> Notes...

This one I had read before, yet still brought a few chuckles as I read deeper into it. Having a friend that owns (or used to, I am not sure now) a handful of old Porsche’s, I couldn’t resist sharing it with him. It made him laugh too! 😂

“Welcome to my Porsche 914. I imagine that at this point (having found the door unlocked) your intention is to steal my car. Don’t be encouraged by this; the tumblers sheared off in 1978. I would have locked it up if I could, so don’t think you’re too clever or that I’m too lazy. However, now that you’re in the car, there are a few things you’re going to need to know.”

➝ Via Hacker News.

Truly loving Jessica’s approach of creating weekly notes. The weeks, I noticed, are not quite accurate (for example, 27 June 2023 is the 26th week of the year, not the 25th), but nevertheless, I love the use of the additive bullets for the week’s notes.

Update: 24 Jun 2025 @ 17:14:13

I just realised this approach reminds me of Logseq a lot. No wonder I like it so much!

➝ Via Muan’s Blogroll.

The newly announced cybersecurity certification and labeling program is a step in the right direction. It is meant to “help Americans more easily choose smart devices that are safer and less vulnerable to cyberattacks”. My only worry is, wouldn’t these type of programs be easily dismantled by a future administration? That’s always my fear; many things change in our country based on the political party currently at the helm.

In case anyone doubted the influencing economic power of Taylor Swift.

“Despite the slowing recovery in tourism in the region overall, one contact highlighted that May was the strongest month for hotel revenue in Philadelphia since the onset of the pandemic, in large part due to an influx of guests for the Taylor Swift concerts in the city.”

Regarding this, I don’t have the option on my phone for it. I have searched The Tubes, and others are in the same boat. I figure it requires carrier activation, or Apple is throttling the rollout of the feature, or something else. Oh well, it is a beta after all.

“Tips are a wage subsidy to the employer,” she says. “It’s not a tip. It goes to your wage. It is just the amount that the employer doesn’t have to pay you. And people don’t understand that.” — NPR

Oh, I understand. I just don’t agree with it. Ask the employer to include that “subsidy” on the price of the goods, and then it will be up to the customer to decide whether spending the money at the establishment is worth it, or not.

Picking nuts out a bag without looking is better than placing then in a bowl. When you pick them from the bag, you get a random assortment. On the other hand, having them in a bowl tempts you to discriminate, and hand-pick what you like—which will, irremediably, result in waste.

Some words about happiness that resonated for me this morning:

“You’re saddled up; there’s no recourse. It’s, “Hi-yo, silver!” — Signed: Bad Horse

Child tried a root beer float—with vanilla ice cream—for the first time on his life last night. “It smells funny. Medicinal, even”, was his reaction to root beer. Yup, that’s root beer, for sure!

“See you in my 19th life” continues to be exciting, engaging, and overall lovely. Saw the most recent episodes last night, and I can’t wait for the next weekend 🙈. Imagine if re-incarnation was possible, and on top of it you remembered your previous lives? Anyway, no spoilers! A sweet plot twist on these series.

Upcoming iOS 17 Live Voicemail is as good as advertised. Some might call it magical, even. I do.

“Live Voicemail gives users the ability to see real-time transcription as someone leaves a voicemail, and the opportunity to pick up while the caller is leaving their message. Calls identified as spam by carriers won’t appear as Live Voicemail, and will instead be instantly declined. With the power of the Neural Engine, Live Voicemail transcription is handled on-device and remains entirely private.”

Today we kind of ended the most disorganised, painful, and convoluted engagement ever in which I have being a participant. We are left with a non-functional solution that is bound to produce headaches, and unpleasantness—and surprises!—for years to come. Yay! 😒

Running iOS 17 public beta now, as temptation got a hold of me yesterday. It has some glitches, and small bugs (mostly visual), but very, very stable, and usable. Buttery smooth as if it were a release.

Substack is the new Medium. It started great, now one gets those obnoxious requests for signing up. I have avoided any links driving me to Medium; adding Substack to the array.

It is this note timestamp, and I am going to sleep. I have been going to bed each day, for the last few weeks, past 01:30, and waking up at 06:00. It has now caught up with me. Youngster no more.

I am so tempted to install iOS 17 public beta! If anything for that Journal app, because I will use the heck out of it. Also because George told me “this is the only way we can test”. The fact that he already jumped in isn’t helping. 😅

Ugh, need to learn how to read the fine print. On the Journal app, from Apple, “Coming later this year”. Cry, cry, cry! Still, I think I will jump in.

Thunderbird 115 Supernova is out, and it is hideous. Not just the looks (I ducking hate that Outlook look!), but the bloat. Why couldn’t an email client remain just for emails? Couldn’t care less about its calendar. Ugh, I am getting too old…

Working physically—as in, not remote—at one of our datacentres today. Last time I went there was at the end of year 2022, let’s see how much it has changed. I expect visible changes in our cage, as we are trying to vacate it. Off I go to waste over an hour on commute!

Wow, just wow! Truly no words to describe how well done, how perfect, how entertaining was to watch this stop-motion animation. This one defines mastery. The behind the scenes video is a must watch.

➝ Via Kottke.

