Reading

Entry tags:

moodday,
rant

unreality

I don't know how to trust anything I read or see online any more.

Just a few days ago, I started reading an article talking about archive.org and how it stopped doing some sort of widespread page collection in 2024 around the time of their DDOS attack. The article also mentioned Google stopping its "cached page" collection as a related event, leaving us now without any easy and trustworthy reference to past online experiences. Actual published information can now simply be made to disappear... gaslighting anyone who thought they remembered it.

I think the article intended to tie this chain of thinking to our current control by a few plutocrats over our broadcast and online media, providing them ample opportunity to manipulate our societies and politics for their economic benefit. It was a very long article, and I stopped reading it halfway through, intending to come back to it later. Today, I can't even remember which website it was at. It was an important article, but I've lost it in the aether. I really need a convenient replacement for Pocket, which is what I used for a long time to store webpages into categories for easy recall.

With AI videos, audio, and images all being so realistic, I just don't know how anyone can know anything beyond what they see with their own eyes. And our brain's memory is itself famously faulty. There are important political events happening on the world stage, and it's difficult to know for sure where to direct one's attention.

The only option that I can see is for everybody to record everything around them at all times. Then any disputed event can be compared against multiple data sources for corroboration. But I see people online freaking out about any recording of anything because you didn't ask permission of anyone in field of view. I'm so tired of this obligate ownership of everything everywhere.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this train of thought. I know that somehow this topic is related to technological telepathy, in this dystopian world where we suffer the manipulation of reality by forced control over recording and recall of events. Once again, I advocate total freedom instead of compartmentalized "ownership" of any experience, perspective, or opinion. The one thing I argue against is lies... the presentation of one thing as something else that it is not.

Entry tags:

dreamwidth,
html

HTML tags: PRE, KBD, and DETAILS

For easier searching later, I decided to make a brief post today just about some HTML tags that I use.

For pre-formatted text, I discovered in yesterday's post that long lines of powershell code were not wrapping to new lines. I eventually got it working as intended by formatting the HTML tags like this:

<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Text goes here. blah blah blah.</pre>

I wonder, though, if I should switch to monospace font for computer code? In the past, there was the TT (teletype) tag, but apparently that's another technology that has been deprecated. Here's an example of the new KBD (keyboard) code instead. I don't know. It looks exactly the same to me, except for the change in vertical spacing. I'll stick with PRE instead, I guess. I could use KBD inline within a paragraph if needed.
<kbd>this is a test. blah blah blah.</kbd>

Far more frequently, however, I use the HTML tag to display a little sideways-arrow which users need to click to "open up" a section of text. Using this tag liberally helps keep long posts from flooding other peoples' blog feeds. Readers can choose whether or not to read the long diatribes (or see the large pictures) in the main part of the blog post. Here is the code I use to accomplish that feat:

<details>
<summary>Click the arrow to read the blah blah blah...</summary>
All of the usual blog content goes here.
</details>

There. Now I can find these tag details again when I click the HTML tag on my blog. Bread crumbs to help a failing memory.

Entry tags:

powershell,
work

RIP Get-EventLog

Today at work, I wanted/needed a faster way to collect particular events in the Microsoft Windows event logs. I had the obvious way to collect them from the gui, but I needed something better. I decided to try powershell.

Click to read the powershell code and follow the small adventure...

I had no idea beforehand that the log source name in the gui is different from the one accessed by powershell. It took some googling to figure out the right mix of parameters and clauses, but it worked. Sort of. Here's the code I came up with:

Get-EventLog -LogName System -Source Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-General -After (Get-Date).AddDays(-10) | Where-Object { $_.EventID -eq 1 -and $_.CategoryNumber -eq 5 } | Out-GridView

It definitely found the appropriate events from the log. It did not, however, provide the appropriate message about the reason for the log entry. Instead of the rational reason that the gui showed me, this script was telling me:

Possible detection of CVE: 2025-11-15T20:31:07.5402125Z
This Event is generated when an attempt to exploit a known vulnerability (2025-11-15T20:31:07.5402125Z) is detected.

