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  <title>Vin-Dit.org</title><description>John Holland's Blog</description>
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  <lastBuildDate>Sun, 15 Mar 2026 07:10:00 EST</lastBuildDate>
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  <title>2026-09-12.3</title>
    <description><![CDATA[<a href="https://vin-dit.org/songForAbdullah.html">https://vin-dit.org/songForAbdullah.html</a> ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-09-12.3</link>
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   <pubDate>Sat, 12 Sep 2026 10:11:11 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>Progress on ice-nine?</title>
    <description><![CDATA[ Progress on ice-nine? <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-create-a-new-form-of-ice-at-more-than-2000-c">https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-create-a-new-form-of-ice-at-more-than-2000-c</a>  IYKYK  ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-09-12.2</link>
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   <pubDate>Sat, 12 Sep 2026 09:20:58 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>Beautiful</title>
    <description><![CDATA[I'll See You Again...<a href="https://vin-dit.org/IllSeeYouAgain.mp4">IllSeeYouAgain.mp4  <img src="https://vin-dit.org/CelineEtc.png" width="40%" alt="picture of Celine McLorin Salvant with Sullivan Fortner at the piano"></a><br><br>Celine McLorin Salvant with Sullivan Fortner at the piano ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-09-12</link>
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   <pubDate>Sat, 12 Sep 2026 08:22:47 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>Throw me corn</title>
    <description><![CDATA[<a href="https://vin-dit.org/ManToMan.mp3" ><img src="https://vin-dit.org/ManToMan.png" width="50%" alt="photograph of vinyl audio record of Man To Man by the Wailers, credited to Marley and Perry"></a> I knew this song from the Island Records "Rastaman Vibration" album. Today I found out the Wailers (with Bunny and Peter) recorded it with Lee Perry years before. Throw me corn.... ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-09-08.2</link>
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   <pubDate>Tue, 08 Sep 2026 12:07:42 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>Griot's Song - Caribe Son</title>
    <description><![CDATA[<a href="https://vin-dit.org/Griot%27s%20Song.mp3">Griot's Song by Caribe Son</a> (composed by James Cotton) was using this to test my app as it is not known to Shazam. I think it sounds pretty good. 1995. (going outside my comfort zone with the non-alphanumeric chars in the URL/filename 😀 ) ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-09-08</link>
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   <pubDate>Tue, 08 Sep 2026 11:17:36 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>Song I love vanished from Apple Music</title>
    <description><![CDATA[Maybe it's because we're in Puerto Rico, but I went to play this song for someone, and .... no dice! Apple Music acting like Youtube in terms of pulling the rug out. Ironically I just located it on Youtube, and will put it into my collection. Here it is: "Monument" by Tabu Ley Rochereau  (the image is a link to the mp3) <a href="https://vin-dit.org/Monument.mp3"><img src="TheVoiceOfLightnessV2.png" width="50%" alt="old Tabu Ley Rochereau compilation album cover"></a> ]]> </description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-09-07.3</link>
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   <pubDate>Mon, 07 Sep 2026 20:58:54 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>Life advice</title>
    <description><![CDATA[ September 07 ** 2</a>  “Live by the foma* that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy."
