Friday Notes (May 15, 2026)

It has been a while — three weeks exactly — since the last post here. I haven’t been idle, though; quite the opposite. I reached three-score-and-ten last fall and have taken it as a mile-marker indicating it’s time to get some stuff done.

I hibernated through the winter, but now that spring has arrived, I’m out of my sleepy cave and roaming around organizing things, getting rid of other things, keeping appointments, and (gulp) spending money.

But this Friday Notes edition has a tiny significance that demands my attention.

The significance lies in the date. Regular readers may recall that I’ve been tracking which day of the month I post Friday Notes. For some time now, I’ve fallen into a rhythm of monthly editions, and I discovered a strong bias towards posting later in the month.

[For whatever reason, “rhythm” is one of those words (like “occurrences”) that I can never remember how to spell. An eternal nemesis. With “occurrences” it’s mostly the damn schwa that defeats me (is it “e” or “a”?) but the double double-letters also seems to catch me by surprise. With “rhythm” it’s … the whole damn word: the “rh”, the “y”, and the “thm”. My brain just can’t latch onto it.]

Anyway.

So, I set about smoothing the distribution and, in particular, filling in some actual gaps — month dates on which I’d never posted. And one of those dates happens to be today:

A particular glaring gap because it fell in the middle of the month. The lack of posts on days early in the month makes sense — a new month rolls around, and it takes me a week or so before I start thinking of a Notes post (hence the strong bias towards posting later in the month). But that gap on the 15th was weird.

As an aside, the median is 19.5: there are 31 posts on dates 1 through 19 and also 31 posts on dates 20 through 31. (The mean is ~19.02.) And as it happens, the 19th has the most posts (5). One way to look at it is that there is a 50/50 chance I’ll post after the 19th.

[One date is highlighted in red because the original point of the charts was to discover how often I’d posted a Friday Notes edition on Friday the 13th. Given the later-in-the-month bias revealed by the chart, only twice isn’t surprising.]

Anyway, again: gap filled.

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Whatever happened to Fāk Mēt™ (meat alternatives)?

Several brands of the stuff (Beyond, Impossible, and others) were really hot for a while, but the buzz seems to have died down. I recall seeing or hearing somewhere that, despite being competitive on flavor, “vegan meat” (if I may use an apparent oxymoron) wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

I’m guessing some burger chains must still sell them, and I’ve always wanted to give them a try. Not that I am, in any way, vegan. Tried it for a few years back in college but decided two things:

1. Meat is both too efficient a food source and too tasty to give up.
2. I’m comfortable as an apex predator and fully embrace being an omnivore.

That said, industrial meat production — a necessity with a large population — can be pretty horrific. A balancing argument for me is that humane methods are possible (but cost more). Further, I believe that eventually we’ll clone meat directly and not require harvesting living animals.

But ultimately, I’m unapologetic about consuming other life, fauna as well as flora.

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This meme I came across recently:

Not to disparage Watson and Crick (“it’s complicated”), but it gave me a big grin. And I knew a really sweet dog named Rosie who was in fact named after Rosalind Franklin.

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I realized recently that I no longer care about quantum computing.

It was interesting for a while, but it has become too specialized and too deep for me to keep up with. And too full of tall tales, wishful thinking, and hyperbole for me to take it seriously anymore.

My bottom line is that, firstly, it’s only useful for certain specific types of problems: mostly modeling of other quantum systems (such as new drug molecules). It will almost certainly never be useful for nearly all classical computing tasks: accounting, communications, entertainment, etc.

The gotcha is that one task it is expected to do (and some worry it’ll happen all too soon) is factor very large numbers comprised of two very large prime numbers. That capability means quantum computers can decrypt the bulk of what we encrypt today.

Researchers are developing quantum-safe encrypting algorithms, but there are two worries. Firstly, that quantum computers might beat the clock on widespread adaptation of the new algorithms, thus leaving a window open. Secondly, that quantum-based decrypting can potentially break historical encrypted data — communications and databases that have been captured and stored.

But despite some glowing reports (and some growing fears), we’re still having trouble developing a quantum computer capable of factoring large numbers.

On the other hand, never bet against technology.

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I never was that into birds (although corvids are kinda cool as are some parrots). I prefer mammals — my metaphorical “birds of a feather”. I’ve never entertained owning a bird (or birds), nor even put out food or bath for them.

But I have been feeding my local squirrels lately:

I know they’re rodents, but you must admit they’re pretty damn adorable ones:

Every morning (and sometimes also in the mid-afternoon), I put out a bowl of raw nuts — some in shell — as well as a bowl of fresh water (of which they do partake).

There are four. At least, that’s the most I’ve seen at one time. I’m trying to learn to identify individuals but not having much luck. I do have some degree of face blindness, and maybe that contributes to the difficulty.

I’ve been spending a few months getting them used to me and the daily feed. My eventual goal is to see if I can hand-feed them. So far, they’re okay with me being right behind the glass door, but they generally run away if I open it. At least two have lately been getting bolder. One almost took a whole walnut from my fingers but kept chickening out.

They’re fun to watch, though, and a nice part of my mornings. It’s adorable how they sit up and hold a nut in their tiny paws and chew away at it.

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Speaking of birds, where did I get the idea that robins are obnoxious?

