Pineapple Upside Down Cake

I'm trying to find the polite way to inform the in-laws that this isn't actually a step in making pineapple upside down cake.

One Pixel Black Line on macOS

I burned an AI token chasing down a one-pixel black line between the top bar and the view below it. ChatGPT's fix hid the whole titlebar; I wanted it visible. Grepping my old change logs found the real answer: the window titlebar separator. Set it to none.

Happy New Year's!

I'm writing this New Year's post in late November because my scheduled posts are backed up that far. Mr. Beast's "Hi me in 10 years" idea got me thinking about a digital time capsule, a note for the future, even if I'd never watch the man's videos.

You're Running a Race (a riddle of sorts)

A riddle for your friends: you're running a race and you pass the person in 2nd place. What place are you in now? Every single person in my family has answered this incorrectly.

WTF is a Thunderbolt?

WTF is a Thunderbolt, and why is everyone pretending it's an acceptable word? Thunder is a sound. It is not a bolt. Lightning comes in bolts. How is everyone okay with this?

PayPal Fail

It seems PayPal took a list of states, sorted them alphabetically, then converted them to two-letter abbreviations, which are no longer in alphabetical order. State names and state abbreviations don't always sort identically. Now you know.

Swap On!

My VPS kept freezing the moment I published a Ghost post, and support swore no one else had issues. Turns out MySQL was eating all the RAM on a box with swap disabled by default. So: enable swap, and don't forget the fstab entry so it survives a reboot.

The Vision Pro I Want

Apple could build the Vision Pro I actually want today: no front screen, no AR, no battery, no wireless. Just a light, comfortable headset that projects my monitor over a Thunderbolt cable. That alone would let them ship the headless, portable computer I'd really pay for.

License to Trim

I've always found it baffling that haircutting is licensed by the state. A chat with a forty-year barber sent me down the history: Minnesota in 1897, fears of "barber's itch," and mostly economic gatekeeping against immigrant competition. If you don't like your cut, go elsewhere.

One Time, Long Ago…Cheez-It

After a 70-mile bike ride I rewarded myself with a box of Cheez-Its from Walmart. Soon my lips puffed up like a bee sting. I wrote it off, until it happened again. I phoned the number on the box, couldn't surrender the evidence (I'd eaten it), and never bought them there again.