<br>
<br>
*Harmless untruths
<br><br>
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle  ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-09-07.2</link>
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   <pubDate>Mon, 07 Sep 2026 09:58:06 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>It's alive....</title>
    <description><![CDATA[ <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/what-im-hearing/id6801156541">
      https://apps.apple.com/us/app/what-im-hearing/id6801156541</a> This is the iphone app store link for my just-published app. It does the shazam thing (identifies the song it's getting from the microphone) but with buttons to jump to the wikipedia articles on the song and artist.  If you're playing a song in Apple Music on your phone it provides links for that as well, with additionally a link for the album. This is an inexact process, sort of guessing at the wikipedia links, which often works but will sometimes not. Songs with simple titles like "Rain" are going to go to a general article based on the word, most likely. $0.99 , cheap ! 😀 ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-09-07</link>
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   <pubDate>Mon, 07 Sep 2026 06:25:36 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>2026-09-06.2</title>
    <description><![CDATA[<a href="https://bernd.wechner.info/Bokononism/">https://bernd.wechner.info/Bokononism/</a> A kindred spirit, perhaps, or fellow devotee.......]]> </description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-09-06.2</link>
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   <pubDate>Sun, 06 Sep 2026 12:37:22 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>Rosalía</title>
    <description><![CDATA[<img src="https://vin-dit.org/Rosalia.png" width="50%" alt="view of the stage with giant video screens showing Rosalía singing at the Coliseo in San Juan, PR, Sept 3 2026">Rosalía on stage, flanked by the giant video screens, from the show we saw Thursday night. ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-09-06</link>
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   <pubDate>Sun, 06 Sep 2026 08:30:19 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>First of the month</title>
    <description>Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit</description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-09-01</link>
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   <pubDate>Tue, 01 Sep 2026 05:16:00 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>FreeBSD????really?</title>
    <description><![CDATA[<img src="https://vin-dit.org/beastie.png" width="40%" alt="FreeBSD daemon cartoon"> Writing this in Sublime Text, linux binary running on FreeBSD. FreeBSD maybe better for a laptop (at least this old Thinkpad W520) than I last realized. Suspend/resume and switching wifi/ethernet working, needing a couple shell commands. zoom working, also needing a couple shell commands after suspend/resume. Actually pretty nice. ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-08-27.2</link>
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   <pubDate>Thu, 27 Aug 2026 10:37:23 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>Hating on Gates</title>
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   <![CDATA[  https://www.gatesnotes.com/.../a-turbulent-ai-era-and...    Even if love's in need of love, I love hating on Bill Gates.  Why listen to this fool? 
In 1995 (November even) his book "The Road Ahead" barely mentioned the web ("I found Gates' observations on the Internet weakest of all. The World Wide Web receives just four index citations and is treated as a functional appendage of the Internet (rather than its driving force)" ) https://archive.seattletimes.com/.../road-ahead-gates-and...<br><img src="https://vin-dit.org/gates-woman-epstein.png" width="40%"  alt="Bill Gates appears with a woman, whose identity has been obscured, in this image from the Epstein estate released by House Oversight Committee Democrats in Washington, DC, on Dec. 18, 2025."> ]]></description>
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   <pubDate>Thu, 27 Aug 2026 08:49:17 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>Contact your reps re Sama Safi!</title>
    <description><![CDATA[<a href="https://actionnetwork.org/letters/demand-your-senatorsreps-take-action-to-free-us-citizen-sama-safi?source=direct_link&">https://actionnetwork.org/letters/demand-your-senatorsreps-take-action-to-free-us-citizen-sama-safi?source=direct_link&</a> ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-08-26</link>
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   <pubDate>Wed, 26 Aug 2026 07:49:44 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>RIP Dolly</title>
    <description><![CDATA[RIP Dolly Parton. click on it!<a href="https://vin-dit.org/DollyAndKermit.mp4"><img src="https://vin-dit.org/DollyAndKermit.png" alt="Dolly Parton singing with Kermit the frog" width="50%"></a> ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-08-25</link>
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   <pubDate>Tue, 25 Aug 2026 19:24:30 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>Free clock</title>