Whoa. That sounds bad/dangerous. After digging into other properties of the software object I was given, I finally noticed the purple note in the official Microsoft documentation that this command has been deprecated! Argh! I was probably getting CVE-similarity notices because I was still using this deprecated 32-bit command. I am old, and what I formerly knew is now contraindicated. *laugh*

I switched to the new powershell command, and it again took me a while and several consultations with Google to hammer out the new (and actually better) command:

Get-WinEvent -FilterHashTable @{ProviderName='Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-General'; Id=1; StartTime=(Get-Date).AddDays(-10)} | Where-Object { $_.Message -match 'Change Reason:.*time zone.*' } | Select-Object TimeCreated, Message | Out-GridView

Finally! This new powershell command shows the correct reason for the log entry and the directory path to the program that produced it. That's exactly what I needed. Yay, although I'm clearly out of practice with powershell. After collecting data, I opened a ticket to have our next tier of IT take a look at my computer and find why this particular event keeps showing up. Something is changing my timezone (to the wrong timezone) throughout the day, even after I manually change it back to the correct timezone.

Entry tags:

health

done!

It is done. Yay!

They found one large polyp. I'm not worried, because all previous intestinal polyps tested fine afterward. I've been doing GI exams since my 30s, thanks to a decade of diarrhea back then. That long problem was cured thanks to a last-minute choice from a doctor to give me metronidazole before another GI exam. I still celebrate metronidazole day occasionally: 2024, 2022, 2013, and the original prescription date of 2012.

I'm back home thanks to a former landlord (I don't think he's on Dreamwidth?) picking me up at the hospital entrance to drive me home. I've already started eating my usual first post-exam meal of Greek yogurt with dry oats. If that sits well for the next hour or two, then I'll expand to the usual range of stuff. :)

I got about 2 hours of sleep last night, having taken the magnesium citrate at 12:30am for the 6:30am arrival time. Food first, I think, then sleep.

Entry tags:

health

GI exam prep

I've lost count of how many times that I've needed to go to the restroom today. I don't even start the chemical preparations until tomorrow. This is just my second day of So Very Much Water with low fiber diet.

Yesterday, on the first day of this regimen, I got through work and ended the shift needing bathroom breaks every 30 minutes. I'm short on sleep now, after needing to get up 4 times last night too. Today, I worked 1.5 hours before giving up. The bathroom recurrence time shrank from 30 minutes to 20 minutes, then 15 minutes. I gave up after 1.5 hours, and I just called it a sick day and logged off.

I'm eating even less today while still drinking So Very Much Water. I switched from pants to robe, making those bathroom trips even easier. *laugh* I do my final cleanse routine on Thursday evening. I show up at 6:30am on Friday morning for the GI exam.

As usual, I'll be glad to eat regular food again as soon as it's done. And stop drinking so much water.

Entry tags:

astronomy

aurora

Hey, Minneapolis. Go outside tonight. Actually, nearly everyone should give it a try. The spaceweather forecast was for this storm to produce aurora to latitudes down to Minneapolis, but there are reports of people catching photos of it all the way down to Texas.

Open up your smartphone camera in night vision mode. Look everywhere. Look northeast, look overhead, look southeast.

There's beautiful aurora everywhere!

Is that even a narrow band of orange that I see between the green and red areas? That's just amazing.

I scared a rabbit at my front doorstep when I walked outside to take this photo. It scared me right back when it darted away.

Entry tags:

health

a brief medical update

I'm supposed to get a long overdue gastrointestinal (GI) exam on Friday morning next week in the wee early hours, before dawn. I already bought all of the things I need for the "cleansing" beforehand, except for the magnesium citrate solution. There wasn't any at the Cub (grocery) pharmacy. There wasn't any available online at CVS or Walgreens. I called this morning to ask the GI team at the hospital what I should do. They said they would send a prescription order for it to the Cub pharmacy. I said that it wasn't on the shelf, because I already was there physically and looked. Apparently these days, pharmacies keep magnesium citrate in stock behind the counter. Sure enough, I picked up the prescribed solution at the grocery this afternoon. The pharmacy even handed it to me "at no cost". That's right, zero.

