Wednesday, September 30, 2026
bookofjoe's Favorite Thing: World's Best Pill Splitter
Not only the best but also the most durable: I bought mine in 2016 (above) and ten years later it still works as flawlessly as the day it arrived.
Back then it only came with a blue anti-scatter top but since then they've added grey and pink options.
Heavy metal that stabilizes your pill between precisely aligned hard sharp blades.
Bonus: safe because the cutting surfaces are shielded from your fingers.
Don't fall for those cheapo guillotine-style plastic numbers at CVS: these are the real deal.
If you're not completely satisfied, send me all the pill fragments that remain from your FAIL and I will take them all at once.
That is the bookofjoe way.
Wait a sec — what's that song I'm hearing?
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Helpful Hints from joeeze: Don't waste your money on Food -of-the-Month mail order subscription clubs
For many years my family members, knowing how much of a food person I am, subscribed me to all manner of "Cheese/Sausage/Bacon/etc. of the Month clubs: it was an easy way for them to give me something they thought I'd enjoy without having to go through the contortions of trying to find something I'd like.
After about five years of tossing the unopened packages into the trash each month, I finally decided I couldn't remain silent, because they'd keep doing this forever.
What a waste of money!
When I told my peeps they were really angry, as I knew they'd be, but I simply couldn't play my part in the charade any longer.
Of interest: a couple years later they started up again, like I'd come to my senses or else they forgotten.
This time I got on the phone the moment the first installment arrived and reminded them we'd agreed on not giving these to me any more.
After that year the idiocy stopped.
But I digress.
These clubs cost a couple hundred dollars/year for a monthly delivery.
Why are they a waste for anyone who really likes food?
Because the cheese/bacon/sausage/etc. is not the finest,
Companies like Sargento populate these packages with their products: that is not cheese or summer sausage!
It's what's pejoratively called in the business "industrial cheese and meat;" it's made in giant factories on a huge scale, then shipped often in less then ideal packaging such that it arrives in less than subpar condition, usually in vacuum-packed plastic (top) rather than cheese paper.
Same with bacon and sausage and their ilk: no serious food person would touch these products.
You want to give a maven something they've never had nor heard of?
Order them some Van de Rose bacon.
It's the best bacon you can buy in the U.S.
Be a shining star.
World Freehand Circle Drawing Champion Gives a Demonstration
Alexander Overwijk draws a perfect freehand circle 1 meter in diameter in less than 1 second.
Google Goes Back To The Future
This morning I clicked my Google search bookmark and up came the minimalist, stripped down homepage of yore —including "I'm Feeling Lucky" (above).
Love it.
Then I started sliding the cursor around and up popped a box of options (below)
which includes "Create QR Code for this page" — very interesting!
I clicked on it and followed the instructions and up came this:
I aimed my phone's camera at the QR code and darned if the page didn't immediately appear on my phone (below).
This is no humbug.
So kewl!
Monday, September 28, 2026
This time really is different
 |
Every time something big seems to happening when it comes to the world of money and investment and the market, that old saw "This time it's different" is bandied about to justify the hype and huge sums of money being put in.
Up top, a graphic from the Wall Street Journal that seems to form a factual basis for the claim: the sum of the percentages of GDP for the nation's three giant booms over the past 200 years is about equal to that of projected AI spending from now until 2032.
It would appear we're just getting started on this ride, being only a year in.
I wonder what our world will be like in 2032: can't hardly wait!
bookofjoe's Favorite Phone Holder (for when I'm out running)
I've been through a zillion different ones over the years, which tells you that none were perfect.
Closest yet is this one from Respected Bro (wonderful name — love it) which arrived a couple days ago and which I've road tested since.
Easy to hold securely and comfortably since you can adjust it to fit your finger/hand size/shape (top).
The winning feature for me is that I can remove and reattach it without any effort (below) so I can still use the phone's MagSafe charging feature, unlike with other minimalist flexible finger-insertion-type holders I've used that require a semi-permanent adhesive attachment which renders MagSafe unusable.
Doubles as a phone stand due to elegant engineering and design.
Orange, White, or Purple: $18.37-$19.59 (phone not included).
Of interest to me: On the box it says the maker is "TSUNAMI LIMITED COMPANY."
Sounds Japanese, right?
Under that company name is this address:
No 02 Do The Chap, Phuoc My Ward, Son Tra District, Da Nang City, Vietnam
Under that address:
Made in China
Sunday, September 27, 2026
Things that make me go "Hmmm..."
I mentioned before that I was both surprised and pleased to learn a few months into boj's reincarnation here that 70% of readers do so on their phones.
That's because boj2 looks much better on a phone than on a computer screen, for reasons that are above my TechnoDolt©®™ pay grade.
I spend very little time on my phone.
I'm on my MacBook Pro 95% of the time I'm online, which varies: somewhere between 2 and 10 hours/day.
Something I found interesting happened with this past Tuesday's 8 a.m. post: the YouTube thumbnail that appears on boj on my phone (top), which I selected when I composed the post, is different from the one that appears on my computer (below).
The video was shot with Meta Glasses (you can see both my hands) and then uploaded to YouTube via my phone, during which process I chose the thumbnail that appears on the phone version up top.
For whatever reason, a different thumbnail labeled "Shorts" leads the computer version.
Of course you're hearing this song....
City Roads. No Matter Where You Go... There You Will Be/Are/Were — Maybe All At Once!
"This website renders every single road within a city."
