Real tragedy of DoorDash Grandma Trump got a delivery of fast food last week and it has been talked about in the news. The short story: it was a PR stunt to promote Trump's reduction for taxes on tips. But the really sad part of the story relates to why "DoorDash Grandma" is working at all. The event Let's start with the way the Trump administration wanted the news to go.

Real tragedy of DoorDash Grandma

Trump got a delivery of fast food last week and it has been talked about in the news. The short story: it was a PR stunt to promote Trump's reduction for taxes on tips. But the really sad part of the story relates to why "DoorDash Grandma" is working at all. The…

Power of Three: my trike gets a custom plate In 2025 I had a custom Harley Road Glide trike built. I still haven't written about that in my other blog, Geek on a Harley- one day that too will manifest. But I got a custom license plate for it, and felt talking about that plate was a bit more suited to this, my main blog. The phrase and its obvious meaning…

Power of Three: my trike gets a custom plate

In 2025 I had a custom Harley Road Glide trike built. I still haven't written about that in my other blog, Geek on a Harley- one day that too will manifest. But I got a custom license plate for it, and felt talking about that plate was a bit more suited…

Manosphere: making bank off of being a dick I read an article today in Wired about the creation of the "Inside the Manosphere" documentary on Netflix. I may have to watch the actual documentary now as the article intrigued me. The 'manosphere' is an environment primarily within social media where toxic masculinity and racism are not just okay, but are actually celebrated. The big-chinned chads tell all the incels how to become proper alphas...

Manosphere: making bank off of being a dick

I read an article today in Wired about the creation of the "Inside the Manosphere" documentary on Netflix. I may have to watch the actual documentary now as the article intrigued me. The 'manosphere' is an environment primarily within social media where…

Fog lamps on my lowers

I'm over a year behind on updates so this post might seem out of left field. Last year I got my new 2025 Road Glide FLTRX and had it converted to a trike. Over the winter I've had a couple of little updates I wanted to get done, the largest of which was installing Harley OEM…

Automatic Linux upgrades This blog runs on a small box (an Intel NUC) sitting in my basement using Fedora Core Linux. I have regularly forgotten this box in terms of maintenance for as much as a year or two. The good news is that the little machine keeps on working without a complaint. The bad news is that a computer that is not updated is a machine ripe for invasion by miscreants.

Automatic Linux upgrades

This blog runs on a small box (an Intel NUC) sitting in my basement using Fedora Core Linux. I have regularly forgotten this box in terms of maintenance for as much as a year or two. The good news is that the little machine keeps on working without a complaint. The bad…

Weird Kootenay winter We are entering the spring season here in the Kootenays, a time when the weather is supposed to be somewhat unpredictable. But this year our whole winter has been kind of strange- and our spring is setting up to be equally odd. The missing snow The Kootenay region is a place with an actual winter season. Typically I have observed the temperatures drop below freezing in the November timeframe and start to warm up a bit in February.

Weird Kootenay winter

We are entering the spring season here in the Kootenays, a time when the weather is supposed to be somewhat unpredictable. But this year our whole winter has been kind of strange- and our spring is setting up to be equally odd. The missing snow The Kootenay region is a place…

Check engine light My truck produced a lovely indicator a few weeks ago showing a picture of what could be interpreted as an engine. In this context, this indicator is know as the 'Check Engine Light' or CEL. I always joke that I popped the hood and yep, the engine was still there- checked! Of course I know that isn't enough, but it amuses me to say that so I always do.

Check engine light

My truck produced a lovely indicator a few weeks ago showing a picture of what could be interpreted as an engine. In this context, this indicator is know as the 'Check Engine Light' or CEL. I always joke that I popped the hood and yep, the engine was still there- checked! Of…

A spa in the snow Irene and I enjoy our spa pretty much daily. In the winter time at least it is lovely to walk across from our bedroom and jump into the pool, letting the jets blast away the sore muscles and tension. It is also a great place to talk or just relax together, and we read our books there too. Today was a special day, though: not only did we enjoy the spa, but we also had a significant snowfall.

A spa in the snow

Irene and I enjoy our spa pretty much daily. In the winter time at least it is lovely to walk across from our bedroom and jump into the pool, letting the jets blast away the sore muscles and tension. It is also a great place to talk or just relax together, and we read our books…

Lots of words I like to write, and to share what I write with others. I started blogging back in 2000 or thereabouts, so this is nothing new What is new is that lately I have been blogging pretty regularly: almost daily, in fact. I sometimes feel like I'm overwhelming people with my posts. Or that they might perceive what I write as complaining about my life, which is a pretty good life all things considered.

