• Loading dishwashers properly requires an official government license and a test.
• Putting a flat plate in front of a bowl means a year of hard labor.
• Loading any of the good kitchen knives is an automatic 10 years.

An old, dear friend and his family are in town to drop off his daughter at graduate school. Reconnected with him back in April when I visited his side of the country. Looking forward to having them over and introducing them to my own family.

My kid swears by train-crossing channels on YT.

We spent the whole day cleaning my elderly mom’s plant-filled patio. Pressure-washed, repotted, and pruned everything. Even got the little cherub fountain working.

Before podcasts, there used to be RSS readers. They let you quickly subscribe and scan a lot of blogs and catch up on latest posts. Flipboard started as a fancy mobile app version, with access to articles from mainstream news providers.

It’s grown and changed a lot, but it’s essentially a quick way to scan for interesting daily news.

They’ve now added ways to subscribe and catch up on Fediverse sources like Mastodon (and soon, Lemmy).

The CEO has a podcast called Dot Social where he talks to people about how this Fediverse stuff all fits together: https://dot-social.simplecast.com/

You’ve been using cheap cables.

Next step up is a JCAT: https://audiobacon.net/2019/11/02/the-jcat-signature-lan-a-1000-ethernet-cable/amp/

/s if not obvious.

Making spaghetti for the first time, in my first apartment. Then realized I had made enough for four people for a week, aaaaand the feeling passed.

Wondering about the cost. Hardcore USB test/analysis devices can hit 4-5-digit $$$. If this hits $50, it’ll clean up. But I have a feeling it’ll be on the high end.

If you were to design a government system from scrstch, knowing what you see now, where would you place a Supreme Court?

• Monty Python and the Holy Grail
• The Big Lebowski
• Inception

Edit: Can’t believe I left these out:

• High Fidelity
• Princess Bride

Sounds similar to what happened to the refugees Australia kept on Manus Island: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/19/opinions/australia-manus-refugee-opinion-intl/index.html

The main reason a lot of people still stick around Twitter is because the journalists are there. If Mastodon goes down this path and adds more features to help news organizations and individual reporters, the more likely people will move over.

Kids, always have a trade you can fall back on.

I just met someone who was going through the same question. They decided to take a two-year course and become a Physical Therapist, focusing on the elderly.

Said options were working with a medical group, at a nursing home, visiting people at home, or opening an office. Maybe a combination.

Their thinking was there was no way to get ‘disrupted’ and there would be endless demand. Made a lot of sense.

Chocolate Stout beer and a scoop of vanilla ice cream (gently lowered – otherwise it’s all foam gushing about).

I take no credit. A deadhead, traveling beer blogger in a Winnebago (how he described himself) told me about it years ago.

Beer float.

If my grade school art teacher was correct, they could take some red cranberry juice and add some yellow lemon juice to get the same result.

A lot of Amazon used book sales go through Powells or AbeBooks.

Could just go direct.

One of the things they glided around was whether a lot of this on-device stuff needs a special processor chip with AI+security to work?

The Pixel phones (especially newer ones) made by Google have them, but the vast majority of Android phones don’t.

So either these features only work on latest Google phones (which will piss off licensees and partners), or they’re using plain old CPU/GPUs to do this sort of detection, in which case it will be sniffable by malicious third-parties.

And let’s not forget that if the phone can listen to your conversation to detect malicious intent, any country can legally compel Google to provide them with the data by claiming it is part of a law-enforcement investigation.

Things are going to get spicy in Android-land.

Jarkey: https://www.amazon.com/JarKey-Jar-Opener-Original-Solid/dp/B01MSLKIVB/

and

Jar opener: https://www.amazon.com/Suffering-Arthritis-Strength-Non-Slip-Heavy-Duty/dp/B07QVWJ6VN/

Handy to open tightly sealed jars. However, both snapped off after years of use, and this reminds me I should really get a replacement.

That’s probably a low figure. The PM and his wife’s multiple homes were raided in 2018: https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/dozens-of-hermes-birkin-bags-and-other-items-seized-from-najib-linked-apartment

Jho Low, one of the key figures behind the 1MDB scandal (supposed contributor to the PM’s funds) is said to have funneled even more, investing in Hollywood movies and dating actresses and supermodels. He is still a fugitive. There’s a fascinating book on the whole thing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion_Dollar_Whale