Explore

🍿 Watched Altered (2025) on Prime Video

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: FULL SPOILERS My Rating: ⭐ (1/5 stars) Not worth watching there were several times I wondered why I was watching this. Plot was kind of a mix of Giver, Enders Game, The Allegiant and Hunger Games all in one but not done very well. But I was tired and lazy so let it go on. Please don't buy this free is how this one should be. This product uses the TMDb API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDb

📡✨ M5 MacBook Air

Now that the M5 MacBook Air is more expensive and harder to get, but a quantum leap ahead compared to my M2 MacBook Air, I wish I had bought one when it came out. 😔 I decided to wait for the M6 edition, probably a more expensive one and probably also hard to get. ☹️

poems

poems just words arranged to make you think they're special they are because they're free not shackled by sentences

Five Free Apps Alternative to Paid Apps

Are you paying for an ad blocker, folder automation, notes & PKM and image editing ? You don't have to. • wBlock - a next-generation ad/content blocker for Safari: 750,000 rule capacity across 5 Safari content-blocking extensions (150k each), ~40MB idle RAM by running Safari's native content-blocking API out-of-process, Protocol Buffers + LZ4 filter storage, HTTP conditional-request updates, and iCloud sync of filter selections/custom lists/userscripts/whitelist. It bundles an Element Zapper, "Tube Cleaner & Player Cleaner" userscripts that restore native Picture-in-Picture/background playback on media sites, a full Greasemonkey-API userscript engine, UserCSS support, custom AdGuard-syntax filter-list import, per-site controls, a blocked-request logger, and regional filters. Open source on GitHub • Wick - Wick brings timers, stopwatches, and alarms to the Mac with menu bar and Lock Screen access, a fully custom Liquid Glass material on macOS 26+, and -- its standout claim -- the first app to integrate with Alcove. Positioned as...

The heat of the sun on my back as I run.

The Blockbuster Chronicles - Introduction

There was a time when watching a movie at home required considerably more effort than clicking an app and spending twenty minutes scrolling through thumbnails before deciding there was somehow nothing to watch. In the early 1980s, the home video market exploded. For the first time, people could rent a copy of a movie, take it home, and watch it whenever they wanted. Today that sounds almost absurdly ordinary, but at the time it was revolutionary. Before VHS became commonplace, your options were pretty limited. You could see a movie while it was playing in a theater, wait for a television station to eventually air it, or simply accept that you might never see it again. Video stores changed all of that. Small rental shops began appearing everywhere, stocking whatever tapes they could get their hands on. Horror movies, action movies, comedies, exercise videos, children's cartoons, instructional tapes and an...

Lore: A Free App for YouTubeVideo Downloading, also Builds YouTube Playlists Without Signing In

TL;DR: Lore is a free Mac app that follows YouTube channels over plain RSS, no algorithm, no Google account, then archives what you keep as a permanent offline file with transcript search, highlights, and SponsorBlock built in. The site's source-code link 404s, so don't take open source on faith. Alternatives for readers who want a lighter touch: FreeTube (free, open source, no algorithm, no download) and Grayjay Desktop ($9.99 one time, aggregates YouTube with other platforms). Blog title: Lore Solves a Problem Neither of My Last Two Posts Could Reddit title: Lore: The Mac App That Skips YouTube's Algorithm and Keeps the Video Even After YouTube Doesn't Lore Solves a Problem Neither of My Last Two Posts Could When you find a video you want to archive, any app that merely organizes links isn't an archive at all. It's a bookmark service. There's a use for that, but if you...

Paycheck by Phillip K D*ck

Published in 1953, Paycheck dares to ask the question, how much of your life would you sacrifice for money? It reminds me of Johnny Mnemonic, the Johnny Depp film/William Gibson short story, where people carry sensitive information for corporations in their brain, but lose their memories as a result. In Paycheck, individuals are rented for a certain amount of years to complete a job. These jobs are sensitive, so once the job is complete, their memory is wiped. So, it begs the question, how much would it cost for two years of your life? In our story, we meet Jennings, an electrical mechanic who has exchange the last two years of his life for $50,000. We meet him just as he wakes up from his memory wipe, and is on his way to get paid. He's still trying to justify his decision and accept that he is suddenly two years...

💻 Linux where there is will, there is a way

After my Linux laptop plan got cancelled, I have felt uneasy. I had to find another way. Then, it occured to me, Linux can run on any device, actually when most operating system stop supporting their devices, linux provides these abandon devices longevity. If that is the case, I have an aging MacBook 13 inch Pro M1 that works like a dream but its a spare machine and surely there is a way to linux on it. Well, thats to the lovely people at Asahilinux, Linux can run on Apple silicon Check out their efforts in bringing linux support to Macs with Apple silicon: https://asahilinux.org/ Anyway, between spending time with my family and my son, I have been going through the process of installing Linux on my MacBook. This is how this mere civilian likes to spend a Friday night 😂 The initial download took for ever, I suppose, being...

social distancing

tired of social apps just people repeating news already hated

Orange light falling across the tiles.

