An interesting post on Quora re: the invasion/kidnapping in Venezuela
Jan. 10th, 2026 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneThe question, to paraphrase, was that if Obama or Biden had invaded Venezuela and kidnapped Maduro, that liberals would be fine with it.
The respondent said, in essence, 'Nope, we wouldn't. Because we have a moral compass. You don't.'
And since it's a fairly short response, I'm going to quote most of it whole:
"You lack an internal moral compass. Your sense of right and wrong depends on what the authority you personally submit to says it is.
People without an inner moral compass literally cannot understand what it feels like to have one. Your sense of morality comes from outside authority, so you believe everyone feels that way.
You like Trump, so you think what Trump does is good. You imagine that people who like Obama think that whatever Obama does is good.
Nope.
Overthrowing a sovereign government to take their stuff is wrong. It was wrong when Trump did it, and it would still be wrong if Obama did it. The fact you struggle to imagine that is a you problem, not a liberal problem."
This is an argument that I need to remember if I ever get into a "discussion" with a Trumper.
I also see a lot of Religious Zealot vs Atheist posts on Quora, and several of them devolve into 'You can't have ethics without religion'. While you can define some ethical guidelines from religion, you can also define some really, really twisted ones from religion. I think I'll take my ethics and morality from logic and observation and readings. Yeah, I may be selectively cutting and pasting to make my personal honor code, but so many religions do the same thing that I don't see much of a difference.
https://qr.ae/pCZFf8
The respondent said, in essence, 'Nope, we wouldn't. Because we have a moral compass. You don't.'
And since it's a fairly short response, I'm going to quote most of it whole:
"You lack an internal moral compass. Your sense of right and wrong depends on what the authority you personally submit to says it is.
People without an inner moral compass literally cannot understand what it feels like to have one. Your sense of morality comes from outside authority, so you believe everyone feels that way.
You like Trump, so you think what Trump does is good. You imagine that people who like Obama think that whatever Obama does is good.
Nope.
Overthrowing a sovereign government to take their stuff is wrong. It was wrong when Trump did it, and it would still be wrong if Obama did it. The fact you struggle to imagine that is a you problem, not a liberal problem."
This is an argument that I need to remember if I ever get into a "discussion" with a Trumper.
I also see a lot of Religious Zealot vs Atheist posts on Quora, and several of them devolve into 'You can't have ethics without religion'. While you can define some ethical guidelines from religion, you can also define some really, really twisted ones from religion. I think I'll take my ethics and morality from logic and observation and readings. Yeah, I may be selectively cutting and pasting to make my personal honor code, but so many religions do the same thing that I don't see much of a difference.
https://qr.ae/pCZFf8
![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
I speak machine
Jan. 10th, 2026 10:51 pmthe_siobhanStill not King.
Did birthday dinner with the gf. I realized at some point like... maybe a month ago? That I spent the entire past year telling people I was the age I actually am this year. How am I SO BAD at dates that I get my own age wrong for an entire year? I can't even blame senility, I have always been like this.
***
Finally heard back from the permit wrangler. He spoke to the engineer and the answer is no, he will not sign off on the work. This doesn't shock me. He told me the fucking contractor didn't even follow the blueprints that were used to get the permits, so he has no confidence that the foundations were actually built to spec.
So permit wrangler says he's going to go back to the city and try once again to get in touch with the original contractor. I really appreciate his commitment to trying to find a better solution, but at this point I'm kinda resigned that I'm just have to tear up the floor. I just want to get it over with.
***
So in the meantime I'm still here just cleaning and de-cluttering the rest of the house. Got a wild hair up my ass to pull apart the corner of my office where my weight bench sits and was able to vanquish much dust and dried cat-puke.
I still have too much fucking stuff. This would be simpler if I didn't have such a huge aversion to just tossing stuff into landfill. This is partially the environmentalist side of me, and partially because there was a time in my life when a third-hand hotplate might have actually saved my life. So I have trouble throwing out a perfectly functional hotplate when somebody out there might be in the same position I was in 30+ years ago. But you know, figuring how to get rid of this stuff takes time and so... Things leave, but in much smaller boxes than if I just hired a bloody dumpster.
***
The plus side of not being able to do house construction work is that I have have been spending a lot more time on my b-list, which is 1) plants and 2) family tree. The kitchen island is so huge that I have been able to devote an entire half of it to a bunch of pots that I have seeded with herbs. I installed grow lights in the chandelier[1], so it's going to be an experiment.
