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It's always been tough to rank my love for all of the teams. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, my first love was baseball, and the Pirates were doing well then. The Pens were doing well, too, but weren't on TV nearly as often as the Pirates, which made it more difficult to watch. The Steelers… were third.

Then the Steelers became prominent, and the Buccos entered their dark period. Ditto for the Pens. The Steelers were the dominant team for nearly over a decade, and they ranked first in my heart, but I still followed the Pens and Pirates, of course. During this time I was also in Ohio and Florida, so actually watching the games became nearly impossible. The Steelers I could often watch (I got NFL Sunday Ticket in Florida for that purpose), but the Pens and Pirates, not so much.1

Today, honestly, I split time between them, but the Pens have been the team I've supported the most. I was able to directly compare championships between the Steelers and Penguins pretty recently, and the Pens winning the Stanley Cup in 2009 felt about five times more rewarding (as a fan, believe me, I know I'm not a part of the team) than the Steelers winning their sixth Super Bowl a few months prior.

At various times I've been disillusioned with the NFL's rules2 and with the way Mike Tomlin does things. Baseball had the steroid stuff. But hockey's always just been hockey. Yeah, they had that stupid lockout, and had they gone an entire year without a season, as they did not long ago, I'm not sure how that would have affected me.

And hockey is not without its problems. A Pittsburgh area columnist will say "best sport, worst league" and that remains true to this day. The refereeing is atrocious. Players are routinely and illegally hit in the head, back, neck, etc. without any calls or suspensions. The NHL is being sued, too, but they don't seem to care.

But played right, hockey is exhilarating. It's fast-paced. There's constant flow, and the only stops (two 15-minute intermissions) fly by while you do other things, then it's back to nearly non-stop action, unlike football and baseball.

And I think, in the end, that's what seals the deal: the speed of hockey, not just in terms of the players skating, but the game: it requires constant attention. Like an Aaron Sorkin script. If you turn away briefly, you'll probably miss something.

1. I remain a DirecTV customer to this day, largely because I wanted to watch the Steelers when I moved to Delray Beach, FL. [↩]
2. They've gotten better lately. [↩]

I'm going to blog again at least once per day in 2016. I may get behind, but I'll have notes that I want to shape into a blog post and will finish them out when I get the chance.

That's my only New Year's Resolution.

My Mid-2012 Mac Pro doesn't have Bluetooth 4.0. I haven't been able to use Continuity on it, ever.

That doesn't bother me too much.

But, I was looking to upgrade to the Magic Trackpad 2 today, and saw that it requires Bluetooth 4.0, and so now I'm looking to upgrade this relatively recent Mac Pro with some newer hardware.

Some things I've discovered and questions I have to ask:

• How to get Continuity working on an older unsupported Mac - It says Continuity, but since it's basically adding BT 4.0, it should be the same thing. And if I can get Continuity, too, cool.
• dokterdok/Continuity-Activation-Tool - Great, but I have to disable SIP to run the tool, and I may not get the right kind of Bluetooth dongle.
• Looks like the best bet would be to find BCM94360CD. Yes? The card? Just replace it and I don't need to do anything else?
• Those cards seem tough to come by, and they might require a mini Pci-e adapter? That feels like too much effort.
• Will just a Bluetooth dongle let this trackpad work if I don't care at all about Continuity?

The last question may very well be the one I care most about.

Well, the wife washed the Tempur-Pedic remote accidentally, a few weeks ago, and now the bed is acting pretty wonky.

Fortunately, whatever company originally made the "Orthomatic" base that we have was later bought by Leggett & Platt, and their warranty service is pretty good for a bed that was apparently manufactured 12/19/2000. For $120.72 (including UPS two-day shipping), we're getting a new motor, new converter box, and a new wireless remote.

Cleaning the remote out worked temporarily, but the rubber conductive pads seem to have been spoiled or some of the circuits fried or something, as the remote will "turn on" when you're not pushing on it sometimes, and not work when you push buttons sometimes.

The U.S. Open kicks off tomorrow at Chambers Bay. Let's hope the contestants have a better ride than the one across this bridge:

I remember being shown that video in school. I think we were learning about resonance, and the winds just happened to produce a frequency that matched that of concrete (or something like that, and I'm too lazy to look it up, or not:1). Any way, a pretty crazy thing.

