> Notes...

Child and I saw “The Amateur” (★★★★☆) last night. I am a fan of the genre, and Rami Malek, hence my rating. Do I recommend it? You bet!

“What do you think about coming to office on Wednesdays?” — “We would rather not, no. Not a good idea.” — “OK, let’s start coming to office on Wednesdays as well, so three days a week onsite.”

Why to ask then?!

It makes no difference that Google has updated Chrome for iOS with Liquid Glass (the first of their applications to be “adapted”). As a vanillist, it means nothing to me.

Watched “Superman” (★★★★☆) last night. It was entertaining, it was alright, though I am glad I didn’t catch it at the theatres.

Imagine a modern day chef been transported back in time to the Joseon dynasty (old Korea) as the Royal Chef—title exclusively for males. While in it she manages to surf the politics, and court intrigues with wit, all while making amazingly “exotic”, dazzling, delightful meals. That’s the gist—until now, because the series is ongoing—of “Bon Appétit, Your Majesty” (★★★★★) , with a new episode coming tonight, and another tomorrow. Can’t wait!

Update: 18 Oct 2025 @ 18:19:25

The king on this series is loosely based after the real historical figure Yeonsangun, which, according to Wikipedia, is “often considered the worst tyrant in Joseon’s history and perhaps all Korean history”.

BERLIN, Feb. 3. 1939.—Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels today ended the professional careers of five “Aryan” actors and cabaret announcers by expelling them from the Reich’s Chamber of Culture on the grounds that “in their public appearances they displayed a lack of any positive attitude toward National Socialism and therewith caused grave annoyance in public and especially to party comrades.”

As printed in The New York Times. In 1939.

This site is very neat. It allows you to play—albeit for a short period of time—a multitude of sounds. Amongst my many music likings is trance, and I am enjoying browsing their collection. Especially, psychedelic trance.

➝ Via @claudrod.

“Alien: Earth” just got a few notches more interesting last night. Now we wait until next week. I have to acknowledge; even though bingeing is nice, the anticipation of waiting to see what’s next can’t be beaten.

I have been in love with Expedia’s “Two Step” commercial for a long time. Not only is it well produced, but the smile of the main actress captivated me from the very first time I saw it. Yeah, a silly crush. 🤭

On this one, upgraded to Tahoe last night. This time I didn’t do a wipe-install, but a regular upgrade. Simply restarted the mini—which has been running without reboot for a couple of months, or so—and went through the upgrade. Smooth, no issues.

I have macOS 26 to install and play with, and today, out of all days, I am stuck working past 3.5 hours my quitting time.

I have failed at this. Like, miserably. I feel powerless against myself. I shall try much, much harder! Perhaps enlist family, and work mates to help? “Hey, smack me if you see me chewing the inners of my mouth!” That could work, right?

Watched “The Piano Teacher” (★★★☆☆) because Muan wrote is was good. I didn’t like it. Ten minutes into it I knew I didn’t like it, but I watched it all. Maybe I will watch it again; it might be an acquired taste.

A very dear friend of mine is turning 70. I have known him for more than half of his life and, yet, I don’t know what to get him on his birthday. I am at a loss! See, he is one of those for whom shopping is very difficult. He is not that into technology. He doesn’t use Apple products. He doesn’t wear watches, nor any kind of jewelry. Ugh! So hard! I only have two months—barely!—to choose, shop, and ship.

Saw the movie “Black Bag” (★★★★★) the other day, and I liked it very much. Both main casts, Cate Blanchett, and Michael Fassbender are favourite of mine. Recommended!

Eating out is something that I am giving more and more thought, before I do it. We used to go out to eat at least once a week (weekends), but prices have gone up everywhere, and portions have shrunk, and quality has diminished. Yeah, “times they are a-changin’”.

Call me old school, boomer, curmudgeon, whatever! I, for one, have absolutely no interest, no desire, to carry a foldable mobile device, of any kind. OK, moving on now.

Thanks to Claudine I learned about, yet another, Japanese phrase—and concept—embodying cultural and philosophical meaning. The word, mottainai, means “what a waste”, as in “don’t throw that away yet; it can still be useful.” I wonder how long is the list of Japanese’s concepts/philosophies, but I am in love with each I have come across with!

So, about the Apple Event today, I am planing to get an Apple Watch 11, likely for Christmas, or Epiphany. Tempted by the AirPods Pro 3, but not quite sure I will get them. Excellent event, as always!

Today is “the day”. I will say—or, rather, write—no more.

“It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this!”

Taco Bell wants you to use their self purchasing machines. They are a mess. No search function, so it is next to impossible to find what you want, especially if you are not a regular.

At the one at 7853 Colonial Drive, Orlando, FL, waiting to order at the counter takes an eternity. They keep servicing their drive through, and kind of ignore you. Once you have successfully placed your order, and it arrives, make sure to check it carefully. It will be wrong 98% of the time. Mine was, and I realised too late, when I was already at home.

That Taco Bell sucks.

I am struggling trying to get me stop biting the inside of my mouth. You know, like gnawing the skin inside of it. I almost got it once, but subconsciously went back at it again. It bothers me greatly. Today I am starting once more.

