August was a mostly uneventful month, which seems to be par for the course for me. I&#39;m good with that though, I like being able to take it easy...especially with this heat.
<h2>No Marathon for Me</h2>
I was looking forward to going for the marathon this year. Unfortunately my body had other plans. I can&#39;t say for a fact whether it&#39;s the heat or something else, but I was having a hard time not running out of breath. It is concerning and I&#39;ll see what happens when the heat breaks at some point...hopefully soon.
<h2>Air Conditioner Goes Kaput</h2>
Speaking of heat, we found out the central air system in our house has gone the way of the dodo bird. Not what we wanted to hear, but we were told that a replacement is needed. They could fix it, but given the cost for the part, it&#39;s not worth the money. I have no reason to doubt them, but will be getting a second look at it. With how expensive it is, I want to be sure. Plus it&#39;ll get me another list of quotes. Needless to say, with it being 90º+ out, it&#39;s been roasting in here. Ugh.
<h2>Catching Some Shows</h2>
At the beginning of the month, we saw Seth Myers up in Bethlehem, PA. It was a good show with a lot of great jokes. I&#39;ve always loved his humor and would highly recommend seeing him if you ever get the chance.
At the end of the month, we drove up to Stroudsburg, PA to see The Menzingers.
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This was the 5th time I&#39;ve seen them and they&#39;ve been awesome every time. It was also nice because we spent the night up there so we went up early and checked out some breweries and wineries that we otherwise wouldn&#39;t have gone to.
<h2>Monthly Round-Up</h2>
🏃🏼‍♂️ Running &amp; Biking
<ul>
<li>Running: 27.61 miles</li>
<li>Biking: Nope</li>
</ul>
🏋🏼‍♂️ Lifting
<ul>
<li>Started running a modified version of the <a href="https://www.muscleandstrength.com/workouts/phul-workout">PHUL</a> routine.</li>
</ul>
📚 Reading
Finished
<ul>
<li><a href="https://leanpub.com/learningpatterns">Learning Patterns</a> by Lydia Hallie &amp; Addy Osmani</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/out-of-office-the-big-problem-and-bigger-promise-of-working-from-home-anne-helen-petersen/16467530?ean=9780593460382">Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home</a> by Charlie Warzel &amp; Anne Helen Petersen</li>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/shutdown-how-covid-shook-the-world-s-economy-adam-tooze/16278362?ean=9780593297551">Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World&#39;s Economy</a> by Adam Tooze</li>
</ul>
Started
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/dead-wake-the-last-crossing-of-the-lusitania-erik-larson/7296476?ean=9780307408877">Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania</a> by Erik Larson</li>
</ul>
✍🏻 Writing
<ul>
<li>Continued my reading logs<ul>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/38">August 4, 2023</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/39">August 11, 2023</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/40">August 18, 2023</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kpwags.com/reading-log/41">August 28, 2023</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/08/07/is-typescript-solving-a-problem-or-a-symptom">TypeScript</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/08/09/integrating-with-notions-api-using-net">integrating with Notion in .NET</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/08/16/figuring-out-better-sleep-habits">sleep</a></li>
<li>Wrote about <a href="https://kpwags.com/posts/2023/08/21/digging-into-astro">Astro</a></li>
</ul>
🎮 Gaming
<ul>
<li>Still playing through <a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/horizon-forbidden-west/">Horizon Forbidden West</a></li>
</ul>
📺 Watched
<ul>
<li>Continued <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2261227/">Altered Carbon</a></li>
<li>Started season 4 of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5057054/">Jack Ryan</a></li>
<li>Finished the first 3 seasons of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8879940/">Mythic Quest</a></li>
<li>Finished <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1898069/">American Gods</a></li>
</ul>
🎬 Movies
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1517268/">Barbie</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9731598/">Bros</a></li>
<li><a href="https://imdb.com/title/tt0078748/">Alien</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094812/">Bull Durham</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15398776/">Oppenheimer</a></li>
</ul>

