“Dr” Mercola

I’m glad to see “Dr” Mercola getting the attention he deserves for his anti-vaccine stance.

The thing that gets me about hucksters, mountebanks, and bounders of Mercola’s ilk is that they are, in fact, selling an alternative. In Mercola’s case, he suggests that you can fight COVID-19 with simple vitamins:

He also began promoting vitamin supplements as a way to ward off the coronavirus. In a warning letter on Feb. 18, the F.D.A. said Dr. Mercola had “misleadingly represented” what were “unapproved and misbranded products” on Mercola.com as established Covid-19 treatments.

HIs “Liposomal Vitamin C” tablets will cost you $37, for example, for 180 pills.

A friend, many years ago, suggested I read Vaccine Epidemic, mistaking me for someone without a scientific bent or who is suspicious of public health. I am neither.

I concluded of that book that the anti-vaccine movement is cynical at its heart. A crucial issue is the degree to which the prime movers are hucksters:

For a group of people who are suspicious of substances being introduced into their children’s bodies by vaccines, they are curiously eager to offer their children up for experimentation, or to attempt all kinds of “natural” or “homeopathic” cures into them, without anything close to the oversight and study exacted on vaccines.

The Most Influential Spreader of Coronavirus Misinformation Online

iA Writer Provides Clarity and Style

Benjamin Dreyer begins his book, Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style, with the following invocation:

Here’s your first challenge: Go a week without writing

  • very
  • rather
  • really
  • quite
  • in fact

I happen to use iA Writer when composing anything longer than a quick email (although sometimes BBEdit is the choice), and iA offers to check your writing style. In practice, if you check off the Fillers, Clichés, and Redundancies options, it will unceremoniously render word choices, such as those Dryer excoriates, with a strikethrough.

Ia stylecheck

IA strikethrough

Take that, Wan Intensifiers and Throat Clearers1.

  1. That’s what Dryer calls them. ↩

Dune

I made occasion to re-read Frank Herbert’s Dune again, for what I think was the third time, in anticipation of the Villenueve film. I attempted it once in high school, found it dense and inscrutable, but then read it again in college. I stayed one book ahead of my roommate-at-the-time and read all of the titles in the original series, from Dune through Chapterhouse: Dune. I was crazy about the story and have always wanted to work my way back through.

My introduction to Dune, however, was David Lynch’s movie, which came out when I was about ten years old. Star Wars it was not, but I loved it.

Having gone back to the original novel, what stuck out is how embellished Lynch’s film was. I’m not going to bash it, but there are a number of additions that appear nowhere in the book: heart plugs and the guild navigators, to name two. Topless Robot has a good listicle on this.

I found Herbert’s style terse this go around. Of all the voices in the book, I found the dialog and behavior of Jessica to be hard to believe (yes, I know it’s a book that features giant sandworms who make an addictive drug). And as tersely as it began, it ends suddenly.

My curiosity is piqued now: perhaps it was the six-novel stretch that I loved, which informed the nascent novel, that I look back so fondly upon. Might need to dip into Messiah again.

Mailspring: Impressive Multiplatform Email Client

From the creator of Nylas Mail comes Mailspring. You can run it on Mac, Windows, and Linux (it’s an Electron app, so your feelings about trying it out will depend upon your feelings about Electron apps). The free version is enough for just about anyone, although there’s a pro version that’s kinda pricey. It runs better on Mac than Windows, due to an issue with its very own white screen of death. I can confirm that it’s maddening and it gives me the willies that it’s been documented and unfixed for as long as it has. I really like it, with super-fast keyboard shortcuts and an information-dense display.

Mailspring

James Bond Behind-the-Scenes Photos

Esquire has a great collection of behind-the-scenes photos taken during the filming of a pile of Bond flicks. I’ll admit to having an affection for the boat-jumping scene photo from Lve and Let Die: It came out around the time I was coming up, had the ironic Roger Moore as Bond, and the title track, of course, is excellent. The opening scene is iconic as well. That Guns N’ Roses covered it on the decadent Use Your Illusion collection only made me love it more.

Live and Let Die

James Bond Behind-the-Scenes: The Photos

Why *Not* Notes

ldtephens on why Apple Notes won’t be his daily note-taknig app:

Many of the notes that I take throughout the day are notes that I will want to do something with later. A note may become a task in Things, a reminder, or event in Fantastical, a new draft for this blog in Ulysses, or a journal entry in Day One. Missing from Notes is the lack of export options or actions to get notes out of Notes. This is a dealbreaker for making Notes my everyday note’s app. That’s why I use Drafts. Ya know, the old saying “text starts here”. Any text starts in Drafts, including stuff that may eventually end up in Notes.

I agree whole-heartedly. I like Notes’ ubiquity and Apple Pencil support, but I am never inspired to use it compared to Drafts, OmniOutliner, or BBEdit. Quick note is tempting, and I’ll surely check it out, but the indie tools always call to me.

The one thing Apple Notes is missing

Farpoint II

Took the boys to Farpoint Collectibles II today, which is housed in a []local antiques market](https://www.facebook.com/ShorelineVintage/). One of the owners, Frank, originally ran It’s a Toy Store! in Richland, and he was there. It was good to see him and chat, as well as the owners of Farpoint. I showed a picture of the boys from 2011 at the original store, and he loved it. I realized how long we’ve been making these quick little jaunts to the local shop and how soon, Joey will be able to drive himself there.

They were featured on an episode of “A Toy Store Near You.”

wee nerds at It's a Toy Store! in 2011
Wee nerds at It’s a Toy Store! in 2011

Twitter Blue

Juli Clover, writing for MacRumors:

Twitter Blue will include an “Undo Tweet” option that holds a tweet for a set period of time before sending it out so you can choose to undo it, and a “Reader Mode” that makes it easier to read long threads.

I might go for something like this if it was a way to support a premium AI that could be used in apps like TweetBot and Twitterific. I use the official app (alongside both of the much better paid third party apps) only because Twitter denuded their (decidedly better) third-party clients. Still hurts though.

Twitter Confirms Plans for ‘Twitter Blue’ $2.99 Monthly Subscription Service

Happy 18th Birthday to WordPress

Matt Mullenweg:

Today marks eighteen years since the very first release of WordPress. I consider myself so lucky to have co-founded the project alongside Mike Little. Who could have imagined that our nights and weekends hacking on blogging software, a fork of b2/cafelog, could turn into something powering over 40% of the web? Or that nearly twenty years in, it would be getting better faster than it ever has been?

WordPress 18