Darkoshi

a Hat trick of Patrick of green ginger

2026-03-18T01:29:42Z

Note to self:
Next time, take the fairy lights inside for the season, when I start noticing pollen in the air, if not before. I don't want pollen getting all over them.

Errant thoughts:
I wonder how many parents with babies born on March 17 name them Patrick.

Seeing the name written there now, it looks rather neat, with "trick" in it. It could rhyme with hat trick.

Yesterday I noticed that Baby Yoda rhymes with Baking Soda.

Hey, it's Green Day.

As long as I keep that leftover baking soda in the corner of the sink, there will be nothing else needing to be cleaned with it.
As long as I keep that cap-ful of leftover mineral oil on the counter, there will be nothing else that needs to be greased.

Hey, Ginger Ale is appropriate for the day. It came in a green can.

Video title: Celebrating Ireland on St Patrick's Day
Posted by: Gardiner Brothers
Date posted: Mar 17, 2021

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Yahoo storage limit change; Nonnemacher etymology

2025-08-14T01:16:04Z

Yahoo sent an email to users on June 25, stating "Starting soon, free Yahoo Mail accounts will include an industry-leading 20GB of storage".

It sounds like they are increasing the storage limit, yahoo! But upon reading the email again, I wondered about this part: "If your mailbox exceeds the new storage limit after it goes into effect..."

The storage limit is actually being greatly reduced:
Yahoo Mail Storage Shrinks from 1 TB to 20 GB: What You Need to Know - article by Zach Nonnemacher, Content Manager at ZeroBounce, August 5, 2025.

It doesn't affect me as I don't keep many old emails on the server. But other people probably interpreted it the same way I did at first. I understand Yahoo wanting to put a positive spin on it, but it is counter-productive if Yahoo wants users to check their usage and do something about it.
This page mentions a deadline, which the emails I received did not: Yahoo Mail Users Must Clear Space or Upgrade by August 27 to Avoid Losing Access

So users who are over the new storage limit likely got another email with clearer details.

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I was curious about the etymology of that surname, "Nonnemacher".

According to one page which I won't even link to as it seems to be AI-generated make-believe,
The surname Nonnemacher is of German origin and is derived from the Middle High German word "nonne" meaning "nun" and "macher" meaning "maker" or "craftsman." Therefore, the surname Nonnemacher can be interpreted as "nun maker" or "maker of nuns." It is likely that the name originally referred to someone who made or repaired religious garments or objects used by nuns, or it could have been a nickname for someone associated with a convent or religious community.

The Ancestry.com explanation is rather different:

German: occupational name for a gelder of hogs from Middle High German nunne nonne ‘nun’ and by transfer ‘castrated hog’.
+ an agent derivative of machen ‘to make’.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022

What methods and tools do you use to castrate a pig?
Castrating Pigs
No use of anesthesia is mentioned on the above two pages; the below mention it, but it doesn't sound widely used in the U.S.
Castration of Pigs
Piglet castration

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"Eunuch maker" seems a more logical term for a gelder than "Nun maker". So I wondered if the etymologies of "nun" and "eunuch" were related. But according to those links, they aren't.

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Ai for family photos

2025-01-06T01:37:34Z

I have some family photos in which I know who is who in them. I have some other photos where I know the names of some people in it, but not who is who. And some photos with a mix of both. The latter photos may include other people for whom I have no names and am not concerned with at this time. It would be useful to have an AI tool where I could enter the names I know, matched to some faces, and have it figure out the other names and faces for me. I'm sure there are tools that can do that already. But would they be available to end-users like me, and are there ones that would run only on my computer without leaking any personal info to online companies?

I'd also find it very useful to have an AI tool that I could train to edit & rename my other photos like I normally do. I am so behind in doing that, making it hard to find photos from the last 4 years or so that I know I have. Even if the tool didn't do it perfect, it could make it easier maybe. But again, I want my photos and related data to remain private, not end up on the web somewhere.

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not so Violent Femmes

2024-12-22T04:57:43Z

"Violent Femmes 40th Anniversary with the Milwaukee Symphony" was playing on PBS. I don't know much about the band other than the name. So when I tuned in to the channel, I was surprised to see that all the people playing music appeared to be guys. From the name, I always assumed it was a girl band.

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the name Blake

2024-11-02T19:19:27Z

I was surprised to see "Blake" in this list, with an exactly even male/female ratio, as I hadn't heard of any women or girls by that name:
Truly Gender-Neutral Names: The Most Balanced of Them All

Wikipedia mentions this for the name "Blake":

Blake is a primarily male given name which originated from Old English. Its derivation is uncertain; it could come from "blac", a nickname for someone who had dark hair or skin, or from "blaac", a nickname for someone with pale hair or skin.