Feature request for iOS: setting to allow all calls from Contacts to ring through, all others go straight to voicemail. In other words, an allowed list (as opposite to disallowed, duh!).

Local temperatures (in Celsius). Lovely, just lovely. We are not harming our planet, no. Not happening, nothing to see here, right?

New Red Hat owners, IBM, “f***** around, and they are finding out”. Their decision to stop publicly releasing RHEL source code is going to come back to bite them. New distros pledging to be RHEL compatible have spawned, and now SUSE and Oracle are, too, having their saying.

Fascinated by this, as I have always being about keeping track of time—though, like everyone else, I tend to “waste” it. I like the simplicity and usability. I also love the optimism of the maker: “[…] assuming I live to 85 years old.”

➝ Via Hacker News.

Oh yes, we know tipping—an endemic problem in the US—has gone out of control. This article Kim shared doesn’t make sense, though.

“No matter if you are dining in or opting to carry out, try to stick within 15 to 20 percent of the pretax bill.”

No, sorry, that’s not how it works. I might be an oddball, but I have been tipping when I feel like it, in the amount I feel like it—exceptions on places that include the tip on the bill. As the article briefly mentions, “businesses should pay their employees fair wages rather than forcing them to rely on tips.”

Upgraded my Mastodon instance to 4.1.4. Forever grateful to the “Update Notifications” bot which remind us all running the software to upgrade/update as needed. I would probably be in troubles without it.

Diablo IV season 1 is coming 20 July. I think it is coming out too soon. My only toon is level 94. Those last 6 levels will take a while. Like, I don’t think I will be 100 on the eternal realm before season 1 releases.

Where did Saturday go? Went to sleep at 03:30ish, woke up at 07:30ish, and tried using as much of the Saturday as possible, and still escaped like water between fingers. “Is there a secret to make a day last longer?” I asked my partner. “Yes, a workday” was her reply. 😅

Removed HTML and CSS files from caching here (server side). I don’t like having to hard refresh to see a new note. Let’s see if it works.

Update: 24 Jun 2025 @ 17:14:13

Seems to be working! I simply created a separate header @content cache-control max-age=0, where @content has HTML, and CSS files in it.

Though I knew about it, Phanpy has re-ignated my engagement on Mastodon. Three things I love about it: it is light, and easy to host, it is beautiful, and it is super usable (the look of the threads it creates had me at hello). Totally love it!

Every working day, without a fail, I feel sleepy right when I am about to return to work after the lunch hour. The thing is, I don’t eat at lunch, so it has to be a game my mind is playing on me. Ugh.

Forget religion for a moment, “it’s easy if you try”. This, from Hinduism’s Karma theory on the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, is true. I know it, you know it.

“Now as a man is like this or like that, according as he acts and according as he behaves, so will he be: a man of good acts will become good, a man of bad acts, bad. He becomes pure by pure deeds, bad by bad deeds. And here they say that a person consists of desires. And as is his desire, so is his will; and as is his will, so is his deed; and whatever deed he does, that he will reap.”

These have popped way too often for my liking, and I adore rain! I mean, if it weren’t because of this, I would be in heaven.

Eloquently, yet, succinctly writen. I totally agree.

“I’ve realized that avoiding bad habits is just as important as cultivating good habits. To address these kinds of issues, we must become aware of our patterns of incremental neglect and then take deliberate steps to counteract them and foster healthier habits.”

➝ Via Hacker News.

Went on a small stroll around the house to stretch my legs, and noticed our weed thriving backyard with fear. Yup, sadly, the time I dislike is quickly approaching.

I might have said this before, but it is worth repeating. I can’t stand LinkedIn. It is intrusive, used for spaming and solicitation. The few times I have been in it, because I have received notifications, I have encountered presumptous people that I don’t know, using the platform as a second Facebook (which I detest). Sadly, work nagged about not being on LinkedIn, so I am.

I don’t want to come across as a ranting person, but I think I need a rant icon.

Update: 24 Jun 2025 @ 17:14:13

I just added the rant icon. I figured a voicemail was the perfect one, considering the limited options that Feather offers.

More on this. Not complaining, nor unhappy, but I got the cache today from “Ashava the Pestilent”. So, now I am stumped. Is the game half broken? Has Blizzard fixed it?

Update: 04 Oct 2025 @ 17:59:44

Well, well, well. From the latest patch notes:

“Fixed an issue where the Weekly Reward Cache for defeating a World Boss would display as available if there was an active Whisper for defeating the boss, even when the Cache had already been claimed previously.”

That had to be it, I see no other explanation. Nothing lost then, carry on! Phew!

OK, so I created an Instagram account, so I could try Threads, and this that Claud wrote about was the first thing I noticed. Who are those people on my timeline, or whatever Threads calls it?!

If, when going to a website, the first thing it does within seconds of browsing it is showing me a floating request for my email address, I am almost 90% sure I will not be coming back. If it only allows 1 free article, I am 100% not coming back.

The amount of disregard for things around him, especially things that do not belong to him, that this guy showed is appalling.

“I admit with profound embarrassment that only after what regretfully happened did I learn of the antiquity of the monument.”

So, it would have been OK to do it, if it was a not-so-old building? 😡