So that I can remember to create a Gist with this later. Useful if you run GoToSocial, have moved to it from another service, and want to keep your initial Fediverse or ActivityPub “joined date”.
# Find the user ID.
select id, created_at from accounts where username = 'username_goes_here'
# Use newly found user ID to update the "created_at" field.
update accounts set created_at = '2016-10-04 21:27:33+00:00' where id = 'user_id_goes_here';
Breaking news:
Mike Pence consoles former President Trump, noting: “I know what it’s like to have someone try to take your life.”
“Time is an illusion, a construct made out of human memory. There’s no such thing as the past, the present, or the future. It’s all happening now.”
I have so many places to drop my thoughts, and carry out interactions, that I am having a hard time deciding which to pick. Such difference from my notebook, and pencil, diary of old!
Congratulations to the British people for kicking out the Tories tyranny, and embracing a forward looking/moving Labour government!
I adore green olives, stuffed with pimento, and manzanilla. I love the smell of the rain, the sound doves, and cats make, and the occasional solitude. Holidays upcoming!
I forgot to come around yesterday to drop a note to mark a transgression, an indignity, handed over the American people by our own Justices. Never too late, though. Not for this. A brief excerpt from Justice Sotomayor’s opinion.
“The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”
American democracy is in real peril. It is not an exageration.
I have been more active on the Fediverse lately, mostly as a consumer, but occasionally replying to posts. If you are on the Fediverse (also known as Mastodon), feel free to reach out (@david@weaknotes.com)!
From the original (and well-received) “Blade Runner” (★★★★★) film, the now famous Roy Batty’s (leader of the replicants) monologue:
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe… Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion… I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain… Time to die.”
First time replying to a MastoPrompt (a request for everyone, anyone, to offer a small poem about a certain word). The word was “alone”. My entry:
Assuming forgotten I felt despair,
sat there, alone, among empty chairs.
My child showed up, his smile all wide,
His ask “Talk to me, papa!” broke the divide.
Alone no more.
I don’t have a desktop computer. My “main” computer runs iOS, and it’s carried in my pocket. I miss macOS; I want to experience Sequoia. I want a Mac so badly!
I have never brought Phanpy (a delightfully opinionated, minimalistic, Mastodon client) to Notes before, so here it goes its first appearance. It is lovely. The way it does threading is really good, and the “Catch-up” feature is marvelous.
If you use Mastodon, or a Mastodon API compatible server, give Phanpy a try. I promise you will not be disappointed.
Random morning thought: underwear should never, ever, ever be white, or light colored. Speaking from a man’s perspective, of course. Can’t speak for the other side. 😅
“If I could use words / like scattering flowers and fallen leaves, / what a bonfire my poems would make.”
Oh, Mariko-Sama, how much admiration you deserve! Anna Sawai performance was superb on the series. Thank you for making me cry.
Just finished watching “Shogun” (★★★★★), the 2024 series. I don’t have the right to spoil it for you, but I sincerely beg you to watch it, if you can. It truly is very well done; all of it.
Now, this is some promise!
When we launch Private Cloud Compute, we’ll take the extraordinary step of making software images of every production build of PCC publicly available for security research. This promise, too, is an enforceable guarantee: user devices will be willing to send data only to PCC nodes that can cryptographically attest to running publicly listed software. We want to ensure that security and privacy researchers can inspect Private Cloud Compute software, verify its functionality, and help identify issues — just like they can with Apple devices.
I feel like I am late to the party for not having dropped a note here right after, or during, Apple’s WWDC. Yes, I saw it live. Yes, I am excited about iOS/iPadOS/tvOS 18, and macOS 15. Of course I don’t have a problem with the way Apple is implementing AI (which, from now on, stands for “Apple Intelligence”). I love it all, and can’t wait for it!
I am on the Fediverse (@david@collantes.social, and @david@weaknotes.com; warning, Google results links) mostly as a consumer. That is, I read and, occasionally, reply. I post once in a Blue Moon.
What brings me to write this note is that it bugs me, to no end, the abuse of “content warning” I see around. It is a reason for me not to follow (or mute) the OP. I want to read/see, unabridged. Content warnings are very useful; abusing them isn’t.
There is wisdom, even in animated movies. Especially in animated movies.
