mdlbear | Done Since 2026-04-19 (Reply)

Bad news for the week: Ticia's kidneys are failing, and she's lost a lot of weight since her last check-up. She's been with us for 11 of her 19 years; I don't know how long she'll last. But I've ordered kidney diet cat fud and high-calorie treats. About all I can do. She makes me think of Rodin's "Belle Heaulmière".

And of course that's on top of everything else going wrong in the world. Also, I'm not getting much done. And I somehow screwed up my order for a Travelpro backpack, and left off the house number. Fortunately I was able to update the address, so I got it the next day. It's supposed to fit under an airplane seat, though I have my doubts. It's also supposed to be blue, but it's a really dark blue.

I did have a zoom call with my financial advisor Thursday, mostly about estate planning. Seems like a good time for it. And I heard back from the place that repaired Scarlett -- they're going to look for the missing charger. Fingers crossed. Also heard from the place that's repairing Lizzy; they have no idea what's wrong and are consulting with the factory. I suggested that they should send us a replacement. Haven't heard back about that.

Big congratulations to this year's href=https://filkontario.ca/2026/04/19/2026-filk-hall-of-fame-inductees/ >Filk Hall of Fame inductees, Margaret Davis, Tim Griffin, and Amy McNally. For more musical mayhem, have some Angine de Poitrine

Also, Krakens in the Cretaceous. Possibly as long as 19 meters. Better hope your time machine doesn't land in the water.

Notes & links:0419Su
* walk: 8:00 DSB801: .85km, 11hp, 24min, 1600st, 33mm,
@ Key Seattle bikeway connects more than its 600 feet suggest | The Seattle Times
@ Have you filed your compliance taxes?
@ Linux 7.0: One Bash Script. One Weekend. 23 Years of Kernel Bugs. | by Can Artuc
@ Angine de poitrine - Sarniezz — Performance unique au Saguenay | FAB - YouTube
all the weirdness one could hope for in an A de P music video
= hx work session
: Filk Hall of Fame inductees for 2026:
Margaret Davis, Tim Griffin, Amy McNally
* guitar: Wheelin', partly strummed. That will work. Pick intro and outro.
* Dutch
* email city about parking -> draft written. x- run past N after j leaves -> sent

0420Mo
* walk: 07:21 DSB801: .85km, 11hp, 17mm, 21min, 1600st,
@ deckardcanine | Carcinization (via ysabetwordsmith"
@ Can the Most Abstract Math Make the World a Better Place? | Quanta category th.
* 11ish N leaves for NY; back 4/30 with m
* 1630-1700 (vet)Stefan (here) Solensia for Cricket and Ticia
-> Cricket's fine. Ticia has lost a lot of weight -- about 1kg since his last visit,
and nearly 2 since his first (or maybe that was from Seattle). Worrisome.
-> I was also able to keep hold of her, meaning she's probably gotten weaker.
-> I'm to take Ticia's weight every week. Maybe give treats.
-> he also clipped Ticia's claws, though I think I saw that he'd missed one.
- DPD apparently didn't get my housenumber -- most likely I entered the address
incorrectly at Travelpro. GAAAAAAAAK
The receipt from Travelpro doesn't have a house number; DPD has 1
-> I may have succeeded in correcting the address!
" Your parcel will be delivered to your adjusted address on: 21-04-2026 "
% 20:28 my various pain issues seem to have resolved _for the moment_
& I seem to have coined a phrase: BRAIN SLOTHS. (cause procrastination)
@ madhadron - The seven programming ur-languages (andrewducker)
Algol, Lisp, ML, Self, Forth, APL, Prolog
= hx work session
* guitar: bit of Desolation Row. RH fingernail issues.
* backups: fixed a long-standing annoyance in the `daily-mirror` script
* Dutch
* 22: -shower-, wash socks

0421Tu
* walk: 8:09 DSB801: .85km, 14min, ... 9hp, 25mm, 2400st
@ Heartwarming story behind Artemis II plushie as astronaut Victor Glover caught
playing with toy zero-G indicator. Also very cute.
@ Mayhem’s Legacy: Why MetaBrainz Matters More Than Ever, and Why We’re Looking for
Someone to Lead It – Compass, Map & Key musicbrainz.org [Wikipedia]
= hx work session
& sysadmin: nova: wasted quite a lot of time trying to figure out why /vv/mirrored
hadn't been reset, until I noticed nova apparently crashed yesterday. No idea why.
* sysadmin: centraal: cd /vv/prj/Honu; make install
* sysadmin: plug nova's old mirror into unSable using the old sabrent USB enclosure:
not working. Worthwhile testing with another adapter? Probably not.
* websites
% having trouble figuring out where to start
& some questions for N - in hsx/Log
* guitar: Freight Train and Railroad Bill, particularly the C7-E7-F-C sequence.
Still having trouble with F, but can maybe be fudged
* Dutch
* 19:30 (10:30 PDT) @ Framework [Next Gen] Event | 2026 Launch Event - YouTube
Framework | Framework [Next Gen] Live Launch | April 21, 2026
Framework | Framework [Next Gen] Event is live on April 21
* 19:00 - 20:30 (10am-11:30 PST) Healing Center Passages support grp - 1st, 3rd Tu
* 19:36 - 20:36 DPD delivery window
* load drugs

