> Notes...

It is my last day. I knew all along it was coming; after all, nothing lasts forever. It’s been great, though, I truly enjoyed the ride: coffees with mum each day, lazying around afterwards. What would you do if today was your last vacation day, and work was waving at you, just a few hours ahead? Would you greet it with anxiety, joy, acceptance?

This one was too good to pass up. Found in the Fediverse.

I have written a letter to AutoNation Acura, regarding our recent interaction with their Parts and Service department, which expect to mail tomorrow.

“I believe that I should have been informed of all anticipated expenses upfront. Withholding such a significant portion of the total cost until after the key was already cut when I was at the dealership feels, at best, like extremely poor customer service and, at worst, borderline deceptive. This lack of transparency is unacceptable and has caused me considerable frustration and inconvenience.”

I am quite into fonts, that’s why each time I discover one I like, I download it, and carefully catalogue it in my collection. Opus One, a monospace typeface, is lovely, and a decent contender to Hermit, which I adore.

I didn’t know about this one, but I can assure you it will add some genuine je ne sais quoi to the transition between pages within your website. In use here now, and forever. Try it!

@media screen and (prefers-reduced-motion: no-preference) {
        @view-transition {
                navigation: auto;
        }
}

➝ Via Ariel Salminen.

I thought that with RCS coming to iPhones, the old SMS/MMS problems between Android and iOS users were to be a thing of the past. Enter “spotty data coverage”. Each time a member of an RCS group goes out of mobile data coverage, the RCS group will break into two, equally named ones. A lovely royal mess.

Small Monday afternoon chat. That last one from her truly warmed my heart to a melting point. ❤️

• Her:
• “Try to remember what I need to buy at BJ’s.”
• Me:
• “I have tried. No dice. 🙁 Madelines?”
• Her:
• “No.”
• Me:
• “Maybe it was cupcakes, but you already got them at Sam’s? Lemonade? For sure not. Liquid to scrub the toilet? Nope, but if you go get it please. Condensed milk? Head and Shoulders! Yeah?”
• Her:
• “I don’t know. But I feel weird going to places without you.”

I often wonder what my first mum would have blurted out on notes like this, if she’d been born in this technological era. I can’t picture my dad enthusiastically participating, but mum definitely would have. My current mum would have too, if she was younger.

This is a few days old, but still wanted to reflect it here. Pocket, which I have used extensively during travels, will be gone, so will Glitch, which I have never used. Oh well, it is what it is.

I didn’t know Harvard University offered free courses online. Their “government” (some are free) subject highlights basic US government, understanding the Constitution, and how to recognise a dictatorship takeover 101.

The insane ability of some people to write so fluidly makes me jelaous. Yet, I understand and I appreciate it. If everybody had the same skill life would be boring, right?

Kaihōgyō, a Tendai Buddhist monk’s practice, is beyond gruelling, and it “would rank among the most demanding physical and mental challenges in the world”. I cannot begin to fathom this, considering that at the end of my—maximum—12,000 daily steps I feel tired enough not to think about the tomorrow. Imagine walking many kilometres daily, without a miss, for hundreds of days!

I don’t use a CPAP machine, yet, but sleep apnea is something I suffer from, so the machine will come my way wether I like it or not. You can imagine the feeling of hope I felt when I came across the headline “Sleep apnea pill shows striking success in large clinical trial”.

“Top-line results from a large clinical trial, released this week, showed a combination of two medications in one pill stimulates muscles that keep the airway open, sharply decreasing breathing disruptions.”

The side effects, though, worry me, as the drug “also increases heart rate and diastolic blood pressure a little bit”. Yes, that emphasis I added is my worry.

“Eichorn and four other Minnesota Republican senators proposed legislation to the Health and Human Services committee that would label “Trump Derangement Syndrome” as a mental illness.

Their bill describes the faux “syndrome” as the “acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump.”

And on the same day he was arrested.

“Senator Justin Eichorn was arrested Monday night around 6 p.m. for allegedly soliciting a minor for prostitution, according to a statement from the Bloomington Police Department.” […] “Eichorn, 40, is married and a father to four children. Police found two iPhone, an unopened Trojan condom and $129 in cash upon his arrest, according to the Guardian.”

