> Notes...

Oh boy! Half a trillion dollars for a “Golden Dome” aimed to do precisely what, and why?

“The Golden Dome, however, would be many times larger [than Isreal’s Iron Dome] and designed to combat a wider range of threats, including hypersonic weapons able to move faster than the speed of sound and fractional orbital bombardment systems—also called Fobs—that could deliver warheads from space.”

I was under the impression that Xi Jinping, together with Vladimir Putin were Trump’s “friends”. With the countries those two represent out of worry—they are “friends”, right?—who has the threat capability this upcoming “golden” dome is mean to protect us from?

Nothing announced today at Google I/O dazzles me. I was watching the live stream, and when they demoed the glasses with Gemini, and I saw the stutter, I had to quit, because I felt ashamed. The Verge has “the 15 biggest announcements” at Google I/O 2025, if you dare to be bored.

I think they should instead focus on fixing the mess that’s their Play Store (Google Play?), and the many crappy, missleading, full of malware, applications within it.

HarmonyOS with its microkernel architecture, on the other hand, looks pretty interesting.

“Solo Leveling” has taken us by storm. We are now on season 2, episode 17, and tonight we stopped because kid has to do homework, and study a bit. I, of course, work tomorrow. I’ve got to tell you, though, I am going to miss these anime series…

Now more than ever I want to play a necromancer class that’s truly minion centric, and powerful. A gamer can dream.

Looks like our honeymoon phase with AT&T is reaching an end. Within the last two weeks I had had to power cycle the gateway (model BGW320-500) three times. Twice, just today. In the six years we have been with AT&T, this is the first time I have been forced to power cycle the equipment. Certainly something’s up.

With—and I will use the locally used Fahrenheit scale—96°F, with “feels like” 109°F, and a Sun so strong it can crack stones (theoretically), you will agree that walking outside an air conditioned building is almost suicide. I just clocked 2.24 miles during my 30 minutes lunch. Outside. Yes.

Update: 24 Jun 2025 @ 17:14:13

I am, mentally and physically, finding it very hard to keep this promise. I am here, about to return to work, having doubts on whether or not I will go outside again this afternoon. “Listen to your body”, Martin told me. Ugh, my body speaks so convincinly!

If someone asks “what’s the meaning of life?”, they will find cliché answers, well reasoned ones answers, etc. But nothing explains it better than what this guy did.

“I discovered that no one had ever gone to every country in the world completely without flying [in one unbroken trip].”

Now, if doing what you want, and makes you happy (without harming others) isn’t what life it all about, I don’t know what is.

Grand Master Carlsen, the world’s top ranked chess player, was forced into a draw by “the world”.

“Overall, ’the world’ has played very, very sound chess from the start. Maybe not going for most enterprising options, but kind of keeping it more in vein with normal chess — which isn’t always the best strategy, but it worked out well this time…”

Imagine that! One against 143,000, and it ends in a draw. I would take that as a win!

I am sure all republican Venezuelans, specially those American citizens with family amongst the 350,000, are ecstatic at this news. As I told George, “Those in the cult feel no regrets. They will justify and excuse, as they burn down.”

I have been considering keeping track of everything anti-constitutional President Donald J. Trump does, similar to the Trump Tracker, but for anti-constitutional issues. The only thing that’s holding me back is the extraordinarily huge amount of time it will require. It seems to me it would be a full time job.

I look forward to coming to office—I can’t believe I am writing this!—to have a “lunch walk” with Errol. It is not just the walk; that I can do on my own, and I do. It is the wide range of topics we touch while walking. I am going to miss that.

And just like that our treasured weekend is gone. Other than some grocery shopping, and visiting mum for an early birthday phở, we didn’t do much. Well, there was Eurovision, and a few “Solo Levelling” episodes, yes. But other than that, not much else.

I have done badly to a promise I made to myself to walk 10,000 steps daily, no matter what. I could point out that the heat is extreme around here, but I can’t use that as an excuse. “None may atone for my actions but me, and only in me shall their stain live on”, so, “all I can be is sorry, and that is all that I am.”

Having not watched it for a few years, I had forgotten how awesome Eurovision is. So refreshing, so many talented people! If you can, and haven’t, I strongly recommend you watch it. This year’s is on Peacock, at least in the US.

Statistics on “Notes…” since I started them, including this one:

002 2022
400 2023
153 2024
052 2025

That 2023 sure was a prolific year, wasn’t it?

I just declared I didn’t have this problem anymore, and yet, I go and do it once more. Just minutes ago. What’s wrong with me?!

An oldie. Ah, memories…

• Her:
• “I am tired.”
• Me:
• “Aw, dear, you should rest!”
• Her:
• “But I am afraid I will not be able to rest…”
• Me:
• “You can do it, try!”
• Her:
• “Look who is preaching, the person who can’t do anything he puts his minds on!”
• Me:
• “It’s mind, not minds. I was just trying to be nice dear…”
• Her:
• “I like to use minds, it is correct, look it up. You should be reading a book and learning instead of wasting time on those stupid games of yours!”

“In the States, looking different and/or having an accent will get you asked “Where are you from?” It doesn’t fail, it happens all the time.”

“What business is it of yours where I’m from, friendo?”

Had luch at the Korean House restaurant with George. The food was really good, and I had a good time catching up with him. The waitress was very nice, and now I feel bad for having left that 15% tip. She sure deserved a 20%. Wife and I go there often, so I shall look for her in the future, and pay back what I believe I owe.

