> Notes...

Three maiko named Takegawa (right, covering eyes), Tomeko (center, covering ears), and Satogiku (left, covering mouth), circa 1928. This photo has been posted several times on Reddit, but almost nothing else about it. Apparently these photos weren’t candid snapshots, but carefully choreographed studio sessions meant to highlight the charm and wit of the geisha apprentices. See some more examples to get a better idea of what I am talking about.

The Met, who keeps sending us expensive mail aiming to gain our support through a membership—which I am entertaining to get, actually—has expanded its collections by offering high definition 3D scans of many of their artifacts. Very, very cool! Hopefully that 3D collection will grow.

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Sunday night the kid and I watched “Skyfall” (★★★★☆) , I figure for the fourth time? It was the first, though, that I paid closed attention to remember some of the poem that Q recited (above), “Ulysses”, by Lord Tennyson.

Defuddle extracts the main content from web pages. It cleans up web pages by removing clutter like comments, sidebars, headers, footers, and other non-essential elements, leaving only the primary content.

Kepano’s defuddle is a handy little thing that I am going to be using often when saving knowledge as Markdown. It really does a very good job at bypassing sidebars, leaving only the main content.

As I finished washing Horsie’s wagon, and was about to apply tyre shine, it started to rain. Had to rush to move the car into the garage, where I finished the cleaning just now. From 16:00 to almost 19:00, and I didn’t even have time to apply a ceramic coating. I am tired now, boss. Dog tired.

This person took a few photos on a blizzard in New York, and they look like something out of a game. I like them very much!

My Ghostty configuration under macOS, in case it is handy as a starter point for anyone. As you can see, it has one macOS specific line, and my font of choice, Hermit.

# Theme
theme = iTerm2 Pastel Dark Background

# Mouse and cursor
cursor-style-blink = true
cursor-color = #33FF33
mouse-hide-while-typing = true
shell-integration-features = no-cursor

# Key bindings (tmux pane ALT arrow left/right)
# Unbind the default word-navigation behaviour
keybind = alt+left=unbind
keybind = alt+right=unbind

# Font
font-family = Hermit
font-size = 17

# Window and colours
background-opacity = 0.85
background-blur = 10
foreground = #33FF33
maximize = true
macos-titlebar-style = tabs
split-divider-color = #505050
unfocused-split-opacity = 0.5
window-padding-x = 20
window-padding-y = 20

Fitness, with its time to stand up nagging truly needs to back off. I mean, I am sitting on the toilet, trying to do what we all do, you know, and not even there it gives up. Next I know, “Time to stand up” comes up, like, really?! Bugger off!

While I still prefer using the OS default applications, I have decided, for the time being, to use Ghostty as my default terminal application on macOS (maybe on Linux too, we’ll see). I find it fast, highly configurable—but not as cumbersome to configure as iTerm2—, and simple. Having used iTerm2 in the past, it was relatively easy for me to break my vanillist vow on this one.

Karl Marx was resurrected and came to the USSR. He was shown factories, hospitals, cities and villages, etc. Finally, he requested to be allowed to make a speech on TV. The Politburo hesitated as they were afraid he might say something they wouldn’t approve. Marx promised he would say only one sentence. Under this condition, the Politburo agreed. Karl Marx uttered the following sentence: “Workers of all countries, forgive me.”

From “One Hundred Russian Jokes”. Quite a few good ones in there. I dare you to see if you can understand them all (I don’t).

A lot of what I am seeing on the tubes as of late isn’t vibe coding. There isn’t any vibing in it. It is full slop coding. So much that I think is going to become a problem; a big one.

Figure 81 indicates the general character of the results that might be expected from practice with the pencil,—not from a few moments of playful practice, but from several hours of thoughtful study.

From the book “Design in Theory and Practice” (page 157), by Ernest Allen Batchelder. I find the “scribbles” fascinating.

Tomorrow we move forward one hour (going into EDT), and with it—or, rather, before it—some kind of allergy has started its Spring “vacation” on me. Itchy eyes, watery eyes, sneezes, and running nose. So. Much. Fun!