[1]Hauled my wobbly ass up a ladder. Did not fall off. Victory achieved.
I had the brilliant idea that if I started tossing birdseed on the deck outside my office, I would give Lord Brock something to look at that would distract him from screaming at me for attention while I'm working. This has backfired spectacularly, because now he climbs onto the window-ledge and screams at me to make the birds happen.
***
On the plus side, digging through my family tree has led me to discovering the other out queer person in my family which is pretty cool. (Statistically I figured it was unlikely I was the only one, especially given just how big Irish Catholic families tend to be.)
A question I hadn't anticipated; I keep coming across generations where there are multiple people with the same name but different birth-dates. I'm trying to figure out if they are cases where one source I'm drawing from has the wrong birth year, or if there were families where they re-used names when babies died. Like there is a French branch were they seem to have named half the boys after the father but with different middle names. Was that real? Was that just Anglos fucking up non-English names? (That happened so often with the Irish names, I don't have any problem believing they also did it to the French.) Or am I finding birth records, but not their death records in families where infant mortality was really high?
Also, I have no explanation for how researching my family name led me to an Irish vampire movie, but now I really want to see this film.
Did birthday dinner with the gf. I realized at some point like... maybe a month ago? That I spent the entire past year telling people I was the age I actually am this year. How am I SO BAD at dates that I get my own age wrong for an entire year? I can't even blame senility, I have always been like this.
***
Finally heard back from the permit wrangler. He spoke to the engineer and the answer is no, he will not sign off on the work. This doesn't shock me. He told me the fucking contractor didn't even follow the blueprints that were used to get the permits, so he has no confidence that the foundations were actually built to spec.
So permit wrangler says he's going to go back to the city and try once again to get in touch with the original contractor. I really appreciate his commitment to trying to find a better solution, but at this point I'm kinda resigned that I'm just have to tear up the floor. I just want to get it over with.
***
So in the meantime I'm still here just cleaning and de-cluttering the rest of the house. Got a wild hair up my ass to pull apart the corner of my office where my weight bench sits and was able to vanquish much dust and dried cat-puke.
I still have too much fucking stuff. This would be simpler if I didn't have such a huge aversion to just tossing stuff into landfill. This is partially the environmentalist side of me, and partially because there was a time in my life when a third-hand hotplate might have actually saved my life. So I have trouble throwing out a perfectly functional hotplate when somebody out there might be in the same position I was in 30+ years ago. But you know, figuring how to get rid of this stuff takes time and so... Things leave, but in much smaller boxes than if I just hired a bloody dumpster.
***
The plus side of not being able to do house construction work is that I have have been spending a lot more time on my b-list, which is 1) plants and 2) family tree. The kitchen island is so huge that I have been able to devote an entire half of it to a bunch of pots that I have seeded with herbs. I installed grow lights in the chandelier[1], so it's going to be an experiment.
[1]Hauled my wobbly ass up a ladder. Did not fall off. Victory achieved.
I had the brilliant idea that if I started tossing birdseed on the deck outside my office, I would give Lord Brock something to look at that would distract him from screaming at me for attention while I'm working. This has backfired spectacularly, because now he climbs onto the window-ledge and screams at me to make the birds happen.
***
On the plus side, digging through my family tree has led me to discovering the other out queer person in my family which is pretty cool. (Statistically I figured it was unlikely I was the only one, especially given just how big Irish Catholic families tend to be.)
A question I hadn't anticipated; I keep coming across generations where there are multiple people with the same name but different birth-dates. I'm trying to figure out if they are cases where one source I'm drawing from has the wrong birth year, or if there were families where they re-used names when babies died. Like there is a French branch were they seem to have named half the boys after the father but with different middle names. Was that real? Was that just Anglos fucking up non-English names? (That happened so often with the Irish names, I don't have any problem believing they also did it to the French.) Or am I finding birth records, but not their death records in families where infant mortality was really high?
Also, I have no explanation for how researching my family name led me to an Irish vampire movie, but now I really want to see this film.
