The Art Of Not Asking Why

I was just asked for an ID in the supermarket because I bought a six pack. I lifted my cap, showing my bald head: “is this good enough?”

We both had had a laugh and I have my beer. 🍻 Fun moments.

I’m enjoying my new “On This Day” page. As I mentioned before, I’m borrowing Jamie’s blog gardening idea and trying to enhance it. I want to import blog posts from my old blog into my new one.

This is not so simple. It requires I “schedule” posts from the past, which is a crude workaround, as it’s not meant to work this way.

I have to be careful and make sure I put in the date correctly, or the post will default to the present day. If I mess up, I need to change the date of the post to the past, which does not move the current post but duplicates it to the past date I specified instead. I am left with a copy of the post in the present day, which I cannot edit or delete unless I rebuild the blog.

For example, a few days ago, I brought back a post about scripting in Bash. It needs work. The markdown contains a few formatting errors, not to mention a healthy dose of typos and poor choice of words I wouldn’t use today.

I wasn’t careful enough and published it immaturely. Instead of receiving the datestamp from 2019, it was posted on September 1, 2024. I tried to correct this and change the date back to 2019. This created a duplicate post on that date while leaving the original post in 2024. The 2024 post showed on my Mastodon feed, and people commented on it, thinking it was from a few days ago (as they should, since It had the date of September 1, 2024). Back on Micro.blog’s backend, I could only see the post from 2019, the same one in the link above. The duplicate post from 2024 was not there, so I couldn’t edit or delete it.

The solution to removing that “ghost” post was to rebuild the blog on the backend. I think of this option as pressing “reset” on my blog. This fixed the issue. The ghost post disappeared, but it took the comments with it.

Now, I only have the correct post, the one from 2019, and I have a draft with corrections (it’s a long one!). If you comment on this post, it should be fine once I update it. I would wait though; there are a few corrections I need to put into place, including broken links and weird formatting issues.

While it doesn’t come as a big surprise, this article supplies us with evidence and data that we’re not going crazy: our toilet paper is getting smaller:

Why toilet paper keeps getting smaller and smaller thehustle.co

Good riddance. They’ve lost their way and have been pushing their political agenda ahead of their objective news coverage for too long.

WSJ and AP News for me.

I enjoy these walks that end on a bench somewhere, looking at the leaves, feeling grateful for places such as these. 📷

I woke up a second time (this is what happened the first time) and cleaned out my projects in Emacs. I had 12 projects, a mix of finished, canceled, and active ones, but now it’s down to 4 💪.

Woke up a bit after five in the morning. Mind racing, thinking of unfinished tasks at work, trivial ones, but when you’re half asleep, you don’t have the sense to convince yourself of that until you’re more awake.

Installed Micro.blog for macOS again. Discovered Grammarly stopped working outside of Safari again. Reinstalled. Meanwhile, I saw my feed on Micro.blog, where @javbel said, “Two things about this”. It’s a nice cover for Mad World, so I felt like listening to Mad World. An hour later, my browser tabs look like this, by order:

1. The Curious Meaning of ‘Mad World’ by Tears for Fears.
2. Tears for Fears - Mad World | The Story Behind The Song.
3. Wikipedia: Tears for Fears,
4. Wikipedia: Mad World.
5. Wikipedia: Bath, Somerset.
6. Wikipedia: The Primal Scream.
7. YouTube Music: Mad World (TFF version).
8. YouTube Music: Mad World (Garry Jules version, AKA the Donnie Darko version).
9. Reddit: Which Mad World do you prefer: Tears for Fears or Gary Jules?

Did you know Mad World was originally written by then-unemployed 19-year-old Roland Orzabal (Tears for Fears) while his girlfriend worked three jobs so he could stay home and look outside the window playing around with his guitar? He watched people going to work from above and came up with the lyrics (see link 2 above).

Such a dark powerful song, influenced by primal therapy (that link I opened just now) nevertheless, about lack of feelings on one hand and feelings about death on the other, and Orzabal had no idea. Listening to the TFF version, I believe it: it’s punchy, upbeat even.

Garry Jules, on the other hand, who did a more true-to-form (or true to lyrics?) version a couple of years later, performs the perfect version for Donnie Darko and what I believe is the song’s true meaning.

How can a 19-year-old teenager who doesn’t need to work for a living create something so different than what he is at that time? Can we experience feelings that are completely disconnected from our daily experiences (…." daily expiii-riences…." in a Mad World tune, as playing in my head right now)?

It’s possible that at the time, Orzabal had some suppressed feelings (if to go by the theme of the book), and those did come up in the song, but listening to the song he created with Curt Smith (who ended up singing it), I don’t believe it. He wrote about what he saw and read, letting his creativity take over. Then the song was out as its own entity, something separate from its creator, like a child born to parents, and they are alike but also different than the parent.

