As I compile this list on my computer I realize it’s the National Day of Unplugging. In the background a movie is being streamed over Netflix, not to mention too many lights on in the house. At least the adult beverage I am sipping now didn’t require any wired power to pour.

Who Comes Up With These Days Anyway? – World Backup Day is March 31. However I really, really urge you to backup your files way sooner, and just like voting in Chicago – early and often. If you’re not sure how to approach backing up your vital pictures and files, I offer this oldie but goodie on my own backup strategy.

Speaking of Your Data... – I signed up for this free Webinar titled, “Government Access to Private Data: Who gets what when and how?” being offered by the University of Wisconsin next week. The speaker’s bio alone intrigued me to watch this, and I also found it interesting that recordings of the event are prohibited.

The Next Generation of Wikipedia? – Larry Sanger, one of the founders of Wikipedia, is starting Encyclosphere as an alternative to the popular digital encyclopedia. It’s not live yet, and from descriptions I read it will not be a central site but a network of resources. Could The Hot Iron be one? Who knows. I have subscribed to their email list to learn about progress in this endeavor.

There has been a lot of talk about how Wikipedia works, using volunteer editors whose influence on content can show their bias. However this is nothing new to me or something that has happened just in the last 4 years. Almost a decade ago I first learned of this by someone I knew in tech networking circles in Chicago. She told me that many edits she and other colleagues made on women’s sports were continuously being deleted. Note I said sports, not politics.

Define Rockstars – “... it’s better to have a rockstar team rather than a team of rockstars...” is a paraphrase of a great quote I heard this week on an episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. This made me think back on all of the teams I have been a part of over the years, and I concur wholeheartedly with it.

Two-Minute Catholic – With all of the podcasts that are queued in my mobile app, the last thing I wanted is another long show to subscribe to that I will likely never get to yet keep holding out hope I will. I recently learned about Relevant Radio, a network of Catholic radio stations that also has an app, and this week found Fr. Kubicki’s 2 Minute Prayer Reflection. Two minutes! This daily timeout is welcome in the mix of news and technology listening.

Six-Months Italian – They say all good things come to an end, and I decided to stop my daily streak of “learning” Italian at 180 with the Duolingo app. Six months is nothing to shake a stick at, but lately I have been repeating lessons rather than taking new ones simply for the sake of keeping the streak alive. Where I have gained a better understanding of my mother tongue, I don’t have a venue to practice it. I may resume lessons in the future. In the meantime I am going to focus on career-advancing studies.

No Cost to Viewer’s Remorse – Last weekend the new combo animated/live-action Tom & Jerry movie came out concurrently in physical movie theatres and on the streaming channel HBO Max. As I get HBO Max for free for being an AT&T customer, I didn’t mind it as much how horrible the movie was as the only cost was my time, which did not last through the entire duration of the film.

No Cost and No Remorse for this Agile Learning – This week Agile coach and educator Anthony Mersino released the second edition of his book Agile Project Management for free in PDF and Kindle formats. As a paper book aficionado, I have started reading this as a PDF, but will still buy a copy in paper format when it comes out. I have taken courses from Anthony and he has a great style of educating that gets you excited about using Agile and Scrum methods.

End of a Friendly Era – I learned that last month S. Presley Blake, the co-founder of the East coast Friendly Ice Cream restaurant chain, died at age 106. In its heyday Friendly’s was a go-to place for Fishamajig sandwiches and Fribble shakes. I worked at the store in my hometown for 60 days exactly, allowing a friend to get a bonus for referring me, as I quickly realized food service wasn’t my thing. A philanthropist after selling the restaurants, Blake was also known for building a replica of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in northern Connecticut when he was in his late 90’s.

Go Cubs Go – The gratuitously cute bear cub photo at the top of this post was sent to me by my cousin. The cub’s mother is being monitored by state wildlife officials and thus they were able to capture this photo and others of mother bear and her newborn cubs on said cousin’s land. Where I would never think of using cute animals to drive traffic to this humble blog, I’ll fully assess this position after checking the traffic to this one post.

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

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