Jamie Thingelstad Profile Photo

Jamie Thingelstad

Writer of the Weekly Thing. Blogger. Explorer of tech, the open web, AI, and a good escape room. Maybe a podcast? CTO of SPS Commerce, Board Member of MnTech, Former Board Member Minnestar. Minneapolis is home.

2020

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    Tyler and I have been playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons and we roped Tammy and Mazie in with us. Today all four of us played at the same time and we got an Animal Crossing family photo around the fire! Left to right: Tyler, Tammy, me, Mazie. 📸

    Four Animal Crossing villager avatars smiling outdoors, two sitting on log benches and two riding a wooden log cart, with pine trees and flowers behind them.
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    I upgraded two iMacs and a MacBook Air to macOS Big Sur. One of the iMacs was not happy after upgrade but booting into rescue mode and reinstalling Big Sur fixed whatever was ailing it. My initial impression is positive. I like the UI changes and the updates to core applications. Performance seems a little slower but gets faster after apps have been used a couple times. Might be some data migrations happening in the background? Bringing Widgets and Control Center to macOS seems like a win. I have a lot fewer menu bar icons.

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    Charts via The COVID Tracking Project.

    Record growth in COVID-19 spread. Hospitals are full. So far deaths have not increased as much because the amazing medical profession has learned a lot in the field. However, when hospitals are full will we lose that benefit?

    Bar and line chart showing US daily COVID-19 cases spiking to over 160000 in November 2020, far exceeding prior summer peaks. Bar chart showing US COVID-19 hospitalizations Mar to Nov 13 2020 with three waves peaking near 60000 and a record surge past 68000 in November. Bar and line chart of US daily COVID-19 deaths from March 1 to November 13 2020 showing a peak near 2100 in April then rising again toward 1000 in November.
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    Delicious Barbera d’Asti. 🍷

    Glass of red wine beside an open bottle of Ratti Battaglione Barbera d'Asti 2018, with a cork and corkscrew on a white marble surface.
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    Covid-19 new cases by day setting records.

    Line chart of daily US Covid-19 cases from March to November 2020 showing a surge past 100,000 cases, far exceeding prior peaks in April and July.
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    Growth Summit 2021

    Today #TeamSPS joined together around the world for Growth Summit 2021! We had a great event, with the show being broadcast live from the Minneapolis Convention Center. We had a ton of precautions to keep things as safe as possible with the pandemic.

    Large LED stage screen displaying Greetings from GROWTH Summit 2021 postcard-style graphic with mountain backdrop, blue stage lighting

    The event was fabulous, and the team was engaged with online activities that were paired up with the sessions. Truly a great online experience.

    Large conference hall with sparse socially distanced audience watching a Customer Centric Experience presentation on a wide stage screen

    We had a thought provoking keynote from Greg Bell on the power of a simple question, What is Going Well?

    Man smiling on a large projection screen at a convention center stage, with a camera operator and seated audience member in the foreground.

    I loved some of the behind the scenes stuff. I’d like to play around with all this gear.

    Production crew working at multiple laptops and monitors in a darkened backstage area with cables and rack-mounted broadcast equipment. Large truss rack filled with cables and AV equipment on a convention center stage bathed in blue light, empty seating visible behind

    Had to get made up for the big event.

    Masked makeup artist applies cosmetics to a seated person in a dressing room while a man in background gives a thumbs up Darkened backstage room with two people watching a live broadcast on a wall-mounted screen showing a speaker on a colorful stage set

    What a great day #TeamSPS! It is going to be a great 2021!

    Man wearing a navy face mask takes a selfie in front of a large Greetings from GROWTH SPS Summit 2021 display screen
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    Link Blog Relaunched

    I got my Link Blog up and running again. It is still plenty rough around the edges. This gives the links that I share in the Weekly Thing a permanent home on the web.

    As an experiment I’ve also put the Commento commenting system on it to see if that is interesting.

    I also created Index pages for sites so you can see all links I’ve save for a site. See this Index for the EFF website as an example.

    On my to do list is Annum pages that show statistics for each year.

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    Lucky. 🍀

    Fluffy white dog lying on green grass in a sunny yard with trees and a wooden sculpture in the background.
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    Just tried Buildzi for the first time. This is a great, fast family game. You can give the younger ones a head start too. A lot of family fun.

    Buildzi speed building game box on a wooden table beside a tall tower of stacked colorful tetromino foam blocks and a yellow challenge cardColorful Buildzi foam blocks stacked in a tall tower on a wooden table, with a challenge card, scattered pieces, and the game box nearby.

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    I am very proud that we have elected our first ever Woman Vice-President, Kamala Harris. I learned a bit as well from her wearing a “Suffrage White” suit, and connecting back to the 100 year anniversary of the 19th Ammendment. 👏

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