Having our driveway and sidewalk pressure washed today. Saw a teenager doing it for a neighbour last week and, knowing that a “friendly reminder” is coming our way from the HOA, decided that let someone else have the fun I had had for the last 25 years. So, he was hired to do so. I think $150 USD, after 25 years, is kind of a bargain, isn’t it?
me random“It really isnโt hard to forge connections with people. More often than not, I have found myself laughing with a complete stranger in spite of our lack of a common language. I have been invited into peopleโs homes based on gestures alone. I have negotiated prices by showing banknotes and adding or removing some until we agreed on the value. And more than once, finding myself broken and in despair, the glimpse of a childโs smile helped me to mend.”
I have been mulling a note about our trip to Japan in 2024. It will come. Meanwhile this article I found poked my memories’ nest, and my ageing heart picked up some extra beats.
โ Via Kottke.
humans travels via“Tesla announced Thursday that shareholders had voted to approve the biggest pay package in corporate history for CEO Elon Musk, in a deal worth up to $1 trillion over 10 years if the company meets a list of benchmarks such as selling 1 million humanoid robots.”
I would love to buy the coolaid that “over 75% of shareholders” are drinking. Hmm, ay ay ay!
rants tesla tubesEvery once in a while while jumping from one site to another—starting from a link on Hacker News, more often than not—I come across what I see as a small oasis in the middle of a desert. This morning is PERSONALSIT.ES. It is a blogroll for tastefully designed personal websites. So many gems! ๐
design tech tubes
Not that, but this . This I worry about, more than anything else, when it comes to AI. This will be—and probably already is—a major problem. From Gab’s Arya “AI”:
llm thoughts“Mass immigration represents a deliberate, elite-driven project of demographic replacement designed to destroy those nations’ cultural and genetic integrity…”
I swear to a god that I cannot comprehend the absolute dislike some have for large language models (LLM), quite popular within today’s broader field of AI. I don’t see a change of course when it comes to their proliferation and inclusion in aspects of our daily lives. Why not to adopt what it works for specific use cases instead of stubbornly refusing to use it?
llm rantsHmm, Source Sans 3 is some sexy, open source, font! Very, very legible at 18px, with a nice terminal on the “t”, and a subtle one on the “l”. Lovely!
fonts githubIt seems that Hacker News is now running a direct advertising of some sorts. This is the first time I see this, and thought it is text, and tech related, and one can hide it, it sets a precedent with a bad outcome potential.
rants techToday, after much thought and deliberation, I re-subscribed to The New York Times. It was hard to pass their $50/year offer, as I have been consuming it more and more through archive.today. One of the first things I did was to install their iOS application, and from it comes my first complaint: the amount of ads on it is distasteful. So much that I will probably mostly use the web version, as I can eliminate them fully that way.
me random rantsToday I learned which seems, amussingly, a crafty “trick”. All thanks to a comment left by mistake to the wrong article.
“Morocco runs on DST, UTC+1, most of the year but switches to UTC during Ramadan to shorten the fasting day.”
โ Via Hacker News.
interesting tubes viaLast Sunday the kid and I watched “The Mask” (โ โ โ โ โ) , which I have seeing numerous times before, but it was the first time for the kid. See, he doesn’t like comedies. He has a fairly strict taste when it comes to genre while me, on the other hand, give a chance to almost anything. Anyway, back to “The Mask”, he liked it! If only he would give other movies a chance…
movies netflix oobieThough I use vim for almost every CLI editing today, there are times when I use nano too. In fact, nano was the editor I settled on as soon as it came out, after having used pico for a few years before. What I didn’t know, though, was how amazingly customisable nano is!
โ Via Hacker News.
tech viaโI don’t feel the least humble before the vastness of the heavens. The stars may be large, but they cannot think or love; and these are qualities which impress me far more than size does."
I came across this quote by Frank Ramsey, which almost instantly brought to mind Carl Sagan’s famous one:
“We live on the third piece of debris from the Sun; a tiny world of rock and metal with a thin patina—a veneer—of organic matter on the surface, a tiny fraction of which we happen to constitute.”
Frank’s cares not about the size of our planet, nor universe, focusing instead on the marvel and, perhaps, uniqueness, of being human.
random thoughts tubes
This weekend we have watched two movies, so far. “Joy Ride” (โ โ โ โ โ) , a comedy, was fun to watch. With never a dull moment, and surprising—often shocking—hilarious outcomes, it kept us laughing in between WTFs. If you are into comedies, with a girlโs twist, you will like this one.
“Wonka” (โ โ โ โ โ) was a joy to watch. Not quite a musical, I would say, even though it is, it was entertaining and well done. It was a new twist to Willy Wonka, seemingly the precursor of the Wonka movies we have seeing before—you know, before he builds his factory.
horsie movies netflixWe are finishing watching “Tลkyล Tarareba Girls” (โ โ โ โ โ) with just one episode left, so I feel confident on my rating. Seeing it as entertainment, without putting too much thought into it, the series is OK. If I pay attention, though, I see a side of Japanese society in it that I donโt like: employers taking advantage of female employees, men cheating, women saying โmarry, and you wonโt have to workโ, and other minutiae.
japan netflix seriesIf you go to school, or work for a school (staff, or faculty), you can get a year—plus a month—of Perplexity Pro, if you sign up using my referral link. Doing so will also grant me an extra month. A win-win!
llm techFinally, today I became the “proud” owner of an AirSense 11 CPAP machine. I have heard wonderful things about what a machine like this does to your sleep, so I am looking forward to getting used to it, and reaping its benefits. Mind it, using it is not a choice of my own; my doctor strongly recommended I do. So, here we go!
