Axodys 10C Edition

The Spokane City Council unanimously approved a 10-year franchise agreement Monday with TDS Telecommunications, a Wisconsin-based company that plans to bring high-speed internet and more than 100 channels of cable television to Spokane customers.

TDS plans to invest more than $100 million to lay hundreds of miles of fiberoptic cable to form a brand-new network throughout the city. The company hopes to begin construction later this spring, although that is subject to negotiation with the city.

This is huge for Spokane. I doubt I'll be able to take advantage of this for a long time since we live a few miles outside the city limits, but allowing Comcast to have a monopoly for decades has resulted in almost no consumer fiberoptic availability in Spokane when we should have had it for at least a decade now.

Moderate Democrats also lost presidential elections in 1980, 2000, 2004, and 2016. Since McGovern, moderate Democrats have a losing record in presidential elections: six losses to the five wins by Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama (who ran a more progressive primary campaign than Hillary Clinton in 2008). But this history is lost in discussions of electability. It is as if moderate nominees are undefeated. It is as if the last time a Democrat lost was when the party nominated McGovern in 1972.

Good counter argument to baffling calls to rally around moderate candidates like Buttigieg and Klobuchar instead of the progressive candidates like Sanders (and Warren to a lesser extant) that actually inspire Democratic voters.

Meet Ayres, the emergency back-up in Toronto for this sort of nuclear event. Ayres, 42, is the building operations manager at Mattamy Athletic Centre. Many describe him as a Zamboni driver, but these days?

"Not very often," he smiled. "That was accurate five or six years ago."

I had no idea that emergency back-up goaltenders were a thing in pro hockey and basically the home rink provides one that either team could use if all their goalies succumb to injury. It's kind of wild that he got to play against his home team, did well for the visitors (and helped keep their playoff chances alive), and the home fans were completely thrilled for him. This seems like a totally Canadian and awesome thing!

The original emoji, Cairo was a typeface designed by Susan Kare in 1984 for the first Macintosh operating system. Taking its name from the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt, each symbol was drawn by hand using the bitmap grid. A few notable symbols lived on into later operating systems including the cursor and watch.

Kare designed this woven blanket for the Jacquard loom, an early example of computer-controlled machinery, operated with punched cards and invented by Joseph Jacquard in 1801.

I discovered this blanket in Stephen Hackett's Instagram stories and was immediately smitten. It would go great on the wall of my office, but at $135 it's well outside my decorating budget.

📚  The winner of the Newberry Medal in 1943, Adam of the Road (★★★★) is the simple yet enjoyable tale of a young 13th century boy and his journey to reunite with his beloved dog and minstrel father after getting separated from both of them. I particularly enjoyed Adam's independent nature and resourcefulness, the historical elements of the setting, and the idyllic pace of the story which contrasts so sharply with modern life and storytelling.

Zellman competed with nine other artists during autumn to score a weekly gig as the new cartoonist in The Spokesman-Review. “Earth to Planet,” which turns 3 this the summer, won the reader’s choice competition and will run every Wednesday starting today.

I thought it was pretty cool that Jody Zellman's Earth to Planet had a chance back when I first heard about the contest last August. Happy to hear he got the gig.

Software is where the iPad has gotten lost. iPadOS’s “multitasking” model is far more capable than the iPhone’s, yes, but somehow Apple has painted it into a corner in which it is far less consistent and coherent than the Mac’s, while also being far less capable. iPad multitasking: more complex, less powerful. That’s quite a combination.

I couldn't agree with Gruber more. I am a Mac power user who has been troubleshooting and repairing them for 20+ years. I've had multiple iPads over the last ten years. I still don't fully grasp split screen multitasking mechanics on my iPad Pro and never intentionally use it.

That plan would use a $2.53 million federal grant to replace a series of sidewalks, some of which are deteriorating under the melting snow, with a raised path between about 10 and 12 feet wide and buffered from the street.

“All we want to do is just improve what’s here, make it nicer for all users,” Loreen McFaul said while walking the route on a recent rainy afternoon.

As someone who has run the segment in question countless times over the last 10 years I am 100% for this project. The safety and traffic calming benefits of expanding the path into a separate protected route and narrowing the nearby road slightly would be tremendous for walkers and cyclists. I think the main source of conflict has to be the quarter mile from Mission to NW Point where the trail will cross people's driveways. The proposed alternative route looks like a good trail, but is going to take at least 5-10 more years to come to fruition and doesn't serve the people coming from the neighborhood on the east side of Pettet drive at all.

Adam welcomes a new member to the Tested family: Boston Dynamics' Spot robot! All throughout this year, Adam will be conducting builds and projects with Spot, integrating it into the workshop and taking it on adventures in the field.

I've always thought that Boston Dynamics robots are amazing¹, but giving Adam Savage access to one of their Spot robot dogs for a year is going to be incredible. Can't wait to show my kids this video.

1. And maybe just a little uncanny valley creepy too.

Over the coming months, the newly formed Spokane Flag Commission will undoubtedly review a deluge of designs for a new city flag. But one thing almost everyone appears to agree on is that Spokane’s current banner, adopted in the 1970s, should be neatly folded and stuffed into the city history books.

“In a nutshell, the design is very complicated,” said Joshua Hiler, chairman of the commission, which held its first meeting last month.

I'm happy to see that thoughtful work on a new Spokane flag continues. The current incarnation is atrocious and we're long past due having a sound design that adheres to vexillological principles.