Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog

Recent updates

  • Smoking mushrooms

    Literally smoking mushrooms. Although it’s more likely to be spores.

    Spotted in The Ramble in Central Park in Manhattan, New York City on June 21, 2024.

  • Social media sites are temporary, but WordPress is forever

    I was thinking about my old Twitter account today and how most of what I posted there is lost to time. That’s probably a great thing considering most of what I posted on Twitter was shitposting garbage, but it just made me think that things like Twitter will come and go but my WordPress blog will always be here for me. As long as I pay for the hosting anyway.

    Thankfully, I have an archive of my Twitter posts if I ever feel the need to go trawling through them for the rare gem or two, and I’m starting to realize that not everything posted to WordPress has to be long-form content. When Twitter and related services like Plurk came out, it was kind of a crisis, because then you had to ask yourself ‘should this be a Tweet or does it qualify for a blog post?’

    140 characters (Twitter’s original post limit) seemed clever, and a way to push people to be more clever and concise, but in retrospect, it was bad for the internet and online discourse. I hate that culture of one-upmanship that you now find most prominently in Reddit comments. It’s not thoughtful and it doesn’t really add anything of value to my life.

  • NY Fire Department responds to fire on Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn

    A car on Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, NYC erupted into flames this afternoon around 3:00 PM near the garrison headquarters building. NYFD was very quick to respond.

    The exact cause of the fire is unknown to me, though I imagine he had to have left something flammable in the car. It wasn’t that hot at the time though, especially in the shade where the car was parked.

    The fire melted the tires off and burned the car down to the frame back to the trunk, so it had to be burning hot and it took the NYFD a while to get the engine block to stop burning. I wonder if it had something to do with aftermarket modifications to the vehicle, or if the fire was deliberately set.

    I guess I won’t ever know, but I was asked to provide a copy of the above video to an investigations team, I suppose to find out if it was a criminal act or an accident.

  • A note about making payments as co-owners on Apple Cards

    This is some feedback I sent to Apple today:

    In the Wallet app, when I tap into “Pay” and it shows the wheel with “Choose Amount”, there should be a way to quickly choose “Pay the amount for purchases that I made with my card” (as opposed to purchases my co-owner made with her card) so that each co-owner can quickly cover their own expenses without having to sit down and do a bunch of math and talk about what transactions have already been paid for, etc. Please make it easier to pay my bill.

    Basically, it will tally up how much each person has spent over the course of a week in one UI element, but that doesn’t translate well to making payments, because what if part of what was spent over that week has already been paid? From a financial health perspective, I like to pay the card off weekly or even daily to make sure that I’m not spending more than I should, but making it hard to differentiate one person’s charges from another’s complicates my ability to use the Apple Card that way.

    As with anything Apple, it should be a simple, but it’s not.

  • Typical New York City driving

    Southbound on the FDR in Manhattan

    First, the black Honda sedan pushed me out of my lane and into an on-ramp. Immediately after, an Access A Ride van slowed way down from about 50 to 20 and after I changed lanes to pass, pushed into my lane from the right. I had to cross halfway into the left lane to get around him.

    And this is pretty normal for New York City drivers.

  • Roy Lichtenstein, “Girl with Ball 1961”

    I was surprised to find out this artist was painting back in the 60s. I just assumed it was modern (2000s) pop art and was a print, not oil on canvas. His art impresses me more now.

  • Japan’s Homeless Population

    Japan’s River People – watch for information about donating to help these people

    I knew Japan had homeless people, but I didn’t think it wasn’t quite this bad. I’ve previously seen shows with people who were suffering from situations of homelessness, but they were taken care of by Japan’s social services system and had been placed in temporary housing. It was a long time ago and I barely remember the show, but it was a woman with a child. There were pathways set up to get people back on their feet and back into regular society.

    The woman in this video says that a lot of Japanese people don’t qualify for those services, however, and some choose not to use them. I’m guessing it has something to do with pride, like the gentleman in the video above who lost his retirement money gambling in Las Vegas, so they wind up living on the fringes of society in makeshift dwellings, apparently until they reach a certain age, when they qualify for space in essentially old folks homes.

    The sample set in the video above is pretty small. I wonder if all of the homeless people in Japan really live and act the same way as those pictured, or if this is designed specifically to show the best since they’re soliciting donations. I also wonder how Japanese people feel about foreigners coming to take care of them considering the rumored Japanese aversion to foreigners even being in Japan. Maybe when your situation is that precarious, you have to set aside pride and ego. Regardless, it’s impressive to see these people making the best of their situation, especially the couple that even had a garden set up.

  • “Verify your payment method” loop on Mac OS

    I tried to make my first purchase from the App Store on Mac OS (Dark Reader for Safari) and ran into an issue where every payment card in my Apple Wallet, including my Apple Card, were deactivated and noted as “not available”.

    When I tried to make a purchase, it would ask me to sign into my Apple account, then it would tell me that I needed to verify my account. I honestly couldn’t figure out how to do that on Mac OS. I had to open my iPhone to check there instead.

    I went to Settings > tapped on my name at the top > Media and Purchases > View Account. I hit a roadblock here. I had to disable Adguard for iOS to get into the next screen. Once I got to the next screen, I clicked on Purchase History.

    At the top there was a warning message saying there was something wrong with my payment methods. Tapping it took me to a screen showing my saved payment methods in Apple Wallet. I had to reverify them all. With Apple Cash, I had to “edit” and then just save the same information. Then everything worked again.

    Once I did that, I was able to go back to my MacBook and purchase Dark Reader for Safari with no issues. I didn’t have to disable Adguard either.

    Ever since I bought a MacBook Air, I’ve been having issues with my Apple account. About a week or so after buying the MacBook Air, my Apple account was locked out. The only reason I was able to recover my account is because I had my security key from my iPhone saved.

    So, what’s the deal? Did someone else previously buy this MacBook Air and return it? Did Apple sell me a used product as new and that’s causing issues? I honestly can’t think of how anyone would have my Apple payment information or access to my account. I also can’t think of why every card in my Apple Wallet would suddenly need to be re-added or reverified. I go to the same places all the time.

    Is it just software errors? If so, that’s almost as concerning. I wanted to get a new MacBook Air because I remembered how great my MacBook Pro from 2007 was. I wanted stability, reliability, and something that “just works”. It’s only been a few months, but I’ve had more issues with my Apple account in those few months than in the last 17 years. Hopefully nothing else crazy happens.

    As an aside, Dark Reader for Safari looks amazing on the MacBook Air M2.

  • Hokkaido Cheese Waffle

    This was delicious. It’s not as good as a mochi donut from KAI Sweets, but it was a nice treat for today, and something different than what we usually get.

    I enjoy that Mitsuwa Marketplace runs fairs occasionally. The fact that we can’t get this item all the time makes it more special.

    Mitsuwa Marketplace itself is undergoing some renovations right now. It was kind of disappointing, because we wanted to get sushi rice but the rice wasn’t out on the shelves. The cooler where the mochi is kept was off too, as was the cooler for the alcohol. I’m not sure what the coolers have to do with the renovations being done, but they are putting in new lighting so I guess they had to turn that circuit off.

    I’m looking forward to seeing what the place looks like when the renovations are completed. The ceiling they’re putting in is dark, which seems like a weird choice to me. It seems like you’d want a grocery store to be brightly colored and brightly lit.

  • a quote on meditation