I need to stop procrastinating, and migrate to another VPS. The one I am using now has been upgraded in place since Ubuntu 16.04, and it is full of cruft. I long, need, a newer machine. I will have to dedicate contiguous time to that which, I think, it is holding me back. I am keeping Vultr (referral link), though.

As expected, Trump wrote expressive, warm, candid, full of love, respect, and remembrance words for today’s Memorial Day on his Truth Social account. I am not going to link to it, nor repeat them here; you can find them easily if you use your search engine of choice.

Whatever you do, do not go to Fox News’s comment section for a matching or related headline. You will shed IQ points fast, and lose faith in humanity.

Ariel is so talented! I mean, browse to her website and experience her exquisite taste and design skills. I browse around her website, and get the feeling to be experiencing Japanese aestetics: minimal, yet extremely tasteful.

I can’t pretend; I am a fan! I mean, take a look at this, and you will have but a glimpse of what I am talking about.

Calling a night with a couple of notes holding Asian wisdom. The previous from Japanese Matsuo Bashō. This one attributed to Chinese Laozi.

“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become your character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”

“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.” — Matsuo Bashō.

This I like quite a bit. It is a good philosophy to follow!

“If I had to describe my philosophy toward technology, I’d say I aim for the crux of whatever works the best with the least amount. You add things until it starts sucking, take things away until it stops getting better.”

I have never had to do a presentation—yes, I am that lucky. Yet, if I ever needed to do one, I would opt for the Takahashi Method.

“Unlike a typical presentation, no pictures and no charts are used. Only a few words are printed on each slide—often only one or two short words, using very large characters. To make up for this, a presenter will use many more slides than in a traditional presentation, each slide being shown for a much shorter duration.”

➝ Via 47nil.

From one of my favourite books, “Through the Looking-Glass”—together with “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”—which I read over and over as a child.

“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else—if you run very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”

“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

No, I am not going to disable my ad-blocker for your website. No, I am not going to make an exception by adding your website to an allow list, to let the adverts you are running go through. Yes, I care about independent journalism, but I can’t donate to everyone, nor donate multiple times a month to the same news site.

When forced to chose between allowing ads, or not being allowed to your content, I will simply browse away.

Had pad Thai at Thai House restaurant today. It didn’t come with crushed peanuts in it. Is it only me, or crushed roasted peanuts are a must have for pad Thai? Also, the noodles where way too wet, to the point they were sticking, kind of lumpy. For me, another no no. Am I becoming too picky?!

Watched all “Secret Level” (★★★☆☆) episodes last night. Just like “Love Death + Robots”, I was left wanting to see more. My favourite episodes, S1E2: “Sifu: It takes a Life”, and S1E11: “Exodus: Odyssey”.

George shared something attributed to Anthropic researchers:

“Even if AI progress completely stalls today and we don’t reach AGI… the current systems are already capable of automating ALL white-collar jobs within the next 5 five years.”

To which the AI itself replied:

“While AI is transforming the workplace, it’s not realistic to assume that all white-collar jobs will be automated in five years, even without further AI advancements. The claim is overly simplified and doesn’t fully account for the complexity of human work, the ongoing evolution of AI, and the potential ethical and social implications of such widespread automation.”

Such humble, and kind masters are forthcoming! 😅

John Gruber describes fluidly why the dream of making iPhones in the United States is just sheer fantasy.

“United States doesn’t have anyone with the necessary vocational skills, who would want to work tedious factory jobs at factory-job wages, and China does. That’s part of the fever-dream mad-king fantasy of this entire cockamamie endeavor by Trump: these are difficult, low-paying, long-houred jobs that Americans don’t want. That these jobs are all in China and India is proof that America is far ahead, not that we’ve fallen behind.”

Of course I agree! Asking Apple to make the iPhones in the US is rotten non-sense coming out of a necrotic mind.

