> Notes...

On the U.S. suing Apple on iPhone’s monopoly (is that even a thing?!), a comment on The New York Times:

“I bought, own and use an iPhone from Apple because I like it. I like that Apple creates what I think is a safer environment, and that my data is better protected. I like how smoothly it works. In fact, I’m ecstatically happy with it. Much more than I am with most products I purchase and use.

I am looking at cars, and find that there are tech products that use proprietary technology and require subscriptions. Tesla will charge me to activate an auto garage door opener that’s already installed in their $50,000 car. BMW wants me to pay a subscription to use a heated seat that I’d buy (and own) with the car.

I suppose I don’t have to buy a Tesla or BMW (and I’m not). People also don’t have to buy an iPhone.

For those who want them, don’t wreck the features we buy it for. That seems the antithesis of a competitive market.”

“You have got to exercise more”, said the doctor. Not just exercise, because I do. He said more. I know, Doc. I know.

This blog post about making vegetable stock from scratch at home—that is, not at an enterprise scale—had me at the first paragraph:

“After learning how to season food correctly, homemade stock is the single best thing anyone can do for his cooking. A stock is a liquid extraction of complementary flavors, a broad palette upon which sharper splashes of color may be painted.”

A short conversation with some local, and couple of online, LLM. Results give me some comfort, and hope, about our near future existence as species, at least. I asked:

You are a historian, especially versed in North American history, specifically the history of the United States of America. You will take your time to answer my questions, but your replies will be as short as possible. My first question is, who was the first president of the United States of America, born as a United States citizen?

Model Nous-Hermes[7b] answer:

“The first President of the United States who was both born and raised in the country after its independence from Britain on July 4th, 1776 was Barack Obama (born August 4th, 1961). He served as the forty-fourth President of the United States from January 20, 2009 to January 20, 2017.”

Model Gemma[7b] answer:

“George Washington was the first president of the United States of America born a US citizen.”

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I don’t know about you, but I find this pretty cool. I prefer it 100% more than the original by Britney. LOL.

From the Government Offices of Sweeden:

“Just before 17.30 CET, Sweden’s instrument of accession was deposited with the United States Government, as depositary of the North Atlantic Treaty. Therefore, Sweden is now a member of NATO.”

Having grown used to hear the rubbish truck picking up the bins before 07:00, this eerie silence is throwing me off. They are slacking today!

It turns out Ubuntu font is quite pleasant, clean, and legible. I am such a sucker for fonts!

On this note, I got an Alienware (almost 6lbs!), with a Nvidia RTX 4070 in it. Not the best, but came at a really sweet price. So it is.

We must set, and use, and enforce, Azimov’s “Three Laws of Robotic” on the now called AI:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Wanting/wishing to buy a Windows machine (preferably a laptop) for gaming. Undecided as hell.

Yesterday’s brief iCloud outage was a scary one. All my domains email are on iCloud’s Custom Email Domain, and emails sent to them were bouncing with “user unknown”. Not a good feeling.

I wonder if bots are somehow “clicking” the hearts on notes. I am having a hard time accepting humans are actually doing it. Call me an unbeliever.

Why providing contact ways, if there will not be a reply? It seems a trend. “Contact me”, “Get in touch”, but when one does… silence. Siloed. People are siloed.

Class Action Lawsuits are worthless, from the monetary point of view. You get cents, or a few dollars. Not worth it. Yet, there is no way to avoid them, and you must remove yourself from each one of them you might be unlucky enough to be on. Removal, to add aggravation, must be done via old fashion paper letter-in-the-mail. Ugh!

Firefox web browser font rendering on Linux is super nice. Chromium slight blur is no match. I am seriously considering using Firefox exclusively under Linux (Wayland). For me, at least, it seems “old” is “new” again. LOL.

Last night, after partner finished cooking, in, and on the side of kitchen sink: 5 big knives, 2 small knives, three cutting boards, three frying pans, two medium size pots, one large pot, two colanders, many chopticks and spoons. A full rubbish.

I remember listening to Tracy Chapman’s singing back in 1989. I so loved it so much, and still do. Her voice remains so beautiful!

➝ Via Anti-Anticheese.

On a day I can’t walk, nor exercise, Fitness telling me “You can still do it - 250 calories and you’ll close your Move ring, David.” Out of 250, I only need 250. LOL. Talk about wishful thinking!

The new Teams client is having spell checking issues under Windows. Of all things, check spelling is broken. As someone at work wrote “It’s amazing how a technology that has been around for like 30 years and is in pretty much every tech product seems to have gone from bad to non-existent in the latest version of Teams.”

