< Notes...

With extremely very few devices supporting Wi-Fi 7, it doesn’t make much sense to advertise it with cymbals and trumpets—as seeing yesterday at Costco. A year from now? For sure. Maybe.

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”:

“Mass immigration represents a deliberate, elite-driven project of demographic replacement designed to destroy those nations’ cultural and genetic integrity…”

“I 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.

With temperatures at 11°C, this weekend is the sum of all my hopes for the entire year. After boiling for almost a year I welcome any and all cooler weather. Heck, I wouldn’t mind freezing a bit for a change! 😅🤭

The iconic White House website, previously the symbol of the American government, has become—as a friend wrote to me—the “parody of a government”. I sure hope it is being archived to serve as a perennial testament of a government gone way beyond south.

As I finished the note on Crocker’s Rules, I came across Radical Honesty, which I think is pretty neat too.

“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.

“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’.”

Ugh? Well, this is the drop that overflows the cup. GM ditching Apple Carplay will stop us from buying any GM vehicles in the future. Oh, wait, we never buy GM. 🤣

The reason for the lack of JMAP “web mail client”, or any other kind, is that there at too few email servers that support JMAP. I say, if JMAP on servers makes it to the mainstream, clients will follow.

“… we are seeing declines in human pageviews on Wikipedia over the past few months, amounting to a decrease of roughly 8% as compared to the same months in 2024. We believe that these declines reflect the impact of generative AI and social media on how people seek information, especially with search engines providing answers directly to searchers, often based on Wikipedia content.”

I think this is actually good. That I know of, Wikipedia doesn’t serve advertising. Having a lower traffic means slightly less expenses, right? I am not stopping using it. Wikipedia is one of the few tools I use for research.

If anything “good” has happened from being mandated to come to office on Wednesdays that’s bagels. Today’s are still warm, and so delicious! I wrote good between quotes, because, well, carbs. 😅

Often times when I am driving, or not on the desktop, notes come across my mind, but never make it here. Why? More often than not, I simply forget. With that in mind I am considering recording notes, if anyhing so that I can remember them later on.

Mum tells me, while I wait for ông to get ready, “Take him with you, otherwise his mind will keep going bad. You know, if you leave a book on a table, untouched for a long time, it will be covered with dust. Same will happen to his mind.”

Ông tells me, while we walk, “Mum is loosing her mind. She didn’t remember Trang’s mother was in the hospital recently.” I ROFLMAO in my mind, but softly smile and nod.

I don’t know if I have said this before—which reminds me, I have considered to implement search here, but I digress—but Jimmy Kimmel is a national treasure.

While I agree that email has its advantages, each medium has its intended use based on the communication’s needs. Choosing email over messaging is like choosing sea over air traveling. After all, we don’t stop talking verbally, and use emails instead, right? Carrying a non-voice conversation that requires instant, or almost instant interaction is impossible via email. Enter messaging.

➝ Via Hacker News.

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.

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?

Nursing homes are sad places. If the elderly has good money, their nursing homes are less sad—but sad nevertheless. For the poor and dispossessed, they can be/are a living hell. When, or if I get to that stage, I wouldn’t want to be in one. I would want to terminate instead.

Yes, alone in our galaxy. No one else but us. All we have is our family, our friends, our neighbours, our fellow citizens, our equal human beings. Why can’t we all get along? Why can’t we care about each other? Seriously.

Pretty hilarious short story of a conversation of two intelligent beings about, well, meat!

“Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?”

This part hit home for me, funny or not. Yes, it is supposed to be funny, yet it is also sad. After closing their case on the Solar System, they decided to visit a “rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence” nearby who, apparently, “wants to be friendly again”. “They always come around”, says one of them. To which the other replies:

“And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone…”

US, that’s us.

I haven’t had this much fun on a Home Owners Association (HOA) meeting in a long while. What’s making it super amussing is that our community manager is so clueless! Like she is moving in slow motion. 😅😂 Bless her heart!

Is it a sign of age using commas? Is it a sign of age using proper capitalisation, and periods ending a sentence? Each time I interact using a text-based medium with anyone younger—with very rare exceptions—I am reminded of having grown older. 😅

Today is one of those few—but they exist, as evidenced—days I feel disappointed, and despaired. Not a good feeling.

Even as we are us, for our entire existence, we change. For better, or for worse, we change. I found myself disagreeing with myself, or realising I no longer think the same way, while going over some of my old blog entries. Because of that I decided to add a disclaimer to some entries that reads:

Disclaimer:
This post is an old one. Overtime, my perspectives evolve, and it may not reflect my current thinking, political affiliation, or position on the topic(s) at hand.

It is not so much that I care what a stranger may think of me because of what I wrote (which I do!), but more for myself. I will not delete the post, but the least I can do is to note that its contents may no longer apply.

The amount of plastic in a lot of everyday things that we eat is staggering. I am freaking out, even though the site one-time banner disclaimer made me click a “Got it, I promise not to freak out” button.

➝ Via Hacker News.