The feelings we express are entities in themselves, based on our experience, but do not reflect them completely. I find the whole thing funny but also kinda sad. Time to go to try to sleep again.

I’ve noticed several times now that certain apps I installed on the Mac “disappear” or lose the permissions I gave them before.

TechSmith’s Snaggit is one example, and Grammarly is another. I’m still on Sonoma. Is this a thing other experience?

I cursed and paused the app mid-set. It wasn’t the first time, second, or third (I stopped counting after that) that the steel from my weights bolt splintered into my fingertips, left unprotected with my gym gloves.

It wasn’t the only thing I disliked about my traditional adjustable disk dumbbells. The other issue was changing weights between sets: when one exercise requires 20 lbs and another requires 15, you need to unscrew the bolt, take out the 2.5-lb disks at each end, replace them with 5 lbs instead, and tighten the bolt again. Imagine you have four alternating sets like this, and you have to repeat it each time. It’s a pain.

Then there’s bulkiness. The disks are pretty big and flat, and I’m a small-ish guy. The size of the disks makes it hard to do certain exercises that require me to hold the weights close together or when I need to lower them to the floor, and their size prevents me from lowering the weight fully.

At some point in June, I decided to try Amazon Basics rubber hex dumbbells to see if it improves my exercise, and that got me pissed off - because I hadn’t thought about it sooner. The difference is huge.

Above, you can see the difference in size between the disk weights next to a hex one I got more recently. To the lower right, one of the bolts I have to tighten on top of a disk. These suckers are the one that keeps splintering. I am placing them on cardboard so I don’t scratch the floor.

With the new weights, I don’t need to switch between weights quickly, so my exercise sessions are more fluid and more fun. I can do the exercises as intended, improving my form and isolating the muscles I need to work on. The hex-rubber weights mean I don’t need to worry about the floor (the apartment has a white wooden floor, a genius idea), and they don’t roll away from me when I place them down. I can even use them for support as push-up handles. And no more splinters.

After waking up several times with thoughts and brainstorming sessions during the night, I decided to work with a pocket notebook 📓 again. 📷

Unlike my phone, it doesn’t have emails and messages waiting to grab my attention, or a screen to shine into my eyes.

I can’t believe it’s already been two full weeks since I shifted into this new role at work, but here we are. I was called in by someone high up who knew me well from my previous position. He offered me a managerial role in my old department, where I cut my teeth being IT*

While the title itself will be discussed further, and while I do not manage anyone directly (I’m probably not going to be anyone’s direct boss), managing things is, pretty much, what I’m supposed to do. It requires much more understanding of day-to-day IT operations than I ever had before, and I am truly grateful I’m surrounded by people I already know who had the patience and knowledge to teach me in the past.

On a personal level, this means my daily schedule goes out the window. It already did, as I hit the ground running. Some operations can take place only early in the morning, while others take place on weekends (those of you who do patching know what I’m talking about). On the other hand, the bulk of the work usually slows down in the afternoon. My remote work options are also shifting, as much of the work I’m doing so far involves meeting people - new and old - in their different locations, and access to certain systems means I need to be on-site.

My brain has been firing on all cylinders and then some. I woke up at 3 or 4 AM for several days right into brainstorms, which ended only after I wrote down notes or sipped cold seltzer while looking out the window at lit windows around me in the city.

Sleeping was so bad, in fact, that I decided to try some “Not Pot” CBD gummies again. It helped to a point. This is a rough transition. Not only am I dealing with a role I haven’t done before, and there are many more responsibilities, but I am also still in my old role. While people around me understand if I need extra time, we don’t always have that option. Things need to get done.

I’m no stranger to changes such as this one, and I have faith in myself that I will not only manage to deal with everything eventually but also do so well. This is not out of boasting or showing off, but because I know myself. I care to know, and I know to care (sometimes too much). There is a cost in time and energy, and I need to remain aware.

Writing here helps somewhat; thank you for reading. If the blog slows down, I believe it will only be temporary as I adjust.

While this wasn’t my first position in IT, it was the first serious one where I learned and grew in this career.

An opportunity showed itself at work and I grabbed it. It’s been a lot of work, since I still have all the responsibility of my current role while I’m stepping into the new one. Writing here slowed down a bit as a result, hope to write more tomorrow.

Good night all, hope your week was exciting!

So I made the salad from fresh farmer’s market vegetables. Cucumber, tomatoes, red onion, garlic, dill. All fine cut with a manual shredder I got as a gift years ago. Very juicy with lemon, salt and pepper, this qualifies as an Israeli salad.