Was just telling Horsie about a program I listened to on NPR, which related to horses, and their whinnies. They theorised that the high sound isn’t coming from the vocal cords, but from just above the larynx, being similar to a whistle (in human terms) instead. Horsie told me they don’t use it to communicate anymore because for that they have “Horsemobile”, a portmanteau, so to speak, similar to “T-Mobile”. 🤣

Well, lots of noise around the neighbourhood about this now. Maybe there is hope, after all, and enough of us will show up at the meeting to stop the change.

Feeling guilty beyond belief after eating around 8 fluid ounces of Häagen-Dazs’s caramel cone ice cream. I told the Horsie not to buy it (she ordered rum and raisins, they delivered caramel cone), but she didn’t listen. Can that be considered an excuse? I mean, once it is paid for, it would be a shame to simply toss it, wouldn’t be?

That’s it, this was the last time. No more ice cream for me!

“Special Assessments. In addition to the Annual Assessments authorized above, the Association may levy, in any assessment year, special assessments applicable to that year only for the purpose of defraying, in whole or in part, the cost of any construction, reconstruction, repair or replacement of a capital improvement upon the Common Areas, including fixtures and personal property related thereto, and/or for any other purpose deemed necessary by the Board, including to fund a deficit in the annual budget, provided that any such assessment shall have the assent of two-thirds (2/3) of the members of the Board of Directors.”

Our upcoming Home Owner’s Association (HOA) annual meeting is going to be difficult, to say the least. That proposed change above takes away home owners’ financial decision making, and places it solely on the Board of Directors. A no-no, in my opinion.

“Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.” — George Eliot

Hi, I’m Mark Pilgrim. You may remember me from such classics as “Dive Into Python” and “Universal Character Encoding Detector.” I am the original author of chardet.

I was so genuinely and happily surprised to read the above! See, I have been a long time fan of him, and this online appearance was a small gift; he seems to be doing well and, well, that makes me happy.

➝ Via Hacker News.

Maybe it is just me—though I hyperbolise, as I can’t be alone—but I have zero issues using Safari (Apple’s web browser). I exclusively use it on mobile, and desktop, not a single problem. It is fast, lean, renders perfectly. Truly, “it just works”. I can’t fathom installing Chrome, or Edge, or any other web browser, on any of my Apple devices.

A New York Times analysis of Polymarket data over that period found that it was relatively uncommon for someone to bet a significant sum of money that a U.S. strike would happen by the next day.

But over the course of Friday, more than 150 accounts placed hundreds of bets of at least $1,000, correctly predicting an American strike on Iran by Saturday.

Certainly insider trading, I don’t see it any other way. And yes, I find it credible under the circumstances of the current regime.

➝ Via Hacker News.

If that MacBook Neo advertisement isn’t incredibly well done, I don’t know what is! Horsie needs a laptop of her own, maybe one of these awaits her?

“Simplicity is a great virtue, but it requires hard work to achieve and education to appreciate. And to make matters worse, complexity sells better.” — Edsger Dijkstra

Many of us have experienced that best-selling complexity first hand. I prefer simplicity, and believe on reducing rather than adding. Hard fact is, “nobody gets promoted for the complexity they avoided”.

➝ Via Hacker News.

Another MacBook tomorrow? That wouldn’t make much sense, would it? Unless Apple is going for the unexpected. I am still hoping to see a new Apple TV. Let’s go!

Update: 04 Mar 2026 @ 10:33:02

Well, what do you know? The rumours were true. Allow me to present you the new MacBook Neo. Wow!

Hacker News user std_move succinctly lists a few points that they believe make the MacBook Air “the best laptop for the general consumer around $1k”. They mention that “it has no fan, thus completely silent, high resolution display without flickering, and with reasonable response times, best-in-class hardware, very very efficient, amazing single thread performance, good multi thread, very good GPU, no Microsoft Windows annoyances […] amazing battery life”, and they go on.

