Tag: texas

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Daily Pook-Emu Bee links ceased being daily for the last week and change, but perhaps it is back with two straight editions to start the new week.

1 | Calibre 9.15 E-Book Manager Introduces “Create Your Own Adventure” Writing Game (Marcus Nestor for 9 To 5 Linux. Sep. 28, 2026.)
While I disable (or don’t enable) AI functionality in Calibre, I opined last year that some of the integrations were relatively inoffensive and in line with Calibre’s purpose. I’d say I fear Calibre is losing the plot (get it!?) with this one. However, it is not enabled by default and the new release includes some interesting normal features, so as long as the plot is lost on the side…

2 | NYC refuses to remove massive hornets’ nest from Queens tree, tells terrified residents to foot the bill (Rich Calder for the New York Post. Sep. 19, 2026.)
If (heaven forbid) this situation goes sideways after the NYC Parks Department both refused to step in and warned that it would block any efforts by the residents to remedy, NYC (i.e., taxpayers) will most certainly foot the bill.

3 | Ancient bronze bracelets found in Uzbekistan (The History Blog. Sep. 16, 2026.)
You never know what you’ll dig up in your yard in Uzbekistan.

4 | Three Patrons, Three Clients: The Mecca Alliance No One Owns (Ahmed Saber Abbas for War on the Rocks. Sep. 15, 2026.)
If only Saudi Arabia had some alternative proposal in front of it.

5 | Nearly one third of college-age ‘BORG’ drinkers report blacking out: New study (W.B. Kagan for EurekAlert! Sep. 15, 2026.)
This ends with a suggestion for parents to discuss with their college-age students “whether to attend a BORG event, and if one does attend, whether to bring a BORG beverage and how much (if any alcohol to put in the beverage.” That’s great but let’s try cutting this off at “event” and making the answer “no.”

6 | Holdout Lindsay Clancy Juror Breaks Silence, Says “Activists” Wanted “Not Guilty” on Day 1 (Steven Ertelt for Life Site. Sep. 16, 2026.)
He shouldn’t have had to break silence, but now that he has been left with no choice, I tip my hat to Mr. Michael P. Desronvil for having the courage to do the right thing.

7 | Scientists Create a New Form of Ice at More Than 2,000 °C (Michelle Starr for Science Alert. Sep. 9, 2026.)
I don’t know. Our current ice works well enough. The scientists should focus on something more practical.

8 | The Rise, Fall, and Rise of Rawdawg (Lauren Peck for Austin Chronicle. Nov. 27, 2024.)
That this running club was obnoxious enough to be cracked down on in Austin sounds like an accomplishment (and well-deserved as someone who finds our less noisy running clubs here in New York City annoying enough as is).

9 | I saw the movie that Warner tried to delete: ‘Coyote vs. Acme’ (Bryan Preston for Fox Business. Sep. 12, 2026.)
While my 16+ year streak of not being in a movie theater continues, this does sound like a fun movie and one that was well-worth saving.

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I have been busy today, but the weekday streak of Pook-Emu Bee links continues.

1 | California political candidate facing six years in prison after listing dive bar as home address (Marina Peña for the California Post. August 24, 2026.)
This plan was dumb enough to make me wonder whether she lives in a dive bar.

2 | Summer Wars: An Anime With A Cautionary tale About AI (The Ghastly Mirror. August 24, 2026.)
I watched Summer Wars with a friend a long time ago (maybe 2014-15). I recall liking it well enough so I’ll second the recommendation.

3 | Happy 35th Birthday, Linux! (Marius Nestor for Tux Machines. August 25, 2026.)
35? Linux is still just a kid. Happy birthday to my operating system since 2020!

4 | The Data Center Wars – A Massive Proposed Data Center in Texas Drops Request for Tax Abatements (Buck Throckmorton for Ace of Spades HQ. August 25, 2026.)
Pacifico Energy could have saved itself plenty of grief by not requesting the tax abatements in the first place.

5 | 1000 Blog Posts (Chris at Unaccountable Thoughts. July 6, 2026.)
This is 632 here at ECS (not counting my “social” activity posts).

6 | Seen This Week: Butterflies and Fruits (Kate St. John at Outside My Window. August 15, 2026.)
I’m pro-butterfly, so I approve of this photo post. I haven’t seen many in Brooklyn this year but there have been a decent number of bees and dragonflies lately.

7 | Kanon Analysis: Understanding Mai’s Struggle (Zalor at Zalor’s Seminar. July 10, 2026.)
A very interesting in-depth analysis of the struggle of Mai in the excellent 2006-07 anime adaptation of Kanon (on my distant to-review list). This post includes the analysis video along with the full transcript.

