This past week was supposed to be downtime visiting family in Boston, but when we booked this I didn’t think to see if it would overlap any major-party conventions. I also didn’t wrap up a longer, not-yet-published feature beforehand as I should–and then people had to go and make news outside the Democratic convention anyway. It was a minor miracle that I only lost two full days to my laptop. And yes, you have read this kind of story before here.
7/27/2016: If you value privacy, WikiLeaks stopped being your friend years ago, Yahoo Finance
I wrote about WikiLeaks in depth for the first time since maybe late 2010, and even back then I was growing doubtful of that site’s preening self-righteousness. My reward was seeing my Twitter notifications become even more of a nexus of derp than usual, but I did appreciate seeing the kind of company I had in my skeptical assessment of WikiLeaks.
7/31/2016: How to watch TV channels in high definition, USA Today
Once again, a family member’s tech troubles–Fios boxes showing the standard-definition versions of major networks when HD feeds of them were available–turned into column materials. Fortunately, this time around I was able to find a solution for the issue, research how other TV providers handle this, and get the column written and filed considerably earlier than usual.
Rob Pegoraro 
Hi, Rob – I actually have a comment (about a comment) regarding your USA Today column about watching HD channels (the final item in tonight’s “Weekly Output” post).
I was stymied, however, by the requirement to log into Facebook to comment on a USA Today column. As I am not on Facebook, I was looking for an alternative way to log in (there are certainly Web sites that offer alternative means of logging in, a social media account being one). But why is USA Today limited only to Facebook? (There’s a column topic for you, but I don’t want to suggest you bite the hand…)
So I hope you don’t mind if I offer my comment to you here, as it doesn’t seem to fit as a comment to your Weekly Output post, as you don’t go into the details of the USA Today column.
Sorry for the big build-up, as my comment is actually quite brief. I have Verizon FiOS, and I wanted to confirm that the “C” button on the Verizon remote does work to jump from an SD channel to the equivalent HD. As for the “5” comment that was made, I believe that the full story is that on FiOS, the HD version = the SD channel number plus 500. So the local ABC channel, for example, is “07” in SD, and “507” in HD. So if the TV is first tuned to “07” and then the “C” button is pressed, the channel will jump to “507”. So that math should also apply to the example you gave for CNN (100 for SD; 100 + 500 = 600 for HD). You can see this “Plus 500” HD channel listing for FiOS here: http://www.verizon.com/cs/groups/public/documents/adacct/ultimate_clu_0312.pdf .
Incidentally, with respect to your comment about HD shortcuts not being included in the FiOS documentation, a quick Google search found a seemingly thorough and colorful FiOS brochure on the Web — from 2005! So the “C” button isn’t even on the pictured remote! And the text makes a comment to the effect that the lettered keys (including “C”) are reserved for “future use.” I don’t know why Verizon would leave such outdated information sitting on the Web (another column!).
Anyway, I’ve long enjoyed your columns in the Post and beyond, and hope this “user view” is helpful.
Best wishes,
Matt Rudorfer