    <description><![CDATA[ <a href="https://github.com/jbholland/ClockWithSeconds.git">https://github.com/jbholland/ClockWithSeconds.git</a> Almost two years ago I made this trivial iPhone app, it's a digital (text) clock with seconds. I didn't see that that existed, at least for free (without the dreaded "in-app-purchases"). Apple did not want to put this creation of mine in the App Store. That disappointed me. Anyway, this is where the source is, it's easy to clone and build and run on your own device(if you have Xcode....). Sort of a "software freedom" issue, if you gnow what I mean...... ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-08-23</link>
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   <pubDate>Sun, 23 Aug 2026 10:16:07 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>2026-08-21</title>
    <description> <![CDATA[ A couple shots from Wednesday's visit to the Computer Museum, a little bit north of Baltimore, with Cory. <br> <img src="https://vin-dit.org/apollo11cam.jpeg" width="50%" alt="a museum exhibit of an old camera and an Emmy statue"> <br> The actual camera that shot video live from the moon in 1969. <br><br> <img src="https://vin-dit.org/sys-src-tel.jpeg" width="50%" alt="a man and boy talking on telephones in front of a big telephone relay system"><br> Our two fellow tourists, making phone calls through the big relay thing on the right, which is an electromechanical phone switch. <br><br> Really enjoyed the museum and the tour given by its head honcho; lots more than computers there! <a href="https://museumlegacy.syssrc.com/home/" > https://museumlegacy.syssrc.com/home/</a>]]>
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   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-08-21</link>
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   <pubDate>Fri, 21 Aug 2026 12:36:32 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>1984 PNG Goroka Highlands Show pix</title>
    <description><![CDATA[I created galleries of some images. The galleries' html files are generated by a shell script, kind of a hackish arrangement. The point is, the galleries are of 
photos I took in 1984 at the Papua New Guinea Highlands Sing-Sing Show in Goroka, PNG. The thing I liked most about that day was the Amyours band, documented here:<a href="https://vin-dit.org/amyours.html">amyours.html</a>. The pictures there, I had printed by 1986, and scanned those prints myself. <p></p>  I've had these slides since then. I got them digitized recently; I'm not crazy about the quality of the digitizing but it is what it is. The pictures themselves and the gallery HTML are also not that great. I've long meant to do something with these, though, and this is the state of it. I've been messing with the shell script and CSS for too long. Maybe I'll work on it more sometime later, for now, here it is. <a href="https://vin-dit.org/goroka84/gallery1.html">goroka1.html</a> ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-08-20.2</link>
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   <pubDate>Thu, 20 Aug 2026 14:29:02 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>OpenBSD kicking butt...</title>
    <description><![CDATA[I have a couple Linux installs and an OpenBSD install at home, and I've cobbled together a way of backing them up which can be run with one command, using ssh keys, sudo rights, and stuff..That command is on the OpenBSD Thinkpad. I kicked it off earlier and got distracted and shut the lid of the laptop. When I went to open it a half hour later, I realized I had caused the laptop to suspend while the backup script was running, with it's ssh connections and processes running etc. It just resumed like it had never been interrupted; the tmux session, the script, the ssh, the partly completed "borg[backup]" process over a network connection.....really nice that that all "just worked". I had been thinking about all this stuff; OpenBSD in some ways is pretty old school, for instance, the filesystems and how there are a lot of them mounted in the UNIX way. Once in a mailing list or something I was lamenting the lack of more modern filesystem stuff (like ZFS, or Btrfs, or whatever) and someone was making the case that the robustness of those things is an illusion, and that the UFS-ish filesystems of OpenBSD are in fact better. My own direct experience is that a crash and subsequent fsck session sure looks worse than a crash with a journaling or copy-on-write filesystem. This person was kind of playing trump cards of knowledge of technical esoterica....Anyway, it was really nice that opening the laptop up just resumed my "backup all my UNIX-like machines" process. ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-08-20</link>
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   <pubDate>Thu, 20 Aug 2026 07:03:58 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>Another day without giving up on OpenBSD</title>
    <description>Recreated my .mozilla folder on Openbsd by moving the old one, then syncing firefox which got almost everything back. This was my last step in fixing zoom, I had created a new OS user and run the zoom from there and it worked, so the problem seems to have been in .mozilla.
