< Notes...

Apple’s Lisa 2 computer. I know it is old, I know it is retro. My old eyes will certainly complain at the screen size and resolution, but damn, such a beautiful machine, and keyboard design! Yup, I am certainly on “boomer’s” mood.

I miss terminal based applications. Old database driven applications that were usually accessed via VT100 terminals, and later on via IBM 3270, or emulated software, like TN3270, to access IBM mainframes. I wonder if they will ever make a return (no mainframes needed this time, of course).

Hmm, is this a sign of crossing—or having crossed—a certain age threshold?

The trend for application developers to make each and every single app a subscription based one is a complete show stopper for me. If I want, or need the app, I will buy it. I will, of course, pay for upgrades on every major iOS version too, maybe? Otherwise, I am sure to find ways not to want, nor need it.

I didn’t know about this one, but I can assure you it will add some genuine je ne sais quoi to the transition between pages within your website. In use here now, and forever. Try it!

@media screen and (prefers-reduced-motion: no-preference) {
        @view-transition {
                navigation: auto;
        }
}

➝ Via Ariel Salminen.

I thought that with RCS coming to iPhones, the old SMS/MMS problems between Android and iOS users were to be a thing of the past. Enter “spotty data coverage”. Each time a member of an RCS group goes out of mobile data coverage, the RCS group will break into two, equally named ones. A lovely royal mess.

I often wonder what my first mum would have blurted out on notes like this, if she’d been born in this technological era. I can’t picture my dad enthusiastically participating, but mum definitely would have. My current mum would have too, if she was younger.

This is a few days old, but still wanted to reflect it here. Pocket, which I have used extensively during travels, will be gone, so will Glitch, which I have never used. Oh well, it is what it is.

I need to stop procrastinating, and migrate to another VPS. The one I am using now has been upgraded in place since Ubuntu 16.04, and it is full of cruft. I long, need, a newer machine. I will have to dedicate contiguous time to that which, I think, it is holding me back. I am keeping Vultr (referral link), though.

Ariel is so talented! I mean, browse to her website and experience her exquisite taste and design skills. I browse around her website, and get the feeling to be experiencing Japanese aestetics: minimal, yet extremely tasteful.

I can’t pretend; I am a fan! I mean, take a look at this, and you will have but a glimpse of what I am talking about.

No, I am not going to disable my ad-blocker for your website. No, I am not going to make an exception by adding your website to an allow list, to let the adverts you are running go through. Yes, I care about independent journalism, but I can’t donate to everyone, nor donate multiple times a month to the same news site.

When forced to chose between allowing ads, or not being allowed to your content, I will simply browse away.

John Gruber describes fluidly why the dream of making iPhones in the United States is just sheer fantasy.

“United States doesn’t have anyone with the necessary vocational skills, who would want to work tedious factory jobs at factory-job wages, and China does. That’s part of the fever-dream mad-king fantasy of this entire cockamamie endeavor by Trump: these are difficult, low-paying, long-houred jobs that Americans don’t want. That these jobs are all in China and India is proof that America is far ahead, not that we’ve fallen behind.”

Of course I agree! Asking Apple to make the iPhones in the US is rotten non-sense coming out of a necrotic mind.

These are the replies and interactions of someone who truly loves Golang. I wouldn’t know, I am not a programmer, but about the “simple, minimal syntax—master the core in hours, not months”… hmm, I don’t know mon. 😅

There is no way in hell—figuratively speaking, of course—that I would find myself installing Microsoft Edge on my Mac. I’ll die with Safari. I am a vanillist—that is, I prefer and use the OS default apps.

Similarly, if you ever see me using Google Chrome—or any other browser, but Safari—on my Mac, kindly ask me to give you $1,000 (USD). You have my word.

I need to start my own “blogroll” page, so that I can write down the blogs I come across and like, to later re-visit. That’s something which search engines can’t help me, and it bothers me to no end trying finding that blog once again, and fail.

This Obsidian’s upcoming core plugin will be a game changer. Right now you can do similarly with Dataview, but Bases seems simpler, while remaining powerful, and future proof. I might even become a Catalyst member!

“Bases is a core plugin that lets you turn any set of notes into a powerful database. With bases you can organize everything from projects to travel plans, reading lists, and more.”

