Pennies and Checks

Two stories that I found on Numlock News that have enough in common to stick together.

America Must Free Itself from the Tyranny of the Penny (September 3 Numlock News)
The idea of getting rid of the penny pops up in these types stories every once in a while. Thankfully this one has fun facts!

• Most minted pennies are made to eventually be change, then we get the pennies as change and never use them.
• There are 240 billion pennies somewhere, who knows where. Each person on average has $7.23 in pennies.
• If people actually used these pennies it would be a nightmare, that’s too many pennies for banks or the government to manage.
• $100 in pennies weights 55lbs.
• Pennies are minted in Philadelphia and Denver.
• In the 1970s, pennies were mostly copper. GE started putting holes in them and using them as washers in appliances since they were cheaper than buying washers. The Secret Service had to shut that down.

It’s never been more confusing to pay for something (September 12 Numlock News)
Not sure about the title here as I haven’t had an issue figuring out how to pay for something, but it certainly is an issue for places going cashless or no longer accepting checks. There is a lot in the story about how people tend to pay for things. You guessed it, they have some facts!

• In 2000, Americans averaged writing 60 checks per year, now it’s 9. -I guess that seems like a lot but do the checks my bank prints and mails for me count as checks I wrote?
• In October 2023 the average was 1.23 checks and 7.3 cash transactions for the month. -The math doesn’t quite add up for the year in the last fact, but close enough.
• 40% of people carry cash.

Watchin’ Guts

Jomboy isn’t just baseball videos. This is my new favorite series (it started last year but I started this summer). They just watch GUTS, drafting their player for the episode and rooting for them. There are all sorts of scoring rules to make it a competition throughout the season. Below is probably the first episode, I started with season 5 and season 7 just started. I always watched GUTS as a kid but the added commentary from the guys along with their bad luck and getting upset with these kids takes it to another level.

Link to the playlist with all the episodes.

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? TV Show

Everyone watched this show, right? It was on PBS so even the didn’t have cable kids should have been onboard. I was also obsessed with the computer game and all its variations. This video covers the story of the game show but starts from the original games.

I had this one saved for a bit and then this week a new game was announced. This time you play as Carmen Sandiego. It looks like it is based on the newer Netflix show. The trailer shows that you are following clues and puzzles to catch thieves but Carmen is the world’s greatest thief. Is she capturing other thieves to stay on top. I’m a little confused by the plot here.

I couldn’t pick my tile between the two classic TV theme songs I was working from.

iOS 18 is out on Monday. To my surprise, I don’t think everyone pays attention to every Apple news story like I do. Even less likely, do they install the beta software as soon as it’s relatively safe. That makes me wonder if when everyone installs the updates if they have any idea what is in them. I’ve been using iOS 18 for 2+ months and here are some of the things that you’ll notice or might want to consider looking into. This way you’ll be ready when you update.

I’ll grab images from Apple’s iOS 18 page, which you should also check out to see all the features. I also don’t have an iPhone that supports Apple Intelligence but so far on the devices I do have with it, I don’t see much use for it.

Home Screen Changes

This is the biggest change to me, probably because it is the most seen. I enabled the large icons (Edit Home Screen -> Customize) which also removes the app labels under the icons. I like it a lot but when I use my work phone that isn’t updated yet, it’s pretty shocking how tiny the icons look. You will need to know what all the app icons are since the labels will be gone.

A Whole New Sound is a new Disney album of all pop-punk covers. Yes, please. I’ve listened to most of it now and New Found Glory is a standout, no surprise as they are cover experts. I’m not sure how many will actually stick in my library but still lots of fun.

A Whole New Sound Tracklist
1.     “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid by New Found Glory
2.     “Remember Me” from Coco by Mayday Parade
3.     “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” from The Lion King by Simple Plan
4.     “I2I” from A Goofy Movie by Magnolia Park
5.     “A Whole New World” from Aladdin by Yellowcard
6.     “Go the Distance” from Hercules by We The Kings
7.     “Surface Pressure” from Encanto by Plain White T’s
8.     “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from Toy Story by Meet Me @ The Altar
9.     “You’ll Be in My Heart” from Tarzan by Boys Like Girls
10.    “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas by Tokio Hotel
11.    “Let It Go” from Frozen by LØLØ 
12.    “Friend Like Me” from Aladdin by Bowling For Soup

More Disney? Sure. I’ve had this one to share for a while. The shows how Disney was able to do special background effects, without green screens or CGI, in movies like Mary Poppins. And then just … stopped.