Update: 01 Oct 2025 @ 20:34:00

Caught myself again at it. Stop biting your mouth! (ala General Bethlehem (third comment), on “The Postman”.

I came across the following quote, and that sent me through the rabbit hole. The quote goes (and there are several variations of it):

“Be not afraid of any man, no matter what his size; when danger threatens, call on me and I will equalize”.

It seems that the exact wording for this came from Winchester (not Colt), thought I haven’t found verifiable sources for that. One bit caught my attention, though, which relates to Colt, and a phrase on similar sentiment, which is “God created men equal, Col. Colt made them equal.” According to PBS, Colt died failry young, “having never fired a gun at another person”.

I am absolutely loving Perplexity AI. I have gotten to a point on which I treat everything with an “AI” on its name with reservation, even disdain. Perplexity is a different kind.

“Perplexity AI is an advanced AI-powered search engine designed to provide accurate, well-sourced, and real-time answers to user questions in a conversational format. It uses cutting-edge language models, such as GPT-4 and Claudine, combined with real-time internet searches to synthesize responses from authoritative sources and always cites these sources for transparency. Unlike traditional search engines that just list links, Perplexity delivers direct summaries and supports features like document uploads, contextual follow-up, and the ability to handle both factual and complex queries for individuals and teams.”

Emphasis mine. Authoritative sources, and citing them, is paramount. This one might be the first AI (ugh, that acronym!) I will be willing to pay for.

We have been watching “Alien: Earth” (★★★★☆) on Hulu and, though it is an ongoing series, I can safely rate it. I like it! Quite entertaining, offering a completely different plot twist to the “Alien” movies.

Yep, it is happening again—like each year, LOL. Christmas is (might?) coming early, everyone! Add the Apple event to your calendars, and be there or be square!

Only three days on the Star of the Seas, and we all want to go back to be cruising. Oh, and certainly do not want to be at work! LOL. Oh well, it is what it is.

Rob, our crazy—his own words, not mine—ex-coworker and friend came by the office today. He talked shit about Trump, and Fanny Mae, but we truly enjoyed his visit. We love Rob!

Brought some kisses to the office, and without showing them to anyone I asked: “Does anyone wants a kiss?”. One of my cubemates was fast to reply: “Not from you!” 😂

Saw “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” (★★★★★) , finally (I once started to watch it, but didn’t go past the first minute or two, can’t remember why), and I loved it. Now I must read the book.

A user on Slashdot, referring to Steve Wozniak’s decision of selling his Apple stock, wrote: “Smart man. Great engineer. Bad decision. Happens to all of us.” To which Woz himself replied:

“I gave all my Apple wealth away because wealth and power are not what I live for. I have a lot of fun and happiness. I funded a lot of important museums and arts groups in San Jose, the city of my birth, and they named a street after me for being good. I now speak publicly and have risen to the top. I have no idea how much I have but after speaking for 20 years it might be $10M plus a couple of homes. I never look for any type of tax dodge. I earn money from my labor and pay something like 55% combined tax on it. I am the happiest person ever. Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness, which is Smiles minus Frowns. I developed these philosophies when I was 18-20 years old and I never sold out.”

I wonder why Anthropic decided to pick a serif font for Claudine replies. The user prompt remains sans-serif. Whichever the reason might be, I don’t like it. I prefer sans-serif for this specific use case.

Schwab almost gave us a heart attack, when we say half of our account gone at the end of the trade day today. Then this “urgent” message popped:

Account balance information may be inaccurate.
“Certain online account information may be inaccurate. Please accept our apologies as our teams work to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. For assistance, please call us at 800-435-4000.”

Yo, mates, come on! 🩺

Some will say the weekend starts when you close the “work shop”. I see the start of the weekend as something unimportant, but agree with the previous. The real issue is how to slow it [the weekend] down. Its end? Ah, yes, when you clock in again.

Even though Haagen-Dazs reduced their 1 pint (16oz) to 14oz in 2009—yes, 16 years ago—there is an ongoing mention of it on social media as if it just happened. Taking things like this from social media as face value, as recent “news”, and without further research, is truly bad.

Truly enjoyed reading “Death and what comes next”. Some of the comments on its submission to Hacker News are food for the brain, and the closeted philosopher in me loves them!

“Astonishing”, said Death. “Really astonishing. Let me put forward another suggestion: that you are nothing more than a lucky species of ape that is trying to understand the complexities of creation via a language that evolved in order to tell one another where the ripe fruit was?”

➝ Via Hacker News.

While keeping my account active, I got rid of the Threads application on my mobile device, as a first step. Really tired to fine tunning notifications and still getting them, seemingly randomly, for things, or people I don’t know. Next step is to delete the account—which will also close my dormant Instagram.

This section from the NetBSD man page for the sleep command cannot be funnier, yet completely valid. I mean, quite useful if you have the time, right?

BUGS

     This sleep command cannot handle requests for durations much longer than
     about 250 billion years.  Any such attempt will result in an error, and
     immediate termination.  It is suggested that when there is a need for
     sleeps exceeding this period, the sleep command be executed in a loop,
     with each individual sleep invocation limited to 200 billion years
     approximately.

The sign on the road near my office reads “Men Working”, and you look carefully and find three women, and two men laboring. Is it “Men Working”, really?