I honestly don't think either of these were among the original recommendations I received. Instead, I think they were part of an IMDB trail I followed off one of the other shows that was. Either way, I did enjoy both. One of my "guilty pleasure" favorite movies is "Head Office" from the early 80s. It paints a cynical, and I still think hilarious, view of the corporate world. I see a lot of that in these 2 shows, even though they're taking a more "Office-"style mockumentary path.

Hugh Bonneville is his normal great self in both, and David Tennant's narration is fun, as well. Though the mocking humor in the narration is more subtle in Twenty Twelve than in W1A, both are great. I kept waiting for some joke about constantly referring to Siobhan Sharpe as being from Perfect Curve every time she was mentioned.

The striking difference between the two was with Twenty Twelve, you have people actually moving towards a goal, in whatever way they're able to get there. With W1A, goals are met by almost falling backwards into each one, but it doesn't get repetitive. Also, the sheer nothingness of what a lot of the executives say in the various meetings is half the humor of the show! That, and everyone always saying, "Yes," or "Yes, no" or "No, Yes." How the character of Anna Rampton devolved into a corporate-speak automaton by the end was great (and sad of course, but fun to watch). The Simon Harwood character reminded me a bit of Max Landsberger in Head Office. It's never really clear what he does other than avoid trouble, and say "brilliant" a lot.

Anyway, I enjoyed both shows. Doubt I'll do a rewatch; but they made me laugh, so job done!

Awhile back I asked for some recommendations for British shows that weren't police procedurals, since that seems to be about 90% of our "britbox" subscription options here in the states. Anyway, thought I would post some thoughts about them as I work my way through the list, starting with Taskmaster.

This show is great! I was already familiar with Greg Davies from Dr. Who & The Inbetweeners. I also recognized a lot of contestants from season to season, and even found some more I liked who were new to me. I love watching the interactions between the comedians, and it's especially good when they have a history with Greg. We've also found the "Champion of Champions" episodes and have watched the first couple of those. Lastly, the outtakes and other bits on YT are fantastic. We're all caught up and will definitely keep watching.

I've never been a fan of ranking conferences in terms of strength for a couple of reasons. First, college football remains very cyclical. Before NIL and the transfer portal, teams would effectively refresh every 4-ish years. Since those 2 additions, that window is arguably smaller! Until the NCAA and/or conferences figure out a way to bring some order to the "wild west" nature of recruiting that we currently have, dynasty building is going to be hard. Not impossible, though. Players will still gravitate towards proven winners and top-notch facilities.

Second, all conferences have a certain pecking order. Sure, it gets disrupted from time to time, and NIL money could really shake this up as well. In fact, Indiana is a very good example of both points. A perennial underdog in the Big T(eighte)en. The university has no shortage of well-heeled alumni, and some of the have finally been convinced to contribute. This, and hiring Curt Cignetti has resulted in a 2-year turnaround from 3-9 in 2023, to getting knocked out of the CFP in 2024, to #1 CFP seed in 2025!

Third, these teams are all different. They are playing different opponents, with vastly different strengths of schedule, and in different venues in the case of bowl games.

Finally, I don't root for conferences. It's always seemed strange to me. I see people cheering for Auburn or Bama because they, "root for the SEC." Why? I have never cheered for Bama. I don't hate their players or coaches, I just don't root for them. Team allegiance is inherently tribal, but we've taken it way too far. Cheering for a conference just reads to me like really needing something to root for, and I don't want to be that guy. If Auburn isn't playing, and Bama isn't involved in the game, I can usually pick a team to support or just enjoy the chaos that college football can often provide.

Saying "the SEC is a tougher conference than the Big10," or vice versa, is ridiculous. Both have teams that tend to be pretty good, as well as teams that don't. Both have "Cinderella" teams every now and then. In any given year, one or the other will have more tough teams than other conferences, but again that's all very cyclical because that's how college football just is. It's probably the biggest reason I like college ball more than pro. So many unknowns from season to season.

For awhile I've liked the idea of using a VPS for "critical" services. Currently looking at running:

• Authentik
• Komodo (with periphery agents on local boxes)
• Uptime Kuma
• NTFY
• Panglolin (or Cosmos Cloud?)