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I was working late into the night (unfortunately not on articles), but I am back for another Pook-Emu Bee link (one away from Sunday-Friday perfection before we yield the floor on Saturday for The Newsletter Leaf Journal).

My hand holding a tube of Sensodyne Pronamel Kids Berry Twist toothpaste over a sink.
I use SLS-free toothpaste because of canker sores. I also want toothpaste with fluoride. My options at Lot Less in late July were limited. This is what I came up with (photograph from July 29, 2026).

1 | Some Claude users are mad that Anthropic’s new watermarks will catch them using it at their jobs, classes (Lucas Ropek for TechCrunch. August 12, 2026.)
The thought that these people may be too lazy to paste the output into a text editor and sanitize it is almost as concerning as how lazy they are in using Claude.

2 | Twenty-Five in Blog Years (Dave Peck. August 11, 2026.)
I offer my congratulations to Mr. Peck on his blog’s quarter-century anniversary. What was I doing 25 years ago? Elementary school.

3 | Koei Tecmo releases 90-minute Atelier Ryza ASMR featuring Klaudia, picnics, bathing, and ear-cleaning (Amber V for Automation West. August 13, 2026.)
I think it may be time for “Ryza” to join “Palworld” on my gaming-related Miniflux global block list.

4 | Houston Man Charged For Terroristic Threat Over Anime (Rafael Antonio Pineda for Anime News Network. August 13, 2026.)
His rant raises many questions. I don’t think I want the answers.

5 | Bob Iger, Josh Kushner shockingly purchase Lakers months after Mark Walter became majority owner (Ryan Morik for Fox Business. August 12, 2026.)
I went on record when the Lakers went for $10 billion last year noting that the price struck me as high. To be sure, I was not expecting the Lakers to be flipped for $12 billion just over one year later. Perhaps it has something to do with the report’s note that Mr. Walter is under investigation for tax fraud.

6 | Clicks have killed the Inverted Pyramid (Gordon Meyer. August 8, 2026.)
I have more than 200 feeds in my feed collection and many feed items, so I have more than enough to read to allow me to check out when I see what appears to be a rambling SEO introduction. My bigger problem lately has been seeing obvious indicia of AI junk in articles, which also leads to a quick close.

7 | Rite Aid-Replacing Tower for Corner of Smith and President? (Cate Cocoran for Brownstoner. August 11, 2026.)
That is not the nicest stretch of the Carroll Gardens section of Court Street (it looks better from the air than the ground), so this could be an improvement provided that they do not make it too tall. While I cannot say that I am optimistic, I would agree that Carroll Gardens survives pretty well without the benefit of the historic district designation that neighboring Cobble Hill has.

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Today is Friday, May 29, 2026. Because it is a day ending in -day that is not Saturday, it is time for our daily Pook-Emu Bee links. There will be no Pook-Emu Bee tomorrow, but you will find even more links in The Newsletter Leaf Journal. I usually do not publish links on Sunday, but maybe I will surprise everyone. In any event, Pook-Emu Bee will be back on Monday. By the way, do you know what the people are saying about Pook-Emu Bee?

Photo of a sign for CARROLL GARDENS PLUMBING SUPPLY LLC on a brick wall. Under the name and logo, we see the next "WE'RE LIKE FAMILY... ONLY NICER"
I took this photo on May 28, 2026. You will never guess which Brooklyn neighborhood this is in. Like Carroll Gardens Plumbing Supply, Pook-Emu Bee is just like family… only nicer. They say no one is nicer, in fact.

1. SiteGround’s Icky Approach to AI in WordPress 7.0 (Rhys Wynne. May 27, 2026.)

Say what one will but automatically adding your commercial AI plugin to your customers’ websites is a tremendous way to make those install numbers go up. No no, you’re very welcome.

2. Spill sends 550,000 gallons of wastewater into Guadalupe River (Ricardo Delgado for San Antonio Express News. May 28, 2026.)

That sounds subpar. There are easier ways to recreate Newton Creek.

3. Revisiting Shawn Kemp for Vin Baker (Harlan Schreiber at Hoops Analyst. May 25, 2026.)

I agree that Milwaukee, the team that ended this three-way trade without Messrs. Kemp or Baker, won (see my article on the 2000-01 Bucks). But the Sonics got even in 2002-03 when they acquired Ray Allen from Milwaukee in return for half a season of an over-the-hill Gary Payton. Of course, the Sonics didn’t end up making much of having a near-prime Ray Allen for the better part of the 2000s, so I suppose no one won in the end.