Thanks to the diligence of a former manager, I receive the same emails twice each day, every day. He subscribed me to technical bulletins—and some alerts—with my formal email, and an alias. It is easier to delete than trying to figure out which is using the alias, and trying to unsubscribe.

I can’t stand WordPress. Its clunkiness. The horrible mess that hides behind the “Show page source”. Dare I say, PHP? The way the guy who is at its helm has behaved. That’s it; that’s my thought.

Our neighbour Vijai called me tonight. He said he needed my help, and explained what it was, but I couldn’t understand him well. I don’t refuse helping someone, specially a neighbour, so it didn’t matter, I went over to see what he needed.

His wife and son are out of the country, and Vijay is a heavy old man, with arthritis on his hands. His air conditioning drainage line was overflowed, thus not working, and he needed help pumping it out. No air conditioning in this state almost means certain death, poor guy! I have drained our AC a few times before, so it was easy for me to help him. He was very apologetic, but I told him not to worry. “If you need me, Vijai, just call. No biggies.”

We really don’t want that. Alarmingly, we are so close to it becoming a reality!

“Your argument seems to turn our justice system, in my view at least, into a catch me if you can kind of regime … where everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people’s rights.”

Each day I become increasingly convinced that a website’s overall design matters less than the right choice of typography (fonts) and the quality of its content; these two elements are intrinsically linked.

Following a strong recommendation from George, I started to watch “Solo Leveling” (★★★★★) last night with the kid. We finished the first four episodes. It is quite entertaining, and relatable—we have played plenty of RPGs in the past.

The trade off of walking inside my neighbourhood is that it’s small, constrained, and gets boring walking the circle over and over. I feel like a Guinea pig on a wheel—though they often look as if they are having a blast; not me. The good thing is that I know the sidewalks now like the back of my hand, and I can walk while reading Hacker News, or Reddit, etc. on the phone. That entertaints me so much, that next I know I have all my daily steps completed.

Tally today so far, 6,100 steps. I will be done early this afternoon, and will then mow the lawn. That’s the plan, unless rain decides otherwise.

Today I learned about José Mujica, because he died. It seems he was a good man, with plenty of “interesting” takes, friendships, and connections; all enough to cause concern. This phrase attributed to him, though, resonates:

“No soy pobre, soy sobrio, liviano de equipaje, vivo con lo justo para que las cosas no me roben la libertad.”

Robot chefs, LOL. They are as much chefs as our pressure cooker, microwave, or oven. I am sure they will get better.

“When a customer orders a bowl of dumpling ramen at a kiosk, a robot activates. A steel nozzle swirls boiling water and spicy broth paste into a pot. Dried noodles drop from a dispenser. Cradling heat and spice, the pot glides onto a burner. An overhead chute sprinkles dried vegetable flakes. The ramen simmers.”

I am finding out that I repeat myself quite a bit. Is that good, or bad?

If you use Phanpy as your Fediverse client, I am sure you will agree with me that Catch-up is one of its best features. I love everything about that client, though.

Now that that’s done, I can resume watching this. So much to do, so little time! 😅

Finished watching “Severance” last night. Had to renew for another month to watch the last episode, but $10 for all the available episodes was worth it. Can’t wait for season 3, for sure!

“Forgive me for the harm I have caused this world. None may atone for my actions but me and only in me shall their stain live on. I am thankful to have been caught, my fall cut short by those with wizened hands. All I can be is sorry, and that is all I am.”

I want Apple to do something like this on the iPhone. That is, connect the iPhone to a display, and make it emulate a desktop UI. I don’t think it will happen, though, as it would dent their other computers sales.

When I go to the loo at work, I can tell the gender of the person who “visit” it before me without even seeing them. Such lack of consideration.

I don’t have a “buying domains on impulse” problem anymore. That issue is resolved, behind me now, and for that I am glad. Yet, a (new?) problem remains: which domain, of the few I have, to let go?

When I walk with my co-worker I do it at a slower pace. Usually when the walk is over, we have around 4,000 steps in our pedometres. He is out this week, so it was me along. I walked longer, and faster, and, still, my tally is 3,400. What’s going on here?

Really tired of being included in class action lawsuits I don’t want to be part of, and having being forced to go through hoops I don’t want to, to exclude myself from them.

Came across Alephic’s Writing page on Hacker News. I almost agree with everything, but this:

“A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences—just as a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”

Yes to the sentence, and paragraph and, perhaps, machine. But a drawing? There are no unnecessary lines in a drawing. Slightly off tangent, first time I heard of Alephic. There is a first time for everything, though.

George’s blog Terms of Service always makes me smile. The latest revision has a subtle, but ever-present, touch of AI to it.

Listening to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, and, more importantly, reading about his beliefs on medical-related conspiracy theories, is as jarring as seeing a medical doctor smoke—or worse.

It rains so gently this morning, that I could almost distinguish music within the sound of it hitting my car roof while driving to work. I had to turn off the radio to enjoy it. It felt so nice, I even stayed at extra 10 minutes inside the car at the parking lot, hearing it a bit longer. I need more days that start like this.

The “thinking”, “reasoning” AI models make me anxious, and test my patience to the highest degree. Every “thinking” model should come with something similar to Qwen’s 3 /no_think prompt toggle.