So, first of all, to folks already using a VPS, do you think it's worth it? Do you think I'm missing anything? Happy to discuss/research alternatives, too. I've thought about TinyAyuth+PocketID in place of Authentik. While I think Authentik is probably more complex (and likely overkill), it's a single solution. That said, I haven't played with TinyAuth/PockedID.

Second, I was pretty interested in Pangolin until I saw Cosmos Cloud mentioned elsewhere. It seems like it actually ticks a lot of boxes:

• Built-in authentication
• Reverse Proxy
• VPN (At least for local-to-VPS connection, but possibly also for external clients?)
• Docker management(?): They have an "app store" that's all docker images, so there's some docker capability built-in. Not sure yet if it can handle multiple hosts like Komodo.
• DNS (I would still keep at least 1 local pi-hole instance)

Looking at the doc for chaining proxies and hiding IP, here, it mentions creating an A record for services hosted on a different server. I'm curious to know if this means Cosmos will only manage DNS for services hosted on the same box. Honestly this seems kind of odd, unless I'm misunderstanding how proxy servers work.

Anyway, I know this was a bit of a meandering post. Curious to know thoughts on my original plan, but also if anyone has played with Cosmos, I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Lastly: This morning, I found this interesting write-up to manage container updates using Forgejo, Renovate, and Komodo. Another rabbit hole to explore!

EDITS:

• Spelling

The Auburn subreddit has been insufferable with all the drama queens this past week. They can all go back to espousing their expertise about basketball, now.

Basically, the title. I have the domain, and have used it in the past with Google Workspace and MS365, but both of those services enshitified, so I'm looking for something that won't screw me.

Don't really care about things like password manager, VPN, cloud drive, etc. Just looking for email service for about 5 users that can be configured to work w/ native email clients on macos, windows, linux, iOS (so Proton & Tuta are out). Anyone have any experience with this? Really don't want to roll my own.

I migrated over to Proton last night before realizing that I had to set up the bridge for it to work on macos mail, and can only use the nativ client on mobile. So, trying to find something soon, so I can cancel within the 30-day period.

“Where does that leave citizens? It may be a penny, but that adds up,” said Moss, 29. She paid $8.23 for her orange chicken and cream cheese ragoons with a debit card.

For sure, it does... but this person already had 1 solution already in her wallet! Also, at most you'll pay $0.02 extra for something. This equates to an extra $7.30 if you purchase this thing every day for a year! This also ignores that some things will be as much as $0.03 cheaper.

America last phased out a coin roughly 170 years ago, when it got rid of the half-cent. “We don’t have a lot of experience with this,” said Steve Kenneally, the association’s senior vice president of payments.

... But Canada does. They did this in 2013. I was actually there when they did it, and it appeared to go pretty smoothly. Almost like they had a plan rather than having to quickly react to the whims of a broken clock one of the times it was actually right.

There's also a lot about companies training cashiers on "how to round," which reminds me of the George Carlin quote about the average person's intelligence. Also, plenty about commercial groups "begging" the federal government to help them with the transition and being met with silence. This is probably the most important part of the article.

The US is finally doing something it should have done decades ago, and it's choosing to do it in the most chaotic way possible. Rather than looking at what other countries have done and forming a plan, they're acting like the edict itself, along with no longer minting pennies or accepting deposited ones, is all the government should have to do. Is this the "small government" utopia conservatives dream about!? One that tells states and businesses, "We've done the minimum. You figure out the rest amongst yourselves." Seems like it's going great so far!

Overall, the article should've been more about how terribly this is being enacted, and less about people not being able to do basic math. Especially disappointing since the original source is WSJ (and I know who owns it - it's still a mostly business-oriented publication).

Edit: spelling

.. Freeze is out & Durkin is interim HC.

I don't know about Durkin as a HC going forward. His tenure at UMD leaves a lot of serious questions to be answered, but he has built a solid defensive unit at Auburn. I think he deserves to be considered if he can show he's learned from his mistakes, and can build a culture of growth, sportsmanship, and healthy competition in the program (emphasis on healthy!).

