Google/Blogger is listening

Over the past few months, I’ve posted to the Blogger Help Community about four problems:

~ the malfunctioning Newer Post link at the bottom of posts

~ a post missing from the sidebar’s monthly archive

~ the switch to a spindly font for typing comments

~ Blogger’s (apparent) default to Anonymous for comments

The fourth problem, as Blogger expert Arkadiusz Narowski explained, arises when Safari prevents cross-site tracking. That was on me. The other three problems are now fixed: the Newer Post link works, the limit for monthly posts has gone from 100 to 128 (a fittingly computer-y number, as in 128K), and the font for typing comments is once again substantial and readable.

If you look at Google’s Blogger blog, it’s reasonable to wonder whether the company is paying any attention to Blogger: the last post there is from May 2020. But these improvements suggest that, indeed, someone is paying attention.

Tad’s White House

In today’s Zippy, “Chew On This,” Zippy speaks to a giant bust of Abraham Lincoln:

“You wouldn't believe th’ White House! It looks like a Tad’s Steakhouse from 1962!”

N.B.: daily comic strips are prepared weeks ahead of time, which means that Zippy’s comparison of the White House to Tad’s Steakhouse predates Barack Obama’s comparison of the White House to a Saddamesque Cheesecake Factory.

A Times Square Tad’s appears in person (so to speak) in a previous strip. I put one panel and some background on Tad’s in this post: Zippy’s Tad’s.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

OOHFM watch

Yesterday the current occupant wrote or dictated 1,321 words about “this COMPLETE AND TOTAL LOSER, Bill Maher.” Laser-focused, as always. And out of his, &c.

WindowShade Redux

From Totally Not Malicious Software: WindowShade Redux, a Mac app that brings back the option to roll up windows to their title bars. For me, that’s enough, but the app does much more, as this short video shows. Note: the sound effects and animations are optional.

I began rolling up windows with WindowShade X not long after switching to a Mac in 2007. When that app stopped working, I switched to WindowMizer in 2013. And when that app switched to a subscription model, I decided to forget about rolling up windows.

WindowShade is free to try and inexpensive to buy ($10, or $7 until October 31). My only connection to the app is that of a happy paying customer.

Now I just wish that macOS 27 didn’t make title bars so ginormous.

AppDelete

The venerable Mac app AppDelete, which I wrote about in 2012 (and began using in 2009), won’t work in macOS 27 without Rosetta, the app that allows Intel-based apps to run on M1+ Macs. And Rosetta will no longer work when macOS 28 arrives. So it’s time for a new app. I chose the free app AppCleaner.

AppDelete hadn’t been updated in a long time, and I never wondered why — the app just worked. But now I see that Reggie Ashworth, the app’s creator, died in 2017. As I could tell from a handful of e-mails I exchanged with him, he was a good guy. I offer belated sympathy to his family.

Recently updated

Hidden Bar: Updated to work with macOS 27.

Amity Bar & Grill

[105 Avenue U, Gravesend, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

I’ve already posted four tax photographs from Avenue U in Marine Park. Bear with me. The avenue stretches across four and a half to five miles. This morning we’re close to its western starting point.

When I saw the Amity Bar & Grill (ESplanade 2-9690), I immediately thought of Roy’s Tavern. The two establishments are almost twins. And then I looked more closely and saw how much there is to like in this photograph: the split personality (pizzeria and restaurant, bar and grill) the curtains in the doorways, Bell Telephone, the promise of a frankfurters party (“Everybody Welcome”), the Beer Garden (also touting the Pizzeria Napolitana), the open cellar doors, and the laundry.

  [Near twins. 4017 and 105 Avenue U. Click either image for a larger view.]

By 1950, the Amity had become Tarry’s Inn, and under that name, it was for sale.

[The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 6, 1950.]

By 1959, Tarry’s Inn had become Jay’s Lounge.

Today no. 105 is home to BGPS Group, “a full-service security, communications, and technology solutions provider founded in 1998.” The corner that once housed the beer garden is now home to AvenUe Pizza. You can see them both via Google Maps.

Related posts
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)

You Can See Everything

I had a brief conversation with a theater employee on my one bathroom run, about an hour and a half in. I had to say something about the movie:

“It’s absolutely insane. Unbelievable.”

“Insane in a good way?”

“Yes.”

If you plan to see You Can See Everything (dir. Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim), don’t read anything about the movie beforehand. Don’t let anyone ruin it for you.

A non-spoiler: there’s a daytime glimpse of the venerable Los Angeles restaurant El Coyote.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Lars G. Doubleday, aka Doug Peterson and Brad Wilber, whose last Stumper appeared last October. (The alias is an anagram of the names Bradley and Douglas.) It’s another one of those puzzles that (for me) began to look impossible on paper but became doable when I switched to an online version. I turned on Autocheck and finished the puzzle with only two or three letters that needed more than one try. What really surprised me is that guesses I was reluctant to try on paper — 1-A, ten letters, “Grey’s Anatomy production company”; 27-D, ten letters, “Succeeds at mediation” — turned out to be correct on the screen. Maybe I don’t need training wheels after all.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-D, four letters, “Org. finding places for unwanted toys.” I was not fooled.

4-D, three letters, “Early word in Sarandon’s Wikipedia entry.” A very odd clue. Does someone just have a thing for Susan Sarandon?

10-D, nine letters, “Network purchases.” Another reluctant guess that turned out to be correct.

12-D, ten letters, “Marked by turpitude.” Something to do with morals, eh?

25-A, five letters, “The Road to Wealth author.” I thought it had to be GETTY, having seen a book titled something like that in the Getty Museum gift shop. No, that was How to Be Rich.

26-D, ten letters, “Bit of paste.” I was thinking about the red sauce I’m going to make this afternoon.

30-A, eleven letters, “Doesn’t curb one’s enthusiasm.” The answer brings back a happy moment from teaching. (Stefan Hagemann, I’m thinking of you.)

31-D, nine letters, “Coiner of ‘sellyfish’ and ‘nectacled’.” Just gets on my nerves.

35-A, four letters, “Dickinson’s percher ‘in the soul.’” Stay right there.

38-A, eleven letters, “Copenhagen premiere on 1879.” There might be an argument to make here.

48-D, four letters, “Layout measure.” You were going to say ACRE, no?

52-A, ten letters, “Band of the soundtrack of The Hunger Games.” I’ve never seen THG, but I guessed the answer from the first letter.

My favorite in this puzzle: 37-A, three letters, “Space Needle’s midpoint.” Wherever it is, you could never really see it from Frasier Crane’s apartment.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

A Big Bad Wolf

Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver. 1982. Trans. Thomas Teal. (New York: New York Review Books, 2009).

The setting is a remote snowbound village. (Finland? Sweden?) Anna is a celebrated illustrator of children’s books. Katri is a villager who seems determined to take over Anna’s life. It’s a dark, dark novel.

Also from Tove Jansson
Q & Q & Q & A