</description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-08-17.2</link>
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   <pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2026 15:07:45 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>New Piece on Mahmoud Khalil</title>
    <description><![CDATA[<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/08/24/how-far-will-the-trump-administration-go-to-deport-mahmoud-khalil">https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/08/24/how-far-will-the-trump-administration-go-to-deport-mahmoud-khalil</a> This is a really good new piece about Mahmoud Khalil and his legal situation. You'll have to deal with the New Yorker to read it, paywall etc. I don't want to "liberate" it; I think they deserve their compensation for it, however flawed the world of "intellectual property" may be. ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-08-17</link>
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   <pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2026 07:38:33 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>FOSS giveth, and taketh away.</title>
    <description>FOSS giveth, and taketh away. Trying to update my jitsi install, I broke it and haven't been able to fix it. I may let it go. I like the idea of an open source alternative to Zoom; the Novalug people said it doesn't really work that well, though. It consisted of four docker containers talking to each other on the network and a mix of volatile and permanent storage, linked to places on the hosting machine (my PC). In related news, Zoom in the browser on the OpenBSD laptop had no sound from other people, which happened at an inopportune time.</description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-08-16</link>
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   <pubDate>Sun, 16 Aug 2026 17:18:18 -0400</pubDate> 
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    <title>hackish</title>
      <description><![CDATA[I went down a programming rabbit hole yesterday, kind of obsessively working on something. Kind of like how Steven Levy described "hackers" long ago. Not in any sense of illegal or immoral, just obsessive. Maybe something will come of it that I will publish, but for now you'll have to just wonder what that could be! ]]></description>
     <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-08-14</link>
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     <pubDate>Fri, 14 Aug 2026 05:43:23 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>Ladies and Gentlemen, Stan Croydon!</title>
  <description><![CDATA[<a href="https://vin-dit.org/croydon.html">croydon.html</a> Some info about and pdf's of writings and drawings by Stan Croydon, father of my friend Elizabeth. ]]> </description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-08-07</link>
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   <pubDate>Fri, 07 Aug 2026 11:04:51 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>2026-08-06</title>
    <description><![CDATA[<a href="https://vin-dit.org/Cannonball.pdf">Cannonball.pdf</a> This is a transcription I did in high school that was pretty difficult for me, I think I worked on it off and on for about two years! It was the cause of the demise of the Wollensak reel-to-reel I'd had for years from Dad. It's the alto sax solo from this recording: <a href="https://vin-dit.org/StraightNoChaser.mp3">StraightNoChaser.mp3</a>. I set out to transcribe at least the non-piano solos of this, but the Coltrane one was just too much. I think I thought piano would be really hard compared to "monophonic" instruments. This Cannonball solo seemed really weird when I figured out (hopefully) the notes, in terms of how they relate to blues changes. It sounds really good but it's made of strange notes! The Miles and Paul Chambers solos, I still have, I did not transpose them though. I think I was listening to tiny fragments of this at half-speed. It was a lot of work for me. Possibly a sign that I was not headed for the toppermost of the poppermost of the jazz world....🙄]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-08-06</link>
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   <pubDate>Thu, 06 Aug 2026 11:32:20 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>2026-08-05</title>
    <description><![CDATA[<a href="https://vin-dit.org/MyFunnyValentineHancock64Changes.pdf">MyFunnyValentineHancock64Changes.pdf</a> It occurred to me to do this - I scanned in this transcription and added the standard chord changes in red, for comparison. This is an object of personal significance to me, I obtained Xeroxes of same transcriptions by Bill Dobbins of Eastman in 1976, that were faded and which I penciled in; I became obsessed with this recording of the 1964 concert by the Miles Davis Quintet it is from. I was looking at it the other day and I find it pretty difficult to look at these notes and also keep the song they're playing on in mind. It's actually not that long a solo, a chorus and a half; they really play fast and loose with the chords. I know that Miles recorded the song with his earlier quintet and followed somewhat different changes, I haven't tried to sort that out. nd here's an .mp3 for those that need it, though you should get this recording legally and in the best quality you can. <a href="https://vin-dit.org/MyFunnyValentine.mp3">MyFunnyValentine.mp3</a>.]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-08-05</link>
