Category: junk drawer

  • Me no likey the block likey

    Some days, you can’t win for the losing.

    In trying something out for WordPress on a test site, I saw a new block that I thought would solve a frustration of mine about the .org version of WordPress, where you have to force folks to click on the post title to “like” a post when they visit outside of Reader. I finally had a block to add to my front page for likes (on those short poems).

    Which is fantastic. Except… It doesn’t appear to be registering likes in the notifications on either of the versions of Reader (web or Jetpack App), which is where I keep track of such things. Which means the functionality is broken and I need to rework the site design to get back that functionality to where it should be.

    TARNATION!

    This is a consistent problem with the Jetpack plugin for WordPress. They push out a feature without really testing it prior to launch and it breaks things. Last year, it was the commenting system until an update. Other times, features don’t do what they are functionally designed to do. Reader regularly gets web updates that are headscratchers at best, and breaks Reader until someone can hotpatch it at worst.

    I love the folks at WordPress, but they really need to do a better job of testing their incremental updates before something goes live.

    Back to your regularly scheduled programming. I just needed a quick vent.

  • Twenty years of WordPress

    I wonder if I’m eligible for the Dyson bladeless fan or if that’s 25 years…

    [If not obvious, this is an example of my not-very-funny sense of humor. WordPress does not give out anniversary gifts as far as I am aware.]

  • ICE = State Sponsored Terrorism

    I cannot believe I am posting that another civilian was shot to death this morning in Minneapolis by Border Patrol or ICE. Details are scant at this time and I reject the official DHS account because they have been so willing to lie and manipulate the truth about so many things in the past 18 months.

    The current credible account is that the person had a 9mm with two loaded magazines. We do not know if he was acting violently towards anyone or not. We have conceal-carry laws in our city (with permit) — it is not known if he had that permit. DHS officials claim they were conducting a “targeted arrest”, but did not disclose if this person was the subject. In the past, those words have been described to account for detailing and arresting racially profiled people and an excuse for demanding citizenship papers.

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  • yes, Virginia…

    It is damned cold out there… (That’s in Fahrenheit, BTW).

  • Back to Tyria once again

    Warning: Videogame things ahead. Enter at your own risk.

    Full disclosure: I’ve been favoring distraction over substance lately.

    Some people find their escape going on exotic vacations to exotic places. Some people go out drinking and carousing with their mates. Some people watch paint dry.

    Me? I tend to lean into music or videogames when I need to escape.

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  • sleepwalking

    I think I’ll step out for a spell.

  • Pervasive thought

    10.55: Oh, bother.

  • Well, that’s done

    Photo by Mário Rui André on Unsplash

    As I committed to myself and anyone who bothered actually reading the content of my posts about the matter in either sphere, I killed my Instagram and Facebook accounts tonight. A couple of days earlier than some might expect, but my only commitment to everyone was that the accounts would cease to exist in the waning days and hours of 2025. Reach out if you want to stay in contact, I said.

    If I was expecting a flood of people saying “don’t leave us!” (I wasn’t), I might have been disappointed in the response. I was expecting nothing and got a trickle instead, so I count those few blessings.

    I am left with the overall opinion: Good riddance.

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  • Drama

    And then there is that dire exasperation when you realize that you did not, in fact, manage to escape family manufactured drama for the first year in forever when your mother refuses to accept the word “No” as a valid answer when someone else cancels a function that nobody wants to go to and she demands you accommodate the new schedule that the other party demands be met even though there is no one particularly interested in said event.

    “But the girls need this meeting with second cousins they haven’t played with in four years and they have nothing in common with while their father drinks himself stupid and you are forced to put up with his antics for four hours. What do you mean that the girls return to school the next morning after a break where they’ve both been sick and they should really rest up beforehand and not have a late night?”

    Yes, everyone talks in run on sentences in this family when operating on high drama…

    Of course they are still invited to her house so my mother can turn on the Catholic guilt trip for my benefit at the last minute… You know, because it’s happening anyway.

    And people wonder why I hate family gatherings. Huh.

  • Using AI

    Using AI

    I recently updated my mobile phone and part of the package included a free year of Google’s Gemini Pro. I’ve been using more AI assistance at my workplace to help my research efficiency and improve my work throughput, and thought I would take advantage of the advanced Gemini access to do the same for my own personal research.

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