Ferragosto

Buon Ferragosto!!! Today in Italy it's a national vacation day, like Thanksgiving or Christmas in USA. It's a cultural phenomenon which does not have such an impact on all the other European Countries I've visited in my life: “Ferragosto is the popular Italian name of the public holiday of the Catholic feast of the Assumption of Mary celebrated on 15 August. It originates from Feriae Augusti, the festival of Emperor Augustus, who made 1 August a day of rest after weeks of hard work on the agricultural sector. It became a custom for the workers to wish their employers buon Ferragosto and receive a monetary bonus in return. This became law during the Roman Renaissance throughout the Papal States. As the festivity was created for political reasons, the Catholic Church decided to move the festivity to 15 August, which is the Assumption of Mary allowing them to include this in the festivity.” The following part I did not know before searching on Wikipedia for those definitions… “This...

Computer says no

I've been working on a personal thing this past week, leading to many times where I went to bed at 5AM.. sitting at the computer. Sigh. My wife quoted: 'Computer says no.' Just now she said I spend too much time on my computer and reminded of the fact that I told her this exact thing, and that I should go to bed at a normal hour. It's actually all quite depressing. I love computers. I also hate them. This weekend, swimming pool and sun tanning as we catch the last heatwave we can see for the summer holidays. — Vincent P.S. My wife is amazing. ❤️

Holiday. Doing good.

Last week we went on a little holiday to the seaside. Mostly just driving and then being lazy by the beach, and the balcony of our hotel that faced the sun. We also visited Hel, the Peninsula in Poland. Fantastic. I think sometimes it's super easy to forget what you have right on your doorstep. I really love Poland. I'm from England, and I never want to go back if I'm honest. On the way we stayed in Olsztyn. Around a 6 hour drive from us, but didn't want to push the 8 hours. What a beautiful place. Really fell in love! Unsure if we will explore this love more, but my, wow. Every fibre in my body just came out screaming in love. They also had a lovely little airport there, gliders above us as they launched, and I bought a new Hawaiian shirt there. I don't have pictures....

blog title change

Up until today, I've been using the title 'Blogbear' for this blog. The eagle-eyed reader, whichever one of you that is, will possibly have spotted that I've changed the title to 'Wobbly Bear' now. The other one will just check... oh yes, so he has! Although I liked Blogbear – and I spent some time attempting to justify it by thinking through why I had chosen it after I had started a blog using it (https://wobblybear.scribbles.page/post/first-past-the-post) – I came round to thinking that having the word blog in the title of a blog was quite unnecessary duplication. If you're reading a blog, do you need to see blog in the blog title to be aware that it is a blog? I've now removed the word Blog, retained the word Bear as a separate word, and used the adjective Wobbly to make Wobbly Bear. Bear obviously refers to myself. I am...

Finishing Skin Deep

On Black Friday in 2004, I purchased a cheap MiniDV camcorder with the intention of filming a short film and finally beginning my filmmaking career. Over the next three weeks, I wrote a script, bought stuff to record audio, built my own steady cam, and planned for a quick shoot over Christmas break when my friend came home for the long weekend. I bit off way more than I could chew, and while I had the time of my life, an ice storm the first day ruined my film. I ended up with forty minutes of unusable footage, but memories for a lifetime. If you've read my blog for a long period of time, you've probably seen me talk about this. This was my one and only attempt at making a movie. Sadly, right around the time of this endeavour, I found myself without a place to live and life...

📺 Operation Safed Sagar

Watch it on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/au/title/81616273 The actual Kargil War that this show is made on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Safed_Sagar The Indian Air Force showed great bravery and also great innovation and outside the box thinking. The people of Pakistan will be disappointed to learn what their military did.

→ Links 🔗 Strait of Hormuz new normal?

How traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is adapting to war. Very telling infographics by CNN. 😱 https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2026/08/world/strait-of-hormuz-shipping-data-traffic-routes-vis-intl/

friday morning weather

starting overcast a blank grey slate awaiting colourful painting

The sound of sawing outside.

struggling for peace

There's no place of real and absolute peace in this mad world now. I am just sitting quietly here on the sofa, escaping a little of the heat of the afternoon while I try to expend as little energy as I can. (I worked hard yesterday. The price for that is no chance of any work today.) I'll probably try to have a little nap in a minute, but I'll just get this post out onto my screen first, because if I stop, the thoughts will fade away. J is off working in her pottery 'studio' – in reality what was the dining room of the house (who 'dines' at home these days?) – and she has her music playing as she works. It's an eighties mix playlist via Qobuz. It's horrific stuff. Rick Astley played on it just now. I was rick-rolled in my own home, independently of the...