The article references the Surname Database, which has more details on the name's origin.

The name data I downloaded from the Social Security Administration site (ssa.gov) earlier this year does indeed show a fairly close split; 1346 female-assigned and 1366 male-assigned babies given the name in 2023.

The name may have gained popularity for girls due to actress Blake Lively, whom I am not familiar with. She starred in a 2005 movie, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, which I am also not familiar with. She also starred in Gossip Girl, which I've at least heard of.

The SSA data shows the name Blake has gained in popularity for girls since around 2007, while it's been dropping in popularity (from a high of 6046) for boys since 2012. So it might end up being one of those names which changes over time from being highly gendered one way to the opposite.

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CDs, AI-generated sites, auroras

2024-05-12T11:07:11Z

I browsed through a Goodwill store. The music CDs were the first thing to catch my eye; I looked through some of them. I don't really want CDs as that requires me ripping the music to MP3 files, and leaves me with a physical CD left over taking up space. But it reminds me of the old days, looking at CDs in stores and taking a chance on some, buying them, never knowing for sure how much I was going to like the music until I got home to listen to it.

One of the CDs that caught my eye was in a foreign language. It looked like Finnish to me, but I wasn't sure. The name on it was Yva plus a last name that I don't remember. It may have started with B. The back side had a picture of someone (presumably Yva the singer) in a blue and white outfit, similar to a traditional Bavarian style dirndl.
Another CD had music from RiverDance.

I didn't end up getting any CDs. I browsed the rest of the store, intending to possibly stop by the CD rack again afterward if I hadn't talked myself out of it by then. But then as I walked by the registers in the direction of both the entrance and the CDs (I'm not sure anymore which I was headed for), the lone cashier there said 'goodbye' or 'have a nice day' or something like that to me. Then when I thought of the CDs, it seemed awkward to stay and look at them again when {goodbyes had already been made}. I stopped in the sunshine of the open doorway and checked my phone messages, mentally debating it. Decided to leave.

At home I looked up this singer Yva. I only found an English singer and a Lithuanian group by that name.
Maybe it was this album by the Lithuanian group Yva, but I don't think so. I think the CD I looked at had only 1 person on it, not 3. And I remember there being a last name along with the Yva. It seemed like an older album. I don't remember what was on the front of the CD. Oh well. I probably wouldn't have liked the music anyway.

..

I came across this name website:
https://www.nameuc.com/talon-name-meaning-origin-popularity/

It has a different pretty image for each name. They are fairly obviously generated by an AI/LLM/whatever it is called for images. A while later I realized the text of the site must have also been generated by a LLM too. (It sounds quite similar to the answers I got when I asked an LLM questions about names.) That indicates to me that the data listed for the names on that site is not very trustworthy. If it hadn't been for the novel pretty name pictures, I might not have noticed/realized that. Many of the other name sites I've come across this last year or more have been similar, I suppose, just without the images. Sigh. How are we going to filter the junk data from the accurate data?

..

Apparently the aurora was visible even near here in South Carolina on Friday night. I didn't read/hear about it until this morning when the sun was already starting to rise. I never imagined an aurora could/would be visible this far south. I remember seeing the crescent moon in the sky earlier while I was out shopping. The sky was normal, not ablaze with colors.

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business names, signs

2023-07-30T21:44:22Z

Looking up a TA location (where they supposedly sell the Grape Chia flavor of Synergy kombucha drinks, which is my favorite flavor but I never see it anymore at the usual places I shop) on Google Streetview, I see a sign on the neighboring building which says GOASS.

I think to myself, they wouldn't really have named a business that, would they?

Nope, it is really GOASIS. The view of the "I" was blocked by a support column from the previous position.

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woodpeckers and buttercups

2023-02-14T07:59:41Z

From my daily notes today:

That woodpecker is intermittently pecking on the sunroom windows again. It goes from one spot to another, not angrily pecking, just a peck peck here and a peck peck there. Here a peck, there a peck, everywhere a peck peck.

I plan to hang up some strips of what they call "bird scare tape" to see if that will deter the woodpecker. This pecking noise isn't very loud or bothersome (unlike the rapid banging on the other side of the house which sometimes wakes me up), but the pecking itself is damaging my window screens. Today I managed to take a video of the bird when it flew to a nearby tree.

