Best part of this holiday weekend: seeing one of my best friends from college for the first time since the fall of 2019.

In other news, this week’s bonus for Patreon subscribers was a peek at how I redid my smartphone battery-life testing routine for an upcoming review.

2/16/2022: How SpaceX’s new mission hopes to improve life here on Earth, Fast Company

Writing this post about an upcoming chapter in private space travel gave me an excuse to revisit one of the lesser-known chapters of NASA’s 1960s history, which is always good.

2/16/2022: AMC tops 9 million streaming subscribers as 2021 revenue hits record high, FierceVideo

AMC Networks’ earnings call was easier to transcribe than most, thanks to the executives on the call not being all White guys.

2/17/2022: S02 E07 – SmartTechCheck Podcast, Mark Vena

For the first time in a month, this podcast (also available in video form) had its full cast of characters: our industry-analyst host plus me and my fellow tech scribes John Quain and Stewart Wolpin.

2/20/2022: Alarmageddon? Home security, medical device makers worry 3G is being shut down too soon, USA Today

When I started researching this story, the prospect of AT&T shutting down its 3G network on the 22nd didn’t seem like it could cause that much trouble. But that’s why you do the reporting before the writing.