Simulant and synthetic diamonds (and others)
Jan. 10th, 2026 10:20 amcahnSo I'm going to talk about one of my major fandoms (that I don't usually talk about here), shiny things, because I can! (I started this post more than a month ago and it is high time to actually finish and post it.) In particular, I want to talk about diamond simulants and lab diamonds (although there's also very recently been some cool stuff about lab sapphires too). The funny thing is, I've never been a super fan of diamonds in general. I mean, I'm not going to say no to them! they are very shiny, and they have some cool dispersion (splits light into component colors, like a prism, so you get little rainbow flashes if it's cut well), and I love that they're super hard and come in octahedral crystals, but I have always been a colored stones kind of kid. But! In the last ten years there have been a ton of developments in this fandom relating to diamond simulants and lab diamonds, which I think is very neat.
First I want to define what I'm talking about.
Natural diamonds / earth-mined diamonds are diamonds that occur naturally in the Earth's crust and are mined from the ground.
Diamond simulants are not diamonds, but other substances that look enough like diamonds that they are used in jewelry that might otherwise use diamonds. I'll talk about cubic zirconia and moissanite as diamond simulants later on.
Synthetic diamonds / lab diamonds are chemically identical (*) to natural diamonds but are made in a lab.
( Apologies if you happen to love diamonds, but I find the whole natural diamond thing kind of obnoxious in several ways. )
( Brief discussion of cubic zirconia, and the rise of moissanite )
( The rise of lab diamonds )
( Lab ruby/sapphire: Some recent cool news on the lab sapphire front )
( Photos )
(*) There are little things that can be different, so generally speaking lab diamonds can be distinguished from natural diamonds by a laboratory, but basically they're both made of carbon and look identical, especially if you have the same "grades" in one as another.
(**) When I refer to "carat" in the context of diamond simulants in particular, I will always be referring to "size of an ideal-cut diamond," which is about 6.5mm in diameter for a round diamond. Simulants will have different weights than a carat, of course, but generally the industry refers to a "1 ct moissanite" as something that mimics a 1 ct diamond, even though the corresponding cubic zirconia will actually be heavier than a carat and the corresponding moissanite will be lighter! Of course, "carat" when referring to colored stones just directly means the weight of that stone.
(+) www.diamondcz.co.uk came along in 2004, importing well-cut cz from China, and took well-cut cz from a relatively expensive niche market to super cheap!
(***) And even less (<~$300/ct last I looked) if you're willing to deal with Chinese companies directly -- it turns out there are whole subreddits devoted to both moissanite and lab diamonds that have instructions on this.
(****) Also emerald and garnet! Lab emerald in particular is a very big thing, very popular these days among people who buy lab gems, though emerald is not as much my thing so I don't know as much about it. Lab garnet can also be doped to get a lot of different colors, which is fun. Emeralds can't be made by the super cheap processes so they've taken a couple of decades longer to get cheap enough to be popular, but nowadays you can easily get them cheaply.
First I want to define what I'm talking about.
Natural diamonds / earth-mined diamonds are diamonds that occur naturally in the Earth's crust and are mined from the ground.
Diamond simulants are not diamonds, but other substances that look enough like diamonds that they are used in jewelry that might otherwise use diamonds. I'll talk about cubic zirconia and moissanite as diamond simulants later on.
Synthetic diamonds / lab diamonds are chemically identical (*) to natural diamonds but are made in a lab.
( Apologies if you happen to love diamonds, but I find the whole natural diamond thing kind of obnoxious in several ways. )
( Brief discussion of cubic zirconia, and the rise of moissanite )
( The rise of lab diamonds )
( Lab ruby/sapphire: Some recent cool news on the lab sapphire front )
( Photos )
(*) There are little things that can be different, so generally speaking lab diamonds can be distinguished from natural diamonds by a laboratory, but basically they're both made of carbon and look identical, especially if you have the same "grades" in one as another.
(**) When I refer to "carat" in the context of diamond simulants in particular, I will always be referring to "size of an ideal-cut diamond," which is about 6.5mm in diameter for a round diamond. Simulants will have different weights than a carat, of course, but generally the industry refers to a "1 ct moissanite" as something that mimics a 1 ct diamond, even though the corresponding cubic zirconia will actually be heavier than a carat and the corresponding moissanite will be lighter! Of course, "carat" when referring to colored stones just directly means the weight of that stone.
(+) www.diamondcz.co.uk came along in 2004, importing well-cut cz from China, and took well-cut cz from a relatively expensive niche market to super cheap!