Lots of words

I like to write, and to share what I write with others. I started blogging back in 2000 or thereabouts, so this is nothing new What is new is that lately I have been blogging pretty regularly: almost daily, in fact. I sometimes feel like I'm overwhelming people with my posts. Or that…

Results of lower back MRI I had an MRI of my lower back a week ago, and the results have come in this week. The MRI confirms that the left channel (fossae) in the L4-L5 vertebrae is compressed. This pretty much explains my sciatic nerve problems: the root cause, so to speak, of my sciatic pain is the degeneration of my lower lumbar spine.

Results of lower back MRI

I had an MRI of my lower back a week ago, and the results have come in this week. The MRI confirms that the left channel (fossae) in the L4-L5 vertebrae is compressed. This pretty much explains my sciatic nerve problems: the root cause, so to speak, of my sciatic pain is…

Physiotherapy The last quarter of 2025 was a bit of a mess for me health-wise. It started in October with some kind of sciatic nerve disruption that left me essentially crippled and, on some days, crawling on the floor to move about. It ended with me in the Daly Pavilion for mental abnormality reasons. But the sciatic nerve pain remains, albeit far less disruptive than it was back in October.

Physiotherapy

The last quarter of 2025 was a bit of a mess for me health-wise. It started in October with some kind of sciatic nerve disruption that left me essentially crippled and, on some days, crawling on the floor to move about. It ended with me in the Daly Pavilion for mental abnormality…

Sorry, LinkedIn- I wanted BlueSky I was surprised a short while ago when I realized that my blog was cross-posting all of my posts to LinkedIn. I don't really live on LinkedIn at all- my account there was created more or less because a couple of decades or so ago my employer made it effectively mandatory. I have nothing against LinkedIn exactly, although I find the whole work til you drop mega efficiency mindset common there to be unpleasant.

Sorry, LinkedIn- I wanted BlueSky

I was surprised a short while ago when I realized that my blog was cross-posting all of my posts to LinkedIn. I don't really live on LinkedIn at all- my account there was created more or less because a couple of decades or so ago my employer made it effectively…

Duuuuummmbbb I posted earlier about my attempts to improve my site rendering speed by upgrading my blog server's RAM. As I noted in that post, it didn't seem like the changes made much if any difference to the rendering speed in the Safari browser. After much experimentation, I can hereby clarify/correct all of my previous observations and guesses. The rendering speed problem is not related to my server's RAM nor is it the fault of the Safari web browser.

#ubergeekkellysworld #wordpress #wordpressAdmin #performance #speed #rendering

Blog web server upgrade I have completed a simple upgrade to the little box that serves my blogs. I have increased its RAM from 16 gigabytes to 64 gigabytes. I had observed some page loading slow-downs under some conditions recently. My quick review gave me the idea that some of the blogs processes might be a bit starved for memory. Too much of the system's work seemed to be regularly swapped to virtual memory swap (SSD), a condition generally to be avoided.

#ubergeekkellysworld #webserver #valkey #mariadb #php-fpm #performance #ram #fcp

Blaugust 2025 numbers I had few serious goals for my sophomore Blaugust participation in 2025. Essentially I just wanted to feel like I was involved despite having a low 'blogging' drive. And I achieved that limited goal: mostly by reading the work of other, more energetic participants. Once again I've gathered some 'end of August' numbers illustrating the nuts and bolts of my blogging experience.

#ubergeekkellysworld #blaugust2025 #stats #statistics #googlesearch

A little bird… This morning's "bird in our yard" seems to be the Golden Crowned Kinglet: at least that's what our bird ID gadget helped me figure out. I have no pictures of my own- they move too fast, and are too far away for the zoom on my phone- so I grabbed the pictures for this post from eBird. Tiny acrobats…

#ubergeekkellysworld #blaugust2025 #bird #goldenCrownedKinglet #kootenays #joy

Bugs me: Hollywood facial hair This is my greatly overdue response to the Blaugust 'community builder' "Low Stakes Hot Take" challenge. I'm a man. Men generally grow more hair on their face than women. Sometimes they style or trim that facial hair in ways that please themselves or others. Men who are not deeply interested in their appearance do not spend significant time every day making it *look* like they started growing a beard...

#ubergeekkellysworld #blaugust2025 #lowstakeshottake #beards #fake #hollywood #rant

Over one year as a retiree I retired on May 31, 2024. That means over a year has passed and I am still happy with the decision. Irene and I have had some tough times during the past year that I'll touch on in this post. But the absence of the pressures of work has made it a lot easier to bounce back. But my post-retirement lifestyle is not the active and adventurous, check-off-your-bucket-list thrill that most retirement advisors seem to recommend.