Harbinger of spring and all that, but there is something about their attitude that rubs me the wrong way. I think it’s related to their boldness around humans. Most birds hide in trees, but robins hop around just looking at you like, “Hey, I’m walkin’ here!” They all seem to have that impatient New York mindset.

But maybe it’s just me.

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For the last year, every day I record the count of spam emails to my primary email account (one I’ve had since the 1990s). The results have been intriguing:

(But perhaps I’m easily intrigued.) I thought the holiday/shopping months (November and December) showed a notable increase, but they pale compared to the increase in the first quarter of this year. Then in April, they dropped off (but still topped the last two months of 2025).

Halfway through this month, if the volume continues, I should get close to what I got in April.

It’s mildly amusing watching the waves of particular scams. Recently, there were a lot about my supposed cloud space being full, and I needed to click this link to prevent my data from being erased. TODAY! ACT NOW!!

More recently, they were about needing to validate my email mailbox or be locked out of it. A long-running one involves getting a FREE complementary roadside emergency kit from AAA (just click this link).

Perhaps oddly, I object both to how lame they can be: how the perpetrators could possibly believe anyone would fall for their atrocious grammar and spelling but also how alarmingly good some of them are. (Though from what I’ve heard, the former is actually intentional to screen out all but those dumb enough to be fooled.)

A particularly good one came as a text message to my phone (and quite a few lamer ones have come by email). It told me my T-Mobile “points” were about to expire. TODAY! ACT NOW!! Click this link!!!

The spelling and grammar were both good, and T-Mobile is my carrier, so it almost seemed legit. But the link was garbage and T-Mobile points never expire (and I don’t have any anyway).

The general scam — your expiring points; act now — seems the latest trend. Quite a rash of emails about my supposed Walmart or CVS points expiring.

What I really object to is the lying. Advertising for a legit product is one thing, but these (pardon my language) fuckers are nothing but thieves. And usually pretty lazy dumbass ones at that. So cheap to send out thousands of lying emails, but a large return on the (I assume) very few actual bites.

But dishonesty just might be at the top of my list of sins.

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Which is why sometimes:

Both a sentiment I often feel these days and the name of the very first play I did tech for back in my high school theatre days. [See My Life 2.0 for the deets.]

I have very fond feelings for those carefree high school days as well as that particular play (a musical by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley).

That said, not a big fan of musicals, especially cinematic ones.

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If last month you got an email about a new, but mostly blank, post from me, blame it on something that is either new or that I never noticed:

The screen grab is from the top of the WordPress Reader’s Following page.

Either I never noticed that it’s for posting a new post or it’s a recent addition. In any event, thinking I was writing a comment to a post I’d read, I inadvertently created a new post. Which presumably sent an email to those subscribers who get email notifications of new posts.

I realized my error immediately and deleted said errant post, but I was vexed. Seemed an unexpected place for a new-post entry box.

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I’m not a big fan of the song Layla (1970, by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon), but I love the piano part.

The song is much acclaimed but recently watching Clapton perform it as a solo acoustic piece (sans piano part) made me realize I only like the piano part. I find the song, especially the lyrics, rather boring. (The guitar riff is okay, though.)

That piano part is in fact a tacked on separate bit credited as being written by Gordon but said to actually be by his one-time girlfriend Rita Coolidge. Clapton heard him playing it the studio and wanted it tacked onto the song.

I’ve always preferred instrumental music to lyrical music, and I especially love rock piano and keyboards in general. (One reason I was a Springsteen fan was that his band had both rock organist Danny Federici and rock pianist Roy Bittan. Any I like bands with both lead and rhythm guitars.)

Another favorite rock instrumental (albeit with no piano) is Jessica (1973) by Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers Band.

Hopefully these links won’t rot too soon. I’ve gotten away from posting links to YouTube videos because of link rot.

And I’m finding I’m watching fewer and fewer YT videos because of all the damned ads. The interstitial ones were bad enough, but the ones that interrupt videos make me less and less inclined to bother. Quite a few channels I don’t watch much anymore.

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A few weeks ago, I watched The Game (1997), directed by David Fincher, and starring Michael Douglas. I really enjoyed it when it came out. It’s twisted (in a good way). It’s one of those movies that become a different story after you’ve seen it once.

[The canonical examples are The Sixth Sense (1999) and The Usual Suspects (1995), but my favorite is a lesser-known example, the Florida Noir Wild Things (1998). A classic example, also Florida Noir, is the sultry Body Heat (1981).]

If ‘directed by David Fincher’ sounds familiar, it could be from seeing it in a number of memorable movies: Alien 3 (1992), Se7en (1995), Fight Club (1999), Panic Room (2002), Benjamin Button (2008), The Social Network (2010), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), and Gone Girl (2014). Plus, three Netflix movies.

So, thumbs up on The Game. I think I watched it a second time back when it came out (or more likely when it became available on cable). I didn’t have any sense of watching the seen-it-once version for the first time. But knowing the plot didn’t detract from the enjoyment. Highly recommended if you’ve never seen it (and you’ll probably have to watch it twice).

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I’m thinking of pushing the weather reports I often do here off into a Weather Notes version of Friday Notes — similar to the infrequent Science Notes editions but less infrequent. But for now:

A bit warmer compared to previous Aprils. A minor cool chill from the 13th to the 19th followed by a bounce back from the 19th to the 22nd. No snow during the month, so winter is probably safely behind.

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Stay squirrely, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.

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