August 2023 Check-In

With the latest news with <a href="https://gizmodo.com/star-trek-prodigy-cancelled-no-season-2-paramount-plus-1850571256">Paramount+</a> and <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/19/23729642/disney-plus-hulu-remove-pull-shows-willow-streaming-bob-iger">Disney/Hulu</a> pulling their own content from their own services, it&#39;s gotten me thinking quite a bit about ownership of what you purchase.
It used to be you wanted the latest movie, book, music album, you went to the store and bought them. They were yours, no one could take them away from you. You could lend them to your friends and family, or let them collect dust on a shelf somewhere until you wanted to consume them again.
Then along came digital downloads, first of music. The original downloads often came with Digital Rights Management (DRM) which basically meant that you could only listen to your purchases the way whoever you bought it from said you could. And you had to hope that the store you bought them from, didn&#39;t just <a href="https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/09/wal-mart-latest-to-shut-down-drm-key-servers/">up and shut down, preventing your music from being played</a>.
Eventually for music, the stores went DRM-free which made owning your purchases feasible again. But then came the Kindle with most if not all of its books locked down with more DRM. Eventually, Amazon started allowing some eBooks to be sold DRM-free...but don&#39;t expect the same for audio books purchased from Audible.
Oh, and did I mention it&#39;s against the law to break DRM? Bought a Kindle and hundreds of eBooks from the Kindle store and decided you want to switch to Kobo? Hope you don&#39;t want to read (most) of the books on your brand new Kobo reader!
The list goes on and on, and has now reached the streaming age. The content we watch on Netflix, Hulu, and the other video streaming sources can be added and pulled at their whim. Really like that Netflix series, enough that you enjoy watching it regularly? Better hope they don&#39;t pull it!
Now I&#39;m not trying to be a curmudgeon. I use music and video streaming services plenty, and enjoy them. But looking at the Star Trek: Prodigy case, it shows how much they can suck too. There&#39;s no easy way for me to go out and actually own it. CBS/Paramount don&#39;t offer the entire series on DVD or Blu-Ray. I can get the first 10 episodes on disc, but not the last 10. And that&#39;s the part that sucks.
There are plenty of shows and movies where streaming makes plenty of sense. If I want to watch what might be a stupid movie (in all the good ways) and it&#39;s on a streaming service I have access to, I can watch it without having to shell out $20 for a DVD. And if I do like it, I can buy a physical copy.
Streaming is perfect for those &quot;like, but not enough to buy&quot; movies, TV and books. But what do you do for the media you really like, are willing to shell out the money for, but the rights holders pull from streaming without offering an alternative? The cynic in me points to the last thing media companies want...
<PostImage
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Moving to the gaming world, there was a recent study, <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/07/87-of-classic-games-are-out-of-print-thats-a-problem-for-gaming-history/">87% of classic games are out of print</a>. Even games that are 15 years old can be hard to come by. Hope you didn&#39;t want to play that PlayStation 2 game!
After the whole Star Trek: Prodigy fiasco, I went out and bought the first season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Blu-Ray because the show has been absolutely amazing so far (seriously, watch it). And I pre-ordered the entire series of Star Trek: Picard.
Paramount+ can take their shows off their streaming services, but they can&#39;t come into my home and take my Blu-Ray player! Nor can Warner Music come in and take my record player! Mwahaha!
I guess the whole point of this rambling is that over the last several months, I&#39;ve been focused on buying more physical media, and DRM-free digital media so that I can watch, read, and listen to it without having to worry about it going away.
You should consider that too.

Random Thoughts on Owning Things

Didn&#39;t get to much reading this week, but a little bit on CSS, Apple&#39;s issues with WebKit and iOS, and women and grunge.
<h2>👨🏼‍💻Software Development</h2>
<a href="https://swyx.io/the-end-of-localhost">The End of Localhost</a> - Developing on our local machines might not be as common as it is now (swyx.io)
<a href="https://sprucecss.com/blog/writing-better-css">Writing Better CSS</a> - There is no &quot;one size fits all&quot; method for dealing with CSS, but any ideas to improve is welcome. (sprucecss.com)
<h2>🖥 Technology</h2>
<a href="https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-browser-engine-choice/">Apple Is Not Defending Browser Engine Choice</a> - I am an iOS user and even I agree Apple should open up iOS to different browser engines. (infrequently.org)
<h2>🎒 Miscellaneous</h2>
<a href="https://longreads.com/2022/06/29/the-women-who-built-grunge/">The Women Who Built Grunge</a> - They&#39;ve been sadly long buried beneath men. (longreads.com)
<h2>🎵 A Song to Leave You With</h2>
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