOLLOW-UP: I noted in the Anthony Santander post a couple weeks back that Toronto was looking at signing Max Scherzer. That’s reportedly now done.

Also, while (I’m telling myself that) I have no expectation that he signs in the Six, On SI thinks the Blue Jays have made a sizable offer to Alex Bregman. We’ll see what becomes of this.

CURRENTLY READING: The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday.

This one’s been on my to-read shelf for a while. A few summers ago, I got to read a distillation of Meditations, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius by Donald J. Robertson. A lot of the concepts in that book appear here as well. I wouldn’t say I’m a stoic just from reading it, but between that book and Obstacle, it’s pretty simple, with practice, to mentally step back from situations and stop worrying about things one can’t control or change.

MISSED THIS ANNOUNCEMENT FROM LAST MARCH: Subway Selects PepsiCo as its Beverage Partner in the U.S.. I remember when they dropped Pepsi for Coca-Cola 15 years ago. Now they’re back to what I remember as a kid and into my 20s.

REMEMBERING CHALLENGER: 39 years ago this morning, Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart during its flight to orbit. President Ronald Reagan, originally intending to deliver the State of the Union address that evening, instead made a shorter address, written by his speechwriter Peggy Noonan, on national TV.

From Ben Domenech:

One thing to know about Peggy Noonan and the Challenger speech, whose anniversary is today, is that in the moment The White House thought the speech didn’t land.

Reagan himself believed that he missed the mark. Noonan went to bed thinking that she had been called on in a moment of crisis and had failed.

The next morning, she came into the office to messages from all sorts of people saying differently. And then Reagan called, and asked how she knew that he knew that “High Flight” poem - and she hadn’t, she had just hoped he’d recognize the reference. Turns out it was on a plaque at the school of his daughter, and he had read it regularly.

Then she said she was worried the speech hadn’t worked, and Reagan’s response was: “Well, Frank Sinatra called, and he said it landed. And he doesn’t call after every speech.”

The first memory of my life - the very first thing that I remember - is sitting in front of the old tube television in my Keds, watching the TV, and knowing that this man on the screen was the president, and that was the leader, and he was important, and he was telling us why these brave people died.

Her words. His speech.

EDIT: How fitting that tonight I’m rewatching a favorite movie for podcast homework, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which, being released later the same year, begins with this dedication card:

I’VE HEARD OF LAKE EFFECT SNOW, but this is my first learning of airplane-effect snow.

SPOTTED ON X: Modern tech company logos if they existed in the 1980s.

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EDIT: these all appear to be from the work of Kostya Petrenko on Instagram.

NOW, IT’S ON: The actor behind The X-Files’ Cigarette Smoking Man revokes his curse.

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Go Bills.

Thanks, Robert, for the Shortcuts help

Big shoutout/kudos to Robert Birming for his prior work, having already largely completed something I was trying to assemble to make posting links to this blog easier.

THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS: ‘FBI’ Spinoff About CIA Agents in the Works at CBS reportedly titled FBI: CIA.

I’m betting they workshop that.

TODAY I LEARNED: The first known use of “OMG” was in a letter to Winston Churchill.

CALLED BY THE HALL: Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner join Dick Allen and Dave Parker in the 2025 class of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.

I HAVE ZERO INTEREST IN BUYING ONE — from Trump or anyone else — but on pure what-the-hell-actually-is-it grounds: What is a memecoin?

FINALLY: Toronto Blue Jays signing Anthony Santander pending a physical. After the other free agents that have slipped through Toronto’s fingers this offseason, it’s nice to see some progress. No, that’s not a successful offseason by itself, but it’s something.

EDIT: Not a signing yet, but I see they’re also interested in Max Scherzer.

EDIT 2: Santander deal now club official.

MORE FROM MACRUMORS, citing Mark Gurman: iOS’s updated mail client design coming to macOS when 15.4 drops.

MACRUMORS, FROM A FEW DAYS AGO: Three Companies Are Now in the Running to Take Over the Apple Card. These three make more sense (given Apple Card is a MasterCard) than the reports of American Express being in talks last summer.

Tweaks and titles

Spotted Sylvia’s post about status posts, and that’s got me thinking how I might be able to do title-less link posts similar to what Instapundit’s look like.

A little much to hash out at midnight, but something to explore. Gotta say, it’s fun re-learning CSS and such again. I’ve missed playing with this stuff.

EDIT: Think I’ve got it set where I want it for now. Stay tuned as the links start to appear.

Bear Blog challenge

As I get started blogging here on Bear, and starting to discover who else is around, I noticed some responses to Ava’s Bear Blog Challenge. Wanting some content buffer to get a blog started, I figured I should jump in, too.

A fresh start

Web sites in general, and blogs in particular, all have to start somewhere.

This one represents a return to how I used to share things I’d found and learned almost 25 years ago.