You ever think about how Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC”

For me the era of the netbook is a mixed but mostly happy one. I remember the sales guy trying to convince me that they were such low end computers that they couldn't do much of anything. Compared to my six year old laptop that was depending on how you count sold out models, either the second or cheapest one at Best Buy: the 1015PE was sufficiently capable for my programming needs.

Encountering Windows 7 Starter Edition made me accuse the operating system of cheating for how quick the suspend and resume worked compared to my old laptop. While adjusted for age the Atom wasn’t drastically different from my old Sempron: it did come with modern buses and standards like DDR2. So for all practical invents and purposes it worked really well as long as you weren’t multitasking several heavy tasks, at which point the Ubuntu setup I had installed would become quite lathargic from the lack of resources.

In fact one of the reasons I loved the Transformer Pad EeePC that replaced my netbook was how smoother Android on a Tegra 2 handled multitasking than the Atom N450. The other reason was insane battery life able to handle a cross continent journey by air, while my x86 netbook couldn’t make it past the first flight when being used as little more than a high tech typewriter.

While my opinion of Chrome OS is a bit harsher than my view of netbooks, I find it interesting how technology grew from there. Chromebooks proved of all you really wanted to do was run a browser then the netbook concept was a superb form factor for typing and surfing. Meanwhile Apple’s iPad and various far more affordable Android powered tablets came to prove that you could do plenty of you didn’t need to run a bunch of old Windows software.

"The best way to execute French cooking is to get good and loaded and whack the hell out of a chicken." — Julia Child

While scrolling through an article on French recipes, I saw this quote and nearly snortled so hard through my nose that I needed a Kleenex. Have no recollection of Julia ever saying that, but I can’t say that I’d be surprised. It does also sound like a rather good idea 🤣.

 Watching The Way of the Househusband on Netflix, and my initial thoughts: "Oh my fuck, this guy is awesome". A few episodes in, and I'm already tempted to check if the manga has any English digital releases.

Apple Just Gave Millions Of iPad, iPhone Users A Reason To Leave

Arguably an article like this on Forbes bodes ill for Apple, but shouldn’t come as a surprise to many. Folks have long talked about Apple’s “Walled garden”, both positively and negatively over the years. But some may forget that Apple is in the same boat as the rest of us.

For the most part as a user, I’ve had as positive an experience with the App Store as I have with Google Play and Amazon’s own venture. I can but hope for developers, it has less the faceless sword of mysterious injustice that seems to pop up in more Googly lands as horror stories.

What people should expect from such a store front is a responsive attitude to dealing with malicious actors, and taking the responsibility to clean their own house.

Google and Apple have at least made efforts at that. Although in the big G’s case, sometimes I wonder how much of their interactions with humanity at this point is handled by automations and scantly reviewed by mortals. I suspect whatever Apple’s review processes these days, they’re likely overrated from a security perspective.

One of those things I just don’t do, is making macaroni salad. And really any kind of salad like that. As a food it’s the kind of thing that tends to be insanely delicious or really nasty, and many times it’s both if you eat enough in one sitting. Thus they tend to be something I’ll  eat where offered or pick up from the deli isle.

When I made a large batch of tricolor rotini, I figured that some pasta salad would be a plan. Boiled the potato leftover from making curry, diced a carrot, and boiled them until soft. Left those cooling while I walked the hounds. Finely chopped some sweet peppers to go with the macaroni and some leftover garbanzos.

Making the sauce as a mixture of ranch, black pepper, garlic powder, and Italian seasoning definitely worked out well. It was delicious 🤤.

Lately I’ve had a mind to try making curry rice with fish. Since Good Friday is basically the only day I intentionally don’t eat meat, I figured it would probably be a good plan for the holiday weekend.

Made a trip to Sprouts Farmer’s market this morning to pick up some vegetables, and I owe that decision for how delicious this turned out. The fresh potatoes, carrots, onion, and bell pepper made the best curry I’ve had in a long time. Made the fish similar to my usual method; kept the garlic powder, salt, and black pepper; used a light spritz of curry powder and some thyme rather than adding soy sauce to the braising water. Ended up making the tilapia a bit dry compared to normal, which in retrospect was perfect for going with the curry rice.

After packing some leftovers and a lunch box, I used some of the excess rice and a bit of tilapia filet to make a couple onigiri while I was at it.

 Kind of disappointed the camera didn’t catch Willow’s tongue sticking out, lol.