(***) And even less (<~$300/ct last I looked) if you're willing to deal with Chinese companies directly -- it turns out there are whole subreddits devoted to both moissanite and lab diamonds that have instructions on this.
(****) Also emerald and garnet! Lab emerald in particular is a very big thing, very popular these days among people who buy lab gems, though emerald is not as much my thing so I don't know as much about it. Lab garnet can also be doped to get a lot of different colors, which is fun. Emeralds can't be made by the super cheap processes so they've taken a couple of decades longer to get cheap enough to be popular, but nowadays you can easily get them cheaply.
How to Stay Invisible, by Maggie C. Rudd
Jan. 10th, 2026 03:19 pmrachelmanija
A middle-grade novel about a boy who lives in the woods, tagged as "A worthy successor to Hatchet and My Side of the Mountain."
12-year-old Raymond Hurley lives with his beloved dog Rosie and his neglectful, drug addict, emotionally abusive parents, who move constantly, have only cooked a homemade meal for him once in his entire life, and scream at him and stomp out when he cooks Thanksgiving for them. The one time he told anyone about this, he was temporarily placed in a children's home that was even worse than living with his parents, so he has decided to never tell anyone anything ever.
When they take off, ditching him and Rosie, he lives in the woods behind his middle-school. He continues attending school, as they feed him twice a day. Otherwise, he dumpster-dives after hours at the school, and fishes in the river. While this is all going on, he accidentally makes two friends at school despite his resolve to stay under the radar, accidentally befriends an old man who also fishes in the river, and accidentally tames a coyote (!), who he names Hank. But obviously, this is all unsustainable long-term...
This book isn't that much like the classic "kid survives in woods" books. It's not really about wilderness survival, it's about homelessness and the psychological effects of negligence. It doesn't have the vibe at all of something like Hatchet, where there's something satisfying and profound about living off the land and being in nature, even though it's hard and dangerous and uncomfortable. Raymond's life in the woods is just sad. It's closer to something like Homecoming, in which four kids abandoned by their mother make their way across the country in search of a home, but it's sadder and more aimless than that because Raymond is alone in his predicament and doesn't have a goal other than "stay out of the children's home."
The elements that are survival-y, like taming the coyote, clash with the overall feel of suburban social issue fiction. Especially because they're wildly unrealistic - you can't tame a coyote to the point of petting it and playing with it and having it play with your dog! A coyote will EAT your dog! (There's a key scene involving a venomous snake that also pinged my "it doesn't work that way" sense.)
I didn't really like this book, though it's not a bad book at all. I would have liked it better if it had fully committed to being a realistic book about a homeless child. I also would have liked it better if Raymond's big goal wasn't just "stay out of the children's home," but "stay out of the children's home because I hate it and they'll take away Rosie and who knows what will happen to her." He never once worries about that, which seems like a really odd thing to not be concerned about under the circumstances. If he'd been committed to protecting Rosie, it would have given him and the book more drive. I get that the writer wanted to have Raymond be more just drifting through life, but since he's putting a lot of effort into not getting caught, I think it would have made the book more compelling if the effort was connected to a living being he cared about.
The ending is an absolutely typical ending for this sort of book:
( Read more... )
Content notes: child abuse, homelessness, animal death.
January Talking Meme - What should a mirror Georgiou centric movie have been about?
Jan. 10th, 2026 06:17 pmaurumcalendulaJan 10 - 'I think my main problem with Section 31 was that what was clearly intended as the first season of a show, plot wise, was hacked together to make the plot of a movie. Provided you'd knew in advance there would be only room for a Georgiou movie, and bearing real life restrictions in mind (i.e. guest stars from other Trek shows can only appear as they are today or have to be recast), what should a mirror Georgiou centric movie have been about?' for selenak
( Read more... )
(there are still slots open for the January Talking Meme here)
selenak( Read more... )
(there are still slots open for the January Talking Meme here)
Photos: Contorta Willow
Jan. 10th, 2026 05:11 pmysabetwordsmith posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
common_natureI took some pictures yesterday but didn't have time to upload and post them until today. The night before, a windstorm blew down the contorta willow sapling that used to stand between the house yard and the south lot, near the big maple tree.
( Walk with me ... )
( Walk with me ... )
(no subject)
Jan. 10th, 2026 05:29 pmconuly posting in agonyauntDear Care and Feeding,
My ex came from serious money, and our 12-year-old daughter is her parents’ only grandchild. My daughter gets what she wants the moment she voices it; her grandparents claim it is their duty to spoil her. My daughter is very grounded and knows that most people can’t afford everything her family can, but that doesn’t change the fact that her experiences have been very privileged.
