I was recently presented with a fairly puzzling ad image.

I got a fortune cookie slip of paper (twice!) that read:

All progress occurs because people dare to be different

I got a set of non-transitive Grime dice from UK enterprise Maths Gear.

I use Arch Linux, a simple, lightweight Linux distribution. You should, too. It’s not hard.

One of the things Arch users do is update, regularly. I find that weekly updates are adequate. Running sudo pacman -Syu every 7 to 10 days keeps problems away.

What happens when pacman updates fail, or updated package downloads get really slow?

I looked in the systemd journals on my Qotom fanless server. I saw something reporting a Postgres database problem.

I got an interesting letter in the US Postal mail.

I built some simple voltage doublers to see what wave forms result.

I updated my self-relocating program for the 21^st Century.

GCC and Clang C compilers compile the new code with no warnings. the program no longer needs weird hacks like compiling with an executable stack.

I’ve been watching Agatha Christie’s Poirot on the “BritBox” streaming service. I found The Mystery of the Blue Train episode (Series 10, episode 1) both intriguing and puzzling.

So, I read the book, which my lovely wife gave me for Christmas!

Fortunes from Beijing Noodle in Fort Collins, Colorado, December 22, 2025