PicoBlog

(Listen to the radio version here.) For a long time, conventional wisdom had it that people in the eastern half of the continent should always bring in their hummingbird feeders by Labor Day or we’d tempt Ruby-throated Hummingbirds to linger too long during migration. That never made sense to me, and indeed, most hummingbird experts always disputed it. During migration, most hummingbirds are on the move from morning till night, feeding along the way whenever they spot flowers or feeders.

To cut to the chase: here it is: notfunatparties.com/wordle-solver. Instructions: The Wordle Solver gives you a suggestion. Type this suggestion into Wordle. If you disagree with the suggestion (how dare you), you can change it by clicking on each letter. On the Wordle Solver, click the coloured buttons underneath each letter that matches the feedback you got from Wordle (e.g. Grey, Yellow or Green). The Wordle solver will give you a new suggestion.

I need to start off today’s post with a slight detour out of the gates (apparently strong, well-defined ledes aren’t really my thing. I’m more of a “meandering mental detritus” sort of writer). I’m starting to feel pretty good about the top of the Giants’ farm system at this point. Behind the scenes, I’ve been starting my standard process for building the top 50 — continuing to have conversations with industry folks, putting together the depth charts and Future Value grades for players, and stacking up the jenga tower — and the primary reaction that I’m having early in the process is that a lot of players are falling lower than I would have presumed prior to beginning.

As many of you know, in 2018, I started producing a Youtube Channel—The Stewart Alastair Edition. In those four years, I’ve seen minimal incremental growth relative to Subscriptions. As I sit to write this, I have 4266 subscribers listed. After watching my original content for a time, some of my subscribers told me that Youtube was purposefully suppressing my content. I didn’t believe it, because I generally believe life doesn’t happen to you but rather through you.

I met Susie Essman—a lifelong New Yorker— in 2008 when we appeared together on stage with Andy Borowitz at the 92nd Street Y. I was the designated non-funny one. The event—focused on that year’s political campaign— went well and afterwards I told Susie how much our three children loved her role as Susie Greene on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” wher… ncG1vNJzZminnJm0sK3TrGWsrZKowaKvymeaqKVfpXyzwcyipZqsmaO0bsPIrZ9mq6WotqZ5xKyqppme

I was packing my bags for a trip to Austin on Thursday when the big news came that Rupert Murdoch was stepping down as the head of Fox News and its boards. Oddly enough, I was heading southwest to lead a discussion on this very subject at the annual Texas Tribune Festival, or TribFest. This huge, buzzy gathering and journalism fundraiser is run by Evan Smith, the former CEO of the Tribune, who seems to know everyone in media, politics and government.

A few months ago Sarah and I watched the first season of Severance. The show is mysterious and compelling, with marvelous visuals and performances. Regrettably, the season ends on a cliffhanger, an unfortunate choice which is all-too-common in the binge-watching era. The plot has extended to almost unmanageable size already! Taking the world-building further down wormholes of deceit and complexity for a second season promises to be a grueling affair.

As the calendar barrels into another year and we tick away the days of February, notable anniversaries are marked off in sequence. It is now 2/22/2022 +2: two years since Putin’s address on the historic status of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, followed on 2/24/2022 by the commencement of the Special Military Operation and the spectacular resumption of history. The nature of the war changed dramatically after a kinetic and mobile opening phase.

Mark Russinovich, the CTO of Azure, recently sparked a conversation about a topic that has been on my mind lately. It's an eye-catching statement that has ruffled a lot of feathers across the industry. But he has a point. What I consider to be Rust's strongest selling point is its focus on security. Rust makes programming safer and more efficient to an exacting standard — and I say this as a lifelong C++ programmer.