My partner’s kids haven’t been so lucky. He provides a good life, but the vacations he can take them on are to the local lake, not Europe. The problem is that my daughter can’t talk about her life without the other kids getting jealous and accusing her of bragging. She can’t say that her favorite city is Paris or identify a castle on TV without them taking offense and ganging up on her. This situation has started to heat up because my daughter has recently been hanging out with a pair of twins who have moved into our neighborhood. Their dad has left military service, but in their lives as military brats, they’ve lived everywhere in the world. They are joined at the hip with my daughter, and my partner hates the fact that his 13-year-old daughter, “Melinda,” doesn’t get automatically included.
Alas, Melinda is in her mean girl phase. Everything and everyone is stupid and sucks. She routinely picks on her younger brother. There are problems with both her behavior in school and in the after-school activities she is enrolled in. She was asked to leave her sports team for bullying another member to the point where it got physical. My daughter avoids Melinda when she can, and I have to mediate every moment we are together as a family.
My partner does not “see” Melinda’s behavior until another adult points it out. He and I do not live together, and his blindness to his daughter’s flaws is one reason for this, even though I love him. Another reason is that Melinda is hard enough to be around on a good weekend, let alone every day. I have tried to stay in my own lane and let my partner parent his kids his own way, but he keeps pushing that Melinda is being “excluded” by my daughter and her friends. They are in different grades and have very different interests.
Between his kids giving mine a hard time every time she opens her mouth, and all this, things are getting tense. Recently, he commented on how excited my daughter was for the holidays because her dad was taking her skiing and had told her that maybe the twins could come too. My partner insinuated that this enthusiasm was somehow malevolent. I responded by reminding him that both of his kids have been talking nonstop about seeing their grandparents and cousins over the holidays. He said it wasn’t even close to the same and that his kids have never even seen snow. I don’t know how to resolve this. Considering the ages of our kids, and the fact that they’re not even living in the same household, their just being civil toward each other should be enough, but civility is hard to come by, and Melinda is the agitator most of the time. How do I get through to my partner and protect my daughter?
—Mean Melinda
( Read more... )
My ex came from serious money, and our 12-year-old daughter is her parents’ only grandchild. My daughter gets what she wants the moment she voices it; her grandparents claim it is their duty to spoil her. My daughter is very grounded and knows that most people can’t afford everything her family can, but that doesn’t change the fact that her experiences have been very privileged.
My partner’s kids haven’t been so lucky. He provides a good life, but the vacations he can take them on are to the local lake, not Europe. The problem is that my daughter can’t talk about her life without the other kids getting jealous and accusing her of bragging. She can’t say that her favorite city is Paris or identify a castle on TV without them taking offense and ganging up on her. This situation has started to heat up because my daughter has recently been hanging out with a pair of twins who have moved into our neighborhood. Their dad has left military service, but in their lives as military brats, they’ve lived everywhere in the world. They are joined at the hip with my daughter, and my partner hates the fact that his 13-year-old daughter, “Melinda,” doesn’t get automatically included.
Alas, Melinda is in her mean girl phase. Everything and everyone is stupid and sucks. She routinely picks on her younger brother. There are problems with both her behavior in school and in the after-school activities she is enrolled in. She was asked to leave her sports team for bullying another member to the point where it got physical. My daughter avoids Melinda when she can, and I have to mediate every moment we are together as a family.
My partner does not “see” Melinda’s behavior until another adult points it out. He and I do not live together, and his blindness to his daughter’s flaws is one reason for this, even though I love him. Another reason is that Melinda is hard enough to be around on a good weekend, let alone every day. I have tried to stay in my own lane and let my partner parent his kids his own way, but he keeps pushing that Melinda is being “excluded” by my daughter and her friends. They are in different grades and have very different interests.
Between his kids giving mine a hard time every time she opens her mouth, and all this, things are getting tense. Recently, he commented on how excited my daughter was for the holidays because her dad was taking her skiing and had told her that maybe the twins could come too. My partner insinuated that this enthusiasm was somehow malevolent. I responded by reminding him that both of his kids have been talking nonstop about seeing their grandparents and cousins over the holidays. He said it wasn’t even close to the same and that his kids have never even seen snow. I don’t know how to resolve this. Considering the ages of our kids, and the fact that they’re not even living in the same household, their just being civil toward each other should be enough, but civility is hard to come by, and Melinda is the agitator most of the time. How do I get through to my partner and protect my daughter?