Good showing, and Ashton Daniels looked much more poised than I think I've ever seen Jackson Arnold. I still have questions/notes:

1. Given the issues Chapel had earlier in the season w/ playing in noisy environments, and McPherson's play last week, what kind of coaching is going on!? Chapel came from Virginia Tech, so he had played in loud environments. Sure, McPherson has had health issues (which should have been good reason to red shirt this year), but going from 1-4 to 5-5 in a week w/ some decently long-ish shots, makes one wonder what's going on behind the scenes to prepare these guys for the games. Obviously he's still not 100%; that 46-yard FG barely made it!
2. Red Zone offensive play calling was as conservative & predictable as ever. Fortunately, it was against the worst defense in the conference.
3. Seems like Jackson Arnold maybe got the nod at the beginning of the season because he's more mobile? Sorry, but I'm really getting tired of Auburn fielding offenses that require a specific type of QB (dual-threat). We saw how that worked out towards the end of Gus' run. At the end of the day, a mobile QB has to be a "nice to have" rather than a "must have." Otherwise, your offense is just gimmicky. Over time, you'll lose more big games because good teams have well-rounded offensive and defensive schemes. Sure, they take advantage of breakout talent when & where it's there, but they don't rely on from year to year.
4. I heard the announcer mention Ashton Daniels has graduated. Why was he red shirting!? He looked so much more poised than I expected.
5. THANK YOU for putting a shot Singleton's way! Where has this guy been all season!? It was supposedly a Big Deal that Auburn got him, and yet I haven't heard his name hardly at all.
6. Seems like both Daniels & Arnold were missing open receivers a little too much, and also noticed receivers not really doing a great job at getting open to help the QBs when they had to scramble. Both of these feel like coaching issues.
7. Haven't seen anything to make me think Auburn has any shot against Vandy or Bama. I hope they can win 1 of those, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm still not sure they'll beat Kentucky. Need to see how Ashton is if he gets the start (which I think he should).
8. If Auburn can beat Kentucky & Mercer they could go bowling this year. Would be interesting to see if they can actually win the Birmingham Bowl!

On Sept. 11, Michigan representatives proposed an internet content ban bill unlike any of the others we've seen: This particularly far-reaching legislation would ban not only many types of online content, but also the ability to legally use any VPN.

The bill, called the Anticorruption of Public Morals Act and advanced by six Republican representatives, would ban a wide variety of adult content online, ranging from ASMR and adult manga to AI content and any depiction of transgender people. It also seeks to ban all use of VPNs, foreign or US-produced.

Main issue I have with this article, and a lot of articles on this topic, is it doesn't address the issue of youth access to porn. I think any semi-intelligent person knows this is a parenting issue, but unfortunately that cat's out of the bag, thanks to the right. "Proliferation of porn" is the '90s crime scare (that never really died) all over again. If a politician or industry expert is speaking against bills like this, their talking points have to include:

• Privacy-respecting alternatives that promise parents that their precious babies won't be able to access that horrible dangerous porn! (I don't argue that porn can't be dangerous, but this is yet another disingenuous right-wing culture (holy) war)
• Addressing that vagueness in the bill sets up the government as morality police (it's right there in the title of the bill, FFS), and NOBODY in a "free" country should ever want that.
• Stop saying it can be bypassed with technology. The VPN ban in this bill is a reaction to talking points like that.
• Recognize and call out that this has nothing to do with protecting children and everything to do with a religious minority imposing its will on the rest of the country (plenty of recent examples to pull from here).

Unfortunately this is becoming enough of "A Thing" that the left is going to have to, once again, be seen doing "something" about it. So they have to thread a needle of "protecting kids," while respecting the privacy of their parents who want their kids protected and want to look at porn, and protecting businesses that require secure communications.

Don’t have a link b/c I don’t pay for 247, and I got this from Apple News. Article starts with this:

Since 1990, Auburn has lost four or more games in 27 seasons. The Tigers went 11-0 in 1993, 9-1-1 in 1994, 10-3 in 1997, 13-0 in 2004, 9-3 in 2005, 11-2 in 2006, 14-0 in 2010, and 12-2 in 2013. That's it. In 35 years, Auburn football has lost fewer than four games just eight times. It has only happened twice in the last 15 seasons.