A couple of podcasts I’ve been in to recently. I’ll include links I can find but podcasts don’t always have websites so search in whatever app you use. I am curious what podcast app you do use, if you want to share. I’m still using Overcast, despite the recent update breaking a lot of basic features, it’s almost back to what I need at this point.

Johnny Knoxville on No Such Thing As A Fish
Episode: 543 No Such Thing As Ice Skating On Stilts

My favorite podcast, which is British and doesn’t usually have big guests (and never American ones) had Johnny Knoxville on. Now this is a podcast about facts, not an obvious match for a Johnny Knoxville appearance. Apparently he is a fan of the show. They did a great job of tailoring the facts to Johnny. A surprise when I saw his name pop up and a good episode.

Podcast Episode Page | Apple Podcast Link

The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast

Each episode focuses on a SNL Digital Short that the Lonely Island created and dives into a bit of the episodes and sketches on during those episodes. Obviously hilarious. They even did two bonus episodes just on their movie Hot Rod, and together they were longer than the actual move. I don’t even remember liking the moving but I think it’s time to revisit it.

Podcast Page | Apple Podcast Link

Season 2 of Rachel Maddow Presents: ULTRA

A serious one to wrap up my suggestions. As with season 1 (and her other podcast – Deja News) the story is eerily similar to today with plots to overturn election results. Lots of history you think would be more commonly known.

Apple Podcast Link

My most used page this week? Playoff Magic as the Phillies’ Magic Number continues on down to zero.

More sports …

Bigger sports merger? XFL and USFL or PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball

The PGA has a new logo and no one looked at it and thought it looked off?

A pitching matchup for the ages was replaced by a pitching matchup for the ages. This was in 2008.

I don’t know what it is about the iOS 17 update but I’ve been tweaking my home screen widgets like crazy. I’ve used some widgets the past few years but once I got the weather and photo widget in place, they stayed. Maybe allowing them to be interactive made more devs include them in their apps. Here are a few of my favorites that will find a place on a screen somewhere, but I’m still moving them around.

Contacts

I hadn’t used this one before so I’m not sure how much is new. I thought it was just a shortcut to call a few contacts. Turns out there is a lot more to it.

On the widget it shows their current location, if it’s shared with you, it will add an icon if they are driving, and if you have an unread message from them it will indicate that as well.

When you click on a contact I thought it would just bring up their contact page. It actually brings up a whole summary view. I’m not sure this is even in any app, it’s different than the user pages in Contacts and Messages. It should be the default view for Contacts across the OS. It obviously shows the call, FaceTime, and message options. It also includes a map, any Messages threads they are a part of, anything shared (links), photos of them, and emails.

I was watching QI and they did a test on finding your dominant eye. Maybe you already know this, but something you can test and figure out wherever you are (except maybe driving) makes for a good thing to share.

I found this video that gave a good overview of why it matters and some tests on how to determine which is your dominant eye.

After trying a few of the tests, I think I’m left eye dominant, or as he says in the video, cross eye dominant, since I’m right handed. That means I shouldn’t take up archery.

What is your dominant eye?
Are you right or left handed?
Are you able to close one eye at a time?

I guess since football season started there is a lot of football this week. Don’t worry, I didn’t watch any games.

I remember watching Penn State games and telling the guys that some of the running backs were able to get through the line better because they’re had a smaller number. Turns out, I was right.

Someone did a Substack post (Oh look, Substack does embeds to other Substacks) about the history of lines on football fields. The checkerboard is ridiculous, how much chalk did they use on those lines? Did they play giant game of checkers after the game?

Not much to share after vacation but here goes …

Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel is ending soon after 29 years. I think I’ve watched it for the past 10 years, more? who knows. I’m actually a few episodes behind because HBO Max and now Max have been terrible at letting me know about new episodes. While each month there was at least one good story the ones that really stick out were before every Olympics or World Cup they would show how terribly the events impacted the local people and how the money should have been spent elsewhere.

SongPop Party was this year’s vacation game. The past years Jackbox took the crown. SongPop plays clips of songs and everyone needs to guess as quick as they can. There are a bunch of categories to pick from but it was difficult agreeing across generations. If there is similar knowledge then it all comes down to speed. Stef and I had a few rounds where we had identical response times. We played the Apple Arcade version – on Apple TV with everyone playing in the app on their iPhones, it was a little more difficult for those who didn’t have Apple Arcade. It looks like it’s also on Switch and XBox. There also might be some other versions. I’m pretty confused looking up the different versions.

Are there any family favorites you play on vacation?