< Notes...

Thomas Dambo’s trolls—and his other creations—come across as other-worldly. His entire works collection is simply too amazing not to note. Makes me wish there were more trolls in our world, don’t you agree? Kind of “have trolls, no war”.

Well, this is something you don’t see everyday day, from left to right: Mark Russinovich, Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds, and David Cutler. Bill and Linus meeting in person, and making it to the same photo. Yeah, a first?

The Baroque period produced some of the greatest artists humankind has ever seen. I recently came across “The Abduction of Proserpina” on Kottke. Although I saw it with my own eyes, I couldn’t help but feeling, again, amazed and awestruck by the artist incredible skills that make this cold marble so lifelike.

I have not mentioned Headscale before, even though I use it every day. I have my iPhone (on demand), my Mac, my Linux laptop (on demand), and my two VPS connected to it. Headscale is an open source, self-hosted implementation of the Tailscale control server. You can use the Tailscale client—which is available for all platforms—to connect to it. It is amazing, and worthy—at the very minimum—of a star on its GitHub repository.

“Less Wrong” sure is an interesting place. For the untrained—like me—it is hard to grasp, as its navigation, and method of engagement, are fairly unique.

“LessWrong is an online forum and community dedicated to improving human reasoning and decision-making. We seek to hold true beliefs and to be effective at accomplishing our goals. Each day, we aim to be less wrong about the world than the day before.”

The sheer power of a tornado in Kansas, filmed by a drone in 2022. Simply incredible. “No lives were lost as a result of this EF3 tornado, despite immense damage and nearly 1,000 structures impacted”.

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.

Came across this thought, which ended up being a partial quote by Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, which I liked quite a bit once I found it whole.

“If I am I, because you are you, and you are you, because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you. But if I am I because I am I, and you are you because you are you, then I am I and you are you, and we can talk.”

➝ Via Loon thoughts.

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. 😅

On the U.S. suing Apple on iPhone’s monopoly (is that even a thing?!), a comment on The New York Times:

“I bought, own and use an iPhone from Apple because I like it. I like that Apple creates what I think is a safer environment, and that my data is better protected. I like how smoothly it works. In fact, I’m ecstatically happy with it. Much more than I am with most products I purchase and use.

I am looking at cars, and find that there are tech products that use proprietary technology and require subscriptions. Tesla will charge me to activate an auto garage door opener that’s already installed in their $50,000 car. BMW wants me to pay a subscription to use a heated seat that I’d buy (and own) with the car.

I suppose I don’t have to buy a Tesla or BMW (and I’m not). People also don’t have to buy an iPhone.

For those who want them, don’t wreck the features we buy it for. That seems the antithesis of a competitive market.”

This blog post about making vegetable stock from scratch at home—that is, not at an enterprise scale—had me at the first paragraph:

“After learning how to season food correctly, homemade stock is the single best thing anyone can do for his cooking. A stock is a liquid extraction of complementary flavors, a broad palette upon which sharper splashes of color may be painted.”

This guy, Linus, he is some sort of a genius. He truly is! No, he isn’t Torvalds—though that Linus is also a genius. I mean, look how prolific he is! And he sure does write, at length. But don’t take my word for it, just go check it out. Oh, and he composes music, and does art, I mean… is there something he doesn’t do?!

Now, what brought me here today was his “short” notes, which he describes as “brief memos on ideas, musings, inspirations”. Pfff, Linus, mate, I admire you a lot. You don’t know me, but I do. Now, let me tell you something: you can’t write “brief” anything. Well, almost.

Slightly enhanced (I think) version of the original marquee fish tank.

Because I found it, and liked it enough to mention here:

“The night gardener once asked me if I knew how citrus trees died: when they reach old age, if they are not cut down and they manage to survive drought, disease and innumerable attacks of pests, fungi and plagues, they succumb from overabundance. When they come to the end of their life cycle, they put out a final, massive crop of lemons. In their last spring their flowers bud and blossom in enormous bunches and fill the air with a smell so sweet that it stings your nostrils from two blocks away; then their fruits ripen all at once, whole limbs break off due to their excessive weight, and after a few weeks the ground is covered with rotting lemons. It is a strange sight, he said, to see such exuberance before death.”

➝ Via Stress Free Zone.

A Bay woman on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted. Or any other reviews, matter of fact.

Having such a lazy Sunday! Reading blogs, listening to Twitch. Talking about blogs, I am currently only following three:

• Claud Thoughts.
• Mu-an Chiou.
• Veronique, vmb.

After many years of following tech related blogs I grew tired of just that. It is refreshing to read things on a wider variety of topics, where tech might be in it, but not the main topic. If you have any recommendation, let me know! You can use the “@” next to the note time for that.

“This communication contains confidential, commercially sensitive information and is intended for the use of the addressee only. It should not be forwarded, copied, or otherwise disseminated without the express permission of the sender. If you received this communication in error, please forward it back to the sender and delete all copies.”

I always laugh at the stupidity of this.

Because I needed to hurt myself a little bit today…

Not long ago I found someone’s Notion’s site. Notion allows you to publish your notes on the web, and create a rather homogeneous site. That person’s site was very interesting and, following the web fashion, I went from person to person—all of them on Notion—reading their daily stories, their journals. True journals. It was so interesting! Then I lost track—you know, you close tabs, you stop for a while, and then it is all gone. I have been longing to find them again ever since. I have searched, follow links leading no where, to my despair. I still haven’t lost hope, though.

It was recently on the news that the IRS is building his own online tax filing system. A spokesman—from the company behind TurboTax—reply was simply unbelievable:

“A direct-to-IRS e-file system is wholly redundant and is nothing more than a solution in search of a problem,” said Rick Heineman, a spokesman for Intuit, the company behind TurboTax. “That solution will unnecessarily cost taxpayers billions of dollars and especially harm the most vulnerable Americans.”

As a commenter on Hacker News paraphrased:

“A fence around the chicken coop is wholly redundant and is nothing more than a solution in search of a problem,” said Sly the Fox. “It will unnecessarily cost the farmer thousands of dollars and especially harm the most vulnerable chickens.”

For someone who loves rice, this is suffering. LOL. I love it, but doing my best not to have it. Rice = carbohydrates = sugar. ¡Malo!

Referring to Mormons recruited into the FBI:

“The disproportionate number of Mormons is usually chalked up to three factors: Mormon people often have strong foreign language skills, from missions overseas; a relatively easy time getting security clearances, given their abstention from drugs and alcohol; and a willingness to serve.” — Why Mormons Make Great FBI Recruits

Willingness to serve is right. A rather blind willingness. Perfect!