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   <pubDate>Wed, 05 Aug 2026 09:24:18 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>2026-08-04</title>
    <description><![CDATA[Even if it's fake, think about this video <a href="https://vin-dit.org/AIvid.mp4">AIvid.mp4</a> and this cartoon (I stole the image and made it, I can't find the original): <br><img src="https://vin-dit.org/talkingItOver.png" width="50%" alt="Football huddle in a crowded statement, person speaking and caption 'Have we considered just sitting down with them and talking it over?'">]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-08-04</link>
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   <pubDate>Tue, 04 Aug 2026 15:58:47 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>2026-08-01.2</title>
    <description><![CDATA[Swapped in the FreeBSD SSD and got back to the problem of updating it to the new release. There are some tricks to doing that and I hadn't gotten it to work. With some "googling" (actually kagi-ing) I eventually got it right. I used to be such a FreeBSD fanboy; my recent experimentation with it was encouraging until I couldn't update it. I think they're a little light on documentation, perhaps. BSD with ZFS that can run Linux binaries is kind of cool. It doesn't hibernate or suspend, though. I also updated the Lets Encrypt certs in the OpenBSD SSD before swapping it out. I like that these things work, a variety of usable OS's is a good thing. I saw a post by someone somewhere that they had stepped up the maintenance of OpenBSD httpd and relayd, which had apparently fallen off. <p/> I mainly want to read mail and "browse", that covers a lot of my computing. The rest of it is pretty tied to the Apple "ecosystem" and is thus not very available on non-Apple devices. I do like the idea of trying to have "software freedom". The smartphones are the real problem now, I think, and I don't see much of a solution to it.  ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-08-01.2</link>
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   <pubDate>Sat, 01 Aug 2026 17:57:35 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>First of the month</title>
    <description><![CDATA[Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit! ]]> </description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-08-01</link>
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   <pubDate>Sat, 01 Aug 2026 04:24:24 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>Charlie Don't Surf</title>
    <description><![CDATA[<a href="https://vin-dit.org/CharlieSub.mp4">CharlieSub.mp4</a>The Clash "Charlie Don't Surf" with subtitles. ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-07-20</link>
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   <pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2026 12:19:17 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>Little Marco</title>
    <description><![CDATA[I'm like militantly against Generative AI; I mean it's like an article of faith. But I had to get this in HD, it's funny: <a href="https://vin-dit.org/LittleMarco.mp4">LittleMarco.mp4</a> ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-07-13</link>
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   <pubDate>Mon, 13 Jul 2026 13:16:14 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>www.rfc.org</title>
    <description>The Rosenberg Fund for Children was established in 1990 to support the children of people in trouble for their activism. I found out about it in an article in the Atlantic by someone who interviewed their (Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's) children (who are now grandparents). I also found out, which I hadn't known, that Abel and Anne Meeropol took them in when that became possible, allowing them to have as normal of childhoods as was possible. Abel Meeropol wrote "Strange Fruit", which Billy Holiday made famous, and which earned him some money that helped this family (Abel and Anne had had two children stillborn prior to adopting Michael and Robby) have a nice life. When Michael and Robby were older, they took up for their birth parents. The Atlantic article is very interesting and moving. #AbolishTheDeathPenalty. </description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-07-10</link>
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   <pubDate>Fri, 10 Jul 2026 19:21:51 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>2026-07-08</title>
    <description><![CDATA[<img src="https://vin-dit.org/DharmaBums.jpeg" width="50%" alt="picture of a book cover for The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac"> ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-07-08</link>
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   <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jul 2026 18:30:13 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>XScreensaver work</title>