—Mean Melinda
( Read more... )
(no subject)
Jan. 10th, 2026 05:19 pmconuly posting in agonyauntDear Prudence,
I just got married, and while the day was beautiful, my family left me feeling heartbroken. I have a strained relationship with my younger sister. She left her diabetic cat with our parents, and when they had to suddenly leave town, I stepped in to care for it for two weeks.
At our wedding after-party, my husband gently suggested she thank me. Instead, she stormed off, blocked me on social media, and refused to see me for the rest of the trip. When I turned to my parents for support, they sided with her, saying she spent her own time and money to attend the wedding and telling me to “drop the drama” and “be an adult.” I’m left feeling dismissed and deeply hurt, wondering how to move forward from this.
—Bride Without a Break
( Read more... )
I just got married, and while the day was beautiful, my family left me feeling heartbroken. I have a strained relationship with my younger sister. She left her diabetic cat with our parents, and when they had to suddenly leave town, I stepped in to care for it for two weeks.
At our wedding after-party, my husband gently suggested she thank me. Instead, she stormed off, blocked me on social media, and refused to see me for the rest of the trip. When I turned to my parents for support, they sided with her, saying she spent her own time and money to attend the wedding and telling me to “drop the drama” and “be an adult.” I’m left feeling dismissed and deeply hurt, wondering how to move forward from this.
—Bride Without a Break
( Read more... )
About that Appointment Yesterday:
Jan. 10th, 2026 05:02 pmdewlineIt was with a job-search-support service specializing in helping neurodivergent job-seekers. I plan to keep in touch with them through my upcoming contract, because said contract is going to end when March does. So, planning has to be for at least the medium term.
Microsoft Good News/Bad News
Jan. 10th, 2026 01:09 pmthewayneWe'll start with the good news.
Microsoft may soon start allowing sysadmins to uninstall the CoPilot AI assistant from managed devices. Specifically, the Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot systems. There are a couple of restrictions: "The new policy will apply to devices where the Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot are both installed, the Microsoft Copilot app was not installed by the user, and the Microsoft Copilot app was not launched in the last 28 days."
This is currently being released in the Dev and Preview builds in the Insider Channel.
FYI, and I was going to post about this but I'm still kinda wrecked over events in December and it didn't happen. MS renamed their Office 365 app to 365 Copilot as they integrated their Copilot system into it. This makes me really glad that I bought licenses for a slightly older version of the stand-alone version of Office and don't touch 365.
Now, they're specifically talking about sysadmins being able to remove these programs from managed devices. That means this is exclusively the realm of larger, usually corporate networks. However, there are so many clever boffin system administrators out there who look out for the little people that within a week or few that instructions will start spreading on how to uninstall them from any Windows 11 system, it'll just take a little time to write up and test. But it'll get out.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-may-soon-allow-it-admins-to-uninstall-copilot-on-managed-devices/
https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/2219256/microsoft-may-soon-allow-it-admins-to-uninstall-copilot
On the bad news side, Windows Media Player. AKA WMP, is a decent product for ripping music CDs to formats including MP3. I've used it myself in the last year when my Apple USB DVD R/W went on walkabout, I was able to buy another at an estate sale last year. As most media players work, WMP would read the CD and supply the metadata for the album: album name, song titles, artwork.
Until last month.
Something changed, and it's unknown if MS will fix is. At this time, the only straightforward solution is to manually type all that info - readily available (usually) at Amazon, or rip it using another program which can provide the metadata (lots mentioned in the Slashdot article).
https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/09/microsoft_windows_media_player_forgets/
https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/1742218/microsoft-windows-media-player-stops-serving-up-cd-album-info
Microsoft may soon start allowing sysadmins to uninstall the CoPilot AI assistant from managed devices. Specifically, the Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot systems. There are a couple of restrictions: "The new policy will apply to devices where the Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot are both installed, the Microsoft Copilot app was not installed by the user, and the Microsoft Copilot app was not launched in the last 28 days."
This is currently being released in the Dev and Preview builds in the Insider Channel.