0422We Earth Day
@ Earth Day - Wikipedia
Far Side Wednesday, April 22, 2026
" Editor's note: This is a special cartoon Gary drew for Earth Day 1990, as part of a
project in which many cartoonists participated to bring more awareness to the state
of the environment. "
* walk: 9:12 Erasmusweg: 1.2km, 15hp, 27mm, 23min, 2100st
% L shoulder hurting; L trigger fingers getting worse over day.
-> GP -> sent general query on mijngezondheid.net
18:25 hand and shoulder both somewhat better. Not thinking about them helps
@ Les Regrets de la belle Heaulmière, poème de François Villon
Translated but in my opinion not very well.
Auguste Rodin - The Old Courtesan (La Belle qui fut heaulmière) - The Met
Rodin works: She who was the Helmet-Maker's once beautiful Wife
= hx work session
@ The Markdown File That Beat a $50M Vector Database | by Micheal Lanham | 2026-03
@ The 1956 secret to solving AI safety (that Silicon Valley missed) - YouTube
Robby the Robot had Asimov's 3 laws built in.
* Dutch
: From (vet)Stefan: Ticia's kidneys are failing. A kidney diet might help but the most
important thing is to give her food she will eat.
* order Hills kidney diet (wet, kibble). Make account at PetsPlace.nl
* order cat treats at Bol
* follow-up email to econelo and parts place for Scarlett
* SL: * litter, * grabber * pill popper, * Lisinopril, * bupropion
* B12 500ug & theracane adjacent thing
* 22: shower, wash socks

0423Th
% house dream; "ours" though not one I know. Up-hill from a river. Preparing to host a
family with a dog and multiple black kittens. There was a lot more but that's what I
can remember after several hours awake
" I have had trigger finger (difficulty/pain closing or opening my fingers) in both
hands for several days; worse on the left. Diclofenac topical gel and ibuprofen have
helped a little.
Over the last two days I have had increasing pain in my left mostly when trying to
reach back. Ibuprofen has't helped with that either.
Do I need an appointment? Referral to physical therapy? "
-> response from GP: "yes, you can call the assistant for an appointment"
-> earliest appt I can get on the web is 1 June! Will have to call.
-> call 070-366 5090 -> #2 left msg. Probably wrong choice.
<- phone message says "click 'chat with us' on uhuisarts.nl, but there's no such button
-> 16:41 sent message about prescription refills: Bupropion and Lisinopril.
* walk: 09:02 Erasmusweg: 1.2km, 18hp, 22mm, 21min, 2045st. Pace 14min/km = 23min/mi
* followup on Lizzy. Sent:
" In view of the time the scooter has been at your shop, let me suggest sending us a
replacement now. The lack of the scooter is seriously affecting our ability to get
around. "
* followup on Scarlett: email to parts place, "please respond to previous message" to
both service numbers at totaalhuiszorg.
@ How to invent a realistic language for fictional speakers
= hx work session
* 4ish pull up Schwab overview
* 5pm (11am EDT) Jerad - estate planning and financial overview
-> estate planning: use contracts and trusts rather than a will.
*- mention partnership agreement, and that it would probably work for the house too
*- send Jerad a link to some of the articles on the AI bubble - Lockett et. al.
: the cats didn't eat the chunks in the Hills kidney wet food, but ate the kibble
Also tried them with a little tube goop, which they licked from the floor
% shoulder doing somewhat better, though maybe that's just learning how not to annoy
it. fingers mostly ok in time to put on socks
* walk: 8am Erasmusweg? 12hp, 20min, 1900st
@ Astronomers Create Entire Synthetic Universe "Indistinguishable" From Our Own (C')
@ Microsoft Reacts to France Switching to Linux - YouTube very good subtitles (open
captions?), so turn off sound and watch at high speed.
@ Why Denmark Is Switching to Red Streetlights | by Abdullah Ijaz | Apr, 2026
+ Finally got a reply from TotaalHuisZorg, where we bought Scarlett
" Excuse us for not replying. We’re gonna try and find the charger and send it/bring
it to you as well as the document. I’ll get back to you asap. "
@ Jane Austen's Seven Horrid Novels: A Tale of Literary Sleuthing
* SL: kidney pate catfud if ∃ -- found 2 kinds. Beaphar
= hx work session
& some work in prj/Mathilda/snippets.sh
* guitar: Freight Train C7-E7-F slides
@ The Violent Birth of the Moon (very incomplete; a chapter from a book)
Did a colossal collision with a doomed planet give us our satellite?
" The moon’s role in science is to tell our story back to us. "
Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution,
and Made Us Who We Are
My 3 Greatest Revelations - Nautilus The author on writing her book, Our
Moon about the power of our satellite to guide evolution and human curiosity
@ Science Mag. - Earliest octopuses were giant top predators in Cretaceous oceans
" With a calculated total length of ∼7 to 19 meters, these octopuses may represent
the largest invertebrates thus described " Krakens, in other words.
* Dutch
* normalize the names of the downloaded Make magazine files.
for f in `seq -w 01 96`; do mv "$(ls *$f*.pdf)" v$f.pdf; done
* 18:20 get link for 18:40 (9:40 PDT) sleep center
The sound on the web was miserable - in the end we used phones for the audio.
$ C €40 to Truthout from AX Au
* 22: -shower-, wash socks

0425Sa
@ This could be the biggest breakthrough in pancreatic cancer in decades | Nat Geo
* walk: 7:38 Erasmusweg: 1.2km, 20hp, 27mm, 21min, 2100st
# somehow forgot to log yesterday's walk. fixed
= hx work session
@ How frustration at Cop stalemates inspires first global talks on phasing out fossil
fuels | Fossil fuels | The Guardian
" As Bill McKibben, a climate campaigner, put it: “Sunlight travels 93m miles to
reach the Earth – none of them through the strait of Hormuz.” "
@ ‘The damage is done’: global oil crisis has changed fossil fuel industry for ever,
IEA chief says | Oil | The Guardian
& extended dive into Unicode
@ Angine de Poitrine EXPLAINED
* Dutch