Seems Relevant

10:48 Saturday, 22 November 2025
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Words: 30

The obscure we see eventually. The completely apparent takes a little longer.

Edward R. Murrow

Spotted this in passing in the November, 1989 issue of Analog Science Fiction.

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RADM Mark Montgomery

09:58 Saturday, 22 November 2025
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Words: 162

I know Mark Montgomery. He and I served in USS BAINBRIDGE (CGN-25) around 1988-1989. He's a nuc (navy nuclear power), and I enjoyed serving with him. Super-smart and a great sense of humor. Showed up and helped me and my family move when we changed houses in Virginia Beach. Just a really nice guy. Was big on foreign relations and policy with a strong focus on Pakistan.

Mark is featured in this CNN interview. I think he's very measured and circumspect in many of his comments, while he's more direct in others. I would have been much more direct, but that's probably one of the reasons why I retired as an O-5 and he made flag rank.

But I am encouraged to see him on CNN, I think this is leading the conversation in the right direction, although not with the urgency the situation demands.

But I was surprised and delighted to see his face in this video.

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Frickin' Apple

08:54 Saturday, 22 November 2025
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Words: 686

Steve Hayman noted that yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the rollout of Apple Pay. I use it all the time, but it sometimes baffles me, and did so again this morning.

I was working on a project involving Tinderbox, but got sidetracked and turned my attention to another hobby of mine that is growing in interest as the days turn cold and gray.

Some weeks ago, I dug my working //c out of storage and brought it up to the house. It's small enough to fit in the bedroom closet without taking up too much space, and also to fit on the Husky workbench/desk here in the main living area when I want to play with it. I close the MBP and slide it up under a stand that the 27" monitor rests on. I have an HDMI interface for the //c and the monitor has an HDMI input; and I have a USB-C power connection for the //c and USB-C power from the monitor. Works great.

While Mitzi was in DC a few weeks ago, I spent my idle hours playing with the //c and browsing eBay, buying some Apple II stuff. (Including a ROM 3 IIgs, but that's a story for another time.)

Most of the time I used Apple Pay from the MBP to complete the purchase. It's convenient and you don't have to fill in a lot of shipping and billing address forms. I had no problems completing the transactions, and everything was shipped up here to Winterfell. Super, right?

Well, this morning I decided to buy some "new" hardware from Joe's Computer Museum. A storage emulator and a DVI card that can emulate Video 7 RGB signals. These will go into one of my //e's whenever I can get them out of storage. I've learned to buy now, because this stuff goes in and out of stock all the time, and you never know when it'll disappear forever.

At checkout, I used Apple Pay, and just as the transaction completed, I noticed Apple Pay had used my Florida address!

What the actual fuck?!

So I immediately sent a note to Joe, describing what happened. Hopefully that all gets sorted before he ships. Looks like it won't ship until next Saturday, so there should be plenty of time to square it away.

But then I had to dig into where that address came from.

I started out in System Settings, and looked at my Apple ID and billing and shipping. No issues there. Since it wasn't obvious where I'd find the Apple Pay settings in System Settings, I went to my iPhone and looked at my Apple Wallet. I brought up the card I used to pay the order with, which is the same card I used to pay for my eBay purchases. There's the little "..." in the upper right corner, so I touched that.

I should have screenshotted it, because it looks different now, of course. (I feel like Apple's operating systems gaslight me all the time.) Anyway, when I looked at it this morning, there was a list of several addresses, my own and those of some of my children. I touched Edit, and the little red dots with a line through them on the left side appeared.

Delete.

Delete.

Delete.

Delete.

When I closed it, there was only one shipping address, to this place.

Looking at it just now, there is no shipping address. Only a billing address.

What the actual fuck?!

What I need to start doing is recording or screenshotting every interaction I have with System Settings. I swear to God, this stuff drives me crazy.

I have no idea why Apple Pay had all those addresses in my wallet, going back to when I lived in the condo, or why the addresses of my children were in there. No idea why it selected the Florida address for this transaction, when it's been reliably using the New York address previously. It's a mystery. I didn't realize I needed a degree in iOS and Apple Pay to operate this thing.

"It just works."

Bullshit.

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Senator Mark Kelly

08:44 Saturday, 22 November 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 38.68°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 85% Wind: 7.78mph
Words: 224

I have the utmost respect and admiration for Senator Mark Kelly. He was a guest on a Bulwark video yesterday evening. I commented on the "members only" one, I guess this one probably has a commercial.

Unfortunately, and this is an example of the chaotic nature of Trump, the subject is about Trump's violent rhetoric and not the moral injury being inflicted on U.S. service members participating in extra-judicial killings in the Caribbean. Had Trump not called for the execution of U.S. lawmakers, we might be talking about what precipitated the video. Instead, we're talking about Trump.

Which is pretty much what Trump wants anyway.

But here's my comment, FWIW:

I salute Senator Kelly for speaking out. The Trump administration is inflicting moral injury on American service members through these extra-judicial killings at sea. Drug interdiction is a law enforcement action, not a national security issue that calls for a lethal kinetic response, the murder of unknown, unidentified individuals at sea. I'm a retired navy O-5, graduate of the Naval Academy and recall my plebe year lecture from a navy chaplain about "moral courage." This lecture was ostensibly about the Academy's Honor Code, but it was also about My Lai, which had happened seven years before. I'm shocked that the retired community isn't speaking out more about this outrage.

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