Martin Sheen picked his name from the now Blessed Fulton Sheen

Martin Sheen picked his name from the now Blessed Fulton Sheen

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Did you know the actor Martin Sheen’s real name is Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estéve? When he picked his acting name, he saw now Blessed Fulton Sheen and was thoroughly impressed. He picked his new name from Fulton Sheen.

He then shares a story in which he got to meet Fulton Sheen and spend an hour with him.

Microsoft’s new UI – WinUI3

Microsoft’s new UI – WinUI3

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WinUI 3 is the recommended native UI framework for building new Windows desktop applications. It brings the Fluent Design System, high-performance rendering, and a powerful XAML-based programming model to both C# and C++ developers.

Delivered as part of the Windows App SDK, WinUI enables you to create modern, polished, and responsive desktop experiences that run on Windows 10, version 1809 (build 17763) and later, including Windows 11.

That’s the promise anyway. You can program in .NET (C#) or C++ with XAML markup to build apps that run across x86, x64, and ARM devices.

While I applaud the effort, one has to wonder the logic. OS lockin to Windows is largely a thing of the past with most apps being web-based. Almost no company wants single-platform solutions. The cases that need a truly native application are very limited – things like games (which don’t need native UIs), and performance/productivity tools that directly access hardware. I worked on one such app for many years, but those kinds of apps are growing fewer and farther between.

What would be more amazing is if such a framework could also sit as a shim under old Win32 and older native/.NET apps and automatically update them to the new look and feel as well as provide this new UI interface. I realize that may not be possible without breaking lots of apps, but it could be amazing for those apps it does work for. Maybe something for Microsoft to think about…

Warning signs of a toxic work culture

Warning signs of a toxic work culture

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Corporate history offers no shortage of cautionary tales—from Enron to WeWork’s early days to Uber’s well-documented cultural crises. Dysfunction at the top eventually undermined performance at scale. Elizabeth Holmes at Theranos exemplified a culture of secrecy, intimidation, and blind loyalty. Dissent was punished, expertise was ignored, and the narrative consistently trumped scientific reality.

Satya Nadella at Microsoft is sometimes used to illustrate the opposite shift—from a combative, arrogant, know-it-all culture to a more open, learning-oriented mindset grounded in humility, curiosity, and collaboration.

So how can you detect a toxic culture? This article suggests you can often spot them by 6 common factors.

  1. Leadership is high on charisma, low on integrity – leaders that may be visionary, confident, and persuasive, but they lack consistency, accountability, and moral grounding. They say one thing and do another, they reward loyalty over competence, and tolerate behaviors they claim to oppose.
  2. Psychological safety is low, but politics are high – many organizations claim to value open dialogue and constructive disagreement. In practice, toxic cultures punish dissent and reward conformity. People become reluctant to speak up, challenge ideas, or admit mistakes—not because they lack ideas, but because the perceived cost of doing so is too high. A common political scenario is the “meeting after the meeting”: formal alignment in public, followed by informal dissent in private. This dual system signals not only fear, but also a breakdown in collective accountability, loss of trust, and reduces the quality of decisions.
  3. There is a significant gap between stated values and actual behavior – Most organizations have a set of stated values, often prominently displayed on websites, walls, or onboarding materials. In toxic cultures these are little more than marketing slogans. The real indication is shown in how conflicts are resolved, how promotions are decided, and how leaders behave under pressure.
  4. Talent is retained, but not trusted – High performers are hired for their expertise, yet sidelined in decision-making or constrained by excessive control. In these environments, leaders often signal openness, but fail to genuinely listen or incorporate dissenting views. 
  5. Busyness is valued more than effectiveness – Long hours, constant meetings, and visible exhaustion are interpreted as signs of commitment, even when they do not translate into meaningful results.
  6. Performance is disconnected from rewards – watch for organizations that value “face time” or proximity to senior leaders outweighs actual output.

If you find your company has started down this path, it will require a lot of work to change it. After all, in a world where talent is the ultimate competitive advantage, culture is not just a backdrop. It is the system that determines whether that talent will thrive or be wasted.

Livestreaming the robot revolution

Livestreaming the robot revolution

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China’s Agibot is trying to sell their new wheeled robots by replacing a few people on an actual tablet manufacturing line that were doing quality testing. They upped the game by live streaming it for 6 straight days.

This is perhaps in a response to the US firm Figure who released their own video of humanoid robots doing most everyday tasks.

I honestly think in the next 10 years these kinds of robots walking around your home doing chores will be the new high-end status symbol.

We’ve turned living life into content generation

We’ve turned living life into content generation

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We’ve worked ourselves to the point we are conditioned to turn every activity in our lives into content.

We are now passive consumers of everything, even human interaction.

Yet getting everything through a screen is isolating and unfulfilling.

That’s why it needs to be addictive, because it can’t compete with the human experience it is trying to replace.

We are, whether we like to admit it or not, social creatures who need to interact with other people.

If there is one spiritual illness for our times, it is the isolation and wasting of our lives online. I say this as a person that spent my entire life working on the latest computer technology. Is this new? No, we’ve been replacing the deepest desires for love of our hearts as long as man has been alive. Money, power, conquest, ownership have always been there. But now, it’s entertainment.

Look at the tracking in your iPhone to see the number of hours per week you spend on your phone/tablet/devices. We justify it as harmless fun, keeping up with the news, and even casual learning. But imagine what you could have done with 4, 8, or even 12 more hours you spent on your phones each week?

Want to find out? Uninstall your social media apps from your phone. Take ‘screenless’ Fridays in which you don’t watch tv, use your phone for browsing in idle moments, or consume media or books on a tablet.

I did this 3 years ago and noticed several remarkable trends:

  1. My mental health improved dramatically. I originally got off apps during Covid when outrage replaced sex as the hallmark clickbait. I disconnected myself from the pipe – and learned how exploring my inner wellbeing and connection with God was far more fulfilling than anything I got out there.
  2. I got bored. Without the time suck, I spent time puttering around my house and neighborhood. I started going more and more to daily mass. I picked up books I hadn’t looked at in years nor finished. I started, and re-started, projects I hadn’t worked on in years. I eventually won some competitions with the little ideas I worked on.
  3. My general health improved. I got bored. I went for a walk. Soon it was every day. I met several wonderful people and several interesting cats that I now pet every time I go by.
  4. I got involved. I started volunteering for causes I believed in at my Church. I made connections with real people and re-connected with my spiritual life. I spent more time talking with God.
  5. I got social. I started going to morning daily mass. All of a sudden I was talking to people more and more every day and connecting with the lives of others.
  6. I got happier.

Challenge yourself to go on a hike, start volunteering, or get involved in a real life hobby. Go GET BORED. You’ll be amazed the people you’ll start meeting when you are bored and start looking out there instead of in a box.