Kirkman

Kirkman, 25 days ago to random

I can't get over the following direct quote, which is from the middle of a training session provided by my company's new (probably lower-budget) HR/training vendor:

"Using the office guillotine when you're upset about a tough meeting earlier is not a good idea."

🤦‍♂️ 🔪

Kirkman, 1 month ago to Typography

One of my favorite road signs in all of Missouri, seen heading west on Interstate 70 in St. Charles County.

I very seldom drive there, but when I do, I love to startle the rest of my family by saying "Look everyone, we're coming up to Bryan ..." then screaming "ROAD!" at the top of my lungs.

I'm not sure why they decided to make "ROAD" uppercase, but I am forever grateful.

#typography #roadsigns #highway #travel #missouri

Kirkman, 2 months ago to stlouis

Municipal elections are tomorrow across St. Louis County and the rest of the #STL area! Are you ready?

Use the Post-Dispatch Voters Guide to learn about the races, candidates, and ballot issues you'll be voting on.

https://stltoday.com/votersguide

#stlouis #missouri #election #elections #vote #voting #voters #journalism #localjournalism #newspaper #news

Kirkman, 2 months ago to archive

I always love getting this badge from the Wayback Machine on the @internetarchive.

Wish I knew how many times I've done it.

#internetarchive #digipres #archive #waybackmachine

Kirkman, 2 months ago to DadBin

Attention fans of Captain Kangaroo and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood ...

In 1979, CK appeared in a one-hour MRN special entitled "Springtime with Mister Rogers."

The special was apparently lost to the public for decades, but the Fred Rogers Company recently found it and posted on its website.

Unfortunately, the tape was missing the first 15 mins.

But it was an interesting mashup of nostalgia to watch with my daughter.

https://misterrogers.org/episodes/springtime-with-mister-rogers/

#pbs #pbskids #children #tv #television #kids

Kirkman, 2 months ago to retrocomputing

Eleven years ago, I put together a system to automate the creation of a basketball bracket for the Post-Dispatch, using the league's JSON feed.

We used it for many years at the P-D, until they outsourced print design.

In 2022, I applied that knowledge to make a live-updating #ANSI bracket for my bulletin board system, as a bit of #retrocomputing fun.

Hope to have it running again on the #BBS after Selection Sunday tonight.

Kirkman, 3 months ago to stlouis

If you're looking for a fish fry to try this evening, make sure you check our map, which includes more than 130 across the St. Louis area!

https://www.stltoday.com/life-entertainment/local/food-drink/dining/fish-fry-st-louis-fish-fries-lent/article_acc0fa70-c45e-11ee-9cdd-37db7bda1b30.html

#stl #stlouis #lent #fish #fishfry #religion #catholicism #catholic #localjournalism #datajournalism #map

Kirkman, 3 months ago to apple

I’m so disappointed in the design of the new Apple Sports app, which does not degrade gracefully on smaller screen sizes, like my iPhone SE2.

Apple used to get this stuff right.

#apple #apps #ui #ux #iphone #responsive #design #sports

Kirkman, 5 months ago to Birds

Learning about St. Louis and the Eurasian tree sparrow is a rabbit (bird?) hole I fell down myself a few years back when I got into photographing birds on my walks to school with the kids.

But it didn't occur to me to turn it into a story. Great read.

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/arts/the-eurasian-tree-sparrow-lives-in-st-louis-and-pretty-much-only-st-louis-41621879

#birds #stl #stlouis #localnews #avian #sparrows

Kirkman, 5 months ago to stlouis

‼️📰 Holy smokes, my story in the Post-Dispatch last week made a difference!

St. Louis city police just posted the last three years of incident-level crime data -- and they pledge to post updates monthly.

Love how they "discovered" they were already producing similar CSVs for the Center for Policing Equity.

Original story: https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-courts/st-louis-police-have-crime-data-they-won-t-share-researchers-call-it-embarrassing/article_4b114724-a0fc-11ee-8edf-632d7ffb3dc5.html

#crime #stlouis #stl #journalism #localjournalism #data #datajournalism #opendata #transparency #accountability

Kirkman, 6 months ago to comics

I printed out today's devious xkcd comic ("Label the States") for my wife and kids, and they spent a good 15 minutes working on them, saying things like “There’s a South Virginia?” before figuring it out.
https://xkcd.com/2868/

#comics #xkcd #geography #maps #states #usa

Two sisters discuss a blank map.

Kirkman, 6 months ago to stlouis

Property values -- and tax bills -- have skyrocketed in some of the poorest areas of St. Louis County in the past two reassessments.

Kelsey Landis and I take a look at the data behind this trend, and its effects on real people.

#realestate #property #taxes #taxation #datajournalism #localjournalism #stlouis #stl #data #news #localnews

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/government-politics/property-taxes-are-soaring-in-st-louis-county-small-houses-are-getting-hit-the-hardest/article_41e4f6e0-4da6-11ee-8ad2-87f315819be7.html

Kirkman, 6 months ago to random

Security researcher Jason Parker (@north) found that flaws in court record systems used by five U.S. states were exposing sensitive legal documents.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/30/us-court-records-systems-vulnerabilities-exposed-sealed-documents/

Parker outlined the details of what he found here:
https://github.com/qwell/disorder-in-the-court

Kirkman, 6 months ago to twitter

Another day, another way Tw/X is pushing spam and turning off users. ❌ 👎

Crypto groups pay to become "X Verified Organizations," which enables them to send unsolicited invites to random users to "get verified!" (by accepting affiliation with them).

