Category: Uncategorized

Yesterday I asked a few folks I know to have Mac Pros if they’d heard of anyone having their cases anodized. I heard back from [Stephen Hackett]([Stephen Hackett on Twitter: “Noooooo… “](https://twitter.com/ismh/status/1210981590765068292)), perfectly reasonable response. Some folks don’t like to mess with perfection. Dr. Wave and John Siracusa haven’t responded or decided not to respond. That’s perfectly fine.

There is, of course, always a group of people that like to customize their stuff. [Cars]([A ridiculous Ferrari wrap we’re currently working on! This car is being entered into a rally with the theme of “used car salesman” | Weird cars, Car humor, Car wrap](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/406801778818582198/)) are a perfect example or perhaps [gaming PCs]([Digital Storm: Custom Gaming Computers & Gaming PCs](https://www.digitalstorm.com/)). Just because Apple doesn’t offer a Mac Pro in a style you like don’t let it get you down? You can always customize it after purchase.

### My Custom Mac Pro Build

How about we start with an [anodized]([What is Anodizing? The Finish of Choice | AAC](https://www.anodizing.org/page/what-is-anodizing)) case? Seems like a reasonable and fairly straight forward modification. Personally I’d go with orange but a finish close to Apple’s own gold might be better suited for a Pro device, don’t you think? Let’s go with that for now.

Another area of customization that comes to mind are the wheels. When the Mac Pro was announced I thought to myself *”wouldn’t a set of y mud tires look great on that thing?”* I don’t really believe that but the thought of it stuck in my head. Who is going to make aftermarket wheels with mud tires on them for my Mac Pro? Let’s pretend they exist for our custom Mac Pro build.

I’m sure I could go a bit more crazy if I gave it some thought but here’s my finished custom Mac Pro. I think it looks pretty good. 😀


No Mac Pros were harmed in the making of this post. I promise.

[Scripting News](http://scripting.com/2019/12/28/152557.html): *”Flow is the writer’s problem for blogging. I have been working on this since I started in 1994. I solved the problem for myself in 1997, and ever since I’ve been working on solving it for everyone else. Had WordPress designers simply looked at Radio UserLand, shipped in 2002, and copied its menu structure, they would have had a much better flowing blog platform. But since then Facebook and Twitter have matched or bettered Radio in flow. There’s a new benchmark. WordPress appears oblivious. So no I don’t think Gutenberg, which is a new text editor for WordPress, is the answer. It is the answer to other problems, how to mix text and other elements in a blog post. Certainly a good thing to do. But WordPress imho remains the klunky monolith that it always has been.”*

I can see where Dave is coming from. I recently switched from WordPress to Micro.blog for a few reasons but one that really stands out is simplicity.

When I want to create a new post I have a choice of Web, Mac, and iOS clients. They’re all very easy to use.

When you land on the Micro.blog homepage, after signing in of course, this is what you see.


Since Microb.blog aggregates posts of people you follow it’s also a micro social network, but that’s not where it really shines in my opinion. The ease of publishing a new post is where it really shines.

To create a new post you simply:
1. Tap the **New Post** button
2. Start typing
3. If you go over 280 characters the Title field will display
4. When you’re ready tap on the **Post** button.
5. *Done!*

[The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/donald-trumps-gangster-white-house/604216/ ) *”Donald Trump will not be bound by any rule, even after he has been caught. He is unrepentant and determined to break the rules again—in part by punishing those who try to enforce them. He is a president with the mind of a gangster, and as long as he is in office, he will head a gangster White House.”*

I will dance the day this horrible human being is ousted from the White House.

I’ve had a weblog since [February 2001](http://www.crabapples.net/rob/archive/2001_01_28_default.htm#2204529). It was all Blogger based and used FTP for publishing static HTML. It was simple to use and provided everything I needed.

In May 2010 Google stopped supporting FTP uploads so I [decided to make a change](http://rob.crabapples.net/2010/03/goodbye-old-friend.htm). I moved to self hosted WordPress and [iam.fahrni.me](https://iam.fahrni.me) became a thing.

