lauradi7dw

My main goal for today is to clear all the dozens of tabs from the laptop as part of getting ready to take it to a person who will install Linux
https://lauradi7dw.dreamwidth.org/956812.html
despite this article
https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/i-want-to-love-linux-it-doesnt-love-me-back-post-1-built-for-control-but-not-for-people/

The rust was removed from my car. It looks nice. I didn't see anyone being snatched by ICE while in the area
https://lauradi7dw.dreamwidth.org/957219.html

One other thing about the Kdrama "Resident Playbook"
https://lauradi7dw.dreamwidth.org/956991.html
In the final episode, a character recommended a paper about ovarian cancer and mention the lead author's surname as Ryu. This seemed very specific to me. There were no other authors or paper titles mentioned (just the person speaking explaining her spreadsheet system of keeping track of what she's read).
I went to Pubmed. There are several people with that surname who do ovarian cancer research. Is it Ji-yoo, who is at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul? Or Jae-Sung at Korea the Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology? Or Jai Min at Samsung Medical Center in Seoul? Why do all their names begin with J?
It's time to stop looking, but there was also someone I found yesterday at the Mayo clinic.
A few weeks ago, SF author John Wiswell was auctioning off the chance to name a character in the next book for a worthy cause. Did the writers of "Resident Playbook" do something similar? Were they just going for verisimilitude? Was this Ryu some sort of consultant for the cancer parts of the series?
Relatively early on in the X-files, there was a list of passengers on a flight. It was only onscreen briefly, but long enough for some of the regular posters on alt.tv.x-files to see their names used.

https://ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics/kristi-noem-habeas-wrong/

Seen yesterday

There was a woman on the Red Line this morning looking very miserable, covered in red spots. A quick search of duckduckgo images shows me the bare backs of adults with measles and the faces of kids. Some kind of privacy thing? I am hoping she had a bad encounter with poison ivy instead of a communicable disease. My tai chi instructor got poison ivy recently and ended up taking prednisone. I was surprised by this, thinking of rubbing pink stuff on skin rather than having a strong corticosteroid inside.
But here's a ten year old article suggesting it.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4169084/

Part of the Vincent exhibit was two rooms that represent the footprint of the Roulins' yellow house. Visitors can walk into the bigger room (that has three chairs in corners, presumably to give a sense of scale) and look into the other through a window.

Near Haymarket, there is a metal framed house (no walls) which is an installation by LaRissa Rogers. It called "Going to Ground," and is a reminder of the home a few yards away hundreds of years ago that belonged to Zipporah Potter Atkins, who is thought to have been the first Black woman to own her own home in Boston. This is the area where bellringers usually picnic and I've been watching people interact with it over the past year. When it was first opened, there was a wooden rocking chair that people (mostly kids) rocked in. The chair was removed for the winter and hasn't come back, but yesterday someone had brought his own folding chair and was sitting in the house reading. The artist's website has nice pictures from various angles.
https://www.larissamrogers.com/going-to-ground

As part of the Boston public art triennial there is a sort of house in a lobby of the main branch of the Boston Public Library.
https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/05/19/boston-public-art-triennial

I hope to pick up my car tomorrow. Since there is no bus to Lexington on Sundays, I rode my bike to the nearest bus so I could go into Boston to ring. I used to do this regularly, but got lazy and started using the car instead of the bike. I am not sure I rode the bike at all in 2024, but that was a long time ago and I don't remember. I left home at 8 AM for a planned 8:50 arrival at the bus but was speedy enough that I got the previous one. (it's 4.5 miles from home).
After ringing and a short picnic lunch, another ringer and I went to the MFA to see the Van Gogh exhibit.
It's specifically about his time painting portraits of the Roulin family, but they have other portraits by different artists that were influential on Vincent. Alo, I had no idea that he was a collector of Japanese prints.
https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/van-gogh-the-roulin-family-portraits
In my usual easily distracted way, I fixated on how much middle-aged Marcelle (whom he painted many times when she was a baby) looked like the portrait Gauguin painted of her mother at the time he and VVG were working sometimes side by side.

We looked at some other stuff, then reversed the transportation process - Green line E train to Red line to #77 bus to bike trip home, about an hour and forty-five minutes, I think.
Clouds were foreboding, but I was not rained on.