I’m not a big cook, but I used to make some things at home. Salads, homemade hummus, guacamole, pastas… I’m getting tired of sandwiches, and cheese is not something I do as well anymore, so I think it’s time to get back to some of those. 🥗🍝🥑

A couple of days ago, when I left the apartment to do shopping, I consulted Carrot, which told me it was cloudy but not raining. So I left my umbrella behind, just to be greeted with warm summer rain. I signed, took the elevator back up, snatched my umbrella, and went outside again. By that point, the rain stopped. That evening, I uninstalled Carrot from my Apple Watch.

Perhaps it’s my fault for changing Carrot’s default weather source to include one that can also tell me the amount of pollen in the air, sure. But for all its complexity, I still didn’t figure a layout that works for me. I need to browse different menus on the watch and the phone to get the information I want. All of this for $50 a year, with a snarky AI and mini-games that were mildly entertaining for about a month.

Apple’s weather is more accurate, and I can see everything I need (humidity, wind speed, conditions, and temperature) with a single tap. I just need to find a dedicated pollen app and I’ll be set¹. Apple Weather knew about that quick shower and predicted its end accurately; I only had to wait five minutes.

So that’s it for Carrot and me. That AI will need to find another meat bag to bother.

¹ - On the Desktop, I love the National Weather Service graphs. They are ugly next to the polished weather apps but very useful. One glance is all I need.

Google’s Gemini AI looks spectacular on the new Pixel 9s. MKBHD is impressed:

And so is WSJ’s Joanna Stern (I’m starting to appreciate her “watchful mom” kind of attitude), though she’s a bit harder to convince. She sat down with Google’s Rick Osterloh, head of Android (and apparently Chrome as well), and got him to say that Google does not use its user’s personal data on Android to train its AI:

“Are you using personal data to train Gemini and other Google LLMs?”

“No, we’re not using personal data to train LLms. We are using information that users have given us the ability to train on, or that is from the public web.”

“To confirm: my phone calls, my emails, my calendar appointments, my text messages, those are not being used to train (Gemini)”

“No, these are not being used, that’s right.”

But what exactly is “information that users have given us”? Is it attained through yet another long Terms of Service agreement deep inside Google’s in-house apps, like Google Maps or Gmail, that users accept without ever reading? Can Google get this information from Reddit, which suggests you sign in to your Reddit account with your Google account by default?

I appreciate Osterloh’s optimism about Gemini. I believe Google wants to use AI to enhance the productivity of Android users and not to spread more propaganda on Twittex.

Still, most Android users will probably share personal and private information with Google without their knowledge and consent, even if it’s out of ignorance. At the same time, offering a tool that can potentially make spreading misinformation easier means that some folks will use it specifically for that.

I got my driver’s license when I was 17 something. At the time, we lived in Denver, Colorado.

Some of my memories back then include getting lost on different back roads, late at night (or early morning) to whatever place my belated teenager-rebellious mind decided: a nightclub, a promised passionate encounter from Craig’s List, or to clear my head at times.

I had a laminated map in the car that showed Denver and its boroughs on one side and a bigger area that included Colorado Springs to the south if I recall. There were times I had to stop, lost, tracing my route under a street light somewhere at hours that probably made the residents of those sleepy neighborhoods worried. That survived plenty of coffee spills and also served as a tray when I got fast food on my way.

It was just a map: I didn’t think of it much. Everyone had one, and every gas station sold one. It’s one of those items that disappear from your life, and you don’t even notice until several years have passed.

The other day, I had a conversation with a co-worker at the office about some old technologies, and I brought up that map. He nodded in agreement: he, too, went through similar experiences when he grew up. We reminisced over tape recorders and CDs (I had one of those plastic converters from my CD player to my car’s tape radio; I often made my own mixes back then). Today, people are lost without their phones or perhaps a dedicated GPS device.

I don’t drive today, and I don’t own a car (for a New Yorker, a car is a luxury), but I’m pretty sure it’s not as easy to get a map these days, depending on where you live. The last time I asked for one on a trip a couple of years ago, I received a shrug from a confused teen over the counter.

It’s one of those “back in my day…” things. But what happens when the phone’s dead? When there’s no reception? When you didn’t pay the bill? I can read a map (and I think most folks who’d pick up a paper map will be able to as well), but the concept of having a map made of paper is dying - I don’t think “kids these days” will even know to ask for one.

Naturally, the same can be said about many things. Our lives are becoming increasingly automated, one way or another. Nothing seems as complicated because it’s just a matter of learning a different app or asking chat GPT a different question. Meanwhile, places like these or these are disappearing, and skills that took generations to hone die with them.

It makes me think about the post-apocalyptic books and shows I read and watch. After we emerge from the ashes, we will have to relearn skills we knew generations ago but forgot. What would Zack Zuckerberg and his family do when they emerge from their doomsday bunker? program a new social network from sticks and stones?