These are the replies and interactions of someone who truly loves Golang. I wouldn’t know, I am not a programmer, but about the “simple, minimal syntax—master the core in hours, not months”… hmm, I don’t know mon. 😅

Here I was thinking that RFK Jr. voice was simply the result of alcohol and tobacco abuse—which would be ironic, considering he is the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services¹—but I was wrong. It is related to a rare neurological condition known as spasmodic dysphonia.

It has always puzzled me how society expects older people to “behave their age”. Why? Why the degrading of our cells, our physical and mental decline, has to change who we are? If we saw people past their age, and let them be them, the world would be a happier place.

A firefly taking flight. I played with these by the hundreds when I was a kid. My child has never seeing one in real life.

➝ Via Marcio Aleksandravicius.

I have been tyring to automate the setting of lastmod on Hugo to no avail. I want to capture in a note the last modified timestamp from git, as these notes reside in git repository, and use it within a note. No dice, so far.

Update: 24 Jun 2025 @ 17:14:13

Got it to work! It is not using the git timestamp, because it doesn’t really acccurately provide the modification time, but the commit time (two different things). Instead, I am setting the timestamp when the note is opened for edit.

Such an incredibly hot day! We just came back from errands, and I really don’t feel like leaving the house again today, regardless of reason.

There is no way in hell—figuratively speaking, of course—that I would find myself installing Microsoft Edge on my Mac. I’ll die with Safari. I am a vanillist—that is, I prefer and use the OS default apps.

Similarly, if you ever see me using Google Chrome—or any other browser, but Safari—on my Mac, kindly ask me to give you $1,000 (USD). You have my word.

“You are imperfect, I am imperfect, and that’s perfect.” — Unknown. Enter Kintsugi, and how it can help with stressful situations..

“Kintsugi is the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold—built on the idea that in embracing flaws and imperfections, you can create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art. Every break is unique and instead of repairing an item like new, the 400-year-old technique actually highlights the “scars” as a part of the design.”

Finished watching volume 4 of “Love Death + Robots” (★★★☆☆) , and the day is still young. I would call this a good start of a weekend.

It only gets three and a half stars from me because not all episodes are good. Yet, it was entertaining, as previous seasons have been, nonetheless. My favourite episode was V4E7, “The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur”.

No long ago I noted purchasing a fob key for wife’s car. Today she goes to pick it up, and the dealership (AutoNation Acura in Sanford) wants $265 to “program” it. Nobody told us about that extra cost when we ordered it! Not even the slight mention of it!

Imagine going to the hospital to have a pacemaker implanted, and receiving it in nicely wrapped box to take home. WTH?! What good is car key that doesn’t do anything?

Update: 24 Jun 2025 @ 17:14:13

I found someone we trust that will program it for $100. I think I am going to be sending my complain, and feedback, via certified mail (with a copy via email).

The Ring doorbell application for iOS—I have no reason to doubt this applies to Android too but I can’t attest it, as I don’t have an Android device—is horrible. The so called “Ring - Always Home” unintuitive interface, unreliability, and their push to be “social”, makes it an experience from hell.

I spent close to an hour configuring and fine-tuning Mum’s and Dad’s phones so that they are not constantly awakened during the night or bothered during the day with notifications and dings. In the process, I had to delete and reinstall the app, wrestle with their insistence on having MFA, and a bunch of other rubbish. Ugh!

The air we breathe is composed, amongst many other things of course, “of the previous breaths of everyone who ever lived”.

“How many molecules from Caesar’s last breath do we inhale with each breath we take? Shockingly, the answer is about one molecule—we actually do share breaths with Caesar! And, by extension, every breath we take is composed of the previous breaths of everyone who ever lived—Socrates, Lincoln, Einstein, etc. Isn’t that crazy?”

➝ Via Hacker News.

I know it is a complex relationship—just like any other big company CEO—that of Tim Cook and Trump. Yet, Tim should have never donated money to Trump’s inauguration, nor attended to it. If favours were what he was after, he failed. He should have known better.

“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s [sic] that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” he said. “If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.”

Since when does a US president have the rights to interfere with free commerce, without congressional oversight?