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1) "Bloomberg found that in areas near significant data center activity, wholesale electricity prices rose as much as 267% in a single month. After analyzing 25,000 “grid nodes” they found that more than 70% of those showing price increases were located within 50 miles of data center activity. With data centers forecast to account for 9% of all US power demand by 2035, the reporters said the “unprecedented granularity” of their data showed what is at stake for those living nearby this AI infrastructure."

Another data research story looked into climate change conspiracies, revealing "that hashtags were predominantly pushed by accounts with ties to oil interests in Gulf states and uncovered a coordinated effort to amplify climate conspiracy narratives through networks of automated and semi-automated accounts."

2) Been watching Celebrity Name That Tune and recently Christian Siriano was on it. In some ways this was the funniest one because neither he nor the other person were any good at identifying songs. By the second round they were tied and they ended up going through 4 tie breakers before he finally got one so that he could go on to the third round. Jane Krakowski ended up sitting down on stage while they went through song after song.

3) It's always great to celebrate new content in the public domain. It's still too little but major characters and works are now there, including Poirot and Miss Marple, Nancy Drew, Lord Peter Wimsey, various cartoons, art and music.

4) Cementing its reputation as worst company ever, Meta created ‘playbook’ to fend off government pressure to crack down on scammers. This includes making "scam ads “not findable” when authorities search for them."

5) Amid so many retail closures and the growth of audiobook sales, bookstores were growing in 2025. "This year, 422 newly opened stores joined the American Booksellers Association — nearly a hundred more than joined last year. Barnes & Noble added 55 stores around the country and Books-A-Million added 18. By comparison, Books-A-Million opened seven new stores in 2024.Genre-specific bookshops are also thriving." This even though 40% of Americans read no books at all. However "Only 14% of Americans say they prefer to read digital books, but these are some of the country’s heaviest readers. 13% of them say they read 50 or more books in 2025, compared to 4% of those who prefer physical books and 5% of those who prefer audiobooks."

1) In another sign of AI run amok, I do the AARP Trivia quiz each day. I swear they have delegated its creation to AI. There have often been errors in the past, usually spelling ones, though sometimes also offering the same answer twice (out of 4 choices) -- which if it happens to be the right answer means you have a 50/50 chance of being wrong even when you're right.

Last weekend there were two. An "explainer" or "further info" box usually pops up after you finish a question. One of them just said "nar."But my favorite was the question "What is the name of dish where beef is cooked in wine." The answer? Coq au Vin. To boot the explainer mentioned that though the name meant rooster it was often made with chicken. Which is, as we know, beef. ( Read more... )

2) This is the first I've heard that Friday Night Lights is getting a sequel, or maybe a reboot depending on how you look at it.

3) Back in October my Garmin tracker just stopped working as I was biking. It didn't do anything the rest of the day and I figured its (unchargeable) battery was dying, since it was guaranteed for a year and it was almost exactly that. Since Garmin seems to be moving away from selling trackers, I decided to try a Fitbit as my partner was satisfied with his. However the next day, the Garmin was working again, so I hadn't opened or set up the Fitbit yet.

Cut to last weekend when it went out again while I was exercising. The Garmin came back after an hour but I'm suspecting that the battery is dying and so it's particularly stressed during continuous activity. It's probably been cutting out for some time, as I've noticed odd differences in step reports during days that are functionally the same.

Skipping over all the things I already don't like about the Fitbit, I decided to start using it alongside the Garmin. The first morning, before I even started exercising, there was already a 200 step difference between what the Fitbit showed and what the Garmin reported. ( Read more... )

3) Saw the last Mission Impossible movie and have to say I was pretty unimpressed. Of course, they were never my favorites to start with. I thought I'd done a review of an earlier film but if so, I can't find it. So this will have to do. ( Read more... )

4) As if people who need groceries delivered (likely those with disabilities or lack of transport) weren't already paying more, now there's dynamic food pricing in action. "hundreds of volunteers shopped on Instacart for identical baskets of goods from Safeway and Target. Of the 437 participants, every single one was exposed to algorithmic price experiments, according to the report. The investigation also found evidence of price experimentation at Albertsons, Costco, Kroger and Sprouts Farmers Market." " All told, the price variations could cost families $1,200 a year, based on how much Instacart says the typical household of four spends on groceries."

"Customers were also shown different "original" prices, making some savings appear larger, the report found, a concept known as "fictitious pricing." Amazon was sued this October for allegedly using this tactic during its summer Prime Day sale."

Also a shout out to Consumer Reports for being one of the few sources that can be counted on in this time of media greed, kowtowing, and chasing squirrels.

5) While I've noticed my grocery has these errors all the time, perhaps they're just a new business practice. The attorney general's office said its investigation revealed that during 2019 and 2023, Dollar General failed more than 40 percent of pricing accuracy inspections.

"The settlement also requires Dollar General to modify its business practices to prevent future violations of Pennsylvania's consumer protection law, the attorney general's office said. The changes include training employees, maintaining enough staffing to update shelf tags weekly and posting notices at registers saying the lowest posted price will be honored." "We are hopeful the corporation takes this settlement very seriously as Pennsylvanians expect to pay the price that is on stickers and labels.""

