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Propinquity: 2021 Word of the Year
The winner of the Bredesen 2021 Word of the Year contest* is: Propinquity The Propinquity Effect refers to the seemingly obvious fact that you make connections with people you are physically, mentally, or emotionally in close proximity. I chose this word because of the work from home (WFH) situation many have found themselves in due […]
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First day of retirement
This is the view from our campsite at Itasca State Park. This was a spontaneous decision as we passed by. Looking forward to doing a lot of this in the coming years….
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Quantum Typos
Fact: if you have n readers check you work for typos, the n+1 reader will find a previously undiscovered typo with 42/n seconds of looking at the work. Fact: If you open your book and successfully fix a typo, you will introduce (6.5x-y)/3 new typos, where x is the number of keystrokes used to fix […]
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Installing a Touchstone Sideline 28″ Fireplace into a Winnebago Adventurer 30T
I’m putting all this here in case others find it useful. We recently purchased a 30T motorhome. It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows my wife to learn that she wanted a fireplace in the motorhome. We have added a fireplace to each of the two homes we have owned. Why not […]
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My book is on sale!
Folks, I did a thing and it is now available for sale from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other fine bookstores. The I.T. Leader’s Handbook is a book for current and aspiring IT leaders. From the back cover: Is your IT department working harder than ever and still falling behind? Does the organization have unreasonable […]
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The Unsinkable Maddie Stone, Google’s Bug-Hunting Badass | WIRED
“There was such a clear, direct impact,” Stone says of her Android-focused work. “I find these potentially harmful apps, I flag the malware, and the defense we develop propagates to 2.8 billion devices. It was just such a massive, tangible impact that most people don’t get in their jobs.” The Unsinkable Maddie Stone, Google’s Bug-Hunting […]
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Academic Silos
First, Sharks & Deep Sea Squid! How cool is that? Second, why was the academic response to pull it off the internet? The attitude behind that seems like an unintended, and unfortunate, consequence of the publish or perish academic system currently in place. Yannis Papastamatiou, a shark ecologist at Florida International University, in Miami, saw […]
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IT: Application Logging
If your IT shop does software development, Application Logging is useful for several things:
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Stock market was up/down on news of [insert nonsense]
I believe that TV and radio news use this stock market headline generator today.
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One Person’s Experience
Folks, the below email was forwarded to me from a friend of mine. It is an email sent by her son to their family. It is posted here with permission. I know the writer. One of the (several) sentences that is a gut punch for me is: “…fails to capture the everyday indignities that are […]
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A Comic Strip Tour Of The Wild World Of Pandemic Modeling | FiveThirtyEight
So much is still unknown about this pandemic. Both the website (https://fivethirtyeight.com/) and the artist (https://www.smbc-comics.com/) are worth following. This comic talks about why it is very hard to have an accurate model. And why all models should be distrusted to some degree. Click image or here to see the full comic.
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Saving lives is in their blood: Three generations donate blood
Back in 2012, I was travelling with one of my daughters to Oregon to see my dad. As I have mentioned elsewhere, my dad has long been a blood donor. Kelsey was interested in starting, so this happened. Story from TV station KVAL in Eugene. John Bredesen, his son John Jr. and granddaughter Kelsey, all […]
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My Dad’s 85th Birthday
As I sit down to write this little note for my dad’s 85th birthday, it is hard to wrap my head around all the ways he has influenced me. The fabric of his personality is such a part of me; it is difficult to extract the specific threads. So I’ll pick two of them for […]
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Cadbury Creme Eggs: A glimpse of how they are made
I visited the Cadbury factory in Birmingham, England a number of years ago. The tour didn’t take us onto the actual factory floor so we didn’t get to see how they made the creme eggs like the video. But they did have a very nice demonstration setup where they show all the different processes. And, […]
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Fake Meat: White Castle Review
I am very interested in all the work going on in the “fake meat” area. Impossible and Beyond are both running full speed with the newest generation of vegetarian meats. To be clear, I am not a vegetarian. I love meat and do not intend to give it up. But I really hope that they […]
John Bredesen
Retired IT Leader, Author, and bad pun appreciater