Sigh. It seems that the #php2shell brouhaha is all about "patch patch patch" but includes little to no information about the nature of the vulnerabilities and, indeed, what systems might be vulnerable.
I have clients that maintain several legacy systems can cannot be updated to PHP 8.2+. However, they are only running their own code: no frameworks, CMS's, packages, etc. Trying to assess their vulnerability, if any, is proving difficult.
Got a (teeny tiny) blister on my thumb today recording guitar for an advertising thing targeting (yup) Valentine's 2027.
At least according to Mark Knopfler I ain't dumb.
I don't touch my iPhone very often (because reasons), but it managed to update itself to iOS 27 while I wasn't paying attention.
Now it claims the battery in the phone is of an "unknown type" that "cannot be verified as a genuine Apple battery."
The battery has never been serviced or replaced.
Well, I went ahead and called since there was a small but non-zero chance an "emergency" could involve physical safety concerns for their current or former clients.
That was not the case, and I did not continue the conversation once that fact had been established.
TFW a former client who never fully paid past invoices messages you out of the blue with an "emergency" and would "deeply appreciate a prompt response."
I have to go somewhere weird today, and I remembered the streets in the area are also weird so I opened Apple Maps to see if I remembered the weirdness correctly. I did.
Then, for laughs, I had Apple Maps give me directions to the same location.
Apple Maps would have me make a left turn where left turns have been explicitly barriered-off by the city, travel the wrong way down a one-way street, then turn into an adjacent address and somehow, I dunno, leap a retaining wall Dukes-of-Hazzard style to get where I'm going.
Some e just walked by outside shouting into their car phone:
“You can with Gemini! You can with Gemini! No, you *can^ with Gemini!”
Then there was a pause and “No, Gemini built in trading on Polymarket!”
And now I’m thinking people are “asking AI” if they should place bets in prediction markets and i kind of want to place a bet on how well that’s going to work out.
One of the things I really love about #Bluehost is that they "upgrade" their systems and completely destroy your server configurations with zero notice.
I guess I should look at it as "Oh, hey, overtime." Except I don't get to bill overtime.
Bucket list item checked off! It finally happened!
I've been playing bass in recording studios since I was 17 years old and only _this afternoon_ managed to take my bass off, bonk the ceiling with the headstock, and bring down four acoustic tiles.
Never give up on your dreams, people! NEVER.
So, I've attempted to watch/skim through the 09-Sept #Apple event with the #iPhone 18 whatever, iPhone Duo, #Earpods whatever, #Watch whatver. It's very clear that the world Apple *thinks* we live in (or, perhaps, aspire to live in) is very, *very* different from the world I truly live in.
I have an older iPhone that won't support iOS 27, It's *never* been very usable because I'm one of those magical people for whom capacitive touch screens are very hit-and-miss. Despite almost never using the device, data breaches mean it receives 3-5 scam calls/messages a day. Most of my "time" on the phone is:
a) deleting and reporting scam messages
b) updating apps I basically never use (you know, like tuners or Firefox Focus because, for a minute, that seemed like it might be a good idea)
c) trying (and often failing) to do something like send a message, access Wikipedia, or turn on the flashlight.
If I have my phone with me, it's either off or in Airplane mode, and I'll turn it on only if I need it to make a call or take a picture of Christmas decorations turning up in August. Because my trust in the ecosystem is basically zero, I have never scanned a QR code or used a mobile wallet. I have never used Bluetooth. I have never done video call or taken a selfie. I don't use iCloud because, again like magic, Apple periodically locks me out of my old-as-they-get iCloud account, so why would I use it?
Watching Apple product announcements is now like peering into a sci-fi dystopia.
So, thanks to an unfortunate confluence of earworms, this is what's going through my head:
Rah rah that's Jolene
Lover of the Russian Queen
I beg you to please come take my man
Guess what's in my mail today?
Subject: "This is the last email you'll ever see…" (doubtful, my inbox overfloweth), along with a code for a 15% discount. "Last chance to stay on our list!"
Of couse, most of their prices are 20 to 25 pct higher than when I first bought something from them…
So, minor update: someone beat me to this deal. I messaged the seller on Sunday inquiring about the short-scale bass and received an immediate reply that I was second in line, someone had already asked about it. Just received a follow-up that, indeed, the early bird got the worm and the instrument had been sold. No harm, no foul!
I'm not sure the idea of a short scale piccolo bass is all that great for me, but it stil seems hard to go wrong at a low price like that. Will keep an eye open.
Bought something from a small US-based company about a year ago and received an email from them with the subject "Time to say goodbye?" No text portion to the message so, being me, I pop open the source and yup: loaded with trackers from Klaviyo. No other human-readable text.
So, I'm choosing to interpret the "Time to say goodbye?" as "We haven't been able to confirm any 'engagement' with you since your purchase, so you are now worthless to us." Guess my strategy for blocking trackers is working. And, unsurprisingly, my feelings about this company are becoming pretty similar to their feelings about me.
So, I had a perhaps-unhealthy thought. Does anyone have any experience with the Ibanez miKro GSRM20 basses? They're super short-scale (26.5-inch) bass guitars aimed at the small-handed beginner market. I played a couple in stores a few years ago as curiousitoes and thought they were cheap (tuners, etc.) but the fit-and-finish level was surprisingly good.
One's being offered used nearby. My thought is to set it up as a "piccolo bass," tuned A-C-G-C or G-C-F-Bb.
On bass I've never been a bottom-dweller who picks the lowest possible routes for basslines, and I've always liked the idea of a high-tuned bass with a honky P-bass pickup. Have I lost my mind?
I love how Installing a #macOS update, about one time in three my machines simply don't reboot. The installer runs, says it needs to restart, kills all my apps, logs me out, screens go black……and it's nothing but black screen for the next (checks clock) 11 hours. Pretty neat.
Another morning, another fabulous idea for a joke domain that turns out to have been registered in 2006 and of course has never had any public-facing website.
I still do some contract software development and QA work.
I have typed, deleted, re-typed, and re-deleted a post about a project with a firm I'd worked with way back in the day. I confirmed today that they laid off their dev team in early 2026, and apparently think they can maintain their educational software portfolio with a product manager, a terrified devops person, an intern, CoPilot, and happy thoughts.
All I can really say is that I just pulled a key piece of their package out of the fire with a three-character change that fixes an off-by-one error. So that strategy is working really well for them.
So, I stepped away from laptop/notebook computers years ago—I can't feel the key travel on "chiclet" keyboards well enough to type with any accuracy—but I still have an old MacBook Pro (Intel! DVD drive!) that I occasionally use for writing, editing, or as an terminal to the side, monitoring SSH sessions while my main machine is doing music or something else I can't interrupt.
Anyway: one of the great features of this ancient MacBook is that I can kill the trackpad and keyboard with a single touch: all I have to do is drag my feet cross the carpet and touch the capacitive trackpad. There's a little static discharge and BOOM: all keyboard and mouse input is lost until a full power-down, wait, and reboot.
All this to say: Yesterday I touched the trackpad of a brand-new 16-inch Macbook Pro, there was a little >zap< and you'll never guess what happened.