“Your story may not have such a happy beginning, but that does not make you who you are. It is the rest of your story, who you choose to be.”
— Soothsayer, Kung Fu Panda.
A quote from Flemming Rose (whom I got to know about a bit more today):
“If a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission.”
Asked a friend who consistently walks 10,000 daily steps about his secret. He replied about setting interim targets, pretty much breaking the walks in three chunks. I think that’s a doable approach. I just need to wake up a tad earlier.
When I told him it gets boring for me, as I walk inside my neighborhood, and often feels like “walking on a wheel like a hamster”, he replied “It’s true it can be boring. You have to get your mind working while walking!” I need to get my mind to work harder, for sure.
Morbid thought of the day: when I die, just like my corpse, everything I manage today online will rot. Digital rot, and vanishment.
Oh boy, some people sure are something. Yet, this could be just the preamble of what’s to come, maybe.
Before phoning the number, Gaudreau did a search in Facebook Messenger to find out whether it was legitimate.
The answer he got in Messenger from the “Meta AI” artificial intelligence search tool was that the phone number he found, 1-844-457-0520, was “indeed a legitimate Facebook support number.”
A convicted criminal is still running for the presidency of the United States of America, while supported by a major political party and, arguably, half of the U.S. population. Meanwhile someone convicted of a minor crime (weed, for example) will struggle to get a job. Let that sink in.
Seven days ago I mowed the lawn. It rendered five 33 gallons bags full of mulched grass. Today I had to do it again (3 bags this time). With the occasional rain, and the shinning sun, our lawn is growing “a tad” too fast. I can’t keep up! 🥵
Trump is found guilty on all 34 counts. Of course he said it is a disgrace.
Whatever Donald Trump says, this is a devastating outcome for the former president.
It’s one thing being controversial and provocative, it’s quite another being a convicted criminal.
The suckers, of course, continue to pour money to his pockets. Half of America are suckers, so yeah.
It is that time of the year again, with less than two weeks to Apple’s WWDC (which has run yearly since 1983). Looking forward to see what’s to come to iOS, and macOS!
Just tried Microsoft search engine (because I opened Microsoft Edge web browser to check something on my mobile), Bing, and it came across as a chaotic convoluted disaster.
Thank you Claud for introducing me to Luis Mendo great drawings, and illustrations. Make sure to browse Luis site; it truly is a joy!
“I awoke one night in Quito, Ecuador, this year and came up with a way to save a chip or two from the Apple II, and a trivial way to have the 2 grays of the Apple II be different (light gray and dark gray) but it’s 38 years too late. It did give me a good smile, since I know how hard it is to improve on that design.”
— Woz thinks of an Apple II improvement over 35 years later
Now, that’s truly something, eh? Just as Steve Jobs was, Steve Wozniak sure is an interesting fellow.
I want to learn Japanese enough so that I can converse with a cab driver, restaurant host, or hotel staff when I return. Yet, on the age of computing, I am failing to find a sound resource to do so. I would also like to enlist a Japanese national locally, so I can rent some lessons from.
If you know of any good resource, and/or anyone local, please let me know!
It is that time of the month in which I have to touch grass, literally. The lawn is almost knee high, so I am sure I will go through the three fully charged batteries this time. All under 91°F temperatures. Lovely.
Base solely on how much I like to eat spam, I think I am Hawaiian, or Filipino. Need to go easy, though, as even the “25% less salt” is super salty.
It is impossible to encapsulate Japan in just one picture. Or in thousands. So, instead, I am going the stereotypical route in just one click (which I took).
Nothing I could write can describe what I feel for that country, and it’s people. Japan is absolutely amazing in the whole sense of the word, and I can’t wait to return again!
I swear I want to use apps made with Rust more. Why are they such a pain to install? Why such a huge download of stuff? I thought Golang was a pain; Rust is pain time a tenthfold.
Not only I don’t have the technical ability, I don’t have the artistic ability to come up with something like this. It is amazing what’s being accomplished within a single div!
The worse that could ever had happened to VMWare has been to be acquired by Broadcom. Such a horrible company! Now, all VMWare support accounts are being migrated to Broadcom’s support accounts. As you can imagine, the support site for a company that blows, well, blows too. 😬
The Tesla’s full self-driving capability trial has expired on the M3, and I didn’t use it not even once. Just more proof that I don’t need it, want it, and, thus, did great by not buying it. Woot!