    <description><![CDATA[ <a href="https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/">https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/ </a> I improved my xscreensaver situation today. Got the Linux desktop to keep it on, rather than blanking the screen, then on the MacBook and Mac Mini, the Random Screensaver was not working, it's somewhat better. I downloaded the source, and trying to build the whole project with Xcode was failing, but I was able to build the Random one and after installing it, that's working much better. XScreensaver is the bomb! Not powering down displays on plugged in computers to enjoy the show but hey, we're on solar (or at least we are according to the electric company.) ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-07-02</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-07-02</guid> 
   <pubDate>Thu, 02 Jul 2026 16:23:24 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>Adri Galler Lastra</title>
    <description><![CDATA[created this page <a href="https://vin-dit.org/adri.html">adri.html</a> about our wonderful friend, Adri Galler Lastra. <img src="https://vin-dit.org/adri2.png" width="50%" alt="Adri Galler and a dog smiling at each other in the water"> ]]> </description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-07-01.2</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-07-01.2</guid> 
   <pubDate>Wed, 01 Jul 2026 12:58:59 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>First of the month</title>
    <description>Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit!</description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-07-01</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-07-01</guid> 
   <pubDate>Wed, 01 Jul 2026 05:09:39 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>2026-06-26.2</title>
    <description><![CDATA[Found my way to the history of my viewing that Youtube maintains. OMG! 1. That's scary. 2. I've been on about the same crap for over a decade! I like this: <a href="https://vin-dit.org/Unix.mp4">Unix.mp4</a> I want this file manager. And I think that's a three-button mouse with no wheel. I love computers in movies! ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-26.2</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-26.2</guid> 
   <pubDate>Fri, 26 Jun 2026 16:57:44 -0400</pubDate> 
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<item>
  <title>Eleanor Rigby</title>
    <description><![CDATA[<a href="https://vin-dit.org/EleanorRigby.mp4">EleanorRigby.mp4</a> ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-26</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-26</guid> 
   <pubDate>Fri, 26 Jun 2026 15:42:55 -0400</pubDate> 
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<item>
  <title>Java</title>
    <description><![CDATA[<a href="https://vin-dit.org/DeadMen.mp4">DeadMen.mp4</a>]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-23</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-23</guid> 
   <pubDate>Tue, 23 Jun 2026 15:04:28 -0400</pubDate> 
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<item>
  <title>2026-06-21</title>
  <description>
	  <![CDATA[You've found it - something worthwhile. You're maybe in a hurry or impatient. And it says: "To continue, please create an account or log in with Google or Apple." . So you say, "sure" and click. Then you have to enter your Google/Apple password, maybe even email. Guess what? You just gave access to your main email to some scammers. And with that, they can wreak huge havoc on your life. 
		  <br/><br/> I just read something that went into this at length. You really have to see that URL address bar and scrutinize the address in it. <br/><br/> In related news, "AI" is giving bad actors a lot of new tools to "spearphish" you (Carefully constructed targeted attempts to get you to give up that password, etc. ) It worked for John Podesta.....Be careful out there.  ]]>
  </description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-21</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-21</guid> 
   <pubDate>Sun, 21 Jun 2026 08:38:35 -0400</pubDate> 
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<item>
  <title>What I wanted to read but it was more than three minutes.....</title>
    <description><![CDATA[<a href="https://vin-dit.org/DataCenters.pdf">DataCenters.pdf</a>&nbsp;Something I wrote. What I wanted to read to the County Council, but it would have taken more than 3 minutes.]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-18</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-18</guid> 
   <pubDate>Thu, 18 Jun 2026 12:13:19 -0400</pubDate> 
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<item>
  <title>I appear in public....</title>
    <description><![CDATA[<a href="https://vin-dit.org/MeCountyCouncil-06-16-2026.mp4">Me at the County Council today trying to make the case that generative AI is a bad thing for society....</a>]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-16</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-16</guid> 
   <pubDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2026 18:58:14 -0400</pubDate> 
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<item>
  <title>Arch, Windows, Debian, port forwarding,.....</title>
