TSBMR no more

in

After much back and forthing over the last 24 hours, I've decided that, instead of switching to bi-weekly, I'm pulling the plug on THE SHORTBOX MEMORY REVUE completely. While it was a fun little experiment, my reasoning boils down to the simple truth that I'd rather spend my creative time writing fiction and my usual little slices of whenever/whatevers here. As you were.

patchings

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Finished patching the pond at 2000 last night and the water will begin flowing shortly – and hopefully staying in. But, before I turn it back on, will have to rework the waterfall stones again so they don't let water escape. Best guess as to the source of the two holes in the pond liner: since it started happening last year, the first one is probably from Kirby chasing one of the his Derbzballs into the pond and clawing back up; and the second, is, I know, from my use of a rake to get muck and grass and all sorts of Swamp Thing regalia out of the pond last weekend. First one may be from me as well, IDK.

In order, however, to reach the bottom of that second tear, I had to further drain the pond. Behold the beauty of my improvised drainage system (pond pump duct taped to 1"-piping duct taped to a hose held up on shepherd hooks), using it to further nourish the new grass I had to put into the Derbzball field:

Note: I did not put it into the flowerbeds as a.) I have a tendency to kill plants and, b.), I tried but it ended up flowing back into the pond which really defeated the purpose of all of the effort.

Related truth about Amazon delivery: if you order something for a project (ie patch kit / tape), it will arrive not early in the day when you need it, but after dinner, when you can barely function but must, nonetheless, to finish.

The war continues.

according to siri, it's "I found some web results, I can show them if you ask again from your ‌iPhone‌," o'clock

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Relieved this is a thing and not me not knowing that I’m jumbling my words or something.

"I found some web results, I can show them if you ask again from your ‌iPhone‌," is ‌Siri‌'s full response to the time question. If you ask what time it is in a specific location, ‌Siri‌ is able to respond, and ‌Siri‌ on ‌iPhone‌, iPad, and Mac provides the time as usual when asked.

This is a bug that Apple will be able to fix server side, so it will likely be addressed quickly. In the meantime, to get the time from ‌Siri‌ on the ‌HomePod‌ without having to swap to an ‌iPhone‌, include your location.

‌Siri‌ has long been ridiculed for failing to understand requests and not providing the expected information, and small bugs like this are a bit embarrassing as Apple prepares for a major AI update.

For the last several months, ‌Siri‌ has also been struggling with HomeKit commands, and there have been many complaints from smart home users. Asking ‌Siri‌ to "turn off the lights in the living room," for example, often results in the lights being turned on or turned off in another room entirely. Hopefully some of these issues will be solved with a ‌Siri‌ overhaul in iOS 18 and its sister updates.

(via MacRumors)

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It's been 20 years now since I left music school and my creative, for want of a better word, process still clings to my music composition methods: hunting and pecking for melodies, for transitions, transpositions, chord changes, sounds that fascinate, that lead from themselves to the next to the next and, while it's not always the best process for speed or for my own creative well-being, it's the way things eventually show up – with fiction at least. Fiction is music.