Finally I decided to order a pack of 4 AirTags. Experiencing their flawless setup, and how they automagically show up on the Find My app, is truly something. Love it when technology works so smoothly.
Wow! This Monday has been crazy just up until now. Truly crazy! I wonder what the rest of the day will pan out to be. Oh, and the rest of the week! 😬
And just like that Sunday almost ends, and, thus, this glorious weekend. Accomplished quite a bit. Dog tired.
Time spent looking for a public notary capable of handling a will: 5 hours. Some money spent on clothing. Craving for chili quenched (Steak and Shake’s one ain’t bad!). Saturday sunsets.
Just had a chè thái that mum made for me (because she knows I am sick, and that I like it), and I feel I had the entire month worth of sugar in just one drink. 😅
It’s now my turn. The challenge now is not to pass it to kid (he is a week away from his trip), and to get well before our upcoming trip. Ugh3!
Third time’s a charm. I am not buying Tropicana Orange Juice ever again. For the third time in a row, their “Lots of Pulp” has none. That’s six bottles, two at a time. No more, moving on.
From “No Country for Old Men”:
Anton Chigurh: Don’t put it in your pocket, sir. Don’t put it in your pocket. It’s your lucky quarter.
Gas Station Proprietor: Where do you want me to put it?
Anton Chigurh: Anywhere not in your pocket. Where it’ll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin. Which it is.
Wife getting sick is the second worse thing that can happen, right after kid getting sick. Me getting sick will be the third. And the timming of it. Oof!
I welcome Mondays with love, with hope. Yet, no matter what I do, things that seemingly happen just on Mondays come to sour my mood. Why, o why?!
Amazon messaging you at 05:00 to get a gate code for a delivery ain’t nice. Receiving a call for the same at 05:30, after having replied to said message, it’s totally uncool.
Friday has long sunsetted, but not over yet. What to do for the night? What to cook? Both important questions, for which I have nil answers. 😅
The weekend begins for me now, and I have absolutely nothing to do (well, I am sure Kim could find something for me to do, but I am not going to let her know I am off. Haha!). I am leaning towards going to mum’s to pet and feed her chicken. Then just lazy around, because if that is not a great use of my free time, what is?
If you want to quickly test your disk speed on Linux (might work on macOS, but not 100% sure) simply do:
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=1G count=7 status=progress ; rm -f test
Decently happy with my results: 7516192768 bytes (7.5 GB, 7.0 GiB) copied, 5.10763 s, 1.5 GB/s. I figure, though, that’s expected on an NVMe M.2 SSD.
There are days you are up, and look around and down. There are days you are down, and do your best to look up. I am having one of the second.
Interesting reading titled “The Cloud Under the Sea”. It was difficult to navigate on my Linux laptop (Chrome, Firefox, and Edge all struggled with it), but worth it.
“As he rode the train back to Yokosuka, he watched his fellow passengers absorbed in their phones. ‘We completed the job’, he thought with satisfaction, ‘and they have no idea’.”
An email from AT&T, with “Important Information” on the subject:
“We’re contacting you regarding the security of your data. After a thorough assessment, AT&T has determined that some of your personal information was compromised…”
No kidding, Sherlock! Some as in my name, phone number, address, and social security number (this one is key). Some?! Oh, but I must rest assured that “AT&T takes these issues very seriously”. As if! 😤
“This is a teenager” is an interactive webpage well worth watching. I can assure you! Take your time, go slowly. Read, and understand. Then, if you can, react.
Thoughts whilst walking at lunch time. For someone obsessive, having chrome faucets, door handles, and a only-glass shower is a major problem. The reasons are obvious, right? Possible remedy: use car wax to slightly coat the chrome surfaces, and Rain-X—or similar—for the glass surfaces.
Yes, that unbelievable screenshot you might have come across social media about reporting certain things to the IRS is true:
“Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 8z, or on Schedule C (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.”
Source: IRS.gov
And:
“Stolen property. If you steal property, you must report its FMV in your income in the year you steal it, unless in the same year you return it to its rightful owner.”
Source: IRS.gov
I have long struggled with the concept of ownership. I might be perceived as fastidious but, do we truly own anything? We don’t. We use things, we enjoy things through our lives calling them ours. In reality we merely borrow them for a—in the greater scale of things—very, very brief period of time.