#ubergeekkellysworld #blaugust2025 #retirement #simple #boring #happy #kootenays

Scientists make 'superfood' that could save honeybees We rely on honeybees to pollinate our crops and a new food could protect them from growing threats.

Interesting- finding ways to make the precious bee population healthier is a very wise thing to pursue.
www.bbc.com/news/article...
#bees #beecolonycollapse #nature

Why it’s a mistake to ask chatbots about their mistakes The tendency to ask AI bots to explain themselves reveals widespread misconceptions about how they work.

AI, heal thyself... okay, actually, that will just make things worse
arstechnica.com/ai/2025/08/w...

Yeah JD, we remember. We will never forget your boss was best friends with the guy who ran a literal child sex trafficking ring.

And then that guy was "silenced" forever.

And now we will just not talk about anything else until they...

#ReleaseThe_EPSTEIN_Files

The World Will Enter a 15-Year AI Dystopia in 2027, Former Google Exec Says Mo Gawdat thinks the next 12-15 years will be dark, not because of robots but because of our own “stupidity.”

This sounds reasonable (and terrifying) to me... AI will likely supercharge all of the worst aspects of our modern culture, most notably capitalism

gizmodo.com/the-world-wi...

Welcome to the State of Ninneso! I read several articles today talking about the much improved ChatGPT 5 model. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has claimed that it is now like having a whole team of PhDs in your pocket. One of the key improvements touted is that the model is supposed to be less prone to making up incorrect answers. But folks have been testing this model and finding it still produces some amazing whoppers…

#ubergeekkellysworld #blaugust2025 #ai #chatgpt #chatgpt5 #notaphd #samAltman #hallucination

Who is ‘Ubergeek’ Kelly Adams? The first week of Blaugust is over, but I'm still feeling like I'm just starting this event up. So I'll fall back on the writing prompts for the first week and talk about myself in this post rather than coming up with something new. Firstly, I already wrote a proper post about who I am for Blaugust 2024- check that out if you want something I actually put some serious effort into.

#ubergeekkellysworld #blaugust2025 #whoami #chatgpt #ai

Sadly disabling ActivityPub due to Discord weirdness I activated a number of plugins last year to help make my blog part of the IndieWeb and Fediverse 'communities'. I definitely support their intentions, particularly relating to owning my own data. Unfortunately, something 'broke' with Discord some time back that I've been unable to fix. I am, for now at least, disabling a key part of my Fediverse connection: …

#ubergeekkellysworld #blaugust2025 #activitypub #fediverse #indieweb #opengraph #discord #linksummaries

Weight loss via semaglutide I decided this spring that my non-stop race towards morbid obesity needed to be addressed. I have been trying vainly for a couple of years to slow the process down by gradually increasing my activity levels and making a comically unsuccessful attempt to reduce my calorie intake. But it seemed as if my own willpower was insufficient to the task: the numbers on the scale kept going up.

#ubergeekkellysworld #blaugust2025 #wegovy #ozempic #semaglutide #glp1 #weight #overweight #health

Welcome to Blaugust 2025! Blaugust 2025 is here- rejoice! Blaugust is a celebration of blogging and an encouragement for bloggers to... well, blog! There are some changes this year: Belghast has handed the reins over to a team with Krikket at Nerd Girl Thoughts acting as the Master of Ceremonies. Wilhelm at The Ancient Gaming Noob has collected a list of participating blogs as well as other information in his post…

#ubergeekkellysworld #blaugust2025

AI may soon be worthless… I read an article today over on The Register about how AI may be entering its 'model collapse' phase. The basic idea is that more and more of the content that AI ingests to produce its models is, in fact, AI generated. This means that, at its best, AI's responses will decrease in quality. This sounds very bad, and very predictable.

#ubergeekkellysworld #ai #modelCollapse #LLM #generativeAI #poisonedWell

Always in focus VR/AR? Maybe coming soon I am interested in virtual and augmented reality technologies. But I have fairly bad eyes with a complicated prescription, and these technologies all cause me some (quite literal) headaches as well as nausea. That limits my interest to the theoretical: I own exactly zero such devices. I was reading through my news feed today and came across this: a company called AllFocal Optics is working on a new technology that 'bypasses' the eye lens and projects directly onto the retina…

#ar #vr #allfocusoptical #hud #headaches #nausea

Always escape special characters… I came across this report of a bug with iOS Messages voice transcription feature and found it to be rather interesting. Cutting to the chase: Messages will silently fail if voice transcription tries to use an ampersand ("&") as part of a proper name. The example that started the investigation was a message containing "Dave and Busters". This is the name of a U.S.

#ubergeekkellysworld #xhtml #unescapedAmpersand #transcription #sanitizeInputs #dunce