It took an eternity to go through the extremely buggy app. And it took an eternity for them to arrive over mail. But we finally – and just 2 days before kick off – receive the very last and most important Panini stickers for our album.
They sell for a lot of money in the black market. Best of luck.
With this post, I am proud to announce Polla Qatari 2022. This is the fifth FIFA World Cup pool / game / quiniela in a row I’ve organized and the sixth polla overall (since I did Polla América 2007).
With a little over 36 days until kickoff, I think this can be the best and largest polla ever!
I do this for fun and for learning. I find that it makes me enjoy the tournament, which is exciting on its own, a lot more. And my friends do as well. And I find that it forces me to play with corners of the software worlds I don’t get to use at work.
But it is a lot of work. The code is 100% custom written by me. Back in 2006 I wrote the original polla in a few coding all-nighters. Since then, every polla has started from the same codebase as the last one but goes through a lot of work and improvements on each iteration.
For this year, I had pondered a big rewrite using Python and microservices and other cool newer technologies (I do this for learning, remember?) but adulting (those pesky children! that pesky job) got in the way. I ended up reusing the same old codebase which actually required a lot of work to get back up and running with the latest versions of PHP and MySQL.
I set up Docker, Docker Compose, and hosted the code in a private GitHub repo. I’m using a package manager for dependencies. This is a nice improvement on my workflow and makes development and deployment a lot easier. It should make the code easier to maintain. And after getting it all working I made many small and big improvements both internal and external.
I am adding a few new features to the game: Winner selection, filters.
There are three things all readers should do right now:
Good luck!
Once again, the World Cup is coming. Qatar welcomes the world in a message of peace, love, and tolerance <ahem>.
It also means there’s a new Panini Sticker Album, and any self-respecting long time reader of The MKX® knows I collect them.
Unlike in previous tournaments, my kids are old enough to tag team with me. Fortunately, my kids don’t “like” things. They are either absolutely obsessed with something or they are completely indifferent. The Panini World Cup album fell into the first category.
So they did most of the work and they did it very quickly. As in: they’d wake up at 5 AM to work on it every day. Our album was completed with 2+ months to spare. You can read all about it on Ilán’s website, I highly recommend it.
On behalf of the staff of The MKX® we want to wish you a Happy New Year 5783.
May the new year find us all with less (in no particular order):
And more:
Bonus: Mexico does well in the World Cup.
As in every year, I upgraded my phone. Here are some of the things that stand out to me so far and may not be covered by all the reviews done by pros.
It’s brighter. This is in the specs and it was mentioned in the announcement. But I haven’t heard anyone talk much about it and few factor this in when making purchasing decisions
It makes a big difference. Specifically when I’m outdoors – either when recording video at one of my kids’ soccer games or reading news during their practice. This is a pretty good quality of life improvement.
The always-on display is neat and still something I’m getting used to.
The camera is the main excuse I tell myself for upgrading every year. The phone is the only camera I use nowadays and I want my photos to be as good as they can reasonably be. I’m quite happy with what I’ve seen so far.
Low-light performance is a lot better. When taking the same photo with an iPhone 14 Pro and an iPhone 12 Pro at a bar, the iPhone 14 Pro took it in about 0.5 seconds (dark mode) vs the ~3 seconds it took on the older iPhone. And the photo came out better.
Every match I go to at Q2 Stadium, I take a photo with the field behind me. This is a textbook challenging photo: Lots of bright light behind the main subjects.
As an experiment, last game I set the camera to take 48 Megapixels ProRAW, then I played with the colors on Pixelmator Pro for all of 5 minutes – something I have little experience with.
Compared with a similar photo taken using regular settings on an iPhone 13 Pro, the difference is striking. I assume the difference would be less had I taken ProRAW photo with the iPhone 13 Pro and I get it that this is a one-off cherry-picked result. But still…
The video camera setting that removes shaking… it’s wild. I used it while recording my kid’s soccer game and it looks like I’m on a tripod. Really cool.
It’s a bit faster and smoother overall. Enough that you can feel it but not enough that it makes a huge difference. You really notice if you go back to an older phone though.
It’s a nice feature and I’d rather have it than not. But it’s not earth-shattering. Maybe as it gains uses once third parties update their apps to take better advantage of it.
On a recent long weekend, the Kirsches from Austin went on a quick trip. Our goal was to stay within short driving distance. We decided on Corpus Christi because beach.
I had never visited Corpus Christi and didn’t know what to expect – I don’t think a Selena Shrine is a good enough reason to plan the trip.
But the USS Lexington is. I am embarrassed to admit I didn’t even know it was there. It’s an old WWII-era aircraft carrier turned into a museum and it’s just as cool as you would imagine.
Not only was it extremely interesting to learn about the history of the ship and see its insides and look at the planes… they even have an Escape Room. That’s right: an Escape Room inside a 70 year old aircraft carrier.
We couldn’t solve it though.
UPDATE 8/22/2022: Rumor has it that Spicy Chunky Tomato & Pepper Sauce is the same product just packaged differently. I will confirm ir ASAP.
Every time they were out at the store I would fear that the product was no more. That’s why I‘d keep the freezer in my garage I bought just for this stocked up.
But now my worst fears are confirmed: Trader Joe’s excellent Shakshuka Starter has been discountinued. Please send them your feedback.
As it stands, I have no quick and easy way to get Shakshuka and my talented wife hasn’t made it in years.
The irony that this is the cable I use for my phone in the year 2022 is not lost on me. Highly recommended.
My wife took it apart. She also built most of it. I managed to grab photographic proof that we built this and I post it here for my own sake.
After nearly two years of bullet dodging, being fairly cautious, and three mRNA vaccines, my luck ran out and I tested positive for COVID-19. I feel perfectly fine. My kids got it too. So far and as far as we know, that’s it.
Thankfully, the CDC recently updated its guidance down to five days of isolation.
Here’s a time lapse of my test, which I stupidly started recording out of focus:
