darkoshi: (Default)
It hit me that it is September twenty-somthing-ish, and that the equinox is always on September twentyone-ish, and that ergo - I checked my printed out calendar page to verify - it's NO LONGER SUMMER! (Boo Hiss, Winter Coming Darkness Fall.)

Yes, it is dark outside and Yes, it went from too hot outside to have the windows open, to too cold to have them open, in the span of one night. Not simply too cold to have the windows open, but needing to wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts and pulling up the knee socks over the calves kind of cold, but at least I haven't needed to turn my heater on yet as some people have. ::Huff-sigh::

I trust in my weather forecast which shows some open-window days are coming, because it would be just too mean (not too mean for this world) to go from too hot to too cold with no nicety in between. Know what I mean?

But no one told me the Equinox was happening; no one told me the Season was changing. I'm sure people were saying it in places, but I wasn't listening there. It's not like I have time for equinoxes. The Equinox will knock the socks right off of you.

I have to get the work done.
I have to order the mousse which involves also ordering a halter.
Reizod seems to have pizza available again so perhaps tomorrow I'll have time to put in an order.
I have to help fill in the forms.
I have to support the good causes.
Vacation days I ought to plan for but I have no time to think of it.
I have time to type this because I felt like typing it.
Wet and dreary but the leaves have not yet all fallen.
The lantana has not yet finished blooming though I saw a pile of pink petals under one.

I did, I did, I did... what?
I taped the crack above the oven with metal HVAC tape, the crack which might have been letting hot air blow into the compartment with the control panel, which might have been causing some of my recent oven issues.

I what? what what? I did, I did. Last weekend, I did.
Oh yes, I cleaned the bathroom floor! It looks so much better in the corners! I pushed toothpaste into the cracks. But the ants found some other way in.
I sewed elastic on the dog collar, as I'd been planning for weeks. Then I realized I hadn't intended to put that color elastic on this color collar, but oh well. I suppose the neon pink was so pretty...
I cleaned up some things.
I cooked green beans.
I wrote a card.
I deleted files.
I played a German version of Wordle several times already and haven't lost yet. I thought it would be hard for me, but I suppose there are only so many 5 letter words and most aren't difficult. I doubt I'd have as much luck with a Spanish version but perhaps I should try. But I don't have time for that, no, no. I should be working for goodness sake. And NOT at 3am for goodness sake.
darkoshi: (Default)
Recently while texting with my mom, I enabled the German dictionary in the text app.

Today, after typing, then erasing, an English text, a German phrase appeared in the text suggestion area, "rückgängig machen".

I knew rückwärts means backwards, but was unfamiliar with this term.
So I looked up the meaning.
"rückgängig machen" means "undo".

Surely German has a simpler way of saying undo? Per Google Translate, it seems not:
"undo the change" -> "die Änderung rückgängig machen"
"I want to undo it" -> "Ich möchte es rückgängig machen"

It may be that for the computer sense, Germans tend to use the English word instead. But I don't know.

It reminds me that ever since I finally memorized that Control-Z is the hot-key for "undo", I use that hotkey all the time. The Z even makes sense for the action - writing the Z, you go forward, then you go backwards, and then you go forwards again.

Another thing I use all the time now is the Windows Snipping Tool's "Text Extractor" feature. It lets me easily copy text from the screen using OCR, whenever the text isn't simply selectable for copy/paste.

Windows' Magnifier tool also has a neat feature I recently learned of: pressing Alt-Ctrl-I while the Magnifier is open inverts the colors of the screen. That is useful when having to interact with a program or webpage which doesn't support dark mode; I can leave the magnifier set to 100% and out of the way near the edge of the screen.

SumatraPDF has a similar feature where you can simply press 'i' to invert the colors of the PDF, but that only works for PDFs.
darkoshi: (Default)
My mom has a cold (she tested negative for Covid). My sister suggested she take a yellow medicinal syrup called "three sixes", ie. "666"; she said it tastes horrible but works good.

I never heard of this brand. My initial search results only returned these Smithsonian Institute pages on a medicine from the 1940s:
666 Cold Preparation - contained antipyrine; ammonium chloride; magnesium sulphate (Epsom salt); citric acid.
666 Liquid - contained quinine and could be used against malaria as well as colds. Active ingredients: quinine sulphate; solution of iron perchloride; citrated caffeine; epsom salt; citric acid.

Those didn't look like products that would be sold in the modern day.

Mistral suggested my sister might have meant Triaminic as it comes in a yellow version which people on Reddit say tasted horrible (whereas the orange one tasted good).

That was plausible, as "Tri" = Three. Maybe the sixes got dropped from the name. There was a variety pack which had "6" listed on each side of the box. Triaminic is very familiar brand name to me though I don't recall ever taking it. I was surprised to find that it is no longer sold in the U.S.

Triaminic Cold and Cough medicine contained chlorpheniramine, dextromethorphan, and pseudoephedrine.

Another Triaminic medicine contained chlorpheniramine and phenylpropanolamine. This page says "The Triaminic brand name and all generics (if any) have been discontinued in the United States."
Perhaps because "Phenylpropanolamine, an ingredient in this product, has been associated with an increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke (bleeding into the brain or into tissue surrounding the brain)".
There were also recalls due to faulty child safety caps (something that likely wasn't an issue with the yellow syrup, but probably was with the orange one, based on those reddit comments).

The reddit threads about Triaminic had 2 curious comments:
Jbowen0020 3 years ago: Remember 666 cold med, the old formula that tasted awful but worked? The one that had quinine in it? Ya know, like hydroxychloroquine ?
...
No-Standard9405 3 years ago: I remember that flavor and a different cough syrup that was worse then that. It was in the same color family. I think it had epsom salts in it.


I went back to searching for info on that.

Who remembers 666 cold medicine? (from 2024 on reddit, with a good photo of a "666 Preparation with Quinine" product)

This eBay listing, "Vintage 666 Cold Preparation Bottles ~ Jacksonville, FL **Empty Bottles**" seems to show an expiration date of 1984 on the bottles.

Whoa, here's a whole article from 2018 about the company that made the product:
666 Building was iconic landmark.
The original formula hasn’t been available in decades, Foster said. No one can make the old formula that was 40 percent alcohol and contained codeine, quinine, a cough suppressant and a very strong laxative, he said.
... Its modern formulation, without the alcohol and other potent ingredients, survived for a while as mainly a generic daytime cough suppressant...


A page at weirduniverse.net states "666 cold medicine is no longer available, but it was widely sold and advertised throughout the 20th century. I believe it was only discontinued in the early 21st century."
The product was called "Six Sixty Six" as well as "Three Sixes". The page links to an interesting 1954 article about the company in "Sponsor" magazine, which I haven't had time to read.

I found the company's current website: New Genesis Monticello Drug.
Per the internet archive, 666 Cold Preparation was still sold as late as September and December 2016.
By 2017, it was no longer for sale on the web site.

Side note: The company currently makes an interesting product called Nullo.
Nullo® is an internal deodorant for body odor that doesn't mask the problem, instead Nullo neutralizes the odor causing elements in your system. Nullo is a water soluble isolate of chlorophyll (chlorophyllin copper) that regulates the metabolic output of your body's natural bacterial flora to capture and suppress the odor producing elements.

Nullo is a dietary supplement recommended for use to control strong personal odors such as halitosis (bad breath), underarm odor (arm pit), body odor, foot odor, vaginal odor, menstrual odor and odor arising from incontinence. Nullo provides relief and improved quality of life for persons with profound sweat and body odor as may accompany hyperhidrosis [excessive sweating], strong flatus odor, and those with foot odor, smelly feet or stinky shoes. Nullo is also used to reduce odor from incontinence by reducing fecal odors and provides benefit in the case of colostomy, ileostomy, lap band, and bariatric procedures.
(A different website mentioned deer hunters using Nullo to prevent the deer from smelling them.)

Back to the sixes.
Here's another reddit thread about the 666 brand cold medicine.
It links to a Youtube video about it by user "Affected Collective".
The video links to this page written by deuceofclubs about their interaction with the company.
Here's another video discussing the product.
Here are a bunch of images of it.

Another Smithsonian Institute page:
666 Double Action Cough Syrup - from 1985; "Pleasant Tasting"; contained Pyrilamine Maleate; Ephedrine Hydrochloride; Ammonium Chloride.

Part of why it intrigued me so much, as it did deuceofclubs and Affected Collective, is my surprise that a product named "666" could have survived and been popular, especially here in the bible belt.
darkoshi: (Default)
I've been familiar with the Dr. Bronner's brand of soaps since at least the 1990s. They sell plant-based liquid and bar soaps. The labels were quite odd back then. As the Wikipedia page on the company's founder, Emanuel Bronner described them:

The product labels are crowded with statements of Bronner's philosophy, which he called "All-One-God-Faith" and the "Moral ABC", both of which he included on the label of every soap bottle he produced. Many of Bronner's references came from Jewish and Christian sources, such as the Shema and the Beatitudes; others from writers such as Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Paine. On his labels, he referred to the Jewish sage Hillel the Elder as "Rabbi Hillel" and to Jesus Christ as "Rabbi Jesus." The labels became famous for their idiosyncratic style, including hyphens to join long strings of words and the liberal use of exclamation marks.


It was the kind of stuff that would make me raise an eyebrow or pucker my forehead. The text was small and cramped, reminiscent of those long horoscopes you could get, rolled up into a small cyclinder, sold in coin-operated vending machines at the front of grocery stores in the early 1980s.
But the soap was good; I still buy it once in a while. The bar soap labels are much toned down nowadays.

I didn't realize until now though, how much the company supports good causes. Ok, some things on this first page still make me raise an eyebrow, but overall, it and others on their blog quite impress me:

Pride, Joy, and Solidarity: Celebrating & Protecting LGBTQ+ Culture and Rights with our New Pride Soap Label and Support of the ACLU Foundation (June 2026)

Dueling Visions for 2030 in the Holy Land: More Violent Apartheid or a Secure Peace (Feb. 2026)

The Power of Menstrual Health Access: A Success Story from Ghana (May 2025)

Dr. Bronner’s Honors Trans Day of Visibility & Highlights Inspiring Trans Organizations (March 2025)
darkoshi: (Default)
After eating the last cookie bar, I remembered it was from Dolly Parton's Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix. It is a Duncan Hines product; their cookie and cake mixes often seem to be vegan friendly, based on the ingredients listed. I'd baked them at the beginning of the month and had been limiting myself to a small piece once a day so they'd last longer. Otherwise they'd have been gone quite fast.
darkoshi: (Default)
"Row" as in noisy argument rhymes with cow; I thought it rhymed with crow.

Row as in rowdy, as in rouse.

I found out while watching a TV show.

And how it made me want to compose rhyming rhythmic poems but the words are not working well together.

Now, now,
no cows to rouse
no mouse to grouse
no roughs too tough
too tough to huff and puff
those ruffians so rough so tough,
those rowdy roughs so bluff so fluff
carousing round the puffberry brush
they blush they crush

rows and rows of crows and cows
crowding the roads
the rowdy cows the roadie crows
with their roses froze

I rose aroused, caroused and cruised
I cruised and bruised and browsed the brews
the brews too few to crew the cruise
the crux redux mistook the ducks
no drowsing cows to rouse
darkoshi: (Default)
A web search included a result to a page on Grokipedia which seemed better to me than the corresponding Wikipedia page, having a lot more details.

I didn't recall the history of the term "grok" though now I remember its old usage as in "to understand". I'd heard about but not remembered the AI model by that name.

Not being familiar with Grokipedia, I looked up what it was in Wikipedia:

Grokipedia is an AI-generated online encyclopedia operated by the American company xAI, founded by Elon Musk. ... Some entries are generated by Grok, a large language model owned by the same company (xAI), while others were forked from Wikipedia ...

Elon Musk suggested Grokipedia can be an alternative to Wikipedia that would "purge out the propaganda" he believes is promoted by the latter, describing Wikipedia as "woke" and an "extension of legacy media propaganda".

External analysis of Grokipedia's content has focused on its accuracy and biases due to hallucinations and potential algorithmic bias, which reviewers have described as promoting right-wing perspectives and Musk's views. The majority of coverage has described the website as validating, promoting, and legitimizing a variety of debunked conspiracy theories and ideas against scientific consensus on topics such as HIV/AIDS denialism, vaccines and autism, climate change, and race and intelligence. The site has been accused of whitewashing far-right extremism, such as by falsely claiming a white genocide is actively occurring. ..

GAH.
darkoshi: (Default)
This song is so... nice! so sweet, so dreamy, it ought to be a hit. Go on and give it a listen, eh?



Video title: corook - You get me babe. (Lyric Video)
Posted by: hicorook
Date posted: Jun 15, 2026
darkoshi: (Default)
I've seen demos of some of the recent real-time voice-enabled AI bots, but this was my first time interacting with one.

I had tried to initiate a return on the Walmart.com website, but it gave a message "Sorry, we’re unable to process this part of your request", telling me to call their customer service phone number.

So I did, half-expecting to get a recording telling me to call back during other business hours.

But no, I got this AI, with an initial disclaimer that it was still learning and might make mistakes. It asked all the same things as the web page had, then said I could return it to the store (as per the option I had selected). I still don't know why I wasn't able to do it all online.

Anyway, it felt much easier than the old automated Interactive Voice Response menus.

It didn't tell me how I'd get the refund, and I didn't think to just ask it. But now I got an email saying it will be refunded to my credit card. On the web page, I'd selected the option to have it added to my "Walmart Balance".
darkoshi: (Default)
I got a DW message from user "lol12121212":

Hi [personal profile] darkoshi,

[personal profile] lol12121212 sent you a message on Dreamwidth.

The message is: Dreamwidth - Unusual login attempt
Hello,

We’ve noticed a sign-in to your Dreamwidth account from a new IP address or a device we don’t recognize.

As a standard safety measure, we’ve temporarily limited access to your account until we can verify your identity. This helps us protect your journals, entries, and personal information from any unauthorized activity.

To restore full access, please log in and confirm that this login was made by you: [ redacted non-dreamwidth URL ]

Go to Your Inbox to view your new messages.

Or you can:
Reply to this message
View lol12121212's profile
Read lol12121212's journal
Subscribe to lol12121212


I don't think most DW users would fall for that ploy, but if the link were clickable (it was not clickable in the email I received) with plausible link text displayed, someone not paying enough attention just might.

My DW inbox showed the user was already suspended, so I didn't have to report it.

The email may not have even been designed by a human. (Would a human hacker have created such a suspicion-raising user name for this purpose?) It may be from an AI agent, perhaps one instructed to try to hijack any online accounts that it could, in any way possible.

Or perhaps the linked-to page was designed to spread malware.
darkoshi: (Default)
I've let the hairs on my chin grow out. Last month I counted about 60 of them, half white and half dark. Now after 2 months, they are about 1.5 cm long, all on the bottom of my chin. To begin, I just didn't feel like taking tweezers to them like usual. I've been busy, and it was easy to keep skipping it.

I've plucked them most of my adult life. Sometimes I let them grow out for a while, but this time is the longest I've ever let them get.

I only know it has been two months (it felt like longer) due to this note I happened to write; normally I don't document it:
2026/06/03 "Plucked the cute hairs from my chin."

Subsequent notes:
2026/06/28
I had considered pulling my chin hairs before shopping but didn't have any desire to, so didn't. I don't give a damn.
I'm old enough not to care. Or maybe because I'm non-binary.

2026/07/17
I went for a walk ... A car was parked with a young boy by it. The boy raised a hand. It looked like he might be signalling a greeting to me but I wasn't sure. From his facial expression, he looked ...stunned? I don't know.
I made a slight return wave with one hand, without raising it, like I do to the dogs sometimes when people are around and I don't want to be obvious about it. I'm not sure if it was enough for him to see or not.

I wondered then if he'd been able to see my chin hairs from where he was, 10 feet or more away from me, and if that is what he looked surprised by. Or maybe he just couldn't tell what my gender was.

2026/07/28
I took some more photos of my chin hairs. What will I do if we have a work meeting with cameras on?
Do I want my coworkers to see me with facial hair? Do I want to avoid them seeing it? Sigh. When should I pluck the hairs out? Or should I shave them off? Or should I just keep them. I don't know. How bad does it look to others?
I want to write a DW post and include a photo to ask opinions. But maybe I don't want to hear other people's opinions. If they say I should cut it off, I might hold it against them. And if they say I shouldn't, I might think they are trying to be open-minded and supportive while still privately thinking to themselves that it looks bad.

2026/07/31
This notes file actually mentions one of the last times I plucked my chin hairs, on 2026/06/03. So the length they are now is less than 2 months of growth. I'd thought it was a longer time period.
I've had various thoughts about them and whether or not I should remove them. At the moment I'm leaning towards keeping them and being gender-transgressive about it, not caring if other people see them or what they think. Suppose I get hassled about it when going into a public women's restroom - if so, I should deal with it. I especially should be ok with that, considering how I've thought it would be good for masculine trans men to start using women's bathrooms despite looking male, because that's what the new SC/etc laws says they should do, to make a point that the laws are stupid. And how, if they want the law to be based on birth certificates, then everyone needs to carry around their birth certificates to be able to use the bathrooms, not just trans people or gender transgressive people, as otherwise it isn't fair (as if the law is fair to begin with, but whatever).

With the current laws, it is easier for men with bad intentions to go into the womens' restrooms; after all they could just claim to be transmen who were born female. That's probably more likely than transwomen using the women's restrooms in order to victimize other women. Or what they claimed was a danger, men claiming to be transwomen in order to do it.

2026/08/03
Chin hairs / mini goatee:
It's a very slight discomfort.
When touching my chin, the feeling of coarse hairs rather than smooth skin.
When brushing my hand from the neck outward along the chin, the feeling of the hairs being pushed in the "wrong" direction, pushing against the hair follicles of the skin.
An occasional tickling when a breeze blows against the hairs.
When washing my face, having to remember to specifically clean the chin as those hairs might have captured dirt or sweat in a way that the plain skin wouldn't have.
When looking in the mirror, liking what I see.
It's not a full beard; I've never wanted one of those. If I had to have a beard, this is the kind I'd want.
And here I have it! Just by letting it grow on its own, not having to take T.

...

I post this now as the feeling of the hairs is getting more disturbing to me. I may soon pluck them out again. They are bristly looking. They curve, they curl, they stick out in different directions.
But it is not the sight that bothers me, it's the sensation.

I'm still not sure what to make of my reflection. It looks fine to me. But that is from a perspective of non-binary gender. If looked at from a perspective of "older woman with facial hair", it may look awful.

We have a work meeting this week where we're supposed to have our cameras on. I won't be presenting, so my image will be one among many small images; chin hairs probably not even visible but who knows. I am still unsure if I want them to be seen or not.

When I look up photos of females with facial hair, they really don't look bad. Many look AI-generated and it is hard to tell which ones aren't. But still, the ones that seem real look fine.
Michigan woman creates Guinness World Record for longest female beard
“I am a woman with a beard – this is how I cope with my hairy chin during summer months”
Aylesbury woman grows then shaves beard for PCOS awareness
Mustache.. TikTok video I can no longer access
darkoshi: (Default)
I took the Huge Vegan Survey.

One of the questions was about one's religion/belief system, with quite a few choices listed. I pondered whether "None", "Atheism", or "Agnosticism" was most accurate for me. I decided on "None". I am atheistic in that I don't believe in a God in the typical sense; I perhaps 95% don't believe in any type of supernatural entities or forces at all. But there's that 5%, and I'm not totally comfortable claiming "there is no god". So I've always thought agnostic was a better descriptor - I don't know if there's a god or not. But actually that makes it sound like I believe in the possibility of a god much more than I do, and that I might even believe in the possibility of a Judeo-Christian-Islamic-etcetera God, which I don't.

While looking up Agnosticism in Wikipedia, I found some other terms which may better describe my lack of beliefs. (Maybe this isn't my first time discovering these terms; I don't recall. Perhaps not remembering is an indicator of my apathy on the subject, or perhaps just of my bad memory.)

Apagnosticism
Apagnosticism (from Ancient Greek: ἀπάθεια - "apathy" + ἀγνωσία - "ignorance") is a philosophical position that combines elements of Agnosticism and Apatheism. Apagnosticism neither claims knowledge of the existence or non-existence of God (the stance of agnosticism) nor considers the question to have a meaningful influence on one's life or beliefs (the stance of apatheism). Unlike traditional religious, atheist, or theistic perspectives, apagnosticism refrains from active exploration or proof of God's existence and is based on respect for religious beliefs of others without personal adherence.
...
Unlike atheists, apagnostics avoid actively asserting the position that there is no God, and unlike agnostics, apagnostics do not attach significant importance to religious issues, considering them irrelevant to their lives.


I'm not sure I "respect" the religious beliefs of others. I find it quite strange that religious beliefs are so widespread and that people are so entrenched in them. But whatcha-gonna-do-bout-it? That's how people are, and as long as they aren't using their beliefs to hurt anyone, it doesn't generally bother me. (Religions and religious practices can be quite interesting too.) It only makes me feel more isolated and alone in a person-to-person sense.

