A private company labeling falsehoods as such is not a violation of the first amendment. A government action to punish the company for doing so would be.
Tag: TODO: Blog Idea
Birb, or serious bird? What a difference a few seconds makes!
Birb, or serious bird? What a difference a few seconds makes!
Palm under Fence
covid-adjacent/groceries
Did a mid-day trip to the grocery store. Managed to find almost everything I needed, or a reasonable substitute. Most food (except flour) seems to be either back in stock at a normal level or at the point where stock is low, rather than completely out.
The things I couldn’t find at all, or could only find a handful of one brand/variety, were mainly cleaning supplies — and flour, despite the bread aisle being full again.
This is sorta near Los Angeles. No idea what grocery stock is anywhere else. Or even in different parts of town.
I was really expecting it to be worse based on my last two grocery runs (2 weeks ago and 4 weeks ago) and the inventory I’ve found online.
They even had toilet paper. Yeah, it was only 2 sizes taking up about 1/4 of the usual shelf space and a limit of 1 per customer, but it didn’t look like they were going to run out by the time I got to checkout.
A month ago the same store offered, I kid you not, 1 roll per customer for 99 cents while supplies lasted.
covid-adjacent/passports
Still sorta kicking myself for not mailing my passport renewal as soon as I got over the flu (it’s been on my desk since literally the day the flu hit me), but it’s not like I’m going to be traveling internationally for a while anyway.
At least I got my driver’s license renewed before all this hit.
US stops processing passports except for emergencies
They’ve postponed the RealId deadline to October 2021, so that’s something at least.
Funny thing is I would’ve sent my passport renewal in sooner if I hadn’t been waiting for my driver’s license to show up first.
So tired of text-based communication systems that use email purely as a notification and not …
So tired of text-based communication systems that use email purely as a notification and not as an actual communication system.
I have a message from the kid’s teacher that I can’t read because the app isn’t working, but if the system had just included it in the “you have a message!” email, I would know what it was.
Email is a tried and true communication system. It should be used as a backup channel, not just an advertisement.
This is a weird combination of trending searches on Target today.
Switching from a wireless keyboard to a wired one for my WFH setup has made …
Switching from a wireless keyboard to a wired one for my WFH setup has made a huge difference.
I can get used to the windows/mac key labels being wrong. But the fact that it kept dropping/duplicating letters & cutting out entirely from time to time was seriously annoying.
I mean, yeah, I get it, it was a whole foot from the transmitter, who would expect it to be stable at that distance, right? 🙄
I “spotted” some Pokemon in their natural environments while hiking today
I’m always torn between trying to contribute to making my corner of Twitter better and just staying away from the dumpster fire. And between trying to ignore the train wreck and making sure I stay informed about it. This is part of why I’m not as active here as I could be.
I’m always torn between trying to contribute to making my corner of Twitter better and just staying away from the dumpster fire.
And between trying to ignore the train wreck and making sure I stay informed about it.
This is part of why I’m not as active here as I could be.
There’s a definite element of absurdity in Duolingo’s German lessons.
I always find it interesting when a language reveals or clarifies connections between two others….
I always find it interesting when a language reveals or clarifies connections between two others.
Like, it’s not obvious at first glance that cheese and queso are related, but if you also know Käse, they’re clearly all the same word.
Similarly, I could never see the connection between John & Ivan, until I realized that if you write Juan in all-caps ancient Roman chiseled stone style, it comes out as IVAN. (I know that’s not how it happened, but it makes the connection clearer.)
#linguistics
I’ve never understood the mindset that thinks taxes are more invasive than, say, eavesdropping on your communications, deporting you for a years-old traffic violation, shooting you for jaywalking, or locking up your kids because you fled a war-torn country to seek asylum.
I’ve never understood the mindset that thinks taxes are more invasive than, say, eavesdropping on your communications, deporting you for a years-old traffic violation, shooting you for jaywalking, or locking up your kids because you fled a war-torn country to seek asylum.
You know that game UI thing where a glow or ring will highlight something…
You know that game UI thing where a glow or ring will highlight something you can (or should) interact with?