Last night a Mexican training tall ship went under the Brooklyn Bridge (sort of), knocking down the masts. Of course there were passerby videos on Twitter almost in real time. I watched them, amazed, almost entranced at the images. This morning, learning that two of the sailors died, I am feeling guilty that my first thought was about how interesting it was to watch, not about the people on the ship.

Rebecca Solnit
https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/im-the-problem-its-me-on-the-confession-the-mainstream-media-wont-make/?ref=meditations-in-an-emergency-newsletter

Hank Green
https://youtu.be/ndeB_BpsRGk?feature=shared

Does having a fandom in common with a stranger mean that you should be friends? I was walking down a street about half a mile from home this afternoon and saw someone getting out of a car with BTS-related plates and a homemade sign in the back that said "Yoongi Marry Me." (it's a thing. It's a long-running joke, but I have to assume that large quantities of people do not in fact want to marry Min Yoongi)1
I followed her down her driveway and complimented her on the license plate. She said "Oh, are you ARMY?" 2
In response, I just turned around so she could see my backpack (in the icon). The little blue koala is named Koya and is one of a set of cute fuzzy creatures meant to represent the BTS members.
She laughed and held up her keychain, which had a somewhat larger Koya on it.
She asked if I had watched Jin's livestream this morning. I said no (I have since seen a couple of recorded clips from it) but that I had watched his most recent music video. She happily mentioned that they only have about another month before they are all done with their military service. We waved and I walked on. Then I wondered if I should have exchanged contact info in case we ever need to get in touch. I know where she lives (that isn't meant to sound ominous) but sending her a card or something would seem like stalking. A missed chance.

1 Here he was with Mary Brian's hair style two years ago.
https://lauradi7dw.dreamwidth.org/739618.html

2 https://stylecaster.com/entertainment/music/1218189/bts-army-meaning/

Heather Cox Richardson's post about the Magna Carta and our current administration trying to do away with Habeas Corpus
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-15-2025-thursday?utm_source=substack&publication_id=20533&post_id=163691073&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=3sd3c&triedRedirect=true

Waltham is adjacent to the town in which I live. My car is currently at a body shop in Waltham, getting its rust removed. (I was told by phone that the rust has been dealt with, but they can't paint until it stops raining, so the finish time will be delayed. Do they paint it outside? Is the problem humidity? I've been OK using the bus this week, and I can ride my bike on Sunday if I have to, although I need to check the tires).
In the past week, there have been two incidents in Waltham of people claiming to be ICE agents grabbing people, including breaking a car window and reaching in. I say claiming to be ICE because they have refused to show ID. I am not the only one who suspects that they are not in fact ICE officers, but I can't prove it. My experiences with ICE people have been in controlled indoor settings (the federal courthouse, the ICE facility in Burlington) and they wore badges, IIRC. The more relevant question is what will I do if I see such an incident while I'm in Waltham to pick up my car? When I dropped it off, I took the commuter train to Porter and then got on the Red line, so I presume I'll do the reverse to get it back. I'm not much into using a Lyft when I can spend hours on the T instead...So I'll have a short walk through the center of Waltham from the commuter rail to the body shop.
Would I be the person filming with my phone? Would I run screaming at the alleged officer and risk harm to myself? It is really about time to make plans. Or what would I have done if someone barged onto the 62/76 bus yesterday? There are two locations on that route housing migrants (refugees? I'm not sure of their statuses). People I suspect are in that category were on the bus with me yesterday.

(also, unrelated, a couple who during the ride ate some hard candies, then frosted cupcakes, then jelly beans. I am a fan of sugar, but I was wincing on behalf of their teeth).

Watch on YouTube

I am posting a dance class in Mali because it's the outcome of this morning's tangential thoughts. I've been watching the Kdrama "Resident Playbook," a hospital-set show that is sort of a follow-up to "Hospital Playlist." Fans kept demanding a 3rd season of HP and got RP instead, I guess. One of the 1st year OB/GYN residents was in a short-lived one hit wonder (fictional) KPop group before he went to med school. In a scene in episode 9, he was dancing to the song at the end of a karaoke evening with colleagues when another resident got up and danced along, to the shock of everyone else. Yesterday that scene took over one of my algorithm silos in youtube. The song is performed on the soundtrack by the (actual) group TxT and two of its members appear in the video of the fictional group. So now on YT there is the scene from the show, a video of the recording studio, a dance video of the fake group, in costume, a video of the dance in regular clothes, and a video of the two characters from the show learning the dance. I have watched them all. The dance studio in which the instruction is happening is not unlike the studio used for my tap class - a wall full of mirrors with numbers along the bottom - the middle number is 0 with other numbers by 1s or 2s in each direction. like 6 4 2 0 2 4 6. This is to make the spacing of dancers in a dance more precise.
Here they are in a studio in Seoul, presumably
https://youtube.com/shorts/H0LMWq1hKiQ?feature=shared

