Apple Music: Let me rearrange your music in arbitrary ways for you

When I went jogging today, I opted to listen to the 1991 R.E.M. album Out of Time. I have this album on CD and had ripped it many years ago for my music-listening pleasure.

Apple Music doesn’t care about that on an iPhone, because it installs its own version of the album. Fine, same music, what’s the difference?

Except today when I go to play the album I see this:

Curious! There are two versions listed, mine and a 2016 remaster.

I check mine:

The first track, “Radio Song” is strangely absent. I check the other version of the album (reader, I knew what I was going to see):

Oh, there’s “Radio Song”, all by itself in its own album. Why did this happen? I don’t know. I know it’s happened before and I’ve seen others report similar issues. The thing to note here is that you have no ultimate control over what happens in Apple Music–Apple does, along with the record labels. This wasn’t a licensing issue where the album got pulled, though–and even if it was, I actually own the album outright, anyway.

Instead, Apple Music apparently got “confused” and took a perfectly working album and split the songs between two different versions. How do you then reconcile this?

The fix was to delete both albums, then add the 2016 remaster to my library. The version on my PC is unaffected and works the same way it has for the past million years. Well, at least the past 20.

I ended up listening to Green1I have downloads over cellular disabled (1988), which Apple Music has so far chosen not to mangle. I should probably go check now, though.

Run 1,005: Big river and bad laces

Brunette River, pre-run: High and getting higher. No cannabis required.

It’s been a week since the last run and despite The Rains, I knew I had to go out today and get wet. And also run.

Which I did.

Big river: After nearly two weeks of dry weather, we’ve had a few days with pretty steady rain, so the river was very high. Not high enough that I was in danger of it sloshing around my feet, but I could hear the water roaring past over the music playing on my AirPods (bonus rant about music in another post).

The laces, which behaved last Monday, behaved for the first half of the run, then the left lace untied itself. I tied it up and about 20 seconds later it came untied again. I pondered and settled on a double bow, which held for the rest of the run. I’ll need to come up with a solution going forward because the lace is coming undone almost every time now.

For the run itself, it was fine. The rain was light but steady for the first half, so there was some puddle-dodging and jumping, and visibility through the glasses was not great. The rain eased to a lighter drizzle after, which was better. Apparently the weather was sufficiently crummy that I saw no one else the entire time I was on the river trail, which is pretty rare.

My pace was slightly better than last week at 5:44/km, and it was fairly mild, though I wore layers to stay dry(ish) underneath.

In all, not a bad start to the week, though I am looking forward to drier runs soon.

The river, post-run: Probably over twice the usual water volume (note: I’m not a riverologist).

Stats:

Run 1,005
Average pace: 5:44/km
Training status: Maintaining
Location: Brunette River Trail
Start: 12:40 p.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 28:49
Weather: Light rain and drizzle
Temp: 8°C
Humidity: 89-90%
Wind: light
BPM: 150
Weight: 168.8 pounds
Total distance to date: 6,855 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (115/176/291)

Music: Green, R.E.M.

The Fediverse in one post

The only social media I use regularly these days is Mastodon, which is part of the Fediverse, a loose collection of sites and services that are federated (connected) but are still independent of each other. Its central feature is probably that it is not centralized. There’s no single server, no giant tech company controlling it and there are no algorithms.

It tends to attract somewhat nerdy people because no one shows up to “go viral” or be showered in likes. And among those nerdy folks are inevitably the “Well, actually…” people who have a need to argue about everything and drive people away. The “I hate to be that guy” guys who delight in being That Guy.

Someone on Mastodon today outlined, in convenient list form, all the wrong ways to interact with others there. It’s a very good bad list.

Remember, you’re on the Fediverse, so your job is to

– Make people feel bad for using other social media
– Guilt-trip anyone who uses AI in any way
– Attack people who don’t include alt text
– Argue with anyone in tech because they must be tech bros
– Oppose anyone with entrepreneurial or for-profit interests
– Shame those who use GitHub or any corporate-owned or American product
– Nitpick even the good things just because you can
– Be morally superior and overly aggressive about supposed data privacy issues in tools that handle public posts

Alright, sarcasm over. Seriously, stop it.— Roni Rolle Laukkarinen (@rolle@mementomori.social)

Birding, January 31, 2026: The tide is high

Where: Blackie Spit/Crescent Beach (Surrey) and Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Cloudy, 8-10°C

Also known as All the Spits.

We got off to a late start, trying to work around the showers forecast for early and later in the day, so we began with lunch, then headed to Blackie Spit while it continued to shower.

Blackie Spit

American Wigeons flying away from Blackie Spit, misty landscape as backdrop.

Fortunately, by the time we arrived, the rain had stopped and the sun even cutely tried to come out for a few minutes before giving up. It was a bit breezy, but temperatures continue to be well above normal.

We saw cormorants, loons and buffleheads here, but they were all farther out, which is totally on brand for Blackie Spit. Some herons were a little closer, getting ruffled by the wind and looking displeased at the conditions (or everything, as they do). Several people promised us a kingfisher near the pump house, but all we got was the pump house.

The highlight was probably a pair of red-headed Eurasian wigeons, possibly off-course, but content to hang out with their American brethren.

There were a lot of giant puddles on the trails.

Piper Spit

Burnaby Lake, looking calm but darkity-dark.

With not a lot of light left on what was already a very dim gray dead, we opted to wrap things up at Piper Spit. Nic girded himself for the inevitable naughty people feeding the birds–and they were there. Bad people, no!