1. That's often the stated reason, but the real reason was "aeroelastic flutter." [↩]

Just some random thoughts as I use the Apple Watch on Day #1.

• The "remote control" only works to take pictures? WTF? Why can't it stop and start recording a video? What kind of stupid decision is that?
• Taking screenshots is nice, but honestly… what is there to really screenshot?
• I have nobody to whom I will send a heartbeat1. My wife doesn't (yet?) want an Apple Watch.
• The Taptic engine is quite nice.
• I like being reminded to stand.
• Taking a phone call on your watch is cool. The speaker is "okay."
• The sport band is pretty nice. It doesn't feel like cheap rubber. It actually feels somewhat luxurious.
• My heart rate has been pretty accurate. That's good.
• Selecting contacts with the wheel thing is kind of lame. I don't have that many favorites - why can't it spread them out a little and make them go around the whole circle?
• I still think it's dumb that you can't delete apps you never plan to use on the watch, particularly since screen real estate is at such a premium. You can't bury them in a folder you'll never open like on the iPhone.
• Whose bright idea was it to not let me show only specified calendars on my Apple Watch? I don't want to know what my wife or child have coming up next on their calendars? I care about my calendar!!!
• I don't use Mail, but the choice to use ALL inboxes or just one seems like the Calendar choice: short-sighted and dumb. Why not let someone select the two or three mailboxes they want to see? Why make it "one-or-all"?
• Contrary to what I've seen in other places, I don't think it's difficult to learn at all. In fact, I think it's quite easy to learn. Now, I watched some of the videos Apple made, while I'm sure others did not, but still… it's not a complex or confusing system. It's just different.
• I finished the day - a full day of goofing around and playing with it and so on from 12:20pm onward - with about 30% battery left.

1. Outside of the awkward one I'll likely send to Dave, just to try it out. [↩]

I've built a very quick "Smile" plugin for Amazon's Smile service. http://t.co/5AYL4yeSpT is the URL to download it and try it out.

— Erik J. Barzeski (@iacas) June 8, 2014

After a few prompts… it's now on GitHub: https://github.com/iacas/safarismile.

I'm looking forward to someone taking my barely working quickie "good enough for me" extension and turning it into something worthy.

I have a Canon 5D Mark II that we've used to make some pretty nice videos. I have a Sennheiser EW 112p G3 Wireless mic system with two transmitters and two lav mics1.

The setup works great for the videos we've done so far: short instructional videos and the like. I've even done some multi-cam stuff with iPhones as second and third cameras.

But we're looking to branch out and have more than one speaker talking, and thus, want each person to have their own microphone.

So… the question I have right now is this: What do I need to mix two channels of audio with the current setup? I don't need eight channels, but if we can pay a little more and get four channels instead of just two, cool. I don't even care if the mix goes into separate tracks, the same track, or even right into the camera.

I've looked around a bit and a lot of the mixers seem to be XLR input based, while the Sennheiser receivers output via 3.5mm output.

So what do I need to buy?

1. We only have one receiver, currently, and would likely need to buy a second. [↩]

The Terminal • furbo.org.

Almost all you need to know to become a power user.

I've deleted some, because I've punished myself enough reading them again.

I don't miss my 23-year-old self. Not one bit. And there's still more of him around than I wish, though thankfully that's just me being hard on myself.

Sorry, Jamie, Gabe, Daria, Erika, Jen, Kati, and Annie. Heh… Yeah.

Six Colors: How I rip DVDs and Blu-rays

I don't know how I missed this, but Craig calls it his "magnum opus" on the Terminal: The Terminal • furbo.org.

The Top-Secret Food That Will Change the Way You Eat

More protein than beef. More omegas than salmon. Tons of calcium, antioxidants, and vitamin B. In their secret R&D lab, the scientists at Beyond Meat concocted a plant-protein-based performance burger that delivers the juicy flavor and texture of the real thing with none of the dietary and environmental downsides.

I don't care what my burger is made of so long as it tastes and feels like a burger.