Category: Education

Dave and Gina Pell were among the very first to encourage and support our dreams for Square Peg Foundation. They were there when we were just a couple people with a few horses and a dream. Their support and the support of so many others over the years has kept this dream alive through some difficult times, and made possible all we do today.

One of my favorite daily reads is Dave’s NextDraft, but sometimes I miss a day. So I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I didn’t see the January 27th issue, where he had these kind words for Square Peg Foundation:

FEEL GOOD FRIDAY
“Since 2004 Square Peg Foundation has been providing homes and meaningful work for ex-racehorses who, for whatever reason, would have trouble finding a home in equestrian sports. Today, with our 25 horses, we serve hundreds of autism families every year, we are the designated provider of equine services for San Mateo County Mental Health, and we provide meaningful paying jobs for eight young adults with autism. We currently have over 100 families on a waiting list for services.” Let’s do something good this weekend. Square Peg is an incredible organization that does good things for people and animals. I’ve known the founders for years and wholeheartedly vouch for them and the program. The recent California storms hit them hard. Join me in supporting their Go Fund Me.

Joell and I went looking for this after getting a very kind donation in a card from a NextDraft reader. Checking our GoFundMe, we also see a strong uptick in donations starting on the 27th.

As I write this, it’s raining again. But we have good news. After many years growing at the beautiful Kastl Rock Ranch, we have started our move to Ocean View Farms in Montara. Six horses are there already, and the other six will move in the coming weeks. There is a lot of work (and expense) in moving this size program, but once it’s all complete we will be able to even better serve our families and the animals.

I frequently look up things on my iPhone or iPad. If I then decide to drive there, it’s easiest to send the location to the Tesla for the in-car navigation instead of looking it up all over again when I get in the car.

It’s done, simply:

From the location in Apple Maps, touch the “Share” icon

Select the Tesla app to share with your in-car navigation…

You will get a brief “Sending” status while the destination is sent to the Tesla app, and then on to the car…

And then a status indicating that the destination was successfully sent to the car!

it’s a little thing, but quite nice.

Now if Tesla could just do better support for music libraries, and Apple CarPlay, and …

at the inclusion camp event hosted by Fenixia Foundation at Punta de Gloria Resort, there was a traditional Philippine feast for the volunteers, staff, and families…

Before:

… and after:

Social media has reshaped our culture, and this has convinced us that it is fundamentally appealing. Strip away its most manipulative elements, though, and we may find that it’s less rewarding than it seems.

Can “Indie” Social Media Save Us? | The New Yorker

Excellent quote from David Brooks, speaking with Ezra Klein, on the lies we are told about meaning in life.

I think of this as my personal theme for 2019: Speak Up.

It applies to so many things, including writing more here and on the Square Peg Foundation website.

But it also applies in daily life. In work life. In personal connections with friends and family. In public interactions with strangers and neighbors.

By speaking up we also learn. Especially when writing. Because writing makes you consider not just your words, but your ideas, and how they fit together. But also in public speaking, because it’s another format where you are trying to get across ideas clearly, and striving for that clarity also refines your ideas.

In all of this, I hope to continue to take the sage advice of a fine young man, gone too young, Malcolm Feix, who said: “Show Up & Be Kind.”

All of us let too much slide. We don’t say enough — don’t do enough. We can step in and take a stand, lend a hand, or even just ask a question that illuminates a problem. We can provide relief to someone bearing a burden, or simply let a person know that they are heard. Sometimes all we need to do is hold space for someone as they grieve, or as they vent their frustration.

We can also do much through our own behavior. People, especially kids, learn from our example. They see and understand, more than we credit. But part of the behavior that we should model is to speak up, with kindness, more often.

Speak Up isn’t about talking. Sometimes it’s about listening. Sometimes it’s about doing. It’s always about striving to be better.

Technology has changed our world so much in the last 100 years that it’s a bit of a cliché to say it. My grandparents grew up in Bodie, California, where three generations of Dolans, McDonnells and Bells lived for several decades. People who visit the mining ghost town of Bodie, a California State Park, today will see a glimpse of the difficult conditions in that beautiful and desolate place. My family were mechanics, miners, engineers, and assayers. Most of them worked on the technology of mining.