I have no idea what's going on with that zero cost. Even my monthly blood pressure medication cost $0.16 at the counter, definitely but barely above zero. I even asked the lady at the checkout counter for my groceries, showing her my bottle with the prescription label on it. "They said it was zero cost?" "Yes, that's what they said." "Then it really is. I don't need to ring it up."

Does anyone know if magnesium citrate is an ingredient in some kind of unhealthy or illegal street recipe for some other drug? Why would nobody have stock for it, but it's still available by prescription, when it's clearly a non-prescription product?

Entirely separately, while checking online to find the GI team's phone number to ask about the missing magnesium citrate, I found that I had a bill for my sleep study a few weeks ago. That bill amounts to $2,013.00.

*cough*

My parents left a nice gift check for me during their visit, so I don't have to dip into my savings to cover the cost, but it's certainly a lot more than I was expecting to pay. And I still have the GI exam in a few days. And I still need to get my dental guard replaced, which is a custom fit thing.

At some point, USA costs become so prohibitive that medical tourism becomes a necessity. Take an airplane to a clinic in another country, get the work done, and immediately fly back. Still cheaper than healthcare in the USA.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Home

November special election

This past Tuesday was a special election for a county-wide school millage. As usual I worked as a chair for Ann Arbor at the Senior Center (ward 3 precinct 24), though by now we were the sole precinct there. I had six workers (one of whom I'd worked with before and one of whom was working their first election ever), which was more than enough people.

We started slow with 11 voters in our first hour, but then picked up to a pretty consistent 14–15 voters per hour until 4pm, where we picked up speed. Our last five hours were our busiest and the 6–7pm hour the busiest of them all. We eventually averaged about 22 voters per hour on the day:

Time 8am 9am 10am 11am 12n 1pm 2pm 3pm 4pm 5pm 6pm 7pm 8pm
Total (Σ) 11 29 41 56 69 85 104 118 140 169 211 243 275
Delta (𝚫) 11 18 12 15 13 16 19 14 22 29 42 32 32
Rate (∫) 11 15 14 14 14 14 15 15 16 17 20 21 22

We were finished in-precinct by 8:35pm — in large part due to it being a one-box ballot and thus the reports printed quickly — and headed off to City Hall because the Election Headquarters building was being renovated. (Seriously, the landlord or property manager couldn't've waited to kick us out until Wednesday? They had to do it Monday night after the chairs picked up our notebooks and laptops?) We were the 6th precincts to report in. We had a brief wait to turn in our ballots, laptop, and zippered notebook, then a moderate wait to get our reports printed, then a brief wait for a receiving board to open up to process our paperwork. We finished up at HQ around 9:15pm and I was home by 9:30pm.

The biggest problem of the day was construction-related traffic on Washtenaw Ave. They closed one of two lanes eastbound just past the Y-intersection at Stadium. The backup was bad enough at my 11am lunch trip that I eschewed going out for my 4pm dinner and instead had Domino's deliver a pizza and salad. (Even then, with them coming from State and Packard, the 4:00–4:15pm scheduled delivery didn't get there until 4:27pm.) I scarfed down most of the pizza for dinner and had the rest as a snack once I got home and had the salad with dinner on Wednesday.

(Incidentally, back on August 5 we had an election and as usual I worked as a chair for Ann Arbor at the Senior Center (3–24). I never wrote it up but I did save the hourly stats:

Time 8am 9am 10am 11am 12n 1pm 2pm 3pm 4pm 5pm 6pm 7pm 8pm
Total (Σ) 11 41 52 67 87 100 120 142 171 1207 248 300 353
Delta (𝚫) 11 30 22 15 20 13 20 22 29 36 41 52 53
Rate (∫) 11 20 17 16 17 16 17 17 19 20 22 25 22

I had four workers, one of whom I'd worked with before. From what I recall we were something like the 12th or 13th precinct reporting into Election HQ at the end of the evening and I was almost certainly home by 10:30pm.)

Time	8am	9am	10am	11am	12n	1pm	2pm	3pm	4pm	5pm	6pm	7pm	8pm
Total (Σ)	11	29	41	56	69	85	104	118	140	169	211	243	275
Delta (𝚫)	11	18	12	15	13	16	19	14	22	29	42	32	32
Rate (∫)	11	15	14	14	14	14	15	15	16	17	20	21	22