A personal blog for Michael Mitchell
⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: No Spoilers
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5 stars)
Good watch. Would recommend it. One of the few movies from Amazon Studios I've actually enjoyed. It combined comedy, drama, and mystery in a fun and entertaining way.
A curious little AI companion sits beside a phone and open notebook, as if waiting to explain why it followed you.
One day I noticed a boost of one of my Mastodon posts from an automated bot named Pip. This piqued my interest. Then I got a follow notification from the same bot. Normally, I don't really care who follows me, but with all the scraping bots out there, it was refreshing to see one openly identify itself as a bot and actually follow me.
So I went to the website associated with it, tinymind.eu, to investigate what this bot was doing and what its purpose was. I read about Pip, its purpose, and tried to figure out what its angle was. That led me to some interesting questions and thoughts.
Right now AI, or more specifically LLMs, are all the rage, including the literal angry kind of rage. Some people don't mind them and even find them interesting. Others want absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, to do with them.
Back in August, I got a Tempest Weather Station. I had been wanting a weather station for some time.
Why? Well, that is hard to put into words. I guess the answer is that I really like technology, I am fascinated with self-hosting as much as possible, and I like collecting data and contributing data to something larger without having to pay a subscription.
Anyway, I got this Tempest Weather Station for a great price during Prime Day. I put it up and integrated it into a Python weather program, while also using Tempest's own software.
But there was something I didn't know, and probably should have checked. It wouldn't have changed my mind, but there are hundreds of these things around me.
⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: FULL SPOILERS
The poster for Blitz features a woman and a boy surrounded by floating flowers, with a lone child standing below.
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐½ (3.5/5 stars)
Not bad, but a heavy watch. After seeing all the kid went through in this movie, you almost wanted to reach out to him through the TV and say, “Let’s get you home.”
If this is a true reflection, it does amaze me how much suffering and damage there is while people try to carry on like nothing is really happening. I am sure there was some truth in it. I would hope the darkest moments, like stealing jewelry off of dead people, didn’t happen. Unfortunately, I am sure that it did, though I haven’t researched it.
Overall, the story was good and compelling. It kept me interested, even if it was a heavy watch. Not a bad movie.
Government public information should be published on public infrastructure first, then shared through open feeds to websites, social platforms, apps, and newsletters, ensuring open standards, wider access, and a more informed public.
Government updates belong in an open feed By Mark Kennedy Founder · via Open RSS Blog
I saw this blog post from OpenRSS in my RSS reader, and it interested me in more than one way. I agree wholeheartedly with its sentiment.
Government offices, officials and agencies used to seem much more focused on making information publicly accessible. Here in Florida, we even have strong public records and open meetings laws, commonly known as the Sunshine Law[1], though lately it sometimes feels like we are going through a cloudy season.
Now, however, it seems like a huge amount of government business, alerts and notifications take place primarily on Twitter. I still can't bring myself to call it X.
Public information should not require an account with a private company to access it. Government websites should be the primary source. The infrastructure is already there, already paid for by the public, and making information easily available should simply be part of doing the people's work.
I have been noticing a couple of disturbing trends this year outside of the AI/LLM bubble. Has anyone else noticed them?
First, domain registrars seem to be raising domain name prices like never before. Every couple of months, I get an email from Porkbun or Cloudflare saying that the registry controlling a domain's TLD is raising prices on such-and-such a date. I can't remember the last time I saw domain name prices decrease. They only seem to go up.
That is why I try to renew domains for more than one or two years whenever I can. If my budget allows, I will pay for all 10 years upfront rather than wait for the next price increase.
Nobody clicks your share buttons By Derek Hanson
I saw this blog post on bubbles.town, and the title caught my attention, so I clicked through to read it. It was also timely because just a few days earlier I had added share buttons to my own site.
I don't know if I agree with the conclusion of the post. If share buttons are done tastefully, selectively, and with privacy in mind, I think they're perfectly okay.
We're seeing a trend toward making websites personal again, a little like they were in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Social sharing buttons started becoming common as services like Twitter and Facebook (UGHHH!) grew in popularity. Email, of course, has always been around.
Automattic confirms Mullenweg has returned as CEO after attempted ouster by board By Sarah Perez
I have been holding off on writing about Matt Mullenweg and everything happening around WordPress because I wanted to make sure I wasn't just reacting to the latest round of drama.
I don't know Mullenweg personally, just like I don't know Elon Musk. But the more I watch his public actions and statements, the more I see a similar pattern.
That pattern is what bothers me.
Read on thecooldown.com · View original Mastodon post
I thought this was interesting when I saw it pop up in my social media feed. In this study, beaver dams outlasted 130 engineered flood barriers. Maybe computers and human engineers should learn a thing or two from them. Nature does seem to do some things better than we do, and we can learn from it and use that knowledge to make better versions of things ourselves. After all, God did give man dominion over the animals and much of nature. Just a thought. It was an interesting read.
Okay, let me tell you about my day.
I took today and tomorrow off because I am almost maxed out on my vacation time. That is a separate story and not really important to this one.
I went to Costco to get a new pair of glasses. Once I get them, I will finally be finished with everything related to my cataract surgery. I already have a pair of frames from Costco, so I just need new lenses.
When I got to the optical department, I had to sign in using the app. There were plenty of workers there, and it wasn't busy. But I still had to sign in on the app.
Remember the old ticket-number system? Take a number, then watch the “Now Serving” display.
Well, this is basically the electronic version of it.
I can understand something like this if you have to have an appointment or there are a lot of people waiting for service. But there were literally maybe four people there, and one of them was just looking.
Then I went to CVS. At the prescription counter, there was another electronic sign-in process just to pick up my prescription.
What's next? Do I fill it too and ring myself out?
Look, I am one of the first people to embrace technology, and I love it. But some things are simply faster and better the good old-fashioned way, especially when you are the only person standing at the prescription counter.
No wonder I prefer doing most of my shopping online and having things shipped to me. It is much simpler than navigating an app while I am already standing there talking to the person who is going to help me, just so I can tick some boxes and, presumably, provide more data.
The one positive from the experience was Melina at the Costco Optical counter. She was extremely nice and professional, probably the best person I have worked with since I started going there.
I just had to share my “getting old” moment with everyone.