I am an Apple fan and, thus, perhaps my opinion bears no weight, but I happen to fully agree.

Apple is on a roll this week! Six new/upgraded products, so far: iPad, iPhone, Studio Display, M5, Pro, and Max processors, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air. Woah! And still there is one more thing, or more!

When someone joins, that person puts in $30,000 CAD ($22,000 USD) to cover a down payment (this is returned if they leave). The total monthly mortgage payment is $2,433 CAD, which the residents split, along with utilities. There are provisions to help applicants who need financial help, Suek said. And each resident pitches in $70 CAD a week for food.

Ageing isn’t fun, no matter what anyone tells you. What these women have done is pretty neat! It allows them to continue growing older in company. And that is a good thing, as it is known that elders living along have an increased mortality rate.

Redirect links from Twitter (now known as a bloody hellhole) to Xcancel, you know, for “the rest of us”.

javascript:void(location.href='https://www.xcancel.com'+location.pathname);

Create a bookmarklet with the above, and use it while on the tweet you are wanting to share, then share the new link.

We pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send our immense love and eternal gratitude to the families of the fallen. And, sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is. Likely be more.

It is not only what it was said, but the way it was said. Go listen to it for yourself. Come to think of it, don’t. Just believe me.

Made with soft, nonabrasive material, the Polishing Cloth cleans any Apple display, including nano-texture, safely and effectively.

I am an Apple fanatic, but their polishing cloth has to be the closest to a quasi-perennial April Fools’ Day I have ever seeing. I mean, look at its compatibility list and all—yes, compatible with today’s iPhone 17e. Only second to the Pocket; or maybe the Pocket is second to the Polishing Cloth? 😅

Today I was made aware of 𒀯, which is pretty cool! It is a cuneiform sign, preceded by 𒀮 and 𒀭. Pretty neat, eh? I can think of the uses already…

With work, life, and other news taking precedence, I completely missed that Apple plans to unveil, allegedly, up to five different products next week, starting tomorrow. I will take this small distraction, for sure!

Watched “Predator: Badlands” (★★★★☆) today; not too bad! It is a different twist on the Predator franchise, but I will not spoil it for you. If you have seen the earlier films, this one is definitely worth watching.

I have noted about sponsoring, and donating before. I recently came across this organisation, while reading about Yolanthe Cabau because of a Dutch movie Horsie was watching.

Every day, children around the world are trafficked, deceived, and forced into sexual exploitation. Free a Girl works to rescue these children and provide them with a safe place to recover. Together with local partners, we conduct undercover missions, support police investigations, and build long-term change — from protection to the prosecution of perpetrators.

You will agree that it is another worthy cause. A one time $25 will not make us that much poorer. What say you?

Tonight, we reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network.

In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome.

I am afraid that was not my last note, and I apologise. This one sure is, on this specific issue. The above from OpenAI’s CEO, just hours after Anthropic’s statement. What would make the DoW reach an agreement with OpenAI, after declaring Anthropic a “supply chain risk”? I’d leave that as an exercise to the reader. Yes, I am announcing my departure. ChatGPT app removed from everywhere, OpenAI account deleted. Good riddance.

The news of the attack on Iran greeted me as I woke up at 05:00, having been going on for 3 hours or so already. So it began.

We are the employees of Google and OpenAI, two of the top AI companies in the world

We hope our leaders will put aside their differences and stand together to continue to refuse the Department of War’s current demands for permission to use our models for domestic mass surveillance and autonomously killing people without human oversight.

That warms my heart! I hope things do not get dicey, and that this is the last note I write about it.

I think the time has come for me to spend some coins on AI. I have the strong inkling I will end up choosing Anthropic’s Claude.

I have converted all JPG and PNG images to WebP, saving quite a few MiB in the process. So, other than less than a handful of GIF, and the videos (MP4), everything is WebP. If you happen to come across any broken images, please ping me. Takk!

Just like on this one, kid asked me last night to mention five characters’ names from the “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” series we just saw. Should I see a doctor if I could only remember the names of the two main protagonists? 😅