1) Saw the One to One: John and Yoko documentary. It was, I thought, a clever way of creating one with very little new footage or audio recordings. It focuses on a 2 year period where they are in a small apartment in the Village and basically drops in bits about the two within a larger documentary weaving pop culture and political activity clips as if switching TV channels. ( Read more... )

2) Disney+ to Allow User-Generated Content Via AI. It's hard for me to imagine how this could possibly work. The only thing I can figure is that they plan to use a version of AI that is more like a choose your own adventure option, than something open to user input.

In other AI news however: "A staggering 97% of listeners cannot distinguish between artificial intelligence-generated and human-composed songs...underscoring growing concerns that AI could upend how music is created, consumed and monetized.

The findings of the survey, for which Ipsos polled 9,000 participants across eight countries, including the U.S., Britain and France...found that 73% of respondents supported disclosure when AI-generated tracks are recommended, 45% sought filtering options, and 40% said they would skip AI-generated songs entirely. Around 71% expressed surprise at their inability to distinguish between human-made and synthetic tracks." ( Read more... )

3) Big Tech banks on our laziness."Like any new technology, AI is a natural threat to these businesses, whose basic technology is already decades old. There’s a very real threat that a newcomer like OpenAI could mount a successful challenge to Google Search or Amazon Web Services. Yet, ingeniously, the platforms may manage to ward off AI challengers by using AI themselves to reinforce their dominance, protecting monopoly positions and justifying their large investments. Doing so depends, more than anything, on using AI to further increase our dependence and that sense of couchlock....( Read more... )

4) Webtoon Entertainment Inc. is partnering with Walt Disney to bring Star Wars and Marvel comics to Webtoon's English platform and with Warner Bros. Animation to co-produce animated series for global distribution.

5) Although this article focused on how many people want to listen to music made with AI, it was rather an interesting picture painted of how people consume music at all, what they know about artist pay, and what sorts of music related things they're willing to spend money on.

One thing I found personally interesting is that they either were not asked or did not respond, that a main way to encounter new music was via TV or movies, even though some of them mentioned that soundtracks were their favorite genre. I know it's been one of my big 3 ways for decades now.

1) Amazon plans to deploy automated translation of books into non-English languages.

2) Chances are so many past shows have been cancelled due to inaccurate measurements. While that's no longer true for streaming content, it still is for cable and broadcast. ( Read more... )

3) Alarming stats about AI slop: "There's a streaming platform called Deezer... And they're one of the very few platforms that... actually set up a AI detection algorithm..And back in January, they reported that 10% of those [new] songs were AI generated, and they don't allow them on the platform. But then a few months later in April, they said 18% of the songs...delivered were AI generated. And just a few days ago, the September report came out and the number is up to 28%. And so I think ... we're just not even given a choice about whether we wanna see this or hear this stuff or not."

4) When reading this article about how people given the right information refuse to change their wrong take in the face of evidence, I was reminded of an unpleasant encounter this week. The writer of the article concludes that this is a social media issue, but I think it's worse than that. Social media has exacerbated behavior where people always have to be right. ( Read more... )

5) Yet what a difference it makes when an employee makes an effort to help. I had a WalMart gift card which I knew worked because I had used it in May. A few months ago when picking up other meds and groceries I tried to use it. It wouldn't scan. I asked for help and after trying it a few times, the clerk said I'd have to go into a regular cashier line because only they could input the card number. Given the line and having to rescan everything, I just paid with credit and left. ( Read more... )

1) I enjoyed watching Emma Thompson's arrival on Colbert's show, and also her rant about how AI keeps trying to change her writing. "“And so I end up just going, ‘I don’t need you to f**king rewrite what I’ve just written! Will you f*** off? Just f*** off" "Colbert then jokingly suggested that Thompson show her computer the Academy Award she won for her screenwriting on the 1995 film Sense and Sensibility, which made her the only person to ever win an Oscar for both acting and writing."

2) Watched a Donna Summers' documentary, which was pretty uninformative. I knew little about her career so some of the info was new, but hardly anything was explored. ( Read more... )

3) Also saw the new 2025 documentary about LiveAid. I already knew a fair amount about it but given there were new interviews there were still some new bits. ( Read more... )

4) Had an afternoon with everything higgledy piggeldy. Got a call mid-afternoon from the leasing office that the utility company needed to make repairs to a transformer by our building. It would mean a 2-hour electricity cut off. So I got off the computer and decided to run the TV and finish exercises while I was waiting. But despite being told the power would be off in about 15 minutes, we still had power an hour later. My partner wasn't sure whether to stay late at work or come home. And if he did, we'd have to either eat snacks or wait for power to come back since we wouldn't want to open the fridge or freezer. ( Read more... )

5) A bit of hope that major money can be gotten out of politics, via a legal case. "Corporations exist with the express permission of the state in which they are incorporated. They are legal inventions, statutorily-created entities. They only have as much power as the states grant them.