A few years ago, my grandmother gave me her dad’s Trautwine Engineering manual. Leafing through this little tome, you get a feeling for the level of engineering and technology of the day. It’s signed inside by my great-grandfather, “Harry F. Dolan, Bodie, CA. Green Creek Power Plant, Feb. 1., 1913.”

A little over 50 years later, we would be taking men to the moon, and using everyday technology that would have been fantasy in my great-grandfather’s day. I was a small child and marveled, as all kids did then, at the space program and the astronauts.

But nobody around me in my childhood knew what was going on, not too far away, in an area that would become known as Silicon Valley. A small group of researchers were working on computers and thinking about what might be possible with them someday. Their ideas continue to directly shape computing and communications technology today. They built a system demonstrating their ideas, and on December 9th, 1968, fifty years ago today, they demonstrated the system in what has become known as The Mother of All Demos.

In the late ‘60’s, there were plenty of visionaries talking about what computers and technology would do in the future. Some of them had pretty good ideas, and some of them were right about what might happen. But Doug Englebart and his colleagues built something and showed us.

The demonstration of the system was itself a wonder of the time. The computers were down in Menlo Park at SRI (Stanford Research Institute), and a half-dozen people were working to keep the demonstration working. There are times when Engelbart pauses the demonstration to describe what’s happening and some detail about how it’s working, and we know now that he was stalling for time while his team re-establish the connection to the computers, or otherwise fix some problem while Engelbart filled time.

It is worth taking a moment to think about what computer technology was like and what it meant to create this system and demonstrate it before a live audience. This was five years before Bob Metcalf invented Ethernet, and six years before Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf released the original spec for TCP/IP, the foundation technology that today we call the internet.

The system that Doug Englebart demonstrated in 1968 started as an advanced computing project funded by ARPA, the Advanced Research Projects Agency. The ideas presented would become the basis for new ways of interacting with computers.

The original video of the Mother of All Demos has been assembled into a set of three videos, about 30 minutes each, by the Doug Engelbart Institute. They are viewable on YouTube:

Part 1:

[https://youtu.be/M5PgQS3ZBWA]

Part 2:

[https://youtu.be/hXdYbmQAWSM]

Part 3:

[https://youtu.be/FCiBUawCawo]

For more information about Doug Engelbart, and the Mother of All Demos, the Doug Engelbart Institute is a fantastic resource.

[http://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/209/448/]

If you are interested in more about the history of Silicon Valley and modern computing, I recommend Fire in the Valley, by Michael Swaine and Paul Freiberger. They recently released an updated Third Edition. It’s my favorite history of Silicon Valley and computing.

[https://pragprog.com/book/fsfire/fire-in-the-valley]

I find I’m repeating myself, but it is important.

Use a Password Manager – I recommend 1Password.

It will make your online life simpler and easier, and you get better security, too.

It makes your life easier, because you will have your passwords with you whether you are on your computer, or your phone, or a tablet. It will make your life simpler by remembering your passwords automatically and filling them in for you whenever and wherever you need.

The improved security is largely a function of this simplicity and ease-of-use. Because it’s easy and simple, you will use 1Password to create good strong passwords automatically for you — passwords that are far more complex than anything you would ever make up, let alone try to type. They also have great features like Family Plans and sharing passwords in your family or team.

The only downside is getting started. It’s not that hard, but there are some ways of thinking about things that seem at first a bit odd and maybe even confusing.

That’s why I’m happy to hear that the folks at The Sweet Setup have created a course on 1Password. These are people who do really great courses on how to use some of my favorite apps, and they are one of my trusted sites for reviews. (They are not paying me for this endorsement, and I don’t think they even know me)

Their course will also be on sale for a special low price of $23 for the first few days.

So pick up a copy of 1Password, if you haven’t already. And [See Below!] for a link to the new course over at The Sweet Setup, or go there now and sign up for their newsletter so that you get notified directly of this and other course releases and articles. They also have posted an article describing the course.

Here’s the Link to the new course on 1Password:

https://thesweetsetup.com/1password/

Oh, and there’s this! From The Sweet Setup:

BONUS: We have partnered with the folks at 1Password to offer you an extended, 90-day free trial of 1Password for Families (a $9.98 value). After you purchase the course, you’ll get a special link from us to use in order to sign up for 1Password with your extended trial.

Yet another reason to try the course, and 1Password!