Down Under Digital


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Looking better than last night.

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Our Condo is having gutters cleaned today. Timing is excellent.

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Here in Edmonds, north of Seattle the lights have been flickering due to the effects of the ongoing bomb cyclone the region is experiencing. I gather things are worse to the south of downtown Seattle and my daughter who is just north of U of Washington has lost power.

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As usual Steven Novella of “The Sceptics Guide to the Universe” fame can be relied upon for a thoughtful article. This time it concerns teen social media ban in Australia.

theness.com/neurologi…

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doctorow.medium.com/you-shoul…

An excellent article about why we should all be using RSS. I first got interested in this tech back in 2000 and presently use Reeder.

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An excellent read for those thinking of joining the Bluesky bandwagon. I should mention that I’m part of the crowd.

pluralistic.net/2024/11/0…

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Inspired by our present watching of The Lord of the Rings: Ring of Power I’ve launched into my very first read of The Lord of the Rings. I can see this is going to be something of a long project but it’s keeping me away from listening to various podcasts which at this point in time are just too political. I should mention that I’m actually listening to the text using the Kindle Assistive Reader.

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It’s never a bad day for a walk on the beach. This view from just over the railway line next to Carkeek Park.

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We checked out the chum salmon moving up the creek at Carkeek Park in North Seattle this afternoon. It’s the time of year to see them heading into the freshwater creeks from Puget Sound.

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We have a visitor to show around the Seattle area for the next few days. I hope that we can dodge some of the rain that is coming into the area today.

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Today the Fremont district of Seattle has the annual summer solstice parade. I suspect that this year’s parade will attract even larger crowds than last year’s given the weather conditions are not quite so dismal as a year ago. Back then I was speculating how the rain would interact with the paint so artfully decorating many of the naked cyclists leading the way. A few years ago my band was part of the festival and parade when Honk West coincided with Summer Solstice.

Summer Solstice Parade

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Today the Fremont district of Seattle has the annual summer solstice parade. I suspect that this year’s parade will attract even larger crowds than last year’s given the weather conditions are not quite so dismal as a year ago. Back then I was speculating how the rain would interact with the paint so artfully decorating many of the naked cyclists leading the way. A few years ago my band was part of the festival and parade when Honk West coincided with Summer Solstice.

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I’ve just finished the chapter about Mark Zuckerberg in “Burn Book” by Kara Swisher and I’d kind of like to immediately stop using Facebook. And she hasn’t even gotten to Elon Musk yet.

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I can’t really disagree with what the authors are saying here. “Peak Denialism” is a provocative but useful phrase that can be a reminder to not look away from unpleasant truths.

We’ve Hit Peak Denial. Here’s Why We Can’t Turn Away From Reality | Scientific American

We are living through a terrible time in humanity. Here’s why we tend to stick our heads in the sand and why we need to pull them out, fast

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I really hope this story has a happy ending. We discovered Scarecrow Video just a few months ago and have been regularly visiting the store and borrowing DVDs. It really is a unique and precious resource for movie lovers.

Scarecrow Video says it needs to raise $1.8M or face possible closure | The Seattle Times

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I think we’ll make a return visit today and hopefully dodge any potential rain.

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I’m glad to have attended this event on Friday since yesterday’s weather was quite wet and chilly

Bartender Mac app shifts owners, adds telemetry

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What’s a good alternative to Bartender on the Mac? I know I tried out one a few years ago, but I can’t remember what it was.

Bartender Mac app shifts owners, adds telemetry:

Popular app Bartender was quietly bought, and a shady certificate replacement, insertion of invasive telemetry, and a lack of transparent responses by the new owners has shaken confidence in the Mac community
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I need to think about this a little more!

Light and Distance in an Expanding Universe - NeuroLogica Blog:

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Quite an interesting and topical article by Steve Novella of “Skeptics Guide to the Universe”.

The Moon Race is On - NeuroLogica Blog:

What are the geopolitical, economic, commercial, technological, scientific and exploration factors pushing us back to the Moon? It’s complicated, but here are some factors that are commonly discussed by experts.
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It’s worth keeping this in mind. I came across this article after I played with the OpenAI product and Bing.

The People’s AI – Doc Searls Weblog:

The People’s AI can only come from people. Since it will be made of code, it will come from open-source developers working for all of us, and not just for their employers—even if those employers are companies listed above.*

That’s how we got Linux, Apache, MySQL, Python, and countless other open-source code bases on which the digital world is now built from the ground up. Our common ground is open-source code, standards, and protocols.

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I just discovered that I can use ChatGPT 4 on OpenAI’s website for a few queries and then I got told that I have a few hours delay before getting to use version 4 again. I’m back to queries using 3.5. I guess this works for me as a way to very occasionally try queries with this latest version. I noticed that it did give more detailed replies. Back to Bing for now!

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It’s good to eat outside again at various local restaurants courtesy of warmer weather. Of course you can always get rained upon which happened to us late yesterday afternoon. A quick table move to the umbrella shelter solved that concern however and then, of course the sun returned!

Here’s a photo just before the rain decided to dilute my wine a little bit.

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Speaking of the fictional character Inspector Rebus I’ve just borrowed a DVD of the Rebus television series from the Edmonds Sno-Isles Library.

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Testing Drafts action again.