That means the answer to Citizens United may be staring everyone straight in the face. After all, the states—and this Supreme Court majority is for “states’ rights” after all—by definition have the final say over what corporations may do in their states. As noted by the Center for American Progress, which backs campaign finance law reforms, “Corporations are pure creatures of state law. And for more than two centuries, the Supreme Court has affirmed that states have virtually unlimited authority to modify and withdraw the powers they grant to their corporations.”

Why couldn’t that authority include never granting corporations the power to spend money on political contributions in the first place?"

1) Signs of the times: TiVo stops making devices and Paramount+ is launching a stream 4 channels simultaneously feature.



2) I literally can't remember what was the last event I went to. But back in 2016, I saw a similar show for Star Trek music and really loved it. So when I heard one for The Last Airbender would be close to me, I decided to go. It's a really fun way of enjoying a fannish thing, and kind of fascinating to watch what instruments are used to create different scenes.

The stage was much smaller than I expected, as the concert program talked about a full size movie screen, which this definitely wasn't. That said, ATLA was designed for square screens so it made sense, and the venue was small so a large one wasn't needed. ( Read more... )

3) Saw Caddo Lake this past week, and had no idea it was connected to M. Night Shyamalan but did wonder if it was a Stephen King story. I went into it blind, only curious what Dylan O'Brien was doing these days since I saw him in the movie banner. (I'm intrigued about the SNL film he did, I'll have to see where it's available). ( Spoilers )

4) Against the precipitous backdrop of funding cuts to public media, low-power radio emerges as a lesser-known source of inspiration. "Low-power stations are hyperlocal and as varying as the wind, concerned with community voices, emergency notifications, and information specific to a confined area...Practitioners of community radio also tend to see their work as politically and philosophically important. “The Low Power FM movement is a small but energetic alliance,” Scott writes in her Dummies book. “Real living, breathing humans are pushing through the cracks of commercial automation with spontaneous ideas and original thought. DJs are playing music because it moves them, not because it fits a mathematical formula."

1) From osteophage, a post about The Good Web Graveyard, "a link compilation on departed websites that had marketed themselves in terms of ethics." I think one doesn't have to be an out and out cynic to assume that it's difficult for a company to do well when it's not on a level playing field with unethical companies. But it's good to consider that good intentions aren't enough in surviving long-term online.

2) My Britbox subscription has run out, and at an inopportune moment. I was speed watching Passengers, by which I was skipping some of, or entire, episodes and relying on their recaps to keep up with developments. Unfortunately I was interrupted near the end of the final episode and by the time I got back to it, the subscription had ended. ( Read more... )

4) Some interesting details of the AOL sale: "AOL's website traffic has grown 20% year-over-year among the users aged 25 and 54, outpacing the growth in the category of users aged 55-plus...The growth was driven by the introduction of multiple new content categories to AOL.com, including Health, Fitness, Animals, Science & Tech, Home & Garden, Lighter Side, True Crime, Local, amongst others"

I wonder if AI searches can account for this? Granted the nature of these new topic pages was designed to attract views, but I've hardly ever seen AOL as a site turn up in any searches I do.

"Bending Spoons... agreed a deal to take private video platform company Vimeo for $1.38 billion, its largest acquisition to date." I was also surprised to find out that AOL owns Last Pass, so that has a new owner now as well.

4) I know everyone's upset at the rising cost of everything. But sometimes it's the little things that make you mad. My main supermarket has recently switched its sales period from Wednesday to Tuesday after 20+ years (maybe always, for all I known) of doing Sunday to Saturday. This is making a mess of their shelf and data system, because the ad says one thing but there's nothing showing on the shelf and they don't ring up on sale. ( Read more... )

5) "Consumer Reports’ fourth annual digital assessment shows a 50 percent increase in texting and messaging scam attempts over the past year. Meanwhile, a 10,500-person poll from Talker Research indicates that Americans field around 100 scam attempts per month compared to an average of 84 in the United Kingdom. Australians, however, experience half the number seen in the US. But while scams continue to frequently target older demographics, one of the most dramatic upticks concerns younger populations."

The main reasons? Group texts which disguise unknown numbers, and quick access to money apps.

1) Nothing like a Disney bundle price increase right on the heels of the Jimmy Kimmel fiasco. I wonder if they held off on the announcement until 24 hours after saying he'd return?

2) Having just watched the latest Death in Paradise spinoff, it struck me as curious that a successful show like Silent Witness has not done the same (though maybe it has? Anyone know?)

In a way though, it's like the show has had various spinoffs within the same show. ( Read more... )

I also thought about this issue given this article which argues that technology will continue to make the cost of content creation fall to where practically anyone can create marketable content, especially since consumer expectation of what counts as entertainment and information has changed due to cost and access issues as well as demographic changes. As a result, companies that invest heavily in it will expect to get paid in different ways. ( Read more... )

3) It's fun to see how many people over time at Board Game Arena have recognized my Merlin icon. It's a little fannish high five.

4) Sister Boniface's episode of Doctor Who struck me as a sign of changing times. Twenty years ago the fan would have been the geekiest cast member, probably the reporter, but here various cast members are fans and it's mainly the tall, matinee idol detective.

