Reading, Listening, Watching
Sep. 9th, 2026 07:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatReading A Memory Like Empire by Arkady Martine. Matryoshka gave this to me for my birthday last year so I am pleased to have got to it within a 12 month - have I tamed the to read pile? Seems to be space opera meets whodunnit. I'm two chapters in and enjoying it so far.
Listening An archive episode of In Our Time on Hapshetput. Good, but my attention was wandering.
Watching We've been watching Celebrity Masterchef from 2019 where the celebrities seem less obviously annoying than they have previous times we've watched this. We still don't believe the man who said he only ever cooked using the microwave who then promptly served up sirloin steak with chimichurri sauce, garlic butter mushrooms and vine-roasted tomatoes... and we're counting ourselves lucky to recognise one celebrity each episode.
Listening An archive episode of In Our Time on Hapshetput. Good, but my attention was wandering.
Watching We've been watching Celebrity Masterchef from 2019 where the celebrities seem less obviously annoying than they have previous times we've watched this. We still don't believe the man who said he only ever cooked using the microwave who then promptly served up sirloin steak with chimichurri sauce, garlic butter mushrooms and vine-roasted tomatoes... and we're counting ourselves lucky to recognise one celebrity each episode.
ID.me sucks for U.S. people
Sep. 5th, 2026 01:39 pmamalthiaToday I made the mistake of trying to setup the id.me so I can log into Treasury Direct, because next month you can no longer log in with the original credentials used for the site.
After an hour of trying to set this up, my account was suspended.
I had to switch browsers on my phone from FireFox to Chrome, clear my cache so I could receive text message with link, and just when I thought things were working I took too many selfies and they suspended my account. I'm not sure what went wrong with the selfie, maybe not enough light, or bad angle for my face they didn't say and they didn't tell me there was a limit. Otherwise, I would have stopped and switched to the video call option. If I don't get this fixed in the next two months I won't be able to log into any of the government services that are now requiring id.me verification.
My recommendation for anyone starting out, is to skip the doing it yourself and opt for the video call, though prepare for plenty of time, on reddit some users are reporting waiting for hours.
What really bugs me though is finding out id.me isn't even a government service website, it's a 3rd party contractor that the United States Government paid to perform online identity verification.
I personally think it's a VERY bad idea to put all the ID eggs in one basket for cyber-criminals (or government criminals) to target. But what do I know about data security beyond reading about all the hacked databases with user information stolen on a monthly basis.
After an hour of trying to set this up, my account was suspended.
I had to switch browsers on my phone from FireFox to Chrome, clear my cache so I could receive text message with link, and just when I thought things were working I took too many selfies and they suspended my account. I'm not sure what went wrong with the selfie, maybe not enough light, or bad angle for my face they didn't say and they didn't tell me there was a limit. Otherwise, I would have stopped and switched to the video call option. If I don't get this fixed in the next two months I won't be able to log into any of the government services that are now requiring id.me verification.
My recommendation for anyone starting out, is to skip the doing it yourself and opt for the video call, though prepare for plenty of time, on reddit some users are reporting waiting for hours.
What really bugs me though is finding out id.me isn't even a government service website, it's a 3rd party contractor that the United States Government paid to perform online identity verification.
I personally think it's a VERY bad idea to put all the ID eggs in one basket for cyber-criminals (or government criminals) to target. But what do I know about data security beyond reading about all the hacked databases with user information stolen on a monthly basis.
Reading, Listening, Watching
Sep. 2nd, 2026 09:02 pmpurplecatReading: I have decided to re-read all the Lord Peter Wimsey novels. I've started at Whose Body? and am mostly struck by how conspicuously annoying Lord Peter is. I hope he mellows and it isn't just that I've got older.
Listening: I have reached the point where Flight Through Entirety moves on to the new series. A slight re-working of team, and at the moment they are just discussing their varied reactions to the news that the show was coming back.
Watching: Nothing this evening, but we watched Sewing Bee last night. I also recalled that, having claimed last week that this was the only telly made this decade we were watching, that we've also been enjoying the new series of Ludwig
Listening: I have reached the point where Flight Through Entirety moves on to the new series. A slight re-working of team, and at the moment they are just discussing their varied reactions to the news that the show was coming back.
Watching: Nothing this evening, but we watched Sewing Bee last night. I also recalled that, having claimed last week that this was the only telly made this decade we were watching, that we've also been enjoying the new series of Ludwig