I am having an “existential” dilemma here. First, I have some titles been mentioned in notes (movies, or books, or similar) between double quotes, while some others do not have it. I don’t like that inconsistency. Second, I don’t know which style to pick, and adhere to from now on—which will be the same style I will use to change others retroactively as well. Should I always use double quotes? Should I italise them instead, no double quotes?

See the silly things I drown myself with?

Today, which is coming to an end in roughly three hours, is the Summer Solstice for the Northern hemisphere—where I happen, for better or for worse, to be situated. That means today was the longest day of the year for us. Oh, but still runs at 24 hours, take it or leave it, so, yeah, not really that much meaningful anyway. 🎶 “It comes and goes, it comes and goooooes!” 🎶

One hundred percent, Claudine! In my head, and in my actions, I am more often than not the same kid I remember myself to be. “Youthfulness” is a construct of our minds. Yes, we age mechanically, but that shouldn’t change anything else. Specially because society expects us to behave in a “certain way”, due to age. Pfff!

Around 2002, and for a brief period, I kept a small weblog all handcrafted. Each page was created manually; I copied and pasted quite a bit, and I would make each page have its own uniqueness. I don’t know why I felt nostalgic thinking about it.

I write these notes not expecting interaction. I do it for fun, more often than not to amuse myself. Yet, even as I admit that what I jot here is for my own, it is similar to writing a message in a bottle. The hope (aim?) is that someone will eventually find it, and do with it as they please. 😅😂

Each and everyone of us is the descendent of an immigrant. Those ancestors we don’t know immigrated multiple times, many of them, for sure, illegally. And yet, here we are.

From “Fallout” comes this nugget of “wisdom”. It’s true, though, time is the apex predator. Now, about outliving… that’s the challenge. No one can outlive time.

“What is the ultimate weapon of mass destruction? Time. Time is the apex predator. And in the event of an incident, time is the weapon with which we will defeat all of our enemies. That is how we will win the great game of capitalism. Not by outfighting anyone, but by outliving them.”

I don’t use profanities, but allow me, please, this time. “I don’t give a fuck”, “I don’t have fucks left to give”, etc., is used to utterly mean, I don’t care, right? I have found, though, another meaning for it.

“I don’t have fucks left to give” says that I am, absolutely, not going to let any stressful situation bring me worry, or take away my peace of mind. I am, still, giving a fuck about it, and will act to the best of my knowledge—and expediently—to resolve it, and bring it to closure.

Bottomline, because “I give a fuck”, “I have zero fucks left to give”. Do I make sense? 😅

Reading Alice Barlett’s weekly note earlier today, in which a daughter tells her father “Daddy, you are the man I love the most”, reminded me when the girl once told me too “Papá, I want to marry someone like you”, just around the same age as “E”. It made me feel so appreciated, and loved! I will never forget it.

“We haul your trash and your junk!” reads a sign that I have seen around the city. The local government does pick up regular (household) trash, and large junk (mattresses, televisions, refrigerators, etc.) once a week. That’s included in the $21.68 every household pays monthly through the City Utilities Commission.

For major house renovations, a dump bucket of many sizes can also be rented, usually by those doing the work. Who would have so much rubbish that businesses could be formed to cater to that need?

I am also left thinking: where would that business dump their haul? Unhealthy thoughts come to my mind. Call me a cynic.

I get the automated message from Kim. The same I get each week day morning: “Good morning ❤️! ☕ please 🙏🏻” I know it’s 07:30. Next I know, and I kid you not, I get the second reminder tone about the same message. Two minutes have passed by. What’s going on?! I felt I just blinked, and two minutes passed. Something’s broken.

The most precious and valuable thing one can have is good health. Everything depends on it, nothing else truly matters. It might sound like an extreme, but if you don’t believe me now one day you will.

This, from the Punkist, summarises how we—humankind—are no different at all, in the various stages of what’s considered, more or less, modern times. I slightly formatted it for legibility.

We are definitely different from the bad people in history.

The immoral fools tricked by Hitler into saluting the iron cross and casting their votes in favour of genocide, the spiritually corrupt slave traders of the colonies in Africa, the Europeans pillaging and raping (culturally and literally) the indigenous people of the “new worlds” of America, Australia, etc; the brilliant geniuses talked into developing the atom bomb, the monsters who then dropped those bombs over Japan in the name of peace.

We are definitely different from them.

The most efficient systematic slaughter of sentient beings the planet has ever seen, the complete indifference to the ecocide required for our day-to-day lives, the endless belief in infinite growth on a finite planet, the quantification of all that is sacred into mere resources and business opportunities, the utter carelessness toward the world our children will inherit. All this we manage to stand for in the name of progress and humankind’s superiority over all others.

No, we are definitely different.

We are worse.

After finding a font I liked online today, and checking which one was it, and downloading it, and saving it to my “fonts” directory all neatly organised with the rest of them—which is something I often do—I had an existential thought. “Why am I doing this?” Will anyone “inheriting” my collection care about them like I did?

I often find myself second guessing what I do, or a direction/decision I am heading/taking by simply going over and over my thoughts on the meaning of life. Latent depression?

Everything in life can be a waste of time. Waste of time is a philosophical expression.