5) Interesting to see how U.S. films are getting less viewing overseas, mainly due to China's restrictions on how many can be shown there. I thought this bit was interesting as well: "The the top French films released were all English-language movies co-produced with the UK among other countries, and did more business in the UK than in the US or China." I didn't realize France even made films in English.

1) During a recent episode of Death in Paradise it struck us how apt the lyrics of Hotel California were for anyone visiting Saint Marie. ( Read more... )

2) Rather puzzling what is and is not available on Britbox. I was amused by the caption for the show Landward as "the long running series" when only 2 seasons, from two non-consecutive years, are available. I was also sad that For the Love of Dogs is a continuing show but Britbox only has up until 2016 available. (Shame about Paul O'Grady, who I'd not heard of before seeing the series, but who died still making it in 2023).

3) Another Silent Witness guest star back from the dead in a different role. Mrs. Hall From All Creatures. I noticed that they went all out for S20, with a costly and pivotal final episode. ( Read more... )

4) Teaching students to fact check might be the best way to teach them to reason about what they're reading.

5) More travel photos of Agate Beach sunsets, Oregon trees and flowers and the McKenzie River.

1) Too long ago now, I shared some DS9 related meta posts at meta_warehouse and found that I was interested in the suggestions about older Trek being more character oriented than newer Trek shows. Although the post involved DS9 and Discovery, if we look at Star Trek Enterprise versus Discovery, "bad writing" doesn't cover it all. ( Read more... )

2) In Germany, news readers asked to identify AI created news often couldn't, and were more likely to stay subscribed. (You can test yourself on some of the samples at the link)

3) Watched another season of Silent Witness and came to a realization about why I took to Clarissa so quickly. ( Read more... )

4) I have yet to get back to Boston Legal, interrupted as I was by new subscriptions, shows returning, etc. But I had left myself some notes about something I still think is worth mentioning even if I don't develop this out into a longer essay.

I was struck by the way political issues were engaged with in shows taking place in the 1990s vs 2000s. ( Read more... )

5) Encouraging news about the Briet startup which aims to make digital books ownable by libraries instead of the hamstringing rental agreements they now have to contend with. I hope it succeeds and grows.

1) Even though I saw it months ago now, I never really wrote up thoughts about Andor S2. I think it's hard to compare the two seasons because S1 has a lot of setup and a pretty wide canvas whereas S2 sticks with the characters we already knew but also jumps forward in time repeatedly, leaving various things unexplained. ( Read more... )

2) Another bundle of Death in Paradise seasons and yet another new inspector. I was glad to see it though for various reasons. ( Read more... )

3) Nothing like changing my email service to make it obvious how PR mailing lists work. I have maintained my Yahoo mail because after 25 years there was an awful lot tied to it that I will never remember to change. However very little comes to it now other than marketing emails for a variety of accounts I have. In fact, in one case my brokerage was still sending my statements to that address instead of the new one. ( Read more... )

4) Nobody on TV ever has their blinds closed or curtains that can't be seen through. This stands out a lot in mysteries because there are inevitably lurkers and peepers and passersby. But there are so many shows with houses made of windows and clear doors etc. ( Read more... )

5) Have that many people even ever had anchovies? Other than being an increasingly rare topping for pizza, I have to wonder how else people even encounter it. But this survey puts it at the top of the list for Americans' disliked foods. ( Read more... )

1) Just a quick follow-up note to the sunshine_revival's Challenge 6 which asked about gaming. One thing I started doing earlier this year was crosswords. I'm rather surprised I never did them as a kid given how much I read and how verbal I was, plus I liked puzzles. I guess no one ever introduced them to me, though I suppose puzzles for kids was a less discoverable publication.

And trying them now I can see that even stuff labeled as "for the whole family" would have been too hard. One definitely needs to learn the conventions and accept that some clues are not only unguessable but the creators sure take a lot of license with words used. ( Read more... )

2) Have started posting photos of our stay in Agate Beach at common_nature

3) Back in December I began having arm pain centered around each elbow which would radiate down to the right hand sometimes. I brought it up at my annual checkup in April, at which time I had already been doing PT exercises for it for months, wearing braces on both hands to sleep, to exercise and to type at the computer, and yet it wasn't any better. ( Read more... )

1) icontalking is looking for people to ask questions of their icon making volunteers who stepped forward to talk about icon making and share tutorials as so far they don't have any 😟

In similar "let's chat about fanworks" is the launch of fan_writers which includes links to tutorials and meta about writing.

2) In shows I largely skipped through, Gotham season 5 finished in a place everyone might expect. I always found Gotham more interesting in ideas than execution. ( Read more... )

Did watch all of Hacks season 2 and felt rewarded for that. The last few episodes took it where the audience wanted to go and it felt really satisfying (perhaps one of the best uses of Goodbye Stranger in a finale). Also sadly true to life about women having to gamble on themselves when no one else will, as the Julia series is also revealing. Still only a few episodes in so perhaps more later on that one.