I started wondering if this is something that happens everywhere. I decided to pick Mali to represent Africa and got the great video above. But I still can't see the front of the room - are there mirrors or numbers? Probably not, but I can't tell.

Icon above is from my front yard, a bee in a bloom.

People sometimes make little sounds in their sleep that are not snoring but slightly louder than just inhaling/exhaling. I was barely awake this morning when I heard a sound that was just like such a sound Arthur used to make when asleep. That woke me up completely - what could make that sound? Not a bird outside, not the pillow next to me. WTH? I don't believe in ghosts. It's not windy outside, so it wasn't that.
It was only that once, so I can't record it or otherwise figure it out. I am pretty sure it wasn't one of those weird dreams that one has while basically awake.

There was no Korean class yesterday because the teacher is in New Orleans, adding a few days of tourism onto a biotech conference she was attending. I wonder whether there were a lot of conversations about people potentially losing their jobs. My janggu teacher is a chemist when she's not doing pungmul 1 and home life. I presume everybody in science is worried about jobs, but is it worse for people who moved here for work? If you have a green card or some sort of permanent residence arrangement does that matter? I'm not close enough to either of them to ask such a question.
I am not diligent enough in Korean homework, but I had a tiny brain flash this morning - a phrase one hears in song lyrics that is usually translated in subtitles as "I miss you" literally (translated by me) means "I want to see you." Or maybe look at you? A couple of days ago a drama subtitle said "See you tomorrow." I didn't pay much attention but then realized that I might not have needed a subtitle for 내일 봐요 in the context of someone getting into a cab. Tiny tiny steps.

At some rummage sale (?) decades ago I bought a massive Greek Lexicon. Beyond door-stop size. How can I give it away now? I recently took a lot of books to the friends of the library donation cart, but I didn't take that. I also don't know what to do about books with covers torn off. In the 1970s there was a store (mostly a tobacconist, IIRC) in Central Square Cambridge that sold lots of books with covers torn off. I didn't realize at the time that it meant that the authors would get no royalties. We both shopped there. If they were all put together there might be a shelf full of mostly science fiction and a bit of other fiction. Do I try to give them away? Recycle them? I have a computer tech textbook 2 that was published in 2001. Again, just into the recycle bin?

1 I am not taking lessons anymore, but there is a small group every couple of weeks that I started attending. I think she is hoping for a regular performance group, and I am probably not suited for it. When I signed up for this I was hoping for some sort of jam equivalent, but it's not really that.

2 I am using Windows 10 on the laptop. They will stop supporting it in October, and maybe force Windows 11 on me (?). Someone online suggests switching to Linux before that. Me? Are there classes for old ladies who can't code?

Make sure the sound is not muted/the volume is up
https://www.tiktok.com/@noonienie080/video/7503314335897308459

Does Trump follow any regimen for dealing with all that plane time? He fell asleep on TV during his briefing in Saudi Arabia.

This is from Brian Allen on twitter:
"This isn’t jet lag — it’s a walking security risk with a nap schedule."

I'm not going to defend Trump, and I don't think he should be hanging out with the Saudis anyway, but maybe it *is* jet lag. And a lot of the time we're better off with him asleep than talking.

After a long time chatting and explaining, my Verizon bill will show that everything is fine, I don't have to get yet another new router, and I don't have their TV service any more. He still tried to get me to go back to using their TV service, but nope. He said that the tech support person I spoke to originally should have tried to send me a set-top box without the Google tie-in. They do still offer that, and in fact it's what he had. It is a newer model than the one I had been using, but not as new as the new internet/google based one. Too late now, I'm living without. I told him I might miss it at Olympics time, but who knows if there will be another Olympics anyway? There have been some worries about the winter Olympics in Italy next year and I can't believe anybody will come to LA for the 2028 summer games.
I'll worry about Olympics when it happens.