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Last night in bed, I tried to remember names of stuffed animals I had as a child. It bothers me that I can't remember some of their names anymore. I may have written the names down long ago when I remembered them better, but I don't remember where.

The name "Buttercup" came to me as a possibility for the bunny with the wind-up lullabye music box. I don't think that's the right name though, as the rabbit was pink, not yellow. It doesn't feel right either.

Then I imagined Westley from The Princess Bride saying the following (I turned the light back on to write it down as it amused me):
"Oh Princess Buttercup, you're my cup of butter in the morning, my cup of butter in the evening; multiple cups of butter at night! Oh how I love your cups of butter more than a cup of tea!"

All this time, and I never knew the Princess Bride movie was based on an actual book. I thought the book part of it was just part of the movie! Have any of you read the book? If so, how does it compare to the movie?

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great name

2021-11-19T23:33:34Z

Woofenbark dog grooming

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the darkening

2021-02-25T06:10:33Z

As well as some other chocolates, Qiao got me this Dark Filled Heart for Valentine's Day. It's a "dark chocolate heart filled with dark chocolate truffles" in a nice black box.

Another good name to call it would have been "Heart of Darkness".

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names. TREES. ALL the TREES and trees and trees.

2020-10-25T19:08:51Z

On another site, I saw a comment by someone with surname "Bumgarner".

I'm familiar with the surname "Baumgartner" which comes from German and means something like "Tree Gardener". So I wondered if that was the person's real name, and he'd shortened it like that as a joke... bum-garner... gatherer of bums... I was thinking of the British definition of "bum", ie. "buttocks", though gatherer of tramps could be amusing too.

But no, according to the 2010 Census there were over 6000 people in the U.S. with the surname Bumgarner.

It truly is however, a "Respelling of German Baumgartner."

Bumgarner History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms - This page seems lip-curling to me. It shows the "Ancient Arms of Bumgarner" image with a tree and a small picket fence around it. It says "They are believed to have been of the order of the Teutonic Knights." Jeez Louize, the site is trying to sell stuff. It says the name means "Orchard" when it must have meant someone who worked in an orchard - the name comes from BaumgartNER, not BaumgarTEN. But anyway, the page also has some good stuff:
"Spelling variations of this family name include: Baumgarner, Baumgarten, Baumgart, Paumgarten, Baumgartel, Paumgartel, Paumgart, Bomgarten, Baumgarden, Pomgarten, Pomgarden, Baumgartner, Paumgartner, Baumgarden, Bamgardner, Bogart, Bogaard, Bogaart and many more."

So the name Bogart (from Dutch) (as in Humphrey Bogart) also comes from, or is related to Baumgartner! And actually, boomgaard is the Dutch word for "orchard", so ok then.

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Kudos to conuly, for letting me know about this online etymology dictionary!

This was another post intended to be quick and short on something that amused me, which while writing it morphed into umpteen more things of curiosity to me. It's now an hour and a half later. This is why I shouldn't...

It also took longer to write due to words being difficult to me this morning.

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Other items of curiosity:

Bummer - is related to the German verb "bummeln - to go slowly, waste time." In my experience, "bummeln" is used in a positive sense, as in "let's go have a good time, strolling around downtown looking at stores and things."

Bumptious - an adjective that means "offensively assertive".

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this current "Karen" usage

2020-07-25T07:45:25Z

I object to the current trend of referring to a certain kind of person as a "Karen". Karen is a common name. Just because a few people with that name have done objectionable things, is no reason to besmirch everyone else who happens to have the same name by associating them with that particular group of people. The same would be the case for referring negatively to any other group of people by any other common (or maybe even uncommon) name.

Besides being a common English name, Karen is also the name of an ethnic group of people from Mynamar.

I've known several people named Karen and it bothers me to think how they would feel reading these things. Imagine your name being used in place of "Karen". How would it make you feel? Please don't do it. Find a better word or phrase if you must.

Brought on by this:
https://twitter.com/Steve_R_Walker/status/1286400379266228227

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soda city

2016-12-01T05:07:21Z

There's been a "Soda City Market" downtown for several years. I always wondered a bit why they called it that. I figured it had something to do with soda being sold there, among other things. Because I remembered reading about some brand of artisan soda being sold there once.

Now it just hit me. Columbia is abbreviated "Cola". Cola = Soda, ergo Soda City!

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names

2012-01-07T07:39:37Z

Artemis - as a boy's name (also used as girl's name Artemis), is a variant of Artemas (Greek), and the meaning of Artemis is "follower of the goddess Artemis".

Quentin - the meaning of Quentin is "fifth".

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