3) Also watched an episode of Otter Dynasty but wasn't keen on its first person voices and it just seemed rather repetitive. It was, however, revealing to me about what I enjoy about nature shows. ( Read more... )

In other animal related shows, I've been watching Dog House, a UK show about a dog adoption center. Am into S2 since who doesn't want to see a variety of dogs finding homes?

4) In Case Number 101 about why AI can in no way replace competent workers: Red Lobster. ( Read more... )

5) Watched episode 4.2 of Brokenwood Mysteries and had a pretty good idea of the murderer early on so the real Mystery was of the pixelated arrow. The victim died of an arrow to the forehead, yet bizarrely the arrow was sometimes pixelated and sometimes not and in some shots had been completely erased so that we were looking at a victim with no injury at all! This went on through the entire episode as we saw her in flashbacks. We could not figure out what the purpose of this was since the episode began with us watching her be shot with the arrow so if it was to spare the squeamish this would have been the part to cut!

1) As part of sunshine_revival's first challenge: "Creative Prompt: Shine a light on your own creativity. Create anything you want (an image, an icon, a story, a poem, or a craft) and share it with your community."

I just shared some necklaces I made a few months back over at everykindofcraft. I did a lot of beading in the first 13 years after I took it up, but things have been rather start and stop in the last 10. A craft store closeout + a challenge from a relative got me making some new things in the last few months. That probably also contributed to my starting everykindofcraft here, because I saw various people posting wonderful stuff that not many people were seeing, whereas on Pillowfort some general craft communities there are always getting posts.

Hopefully we can get more crafters sharing here!

2) Have been watching a slew of Apple+ shows as our subscription cutoff nears. The miniseries Disclaimer was framed in an interesting way, one which I suspect had a lot more clarity in multimedia than in the book, but perhaps not. It uses multiple narrative voices and POV for the narration, including second person, first person, and some omniscient narrative. This was pretty relevant because of who was being framed (literally) and who actually got to have their voice(s) heard. ( Read more... )

3) Surface is a story told in a much more straightforward manner even though it also involves an unreliable narrator of sorts in that our central character had memory loss and is trying to piece together her past which also involves a parental mystery. ( Read more... )

4) Also saw the movie Wolfs, which is fine but largely a vehicle for us to watch Pitt and Clooney do fun stuff. ( Read more... )

5) Finished The Big Conn and Cowboy Cartel, two documentaries about big crime. I found the former much more interesting, even though I'd heard about the case before. What was probably the most striking about both was the role of the media in precipitating change. ( Read more... )

6) Careme was marketed as the story of the first celebrity chef, who served Napoleon, Tallyrand and others. It was certainly about far more than cooking. ( Read more... )

1) I've been seeing a lot more posting on common_nature, very encouraging! Have added the first of my waterfall photos there, of Latourelle Falls.

2) Looks like there is a spammer at work on Squidgeworld. I got 3 comments to different posts within a few hours today, two with outright solicitations for commissions.

3) Saw Dune 2, and thought it was ok. It's almost as if the movie was made to be the direct opposite of David Lynch's version in casting and tone as well as visuals. ( Read more... )

4) Finally saw the Barbie movie as well. I can see why it did well. Given its remit and likely limitations, I thought it did a good job. It had a clear direction, and it did it well and with both humor and heart. I also quite enjoyed its ending. That said, I think the film itself opened the door to a more incisive critique which it didn't follow. ( Read more... )

5) This past month is turning out to be an expensive one. My partner's sister had a roof leak in her spare bedroom, which went on long enough that it damaged the bed underneath it before she noticed. Since this was where my partner stays when he visits his family, a replacement was needed. So we decided to move his current bed there and get a new one. ( Read more... )

1) The next day we were headed to Eugene by way of a stop at Silver Falls Park. This was our first bust of the trip, in that the falls required a walk to get to them. We had not found the entrance to the waterfall area easy to find either as we were looking for the wrong name. However the drive into the forest had been quite nice and we had time before check in at the hotel anyway.

Finding the hotel in Eugene proved a challenge due to one way streets, blocks and blocks of dividers preventing turns, and similar names, or streets that changed name on each side of the boulevard. When we finally arrived at our hotel (where even the entrance wasn't easy to spot, confusing our food deliverer as well as us!) we were amused by the painting in our room which seemed to echo the driving experience. ( Read more... )

2) When I returned to the room, M and I made some microwave popcorn and settled in to watch Captain America: Brave New World. My two takeaways were that Anthony Mackie did a good job as Sam, anchoring the film and giving it heart, as well as no doubt influencing Sam's perspective on the world. The second is that the overall plot mirrored Winter Soldier in many ways. I didn't mind that, as I thought that the changes both said something about our present time compared to CA:WS, and it also made both the similarities and differences between Steve and Sam stand out more clearly. ( Read more... )

3) After, we watched The Eternals, which was new to M as she was curious about the adamantium source in the sea in Captain America. I continue to think that it's a pity this film didn't do well. I liked the story, as I like using the MCU as a framework for different kinds of tales. I figured my friend would like it too as she's fond of origin myths. And she did, appreciating the variety of characters in it, even though this is also a sort of weakness in that we don't have time to explore them all properly.

It's also a shame that we probably won't have a follow up to either credit scene.

