“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.” — Matsuo Bashō.
japan philosophy quotesThe 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?
random tubesKaihōgyō, 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!
japanI 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.
health meI 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.
selfhost techAriel 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.
random techCalling a night with a couple of notes holding Asian wisdom. The previous from Japanese Matsuo Bashō. This one attributed to Chinese Laozi.
philosophy quotes“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.
japan philosophy quotes“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.”
This I like quite a bit. It is a good philosophy to follow, don’t you think?
philosophy
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.
japan via
“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!”
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.
meNo, 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.
rants techHad 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?!
food
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”.
prime seriesGeorge 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! 😅
friends george llmThese 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. 😅
tech tubesHere 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.
Still ironic because, even though he denies being anti-vax, he has repeated multiple times that “autism comes from vaccines”, amongst others. ↵
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.
oobie viaI 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.
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.
Update: 09 Jun 2026 @ 17:26:21
Nah, I ended up scrapping the above, too much work, and for what? I am using the commit timestamp, and that’s that.
hugo staticgenSuch 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.
weatherThere 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.
rants tech“You are imperfect, I am imperfect, and that’s perfect.” — Unknown. Enter Kintsugi, and how it can help with stressful situations..
japan philosophy“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”.
netflix seriesNo 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?
Anyway, 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).
rantsThe 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!
mum ringThe 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.
interesting science via
Tonight we will finish watching “Solo Leveling” (unless the kid, who has a cold, goes to bed early). I’ve got to tell you, between “Attack on Titan” (★★★★☆) and “Solo Leveling”, I prefer the second 50 times.
Update: 09 Jun 2026 @ 17:26:21
This has been completed. It was a truly good manga series! Thus now the wait has commenced for the arrival of the next season. Can’t come soon enough!
manga seriesThis Obsidian’s upcoming core plugin will be a game changer. Right now you can do similarly with Dataview, but Bases seems simpler, while remaining powerful, and future proof. I might even become a Catalyst member!
tech“Bases is a core plugin that lets you turn any set of notes into a powerful database. With bases you can organize everything from projects to travel plans, reading lists, and more.”
“I went to a show in November of last year (it’s May right now) and ever since, I have tinnitus. I don’t recommend it.”
I do, too. And I, too, do not recommend it. I don’t know what it feels to be in silence. I have gotten used to my “new” silence, and learned how to enjoy it, but it is nothing like the silence I experienced before tinnitus started.
health life rantsI can’t help but fearing these kind of acquisitions. My concern is that it will translate to price increases, with the price tag they are paying for it.
finances tech“AT&T has clinched a deal to acquire Lumen Technologies’ consumer fiber operations for $5.75 billion in cash, the companies said on Wednesday, as the wireless provider adds further scale to its national fiber footprint.”
I played a little bit of Diablo IV yesterday. This season 8 is rather unfun, mostly for a few reasons: bosses one-hit kill attacks, only one boss having a 3% mythic gear drop, and the summoning materials for it “discovered” randomly, and runes extremely low drop rate. Runes are used to create targetted mythic gear.
gamesChetan—whose blog I have read since, well, its very beginning—provides an elegant solution on his Text enclosures post that I wish it was built-in everywhere. VS Code, Obsidian, and Logseq, to mention a few, has it. It is so useful! What is it? Select, and add single, double quotes, brackets, parenthesis, asterisks, etc. to both sides of the selection.
Update: 09 Jun 2026 @ 17:26:21
The post I referred about on this note has since been removed. I will need to start using the Wayback Machine to save, and refer to posts from Chetan, as they seem ephemeral quite often. 😅
interesting techYou will notice that this note’s font is different. Not only is a little bit bigger, it is Ubuntu Sans (not Open Sans, like that rest). Which is more legible? Well, let’s see.
“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Hmm, I need more. I, in capitals, and i. L, in capitals, and l. 1, and l. O and 0. I am growing to like it.
Update: 09 Jun 2026 @ 17:26:21
Well, I liked it so much that I have changed to it, for now. I think that getting tired of fonts, colour themes, cars, etc., is just part of being human. I really like Open Sans, I just feel like using Ubuntu Sans for a while. I think seeing it each day while working (running Ubuntu Linux on work machine, and that’s the default font) has something to do with it.
This font has been long removed. Using OpenSans now, forevah!
fonts techI just paid $283.71 for a key fob for wife’s 16 years old car. This is a need; it is either paying for it, or having a 2 tons vehicle sitting on the driveway. Of course that’s not an option, she also needs it for work. Because, unlike on other cities, public transportation here doesn’t truly exists.
rants
I am, suddenly, feeling the desire to watch the “Shogun” series once more.
japan series“Leave the problems of God to God and karma to karma. Today you’re here and nothing you can do will change that. Today you’re alive and here and honored, and blessed with good fortune. Look at this sunset, it’s beautiful, neh? This sunset exists. Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again, never, not this sunset, never in all infinity. Lose yourself in it, make yourself one with nature and do not worry about karma, yours, mine, or that of the village.”
Nothing announced today at Google I/O dazzles me. I was watching the live stream, and when they demoed the glasses with Gemini, and I saw the stutter, I had to quit, because I felt ashamed. The Verge has “the 15 biggest announcements” at Google I/O 2025, if you dare to be bored.
I think they should instead focus on fixing the mess that’s their Play Store (Google Play?), and the many crappy, missleading, full of malware, applications within it.
HarmonyOS with its microkernel architecture, on the other hand, looks pretty interesting.
google tech