Update Chrome Now

If you haven't updated Chrome since Thursday, update it now. Google on Thursday released security updates to patch 12 vulnerabilities, including one that has come under active exploitation in the wild.

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The "Catch" That Didn't End the Game

With two out in the ninth inning, this "catch" would have ended the game. You've got to feel for this guy, but given the playoff wild-card picture in the National League, any loss by the Padres is a welcome sight for the Phillies.

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Trump's Arch and a PS

Excavation work on President Trump’s 250 foot-tall arch in Washington, is expected to start over the next two weeks. The arch would sit between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery at Memorial Circle on Columbia Island. “This will be one of the Great Pieces of American Architecture,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Thursday on social media. If you don't want it to be built, worry not: The project, one of Trump’s many so-called beautification projects in the nation’s capital, is facing litigation. Opponents have argued Trump needs congressional approval to build it. The triumphal arch would block or disrupt the sightline of other monuments, critics have said. Oh yeah, that's what they said about the ballroom.

PS: The one gratification to look forward to is when Trump is gone, as is done in countries everywhere when a corrupt self-aggrandizing leader is out, is watching the horrendous monuments and all the other such stuff being torn down and all the gilded stuff being stripped away.

[EOP]

Geopolitical Risk Canary in a Gold Mine?

I thought I was the only one, when it comes to protecting one's assets, has been worried about geopolitical risks. As it turns out, the Dutch central bank shifted the location of 78 metric tons of gold, valued a $11 billion at today’s prices, from vaults beneath the streets of Manhattan to London, saying it would improve the ability to trade the metal in a pinch. The high-security operation took several months to pull off. Some of the gold was sold in the U.S. and repurchased in the U.K. Other bars were flown to Europe, likely in the storage hold of planes. The result: Almost a third of the Dutch gold reserve is in London and a still chunky 19% in New York, flipping their earlier positions. “In view of increasing geo-political unrest, DNB is strengthening its crisis preparedness,” the central bank said in a statement referring to its Dutch acronym. 

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The Toasted Owl (Restaurants in Phoenx and Flagstaff)

Originally one restaurant in Flagstaff, The Toasted Owl now has two restaurants in Flagstaff and two in Phoenix, including one conveniently located at 300 West Camelback Road. It serves delicious breakfast food and lunch food. There's another lunch restaurant in Flagstaff but I can't remember it's name. It's got patio dining and is on a main road.

[EOP]

Democracy on the Line: Nightmare Scenario

Trump has appealed his ability to stop mail-in ballot voting to the Supreme Court. For procedural reasons there is no way the Court should be hearing the appeal and for substantive reasons the appeal has no basis (indeed, it's frivolous). That said, if anyone believes there aren't 3 votes in the shadow docket in the bag for Trump, they have not been paying attention, and if anyone believes there easily could not be 2 more that would vote in favor of Trump, they have not been paying attention either. Should Trump's appeal prevail, it would shut-down mail-in voting, and that will effectively shut-down voting in a wide swath of states particularly in the West, Southwest, Upper Mid-West, and the Northeast. To stop the vote is to stop democracy. Full stop. The idea that democracy now rests in the hands of 6 Supreme Court justices is nothing short of terrifying.

[EOP]

The AI Toothbrush: Not a Joke

[Prefatory Note: You might think you know how AI is going to change our lives. This post might lead to your thinking again about the profound changes coming that you did not imagine]

You know about Dyson's high-end, high-priced vacuums for cleaning floors. If you care about your teeth as much as your floors, then Dyson's AI Camerajet toothbrush (priced at about $500) is for you. It’s a camera viewing, gap finding, jet washing, liquid flossing, mouthwash dispensing, technique teaching, live streaming, plaque blasting, precision cleaning toothbrush. As such, it's the only toothbrush with a camera and a jet, to target the gaps and remove plaque between your teeth. I'm waiting for a mini-robot-toothbrush you just drop in your mouth and it zooms around in it like a Roomba zooms around your floors.

[EOP]

Acer Swift Blade 14

Although not yet available in the U.S. and the pricing has yet to be released (but it could be under $1K), the Acer Swift Blade 14 has risen to the top of my list when looking for a new computer. Although I prefer the black of the LG Gram, the marshmallow blue is distinctive enough, but the real draw is this: Coming in at 1.76 pounds, it's the lightest full-size laptop ever. And it's thin as can be with daunting specs. 

[EOP]

Get Help for Motion Sickness From Your Phone

As knowing someone who struggles with car sickness, one of my favorite features that launched on the iPhone with iOS 18 was Vehicle Motion Cues. It’s a layer of moving dots that appears across your screen and changes with the motion of a vehicle. Apple says the feature helps reduce the sensory conflict between what you see and what you feel, making it easier to look at your screen while in a car. They’ve definitely noticed the difference when Vehicle Motion Cues is on; they can scroll or read on my iPhone for longer without feeling nauseated. At last, a similar feature is coming to Android. Called Motion Assist, this adds a bubble overlay to your phone’s screen that moves as the vehicle does. As Google put it in a blog post, “It’s designed to help bridge the gap between what your eyes see and the movement of your ride.” You can adjust the shape, color and opacity of the bubbles. You can also set Motion Assist to turn on automatically when you’re in a moving vehicle, and add it to Quick Settings for easy access. Motion Assist is available on phones running Android 17. There appear to be other such apps that run on earlier Android versions.

[EOP]

Two Tips re Amazon Refunds

Tip 1: When you have the option, take any refund to your Gift account or Amazon courtesy account instead of to your credit card. You will get it much faster, and you will know often immediately but always within a couple of hours (instead) of days whether it actually posted (which is how long it can take for refunds to your credit card.

Tip 2: If your refund was issued to your card, and you don't see it within a few days, don't hesitate to tell Amazon you're tired of waiting, and that you're willing to have the refund issued per the better options suggested in Tip 1. You might then get a double refund (i.e., an addition to your gift card balance and a refund to your credit card), but that's Amazon's mess up and they will tell you to keep both so you need not even alert them

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