Inside the Little Plastic Castle

The MacMost site offers bite-sized tech help for Apple users. Even though I’ve been using Apples since 1984, I always learn something there. Recently, Gary offered 36 ways to type more easily on the iPhone keyboard. Transcript and video at https://macmost.com/36-iphone-keyboard-tips.html

I learned three things that made me happy. Writing them down helps me remember, so here are the summaries:

( Specific advice for iOS, general approach may also apply to Android )

Do you have any tricks to make mobile Dreamwidth posting easier?

erinptah collates amusing and horrifying examples of large language models ("AI") spewing nonsense after they steal the hard work of artists like herself:

https://erinptah.dreamwidth.org/tag/artificial+unintelligence

ysabetwordsmith posted eighteen subtle and beautiful eclipse shots at the "share your photos" community common_nature https://common-nature.dreamwidth.org/253608.html

jenroses’s Fork Theory is a most excellent complement to spoon theory

http://jenrose.com/fork-theory/

You know the phrase, “Stick a fork in me, I’m done,” right?

Well, Fork Theory is that one has a Fork Limit, that is, you can probably cope okay with one fork stuck in you, maybe two or three, but at some point you will lose your shit if one more fork happens.

A fork could range from being hungry or having to pee to getting a new bill or a new diagnosis of illness. There are lots of different sizes of forks, and volume vs. quantity means that the fork limit is not absolute. I might be able to deal with 20 tiny little escargot fork annoyances, such as a hangnail or slightly suboptimal pants, but not even one “you poked my trigger on purpose because you think it’s fun to see me melt down” pitchfork.

Finally, this pro-captioned video summarizes the findings from an Hungarian research paper published last month in Cell. It supports that dogs make mental representations of human words.

stream on YouTube or … ( stream here )

Boros, Magyari et al. (2024) Neural evidence for referential understanding of object words in dogs https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.02.029

1. MyGuy picked up some books at my local branch, where a librarian's T-shirt proclaimed “bookmarks are for quitters“
2. Found a light-hearted, short podcast called "What the Hell is my Job?!". Each episode is two people anonymously describing their job (with lovely sound design, although I could do without the constant music bed). The host is Irish and queer and so far the contributors are all from the UK. There are transcripts on their site under each episode. So far I’ve learned about band managing, freelance percussionists, a Task Rabbit rabbit, and a union dogsbody. They’re soliciting more unusual job-havers: https://whatthehellismyjob.com
3. Learned about What3Words, a global wayfinding app that’s divided the world into 3 metre squares and gave each square a unique combination of three words. It’s the easiest way to find and share exact locations. I appreciate that 3m is close enough to see or hear someone — it’s human scale navigation. I'm delighted they decided to signal a location with three leading back forward slashes, a design that nicely rhymes with three syllables as well as the RL file location. Sadly doesn't (yet) work with Google or Apple Maps, but it is supported by a bunch of navigation apps aimed at blind travelers as well as free Apple and Android apps.
4. Strolling in the dog park yesterday, I encountered ocean waves in Wisconsin at ///riders.loft.scout. The grass is left long by Wingra Creek: in the past three months it’s been hammered by wet snow, internally mauled by -40° temps, and then flattened by breezes. The remnants of last month’s snow are reverse whitecaps on the tattered brown creek side. ( click for pic )

Any joy in your days?

ETA: 19 Feb corrected w3w's indicator.

The warnings were dire, but so far we've only had 4-5 inches on the ground. The snow is very heavy and wet and it's barely freezing. That's good news on the street, where it rapidly melts. It's sad news in the backyard, where thick snow brought down three branches on our oldest pine tree, which blocked the street behind our house. Thank heavens for neighbors with chainsaws.

Earlier in the day, MyGuy and Bella went exploring on the bike path. It's a tunnel of white: snow covers the path itself, all the vegetation on the sides, and weighs down the branches of the trees and bushes. Since our black mutt Bella is certain there's something exciting just ahead, her leash is stretching forward into the future.

( click for pic )

warm is the second-best[1] place to be as we see sasha_feather's lap, wrapped in a purple fleece throw, displaying the laptop lid covered in 26 excellent stickers ( Read more... )

My favorite is "No thanks I’m an indoor gay." I contributed the stylized pickle person who’s thinking "Kind of a big dill."

note 1: Best place to be is, of course, the internet.

In October I was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma on my nose. Last week I learned I also had basal cell carcinoma, while I was having it surgically removed. Good news! That’s it — don’t need drugs or chemo.

Back in 2020, I wore 3M Aura N9205+ masks I had on hand. Its interior nose wire is cushioned by gray foam. After a couple days I saw a little spot on my nose when I took the mask off: I assumed my twitchily-sensitive skin was reacting to the foam.

( Details of skin cancer diagnosis )

I’m giving myself comment amnesty, because it’s the only way forward.

I enjoyed several pontoon rides towards the end of summer, in my birthday-month.

The locks on the Yahara River which connects Mendota (the big lake we visited in 2020) and Monona are under repair, so the pontoon rides were much smoother.

Photographic proof: Madison's low skyline is dark against the final orange sunset glow, dividing calm gray lake and cloudless blue sky:

( within the cut )

Attention nature photographers! The Cloud Appreciation Society is launching the first-ever Cloud Appreciation Day this Friday 16 September, hosting sky pictures from everyone everywhere.

Of course, every day is a cloud appreciation day for members of the Cloud Appreciation Society, but this is our opportunity to encourage others to pay attention to and engage with the sky above.

We will be launching our new Memory Cloud Atlas website

https://memorycloudatlas.org

Anyone, anywhere in the world can upload an image of their sky on this day, locate themselves on a world map, and write or record some words about how the sky makes them feel. It’s free and anyone can upload from a mobile device or computer.

More background, and teacher resources at https://cloudappreciationsociety.org/cloud-appreciation-day-2022/

Back from another week up north. This time I could swim, and oh it was wonderful.

This pic captures the almost-infinite subtle grays and greens, near 7am on a mid-August morning. Air temp is 60°F/16°C, while water temp is 70°F/21°C and therefore just lovely for a swim. When we swim in the afternoon, the sun creates a warm zone in the top four inches.

( morning lake photo )

Lake shoreline mirrors dark green conifers in the foggy horizon. Above the fog a blue sky glows out from the pink dawn haze, while the lake extends its glassy surface into a dark green shade near shore. Turned sideways, the trees and their reflection look like a Rorschach inkblot.

If this sounds familiar, it's a cross-over between pandammit socialism and the WIPP warnings.

( poster in window )