chaoswolf

Welcome to July, 2025!

It's worth noting that "happy" is a very rare mood tag these days. The last time I used it was in 2019, after Mom's 99th birthday party.

I have heard the sad news from several friends, who heard it from a friend of a friend, that acelightning passed away suddenly two days ago.

Sadly, I never got to meet her IRL; all I knew of her was her signature purple posts and comments that occasionally brightened my days. I was always glad to see that flash of purple on my reading page, and now it's gone, never to be seen again.

Farewell, Ace -- perhaps I'll see you again, with Colleen and Ame, somewhere over the rainbow bridge. The purple rose icon I made for Amethyst has rarely been so appropriate.

I went out walking five times last week. Altogether they probably amounted to 2.5km, but I have been going a little farther most days. Other than that I don't feel like I've gotten a whole lot done.

That's not entirely justified, however. I ordered a replacement for m's keyboard, which was apparently stolen off of their neigbors' porch. I got what I hope will be the last shot in my 2-year course of treatment. (I was expecting a follow-up phone call, but that had to be rescheduled due to a major phone outage. And I updated my LinkedIn profile and my "professional" website (https://stephen.savitzky.net/) to make it clear that I'm not job-hunting. And helped N get most of the patio furniture, in flatpack form, out to the patio. We put together one of the two Adirondack chairs this afternoon.

I also went down some interesting rabbit-holes, many of the m involving the Vera C. Rubin Observatory -- more links under Wednesday.

You don't have to prefix things with "doom" anymore, that's just the default now. You can just say scrolling. OTOH, if you're on Mastodon and need a break, check out #Bloomscrolling.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Welcome to the start of summer, and maybe of WWIII. This post that came across my Mastodon feed this morning kind of says it all:

You don't have to prefix things with "doom" anymore, that's just the default now. You can just say scrolling.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, ...

I had my oncology appointment; I'll be getting a hormone injection (tomorrow, and apparently they do house calls for that) rather than continuing with abiraterone (which insurance won't cover because not metastatic). It's good for six months, which will take me through the end of my 2-year course of treatment. I'm okay with this.

Last night I fell down a rabbit-hole troubleshooting my little script that prints out the URL of one's last post. See this commit. Pretty sure I can blame AI bots for that problem.

I fell down another rabbit-hole Friday, which started by looking for the overture to Wagner's opera Der fliegende Holländer. Turns out that J. Slauerhoff, whom our street is named after, wrote a poem about it. It's in his book, Eldorado. I expect to have a little fun trying to translate it. (And note in passing that doom is also mentioned in that connection.)

ysabetwordsmith has some good links about dealing with Heat. It was supposed to hit 30C (90F) today, but it looks like we may be getting a thunderstorm instead. It'll still be too hot indoors.

( Notes & links, as usual )