4) On the last day of the trip, M and I drove down to L.A. together. We passed a lot of nice sights during our crossing of the CA-152 West. Some were entertaining, such as all the garlic farms in Gilroy advertising things like garlic ice cream and garlic honey (also 10 avocados for $1!) Some were just pretty. One was the San Luis reservoir, which was huge. ( Read more... )

5) My week+ since the trip has been fairly occupied with catching up on things, dealing with the bed issue, and frankly just being tired. I thought it was interesting that both my friends took an extra day off work after their return than they'd planned. I had less to jump into than they did but felt so draggy my first day back I feared I'd managed to pick up a bug, despite consistent masking. But nope, just tired.

1) Just returned from a road trip from Portland to L.A. Almost had a hitch at the very start when it turned out my partner couldn't take me to pick up the car until 12:30 and the pickup had been scheduled for noon. I figured, not a big deal, right, to move it to 1 PM? Tried doing so with the 800 number since I couldn't seem to alter the reservation (and the local office usually can't be reached). I was told that if the car wasn't picked up by soon after 12 it would no longer be available. That sounded ridiculous, so I went to the office in person. Yup, no problem at all to move it to 1 PM. They told me I couldn't prepay for the pickup since it had to be tied to a specific vehicle.

I then asked if I could add the pre-paid fuel and tolls since the Chicago dropoff meant it wouldn't even cost me much more than if I did it myself. No but I could do that online. In fact, I couldn't. I was never offered the option.

Despite all this had no trouble with the pickup on the day, nor the drive up other than rain all the way. And I did rather like the light that would flash if someone was coming up on my left or right side to alert me to possible blind spots. The other thing was that as soon as I'd sat in the rental the service agent let me know to ignore the constantly signaling "maintenance warning" light. They had just gotten it back from the dealership and nothing could be found wrong with the car. ( Read more... )

The flight was definitely unfun. I had a middle seat and was very tired from a poor night's sleep followed by a 3 hour drive. I tried resting for an hour but gave up and watched Wicked on the in flight panels. I thought it was fine, certainly big budget, some nice dance routines and performances. I was surprised to realize it was only Pt. 1 of the story. I guess it was a good spot to end it to get the audience back in for the sequel. ( Read more... )

2) It took me a while but I did catch up on Pillowfort posts. Here at Dreamwidth though one can't scroll back longer than 2 weeks, which was skip=350. So there may be posts from from the 21st I can't see.

That said I'm having to skim through a lot because it's a ton of posts and I have things to catch up on now that I'm home again. More on that later.

3) Yesterday was unpacking, laundry, and refrigerator triage before today's weekly shop. I thought I was shockingly tired yesterday given that Monday night I had the most sleep since before the trip and the general stress was over. I even wondered if I was coming down with something but I feel ok today too, just...tired.

4) One nice bit post-trip is that I still had some of K's curry pretzels which she gifted M and me with. People love them so much she was urged to make it a side hustle but she said she didn't have the time for that, and preferred getting to relax rather than have a second job when she came home. She made some to order for Christmas sales a few years ago and said she didn't want to go through that twice.

5) Usually my partner complains that he never has time to watch his TV stuff because he has so little viewing time, and when he does have it we watch things together. My being away is clearly helpful on this front as he's looking forward to some of our joint viewing again 😉

1) Will likely have more to say once the series ends, but wow, episodes 8 and 9 of Andor S2 are heart in your throat time.

2) Have been having the worst time changing my email on accounts. It seems every few accounts throw up some problem. Trying to change it on one of my credit cards was the worst because it sent me a phone verification call and it turned out...our phone was not working. This is the second time in the past year that this has happened, and because we don't use the landline for outgoing calls, we rarely notice until a call doesn't come through. ( Read more... )

3) Speaking of the prescription pickup, yesterday morning was also a mess. After I returned from the weekly grocery run the exterminator came by. My partner had forgotten it was his scheduled visit and was just getting out of the shower. (The exterminator kindly went next door first and came back to us). And after 5 CALLS (2 to the pharmacy and 3 to the doctor's office) over 10 days my prescription refill was still messed up. First my doctor's office never put in the refill order. Then after I got the pharmacy to request the refill permission they sent the wrong order which I got into an argument with the pharmacy tech about, because she kept insisting their 41 pill refill of a 90 pill order was correct.

I had to get the doctor's office to change the dosage instruction which was causing the pharmacy to limit the pills. Then they only sent in one of the two dosage refills so I had to call them again. Then several days later I had to call a third time because no one at the doctor's office had done anything and I'm down to my last pills (even though I still had a 21 day supply when I went to see the doctor!) so the admin person said she was putting an emergency rush on it. And they did but the pharmacy still gave me 45 pills for a 90 day order leading to my second call to them to fix that!

The original refill requests were the SAME ones already in the system, so why they all insisted on making these changes I just don't know! I swear an automated system would have been faster, especially since a 90 day prescription means they can just give me a whole bottle and don't even need to count anything out!