Ietsism
Ietsism (Dutch, literally 'somethingism') is the belief that there is "something" that exists beyond the material realm. As a vague belief in supernatural or mystical forces, its core lies in rejecting specific religious definitions and emphasizing personal, intuitive experiences of the spiritual dimension.
...
It is a Dutch term for a range of beliefs held by people who, on the one hand, inwardly suspect – or indeed believe – that "there must be something undefined beyond the mundane which may or may not be possible to be known or proven", but on the other hand do not accept or subscribe to an established view of the nature of a deity offered by any particular religion.
...
The name derives from the Dutch equivalent of the question: "Do you believe in (the conventional 'Christian') God?" A typical ietsist answer being "No, but there must be something", "something" being iets in Dutch.


I wouldn't say "there must be something". I'm more of the opinion "there may be something". The idea of there being a god doesn't make sense to me, but neither does the idea of this world existing with nothing *more* to it, even if I've never really felt that there is something more. Nothing makes sense, so there you have it - that's my belief. Nothing-makes-sense-ism.
darkoshi: (Default)
previously

When using a can opener to open metal food cans (aka "tins"), I leave a small section of the lid attached to the can for recycling purposes. I try the same with pull-tab lids, though those are harder to keep attached after bending them up and back down.

I've heard you're not supposed to put small loose objects (like the can lids) in the recycling bin, but if it's attached to the can, then it is ok. After washing/rinsing the can, I push the lid down into the can to keep its sharp edge from sticking out. Sometimes I put other loose metal lids in the can for recycling too; I may use pliers to bend the top edge of the can after pushing the lid down, to keep it from popping open and spilling out the contents.

Anyway. If you rest such an empty metal can gently on the palm of your hand (bottom side down) and thump or tap its side:
- with the lid sticking up, it doesn't sound special.
- with the lid horizontal or nearly so, it sounds very nice, giving off vibrations from the lid. You can adjust the angle of the lid for different tones. (Use a knife tip to pull the lid back up, not your fingertips! Unless maybe you have one of those fancy can openers that doesn't leave sharp edges)
darkoshi: (Default)
I didn't think FedEx would deliver today on a Sunday, since the door hanger indicated "the next business day". But before bed, I checked the tracking page to make sure. Surprisingly, it indicated an Estimated Delivery Date of "Today By End of Day". I didn't trust that but didn't disbelieve it either.

Soooooooooooo...
At 4am, I cut off a 9"x6" rectangle of white plastic from a mailing envelope and wrote on it with a black Sharpie marker, "FedEx (circled) I _AM_ Home. Ring the Doorbell Please". I opened my driveway gate and attached the little sign to the front edge of the gate door with 2 wires.
For good measure, I attached another small sign to my front door handle, saying "Ring Doorbell Please" with an arrow pointing towards the doorbell.

Today at 2:43pm as I was sitting at my laptop in one of the front rooms, I heard a sound suspiciously like a FedEx truck driving away. I stood up to go get my phone and check the porch cam playback to see if it had been a FedEx truck. Right then I hear the sound of a person notification... someone had been in the front yard!! Aaagh, I missed them!!??? They didn't ring the doorbell!!!

Looking out on the porch, I was again surprised to see a long package out there; definitely not the right shape for containing a laptop. It was addressed to someone else, on a different street.

The cam showed the driver stopped by my driveway gate and did walk in that way this time; I missed it as I wasn't looking out the window that moment. (Despite thinking right around then about how I needed to use the bathroom but didn't dare, in case the truck came and the doorbell rang while I was on the commode.)

Well, at least I didn't miss getting the *laptop* delivered, and maybe the truck would come back again to swap packages.

I fumed, wondering how BIG a sign I would need to put out to make sure the driver sees it that I want them to ring the DOORBELL. I started looking around for a bigger piece of white plastic to write on.

But then either I saw the truck or heard another person notification. The same driver was back, walking to my porch. I went out to meet him and signed for my package, and he took the wrong one away. I told him with a smile, "At least I caught you this time."

Last night I'd read other people's rants about FedEx drivers leaving door hangers for packages requiring signatures, without even ringing the doorbell to see if anyone is home.

There was no option on my "door" hanger, by the way, to sign it in lieu of signing in person at the time of delivery.
darkoshi: (Default)
When you accidentally drop something small... you hear the sound it makes hitting the floor.. but then, searching the whole floor, even with a flashlight, it is nowhere to be found.