Claude Haiku still open to indirect prompt injection

Something to keep in mind for today if you use Claude to do web research:  Anthropic wrote about this here https://claude.com/blog/auto-mode-default-in-claude-code Simon Willison on Haiku in WebFetch:

The Extension Aided Method of Ignoring thee YouTube Algorithm

TL;DR: Control Panel for YouTube, UnTrap, and DeArrow all quiet YouTube down without making you leave the account, the browser, or the ecosystem behind. That's the whole point and the whole limit: you still get Google's ranking, you just stop looking at what it hands you. Control Panel is free and open source on Chrome and Firefox; the native Safari app is $3.99 once, no subscription. UnTrap is $4.99 once for all 250+ controls; an optional $3.99/month or $35.99/year adds cross-device sync and unlimited AI video summaries, which send content to a third party. DeArrow fixes a different problem, clickbait titles and thumbnails, not the algorithm, and is free with an optional $1 license. Saying No to Video Crack Yesterday, in the second installment of this series on building a better YouTube experience, I wrote about three apps that build a subscriptions-only feed by avoiding the recommendation algorithm entirely. That's the solution...

Nerve pain in my leg.

eclipse watching

we watched the eclipse followed by a meteor shower universal shows

How to Experience YouTube With No Algorithm

TL;DR: Play, Yattee and Unwatched all refuse to let YouTube pick your next video; each builds a feed from your subscriptions instead of Google's ranking. Play is free to download with the channel-following features behind Premium at $2.99/month, and it's the only one of the three that isn't locked to a single backend. Yattee runs through public Invidious and Piped instances, which Google has been blocking since 2024. Unwatched pulls from YouTube's own RSS feeds and Data API instead, which should make it sturdier, but needs macOS 15. Play, Yattee and Unwatched Won't Fix YouTube's Algorithm. They Just Won't Ask It. I wrote last time about paying for YouTube Premium after years of running my own ad-blocking stack. Premium immediately silences ads. That's the extent of its problem-solving. It didn't buy me a say in what shows up next. The recommendation engine is still running, still deciding, still doing the...

Changelog August 11th — August 13th

Just a few things I wanted to tidy after last week’s Appearance work — custom themes were still showing a bunch of settings that don’t actually do anything, and photos were getting a bit squeezed. August 11, 2026• 💅 Theme Editor — your themes sit at the top now. Upload and the starter kit live further down, and once you’ve got a theme the kit tucks away. I don’t like clutter — and I try my best to reduce it. • ✨ Switching back to a built-in theme — this used to turn off your custom theme the moment you clicked, which wasn’t great. Theme Editor is the main button now. “Use built-in theme” just opens the three built-in theme cards — you pick one, then save. • 💅 Hiding settings that don’t apply — if you’re on a custom theme, Appearance keeps colours and browser chrome. Layout, fonts, header...

💻 Linux journey is halted 🚫

I was super excited to dive into Linux, context: https://m.merecivilian.com/post/baby-steps-towards-linux The seller on eBay did not post the item for a couple of days, and upon my inquiry, I found out that eBay had suspended the seller's account. I reached out to eBay, and within hours, my order was refunded 😭. I need want a used Linux computer. I'm tempted by a new Framework or Dell XPS 2026. These are expensive. I've been buying used gear for years. It is better for the environment and better for my wallet. I find great joy in finding a bargain. Who does not? 🤷‍♂️

eclipse watching

We watched the eclipse this evening using a colander. And not just any colander, but a thematically-correct colander with a star shape in it.

Old Stories, Blockbuster, and People

Around a decade ago, I worked on a screenplay about two guys who used to work at a video store. The story was a way for me to work through some of my own unresolved feelings of a life that didn't live up to my own expectations. Of course, through the story, the character learns it's not the past that he wants to revisit, it's how he felt in the past that he misses the most. I never could land the ending. I kept trying to make it work, but the whole project really needed to be started over and I just didn't have it in me. Plus, I had no intention on making the film, I just needed a creative outlet to work through some emotions. Recently, I decided to adapt that screenplay into a novella. I deleted it a long time ago, but I remember the key scenes,...