I just read a chapter of a book where a character’s visual migraine aura does that. It doesn’t seem to have happened before, but he just sort of takes it in stride.
(It would be nice if mine worked that way.)
By “takes it in stride,” of course, I mean he figures wow, that’s really useful, now I need to lie down until the flashing lights move out of view and I can actually see clearly again, instead of “WTF HOW IS MY VISUAL MIGRAINE TALKING TO ME?????”
In response to someone asking which book:
The Secret Commonwealth, by Philip Pullman. It’s the middle book in the sequel trilogy he’s writing to His Dark Materials. The character is one who was introduced in the previous book. He makes a comparison between the lights of the migraine aura and the lights of the Aurora borealis, which I expect is going to turn out to be important eventually.
At the time I read an article where Pullman mentions getting them himself, and decided to use the idea with one of his characters.
At the time the first book was out, I mean.
Best Buy has a demo unit of the Samsung Galaxy Fold under a cylindrical glass …
Best Buy has a demo unit of the Samsung Galaxy Fold under a cylindrical glass display case. It’s like the rose in Beauty and the Beast.
I was really surprised when the salesperson offered to unlock the case and let the kid try it out. 😬
Creepy etymology
Somehow – probably because I learned the word sarcophagus long before I learned much in the way of Latin/Greek suffixes or prefixes – it never occurred to me that it literally means “flesh eater”
Apparently Pliny the Elder thought limestone dissolved bodies and was well-suited for stone coffins:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sarcophagus
Two squirrels spotted on a hike last weekend: The good photos, and the two-seconds-later photos….
Two #squirrels spotted on a hike last weekend: The good photos, and the two-seconds-later photos.
The first one took a while for me to spot inside the bush (though I could hear it), and then it started chowing down on the berries.
The second one looked like it was checking both ways before crossing the street, and then it took off in a blur. So maybe it was.
Yep. a tumbleweed (sorry, a Russian Thistle) bigger than my car.
Yep. a #tumbleweed (sorry, a Russian Thistle) bigger than my car.
Yeah, I’ve experienced this myself. When driving in areas I know, I can ignore the …
Yeah, I’ve experienced this myself. When driving in areas I know, I can ignore the directions sending me and a zillion other cars onto the tiny residential streets with the blind corner, but there have been times when I was going somewhere unfamiliar with a deadline and I trusted the directions, only to find myself in a massive traffic jam on a street that just wasn’t made for the volume.
Your Navigation App Is Making Traffic Unmanageable – IEEE Spectrum
https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/your-navigation-app-is-making-traffic-unmanageable
Apparently their neighbors reported them for renting it out as Airbnb or similar (which the …
Apparently their neighbors reported them for renting it out as Airbnb or similar (which the city doesn’t allow). Then they painted the house bright pink with giant 😜 and 🤐 emoji on it. Now the neighbors are complaining about the mural, but the city says it’s on private property 🤷♂️
Honestly I’m surprised – it sounds like the kind of area that would mandate specific shades of beige paint.
(LA Times, paywall)
‘Emoji house’ feud erupts as frustrated residents urge Manhattan Beach to take action.
#EmojiHouse #weird #LosAngeles #California
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(conversation includes link to The Guardian article) It made international headlines?
@OldBrushNewPaper It made international headlines?
Oh, of course it did. It’s a weird story with emoji. 🤦♂️ 😂
@OldBrushNewPaper It’s not really the kind of area where people would respond with better murals, though. I could see that happening in neighboring Hermosa Beach, but Manhattan Beach is…how should I say this…stuffier?
—
Wow, I should have gone looking for the Easy Reader to begin with. (It’s one of the two local papers in the area.) The owner comes off a *lot* worse with the additional background of how she allegedly treated the last long-term tenants.
The Emoji House war: A neighborhood feud erupts in El Porto
Susan Wieland had been away for a work conference since the end of May, but neighbors sent her the photo. Even so, upon returning to her home in the El Porto neighborhood of Manhattan Beach on the night of June 8, she wept when she actually saw her neighbor’s house. The house, a two-level…– Easy Reader News