The pier itself was fairly sparse with people, though. Apparently the imminent threat of rain and the wind kept most people off it.

The land mass is still there, which surprised me after the recent deluge, so I assume most of the excess water is being fed through the gates at Cariboo Dam. The land itself was unoccupied, though, and the usual gang of seagulls was absent. The geese were also elsewhere, likely over on the sports fields to the west. Much of the shallows was filled with branches and other debris swept in by recent storms.

We did see dowitchers, but they were in full snorebird mode.

The current from Eagle Creek was unusually strong and a number of ducks were taking advantage, letting it sweep them down and past the pier. A few had to pedal furiously when they chose to return upstream, though.

There seemed to be more coots than before. Everywhere I looked there was a coot. No coot drama, though, which in itself is kind of unnerving.

The highlight here were some buffleheads, in particular a female that was diving and surfacing quite close to the pier, allowing for some good shots, notwithstanding the aforementioned dim, gray conditions.

We wrapped up about 15 minutes before sunset (if there had been sun) and escaped before the rains resumed. In all, not a bad outing, considering the forecast and the possibility of getting a wee bit drenched if the weather had shifted just a little.

The Shots

Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.

Blackbrid waiting for naughty people to feed him.
A Great Blue Heron hunkered down in the water.
American Wigeon stretching.
This plant thingie.

Gallery soon™.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American Robin
  • Anna’s Hummingbird
  • Black-capped Chickadee
  • Dark-eyed Junco
  • Red-winged Blackbird
  • Song Sparrow
  • Spotted Towhee

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American Coot
  • American Wigeon
  • Bufflehead
  • Common Loon
  • Double-crested Cormorant
  • Eurasian wigeon
  • Great Blue Heron
  • Green-winged Teal
  • Long-billed Dowitcher
  • Mallard
  • Northern Pintail
  • Northern Shoveller
  • Scaup
  • Wood Duck

Common:

  • American Crow
  • Assorted gulls

Raptors:

  • Bald Eagle

Non-birds:

  • A black squirrel

A haiku to my waistline

I see you down there
Inflating like a balloon
I'll eat celery

I’m not eating celery.

But I will refrain from eating:

  • Cookies
  • Candy
  • Pop Tarts
  • Donuts
  • Chocolate
  • Heavily salted snacks

Because I’m not writing haikus about all of the above.

Weight loss report, January 2026: Unchanged

I was one pound under for the month yesterday, then I found a Pop Tart. Or two. Today, those Pop Tarts sit heavy in my belly.

Still, after what was a pretty bad month, I managed to actually tread the proverbial water, starting at 169.4 pounds and ending the same. Most of the other stats either remained the same or saw slight increases. This is not terrible, but also not good. I shall call it non-good.

I am expecting better for February, as temperatures continue to warm, and I get access to my treadmill for any possible snow days. Maybe I’ll even start using the dusty dumbbells again.

And no more Pop Tarts, I swear.

Stats:

January 1, 2026: 169.4 pounds

Current: 169.4 pounds
Year to date: Unchanged

January 1: 169.4 pounds
January 31: 169.4 pounds (unchanged)

Body fat: 
January 1: 25.5%
January 31: 25.8% (up 0.3%)

Skeletal muscle mass:
January 1: 30.0 kg
January 31: 30.0 kg (unchanged)

BMI:
January 1: 24.2
January 31: 24.3 (up 0.1)

Historical: January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds

The phone quest begins again after five years

Free smartphone clipart!

The last smartphone I got was five years ago, in January 2021. I picked up a base iPhone 12 with 128 GB of storage, which was double the default at the time.

The phone has mostly done what I need a phone to do, and my phone use has narrowed down to just a few tasks since I got it. I am old school, so some things people do on their phones I still prefer to do on my PC, with its nice big monitor and full-size, clicky keyboard. Also, no one will ever convince me that typing on a smartphone is fun, or that editing text on the same is anything but a special kind of techno-hell.

But the reason I am writing this now is that while I’m content to use a five-year-old smartphone, my iPhone 12 is getting more, let’s call it eccentric. Most notably, it no longer accepts phone calls, which is an important part of being a phone. Instead, it shunts every call immediately to voicemail. In a way, it’s nice, but it’s gotten increasingly troublesome. I don’t know if switching to a new phone will fix this, but I’d still rather try a new phone than wipe my current phone, set everything up again, find out it fixed nothing and now be stuck with iOS 26 and “liquid glass.” So a new phone it is.

It’s not only my phone use that has changed since 2021, the major tech companies have pretty much given up on the idea of being good or decent and now they just compete on being various levels of awful. This puts me in a quandary, because if I want to jump from the iPhone because Apple is no good, switching to Google-controlled Android is not really better. It’s like someone offering you a dirt pie or mud pie for dinner.

I could get an Android phone and run a third-party OS like Graphene, but my desire to experiment has limits and I have a suspicion that fiddling around getting a phone to do the few tasks I want it to is not an area where I’m interested in exploring those limits.

But I’ve surprised myself before with how far down rabbit holes I’ve been willing to go. I mean, I never tried Linux before and I came close to making my new PC Linux-only. I might still!

Another aspect is I no longer have a desire or requirements for a flagship phone. I just don’t need the latest, best thing out there, so I’m willing to consider mid-tier phones from brands like Motorola. This is as close to exciting as getting a new phone will be for me.

I will provide further updates once I start perusing various models and brands.