That place is so exhausting. Wish real people would just jump over here en masse. (the bots can stay there)

#twitter #crypto #infosec #spam #security #scam

Screenshot of a notification on the Twitter/X website about a crypto group's invitation for you "to get verified."
Screenshot showing example tweets from the feed of a crypto group on Twitter/X.

Kirkman, 7 months ago to stlouis

An expected tidal wave of Catholic school closures across St. Louis next month could evaporate as some pastors signal a willingness to keep struggling campuses open. 🎒 ⛪

We look at the data ahead of upcoming decisions in the second phase of the Archdiocese's “All Things New” downsizing plan.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/st-louis-unlikely-to-see-large-scale-closures-of-catholic-grade-schools/article_7435bed2-7f1e-11ee-93c5-b78d5f8d5a0d.html

#stl #StLouis #catholic #religion #church #school #education #students #AllThingsNew

Kirkman, 7 months ago to journalism

Come work with me!

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is looking to add a top-notch education reporter. 📰 🏫

Learn more here:
https://us232.dayforcehcm.com/CandidatePortal/en-US/leeenterprises/Posting/View/23109

#journalismus #localjournalism #job #employment #newspaper #journalism #education #school #stl #stlouis

Kirkman, 8 months ago to random

Hey Tor browser users ... It appears that when people visit my homepage using Tor, they see an intermediate CloudFlare page that reads "Please wait while your request is being verified".

My web host insists CloudFlare is not enabled on my website, and nothing on their end would cause this.

I'm not super-familiar with Tor. Is it possible CloudFlare is hooked into some part of the Tor network the browser sets up?

Kirkman, 9 months ago to journalism

🏛️ 💵
The 2023 edition of the Public Pay database from STLtoday is online now!

https://graphics.stltoday.com/apps/payrolls/salaries_2023/

This year the enormously talented Namratha Prasad tag-teamed with me to request and wrangle the data from more than 120 different public agencies across the St. Louis area.

#localjournalism #journalism #datajournalism #opendata #transparency #pay #salary #government #opengovernment

Kirkman, 9 months ago to internet

Given past experience, I'm a sucker for a wrongful prosecution stories. Here's a pretty good one from the turn of the century.

h/t @ernie

https://web.archive.org/web/20100630100020/http://sites.google.com/site/flutocrat/Home/cablemodem

#stories #justice #cable #internet #comcast #court #prosecution #history

Kirkman, 9 months ago to retrocomputing

I've read @jmechner Jordan Mechner's making-of books a couple times over the years, and this is one of my favorite random bits. I identify with Dave. Long live Atari!

#retrocomputing #atari #atarist #appleii #gamedev #gaming #karateka

Kirkman, 9 months ago to repair

Our LG oven touchpad has cracked and broken, and now we get F-3 errors all the time. The control board replacement is no longer manufactured, so I'm wondering about replacing just the plastic overlay, and maybe cleaning the actual buttons behind. Anyone replaced this sort of plastic on their appliances? What material would work, and where could I get it?

#repair #fixit #appliance #oven #lg

Kirkman, 1 year ago to art

The preview image on this #Reuters graphics piece had me scratching my head ... was it a graphical glitch caused by Twitter's poor image resizing algorithms (which have messed up plenty of my textmode screenshots in the past)? ... Or was it intentional?

Either way, it's kind of cool ... it's like a photo slowly becoming an Atari 400/800/XL/XE screen.

#journalism #pixelart #graphics #art #retrocomputing #newsgraphics #news

Kirkman, 1 year ago to infosec

An order issued by the Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday will restrict remote access to old documents, in hopes of preventing the accidental release of Social Security numbers. 👩‍⚖️ 💻

The rule change comes after I discovered that thousands of civil judgments filed by the Division of Employment Security included SS numbers, and were available on online via Casenet.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/missouri-supreme-court-restricts-access-to-old-documents-on-casenet-website/article_7e086892-f9a9-11ed-a42d-0f7b62aae4cf.html

#infosec #stl #stlouis #missouri #courts #justice #law #privacy #security #journalism #localjournalism

Kirkman, 1 year ago to random

Something personal: My daughter and five of her classmates are raising money to travel to Washington D.C. to compete in the National History Day competition. 🏛️

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-our-girls-get-to-washington-dc

The six girls are students in the Ferguson-Florissant school district. They took top honors for individual and group performances at the Missouri state competition, securing spots in the nationals. 🏆

#history #nhd #nationalhistoryday #travel #fundraiser #education #school #stl #stlouis

Kirkman, 1 year ago to infosec

The Post-Dispatch recently found that Missouri's Case.net website exposes the private information of thousands of people.

The courts patched one technical vulnerability after being alerted by the newspaper.

Thousands more records with unredacted sensitive information remain publicly accessible, though, because they are considered open records.

https://stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/court-records-online-include-private-information-for-thousands-of-missouri-residents/article_f5b23bce-e44c-11ed-a554-33728de7a460.html

#infosec #stl #stlouis #missouri #kansascity #kc #courts #justice #law #web #privacy #security #journalism #government