Apple Maps mapping van sighted on Detroit suburbs expressway

Apple is working to improve its maps offering by collecting camera and other data, as reported by The Verge on 6/10/2015.

One of the vans had been previously spotted in June in downtown Detroit, as shown on a map of Apple Map van sightings collected by Mac Rumors.  The earliest listed was in 8/2014.  The last update to the map was in 7/27/2015, so I will not bother submitting this sighting

The two new (as far as I know) items that the 12/10/2015 sighting adds

• The van had "Apple Maps" written on the side.  Early sightings, before Apple announced the project publicly, did not have this.
• Apple has apparently finished focusing on downtown Detroit, and is now working on the suburban expressways.  (The van changed from eastbound I-696 to westbound I-696.)  They do not yet seem to be focused on residential areas in Detroit, unlike reported sightings in other metropolitan areas.

Thanks to God for Greg Yoder's time with Mission Network News, and prayer for the transition.

A prayer this morning, based on the news I heard of Greg Yoder's last newscast. 
Lord,
I thank you greatly for the 20 years of service Greg Yoder, MNN Anchor, has given me and many Christians via Mission Network News​.  We pray that you will help Greg during his transition and that you would help Mission Network News as they search for a new leader.

How to Identify What Number is Your Font Character

This is a bit of an update / extra information for the information found at http://scripts.sil.org/UTTUsingUnicodeMacros (also archived at the Internet Archive).
It was written in 2005, but I found it still useful.
However, the toolbar icon mentioned in that page was not found in Office 2010.

Below is another method for identifying the computer encoding number associated with a character one has but does not know.

In Windows 7, there is Private Character Editor (eudcedit.exe), which can be started from search box of Start menu.  It requires administrative permissions to run.
Once opened,

• Select an empty box to open a character editor.
• Make sure in upper left, Character Set selected is Unicode
• Select on the menu Edit, then Copy Character
• Click in the Shape box to activate.
• Paste in a single unknown character of interest from the Windows clipboard, and the numeric code should be listed above it in hexadecimal.

This was the easiest way I found to identify non-ASCII characters.

The two characters I was looking for were ° (0x00B0) and ℃ (0x2103).

To go from number to display of character to copy, charmap.exe is the program I recommend using.

SuperBowl Ad that was pulled was less damaging than previously aired ones.

 Why is the exploitation of women's bodies and men's hormones more acceptable and less outrageous and less worthy of being pulled from the public eye than the exploitation of dogs?

I like dogs, but I feel the 2015 proposed SuperBowl ad by GoDaddy leads to less encouragement of inappropriate activity than the previous GoDaddy Superbowl commercials.  Puppy mill total profits vs porn industry total profits?  Number of criminals in jail for varieties of animal abuse (or even people on SPCA's not liked list) vs number of rapists in jail?

Thanks to GoDaddy for directing their pushing the limits away from the sexual limits.
Encouragement to GoDaddy in the future to find ways to entertain without pushing social limits.
Encouragement to society to reprioritize and realize the challenge appropriate sexuality is to men.
One of my biggest complaints about advertising is that it goes against the desire to keep our minds on whatever is true, pure, right, holy, friendly, and proper.

Mom still adjusting, but OK and seems safe.

Mom is still adjusting to being a widow.  A main sadness is lack of company or things to keep her busy.  Her knitting helps, when she remembers it or is not tired of it.  She also has been enjoying getting Christmas cards.  She keeps on talking of writing up some to send out, but I doubt her attention span and memory will be such that she will ever get them out.  She does think of many people, and has not forgotten her friends and family.
She is usually OK, but once in a while gets lonely.

She had a doctor appointment on Thursday.  Her blood sugar level was really good, at 95.  In general, she seems healthy.  Mom asked if there was anything that could be done to help her memory.  (I think it is worse than it was a couple months ago, in some respects.)  The doctor said she needs some people to talk to.  Being alone too much is not helping her memory.

The social worker that is affiliated with the doctor had her second and last visit on Friday.  She recommended, but did not require, assisted living for Mom.  In other words, Mom and I would get benefit from some of the services, but there is not an urgent safety need for them.  Mom is still adamant about not moving, although sometimes she is open to considering a senior apartment.  She wants to stay in the same area, and not move closer to me, because she knows that area, and would feel like she would have to learn where all the stores are in a new area.

The social worker also gave some recommendations on home care / private duty care providers, a new louder phone, and on pill dispensers that are timed to help Mom remember to take her medicine.  The pill dispenser comes with a monthly charge for a monitoring service, so that does not really sound like what we want.

The phone answering machine quit working about a week ago.  I am not planning on replacing it because Mom had a lot of trouble with it anyway.  Without one, the phone can keep ringing, giving her more time to hear it, and get to it.

Today Mom came and visited our house for the first time.  She said she had a good time.  We wanted to get her away for the day, because 45 years ago today, Mom and Dad were married.

So I would say things are going OK, but not great near term, and still a lot of uncertainly long term.  I am glad Mom is safe and healthy.

Mom considered safe to stay at home alone.

A meeting at the house with a medical social worker today was uneventful and went well.
She was convinced that Mom is safe at home. She is going to help by making some recommendations for pill dispenser with alarm reminder, and phone ringer with flashing light. The nurse, after her second visit, was less worried as well.

Mom's doctor appointment went OK; cold less a worry than regular pill taking.

Doctor is worried that Mom might not regularly take her pills.  He is planning on asking a visiting nurse to check up on her.