4. Switch off autoplay on streaming services (Practical Betterments. May 25, 2026.)

I will confess there have been times when I watched that extra episode of an anime on Crunchyroll at 2:00 AM because of autoplay. Not recently, however. I’m way behind. (This is good advice, all jokes aside.)

5. Minesweeper Classic Switch Review (Game Slush Pile. May 22, 2026.)

Please do not spend $5 for a remake of vanilla Minesweeper on Switch. Switch is not really for vanilla Minesweeper unless you install LineageOS on your Switch. In that case, do install Simon Tatham’s Puzzles from F-Droid and enjoy the great classic Minesweeper implementation.

6. A 24-Team College Football Playoff Solves a Problem That Doesn’t Exist (Michael Bryan. May 21, 2026.)

If you have a four team playoff, there will be controversy regarding the 5th and 6th teams. If you have a 12-team playoff, there will be controversy about the 13th and 14th times. So on and so forth. You just push the problem further down the ladder. Funny enough, there were not too many dramatic controversies in the single championship game BCS era (the Oklahoma-LSU-USC mess of 2003 being the notable exception). Maybe they had it right before the playoff!

7. I Didn’t Even Know American Wisteria Was A Thing (Athena Scalzi at Whatever. May 12, 2026.)

But now you do.

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I missed publishing a set of Pook-Emu Bee links yesterday. But that just means I have more links saved for today. If you enjoy the (almost) daily links and commentary, you can also follow via feed.

1. Qatar Wants to Bolster Security Partnership with US After Iran’s Strikes (Reuters [via gCaptain]. March 10, 2026.)

If so they should explain this to their local international TV outlet.

2. The joys of data centers: Debunking the backlash against the $7 trillion AI building boom (Christian Britschgi for Reason. April 2026 issue.)

The rest of us should be able to see the tremendous upsides of the country’s data center boom. Advances in artificial intelligence and robotics could liberate humanity from boring, backbreaking labor

The libertarians at Reason are smug now but I am not entirely convinced that AI cannot exude a smug sense of self-satisfaction while achieving nothing in the real world.

3. New All-Day Cafe LeTish Opening Soon in Williamsburg (Jennifer Rosini-Gentile for Greenpointers. March 9, 2026.)

I seldom eat or buy coffee “out” and have not been to Williamsburg in several months. Granting the foregoing, this place looks good.

4. Mamdani Condemns ‘White Supremacy’ Protest But Not Radical Islam After ISIS-Linked Bomb Attack (Jasmyn Jordan for Breitbart. March 9, 2026.)

All fair complaints. But imagine how insufferable he would have been had the two terrorists not explicitly spelled out their alleigance to ISIS. (Glass half-full take!)

5. Renovations on Carroll Gardens Library drag on (Mary Frost for Brooklyn Daily Eagle. March 9, 2026.)

I wrote about the library renovations back in 2024. My skeptecism about the timeline was well-founded.

6. Hobby Airport warns of 2-hour TSA wait due to government shutdown (Briahn Hawkins and Jillian Hartmann for Fox 26 Houston. March 8, 2026.)

I had a two hour wait at Houston Hobby last May. I used that time to wander around the airport Learning About William P. Hobby at Houston Hobby Airport and Failing to Try Airport Illy Coffee Vending Machine. Of course, my 2-hour wait was scheduled and everything was running on time. It sounds like things are going less swimmingly for travelers this March 2026.

7. How Usable Is Windows 98 In 2026? (Maya Posch for Hackaday. March 8, 2026.)

I would put this one in the “mileage may vary” category. With that being said, let it be said that I did several high school assignments on my Windows 95 in 2004 and 2005 and brought them to school on floppy disks.

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Replied to Telling Southwest I’m On Vacation · The New Leaf Journal by Nicholas A. Ferrell (thenewleafjournal.com)
I use a Southwest Airlines napkin to tell New Leaf Journal readers that I am on vacation in Texas until May 15, 2024.

A Southwest Airlines napkin. The top says in orange text "The best ideas are born on napkins" and below "What's yours?" In black ink, I wrote "Telling Emu Cafe Social 'I'm back."

 

This is the second time I am publishing this. I initially published it right before (1) rebuilding our server (2) before the daily backup had been taken. I had been in Texas from May 7 to 15 but I went on vacation without informing my many (self-flattery) loyal fans. I used a clever Southwest Airlines napkin question mark to break the news. Now I suppose this post shows both that I returned from Texas and my two WordPress projects returned from the (very temporary) abyss. I used the free and open source OSS Document Scanner to scan my napkin scribbles instead of taking a photo like I did for The New Leaf Journal napkin post.