run.app spam is happening using google mail servers
I'm already at the point with my email where I block anything containing firebaseapp (Firebase is Google's mobile/web app dev platform), and now I've had to block another, which is anything in an email containing run.app, the official domain associated with Google Cloud Run.
Crap like this is received in email, and it's obviously spam:
Look at the headers, and you see this:
Examine the email, and the run.app crap is present:
I know how to find and block this garbage, but I seriously doubt others would even know how to spot it. And since emails like this come from Google's own mail servers, they're "trusted" and will bust right through spam filters.
Ridiculous.
absolutely useless sign
I was in this mall parking area recently, part of which was semi-open to the outside. The sides were completely open, hence why I call it a parking area and not technically a garage since it's literally impossible to seal it off.
Then I see a sign, "IDLE FREE ZONE. TURN OFF ENGINES". And, sure enough, someone was parked a short distance away, sitting in their car, engine running. Actually, that's not entirely correct. There was someone else a few parking lanes away doing the exact same thing.
Was there any mall security around?
Nope. Not a rent-a-cop in sight.
Was I upset about this? Nope, because that sign is completely useless. It's purposely mounted high up, meaning nobody driving around would actually see it, even as large as it is. It's also facing away from the parking area.
That sign, which probably cost the mall a hundred bucks (remember, somebody had to install it and they got paid by the hour), is the mall saying, "This sign isn't for you. Just go in and please buy stuff."
Who is that sign for? Not for anyone that parks there. The purpose of the sign is to get someone else to stop harassing mall management about whatever it was about an idling car that put sand up their ass.
Did you know...
...that you can outright buy a metal sign that completely looks "official" with whatever text you want on it?
Oh, the fun you could have!
two things makes computers slow more than anything else
Computers from years ago were slow for a number of reasons. Slow seek time on the hard drive, low amount of RAM, an operating system choked with a bunch of bloatware, and so on.
Today, computers are only slow for only two reasons.
First, the internet itself.
With anything internet-based, you wait while things load from a remote server. I don't think people really appreciate how much waiting there actually is to do anything online.
And it doesn't help that so many programs are "required" to connect to the internet by design. This means that no matter what, any program that connects to the internet means you wait. A lot.
Second, the web browser.
A web browser these days is like running an entire operating system in your operating system. The level of crap a browser loads both locally and online is insane, and all the crap a browser does in the background is also insane.
Want to see your computer run fast? Use programs that don't connect to the internet at all. With the exception of super chunky stuff like editing giant photos and/or videos, everything is quick.
My phone, which is "old", probably has 100x the computing power compared to the my first PC with Windows (version 3.1, thank you very much) did. But try to do anything online and sloooowwwww.
The primary browser on my phone is DuckDuckGo. Yes, they have a mobile browser. The reason I run it is because it blocks a lot of crap and connects to the least amount of stuff while still delivering a modern mobile browser experience...
...but it's still slow. Fault of the browser? No. Fault of my connection speed? No. It's the fault of the internet.
Since my site doesn't load any needless crap, oh yeah, loads super fast on anything, including the phone. My site isn't on any high-tier super fast ultra business class server or anything like that. It loads fast because it's crap-free. How I wish other web sites were like that.
Try and load a banking web site (especially one that's for a credit card) on your phone in the browser and you'll feel like you're on dialup internet all over again, if you're old enough to remember that experience. Using DuckDuckGo will make the experience slightly better, but that browser can't fix a web site that's a slow-loading pig.
Or better yet, try loading any popular social media site in the browser. Stuttering, pausing, jumpy pages, and ridiculous amounts of background crap happen when all you want to do is send a message, view a photo or watch a video.
This is 2026 internet? Seriously?
your gps is too old, my dude
A followup to the oldest usable Garmins of sorts.
I periodically receive communications concerning old and sometimes really old Garmin nuvi navigators since I know a lot about them. Whether I actually answer those communications depends on what's being asked.
If the vibe of the communication is along the lines of, "I'm asking for help, but what I actually want is for you to take time out of your life and fix my problem for me, totally for free", nope, thanks for playing. I'm not your personal free tech support. And you gotta love it when they end it with, "Thanks in advance!" Anybody who says that should be slapped.
Or, if the communication is a wall-o'-text accompanied by several giant attached images (hello, rude), no, not reading that. Sir, I use NeoMutt and I'm not detaching your dumb images, nor will I read the tome you wrote. In instances like that, I will call upon Jesus's lesser known dopey cousin Yeezus, as in, "YEEZUS! The hell is this happy horseshit?!" Yes, I know I'm going straight to hell. See you there.
Old crusty dudes aren't the only ones who do this, although a fair amount of them are. Crusty bought a then-expensive nuvi back when it was new, wants to keep it working, doesn't know how to do it, bounces around forums to try to get people to do it for free, nobody does, he searches around more, finds me, then bounces a communication my way to see if he can sucker me into being Free Tech Support Guy for him. Nope. Go back to the forums, Crusty.
The other type I get fix-my-stuff-for-free communications from is Son of Crusty.