    <description>Think maybe deleting and recreating the port forwarding rules in the Fios router that send web traffic to a Linux server internally resolved the problem. So it may not have been Windows' fault. Things working now. Also, somewhat concerned about the Arch Linux AUR supply-chain attack. I've been worrying about supply chain stuff for a while, and this is as close as I've come to being compromised by it. This is giving me doubts about the whole idea of open source collaboration. Right now this (the home.vin-dit.org version) is on a Debian VM. Is Debian more trustworthy than Arch? I looked at a post by a Debian developer on planet.debian.org of some commits he made to backport security fixes. Looked like a lot of tricky C code, completely beyond me. Should I have faith in that? Really HATE that this security/hacking crap ruins the Free Software utopia, as I like to imagine it.</description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-14</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-14</guid> 
   <pubDate>Sun, 14 Jun 2026 06:56:28 -0400</pubDate> 
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<item>
  <title>Oh, Windows.....</title>
    <description><![CDATA[Windows is vexing me, it's not forwarding traffic again. Booting that box back into Arch!]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-11.3</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-11.3</guid> 
   <pubDate>Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:40:42 -0400</pubDate> 
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<item>
  <title>Stella mp3 </title>
    <description><![CDATA[The recording: <a href="https://vin-dit.org/StellaByStarlight1964.mp3">StellaByStarlight1964.mp3<img src="https://vin-dit.org/MyFunnyValentineCover.jpg" width="50%" alt="the cover of the album My Funny Valentine by Miles Davis" /></a>]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-11.2</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-11.2</guid> 
   <pubDate>Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:18:53 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>Stella By Starlight</title>
    <description><![CDATA[OK jazz folks - I have a transcription (I've had for almost 50 years!) of Herbie's solo on Stella by Starlight on the My Funny Valentine album. I don't think I ever really digested it before. I've been playing along with that tune a little, aided by finding these changes that are somewhat like what they're doing. The chord substitutions/reharmonizations they do are incredible! The bass notes Ron Carter plays go to some very interesting places. I've listened to it so many times, but never really tried to pick it apart. It's kind of beyond me, but fun to attempt to understand. They're not doing the Real Book changes, in large part. It's like they have ESP.  I love that album so much.
A starting point in looking at it was realizing that Herbie's solo starts about eight bars into the chorus and ends at a strange point as well, where Miles comes back. It's like a perfect piece of music that is very loosely based on the tune. <img src="https://vin-dit.org/Stella-By-Starlight64-changes.jpg" width="50%" alt="chord chart for Stella by Starlight as performed by Miles Davis live in 1964">(right-click or whatever to see at normal size) <a href="https://vin-dit.org/StellaByStarlightHancock.pdf">StellaByStarlightHancock.pdf <img src="https://vin-dit.org/StellaScreenshot.jpg" width="50%" alt="an image of the first page of a transcription of Herbie Hancock's solo on Stella By Starlight(1964)" /></a> The penciled in changes from the Real book should not be paid much attention to. Transcription by the great Bill Dobbins of Eastman. ]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-11</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-11</guid> 
   <pubDate>Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:10:50 -0400</pubDate> 
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  <title>Claude prevails</title>
    <description>Gave Claude (free version) online AI the same prompt deepseek locally didn't do well with. (the long one, with "you're confused. throw away all your previous reasoning." skipped.) It nailed it immediately, including unit tests. Kind of scary.
</description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-09</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-09</guid> 
   <pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:15:27 -0400</pubDate> 
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<item>
  <title>Bad AI. Bad, bad AI.</title>
    <description><![CDATA[OK, looked at the code it generated - it's fundamentally wrong! It gets a number of spaces to go between each word but then doesn't use it, just putting one space between each word, plus one if the gap number is &lt; the remainder (see the prompt below). So it'll never be right. It compounds it by putting padding (spaces) at the end of the line, which is completely the opposite of the assignment!]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-02.3</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-02.3</guid> 
   <pubDate>Tue, 02 Jun 2026 11:54:28 -0400</pubDate> 
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<item>
  <title>More AI fun</title>
    <description><![CDATA[More about deepseek and justifiying text; <p></p>
Prompt that it spun around on for a long time: <p>
generate a Rust program with Cargo.toml file to justify an ASCII text file. take as input the file name and the desired line width. justify each line by inserting additional spaces between words, distributing the spaces evenly.
