yesterday was the second round of the Brazilian presidential elections, and in a historic moment, ★ Lula was re-elected ★. this was the first time the first-round runner-up was elected in the second round. and it took SO F* MUCH to get here. for the last three weeks, Brazilians all around the globe fought, protested, and called out lies and fake news, meta (aka facebook) and trump were intervening, some of our people were even killed by other citizens for their political ideology. which is…

It’s been interesting to watch coverage of the new iPhone Duo. Regardless of how you feel about the device it is certainly something different and I dare say exciting to talk about. I haven’t seen or fondled the device in person as of yet. I’m planning a trip to a local Apple Store at some point early this week to see and touch it for myself. I’m sure my reactions will be similar to most. It’s a cool new piece of tech that has some first generation issues. Regardless of how that visit pans out,…

#coffeeneuring2026 No. 4; 6.6km round-trip Down in the centro, there are two bars of great note, and everyone has a strong preference for one or the other. No clear winner. Me, I prefer Sant Eustachio. Maybe it’s because I was introduced to it by my lost Italian friend, who would take dessert here after a late dinner downtown, a large espresso with a marron glacé, the sweet and the bitter offsetting one another perfectly provided, of course, that you remember to order your coffee amaro,…

This past weekend, my daughter asked me how I choose who to vote for in an election so I told her my three rules: Do not vote for someone who wants to take someone else’s vote away. Vote for those who aim to provide people with care and kindness. Vote for someone who talks about a bright future. I wish more people followed these rules.

Taleb is back with another round of “AI cope:” Two weeks ago I wrote that predictions of widespread AI job loss often amount to a coping mechanism. His tweets can be interpreted in two ways: as what he thinks will happen, but also as what he wants to happen. A lot of people want to see an AI crisis, a bubble, or the obsolescence of white-collar jobs (including math and high-status academic jobs) in order to reconcile themselves to their own mediocrity. The cognitive dissonance is especially…

the other day i tried a guided meditation vel tarot reading from jenna matlin's "tarot book of the dead". i only have the sample of the book but the experience was positively surprising, it's making me want to read more. sidebar: the book does suffer from a pet-peeve of mine, where an author jumps on a theory they're excited about without even mentioning the (i thought?) established, mainstream understanding first, and just presenting Their Thing as the Obvious Real Thing. ok, pop culture…

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been taking the opportunity I have right now to software-test my nervous system. In particular, I’ve been examining the ways to pull myself back toward focus; whether due to the ADHD or the overstimulation, I need effective tools to start getting my brain back and nervous system back to where I want it to be, rather than where it ends up on its own. One of the more effective tools is the playlist. This, in itself, is not a new realization. It’s a tried and true…

The third of the three Ramen Bae new ramen offerings. This, of course, is a take on the popular variants in the ultra spicy space from South Korea. Curious how it will stack up – let’s find out. Ramen Bae Korean Spicy Artificial Chicken Flavor Protein Ramen Stir Fry – United States Detail of the packaging (click to enlarge). Looks to be meat free but check for yourself. To prepare, boil noodle for 6~7 minutes. Drain. Add in sachet contents. Finally, stir and enjoy! A six pack box . Detail of…

The City of Poway has a public Facebook page. Jalisi has been a critic of the city government, and he made critical posts on the city’s Facebook page. He claims that his posts were hidden or shadowbanned there. The City of Poway used the Meta Moderation Assist for its page. It flagged Jalisi’s posts as bot postings because “Plaintiff does not have a profile picture, has only one Facebook friend, and has no posts on his own profile.” The court says the deployment of Meta Moderation Assist isn’t…

It's been almost another month since I last posted... As mentioned in my previous post, this has largely been due to the busyness that comes with the start of the academic year (which despite all our planning always comes up against some kind of unexpected challenge). I've got a big project I'm working on too that unfortunately isn't going quite as well as I would like - due to the aforementioned problems - and by the time I reach the end of the day I'm just too mentally tired to do the work…

Another shoe has dropped. Canadian-Haitian author Thélyson Orélien is accused of using Artificial Intelligence in early versions of the manuscript of his prize-winning novel C’était ça ou mourir, (It was either that or die). Montreal publisher, Les Éditions du Boréal, has been working with the author to deal with the accusation of AI use which was raised on September 21st in an anonymous post on the site Balance ton Claude. The publisher’s statement, issued on October 21st, announces the…

This week’s newsletter from Culture.pl contains several articles about Poland’s connections with Asia. Here are some excerpts (minus photos) from Harbin: A Polish City in China by Anna Cymer (2021), which utilises material from Edward Kajdański’s article ‘The Role of Poles in the Construction and Organisation of the East China Railway: The Memoirs of Engineer Stefan Offenberg’ published in Gdańsk East Asian Studies in 2016. In the 1890s, Russia committed itself to a major investment: the…

There’s a lot to miss about Arc (RIP), but the feature I miss the most has got to be automatic picture-in-picture. You start a video and when you change tabs to jump to another task, the video anchored itself to the corner of your desktop. Go back to the video tab and it slurps up into the video player area. A perfect experience with no interruption. I switched back to Edge (for work) and missed Auto-PiP a lot. I tried building a custom browser extension to restore the functionality myself but…

Looks like it will be another one of those daily press release kind of week from Apple… The new iPad mini has been announced. It has a bigger screen with a thinner bezel. It has a faster chip, and a even faster chip at higher price. It is rated IP67 for water and dust resistance. Oh, and the starting price is more expensive than ever. (Not accounting for inflation, though.) And, once again, I wish there is a version of the iPad mini that is just like the regular iPad, just with a smaller screen…

My Mac apps, terminal tools, and software I run at home.

