futurejake

Why Touchscreens Made Everything Worse

This video explores the death of tactile design — from physical buttons, knobs, and joysticks to touchscreen interfaces that prioritize aesthetics, software flexibility, and manufacturing efficiency over human instinct and usability.


Here's a great explanation of why I prefer tactile controls to a touchscreen.
-- Buttons, knobs, switches, etc. are intuitive. Their shape and movement range tell you how to use them. Touchscreen software has to be figured out.
-- A touchscreen only works when you look at it, taking your attention away from other things. A button or a dial you can use without looking, often in the dark.
-- Haptics is the science of touch interacting with things. A button or dial moves when you touch it. Usually it makes a sound. This gives you information about when you have done enough to it.

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Still catching on details after Wednesday's storm. Thursday the power was still out when we woke up. That meant the refrigerator and its small freezer were losses. We already had plans for a trip to Champaign-Urbana, so we went ahead with that.

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Today is cloudy, mild, and damp.  It rained copiously yesterday and probably some in the night.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 6/22/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 6/22/26 -- I potted up 6 pots of Pink Apple sprouts, 5 per pot, for a total of 30.  There are still lots more in that baggie.

EDIT 6/22/26 -- We hauled the big branch from the south lot to the brushpile in the ritual meadow.  We also dragged a dead fallen branch near the firepit to break down later.

EDIT 6/22/26 -- I potted up 6 pots of Pink Apple sprouts, 5 per pot, for a total of 30.  That is 60 overall. There are a few left in the baggie but they are smaller and harder to see, so I put them back in the fridge.

The tree sprouts I planted before the storm are already appearing above the soil. \o/

EDIT 6/22/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 6/22/26 -- I potted up 5 pots of Jonathan Apple sprouts, 5 per pot, for a total of 25.  There are a few left in the baggie but they are smaller and harder to see, so I put them back in the fridge.

EDIT 6/22/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 6/22/26 -- I bagged up some black cherry pits in damp sand to stratify in the refrigerator.

EDIT 6/22/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I also walked down to the new picnic table garden.  The obelisk fell over; I'll need to set that back up.  Several tomato plants have green fruit.  So do several of the peppers.  :D

EDIT 6/22/26 -- I filled a trolley with big sticks from the south lot, then dumped that in the firepit.

EDIT 6/22/26 -- I started breaking up the branch by the firepit.  I reduced the size pretty well but some is too big for me to break.

I've seen at least one bat.  A skunk ambled around the end of the driveway.  Fireflies are swarming all over.  Killdeer are calling in the fields.  There's a bit of fluddle left across the road to the west, and they love the water.  :D

I am done for the night.
 

15 forgotten skills every 1950s boy mastered before 12

Step back to the 1950s with a glimpse into rural life, where childhood memories were made by creeks and willow sticks. here on America's Forgotten Fathers This vintage scene captures the simple joy of a boy with his pocket knives, engaging in wood carving. A wave of nostalgia is sure to wash over you, recalling simpler times.


This video is a little slanted, a little exaggerated, a lot nostalgic. Not all boys learned these skills; not everyone who did was a boy. Some children and even adults still learn them today. But it remains true that this is a bundle of highly useful survival skills that are vastly scarcer today than they used to be. That's a problem. So let's look at the featured skills...

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This past Wednesday, we played Shadows in the Forest for the first time. It is a modern American version of Waldschattenspiel. This is a blackout game meant to be played in the dark (more or less). Every game collection should include at least one game in this category, and this one makes an excellent choice.

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Science Newsfrom research organizations

As lakes turn brown, trout and bass decline while pike and walleye thrive.

Freshwater lakes across North America and Europe are becoming noticeably browner, reducing underwater visibility and reshaping fish populations. Research found that several popular sport fish, including trout, bass, perch, and whitefish, tend to decline in darker waters. Meanwhile, walleye and northern pike often become more abundant because they are better adapted to low-visibility conditions. The shift could change both lake ecosystems and the fishing experience for millions of anglers.


This reminds me of how a pond can have two stable modes: one cloudy with many minnows and few bass, the other clear with many bass and few minnows. Cloudy water lets the minnows hide, and they stir it up. Clear lets the bass eat most of the minnows.

Another excellent catching and eating fish for cloudy water is catfish. There are many kinds. Many of the sunfish family -- bluegill, punkinseed, etc. -- are also comfortable in cloudy water.

Traditional farms reveal how food and nature can thrive together

Maria Chiara Camporese, a PhD researcher at the University of Göttingen in Germany, led the work. Her team studied landscapes that are known as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization gives that label to farming landscapes where crops and wild nature have coexisted for generations.

These landscapes look nothing alike. They range from alpine pastures in Austria where cattle graze for hay milk to date-palm oases in North Africa and rye fields high in Portugal’s mountains. Traditional farming here looks nothing like an industrial field. What ties them together runs against common sense.

“Food production and nature conservation do not have to be in opposition,” said Camporese. Each must shelter biodiversity while still feeding its people, yet food and habitat usually fight over the same acres.


Here in central Illinois, a key part of traditional agriculture is the fencerow, a long narrow strip of trees, bushes, and wildflowers full of birds, insects, and other critters. It has a number of crucial benefits, including but not limited to:
* It slows and disrupts wind to reduce airborne erosion and damaging winds.
* It slows water from running rapidly across fields to reduce that erosion.
* It shelters beneficial species, especially predators, to minimize the risk of pest populations exploding. This also greatly improves birdwatching.
* And it's a great place to hunt along if you're into that.

Tornado Alley Is Moving — And It's Heading Somewhere Terrifying

The United States gets about 1,200 tornadoes a year — roughly 75% of the world's total — and for the last 40 to 50 years, the center of that activity has been quietly moving east, off the Great Plains and into the Mid-South. The storms aren't disappearing; they're relocating onto ground where tornadoes are far deadlier: faster, striking at night, in any season, over more people in more fragile homes.


The oldest Tornado Alley (pre-1970s) looked like this, a near-vertical swath through the Great Plains. This was the least-worst place for tornados.

When I was growing up, Tornado Alley was more of a sweep from Texas and Oklahoma through the Midwest of Illinois and Indiana up toward Ohio. This was worse, but not too much worse.

Now Tornado Alley is approaching horizontal, still with its roots in Texas and Oklahoma, but cutting through the Mid-South. This is an absolute disaster.

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