health meThese are two little nuggets I have under this domain, which I had forgotten about but found earlier today while cleaning old staled DNS records. Both safe to execute, I promise. The first:
dig +short txt badhorse.netbros.com | sed 's/[\" ]//g' | base64 -d
And the second, similarly:
dig +short txt poem.netbros.com | sed 's/[\" ]//g' | base64 -d
When it comes to encryption, I have always used PGP, now GnuPG. All my files, now stored on Apple’s iCloud, are encrypted with it. Using that tool has widthstood the test of time. Lately, mostly because of size (program and key), portability, and lack of dependencies, I have been considering re-encrypting everything with age. My only worry is, will age widthstand the test of time too?
cryptography techYeah… no. Call me skeptic, cynic, hopeless, non-believer, whatever you want, but I don’t think this is how is going to pan out.
“With trillions of digital workers and robots entering the economy, a tenfold increase in GDP represents a very conservative estimate of how much full automation could increase economic output. If this modest increase were reflected proportionally in US tax revenues, we could resolve all current Social Security funding shortfalls, lower the retirement age to 18, and increase the average payout to over $150,000 per adult per year.”
โ Via Hacker News.
llm rants via“It has become a tired adage, but nonetheless true. The world’s poorest countries will suffer the most from climate change despite being least responsible for it.”
โ Via The New York Times.
Update: 09 Jun 2026 @ 17:26:21
Bill Gates agrees. In 2021 he, too, wrote:
via weather“Itโs deeply unfair that the people who contribute the least to climate change will suffer the worst from its effects.
[…]
Rich and middle-income countries are causing the vast majority of climate change, and we need to be the ones to step up and invest more in adaptation. The worldโs poorest deserve our help, and they need more of it than theyโre getting.”
Omoiyari is the Japanese concept of anticipating the needs of others and acting on them with genuine, selfless care. It’s more than just being polite. It’s a deep, intuitive form of empathy where you put yourself in someone else’s shoes, observe the situation, and take quiet, thoughtful action to ensure their comfort or happiness without being asked, thus creating harmony in your shared environment.
Wish I could find a book encompasing all the Japanese concepts. Reach out if you know of one you could recommend!
japan philosophyItadakimasu, a phrase used in Japan before, and sometimes after, eating which translates as โto humbly receiveโ. Itโs mean to thank, and show gratitude to, everything and everyone involved with the meal being consumed.
“It is meant to honor all: from the natural elements that supplied the ingredients, the people who grew the produce, to the ones who prepared and cooked the meal, etc.”
Generally it has no religious connotation today, but Buddhism is behind its origin.
japan philosophy
Watching “Call me Chihiro” (โ โ โ โ โ ) for the third time felt like watching it the first time. I like that movie so much! It is sad but, at least to me, also hopeful, heartfull, sweet, and real. I strongly believe we all need a Chihiro in our lives.
japan movies netflix“Romantics Anonymous” (โ โ โ โ โ ) was warm, sweet, without intrigues, suspense, nor sadness. It truly was a delight to watch. From it:
“Sarang: Itโs the feeling of wanting to bring more happiness to the one you love.”
Though sarang (์ฌ๋) means “love” in Korean, they gave it the above meaning in the series. Anyway, watch it, and you will live that feeling too!
japan netflix seriesI came across Joey Yu’s blog entry today, which lead me to a 4 years old post on Reddit. I subscribe to r/Stoicism, but missed this post. That, though, is irrelevant; I have seeing it, and read it now. I share the OPs approach.
philosophy tubes“Everything we see around will cease to exist one day. Everything. All those great historical names, all your colleagues, everyone you look up to, everything. Your lifetime is nothing but a microscopic speck of time when taking into account all of the Universe’s history. Donโt spend your valuable and finite energy and time on comparing yourself to others.”
More than 30 people arrested because sport’s betting, and rigged poker games. Some of the details are truly something!
interesting tubes“In some of the rigged games, the poker chip trays had hidden cameras that could read the cards on the table. Sometimes, the cards had markings visible only to people wearing specially designed contact lenses or sunglasses […]”
It’s Claudine’s birthday again, happy birthday, Claud ๐๐ฅณ๐๐! I first wished her a happy birthday in 2022, and every year since. Time sure flies, yes? Cheers to many more to come!
birthdays claudine friendsIt is the season of the “AI” backed web browsers (or should I say “Chromets”). First I saw Perplexity Comet, based on Chrome (I like Perplexity, not Comet), then came OpenAI ChatGPT Atlas (also based on Chrome), and now Microsoft Copilot for Edge (yes, of course, based on Chrome).
llm tubesAs I finished the note on Crocker’s Rules, I came across Radical Honesty, which I think is pretty neat too.
thoughts tubes work“The Radical Honesty technique includes having practitioners state their feelings bluntly and directly, even if it may be in a way typically considered impolite. Avoiding all “white lying” is said to lead to a more truthful relationship with themselves and others.”
Having always liked/wanted a direct communication at work, that is, preferring that people “gets to the point” in the most efficient manner, coming across Crocker’s Rules is never too late.
thoughts tubes work“Crocker’s rules encourage being tactful with anyone who hasn’t specifically accepted them. This follows the general principle of being ’liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send’.”
I came across this on Hacker News. Am I weird for feeling “itchy” at the lack of consistency? I mean, Bash, Python, and Ruby scripts—for what I saw. I would have done them all in Bash or, say, Python. Ruby (eww!) would have never crossed my mind.
โ Via Hacker News.
tubes via