I should aim to remove anything that denotes ownership from my thoughts. Let’s see how well I do.
“San Junipero” (★★★★★), series 3, episode 4 of “Black Mirror” (★★★★), remains my favourite of all times. I just watched it again, for the fifth time.
I decided to “Tonsky-rise” Notes today, because I grew a bit bored of the black and white. First “big” change in a while. Let’s see how long it lasts. 😂
It happened again. Yes, again. Companies which we must trust to receive their services let us down, mishandling, and keeping our private information insecurely. They get breached, and criminals sell the information to anyone willing to pay.
A credit freeze has been placed for Kim and I on the three credit bureaus. Ugh!
Son got a little melancholic when I told him I might not be around for the next total solar eclipse in 2045. “Come on, papá, take care of yourself, exercise, and be healthy. You can do it!” — he told me.
I live for the people I love, for the people I care about. I want to continue, I want to be around. If anything, for him, for my family, for my friends.
Peter Higgs has died:
“Higgs, 94, who was awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 2013 for his work in 1964 showing how the boson helped bind the universe together by giving particles their mass, died at home in Edinburgh on Monday.”
Ninety four years old! If only I could be that lucky!
About this one, it was sensational in TX, and other areas in which it was total, so everybody says. In Florida? Just another day.
I have to be the least excited around here about the total Solar eclipse. Our moon comes between our Sun, and us. So what? 😂
The Porch sells some mean (as in big), delicious hamburgers. After having one of those, with the two sides, and almost all of their humungous drink, I am ready for a nap 🤭. But… walk I shall.
次の月、私は日本に行きます。日本の文化や風俗をもっと勉強し、また東京、京都、大阪の観光スポットやアクティビティの場所を調べました。とりあえず、どんな提案があっても聞いてください。
A ★★½ for iCloud for Windows is one and a half stars too many. It truly is rubbish. Is that on purpose, Apple? 😒
I have to say that something came between the couch and the telly last night. Bed. I started dozzing off around 21:30, by 22:00 I was sleeping. Woke up at 07:30. Super good night sleep.
Pondering whether or not to mow the backyard weeds later today. Hmm, decisions, decisions.
Alright, let the weekend commence. Within minutes I will be dragged to BJs by Kim. Then to visit Bố. By the time all that’s done, night will be upon us. Then nothing will come between the couch, and the telly. 😂
Let’s go back to 1986 for a moment, because the years around it were those of my youth. This one is an interesting rendition. I like it!
Finding beauty, pleasantness—even calm—in imperfection has changed the otherwise obsessive, rigid, inflexible, in me.
I want to do something different this weekend, but I don’t know what. I don’t know why I chose to wait till the weekend; I could do something different today. Yet, it is human nature to pick a special occasion, to do something special (different, in this case), and we generally consider weeekends a treat.
Kottke, to whom website I browse every once and them, have long monetised from it, using supporters, and advertisements. Until fairly recently it didn’t have comments, but now it does. Want to drop one? Subscribe. Ha! I would pay not to see them. Ironic, eh?
Nothing better to bring delight to an otherwise secular night: Arroz con gandules. To that recipe we add diced ham. Kim cooks arroz con gandules in such way that makes me forget diet, measure, or restrain.
I have been struggling for days to build an ISO image that will auto-install Ubuntu workstation. Canonical’s way is to install server, then add ubuntu-desktop (and other packages needed/wanted), then remove ubuntu-server, and ubuntu-minimal-server. That’s mind boggling to me. That’s nuts.
I have used Journal. I want to use it more. As soon as more simple formatting (bulleted and numbered lists, links, and blockquotes) are added it will become my go to diary, 100% of the time.
I recently discovered that bold, italics, and underlined formatting is available on selection menu. 🎉
Renting weaknotes.com because I am a sucker, and like to waste a few dollars every once in a while. Currently redirecting to Notes, but might do something else with it later on.
I haven’t been able to create an “autoinstall” ISO for Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop. I haven’t found a way to make the live ISO image not to start the guided wizard GUI. As a workaround, I am using Ubuntu 22.04 Server, and adding ubuntu-desktop and gdm3 afterwards to the server install.