Thanks to the generosity of my lovely friends, I came into possession of not just a pen tablet but also a one-year subscription of Clip Studio Paint. While my friends have been sweet about this, sending it without any expectation that I would make use of it (more a "it's there if you feel like trying your hands at doing it"), I have been plagued by the thoughts that I really ought to start learning digital art. While I can, you know? Afterall, the subscription does not last forever. And I…

A pastiche of examples of art by women that I really admire, and some thoughts about why I now find most art by women to be more interesting than most art produced by men. This is #58 in a series of month-end reflections on the state of the world, and other things that come to mind, as I walk and hike in my local community. “horses”, acrylic on 3D papier maché (though it looks exactly like real stone), by Anne Shabason, Caledon, Ontario, from my own collection “Women artists are still treated…

I'm sure everyone is already doing this, but I've just discovered: git config --global branch.sort -committerdate Now, `git branch` sorts my branches by last commit date, most recent first. To reset: git config --global --unset branch.sort

Google has changed an important rule in its terms regarding the use of user content stored in Drive, Photos, and Gmail. Until October 16th, the document stated: We don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Photos. The new terms extend that passage with some strings attached: We don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Google Photos, unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that…

This past Saturday I sat through a session of D&D that was the least fun I've ever had. It was fine the first half of the four hour session, but the second half was dismally unfun and my entire drive home afterwards I was near tears because of how unfun it was. We're playing a pre-made campaign, The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, I'm having a lot of fun with my character (an Echo Knight Fighter), and the DM is great at what he does. But as I've been thinking about why I had such a bad reaction to…

There are so many little things I’ve been grateful for this past week, not least: The OH. They keep me calm and even tempered, for the most part, when stress levels rise to the point I want to punch someone. Walking. Without which, again, my stress levels might be a tad on the wrong side of high. Thankfully, I find a sense of peace and calm in playing ‘Hamster’ as the OH calls it, as I walk my mini circuits in the apartment or, out in the local park. Round and round. All that’s mising is the…

It’s simple. When someone tells you about what they’re working on, or what they want to do, you say: “I believe in you.” Here are other things you can say: “When someone works as hard as you do, something good is gonna happen.” “Of course it’s gonna work! You can do this.” “We’ll figure it out together.” “How hard can it be?” “Somebody’s going to succeed. Why not you?” “I know you can do it.” You are reminding them of their worth in a time when they can’t see it. This gift is priceless, so you…

I went through my autumn images one more time and found more to process. This is my 5th post of the season with a total of 49 images posted. I always work harder in the fall! I hope you enjoy seeing what autumn looks like in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. By the way, once on … Continue reading A Colorful End

This week was dominated by back pain Tuesday and Wednesday, dissipating slightly by Thursday. My personal trainer suggested my hips were out of alignment, which makes sense because when we started our workout (which focuses on the hips), my back felt the loosest it had been throughout the day. So of course when I went home and sat horribly I re-aggravated the pain. But as I adjusted through the rest of Thursday it got better. Still bugging me today, but it doesn't hurt to sit properly1. It was…

In our Renaissance Philanthropy-funded project Copilots for Isabelle, we develop methods and tools that allow AI agents to conveniently interface with Isabelle. One major outcome of the project so far is Kevin Kappelmann’s PIDE MCP component1, which presents AI agents with a live view of Isabelle much like we human users have it through Isabelle/jEdit. I am trying to keep Claude entertained through ((semi-)auto-)formalization case studies using this tool; this was also the goal for my summer…

Readers in the City of Kawartha Lakes - if you haven't done so yet, today is your last day to vote in the municipal election! Voting opened on October 16, so I'm sure many of you have already done your civic duty, but for those who may have been undecided - you are quickly running out of time. Polls close at 8 pm tonight. I won't tell you who to vote for; that's up to you. I will say that this blog - spanning the last three years (plus!) of Bill & Co.'s fuckery, should give you a pretty good…

(LLM used to help organize and translate this post) Why I had backups, but I had never proven that I could get from a dead disk back to a working laptop. Every night restic sends my data and configuration to Backblaze B2, and a healthcheck tells me when something is stale. A backup you have never restored is an assumption. And the data is only part of the problem. After a failure I would have to remember the disk layout, the encryption setup, the package list, which files in /etc matter, and…

The poster for Creature of the Pines (dirs. Chris Ruppert & Tyler Transue, 2026), prominently features red string. ▲ Creature of the Pines (dirs. Chris Ruppert & Tyler Transue, 2026) ▲ Creature of the Pines (dirs. Chris Ruppert & Tyler Transue, 2026)

A week ago, in a post (here), I noted that my water line had broken. The other day, I remembered that I took these photos of the break. The top one shows the tangle of vegetation the water line runs through. The second gives a better view of the break.