Darkoshi

I feel like MS Copilot is my new buddy at work. The company has the business version which is supposed to keep the company's data private and secure, and we are authorized to use it. I haven't been using it inside of VS Code or other IDEs, which would require an extra license. The browser interface doesn't require an extra license and has met all my needs so far.

From what I last heard, the version that runs in VS Code can't yet answer questions that pertain to the whole big code-base, rather only to the current file you have open. To me, that wouldn't offer much benefit over the browser version, as I can paste the contents of a file into the browser chatbox or I could select the file to attach.

Anyway, MS Copilot helps me with creating PowerShell scripts and complex regex expressions, and with answering various questions. The version at work seems to give a lot more accurate answers than the one I access from my personal laptop; it's likely a better model. Unless the difference is due to the kinds of questions I ask there versus here.

Introducing Waterfox Private Search (Beta)

The search engine can be accessed here:
https://search.waterfox.net/

I found some Good News but only in the internet archive.

I have so much I'd like to write here but still so little spare time considering the other things I want to do.

A little something to make you smile, maybe.

Luckily not all of the things mentioned in the song apply to me so far, but several do!

I am still working, really!, I just opened Youtube to turn on some background music.



Video title: Chamomile - Gangnam Style Parody Song for us Older Ones!
Posted by: Shirley Șerban
Date posted: 2025/03/05



This is what I'm going to be listening to:
Yeasayer - All Hour Cymbals *FULL ALBUM*
My clock radio played the last song, "Red Cave", this morning. The sound was special and intrigued me about the rest of the album.

That's happened a few times lately. Google Sound Search comes in very handy to identify the songs. Twice, it was able to identify a song based solely on the last two seconds of the song (when I was slow to open the app), with only the winding down sounds of the instruments - that seems so amazing (especially with audio from an over-the-air radio which has a certain amount of static rather than perfect digital sound quality).

One of those other songs is worthy of mention here too. But it is not light-hearted so I'll leave it for possibly another time.

I didn't find out about the April 5 Hands-Off protests early enough to make plans to go to the one here. But there are more nationwide protests planned for this Saturday as part of 50-50-1.

AFL-CIO and allies plan more mass protests through April 19

Little things make me anxious. I already found the Facebook page for the SC branch of the 50501 group, which does show a protest will be held here in Columbia on the 19th. Yet now I saw that the main site's page doesn't show an event being held here. (Maybe I'll go downtown with a sign and there will be no large group ::dread::) So if you don't see your location listed on the main site's event page either, you may want to do some more searches to be sure.

I need to make a sign. There's hardly any point in going if I don't have a sign, as then I will just look like a random person standing around. So I have to decide something to write on a sign, and then make the sign.

I have to fight against the part of me that doesn't want to go out there and expose myself. There are so many things I could put on a sign, but I am having trouble thinking of something I'll agree to.

Last summer, I took an opportunity to go for a walk at my old work campus.
I took many photos and videos. I texted myself thoughts/notes about the experience of walking there; what makes it so nice compared to other places.

16:59. The sound, the scents, the insects, the breeze, the sun, sweat trickling down my chest, trucks rumbling by with that zoomy sound like the ocean waves rolling in and out
17:00. Birds chirping, ambulance going by on the interstate with siren on, quiet space of wind thru the trees
[ I meant, there's a relative quietness & calmness in the wooded areas (compared to the interstate for sure); a light sound of wind ]
17:02. Different pitches, tones for different trucks and vehicles; rising and falling; cicadas, katydids
17:04. The breeze of walking cooling the moisture on my torso
17:04. The rhythm of my steps
17:04. The unexpected sights
17:05. Decaying tree trunks
17:06. Bright green leaves
17:06. Spiderwebs
17:06. Pine needles
17:07. Mild danger
17:07. Shadows
17:07. Places deeper in the back woods where people could be hiding.
17:08. Security guards that might appear out of nowhere to say you shouldn't be here.
17:15. Away from the highway, airplane motor in the sky; insect (sounds) more distinct
17:15. More peaceful
17:16. Over here I can hear my steps on the ground.

Back in my car at 5:23pm, I took some sound recordings of the insect noises.
I wished I had brought a water bottle with me, as I was thirsty from the walk.

I'm made up of made-up memories.

"Microwave on HIGH for 1 minute 5 seconds or until hot. Turn sandwich over halfway through heating time."

So at 32.5 seconds, I'm supposed to pause the oven and turn over the sandwich.

With my 3-day weekend, I've been cleaning out more of the stuff my niece left behind when she moved out. One item is an Easy Bake Oven. At first, I intended to take it to Goodwill, even though it seemed to be missing the pan.

When I plugged it in and turned it on to make sure it worked, the white light in front came on but it didn't seem to be doing anything else. Then I started smelling a nasty smell, like cigar smoke. Not wanting to impose such a nasty smell on anyone who might innocently buy it at Goodwill, I decided to throw it away.

First I thought of wrapping it in an old hoodie which I was getting rid of too. To hide it, I guess, and buffer the outside of it. I would put it like that in another bag, in my trash bin. But I changed my mind, not wanting it to damage the garbage truck (if that is even possible).

Per my county's Solid Waste & Recycling Guidelines, you can schedule a bulk item pickup for large appliances. But not for small appliances. Apparently you have to take the small ones to the landfill yourself. That doesn't seem fair! They'll take something big but not something smaller?

I considered disassembling the unit, and found a video showing how to do it. The oven has a thick plastic shell. The seam is near one side, not in the middle. So taking it apart wouldn't make it much smaller. But in pieces, it would no longer be an appliance; it would be two bulky pieces of plastic. That should probably be ok to put in my bin. I could keep the metal interior parts for metal recycling.

But taking it apart requires an unusually long #10 star bit driver, which I don't have. I suppose I could order one, but gee whiz.

To top things off, my neighbor put out a bunch of junk this weekend. A passer-by with a truck already took away the exercise bike. There's still a coffee table and side table (in fairly bad condition though they could be fixed up), and a shopping cart (that reminded me how after I moved here, it was common to find abandoned shopping carts on the side of the road. I'm glad that stopped happening) and some other things. Unless my neighbor scheduled a special pickup for that stuff, or someone else driving by decides they want that stuff, I don't think it will be picked up. I was tempted to put out the Easy Bake oven by his things. But I already cut the electric cord off it, and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't get taken.

I considered putting the oven on top of my trash bin by the street. That way the people on the garbage truck could decide whether it was ok for them to take or not. But now it's 3am and I don't want to go out there in the dark again.

I've never been to the landfill, so I don't know how dropping something off there works. I used to think I could do that someday if I ever really needed to. But then one time, Qiao and I drove by one of the landfills on the way out of town. The smell was horrible. I could barely stand just driving down that road. So now I never want to drive that way again, and I certainly don't want to drive in to the landfill site. I don't think I could stand it. But actually, I'm not even sure that's the location for dropping off appliances and such. Maybe that place is elsewhere and doesn't smell as bad.

Two years ago (on Valentine's Day, even!) I had hired some people to haul away a bunch of stuff to the dump. I might need to do that again someday, if I have enough to make it worthwhile.