4) Speaking of emails, I didn't even twig to this scam at first because legitimate accounts keep sending emails to the old email 6 weeks or more after it's been changed. I got an email from Xfinity saying "Ple︊ase ch︊eck yo︊ur car︊d inf︊o an︊d mak︊e a pa︊yme︊nt" because my card had been declined. I logged in (not from the email) to check it since I actually did have an issue with the credit card back in January which forced me to change the card on the account for a month until it could be cleared up. ( Read more... )

5) The same afternoon I realized that the state has yet to process my tax payment from last month 😨 Called them and was told they probably hadn't opened the return yet. Let's hope that's all it is. Apparently the phone reps have no access to the processing data so there's no way to verify it's actually there until it goes through.

1) 3weeks4dreamwidth is on again and there is once more a points donation challenge. If you are willing to donate Dreamwidth points to other participants for paid services on the site, visit the community post and leave a comment with the amount you'll donate.

2) Found myself unexpectedly sucked into a rewatch of Veronica Mars. I noticed it was expiring on Hulu and finally picked it off my watchlist and started S1. My partner noticed this and said he wanted to see it too. So Mr. I-Don't-Like-to-Bingewatch has so far watched nothing but Veronica Mars since Monday. ( Read more... )

3) Tried out four more game shows. Since I've now seen all of Name That Tune available I tried Don't Forget the Lyrics. The concept sounded like fun but the execution was not. It drags the action out too much due to chat with the single contestant, bringing in their "consult a friend" and then you have to listen to said contestant sing poorly. I noped out halfway through one episode. ( Read more... )

4) Finished watching Daredevil. ( Read more... )

5) Posted some sunrise and sunset pics over at common_nature.

1) The thing that quickly struck me with all these seesaws Trump is doing with tariff declarations is that if you know what's going to be announced the coming day or even in the coming hours, it's quite possible to game the market in your favor. Nothing like buying low when you know you're going to crash things and then selling high when you know the market will reverse course. And unlike previous presidents, Trump does not have his assets in a blind trust.

2) Our local NPR station has, like many no doubt, an all-classical channel. The morning show is hosted by a chatty host with more of a soothing approach than just a soothing voice. I noticed in the past that he always said the date and the day of the week during his sign-ins. Now that I'm retired I notice how useful this is when your don't have your workweek keeping you up at night. And given the age of the average NPR listener, this may be the start of the day for a lot of people.

By contrast I began my day with Enter Aretha playing through my head. First heard it via Luminosity's SPN vid, Bricks.

3) At the same time, there's something very soothing about listening to a dryer going in a quiet apartment.

4) In more tales from phone automation hell, I was trying to schedule a Covid booster. I had gotten the flu vaccine from this location in September, but I remembered that I'd been unable to schedule it online because I had to set up a new profile and it wasn't letting me verify it. I mentioned it to the pharmacy when I went in and they said that it would definitely be set up given the appointment. ( Read more... )

I heard via Late Show that social security signups (and probably a lot of other stuff) will be discontinued via phone, and to boot a number of offices will be closing. Sounds like the ability to talk to anyone will soon be a thing of the past.

5) I can't fathom why, when hitting voice mail, people can't just leave a message. Had 3 calls in a row from our leasing office and by the time we got to the phone they hung up each time. Even people with cell phones may not have them in their hands or might be in the middle of something when called! If you say what you're calling about you can get a quicker response.

1) I saw the Robbie Williams biopic, Better Man, and have to admit that it did put a different spin on the usual tale of fame -->drugs --> near death --> death and/or recovery. The CGI costs on this must have been enormous to have turned the lead actor into an ape all the way through, not to mention all those internal fantasy scenes. Without all the bells and whistles though it trod a familiar path.

2) In my search for more game shows to distract me from exercise, tried out Hollywood Squares. ( Read more... )

3) Finished The Jetty and while I felt myself kind of impatient with the second episode. It did get better as it went along, and had an unexpected reveal at the end, though also a rather unsatisfying one. I felt like the show raised a lot of critical issues and then just kind of dropped them in favor of a happenstance occurrence. Overall a depressing story and I didn't feel my viewing time really got paid off.

4) Also finished Far From the Madding Crowd which, despite the happy ending, was also not the most cheerful watch. (As my partner said, she could have made that decision 200 pages ago and saved us all the trouble). Never read the book but it seemed very of its time.

5) Found it interesting to read this reminiscence of early KPop fandom. ( Read more... )

I found that section an interesting testimonial as I've written several times recently that the decline in fandom community has a lot to do with both the lack of interdependence for many things, and also the lack of distinct roles and tasks to make fandom work.

1) This has been a week of unexpected and frustrating occurrences and I put a good chunk of it down to automation.