Son of Crusty finds dad's old nuvi and asks if he can have it. Crusty replies with, "Yes, Son of Crusty, I bequeath my old navigation tech to you. Fear not its dim screen, dead battery and aged plastics, for it shall serve you well. Go now. Navigate to the package store, and return with a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon."
Before Son of Crusty can embark on his perilous journey to the package store, he has to get Ye Olde Nuvi to work first.
Unfortunately, Son of Crusty hasn't got a clue how to go about that since it uses tech completely outside of what he knows.
Let's say it was a nuvi 360. Too old, my dude. That 2006 model was released before multiple map image support and before Lifetime Maps. And I'm not about to explain memory card types, FAT32, USB mini connectors, and how to use workarounds with the 360 file system to support more than one map image (doable, but not easy).
A nuvi 360 is 20 years old as of 2026. It's my belief that tech ages 3x as fast as real life does, at least where consumer electronics are concerned. Yeah, I'm saying 20-year-old tech might as well be 60 in human years.
This is why I say the nuvi 200 white-sticker serial (meaning not gray-sticker) is the oldest usable nuvi. True, a 200 is just slightly younger than a 360, but with far less bullshit involved to update the maps with an OpenStreetMap replacement.
You have to be a bit of a nerd to even get a 200 working, but that's as far back as you can go for old-but-usable. And by usable, I mean a single nuvi using a single memory card with map data to navigate you anywhere in the United States. A 200 can be made to do that, but the 360 (or any other like model such as 350, 370, 660, 670, 680) cannot.
i remember 2008
2008 is a year I remember because that's when gas prices spiked and stayed that way for a while, and at the time I was driving a stupid truck that averaged around 17-18 MPG.
There's also something else I remember. Going to a gas station to fill the truck, and seeing an older guy at a pump with his little car, a Nissan Versa Note. I felt two things. Regret and jealousy. Regret in that I was driving a stupid truck, and jealous in that I wasn't driving a little car like that other guy had.
I made a promise to myself when I saw that. "Never again."
Never again would I own a gas-sucking stupid truck and be caught paying for it literally every time I go to the pump. Some time later, I finally got rid of that truck, and have been driving small cars ever since.
The car I drive now is small and over 15 years old, but with a proper driving technique can achieve 40+ MPG. No, it's not a hybrid. Just a regular gas car with 5-speed manual transmission. The proper driving technique I'm referring to is hypermiling, and I know it well.
It's now 2026, and sure enough, another gas price spike. For how long? No idea. But when I got wind that gas prices were going up again, I immediately went to the gas station and filled the tank, which in one day jumped up about 40 cents per gallon more compared to the previous day. Thankfully, I was already at 3/4 tank, so the cost wasn't too bad.
After filling the tank, it was once again time to start using the hypermiling driving techniques I learned all the way back in '08. And they're just as useful now as they were 18 years ago.
On a trip I just drove that was about 15 miles away, both highway and city driving were involved. I saw more than a few cars and stupid trucks driving real slow instead of barreling down the road like they ordinarily do. Those drivers know. They remember high gas prices and are already slowing down.
There were two other things I noticed that are the same as the last time a gas price spike happened. Other drivers being far less annoyed and more accepting of others driving slow, and being more annoyed at anybody going fast.
What happens if gas prices skyrocket?
Will HEV and EV car sales increase? No, because nobody can afford a new car. As if anyone wants to take on an 84-month auto loan. I don't think so.
Instead, people will just keep the cars they have, drive less on weekdays, and more on weekends.
What people do by default whenever a gas price spike happens is a) go without, and b) change daily errands to weekly.
On a daily commute, if that included a stop to a coffee place every day, that stops. Coffee is made at home, put in a travel mug (there are some real nice options for those these days), and that's that.
If errands are run a few times a week, that's rescheduled so everything is done on Saturday. I think the smarter move would be to get all the errand stuff done on a Wednesday if it all possible, because Saturday is when all the grocery and department store parking lots get jammed.
"I'll get there when I get there"
For that 15 mile trip, I only looked at the ETA on my Garmin DriveSmart once. After that, I said whatever, I'm in no rush, I'll get there whenever.
What I was going to do but didn't was craft a custom route to the place I was going to, extreme hypermiler style. One hypermiling technique is to make every effort to avoid stopping, because when stopped, you're getting 0 MPG.
I could have studied the map, then used the Garmin to customize a route where I stop the least, avoiding every stop sign and traffic light possible. But then my brain kicked in, and I remembered there's a whole lot of road construction going on all over the place. Sure, I could look up where all the construction is and adjust my route accordingly, but that would have been too much hassle, and possibly used more gas just trying to avoid stopping.
I just said screw it, punched in the location to the DriveSmart and headed out. Yes, I did encounter construction, but it was only minimal.
"I'll get there when I get there" is definitely a frame of mind you must use when hypermiling, because it's always going to take longer to get places when doing it. More time is spent, but money is saved. However, when you hypermile enough, over time you figure out ways to get places where barely any time is lost at all, so it's definitely worth doing.
2008's gas price spike sucked for driving. As for the spike now in 2026, again I do not know how long this spike will last for (nor does anyone else), but this time around I have the right car and hypermiling knowledge so it won't sting nearly as bad.