Had a long fruitless online chat with the person at Verizon about why they are still charging me for the fios TV service I no longer have. On Monday after my volunteer gig I plan to have all possible documentation (like the receipt number for the items I returned) and try to talk with my mouth instead of typing to someone who eventually disconnected me.

Tomorrow is the annual food drive sponsored by the USPS.
https://about.usps.com/newsroom/local-releases/ca/2025/0506-stamp-out-hunger-food-drive.htm
The Lexington food bank has been recruiting extra volunteers to deal with influx of canned goods or whatever.
Year-round there is a collection box at the local supermarket. I thought to myself, why buy the stuff, take it home, and remember to set it out tomorrow when I can just walk twenty feet from the checkout lane to the box and drop everything off there? So I bought a wide variety of shelf-stable foods (instead of my usual one or two items) and left it there. I like participating in big events. I think this still counts.

I had a gutter (the roof kind) expert come to give me an estimate. The current situation is ridiculous, with the gutters not wide enough and the downspouts weirdly arranged. Water overflows. It makes me mad every time there is a rainstorm, which is pretty often lately. (we're almost out of our drought situation).
This is the view from one side of the house last year. The kludge near the electric meter on the not shown side of the house is even worse
https://youtube.com/shorts/7tMiSyH0tek?feature=shared
While we were discussing the driveway side downspouts, I said "Excuse me, you have a tick in your ear." I ran inside to get the "tick key" https://tickkey.com/ from the medicine cabinet. (I think

nosrednayduj recommended this to me in the past). There I was, doing a minor medical procedure on a stranger's skin. It wasn't as simple as the directions indicated, but the tick was removed, and then we went back to gutter talk. (huh. I guess that has a different meaning sometimes).
It will be expensive. If everything works as well as he promised, it will be a big QOL improvement, possibly giving evidence to the idea that money can buy happiness.

I only rarely do helpful things for local migrant support organizations, but yesterday I was scheduled to pick someone up from an appointment and drive him home to a town not far from Worcester. He cancelled. Was it because he felt that he needed to be hunkering down? Today in Worcester ICE snatched a woman and put her into a van, and then her daughter was arrested by Worcester police. The reports didn't say what happened to the baby who was with them.

This morning I saw a photo that I missed the other day of S. Coups from the Kpop group Seventeen at the Met Gala
https://lauradi7dw.dreamwidth.org/837903.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.Coups

Here's a short video that I don't seem to be able to embed
https://youtube.com/shorts/6zMU5hS1rxY?feature=shared

I love it, although dragging on the ground isn't practical. It brings to mind elements of Korean traditional men's clothing - a tailored jacket in the place of a jeogori (저고리), way baggier trousers than usual, the full length coat not much like the traditional Po (포) but not unlike it either - it's a coat over one's other clothes in either case.

I'd like to think that Hugo Boss the person would have cartoon steam coming out of his ears at the sight of Black and Korean people wearing clothes from the descendant of his company.

I have very mixed feelings about The Atlantic - there is some excellent reporting, but they have been anti-mask for years. I kept subscribing while Ed Yong was writing for them, but it was not surprising to hear his views of how he was treated there *
But still, they have useful stuff. For reasons that aren't clear to me, one can get a feed of their current health articles here on DW for free, while the rest still is behind a paywall.
https://theatlantic-health-feed.dreamwidth.org/profile
I can't read Juliette Kayyem's articles there because of said wall, but I follow her on twitter and she puts up little blurbs with the links when an article becomes available. The magazine title of the most recent is
"Don't look at stock markets. Look at the ports." It's very serious stuff, but she couldn't refrain from hyping it with a short joke:
"Ships don't lie"
Lots of Shakira remarks in the comments. If there hadn't already been some, I would have done so. It became my head song of the morning

Watch on YouTube

But then while I was scrolling along, someone linked to Patti Labelle on Sesame Street, pointing out what we lose if PBS is defunded (Sesame Street has a complicated history, but the basic point stands). So now maybe I'll be singing the alphabet to myself while jogging this morning. It's been a while - I've been waiting for maximally pleasant weather, which might be right now - not raining, but after days of rain the pollen numbers are down somewhat.

Watch on YouTube

* https://youtu.be/ddy5uMdzZB8?feature=shared