📺 World War II Documentary

Initial thoughts here: https://m.merecivilian.com/post/world-war-ii-with-tom-hanks Finished watching the entire documentary (20 episodes) and I am deeply sadden by this war. Frankly, I didnt know much about it, I vaguely remember it had something to do with Hitler and Japan and Pearl Harbor. This was far brutal than I would have imagined. Humans can be so ruthless. It is important to know your history, and this documentary did a fantastic job of informing this mere civilian. It is impressive how USA participated and led this war to its conclusion. This was a HUGE effort, a world effort. It required working and collaborating as one UNITED NATION that is foreign in our current times. Regardless of who is to blame for what happened blame, it is clear that most of the people who lost their lives were civilians. Major Country Losses• Soviet Union: ~24 to 27 million total deaths (including roughly 8.7 to...

Time is already out for updating Rails to at least 8.0.5.1

In case anyone still runs Rails 7.2.x this is the sign to rush the upgrade.  I assume that version is now not supported anymore.  If you are running Rails 8.0.x or just updated to this this week NOW is the best time to plan for Rails 8.1 upgrade or even run on Rails master. I used this skill https://github.com/lucianghinda/superpowers-ruby/tree/main/skills/rails-upgrade part of Superpowers Ruby multiple times to upgrade from Rails 7.2 to Rails 8 and to Rails 8.1  And in the community there are multiple skills that helps you to upgarde Ruby or Rails. 

233 words

... a total solar eclipse is the headline happening of the day, although for us it is only a shady 94% eclipse, the path of 100% totality being slightly further west than we are, but it will be close enough to have the eerie silence of the birds being fooled about it being dusk a bit early – although it's not happening here until around 18.00 to 19.00 BST, so although it's an early dusk, it's not really that much earlier than the unobscured and uneclipsed sunset of the day at 20.44 - but eerie silence it will be for a moment, the eerie silence not available to the unfortunate and nature disconnected city dwellers with their concrete and tarmac and busy-ness and the constant drone of motor traffic for whom the birds are silent anyway, then perhaps a return to full chat as the sun pokes out from its...

No Man's Sky 10th Anniversary

Celebrating 10 years of exploration, discovery, and adventure in the vast, ever-expanding universe of No Man's Sky. Happy Anniversary to Hello Games, No Man's Sky. It is 10 years, and hopefully another 10. A sequel would be great. Thanks, Sean Murray, for a great game that started rough but has grown into a masterpiece, and all free after initial purchase. I don't play as much as I used to. When I do jump back in, I am there just to explore. I don't really care if I never reach the center of the universe. Game companies can take lessons from you, the bad and the good. The good has outweighed all the bad. Look at all the free DLC content over 10 years: For a more in depth review and history of this game see this post I made No Man’s Sky – Nearly 10 Years Later

wednesday morning weather

hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot hot not cool

The indentation in a cushion left by a body.

📡✨ I Was There

This is Montreal, Summer 2026 → A boutique on St-Denis Street. It used to be a great place for street shopping but alas Amazon killed that. 😔 Follow the trail.

Searching SharePoint Programmatically Without Breaking the Permission Model

Building, Breaking, and Automating. Sometimes the problem is not that a document does not exist. The problem is that nobody knows where it is. A recent request was a good example: years of historical contracts and documents were spread across departmental folders, subfolders, old structures, and SharePoint libraries. The SharePoint UI worked well enough for normal day-to-day browsing, but not particularly well for finding a specific document somewhere inside years of accumulated content. The question was simple: “Can we search SharePoint programmatically without giving the application more access than the user already has?” Yes. And the important part is not the search API. It is the authentication model. The RequirementThe goal was to build a small tool that could: • search SharePoint documents programmatically; • search across folders and subfolders; • use filenames, metadata, and indexed document content; • return direct links to matching documents; • remain read-only; • and,...

YouTube Premium kills the ads but doesn't solve the real problem. Here's the stack I use to do that.

TL;DR: Paid for YouTube Premium after years of DIY ad-blocking. Ads are gone; the algorithm, the clutter, and the impermanence aren't. Building a stack of small tools instead of hunting for one app that fixes all four. First post in a series; toolbox preview inside, full reviews coming. Google did not design YouTube to entertain you or to inform you. Every major design choice points toward one purpose: to make you watch more YouTube. Watching more leads to one of two outcomes: your attachment to the platform gets stronger, or you get shown more advertising. For a lot of people, it's both. For a long time, bragging about how you managed to watch YouTube without being subjected to ads was a particular kind of geek flexing, and an annoying one. The problem few people admit to is that avoiding advertising isn't a fix, it's a moving target. Anyone who tells you...

tuesday morning weather

in for a hot one early walk to beat the heat early finish too

A fly walking the edge of the table.

“All this longing for beauty is a longing to be in the presence of God.” —Joel Pelsue