This goes back to my time on campus, and it really highlights that for the past 35-years Auburn has been mostly average, with the occasional spark of brilliance. Remember when the UGA rivalry was dead even? Remember when Auburn won 5 in a row against Bama, and was making strides in closing the gap in that rivalry? Remember when the LSU rivalry was just brutal game after brutal game?

I’ve read elsewhere that the problem with Auburn is systemic, but nobody highlights anything specific other than meddling boosters. One interesting suggestion I saw was to limit new hire HC to a 4-year contract, with performance bonuses, and an option to extend after 3. The argument being that in the age of NIL & the transfer portal, the old 3-year rule to “get their guys in and build a team” doesn’t really hold as true anymore. Prove yourself before we start talking big buyouts.

I think Freeze is “a problem,” but I don’t think he’s “the problem.” I’ve never been a fan of head coaches controlling either offense or defense. Especially now that (not just) SEC football is basically semi-pro, you need coaches that can run the team like a pro squad with solid coordinators. This is basically how Saban did what he did at LSU & Bama.

Supposedly Auburn has excellent facilities. I know the fans make Jordan-Hare louder than it was when I was there. That was certainly on display this past Saturday. Maybe it is the board of directors/boosters that are the problem. Personally, I can’t name them. I know the Yellawood guy obviously pulls a lot of weight, but that’s about it. It seems like the resources are there to be a better team. Maybe not at the level of Bama, and certainly not Texas - both of whom have much more in the way of resources & brand recognition. But Auburn should be dangerous from year to year, and they just aren’t anymore.

I don't think any logical person thought Auburn had a realistic shot at winning last weekend's game. Especially after the performance at Oklahoma. I think the fan base would have been satisfied if they saw a hard fought close game, regardless of the of the outcome. A&M has a very good team this year, and Kyle Field is a notoriously difficult place for visiting teams. After the performance at Oklahoma, Auburn winning in College Station would have been quite a surprise. While the score did indicate a close game (Auburn covered), the offense somehow appeared to regress over the previous week.

First off, the defense is clearly the best part of Auburn's 2025 squad. Head and shoulders above the rest of the team. I don't think that statement will surprise anyone. The defense is the only reason Auburn had any chance in the past 2 games. Last weekend, I kept waiting for them to run out of steam, having seemingly been on the field for 80% of the game, but they just kept making plays. The only note I have for the defense is that I would love to see them working more deceptive (what the color commentators call "exotic") formations into the playbook. These pro formations are becoming more prevalent at the larger schools, and offenses need to be practicing against them.

What is going on with the offense!? Xavier Chaplin is a 2-year starter who's acting like he's never played in a loud stadium! If he's not false starting, someone else on the line is holding! Get past those two hurdles, and any pass protection collapsed within 1-2 seconds more often than not. Is A&M's front 4 that much better than Oklahoma's!? In Norman, Arnold often had 4-5 seconds to stand in the pocket, not finding an open receiver or any dump off receiver, before being sacked.

On that note, it's often hard to see on TV, but are the receivers just not getting open? I thought Auburn had 2 of the best in the SEC, and some of the catches they've made seem to back that up. There's clearly some disconnect between Arnold and the receivers. I don't know if he doesn't trust them or himself.

Beyond consistently running the ball up the middle on 3rd and stupid, I didn't really see any offensive strategy. Sometimes they seemed comfortable passing, and others it was as if they were scared to. Freeze has made a bunch of headlines in the off season with recruiting. Where are the results of that? Has Auburn hired another HC who really should've peaked at OC (this is how I feel about Gus)?

Auburn is 3-2, with 4 of the 7 remaining teams currently ranked. Fortunately, they get 3 of those teams at home. Additionally, they get a severely needed bye-week before the next game against Georgia. Short of half the UGA starters being injured leading up to that game, I don't see any chance of Auburn winning. That is, unless a completely different, more confident and better prepared/coached, offense takes the field on October 11. If Auburn can manage some form of offensive threat in that game, maybe there's hope for the rest of the season. I think at this point the best we can hope for against UGA and UAT are "good efforts," but maybe they can upset Vandy and/or Mizzou? Right now, is anyone confident Auburn can beat Kentucky or Arkansas?