For just over nine years I enjoyed my WordPress based setup but it always bothered me the pages were generated when the site was hit. I prefer static HTML. I know, I know, t’s such a little thing but it’s important to me.

I’ve wanted to move blogging platforms for quite a while. I considered Octopress, Pelican, and Hugo but I’m terrible at HTML and I didn’t find any of the built in templates appealing. I’d also have to manage publishing. I didn’t want to do that.

## Enter Micro.blog

When [Manton Reece](https://manton.org/) announced Micro.blog I subscribed simply to support him. It’s an interesting mix of social network and blogging platform. You can post short Twitter-like entries or do longer form posts, complete with title. At first it felt kind of weird to me to have a mix of both but it grew on me.

Finally, in October of this year, I decided I wanted to move to Micro.blog as my blogging platform full time. The transition hasn’t been as smooth as I would’ve liked. I had trouble getting my WordPress export file to import into Micro.blog. Honestly, I was more than a little bummed about that and had given up on the idea of moving to Micro.blog. In the end I got over myself and decided to move to Micro.blog. Why?

Well, it’s dead simple, that’s why. When you add a post you get a simple text entry field, you can add an optional title, and pick a category if you’d like. This is all I really need in a blog. Oh, I almost forgot, it also publishes RSS and JSON Feed for you.

So, here we sit. This post is completely hosted on Micro.blog and I couldn’t be happier with my choice to move here.

If you really know me you know I’m not into fashion, but I do love a great pair of socks.

[Christianity Today](https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/december-web-only/trump-should-be-removed-from-office.html): *“But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.”*

[Immoral](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/immoral), a perfect word to describe Donald J. Trump.

How any Christian can find him appealing is something I’ll never understand. I suppose God will judge us all when the time is right.

[Yeo Kheng Meng](http://yeokhengmeng.com/2019/12/building-a-new-win-3-1-app-in-2019-part-1-slack-client/): *”In October 2019, my company SP Digital held an internal hackathon. My colleague Subhransu and I worked on a whacky idea of writing a brand-new Windows 3.1 app which was an OS released almost 30 years ago. The idea we chose was a Slack client. After all, Slack clients exist for most platforms but I’m certain one does not exist for Windows 3.1.”*

This is really fantastic! It gives me all the feels of days gone by. I spent an incredible amount of time working on a great Windows application called [Visio](https://visio.com). It began life on Windows 3.1 and still runs today on modern Windows OSes.

Makes me wonder if my [old C++ framework](https://github.com/Fahrni/ACLLib) would work on Windows 3.x today? It began life there but I bet it wouldn’t compile today. 🤔

Donald J. Trump is Impeached.

It seems to me the GOP Senators that have already decided they’re not voting Trump out of office are frightened they’re going to lose their job. That’s pathetic.

I don’t see Republicans, the law and order party, standing up for their beliefs. They preach fiscal conservancy and “anti-socialism” then bail out farmers to the tune of $28 billion dollars, double that of the auto bailout in 2099. That’s socialism at work and definitely not small government/fiscal conservancy.

With Trump they’re setting us up to be governed by the highest bidder; the wealthy donor class, a [kleptocracy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptocracy).

Can someone please explain to me how and why people don’t see this? Am I wrong? If so, please, tell me how and why.

All I see is a man destroying our Republic one little cut at a time. He is the epitome of the swap he promised to clean up. The White House and by extension the United States Government is run like the mob. Shaking down leaders for favors.

It’s just wrong and needs to stop.

[New York Times](http://f67.us/18y) – “President Trump not only should be impeached, he must be impeached if America’s democracy is to remain intact.”

I still can’t wrap my brain around why Republican’s don’t see how bad Donald Trump is for our nation and democracy. The man is a criminal, milking the United States for personal gain. On the world stage he’s a laughing stock destroying relationships with our staunchest allies. At home he’s destroying one of the things that actually does make America great; helping others.

I know conservatives love their small government, fine. But why do you put up with a small, hateful, compassionless, misogynistic, vile person in the form of Donald J. Trump? Is it all to “own the libs”?

Well you got us. We’ve been owned.

Now, can we get back to being a great nation – with great leadership – and stop playing the burn democracy to the ground game?