Though not asked for or about by anyone...

IT Didn’t Last Long – Early in December people in the technology industry briefly lost their minds over an article in the Wall Street Journal titled It’s Time To Get Rid Of The IT Department. The premise was that with all of the online services out there, commonly referred to by us technical people as micro-services architecture, you didn’t need a department overseeing all of the chaos of random people creating free or paid accounts and having no idea how everything links together. As you can guess by that previous sentence, us techies took a deep breath, had a laugh, then went back to helping those people who keep setting up those accounts.

Speaking of Lasting Too Long – It still baffles me that people register domain names with Network Solutions. They were the first domain name registrar, and their Web interface really hasn’t changed all that much over the decades. They charge more than others and make it difficult to make changes to domain name settings or DNS. If you want a better solution, go to Name.com.

The Lawyers Year-End Bonuses – A couple of class-action lawsuits came across my view, One was for TikTok and data privacy, the other for Zoom and third-party access. For the TikTok class action, if you are/were a resident of Illinois at the time you could get six-times the money back, however much that is anyway.

With regards to these, I did file for TikTok but not Zoom. The former is a highly toxic service owned by the Chinese Communist Party, and the latter is a service that helped maintain my sanity during the lockdowns, and nobody ever hacked into any calls I was on. Even though there’s a fixed amount of money involved, on principal I did what I did.

Badger Bitedown – The University of Wisconsin-Madison was one of several colleges whose football players were wearing special mouth guards this past season to measure the impact of head injuries. If you have ever seen or heard anything about CTE and its causes, this study hopefully yields information on the impact of sports on head injuries and their impact on the lives of those who got such injuries. People are not going to stop playing sports that can cause these injuries anytime soon, so anything that can help along the way is a good thing.

Fresh Take-Off – Over the years I have mentioned a local radio show Fresh Take and its host Josh Dukelow on the pages of this blog. It has been a unique show, airing topics and guests you won’t hear elsewhere and in a fashion the hosts aptly calls “getting you think, not telling you what to think.” Now Josh is leaving the area, and his show will be signing off on January 21. I wish him the best on his next chapter in his life journey, and am wondering who and what will replace his air slot.

Reason 8,237,912 To Not Ship With FedEx – Many people don’t realize that FedEx uses contractors to deliver packages. So if someone in a FedEx truck with a FedEx uniform comes to your front door, they may not actually be an employee of FedEx. That is, if the FedEx truck is in an accident and never comes to your door, as what happened in the middle of the Christmas package rush. Fortunately there are some good people in the world, they are just not wearing a FedEx uniform.

Shattering Santa Stereotypes – Santa Claus isn’t necessarily always an old fat man with a white beard wearing a red suit and having the trappings as told by numerous tales. Sometimes it’s a younger, svelte, redhead woman donning a black coat and single-handedly fulfilling the role of Sant Nick and then some, not to mention cooking the roast beast. And for this, saying I am eternally grateful doesn’t begin to cover how I feel.

Heaven Closes Before Christmas? – Sad news for the local soccer community hit before the holidays that a local indoor soccer facility Soccer Heaven was closing for good after decades in business. Where the name “heaven” may have been a stretch for this facility, it is where my kiddo really came into being a soccer player and loving the sport. Now we’ll drive about a half-hour further away to play over the winter, but have plenty of memories and victories on the fake grass formerly one exit away.

Don’t Ski So Close To Me – A “lost” video by the band The Police came out over the holidays. It was a video for their classic hit “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” but filmed at a Canadian ski area. Apparently a concert the trio were supposed to be in was canceled, so they had some time on their hands. For fans of the band like me, it was the right amount of silliness going into the holidays.

Another Way to Watch and Be Warm – Not to be outdone by yule log videos out there on the Internet and broadcast by TV stations on Christmas eve, the Italian American Podcast came out with Yule Pot a pot of tomato sauce simmering on the stove while Christmas songs by Italian-Americans play. And yes, I said sauce, not gravy.

Rise... – After displaying a similar looking sign with the word HOPE in the center of my city, a new one has taken its place, RISE, as shown above. My hopes is we will rise up and return to what we were prior to all of this chaos in the world, and even be a better place to live and thrive.

... And Scene – With this What I Learned, I have decided to retire this (somewhat) weekly posting, again. Where I have enjoyed writing it and keep observing things – perhaps more than I normally would – it’s time has come. I am hoping to write more, lengthier posts on single topics, as I have been doing in recent years. Thanks for all of the feedback and reading by you. As this was the “second coming” of the series, could there be a third?

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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