It's happened in the past with a needle.
Today it was a chocolate chip.
Both things potentially dangerous to be left on the ground, for people walking barefoot, or dogs snooping around.
darkoshi: (Default)
I've watched only a few of the shows below. But I find it interesting how many television series are based on shows from other countries rather than being originals. These star a character with Autism, Asperger's (as it was called then), or other neurodivergent traits.


Astrid et Raphaëlle (2019 TV series)
A Franco-Belgian detective television series. It features two policewomen: Major Raphaëlle Coste, an impulsive police detective played by Lola Dewaere, and autistic archivist Astrid Nielsen.


Patience (2025 TV series)
a British–Belgian detective drama television series starring Ella Maisy Purvis as autistic police archivist Patience Evans, with Laura Fraser (series 1) and Jessica Hynes (series 2) as police detective inspectors. The series is set in York, England and is adapted from the Franco-Belgian television series Astrid et Raphaëlle (a.k.a Bright Minds).





The Bridge (Swedish: Bron; Danish: Broen) (2011 TV series)
A Nordic noir crime television series; a joint production between Sweden's SVT and Denmark's DR.

The socially awkward Saga Norén from the Malmö police homicide department and Martin Rohde from the Copenhagen police homicide department lead the murder investigations. ... Saga lives alone and rather than have serious relationships, she prefers to pick up men in bars for casual sex. Her poor social skills, her difficulty in empathizing and her inability to channel her emotions make her appear cold, insensitive and blunt but she is completely honest and forthright in all aspects.


The Bridge (2013 American TV series)
An American crime drama television series, based on the Danish-Swedish series Bron/Broen.
The Bridge follows two police detectives – one Mexican, one from the U.S. ... Ruiz's whatever-it-takes approach doesn't sit well with Cross, who has undisclosed Asperger syndrome or a similar autism spectrum disorder and a by-the-book attitude when it comes to the job. But the two put their differences aside...


The Tunnel (2013 TV series)
A British–French crime drama television series adapted from the 2011 Danish–Swedish crime series The Bridge (Bron/Broen).
Clémence Poésy plays Capitaine Elise Wassermann, whose role parallels that of Saga Norén, the Swedish detective in The Bridge. Elise shares some characteristics with Saga, including picking up men from bars for casual sex, and exhibiting behaviour consistent with Asperger syndrome.


The Bridge (2018 TV series)
An Estonian-Russian crime drama television series, based on the Danish-Swedish series Broen/Bron (The Bridge).


The Bridge (2018 TV series)
A Malaysian–Singaporean crime drama television series aired on HBO Asia. The series was inspired by the Danish–Swedish series, Broen/Bron.





Tunnel (TV series) (Not to be confused with the British–French TV series The Tunnel)
A 2017 South Korean television series. The series was a hit in China.
It received a Thai remake in 2019, and an Indonesian remake was announced in 2020.

In 1986, Park Gwang-ho works as a successful detective. However, his life changes when he takes the lead in a serial homicide case and passes through a tunnel while chasing the "culprit". He time travels 30 years into the future (2016), where he meets a new partner, Kim Seon-jae, an eccentric elite detective that has a high ability in investigation.





Good Doctor (2013 South Korean TV series)
Park Si-on (Joo Won) is a resident surgeon on the autism spectrum with savant syndrome who was sent to a specialized care center as a child, where he was discovered to have a genius-level memory and keen spatial skills. He eventually becomes a pediatric surgery resident and is given six months to prove himself capable. However, due to his atypical mental and emotional condition, Si-on faces conflict from his peers and patients, who view him as childlike and unreliable.


The Good Doctor (2017 American TV series)
An American medical drama television series, a remake of the 2013 South Korean series of the same name, which aired on ABC from September 25, 2017, to May 21, 2024.
The series follows Shaun Murphy, a young surgeon with autism...





There are also the multiple The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo television series, and probably plenty of others.
darkoshi: (Default)
Looking through some unread emails in my inbox today, I opened one from April 24. Google sent it with Subject: "Updates to our partner ads setting control". It states:
At Google, we believe you should always be in control of your data. That's why we've built My Ad Center and many Google Account tools, like Privacy Checkup, that make it easy to manage your data, privacy, and security settings.

Building on these controls, we’re introducing a new setting through Google Partner ad settings that lets you choose whether to provide additional information to advertising partners when you visit websites and apps that partner with Google. This data allows advertising partners to select which ads to show you and measure ad performance.


