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 smoking—or worse.
health politics rantsThe “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.
“According to the FIDO Alliance, more than 15 billion user accounts can now sign in using passkeys instead of passwords. But we need billions more to make every sign-in passwordless.”
Does that makes any sense at all? I mean, 15 billion accounts, sure. But 15 billion user accounts, not a chance. They quote the FIDO alliance, but provide no link their alleged statement.
cryptography rants techI am so very sorry! Going to be quiet around here for a little bit.
Update: 20 Feb 2026 @ 18:22:26
Before I truly go quiet, I wanted to reply to this oldie, which I quote:
“If a dictator’s son wins this year’s elections, our country will be one of the saddest jokes in history, ever.”
Dear Claud, hold my beer. :-(
politics rantsThis might be quite unpopular, but I truly dislike Wordle. The reason isn’t rooted on any psychological issue, it is much, much more simple: people share their Wordle result(s)—I figure they feel good about themselves—and for me it is only uneven, unaligned, wasteful noise. I don’t even want to show you an example, but I am sure you know what I am talking about.
rants socialThis is also ridiculous. On the Change Healthcare breach they, like all others, are offering free credit monitoring:
“A dedicated call center is available to offer free credit monitoring and identity theft protections for two years to anyone who believes they may have been impacted.”
Two years, are they kidding us? At the very minimum it should be 10 years, if not lifetime. And with IDX, better known by no one. An utter rubbish company.
finances rantsEvery single person in the United States—with the exception of those that were born, say, a month ago (and it’s only a matter of time)—has had their PII data leaked. Between the many breaches, everyone, and I mean everyone is exposed, and should have their credit frozen. Those Change Healthcare letters we are getting are part of this. But before those, there was AT&T, T-Mobile, the many banks, the many others. An almost endless list. Did I say you are exposed? Because you are!
finances rants techAs my PDS stopped working for no particular reason, and no feedback has been given to my issue on their git repository, I have disabled it. That means I just “Poof!” myself out of Atproto.
I am on the Fediverse (@david@collantes.social, and @david@weaknotes.com; warning, Google results links) mostly as a consumer. That is, I read and, occasionally, reply. I post once in a Blue Moon.
What brings me to write this note is that it bugs me, to no end, the abuse of “content warning” I see around. It is a reason for me not to follow (or mute) the OP. I want to read/see, unabridged. Content warnings are very useful; abusing them isn’t.
rants socialOh boy, some people sure are something. Yet, this could be just the preamble of what’s to come, maybe.
rants social techBefore phoning the number, Gaudreau did a search in Facebook Messenger to find out whether it was legitimate.
The answer he got in Messenger from the “Meta AI” artificial intelligence search tool was that the phone number he found, 1-844-457-0520, was “indeed a legitimate Facebook support number.”
A convicted criminal is still running for the presidency of the United States of America, while supported by a major political party and, arguably, half of the U.S. population. Meanwhile someone convicted of a minor crime (weed, for example) will struggle to get a job. Let that sink in.
politics rantsTrump is found guilty on all 34 counts. Of course he said it is a disgrace.
Whatever Donald Trump says, this is a devastating outcome for the former president.
It’s one thing being controversial and provocative, it’s quite another being a convicted criminal.
The suckers, of course, continue to pour money to his pockets. Half of America are suckers, so yeah.
politics rantsAn email from AT&T, with “Important Information” on the subject:
“We’re contacting you regarding the security of your data. After a thorough assessment, AT&T has determined that some of your personal information was compromised…”
No kidding, Sherlock! Some as in my name, phone number, address, and social security number (this one is key). Some?! Oh, but I must rest assured that “AT&T takes these issues very seriously”. As if! 😤
rants techIt happened again. Yes, again. Companies which we must trust to receive their services let us down, mishandling, and keeping our private information insecurely. They get breached, and criminals sell the information to anyone willing to pay.
A credit freeze has been placed for Kim and I on the three credit bureaus. Ugh!
finances rants techI have been struggling for days to build an ISO image that will auto-install Ubuntu workstation. Canonical’s way is to install server, then add ubuntu-desktop (and other packages needed/wanted), then remove ubuntu-server, and ubuntu-minimal-server. That’s mind boggling to me. That’s nuts.
This is something to which the government has no business. It’s a parent’s decision/concern.
“Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Monday signed a bill that bans children aged under 14 from social media platforms and requires 14- and 15-year-olds to get parental consent, a measure supporters say will protect them from online risks to their mental health.”
Good luck enforcing it!
politics rants socialClass 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!
life rantsThe 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.”
rants tech workMy open case with Canonical has been worked, back and forth, for over a month. It started at severity level 3, and now is at 1. Every time I thought I was seeing the metaphorical “light at the end of the tunnel”, it became dark once more. This is beyond painful.
rants tech work“Android works to keep you safe and protect your privacy when you use apps.” That, from Google’s Android Help made me chuckle. When I think of Android many things come to mind, but “keep you safe”, and “protect your privacy”. Ha!
google rants techSmall pet peeve. People sending emails from their mobile devices, and having a signature that reads, more or less, “Sent from phone, please excuse typos and brevity”. If you are going to send, or reply to, an email, do it right. A mobile device isn’t an excuse for not paying a little bit of attention to what you are doing.
rants thoughtsIf this weren’t enough, then you will be surprised—or maybe not—to read about Clarence’s latest escapades and misdeeds.
politics rantsThomas has attended at least two Koch donor summits, putting him in the extraordinary position of having helped a political network that has brought multiple cases before the Supreme Court.