FYI, and I was going to post about this but I'm still kinda wrecked over events in December and it didn't happen. MS renamed their Office 365 app to 365 Copilot as they integrated their Copilot system into it. This makes me really glad that I bought licenses for a slightly older version of the stand-alone version of Office and don't touch 365.
Now, they're specifically talking about sysadmins being able to remove these programs from managed devices. That means this is exclusively the realm of larger, usually corporate networks. However, there are so many clever boffin system administrators out there who look out for the little people that within a week or few that instructions will start spreading on how to uninstall them from any Windows 11 system, it'll just take a little time to write up and test. But it'll get out.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-may-soon-allow-it-admins-to-uninstall-copilot-on-managed-devices/
https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/2219256/microsoft-may-soon-allow-it-admins-to-uninstall-copilot
On the bad news side, Windows Media Player. AKA WMP, is a decent product for ripping music CDs to formats including MP3. I've used it myself in the last year when my Apple USB DVD R/W went on walkabout, I was able to buy another at an estate sale last year. As most media players work, WMP would read the CD and supply the metadata for the album: album name, song titles, artwork.
Until last month.
Something changed, and it's unknown if MS will fix is. At this time, the only straightforward solution is to manually type all that info - readily available (usually) at Amazon, or rip it using another program which can provide the metadata (lots mentioned in the Slashdot article).
https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/09/microsoft_windows_media_player_forgets/
https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/1742218/microsoft-windows-media-player-stops-serving-up-cd-album-info
Life Continues... Interrupted
Jan. 10th, 2026 02:11 pmlydamorehouse "Ope, Gotta Go!"
My family has been hearing me say that a lot. Though, so far, both of the MONARCA calls for observers that I answered ended up to be false alarms. This morning there was a sighting of a forced entry not far from me on Fairview and Wellesley, which turned out to be real police on actual lawful business.I stood around with neighbors waiting for the official all clear. Until that comes in, people just keep streaming in, so a bunch of us agreed to stand by and wave people off.
Y'all? A lot of people kept showing up.
It was incredibly heartening.
I was glad to be there, but I also need to remember to pace myself. The unfortunate truth is, ICE isn't going anywhere anytime soon. I would like them to GTFO right now? But, that doesn't seem likely at the moment. So, I need to take time to breathe. Pick my battles--maybe even pick a day to battle, a singular day of the week--because dishes still need to be done, food needs to be made and consumed, and gods know the laundry doesn't do itself. Probably a shower and hydration are also important?
My regular D&D group was supposed to meet today. I'm a little sad that we didn't because just getting on with things, including things that spark joy, is also extremely important right now. But I can also understand how maybe pretending to be "murder hobos" isn't exactly hitting right this week for some folks. Our group actually isn't very murder-y? In fact, we were poised to rescue some folks, but, again, I get it. Still? We're going to need to figure out how to just carry on, especially considering that 2026 seems poised to be a continuation of the very worst timeline.
Ugh.
Well, speaking of, I should probably go do the dishes.
My family has been hearing me say that a lot. Though, so far, both of the MONARCA calls for observers that I answered ended up to be false alarms. This morning there was a sighting of a forced entry not far from me on Fairview and Wellesley, which turned out to be real police on actual lawful business.I stood around with neighbors waiting for the official all clear. Until that comes in, people just keep streaming in, so a bunch of us agreed to stand by and wave people off.
Y'all? A lot of people kept showing up.
It was incredibly heartening.
I was glad to be there, but I also need to remember to pace myself. The unfortunate truth is, ICE isn't going anywhere anytime soon. I would like them to GTFO right now? But, that doesn't seem likely at the moment. So, I need to take time to breathe. Pick my battles--maybe even pick a day to battle, a singular day of the week--because dishes still need to be done, food needs to be made and consumed, and gods know the laundry doesn't do itself. Probably a shower and hydration are also important?
My regular D&D group was supposed to meet today. I'm a little sad that we didn't because just getting on with things, including things that spark joy, is also extremely important right now. But I can also understand how maybe pretending to be "murder hobos" isn't exactly hitting right this week for some folks. Our group actually isn't very murder-y? In fact, we were poised to rescue some folks, but, again, I get it. Still? We're going to need to figure out how to just carry on, especially considering that 2026 seems poised to be a continuation of the very worst timeline.
Ugh.
Well, speaking of, I should probably go do the dishes.