I guess all those questions about retirement and running for the US Senate carried a little water after all.

It's just... ugly. It's kind of a retro-ish, but chunky design. It really shows it full ugliness in the Finder windows, especially when you column view (which I default to). It looks like a design by committee mishmash of stuff that all collides. I'm not normally one to hate on stylistic choices in an OS. I've never had much interest in "ricing" my environment, but I'm really just not a fan of this.

All the individual little "bubbles" of things instead of buttons, or even just borderless areas denoted by an icon. The way the left column looks like it's just plopped down on top of the rest of the content. Like it's a separate entity, but it's not. Especially noticeable in how the lower cookie crumb trail at the bottom of the window just abruptly ends at the border to the left column. Also, the color choice for the sliders is... bold. Almost the most noticeable thing in the screenshot! This looks like a Linux Enlighenment DE theme from the early `00s trying to emulate OS-X. The dark view looks slightly better.

About the only positive thing I can find is the tolerances around the edges of windows for resizing feels more forgiving than in the past & w/ other operating systems (ahem: Windows). On some OSs/desktop environments, it seems like there's a 1-2 pixel area where the cursor changes and you can resize a window. In contrast, this works pretty good in Tahoe.

For the most part, the offense looked unprepared. Lots of false starts make me wonder if they bothered practicing for the noise. Which is reallt sad considering thee were moments where they showed they had the talent to win the game. It's definitely a talented team, but the offensive play was incredibly sloppy. Plus, every now and then the play calling was annoyingly timid. Doing a hard count on 4th & 2, and winding up with a delay of game!?

The refs were about as bad as I've ever seen, missing multiple flagrant pass interference calls, the fumble overturn, the weird unsportsmanlike no-call on OU's first TD. Defense was pretty impressive for the first half. Not sure if they were just tired in the second of if OU's adjustments highlighted

2nd half almost looks like Auburn’s offense is trying not to lose. Hard snap count resulting in a delay of game penalty? Consistently running the ball on 3rd and obnoxiously long? Just very timid play calling. The couple of long passes they tried looked good, even if they were drops.

Also fuck these refs.

Have to say, I've worried about Auburn's secondary since the Baylor game. Through 3 games, I'm not convinced that worry is unfounded. I guess we'll see how things shake out in a week. S. Alabama isn't necessarily a cream-puff, but I'm not sure I like seeing them put up over 300 yards of offense against what was supposed to be a pretty good Auburn D. I have a feeling the ranking will be dropped after the trip to OK. Hope I'm wrong!

Archive Link

Honestly wasn't really sure where to post this. Since this is supposedly a documentary, this seemed like the right place. Anyway, I thought is was a pretty good article talking about the slant of the doc, as well as the things surrounding Deen's "cancelling." A couple if interesting points the author makes:

• This was a problem that could've been easily avoided with a settlement. Maybe even a private apology to the complainant.
• I agree that she could very easily rehab her public persona by embracing MAGA, but AFAIK she hasn't. If true, that does say something about her character. It's sad that such a low bar is to be commended, but here we are.

I mainly work from home, and my personal daily driver is an M2 Ultra MacBook Pro. My work system is a Lenovo P1 gen 4, with Win 11 24H2. Well-spec'ed "portable workstation" that the P1g4 is, it obviously does not have a built-in Ethernet port. I've used 2 different USB-C Ethernet adapters, one of which has worked fine with my backup ThinkPad T480s using the same cable. Whenever I use the Ethernet connection, connecting via RDP using the awesomely-named "Windows App" for macOS, my connection starts dropping ~50% of packets. Using Wi-fi, RDP works fine. I've seen some sites saying to disable UDP, but I don't see that option in Windows App. I've tried lowering the display settings to 16-bit, but that made no difference. I'm just using a ping to see the connection performance between my MBP and the P1g4.

Editing to add: I've tested the cable with my MBP, and it works fine - no packet loss to other systems on my LAN. The two systems are connected to the same switch - a fairly new Netgear 1Gb dumb switch.

Was worried about the secondary. Haven't seen the whole game yet, so not sure how they did, or if it was a test at all.