It began with my partner getting stranded when our car died Tuesday night. ( Read more... )

2) So this is turning into a bit of a week. I'm having a dental problem, and couldn't get an Endodontist booking in town, so I had to drive an hour away for a consultation which basically came down to "wait and see" as the problem might be a nerve issue and not a dental one. I have my doubts because something came out of my tooth a few months ago after a crunch and that tooth has been sensitive ever since. But 2 visits with my dentist still had her saying she saw nothing even though I think I can feel a ridge. ( Read more... )

3) Speaking of the cost, it's so typical to have difficulty with customer service but I have to say I had such a good one when calling my dental insurance company. I was trying to find an Endodontist in network and couldn't, which didn't seem possible, so I called. ( Read more... )

4) More upsets involved my inadvertently getting more steps in yesterday. I had a big shop this week as due to the car issues was going to the store several days later and we also happened to be running out of some things. Came home to realize several of my totes were missing, including my favorite which is very strong and has a long cross body strap. ( Read more... )

5) Then this morning I was trying out a new jar opener. Due to the arm and hand problems I've been having the last few months my hand strength has diminished a lot. Plus wide jars are hard to hold onto with enough leverage to unscrew them. ( Read more... )

1) This seems an odd time to be cutting news and data jobs.

2) Meant to mention that trying to watch the Oscars was an exercise in frustration. In past years I simply recorded it off of DStream/YouTube TV. But as we've now cancelled it I planned to see it via Hulu. Only half an hour before the show began I was unable to get into Hulu. Despite watching it earlier in the day it had seemingly logged out on our Roku. I tried logging in again, I tried rebooting the Roku and just got an error message from Hulu.

Half an hour into the show I got in. Had to sit through ads of course as it was live. And then it cut off at 9:30! No Best Picture award or Best Actress. WTF?

The entire show was available to watch on Tuesday, which was fine -- I generally watched a day behind anyway. But I certainly won't try to watch it live again.

3) I find it unsurprising that a moderated response to prepared topic debates works better for people to comment on news. "“We asked [users] why they don’t write comments on Facebook or somewhere else, but they really love the quality [filter] that Der Spiegel provides. When they comment on Der Spiegel, it means to them that there’s some kind of moderation. They said they wanted a common space, but they told us that [current] common spaces are lacking [oversight]. Some of them also said that they really need a safe space somewhere on the internet, and they would love to have this safe space at Der Spiegel.”" ( Read more... )

3) This week tv_talk asked about people's movie viewing preferences, and a number of people mentioned costs were a big factor in wanting to watch them on TV. I have been watching a How Disney Built America semi-doc and it had rather eye opening information. By 1932 around half the population, 60 million Americans, went to the theater every week. The movies included an A and B feature, newsreel and sometimes a cartoon. It cost the current equivalent of $3. And those sorts of costs maintained a large industry. ( Read more... )

4) An NPR story I heard definitely seemed like a sign of the times. Some years back HBO Max was funding Sesame Street by showing it on Max and then later the episodes would be shown on PBS.

Max will no longer fund it, and there was discussion of how few kids are watching it now compared to just seeing YouTube content. I can see a day where this show is going to end, because the audience is no longer there.

5) In other unpleasant changes, paperback books not being produced. "Publishers, authors, agents, and retailers all make more money on hardcovers, but the focus on hardcovers comes at a cost for authors. The later release of paperbacks allowed authors to experience a second wind of sales, an opportunity of which most nonfiction authors are now deprived. Customers curious about the title but who opt out over an unwillingness to pay more for hardcovers result in lower sales." ( Read more... )

1) I recently read through a national study in Brasil on reading habits. What I thought was most interesting was the chart on What I like to do in my free time contrasting readers with non-readers (p.56).

It reminded me of the results of heavy Internet users in its early years. Refuting the notion that people were not social offline were more social online, they found that sociability online and offline were strongly correlated. The same people were most active in both spaces.

The only activity in which non-readers were more active than readers was in watching TV, and even so it wasn't a huge difference. Given that both groups were also equally likely to "do nothing, rest or sleep" I had to wonder what the non-readers spent their time doing! ( Read more... )

2) Also regarding survey reports, I found it interesting to see the generational differences in what people factor into successful relationships. There are generally differences for all factors, the exceptions being "emotional connection", "fair division of labor" and "shared religious beliefs" and "shared finances".

What I found particularly striking were the much smaller numbers among younger people for "being monogamous" and "compromise". The much greater numbers for "romance", "mystery" and "sex" were to be expected, but also much higher among the young is "getting along with eachother's family" and "couples therapy." My first instinct was the results of helicopter parenting there.

What struck me as surprising given the image of younger people being activist crusaders is the lower numbers for that group in terms of "shared values" and "shared political views" while slightly higher numbers for "shared background."

Probably the saddest outcome to me was that one in three younger people thought having children was very important to relationship success while only 18% of those 45+ thought so. The voice of experience there. Also sad if unsurprising is the differences among men and women -- it doesn't make for a pretty pattern.

3) One thing watching the series Railways from Above is how inefficient rail travel is. Having seen 4 episodes so far, all based in different countries, while it may make a lot of sense to maintain railways for shipping purposes, in many cases it doesn't seem worthwhile for the number of passengers. It's amazing to me the constant repair they undergo. I never thought of railways as so fragile.

4) Over on Pillowfort, osteophage posted a wonderful pair of posts about Janice Radway's 1984 study of romance readers. I had some thoughts about that I thought I'd copy here. ( Read more... )

5) And for some humor, I was reminded today of this excellent sketch about being a Python nation.