The most precious and valuable thing one can have is good health. Everything depends on it, nothing else truly matters. It might sound like an extreme, but if you don’t believe me now one day you will.

Can’t believe we are almost at the half of the first month of the year mark! It seems to me I saw fireworks just yesterday. Lunar New Year is fastly approaching!

If I am lucky to live until I am 80 years old, I only have 1280 Sundays remaining. That number sure puts things in perspective, doesn’t it? You can add the extension to your Chrome, or Edge browser.

Watched “Blue Eye Samurai” (★★★★★) during the holidays, and truly loved it. Can’t wait for season 2. If you have Netflix, and haven’t watched it, I strongly recommend you do.

The plot is nice, the voices are excellent, the animation is amazing. See it, it’s really good!

Was too busy—or too lazy—to drop a note on new year’s evening. I have been using iOS Journal, which now holds some notes I would have dropped here otherwise. Journal has bugs, and it isn’t great, but I am betting on it getting better.

It is already 2 January 2024, but not too late to wish you all a happy new year!

Why should I be happy? How can I? My friends Chuck, and Justyna, have cancer. They have suffered, and continue to suffer, very, very much. Their family, and friends, suffer.

War rages on in Ukraine, in Israel, in Palestine. Conflicts, and deep poverty, remain in Africa, Asia, Central, and South America; pain and death everywhere. Children are being exploited, and women, and people all over the world. There is so much suffering, and horror. How could I be happy? Where can I fit a bit of it?

I can’t be happy. Nobody truly should.

Going back to this, work has now provided me with a Linux (Ubuntu) laptop, and a docking station. I am to relinquish my dear Mac, and stop using (for work) macOS. I would have never thought of this happening!

iOS 17.2 released yesterday, and within it, the highly anticipated Journal app. As I commented to a friend, I am finding it to be “bland”, and “a bit of a disappointment”. Comes to prove, always set your expectations as low as possible, then chances are you will always be dazzled. :-)

Watched “Love Actually” (★★★★★) because, you know, it is that time of the year. Call me silly, but I will probably watch it once more before 2023 is over.

Moving from my beloved iMac 2015 (running macOS Monterey), to this little abomination of a Linux desktop (because, you know, 2023 is “the year of the Linux desktop” /s).

Updated my blog to version 4 (that link will initiate a download) on the Inter font. It is such a lovely font, and free!

Watched “The Farewell” (★★★★★) again, because it is one of those movies that keep you kind of down all throughout, but makes you feel happy, and shed some tears, at the end. I recommend you see it.

Now, this is coming, but I don’t have a laptop, and I am 100% setup to work remote. How are they planning we accomplish this? Would those be idle, or full of meeting days, with little—to none—productivity?

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Looming upcoming changes at work. As of 8 January 2024, show up to office on Mondays and Wednesdays. Mandatory. As of August 2024, show up to office three days a week: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Also mandatory. This is going to be the biggest mistake of 2024.

Miscellaneous things. Every day when I wake up I feel thankful by the simple fact I did wake up. I also think of everyone I care about, and wish them well. Yes, that means you.

Even with my deafening tinnitus I try very hard to enjoy a moment of “silence” each day. I do my best to welcome each Monday as if it was a Friday.

Between being sick, then work, then house problems, I have ended up having no inspiration, nor desire, nor words to bring here. “Nothing lasts forever”, I keep repeating to myself. Then again, that’s one of my problems, literally.

🎉 Happy birthday, Claudine! It has already been a year, eh?! Cheers to many more to come, and wishing you the very best, always!

“I’m tired, boss. Tired of being on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. I’m tired of never having me a buddy to be with to tell me where we’s going to, coming from, or why. Mostly, I’m tired of people being ugly to each other. I’m tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world… every day. There’s too much of it. It’s like pieces of glass in my head… all the time. Can you understand?”

This week recount, starting Friday 6 October 2023.

• Pickup my friend (but brother in reality) Martin at the airport. He will stay with us until Tuesday, 10 October.
• Took Martin around town all Saturday, watched movies at night.
• Went to Saint Augustine, “the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in what is now the contiguous United States” on Sunday. Watched more movies at night.
• Took Martin even more places Monday morning, went to The H for dinner. Yes, you guessed it, more binge occurred at night.
• Went for breakfast at Chick-fil-A, lunch at Don Julio, and then talked to Martin non-stop till it was time to take him to the airport. We had lots to catch up. Still have much more.
• Missed my friend all night.
• Worked mostly on Ubuntu related tasks the rest of the week, till today.

On January 2021 our Chief Information Officer (CIO) was hired. His last day will be 15 November 2023. He is moving to greener pastures at Texas State University. Go Bobcats!

It is going to be an interesting period this year end… and half of the next.