</p>
A prompt it's churning on now, seeming to be putting out code:
<p>
    you’re confused. throw away all your previous reasoning. generate a Rust program with Cargo.toml file to justify an ASCII text file. take as input the file name and the desired line width. justify each line by inserting additional spaces between words, distributing the spaces evenly. That is, for each line: if the line as 0 or 1 words, output it as is without changing it. Otherwise, add up the length of the words into total_word_length, add the number of gaps between words to that to get total_content_length, subtract that from desired line width to get number of spaces to add. Do integer division on number of spaces to add to get the quotient (base number of spaces to add between words to the existing space, which will be 1) and the remainder (additional number of spaces to add to the line). remainder should be &lt; number of gaps. as you construct the spaces for each gap while building the output line, if the index of the gap &lt; the remainder, add an additional space so as to use up the remainder from the division. So each gap will have 1 space (which was there already) plus additional spaces of an amount equal to the quotient of the division (base number of spaces to add) plus the extra space from the remainder, when it is one if the first i &lt; remainder gaps.
</p>
The churning on the first prompt was hard to take, it was like a very confused dim programmer. 
<p></p>
    Playing right now with the result of the second prompt. It doesn't compile and referenced an old version of a dependency. Playing with it more, it really got into trouble with that dependency, called "clap" which is used for command line argument parsing.  I gave it this prompt: <p>
    this is good but it doesn’t quite work, the clap stuff for argument parsing isn’t working. Can you generate the same program using a different library for argument parsing?</p>
    It's yammering away. 
    <p></p>This reminds me of a joke a comedian told, where a person is vacuuming the floor, and sees that the vacuum won't pick up something. So they pick up the something and look at it, and then put it back down and try again to get the vacuum to pick it up. They are more interested in the vacuum working right than in getting the floor clean. (Always bad when you have to explain a joke). 
    <br><br>The idea of a sort of robot that writes code is very compelling, and when it doesn't work right away, I want to get it to work. It makes the idea of using my head to write the code seem like too much effort.  I'm writing this as I play with the AI and running its output. I hardcoded the filename and width as it still was making up command line parsing that didn't work. It runs, but panics. As a test, my hand-coded version can work with the same input and width. Trying a couple other tweaks, but still panics. I really don't want to get into the weeds of fixing this program. Maybe it would have better luck in Python? 🤷]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-02.2</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-02.2</guid> 
   <pubDate>Tue, 02 Jun 2026 11:15:49 -0400</pubDate> 
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<item>
  <title>Playing with "AI" again</title>
    <description><![CDATA[Fired up "deepseek-r1:14b" again on my Linux desktop and watching it try and write a Rust program to justify text. see <a href="https://vin-dit.org/justify.html">justify.html</a>. A problem I worked on long ago. (It's not very hard. ) The 'openweb-ui' docker image puts a web front end on it. It's painful to watch the words trickle out as it "reason"s . It's sort of hard not to look at, like a video of a car crash or something.  Installing and running this stuff required a lot of downloading, but it supposedly is self-contained after that. I guess it is sort of a massive blob of data in a very complex structure with a complex algorithm that has some randomness, to put it in old school computer terms. So far it's still toiling away on little tests of its inner function. It seems to have confused extra spaces to be added between words with the total desired amounts of space between words. It did better on the card game "War". <p></p>
It is pretty remarkable this is possible, and presumably a higher quality model could do better. I wish people weren't saying this stuff is inevitable, though. Is anyone steering the ship of humanity?]]></description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-02</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-02</guid> 
   <pubDate>Tue, 02 Jun 2026 10:45:55 -0400</pubDate> 
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<item>
  <title>Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit!</title>
    <description>Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit!</description>
   <link>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-01</link>
<guid>https://vin-dit.org/index.html#2026-06-01</guid> 
   <pubDate>Mon, 01 Jun 2026 05:10:16 -0400</pubDate> 
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