The Art Of Not Asking Why

I said I’ll do it, but I finally did: macOS Sequoia. My main concern is dealing with the permissions (as described here among other places).

I ran and upgraded Homebrew and its various packages with no issues. Emacs however seemed to have “forgotten” how to access the Desktop. Looking into this.

I’ve been looking for signs of an alternative ending for Mad Max since last night when I finished it in vain. Maybe happy Hollywood ending spoiled me, I couldn’t just let it end like this. But maybe it’s supposed to end like this, as other pointed out in Reddit and elsewhere; maybe that’s the point. Mad Max is a tragic story of the end of the world, and a man ending with it. To that extent, the game is brilliant.

The game 🎮 is played as Max from a third-person view angle, on foot or in his car. As the game progresses, you advance and upgrade mostly the car but also Max himself, with major upgrades locked until you finish certain missions. I played all of those, main story ones and side ones, and enjoyed them all. The mechanics of the game are responsive and polished for the most part (some of the racing missions force you to use a different vehicle, and those drive like a wet sack of potatoes shot out of a tar-loaded circus cannon); combos land with crunchy satisfaction, car chases end with dramatic explosions with the help of Chumbucket… Chumbucket! Let me rave a bit about the best character in the game, which made the whole story for me.

Chumbucket is a mechanic (“black finger”) hunchback you’re introduced to early in the game, and he’s with you to the end. The voice acting by Jason Spisak is the best in the game, hands down. In my opinion, Chumbucket also has the best backstory too. He gives you tips and direction in the game, acting both as a guide and as an extension of some of the most popular car weapons in the game, like the Harpoon and the Thundersticks.

The game has plenty of those backstory moments, which makes it an excellent supplement to the world in the Mad Max movies, and being able to drive wherever you want and learn more about different sites is an excellent bonus if you love the movies. Max will comment about the different relics you find in the world, and you’ll get more bits and pieces about “The Fall.” Everything from the “big nothing” to the storms, from shipwrecks to enemy camps, oozes with Mad Max style. There were times I stepped out of the car, climbed on a hill somewhere, and admired the view. It’s one of those games you can sink into.

If you like the Mad Max movies, and you have a taste for action post apocalyptic games, you won’t be disappointed. This 2015 title is available on most gaming platforms including macOS and Linux costs less than half of a full AAA game.

For Halloween, I decided to get parts 1 and 2 and see if I could finish it this time. The game 🎮 is beautifully animated and creepy. It does indeed feel like a kid’s nightmare.

For Halloween, I decided to get parts 1 and 2 and see if I could finish it this time. The game 🎮 is beautifully animated and creepy. It does indeed feel like a kid’s nightmare.

I wrote about writing thoughts down vs typing them before, and this morning, I did another round. There are quite a few things that repeat, but some are new.

I forget who explained it and where, but when I looked into notebooks 📓 again, that person said that writing something down in a notebook is not supposed to be as easy as saying, “Siri, remind me to,” because it acts as a delicate filter for stupid things. If you really need to remember something, you will reach for the notebook and write it down. Because it’s important enough to write it down, most chances are you’re going to remember it anyway without looking into your notebook 🖊️. It might sound counterproductive, but I enjoy the ability to recall things I’m supposed to do when I take a break from an active task I’m doing.

The notebook also “cuts the crap” with all the apps available: what should you use? Reminders? Notes? Beorg for Emacs? Calendar? No such thing with the notebook. You write it down, and that’s that.

Another somewhat odd benefit of the notebook is privacy. Sure, you can encrypt your notes, and as long as you use a custom ROM on an Android and something like syncthing you don’t depended on “the cloud,” but that’s a pretty hefty setup for something as simple as a quick grocery list, no? And as soon as you start thinking, well, maybe the grocery list can go somewhere else, you’re starting to break the Notebook idea down because then it’s not all in one place.

A notebook doesn’t depend on the whims of a developer and the features they choose to include or exclude. I drew a table in the picture above; call me crazy, but I could swear Apple Notes didn’t always support it. Some apps support it, some don’t. I can always find something to use for tables later, if the table is important for the note I’m going to save, but I don’t want to be bothered about what an app supports and what it doesn’t when I need to write something quick. A notebook also doesn’t go away, get bought, or change how it works like Evernote did on me back in the day. Even Emacs, as stable and as available as it is, is out of my control. There’s a comfort in a notebook that it won’t go anywhere.

Here’s a page featuring videos showing the differences between rainfalls, from 1.5 down to inches to 0.05 inches. Useful!

Preparing a Time Machine backup before upgrading to macOS Sequoia. I’m not usually one to rush macOS updates, and I feel I’ll regret it. It’s mostly about “it’s going to happen in a couple of months anyway, might as well get used to it now” thinking.

Well, as long as I have a backup, right?

I enjoyed this video: a couple of fun facts about flying:

• Why don’t we need to lock the doors on a plane?
• Why do we fly so high to begin with?
• Can you really crash a plane with phone interferences?
• Why does everyone (me included) love to drink tomato juice on planes?

I’ve had a nice lazy weekend. These days I can aim for rest, but getting it is a different thing. Between my brain having ideas and anxieties that wake me up in crazy hours in the morning and various urgent matters at work, something as simple as a 10-15 minute nap can become very challenging.

There’s been so much work I couldn’t even organize my notes in the little notebook I carry with me everywhere. I wanted to attend the Micro.blog Analog Tools meetup, which I was invited to, but I managed to forget and napped instead. I had a conversation with my mom on Facetime during the weekend, and only then, through telling her what was going on, I realized how much I’ve been doing this past week alone, as I had to stop one story and go to another that explains it, and then another one that explains that story as well. I was trying to sum it up, and as I did that, I thought: “Wow, this is crazy. Did I actually do all of that?”

There are two personal challenges I’m trying to conquer. The first one is dealing with the new leading role I’m in. I’m back with many people I worked with, but this time, I need to ask them to do things, organize priorities, and talk to their managers to get it all working. While I’ve been in a leading position before, I always lead from within the team as a member. I wasn’t leading by a title. I was just the guy who had the project sheet open and had an eye on the bigger scope. This is now different, and I’m often conscious about other people’s time and the notion that perhaps they can’t be as honest with me as they have been.

The other more difficult issue is that I feel like a fake. Who am I to ask about our security groups in Active Directory next to a sysadmin who’s done their job for over a decade? How can I ask someone to prep workstations if I forgot how to do it myself? Why was I chosen for this role at all? I’m familiar with imposter syndrome, and I think I wrote about it here before, but I don’t like to fit feelings and thoughts into neat little boxes. It helps to know that someone else made the choice because they thought I was a good idea for this role. It’s also good to have some anxiety going on to keep me on my toes and have me learning new things and re-learning old ones.

One thing I can say for sure is that rest or even slowing down was not something I allowed myself to do throughout the week and parts of the weekend. Having a weekend like I just did was well-earned. And another thing: I think I’m done talking about how I feel in this role for now. Venting about something is OK, but it’s enough now; reminiscing and repeating the same points is not something I want to keep doing.