That makes it sound like they added a setting which you could turn on to share even more data about you with third parties. It's the opposite. They are already sharing much more than you might expect with way more entities than you would think (including the government), and it is an option to limit the sharing, which they were forced to provide due to a lawsuit settlement.

This page has good information about Real Time Bidding (RTB) and the lawsuit settlement:
Google’s New RTB Privacy Control Is Now Live After Class Action Settlement

This page has more details on why it is important:
Google Settlement May Bring New Privacy Controls for Real-Time Bidding (eff.org, 2026/01/29)
Why Is Real-Time Bidding Harmful?
A key vulnerability of real-time bidding is that while only one advertiser wins the auction, all participants receive data about the person who would see their ad. As a result, anyone posing as an ad buyer can access a stream of sensitive data about billions of individuals a day. Data brokers have taken advantage of this vulnerability to harvest data at a staggering scale. Since bid requests contain individual identifiers, they can be tied together to create detailed profiles of people’s behavior over time.

Data brokers have sold bidstream data for a range of invasive purposes, including tracking union organizers and political protesters, outing gay priests, and conducting warrantless government surveillance. Several federal agencies, including ICE, CBP and the FBI, have purchased location data from a data broker whose sources likely include RTB.


The bad news is that the settlement only requires Google to provide the option for 3 years, Google has already appealed the verdict, and the option is only available to signed-in users or users who allow 3rd-party cookies to be permanently stored in their browsers (which I'm not sure is any improvement privacy-wise, versus leaving the setting unchanged).

When I open the relevant Google Partner Ad Settings page with all JavaScript and cookies enabled, the same page comes up whether I am signed into a Google account or not. Since I rarely browse while logged into a Google account, and my browser deletes cookies upon closing, the setting seemingly won't do me much good on my laptop. But perhaps it may on my phone.

I wonder how much data Google has about me, given my current and past browser settings and habits. My browser settings prevent display of most ads, but this RTB step happens before the ads are served, so perhaps Google has been sharing a lot of info about me, unless blocking Javascript blocks the sharing too.

I was able to turn off the relevant setting (I think) on that Ad Settings page, while signed in to my account. But there's another setting on the page, "Personalized ads on partner sites & apps | Get personalized ads when you visit sites that partner with Google". Each time I try turning that one off, it shows "Something went wrong. Try again."
darkoshi: (Default)
I found out that mosquitos shelter under the English ivy, so I have renewed impetus to pull it all out where it grows on the ground along the back fence. There have always been too many mosquitos in the back yard.

After dusk, I go in and out the side door so as not to scare away the little bird that has taken to sleeping in the ceiling corner of the front porch.

Kroger had fresh organic Brussels sprouts on sale so I bought three 12-oz packages. I cooked the first package of sprouts in the microwave like I did last time, when I had frozen ones. The fresh Brussels sprouts didn't get very soft even after microwaving them a long time. So I cooked the rest of them as shown in this video, blanching in saltwater followed by baking/roasting with olive oil. OMG so yummy. The layers of leaves are like layers of puff pastry. The prep and cooking for that recipe isn't much work, but with washing the bowls, pot, and oily pans too, it felt like a major effort. So I don't plan to buy more fresh Brussels sprouts.. unless they are on sale again.

My mom told me she eats raw plantains when they get very ripe; with dark skins. It hadn't ever occurred to me to try them raw. So I tried that... I got the worst looking (most ripe) plantains in the store, and let them ripen even some more. They are not bad; they have a bit of plantain flavor which I'm not crazy about but otherwise they are pretty good. I can also mash & heat them and add vegan butter and salt; which is like eating sweet banana-flavored mashed potatoes. They are still firm inside even when the skin starts turning black. I like fruit like this which doesn't get bad quickly. But they look ugly on the counter. I haven't even been letting them get completely black like this video shows although now I am intrigued to try that too. I suspect I won't like them once they get that soft.

Patience (TV show)

Sunday, July 5th, 2026 04:11 am
darkoshi: (Default)
I've started watching this show on PBS:
Patience (TV series)
Premise: A detective inspector (DI) forms an alliance with a brilliant, self-taught, autistic archivist who has been working in the criminal records department of the City of York police.

It seems another take on "brilliant quirky female individual helps police department solve crimes" like High Potential, Elsbeth, etc. So far, I find it more compelling than the others.

September 2026

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