Talking about price tags, $77,000 for one fibre channel switch, with zero return policy, and a minimum of six weeks lead time is a first timer to me. Tariffs anyone?

I can’t help but fearing these kind of acquisitions. My concern is that it will translate to price increases, with the price tag they are paying for it.

“AT&T has clinched a deal to acquire Lumen Technologies’ consumer fiber operations for $5.75 billion in cash, the companies said on Wednesday, as the wireless provider adds further scale to its national fiber footprint.”

Chetan—whose blog I have read since, well, its very beginning—provides an elegant solution on his Text enclosures post that I wish it was built-in everywhere. VS Code, Obsidian, and Logseq, to mention a few, has it. It is so useful! What is it? Select, and add single, double quotes, brackets, parenthesis, asterisks, etc. to both sides of the selection.

Update: 20 Feb 2026 @ 19:04:57

The post I referred about on this note has since been removed. I will need to start using the Wayback Machine to save, and refer to posts from Chetan, as they seem ephemeral quite often. 😅

You will notice that this note’s font is different. Not only is a little bit bigger, it is Ubuntu Sans (not Open Sans, like that rest). Which is more legible? Well, let’s see.

“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Hmm, I need more. I, in capitals, and i. L, in capitals, and l. 1, and l. O and 0. I am growing to like it.

Update: 24 Feb 2026 @ 20:13:53

Well, I liked it so much that I have changed to it, for now. I think that getting tired of fonts, colour themes, cars, etc., is just part of being human. I really like Open Sans, I just feel like using Ubuntu Sans for a while. I think seeing it each day while working (running Ubuntu Linux on work machine, and that’s the default font) has something to do with it.

This font has been long removed. Using OpenSans now, forevah!

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.

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.

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?!

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.

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 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.

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?

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.

Found the FIDO News article, which is missing on the Microsoft blog I mentioned on the previous note. Now, “15 billion online accounts” is more likely!

“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.

Using Google Maps for casual journaling is a neat idea, and I have to say, I wouldn’t know where to start. Maybe it is time to reach out to Claud, exchange hellos, catch up a bit, and ask her!

Apple has announced their latest Mac mini, and it’s everything I wanted to see. The task ahead is to convince partner that we need one (note that’s a need, not a want), which we do (well, we need a computer, not an Apple computer per se, but I wouldn’t have it any other way). Yet, I need to do the convincing without adding any stress. Let’s see how I can engineer to do so. Certainly with extreme finesse.

It took me till now to install it, but worth it: bat is better than cat (and, arguably, less) in, for what I can see, almost every single way. The only thing that makes the last two “better” is that they are normally installed per default.

I miss RadioShack, Circuit City, Computer City, CompUSA, Fry’s… all those “old” computer/electronics stores, and what they used to be. No store these days compare. None. Oof, I am getting old.

I will leave this here with a LOL. And nothing else.

I have decided to use Apple’s Journal app more. Towards that aim I have placed it on my mobile device home screen. That will not interfere with any of my public interactions, as Journal will simply be that, a personal journal, and thus not for public comsumption.

My aim is to document the mundane, “what did I eat last night?” kind of thing, to recollect, and preserve, daily happenings and thoughts at day’s end.

And… the first two are here! Took a little over 1 hour to transfer data to mine. Kid’s will have to wait until after pickleball. The 16 Pro’s soooo buttery smooth. Oh my!

Based on this Hacker News submission, see below for how long you have been iddle. You move your mouse, it stops the counter. Don’t. Even. Breathe! (kidding, kidding, breathe, damn it! 😅)

You have been idle for 000 seconds.

This is good news. I can’t help thinking of my father, as he could have benefitted from a device like this.

“Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the first over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aid software device, Hearing Aid Feature, intended to be used with compatible versions of the Apple AirPods Pro headphones. Once installed and customized to the user’s hearing needs, the Hearing Aid Feature enables compatible versions of the AirPods Pro to serve as an OTC hearing aid, intended to amplify sounds for individuals 18 years or older with perceived mild to moderate hearing impairment.”

AT&T and Microsoft (because I have no way to know for certain whose fault was) regaled us today with a couple of hours of downtime. The perfect way to start the penultimate working day of the week, right?

Every 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!