Alas, not all cities: as any fool can plainly see from the image up top, the site resorts to "Retry" mode when it fails to do what it purports to do.
And guess what?
I did just that a few times and kept getting the same error message: "This usually resolves within a few minutes."
So when it didn't, well, too bad for me.
Hey — I just work here.
And before you get your baggies in a twist, remember: it's free — the way we like it.
Wait a sec — what's that song I'm hearing?
No — not that one, idiotstick: this one!
BeyondTheMedspeak: 'Lioness' Season 3
I'm just the tiniest bit surprised that in "Lioness" Season 3 the principals continued to use Provigil (modafinil) prior to operations to stave off fatigue/sleepiness.
The drug was released in the U.S. in 1998, with fewer and less troubling side effects than amphetamines/caffeine etc. while enhancing alertness and cognition.
Nuvigil (armodafinil) supplanted Provigil the moment it was released in 2007, as it produces less in the way of side effects like the jitteriness and volubility demonstrated by Two Cups (top) after he took 2 pills rather than the standard single 250 mg tablet.
Perhaps time for a new doctor in the room where the script is vetted?
One more thing: if you decide you could benefit from either of these drugs, know that the current retail price of Nuvigil is $42-$44 per tablet.
You'll have to decide whether or not to pony up or de-escalate to the generic version which costs about half that.
Saturday, September 26, 2026
A Visit to Simone Giertz's Tiny (630 sqft) Los Angeles Home
Simone Giertz is one of my favorite people and has been since long before she got big around 2016.
Her early videos in the 2010s featured robots she designed to intentionally fail at everyday tasks.
Boring phone call + iPad: TikTok FTW!
Sometimes you’ve got no choice: you're obligated to talk to someone, usually a family member, on the phone.
Up to now I've muted my phone so the oblivious relative can yap to her heart's content about the same old same old while I clean the house and do other things I've been putting off.
I stumbled on a better solution this morning: TikTok on my iPad with the sound turned off.
Now I can get my TikTok fix in without having it distract me from stuff I want to do.
I give TikTok huge UPs for building an irresistible, alluring algorithm.
Full disclosure: I've never made a TikTok (though I have an account): it's all I can do to keep my YouTube channel subscribers happy.
No Stress Tuna Press
Finally.
This stainless steel colander is tricked out with grip wings so you can squeeze every last drop of liquid out of the can.
Set of 3: $11.55 (tuna not included).
Do a couple of your friends a solid [see what I did there?] and give away the two extras.
Friday, September 25, 2026
What's in a Name?
Type in a last name and it will show you where in Great Britain that name has been found.
From the website:
..........................
Our research, carried out at the ESRC Consumer Data Research Centre (GeoDS), is exploring the generational and inter-generational residential movements of family groups across Great Britain, using historic censuses and recent consumer registers.
The GeoDS holds a number of novel consumer datasets that chart recent movements and changes, including the links between geographical and social mobilty.
..........................
Read "All The Names" here — free, the way we like it.
[via Charles Arthur's nonpareil Overspill]
BeyondTheMedspeak: My History of Aspirin & Tylenol Use
Above, all my aspirin and Tylenol purchases from Amazon since September 2021.
Know that my painkiller meds and regimen of choice are and have always been 3 regular aspirin tablets + 2 Tylenol, every 4-6 hours.
No Motrin, no Advil, or any of the newer analgesics.
Reading the fine print I concluded none are as effective and safe as my combo.
The tens of millions of dollars spent by Big Pharma saying the opposite is true will never convince me.
You've read it here before but one more time never hurts: Old ways are the best ways.
Replika
News travels slowly to Podunkville: how else to explain the fact that I.HAD.NO.CLUE that Replika is so popular?
How popular, joe?
According to Wikipedia it became available to the public in November 2017; by January 2018 it had 2 million users; in January 2023 it had 10 million users; in August 2024 the total number of users was 30 million; in 2025 Replika's user base exceeded 40 million people!
Talk about flying under the radar....
25% of its users pay an annual subscription fee; the other 75% get a less full-featured version free.
Considering that latest user number, it's likely that more than a couple peeps reading this are "Replikites."
Thursday, September 24, 2026
Can A Knife Be Too Sharp?
Up to last week I'd have said "Of course not."
What a silly question!
After my Kyocera ceramic paring knife (top) arrived and I used it to slice some cheese — in the process slicing into my thumb not once but twice yet not realizing it for a couple seconds because the blade was so sharp I didn't feel it breaking my skin — I retired it to my knife rack.
Like the packaging (below) says:
UNRELENTING SHARPNESS
You can too!
When Albert Einstein Met Jean Piaget
From the March 1957 issue of Scientific American:
- Children and Physics
Does a child's first conception of velocity include comprehension of it as a function of distance and time, or is his notion more primitive and intuitive?
Albert Einstein himself posed this question to me in 1928 when I was demonstrating some experiments on causality to him one day.
I have since performed a very simple experiment which shows that a child does not think of velocity in terms of the distance-time relation.
We place before the child two tunnels, one of which is obviously much longer than the other, and then we push a doll through each tunnel with a metal rod in such a way that the dolls arrive at the other end of both tunnels simultaneously.
We ask the child:
"Is one tunnel longer than the other?"
"Yes, that one."
"Did both dolls go through the tunnels at the same speed, or did one go faster than the other?"
"The same speed."
"Why?"
"Because they arrived at the same time."
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