> Notes...

This is good news. I can’t help thinking of my father, as he could have benefitted from a device like this.

“Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the first over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aid software device, Hearing Aid Feature, intended to be used with compatible versions of the Apple AirPods Pro headphones. Once installed and customized to the user’s hearing needs, the Hearing Aid Feature enables compatible versions of the AirPods Pro to serve as an OTC hearing aid, intended to amplify sounds for individuals 18 years or older with perceived mild to moderate hearing impairment.”

Well, “that” deed is done! 🥳 Now the wait starts. Some will deliver on 20th September, other will not arrive until October! 😩😂

Oh, I just realised is is Friday 13th! Just one (the first), of the two this year will have. Will, let’s seize it, right? Break a leg! 😅

Partner managed to break, for the second time, her SUV passenger’s side mirror. Granted, the mirror itself wasn’t shattered. Will it count for that “breaking a mirror brings back luck” superstition?

AT&T and Microsoft (because I have no way to know for certain whose fault was) regaled us today with a couple of hours of downtime. The perfect way to start the penultimate working day of the week, right?

This is also ridiculous. On the Change Healthcare breach they, like all others, are offering free credit monitoring:

“A dedicated call center is available to offer free credit monitoring and identity theft protections for two years to anyone who believes they may have been impacted.”

Two years, are they kidding us? At the very minimum it should be 10 years, if not lifetime. And with IDX, better known by no one. An utter rubbish company.

Every single person in the United States—with the exception of those that were born, say, a month ago (and it’s only a matter of time)—has had their PII data leaked. Between the many breaches, everyone, and I mean everyone is exposed, and should have their credit frozen. Those Change Healthcare letters we are getting are part of this. But before those, there was AT&T, T-Mobile, the many banks, the many others. An almost endless list. Did I say you are exposed? Because you are!

“Face with bags under eyes” is the Emoji I didn’t know I needed, and can’t wait to abuse the bejesus out of it once arrives. Though not Emoji, Apple is going to take this to the next level on iOS 18. I am all for rich, international, ways to communicate!

On last night’s debate Trump didn’t answer any questions, didn’t outline any plans. He rambled, lied, and trolled, every single time. In case there was any doubt, and though my vote—living in a red state—might seem worthless, I am voting for Kamala Harris.

Every once in a while one needs to read something to makes one feel well. Or something reaffirming what we already believe, and do.

“Listen. You don’t live there. You live here. With your people. Go to work. Get your money. And come on home.”

How often we forget those simple, yet unquestionable, words. Right? What the author of the article understood:

1. Whatever the work is, do it well—not for the boss but for yourself.
2. You make the job; it doesn’t make you.
3. Your real life is with us, your family.
4. You are not the work you do; you are the person you are.

I agree.

Similar to one of my previous notes, this one aims to call attention to a worthy cause.

St. Jude is leading the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Their researchers and doctors work together to turn laboratory breakthroughs into lifesaving treatments for children from across the United States and around the world. And with your support, St. Jude can provide cutting-edge treatments at no cost to families — so they can focus on helping their child live.

Please consider donating the potential gift of life to a little one.

I am starting to second guess “Notes”, just as I did a few days back with other things. The deletion of the PDS I was running was serendipitous, though welcome. What to do, what to do?

As my PDS stopped working for no particular reason, and no feedback has been given to my issue on their git repository, I have disabled it. That means I just “Poof!” myself out of Atproto.

All of the sudden, and without any apparent reason, my BlueSky PDS stopped working. Maybe it’s my VPS telling me to get rid of it.

I remember, with sadness and constricted heart, the atomic bombing of the cities of Hiroshima (today, 79 years ago), and Nagasaki.

I am facing a small dilemma. I don’t feel I have the energy, nor the content, to share my attention across different places. I have a “blog”, to which I write once, or twice a year. I have these notes, which I used to use more often. I also have an ActivityPub server (aka Mastodon, or Fediverse), and a BlueSky PDS (Personal Data Server).

I really need to downsize. What to “cut off” first?

I get the automated message from Kim. The same I get each week day morning: “Good morning ❤️! ☕ please 🙏🏻” I know it’s 07:30. Next I know, and I kid you not, I get the second reminder tone about the same message. Two minutes have passed by. What’s going on?! I felt I just blinked, and two minutes passed. Something’s broken.

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_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_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.